When La Romana marched off to the east, and abandoned his Portuguese1 allies to their own resources, the duty of defending the frontier fell upon General Francisco Silveira, the military governor of the Tras-os-Montes. He had mobilized his forces at Chaves the moment that Soult’s departure from Orense became known, and had there gathered the whole levy4 of his province. The total amounted to two incomplete line regiments5[266] four battalions8 of disorderly and ill-equipped militia10[267], the skeletons of two cavalry11 regiments, with hardly 200 horses between them[268], and a mass of the local Ordenanza, armed with pikes, goads12, scythes13, and fowling-pieces. The whole mass may have numbered some 12,000 men, of whom not 6,000 possessed14 firearms of any kind[269]. Against them the French marshal was marching at the head of 22,000 veterans, who had already gained experience in the art of mountain-warfare15 from their recent campaign in Galicia. The result was not difficult to foresee. If the Portuguese dared to offer battle they would be scattered16 to the winds.
Silveira’s levies17 were not the only force in arms on the frontier. The populous18 province of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho[270], roused to tumultuous enthusiasm by the bishop20 of Oporto, had sent every available man, armed or unarmed, to the front. A screen of militia and regulars under General Botilho was watching the line of the lower Minho: a vast mass of Ordenanza, backed[p. 224] by a very small body of line troops lay in and about Braga, under General Bernardino Freire; another multitude was still thronging21 the streets of Oporto and listening to the windy harangues22 of the bishop. But none of these masses of armed men were sent to the aid of Silveira. He was not one of the bishop’s faction23, nor was he on good terms with his colleague Freire. Neither of them showed any inclination24 to combine with him, and their followers25, in the true spirit of provincial26 particularism, thought of nothing but defending their own hearths27 and homes, and left the Tras-os-Montes to take care of itself. Yet they had for the moment no enemy in front of them but the small French garrison28 of Tuy, and could have marched without any risk to join their compatriots.
Relying on the aid of La Romana, General Silveira had taken post at Villarelho on the right bank of the Tamega, leaving the defence of the left bank to the Spaniards, whom he supposed to be still stationed about Monterey and Verin. On the very day upon which the Army of Galicia absconded30, the Portuguese general sent forward a detachment, consisting of a line regiment6 and a mass of peasants, to menace the flank of the French advance. This force, having crossed the Spanish frontier, got into collision with the enemy near Villaza. Since Franceschi’s horsemen and Heudelet’s infantry32 had turned off to the east in pursuit of La Romana, the Portuguese fell in with the leading column of Soult’s main body—a brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons supported by Delaborde’s division. This force they ventured to attack, but were promptly34 beaten off by Foy, the brigadier of the advanced guard, who routed them and captured their sole piece of artillery36. The shattered column fell back on the main body at Villarelho, and then Silveira, hearing of the departure of the Spaniards, resolved to retire and to look for a defensive37 position which he might be able to hold by his own unaided efforts. There was none such to be found in front of Chaves, for the valley of the Tamega widens out between Monterey and the Portuguese frontier fortress38, and offers no ground suitable for defence. Accordingly Silveira very prudently39 decided40 to withdraw his tumultuary army to the heights of San Pedro, a league to the south of the town, where the space between the river and the mountains narrows down[p. 225] and offers a short and compact line of resistance. But he waited to be driven in, and meanwhile left rear-guards in observation at Feces de Abaxo on the left, and Outeiro on the right bank, of the Tamega.
Soult halted three days at Monterey in order to allow his rearguard and his convoy41 of sick to close up with the main body. But on March 10 he resumed his advance, using the two parallel roads on the two banks of the Tamega. Franceschi’s light horse and Heudelet’s division pushed down the eastern side, Caulaincourt’s brigade of dragoons[271] and Delaborde’s infantry down the western side of the river. Merle and Mermet were still near Verin. As the Tamega was unfordable in most places, the army seemed dangerously divided, but Soult knew well that he was running little or no risk. Both at Feces and Outeiro the Portuguese detachments, which covered Silveira’s main body, tried to offer serious resistance. They were of course routed, with the loss of a gun and many prisoners.
On hearing that his enemy was drawing near, Silveira ordered his whole army to retreat behind Chaves to the position of San Pedro[272]. This command nearly cost him his life; the ignorant masses of militia and Ordenanza could only see treason in the proposed move, which abandoned the town to the French. The local troops refused to march, and threatened to shoot their general: he withdrew with such of his men as would still obey orders, but a mixed multitude consisting of part of the 12th regiment of the line (the Chaves regiment), and a mass of Ordenanza and militia, remained behind to defend the dilapidated town. Its walls had never been repaired since the Spaniards had breached43 them in 1762; of the fifty guns which armed them the greater part were destitute44 of carriages, and rusting45 away in extreme old age; the supply of powder and cannon46-balls was wholly insufficient47 for even a short siege. But encouraged by the advice of an incompetent48 engineer officer[273], who said that a few barricades50 would make[p. 226] the place impregnable, 3,000 men shut themselves up in it, and aided by 1,200 armed citizens, defied Soult, and opened a furious fire upon the vedettes which he pushed up to the foot of the walls. The Marshal sent in a fruitless summons to surrender, and then invested the place on the evening of the tenth; all night the garrison kept up a haphazard51 cannonade, and shouted defiance52 to the French. Next morning Soult resolved to drive away Silveira from the neighbouring heights, convinced that the spirits of the defenders53 of Chaves would fail the moment that they saw the field army defeated and forced to abscond31. The divisions of Delaborde and Lahoussaye soon compelled Silveira to give ground: he displayed indeed a laudable prudence54 in refusing to let himself be caught and surrounded, and made off south-eastward towards Villa29 Real with 6,000 or 7,000 men. The Marshal then summoned Chaves to surrender for the second time; the garrison seem to have tired themselves out with twelve hours of patriotic55 shouting, and to have used up great part of their munitions56 in their silly nocturnal fireworks. When they saw Silveira driven away, their spirits sank, and they allowed their leader, Magelhaes Pizarro, to capitulate, without remonstrance57. In short, they displayed even more cowardice58 on the eleventh than indiscipline upon the tenth of March. On the twelfth the French entered the city in triumph.
Soult was much embarrassed by the multitude of captives whom he had taken: he could not spare an escort strong enough to guard 4,000 prisoners to a place of safety. Accordingly he made a virtue59 of necessity, permitted the armed citizens of Chaves to retire to their homes, and dismissed the mass of 2,500 Ordenanza and militia-men, after extracting from them an oath not to serve against France during the rest of the war. The 500 regulars of the 12th regiment were not treated in the same way. The Marshal offered them the choice between captivity61 and enlisting62 in a Franco-Portuguese legion, which he proposed to raise. To their great discredit63 the majority, both officers and men, took the latter alternative—though it was with the sole idea of deserting as soon as possible. At the same moment Soult made an identical offer to the Spanish prisoners captured from Mahy’s division at the combats of[p. 227] Oso?o and La Trepa on March 6: they behaved no better than the Portuguese: several hundred of them took the oath to King Joseph, and consented to enter his service[274].
The Duke of Dalmatia had resolved to make Chaves his base for further operations in Portugal. He brought up to it from Monterey all his sick and wounded, including those who had been transported from Orense; the total now amounted to 1,325, of whom many were convalescents already fit for sedentary duty. To guard them a single company of a French regiment, and the inchoate64 ‘Portuguese Legion,’ were detailed65, while the command was placed in the hands of the chef de bataillon Messager. The flour and unground wheat found in the place fed the army for several days, and the small stock of powder captured was utilized66 to replenish67 its depleted68 supply of cartridges69.
From Chaves Soult had the choice of two roads for marching on Oporto. The more obvious route on the map is that which descends72 the Tamega almost to its junction73 with the Douro, and then strikes across to Oporto by Amarante and Penafiel. But here, as is so often the case in the Peninsula, the map is the worst of guides. The road along the river, frequently pinched in between the water and overhanging mountains, presents a series of defiles74 and strong positions, is considerably76 longer than the alternative route, and passes through difficult country wellnigh from start to finish.
The second path from Chaves to Oporto is that which strikes westward78, crosses the Serra da Cabrera, and descends into the valley of the Cavado by Ruivaens and Salamonde. From thence it leads to Braga, on the great coast-road from Valenza to Oporto. The first two or three stages of this route are rough and difficult, and pass through ground even more defensible than that on the way to Amarante and Penafiel. But when the rugged79 defiles of the watershed80 between the Tamega and the Cavado have been passed, and the invader81 has reached Braga, the country becomes flat and open, and the coast plain, crossed by two excellent roads, leads him easily to his goal. It has also to be remembered that, by adopting this alternative, Soult[p. 228] took in the rear the Portuguese fortresses82 of the lower Minho, and made it easy to reopen communications with Tuy and the French forces still remaining in Galicia.
If any other persuasion83 were needed to induce the Marshal to take the western, and not the eastern, road to Oporto, it was the knowledge of the position of the enemy which he had attained84 by diligent85 cavalry reconnaissances. It was ascertained86 that Silveira with the remains87 of his division had fallen back to Villa Pouca, more than thirty miles away, in the direction of Villa Real. He could not be caught, and could retreat whithersoever he pleased. Freire, on the other hand, was lying at Braga with his unwieldy masses, and had made no attempt to march forward and fortify88 the passes of the Serra da Cabrera. By all accounts that the horsemen of Franceschi could gather, the defiles were blocked only by the Ordenanza of the mountain villages.
This astounding89 news was absolutely correct. Freire’s obvious course was to defend the rugged watershed, where positions abounded90. But he contented91 himself with placing mere92 observation posts—bodies of thirty or 100 men—in the passes, while keeping his main army concentrated. The truth was that he was in a state of deep depression of mind, and prepared for a disaster. Judging from the line which he adopted in the previous year, while co-operating with Wellesley in the campaign against Junot, we may set him down as a timid rather than a cautious general. He had no confidence in himself or in his troops: the indiscipline and mutinous93 spirit of the motley levies which he commanded had reduced him to despair, and he received no support from the Bishop of Oporto and his faction, who were omnipotent94 in the province. Repeated demands for reinforcements of regular troops had brought him nothing but the 2nd battalion7 of the Lusitanian Legion, under Baron95 Eben. The Bishop kept back the greater part of the resources of which he could dispose, for the defence of his own city, in front of which he was erecting96 a great entrenched97 camp. Freire had also called on the Regency for aid, but they had done no more than order two line battalions under General Vittoria to join him, and these troops had not yet crossed the Douro. When he heard that the French were on the march, and that he[p. 229] himself would be the next to receive their visit, he so far lost heart that he contemplated99 retiring on Oporto without attempting to fight. Instead of defending the defiles of Ruivaens and Salamonde, he began to send to the rear his heavy stores, his military chest, and his artillery of position. This timid resolve was to be his ruin, for the excitable and suspicious multitude which surrounded him had every intention of defending their homes, and could only see treason and cowardice in the preparations for retreat. In a few days their fury was to burst forth100 into open mutiny, to the destruction of their general and their own ultimate ruin.
Soult meanwhile had set out from Chaves on March 14, with Franceschi and Delaborde at the head of his column, as they had been in all the operations since their departure from Orense. Mermet and Lahoussaye’s dragoons followed on the fifteenth: Heudelet, with whom were the head quarters’ staff and the baggage, marched on the sixteenth: Merle, covering the rear of the army, came in from Monterey on that day, and started from Chaves on the seventeenth. Only Vialannes’ brigade of dragoons[275] was detached: these two regiments were directed to make a feint upon Villa Real, with the object of frightening and distracting Silveira, lest he should return to his old post when he heard that the French army had departed, and fall upon the rear of the marching columns. They beat up his outposts at Villa Pouca, announced everywhere the Marshal’s approach with his main body, and retired101 under cover of the night, after having deceived the Tras-os-Montes troops for a couple of days.
The divisions of Delaborde and Franceschi, while clearing the passes above Chaves, met with a desperate but futile102 resistance from the Ordenanza of the upper Cavado valley. Practically unaided by Freire, who had only sent to the defile75 of Salamonde 300 regular troops—a miserable103 mockery of assistance—the gallant104 peasantry did their best. ‘Even the smallest villages,’ wrote an aide-de-camp of Soult, ‘tried to defend themselves. It was not rare to see a peasant barricade49 himself all alone in his house, and fire from the windows on our men, till his door was[p. 230] battered105 in, and he met his death on our bayonets. The Portuguese defended themselves with desperation, and never asked for quarter: if only these brave and devoted106 fellows had possessed competent leaders, we should have been forced to give up the expedition, or else we should never have got out of the country. But their resistance was individual: each man died defending his hamlet or his home, and a single battalion of our advanced guard easily cleared the way for us. I saw during these days young girls in the fighting-line, firing on us, and meeting their death without recoiling107 a step. The priests had told them that they were martyrs108, and that all who died defending their country went straight to paradise. In these petty combats, which lasted day after day, we frequently found, among the enemy’s dead, monks109 in their robes, their crucifixes still clasped in their hands. Indeed, while advancing we could see from afar these ecclesiastics110 passing about among the peasants, and animating111 them to the combat[276].... While the columns were on the march isolated112 peasants kept up a continual dropping fire on us from inaccessible113 crags above the road: at night they attacked our sentries114, or crept down close to our bivouacs to shoot at the men who sat round the blaze. This sort of war was not very deadly, but infinitely115 fatiguing116: there was not a moment of the day or night when we had not to be upon the qui vive. Moreover, every man who strayed from the ranks, whether he was sick, drunk, tired, or merely a marauder, was cut off and massacred. The peasants not only murdered them, but tortured them in the most horrid117 fashion before putting them to death[277].’
Among scenes of this description Franceschi and Delaborde forced their way down the valley of the Cavado, till they arrived at the village of Carvalho d’Este, six miles from Braga, where[p. 231] they found a range of hills on both sides of the road, occupied by the whole horde118 of 25,000 men who had been collected by Freire. The division which followed the French advanced guard had also to sustain several petty combats, for the survivors119 of the Ordenanza whom Delaborde had swept out of the way, closed in again to molest120 each column, as it passed by the defiles of Venda-Nova, Ruivaens, and Salamonde. Mermet’s division, which brought up the rear, had to beat off a serious attack from Silveira’s army[278]. For that general, as soon as he discovered that he had been fooled by Lorges’ demonstration121, sent across the Tamega a detachment of 3,000 men, who fell upon Soult’s rear. But a single regiment drove them off without much difficulty: they drew back to their own side of the mountains, and did not quit the valley of the Tamega.
It was on March 17 that Franceschi and Delaborde pushed forward to the foot of the Portuguese position, which swept round in a semicircle on each side of the high-road. Its western half was composed of the plateau of Monte Adaufé, whose left overhangs the river Cavado, while its right slopes upward to join the wooded Monte Vallongo. This latter hill is considerably more lofty than the Monte Adaufé and less easy of access. In front of the position, and bisected by the high-road, is the village of Carvalho d’Este: at the foot of the Monte Vallongo is another village, Lanhozo, whose name the French have chosen to bestow122 on the combat which followed. To the left-rear of the Monte Adaufé, pressed in between its slopes and the river, is a third village, Ponte do Prado, with a bridge across the Cavado, which is the only one by which the position can be turned. The town of Braga lies three miles further to the rear. The invaders123 halted on seeing the whole range of hills, some six miles long, crowned with masses of men in position. Franceschi would not take it upon himself to attack such a multitude, even though they were but peasantry and militia, of the same quality as the horde that had been defeated near Chaves a few days before. He sent back word to the Marshal, and drew up in front of the position to await the arrival of the main body.[p. 232] But noting that a long rocky spur of the Monte Adaufé projected from the main block of high ground which the enemy was holding, he caused it to be attacked by Foy’s brigade of infantry, and drove back without much difficulty the advanced guard of the Portuguese. The possession of this hill gave the French a foothold on the heights, and an advantageous124 emplacement for artillery such as could not be found in the plain below.
It was three days before the rest of Soult’s army joined the leading division—not until the twentieth was his entire force, with the exception of Merle’s infantry, concentrated at the foot of the enemy’s position, and ready to attack. This long period of waiting, when every mind was screwed up to the highest pitch of excitement, had completely broken down the nerve of the Portuguese, who spent the hours of respite125 in hysterical126 tumult19 and rioting. Freire, as we have already seen, had been planning a retreat on Oporto, but he found the spirit of his army so exalted127 that he thought it better to conceal128 his project. He pretended to have abandoned the idea of retiring, and gave orders for the construction of entrenchments and batteries on the Monte Adaufé, to enfilade the main approach by the high-road. But he could not disguise his down-heartedness, nor persuade his followers to trust him. Presently the wrecks129 of the Ordenanza levies, who had fought at Salamonde, fell back upon Braga, loudly accusing him of cowardice, for not supporting them in their advanced position. The whole camp was full of shouting, objectless firing in the air, confused cries of treason, and mutinous assemblies. On the day when the French appeared in front of the position Freire grew so alarmed at the threats against his life, which resounded130 on every side, that he secretly quitted Braga to fly to Oporto. But he was recognized and seized by the Ordenanza of Tobossa, a few miles to the rear. They brought him back to the camp as a prisoner, and handed him over to Baron Eben, the colonel of the 2nd battalion of the Lusitanian Legion, who had been acting60 as Freire’s second-in-command. This officer, an ambitious and presumptuous131 man, and a great ally of the Bishop of Oporto, played the demagogue, harangued132 the assembled multitude, and readily took over the charge of the army. He consigned133 his unfortunate predecessor134 to the gaol135 of Braga, and led on the mutineers to reinforce the[p. 233] array on Monte Adaufé. When Eben had departed, a party of Ordenanza returned to the city, dragged out the wretched Freire, and killed him in the street with their pikes. The same afternoon they murdered Major Villasboas, the chief of Freire’s engineers, and one or more of his aides-de-camp. They also seized and threw into prison the corregidor of Braga, and several other persons accused of sympathy with the French. Eben appears to have winked136 at these atrocities137—much as his friend the Bishop of Oporto ignored the murders which were taking place in that city. By assuming command in the irregular fashion that we have seen, he had made himself the slave of the hysterical horde that surrounded him, and had to let them do what they pleased, lest he should fall under suspicion himself[279].
It would seem, however, that Eben did the little that was possible with such material in preparing to oppose Soult. He threw up more entrenchments on the Monte Adaufé, mounted the few guns that he possessed in commanding situations, and did his best to add to the lamentably138 depleted store of munitions on hand. Even the church roofs were stripped for lead, when it was found that there was absolutely no reserve of cartridges, and that the Ordenanza had wasted half of their stock in demonstrations139 and profitless firing at the French vedettes. On the morning of the nineteenth he extended his right wing to some hills below the Monte Vallongo, beyond the village of Lanhozo, a movement which threatened to outflank and surround that part of the French army which was in front of him, and to cut it off from the divisions still in the rear. This could not be tolerated, and Mermet’s infantry were dispatched to[p. 234] dislodge the 2,000 men who had taken up this advanced position. They were easily beaten out of the village and off the hill, and retired to their former station on the Monte Vallongo. The French here captured two guns and some prisoners. Soult gave these men copies of a proclamation which he had printed at Chaves, offering pardon to all Portuguese who should lay down their arms, and sent them back into Eben’s lines under a flag of truce140. When the Ordenanza discovered what the papers were, they promptly put to death the twenty unfortunate men as traitors141, without listening to their attempts to explain the situation.
On the morning of March 20, Soult had been joined by Lorges’ dragoons and his other belated detachments, and prepared to attack the enemy’s position. To defend it Eben had now, beside 700 of his own Legion[280], one incomplete line regiment (Viana, no. 9), the militia of Braga and the neighbouring places, and some 23,000 Ordenanza levies, of whom 5,000 had firearms, 11,000 pikes, and the remaining 7,000 nothing better than scythes, goads, and instruments of husbandry. There were about fifteen or twenty pieces of artillery distributed along the front of the six-mile position, the majority of them in the entrenchments on the Monte Adaufé, placed so as to command the high-road.
Knowing the sort of rabble143 that was in front of him, Soult made no attempt to turn or outflank the Portuguese, but resolved to deliver a frontal attack all along the line, in the full belief that the enemy would give way the moment that the charge was pushed home. He had now about 3,000 cavalry and 13,000 infantry with him—Merle being still absent. He told off Delaborde’s division with Lahoussaye’s dragoons to assail144 the enemy’s centre, on both sides of the high-road, where it crosses the Monte Adaufé. Mermet’s infantry and Franceschi’s light horse attacked, on the left, the wooded slopes of the Monte Vallongo. Heudelet’s division, on the right, sent one brigade to storm the heights above the river, and left the other brigade as a general reserve for the army. Lorges’ dragoons were also held back in support.
[p. 235]
As might have been expected, Soult’s dispositions145 were completely successful. When the columns of Delaborde and Heudelet reached the foot of the enemy’s position, the motley horde which occupied it broke out into wild cheers and curses, and opened a heavy but ineffective fire. They stood as long as the French were climbing up the slopes, but when the infantry debouched on to the plateau of Monte Adaufé they began to waver and disperse[281]. Then Soult let loose the cavalry of Lahoussaye, which had trotted146 up the high-road close in the rear of Delaborde’s battalions, the 17th Dragoons leading. There was no time for the reeling mass of peasants to escape. ‘We dashed into them,’ wrote one officer who took part in the charge[282]; ‘we made a great butchery of them; we drove on among them pell-mell right into the streets of Braga, and we pushed them two leagues further, so that we covered in all four leagues at full gallop147 without giving them a moment to rally. Their guns, their baggage, their military chest, many standards fell into our power[283].’
Such was the fate of the Portuguese centre, on each side of the high-road. Further to the right, above the Cavado, Heudelet was equally successful in forcing his way up the northern slopes of the Monte Adaufé; the enemy broke when he reached the plateau, but as he had no heavy force of cavalry with him, their flight was not so disastrous148 or their loss so heavy as in the centre. Indeed, when they had been swept down into the valley behind the ridge71, some of the Portuguese turned to bay at the Ponte do Prado, and inflicted149 a sharp check on the Hanoverian legion, the leading battalion in Heudelet’s advance. It was not till the 26th of the line came up to aid the Germans that the rallied peasantry again broke and fled. They only lost 300 men in this part of the field.
[p. 236]
Far to the left, in the woods on the slope of the Monte Vallongo, Mermet and Franceschi had found it much harder to win their way to the edge of the plateau than had the troops in the centre. But it was only the physical obstacles that detained them: the resistance of the enemy was even feebler than in the centre. By the time that the infantry of Mermet emerged on the crest150 of the hill, the battle had already been won elsewhere. The Portuguese right wing crumpled151 up the moment that it was attacked, and fled devious152 over the hillsides, followed by Franceschi’s cavalry, who made a dreadful slaughter153 among the fugitives154. Five miles behind their original position a body of militia with four guns rallied under the cliffs on which stands the village of Falperra. The cavalry held them in check till Mermet’s leading regiment, the 31st Léger, came up, and then, attacked by both arms at once, the whole body was ridden down and almost exterminated155. ‘The commencement was a fight, the end a butchery,’ wrote an officer of the 31st; ‘if our enemies had been better armed and less ignorant of the art of war, they might have made us pay dearly for our victory. But for lack of muskets156 they were half of them armed with pikes only: they could not man?uvre in the least. How was such a mob to resist us? they could only have held their ground if they had been behind stone walls[284].’
The rout35 and pursuit died away in the southern valleys beyond Braga, and Soult could take stock of his victory. He had captured seventeen guns, five flags, and the whole of the stores of Eben’s army: he had killed, according to his own estimate, some 4,000 men[285], and taken only 400 prisoners. This shocking disproportion between the dead and the captives was caused by the fact that the French in most parts of the field had given no quarter. Some of their historians explain that their cruelty resulted from the discovery that the Portuguese had been murdering and mutilating the stragglers who fell into their hands[286]. But it was really due to the exasperation158 of[p. 237] spirit that always accompanies guerrilla warfare. Constantly worried by petty ambushes159, ‘sniped’ in their bivouacs, never allowed a moment of rest, the soldiers were in a state of nervous irritation160 which found vent33 in needless and unjustifiable cruelty. In the fight they had lost only forty killed and 160 wounded, figures which afford no excuse for the wholesale161 slaughter in the pursuit to which they gave themselves up.
In the first flush of victory the French supposed that they had made an end of the Ordenanza, and that northern Portugal was at their feet. ‘Cette journée a été fatale à l’insurrection portugaise,’ wrote one of the victors in his diary[287]. But no greater mistake could have been made: though many of the routed horde dispersed162 to their homes, the majority rallied again behind the Avé, only ten or twelve miles from the battle-field. Nor did the battle of Braga even open the way to Galicia: General Botilho, with the levies of the Valenza and Viana district, closed in behind Soult and blocked the way to Tuy, the nearest French garrison. The Marshal had only conquered the ground on which he stood, and already his communication with Chaves, his last base, had been intercepted163 by detachments sent into the passes by Silveira.
Soult halted three days at Braga, a time which he utilized for the repair of his artillery, and the replenishing of the cartridge70 boxes of his infantry from the not too copious164 supply of munitions captured from the Portuguese. His cavalry scoured165 the country down the Cavado as far as Barcelos, and southward to the line of the Avé, only to find insurgents166 everywhere, the bridges broken, and the fords dredged up and staked.
The Marshal, however, undaunted by the gloomy outlook, resolved to march straight for his destined167 goal, without paying any attention to his communications. He now made Braga a temporary base, left there Heudelet’s division in charge of 600 sick and wounded, and moved on Oporto at the head of his three remaining infantry divisions and all his cavalry.
Two good chaussées, and one additional mountain road of inferior character, lead from Braga to Oporto, crossing the Avé,[p. 238] the one four, the next six, the third twenty-four miles from the sea. The first and most westerly passes it at Ponte de Avé, the second at Barca de Trofa, where there is both a bridge and a wide ford42, the third and least obvious at Guimaraens not far from its source in the Serra de Santa Catalina. Soult resolved to use all three for his advance, wisely taking the difficult road by Guimaraens into his scheme, since he guessed that it would probably be unwatched by the Portuguese, precisely168 because it was far less eligible169 than the other two. He was perfectly170 right: the Bishop of Oporto, the moment that he heard of the fall of Braga, pushed up some artillery and militia to aid the Ordenanza in defending both the Ponte de Avé and the Barca de Trofa bridges. Each was cut: batteries were hastily thrown up commanding their approaches, and entrenchments were constructed in their rear. At Barca de Trofa the ford was dredged up and completely blocked with chevaux de frise. But the remote and secondary passage at Guimaraens was comparatively neglected, and left in charge of such of the local Ordenanza as had returned home after the rout of Braga.
Soult directed Lorges’ dragoons against the western road: he himself with Delaborde’s and Merle’s infantry and Lahoussaye’s cavalry took the central chaussée by Barca de Trofa. On the difficult flanking path by Guimaraens he sent Franceschi’s light horse and Mermet’s infantry. On both the main roads the Portuguese positions were so strong that the advancing columns were held back: Soult would not waste men—he was beginning to find that he had none to spare—in attempting to force the entrenched positions opposite him. After feeling them with caution, he pushed a column up-stream to a small bridge at San Justo, which had been barricaded171 but not broken. Here he established by night a heavy battery commanding the opposite bank. On the morning of the twenty-sixth he opened fire on the Portuguese positions across the water, and, when the enemy had been well battered, hurled173 the brigade of General Foy at the fortified174 bridge. It was carried, and Delaborde’s division was beginning to pass, when it met another French force debouching on the same point. This was composed of Mermet and Franceschi’s men: they had beaten the local Ordenanza at Guimaraens, crossed the Avé high up, and were[p. 239] now pushing along the southern bank to take the Barca de Trofa position in the flank. Thus Soult found that, even if his frontal assault at San Justo had failed, his left-hand column would have cleared the way for him a few hours later, being already across the river and in the enemy’s rear. Indeed his lateral175 detachment had done all that he had expected from it, and at no great cost. For though the Ordenanza had opposed it bravely enough, they had never been able to hold it back. The only notable loss that had been sustained was that of General Jardon, one of Mermet’s brigadiers, who had met his death by his own recklessness. Finding his men checked for a moment, he had seized a musket157 and charged on foot at the head of his skirmishing line. This was not the place for a brigadier-general, and Jardon died unnecessarily, doing the work of a sub-lieutenant.
Finding the French across the river at San Justo, the Portuguese, who were defending the lower bridges, had to give way, or they would have been surrounded and cut off. They yielded unwillingly176, and at Ponte de Avé actually beat off the first attempt to evict177 them. But in the end they had to fly, abandoning the artillery in the redoubts that covered the two bridges[288].
On the twenty-seventh, therefore, Soult was able to press close in to Oporto, for the line of the Avé is but fifteen miles north of the city. On approaching the heights which overhang the Douro the French found them covered with entrenchments and batteries ranged on a long front of six or seven miles, from San Jo?o de Foz on the sea-shore to the chapel178 of Bom Fin77 overlooking the river above the town. Ever since the departure of the French from Orense and their crossing of the frontier had become known, the whole of the populace had been at work on the fortifications, under the direction of Portuguese and British engineer officers. In three weeks an enormous amount of work had been done. The rounded summits of the line of hills, which[p. 240] rise immediately north of the city, and only half a mile in advance of its outermost179 houses, had been crowned with twelve redoubts armed with artillery of position. The depressions between the redoubts had been closed by palisades and abattis. Further west, below the city, where the line of hills is less marked, the front was continued by a deep ditch, fortified buildings, and four strong redoubts placed in the more exposed positions. It ended at the walls of San Jo?o da Foz, the old citadel180 which commands the mouth of the Douro, and had in this direction an outwork in another ancient fort, the castle of Quejo, on the sea-shore a mile north of the estuary181. There were no less than 197 guns of various calibres distributed along the front of the lines. Nor was this all: the main streets of the place had been barricaded to serve as a second line of defence, and even south of the river a battery had been constructed on the height crowned by the Serra Convent, which overlooks the bridge and the whole city.
To hold this enormous fortified camp the Bishop of Oporto had collected an army formidable in numbers if not in quality. There was a strong nucleus182 of troops of the regular army: it included the two local Oporto regiments (6th and 18th of the line), two more battalions brought in by Brigadier-General Vittoria, who had been too late to join in the defence of Braga, a battalion of the regiment of Valenza (no. 21), a fraction of that of Viana (no. 9), with the wrecks of the 2nd battalion of the Lusitanian Legion, which had escaped from Eben’s rout of the twentieth, and the skeleton of an incomplete cavalry regiment (no. 12, Miranda). In all there cannot have been less than 5,000 regular troops in the town, though many of the men were recruits with only a few weeks of service. To these may be added three or four militia regiments in the same condition as were the rest of the corps183 of that force, i.e. half-armed and less than half-disciplined[289]. But the large majority of the garrison was composed of the same sort of levies that had already fought with such small success at Chaves and Braga—there were 9,000 armed citizens of Oporto and a somewhat greater number of the Ordenanza of the open country, who had retired into the city before Soult’s advancing columns. The[p. 241] whole mass—regulars and irregulars—may have made up a force of 30,000 men—nothing like the 40,000 or 60,000 of the French reports[290]. Under the Bishop the military commanders were three native brigadier-generals, Lima-Barreto, Parreiras, and Vittoria. Eben had been offered the charge of a section of the defences, but—depressed with the results of his experiment in generalship at Braga—he refused any other responsibility than that of leading his battalion of the Lusitanian Legion. The Bishop had allotted184 to Parreiras the redoubts and entrenchments on the north of the town, to Vittoria those on the north-east and east, to Lima-Barreto those below the town as far as St. Jo?o da Foz. The regulars had been divided up, so as to give two or three battalions to each general; they were to form the reserve, while the defences were manned by the militia and Ordenanza. There was a lamentable185 want of trained gunners—less than 1,000 artillerymen were available for the 200 pieces in the lines and on the heights beyond the river. To make up the deficiency many hundreds of raw militia-men had been turned over to the commanders of the batteries. The natural result was seen in the inferior gunnery displayed all along the line upon the fatal twenty-ninth of March.
To complete the picture of the defenders of Oporto it must be added that the anarchy186 tempered by assassination187, which had been prevailing188 in the city ever since the Bishop assumed charge of the government, had grown to a head during the last few days. On the receipt of the news of the disaster at Braga it had culminated189 in a riot, during which the populace constituted a sort of Revolutionary Tribunal at the Porto do Olival.[p. 242] They haled out of the prisons all persons who had been consigned to them on a charge of sympathizing with the French, hung fourteen of these unfortunates, including the brigadier-general Luiz da Oliveira, massacred many more in the streets, and dragged the bodies round the town on hurdles190. The Bishop, though he had 5,000 regular troops at hand, made no attempt to intervene—‘he could not stand in the way of the righteous vengeance191 of the people upon traitors.’ On the night of the twenty-eighth he retired to a place of safety, the Serra Convent across the river, after bestowing192 his solemn benediction193 upon the garrison, and handing over the further conduct of the defence to the three generals whose names we have already cited.
The town of Oporto was hidden from Soult’s eyes by the range of heights, crowned by fortifications, which lay before him. For the place was built entirely194 upon the downslope of the hill towards the Douro, and was invisible till those approaching it were within half a mile of its outer buildings. It is a town of steep streets running down to the water, and meeting at the foot of the great pontoon-bridge, more than 200 yards long, which links it to the transpontine suburb of Villa Nova, and the adjacent height of the Serra do Pilar. The river front forms a broad quay195, along which were lying at the time nearly thirty merchant ships, mostly English vessels196 laden197 with port wine, which were wind-bound by a persistent198 North-Wester, and could not cross the bar and get out to sea.
Although his previous attempts to negotiate with the Portuguese had not been very fortunate, the Marshal thought it worth while to send proposals for an accommodation to the Bishop. He warned him not to expose his city to the horrors of a sack, pointed199 out that the raw levies of the garrison must inevitably200 be beaten, and assured him that ‘the French came not as enemies, but as the deliverers of Portugal from the yoke201 of the English. It was for the benefit of these aliens alone that the Bishop would expose Oporto to the incalculable calamities202 attending a storm[291].’ The bearer of the Marshal’s letter was a Portuguese major taken prisoner at Braga, who would have been massacred at the outposts if he had not taken the precaution[p. 243] of explaining to his countrymen that Soult had sent him in to propose the surrender of the French army, which was appalled203 at the formidable series of defences to which it found itself opposed! The reply sent by the Bishop and his council of war was, of course, defiant204, and bickering205 along the front of the lines immediately began. While the white flag was still flying General Foy, the most distinguished206 of Soult’s brigadiers, trespassed207 by some misconception within the Portuguese picquets and was made prisoner. While being conducted into the town he was nearly murdered, being mistaken for Loison, for whom the inhabitants of Oporto nourished a deep hatred[292].
On finding that the Portuguese were determined208 to fight, Soult began his preparations for a general assault upon the following day. He drove in the enemy’s outposts outside the town, and captured one or two small redoubts in front of the main line. Having reconnoitred the whole position, he told off Delaborde and Franceschi to attack the north-eastern front, Mermet and one brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons to storm the central parts of the lines, due north of the city, where the fortifications were most formidable, Merle and the other brigade of Lahoussaye to press in upon the western entrenchments below the city. There was no general reserve save Lorges’ two regiments of cavalry, and these had the additional task imposed upon them of fending2 off any attack on the rear of the army which might be made by scattered bodies of Ordenanza, who[p. 244] were creeping out into the woods along the sea-coast, and threatening to turn the Marshal’s right flank.
Soult had but 16,000 men available,—of whom 3,000 were cavalry, and therefore could not be employed till the infantry should have broken through the line of fortifications which completely covered the Portuguese front. Nevertheless he had no doubts of the result, though he had to storm works defended by 30,000 men and lined with 197 cannon. He now knew the exact fighting value of the Portuguese levies, and looked upon Oporto as his own.
The Marshal’s plan was not to repeat the simple and simultaneous frontal attack all along the line by which he had carried the day at Braga. There was a good deal of strategy in his design: the two flank divisions were ordered to attack, while the centre was for a time held back. Merle, in especial, was directed to do all that he could against the weakest point of the Portuguese line, in the comparatively level ground to the west of the city. Soult hoped that a heavy attack in this direction would lead the enemy to reinforce his left from the reserves of his centre, and gradually to disgarnish the formidable positions north of the city, when no attack was made on them. If they committed this fault, he intended to hurl172 Mermet’s division, which he carefully placed under cover till the critical moment, at the central redoubts. A successful assault at this point would finish the game, as it would cut the Portuguese line in two, and allow the troops to enter the upper quarters of the city in their first rush.
The French were under arms long ere dawn, waiting for the signal to attack. The Portuguese also were awake and stirring in the darkness, when at three o’clock a thunderstorm, accompanied by a terrific hurricane from the north-west, swept over the city. In the midst of the elemental din3 some of the Portuguese sentinels thought that they had seen the French columns advancing to the assault: they fired, the artillery followed their example, and for half an hour the noise of the thunderstorm was rivalled by that of 200 guns of position firing at nothing. Just as the gunners had discovered their mistake, the tempest passed away, and soon after the day broke. So drenched209 and weary were the French, who had been lying down under the[p. 245] torrential rain, that Soult put off the assault for an hour, in order to allow them to dry themselves and take some refreshment210; the pause also allowed the sodden211 ground to harden.
At seven all was again ready, and Merle’s and Delaborde’s regiments hurled themselves at the entrenchments above and below the city. Both made good progress, especially the former, who lodged212 themselves in the houses and gardens immediately under the main line of the Portuguese left wing, and captured several of its outlying defences. Seeing the position almost forced, Parreiras, the commander of the central part of the lines, acted just as Soult had hoped, and sent most of his reserve to reinforce the left. The Marshal then bade Merle halt for a moment, but ordered Delaborde, on his eastern flank, to push on as hard as he could. The general obeyed, and charged right into the Portuguese entrenchments, capturing several redoubts and actually breaking the line and getting a lodgement in the north-east corner of the city. Parreiras, to aid his colleague in this quarter, drew off many of his remaining troops, and sent them away to the right, thereby213 leaving his own section of the line only half manned. Thereupon Soult launched against the central redoubts his main assaulting column, Mermet’s division and the two regiments of dragoons. The central battalion went straight for the main position above the high-road, where the great Portuguese flag was flying on the strongest redoubt. The others attacked on each side. This assault was decisive: the Portuguese gunners had only time to deliver two ineffective salvos when the French were upon them. They charged into the redoubts through the embrasures, pulled down the connecting abattis, and swept away the depleted garrison in their first rush. The line of the defenders was hopelessly broken, and Mermet’s division hunted them down the streets leading to the river at full speed.
The centre being thus driven in, the Portuguese wings saw that all was lost, and gave way in disorder9, looking only for a line of retreat. Vittoria, with the right wing, abandoned his section of the city and retreated east along the Vallongo road, towards the interior: he got away without much loss, and even turned to bay and skirmished with the pursuing battalions of Delaborde when once he was clear of the suburbs. Far other[p. 246] was the lot of the Portuguese left wing, which had the sea behind it instead of the open country. General Lima-Barreto, its commander, was killed by his own men: he had given orders to spike214 the guns and double to the rear the moment that he saw the central redoubts carried. Unfortunately for himself, he was among a mass of men who wished to hold on to their entrenchments in spite of the disaster on their right. When he reiterated215 his order to retreat, he was shot down for a traitor142. But Merle’s division soon evicted216 his slayers, and sent them flying towards St. Jo?o da Foz and the sea. There was a dreadful slaughter of the Portuguese in this direction: some escaped across the river in boats, a large body slipped round Merle’s flank and got away to the north along the coast (though Lorges’ dragoons pursued them among the woods above the water and sabred many): others threw themselves into the citadel of St. Jo?o and capitulated on terms. But several thousands, pressed into the angle between the Douro and the ocean, were slaughtered217 almost without resistance, or rolled en masse into the water.
The fate of the Portuguese centre was no less horrible. Their commander, Parreiras, fled early, and got over the bridge to report to the Bishop the ruin of his army. The main horde followed him, though many lingered behind, endeavouring to defend the barricades in the streets. When several thousands had passed the river, some unknown officer directed the drawbridge between the central pontoons to be raised, in order to prevent the French from following. This was done while the larger part of the armed multitude was still on the further bank, hurrying down towards the sole way of escape. Nor was it only the fighting-men whose retreat was cut off: when the news ran round the city that the lines were forced, the civil population had rushed down to the quays218 to escape before the sack began. It was fortunate that half the people had left Oporto during the last two days and taken refuge in Beira. But tens of thousands had lingered behind, full of confidence in their entrenchments and their army of defenders. A terrified mass of men, women, and children now came pouring down to the bridge, and mingled219 with the remnants of the routed garrison. The pontoons were still swinging safely on their cables, and no one, save those in the front of the rush, discovered that there was a fatal gap[p. 247] in the middle of the passage, where the drawbridge had been raised. There was no turning back for those already embarked220 on the bridge, for the crowds behind continued to push them on, and it was impossible to make them understand what had happened. The French had now begun to appear on the quays, and to attack the rear of the unhappy multitude: their musketry drowned the cries of those who tried to turn back. At the same time the battery on the Serra hill, beyond the river, opened upon the French, and the noise of its twenty heavy guns made it still more impossible to convey the news to the back of the crowd. For more than half an hour, it is said, the rush of fugitives kept thrusting its own front ranks into the death-trap, forty feet broad, in the midst of the bridge. If anything more was needed to add to the horror of the scene, it was supplied by the sudden rush of a squadron of Portuguese cavalry, which—cut off from retreat to the east—galloped down from a side street and ploughed its way into the thickest of the crowd at the bridge-head, trampling221 down hundreds of victims, till it was brought to a standstill by the mere density222 of the mass into which it had penetrated223. So many persons, at last, were thrust into the water that not only was the whole surface of the Douro covered with drowning wretches224, but the gap in the bridge was filled up by a solid mass of the living and the dead. Over this horrid gangway, as it is said, some few of the fugitives scrambled225 to the opposite bank[293].
At first the French, who had fought their way down to the quay, had begun to fire upon the rear of the multitude which was struggling to escape. But they soon found that no resistance was being offered, and saw that the greater part of the flying crowd was composed of women, children, and non-combatants. The sight was so sickening that their musketry died[p. 248] down, and when they saw the unfortunate Portuguese thrust by thousands into the water, numbers of them turned to the charitable work of helping226 the strugglers ashore227, and saved many lives. The others cleared the bridge-head by forcing the fugitives back with the butt228 ends of their muskets, and edging them along the quays and into the side streets, till the way was open. In the late afternoon some of Mermet’s troops mended the gap in the bridge with planks229 and rafters, and crossed it, despite of the irregular fire of the Portuguese battery on the heights above. They then pushed into the transpontine suburb, expelled its defenders, and finally climbed the Serra hill and captured the guns which had striven to prevent their passage.
Meanwhile the parts of Oporto remote from the pontoon-bridge had been the scene of a certain amount of desultory230 fighting. Many small bodies of the garrison had barricaded themselves in houses, and made a desperate but ineffectual attempt to defend them. In the Bishop’s palace at the south end of the town 400 militia held out for some hours, and were all bayonetted when the gates were at last burst open. Street-fighting always ends in rapine, rape231 and arson232, and as the resistance died down the victors turned their hands to the usual atrocities that follow a storm. It was only a small proportion of them who had been sobered and sickened by witnessing the catastrophe233 on the bridge. The rest dealt with the houses and with the inhabitants after the fashion usual in the sieges of that day, and Oporto was thoroughly234 sacked. It is to the credit of Soult that he used every exertion235 to beat the soldiers off from their prey236, and restored order long ere the following morning. It is to be wished that Wellington had been so lucky at Badajoz and San Sebastian.
Map of the combat of Braga or Lanhozo
Enlarge COMBAT of BRAGA (OR LANHOZO)
MARCH 20TH 1809
Oporto showing the Portuguese lines
Enlarge OPORTO
MARCH-MAY 1809
SHOWING THE PORTUGUESE LINES
The French army had lost, so the Marshal reported, no more than eighty killed and 350 wounded, an extraordinary testimony237 to the badness of the Portuguese gunnery. How many of the garrison and the populace perished it will never be possible to ascertain—the figures given by various contemporary authorities run up from 4,000 to 20,000. The smaller number is probably nearer the truth, but no satisfactory estimate can be made. It is certain that some of the regiments which took part in the [p. 249]defence were almost annihilated[294], and that thousands of the inhabitants were drowned in the river. Yet the town was not depopulated, and of its defenders the greater proportion turned up sooner or later in the ranks of Silveira, Botilho, and Trant. The slain238 and the drowned together may perhaps be roughly estimated at 7,000 or 8,000, about equally divided between combatants and non-combatants.
Soult meanwhile could report to his master that the first half of his orders had been duly carried out. He had captured 200 cannon, a great store of English ammunition239 and military equipment, and more than thirty merchant vessels, laden with wine. He had delivered Foy and some dozens of other French captives—for it would be doing the Portuguese injustice240 to let it be supposed that they had killed or tortured all their prisoners. In short, the victory and the trophies241 were splendid: yet the Marshal was in reality almost as far from having completed the conquest of northern Portugal as on the day when he first crossed its frontier. He had only secured for himself a new base of operation, to supersede242 Chaves and Braga. For the next month he could do no more than endeavour ineffectually to complete the subjugation243 of one single province. The main task which his master had set before him, the capture of Lisbon, he was never able to contemplate98, much less to take in hand. Like so many other French generals in the Peninsula, he was soon to find that victory is not the same thing as conquest.
N.B.—The sources for this part of the Portuguese campaign are very full. On the French side we have, besides the Marshal’s dispatches, the following eye-witnesses: Le Noble, Soult’s official chronicler; St. Chamans (one of the Marshal’s aides-de-camp); General Bigarré, King Joseph’s representative at the head quarters of the 2nd Corps; Naylies of Lahoussaye’s dragoons; and Fantin des Odoards of the 31st Léger. On the Portuguese side we have the lengthy244 dispatches of Eben, the narrative245 of Hennegan (who had brought the British ammunition to Oporto), some letters from Brotherton, who was first with La Romana and then with Silveira, and a quantity of official correspondence in the Record Office, between Beresford and the Portuguese.
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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fending
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| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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goads
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| n.赶牲口的尖棒( goad的名词复数 )v.刺激( goad的第三人称单数 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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scythes
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| n.（长柄）大镰刀( scythe的名词复数 )v.（长柄）大镰刀( scythe的第三人称单数 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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levies
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| （部队）征兵( levy的名词复数 )； 募捐； 被征募的军队 | |
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populous
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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harangues
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faction
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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hearths
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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absconded
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| v.（尤指逃避逮捕）潜逃，逃跑( abscond的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abscond
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| v.潜逃，逃亡 | |
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32
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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33
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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34
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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35
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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36
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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37
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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38
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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39
prudently
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| adv. 谨慎地，慎重地 | |
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40
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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41
convoy
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| vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队 | |
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42
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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43
breached
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| 攻破( breach的现在分词 )； 破坏，违反 | |
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44
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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45
rusting
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| n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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46
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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47
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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48
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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49
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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50
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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51
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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52
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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53
defenders
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| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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54
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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55
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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56
munitions
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| n.军火，弹药；v.供应…军需品 | |
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57
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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58
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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59
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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60
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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61
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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62
enlisting
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| v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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63
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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64
inchoate
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| adj.才开始的，初期的 | |
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65
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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66
utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
replenish
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| vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满 | |
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68
depleted
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| adj. 枯竭的, 废弃的 动词deplete的过去式和过去分词 | |
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69
cartridges
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| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
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70
cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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71
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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72
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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73
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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74
defiles
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| v.玷污( defile的第三人称单数 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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75
defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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76
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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77
fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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78
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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79
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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80
watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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81
invader
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| n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者 | |
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82
fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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83
persuasion
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|
| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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84
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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85
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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86
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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88
fortify
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| v.强化防御，为…设防；加强，强化 | |
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89
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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90
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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91
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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92
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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93
mutinous
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| adj.叛变的，反抗的；adv.反抗地，叛变地；n.反抗，叛变 | |
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94
omnipotent
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|
| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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95
baron
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|
| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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96
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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97
entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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98
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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99
contemplated
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|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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100
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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101
retired
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|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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102
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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103
miserable
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|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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104
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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105
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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106
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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107
recoiling
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| v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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108
martyrs
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|
| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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109
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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110
ecclesiastics
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| n.神职者，教会，牧师( ecclesiastic的名词复数 ) | |
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111
animating
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| v.使有生气( animate的现在分词 )；驱动；使栩栩如生地动作；赋予…以生命 | |
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112
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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113
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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114
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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115
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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116
fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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117
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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118
horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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119
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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120
molest
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| vt.骚扰，干扰，调戏 | |
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121
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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122
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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123
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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124
advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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125
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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126
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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127
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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128
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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129
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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130
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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131
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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132
harangued
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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133
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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134
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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135
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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136
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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137
atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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138
lamentably
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| adv.哀伤地，拙劣地 | |
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139
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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140
truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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141
traitors
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| 卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人 | |
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142
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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143
rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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144
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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145
dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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146
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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147
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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148
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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149
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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151
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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152
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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153
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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154
fugitives
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| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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155
exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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156
muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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157
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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158
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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159
ambushes
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| n.埋伏( ambush的名词复数 )；伏击；埋伏着的人；设埋伏点v.埋伏( ambush的第三人称单数 )；埋伏着 | |
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160
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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161
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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162
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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163
intercepted
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| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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164
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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165
scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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166
insurgents
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| n.起义，暴动，造反( insurgent的名词复数 ) | |
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167
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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168
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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169
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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171
barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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172
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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173
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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174
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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175
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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176
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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177
evict
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| vt.驱逐，赶出，撵走 | |
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178
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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179
outermost
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| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
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180
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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181
estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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182
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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183
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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184
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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185
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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186
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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187
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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188
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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189
culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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190
hurdles
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| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
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191
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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192
bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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193
benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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194
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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195
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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196
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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197
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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198
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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199
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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200
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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201
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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202
calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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203
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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204
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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205
bickering
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| v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁 | |
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206
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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207
trespassed
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| （trespass的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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208
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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209
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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210
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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211
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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212
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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213
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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214
spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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215
reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
evicted
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| v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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217
slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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218
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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219
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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220
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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221
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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222
density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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223
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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224
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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225
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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226
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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227
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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228
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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229
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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230
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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231
rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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232
arson
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| n.纵火，放火 | |
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233
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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234
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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235
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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236
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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237
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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238
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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239
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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240
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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241
trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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242
supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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243
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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244
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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245
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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