The continual existence of Portugal down to the present day in face of the persistent1 hostility2 and immensely superior force of its neighbour Spain seems at first sight to be one of the most inexplicable3 phenomena4 in modern history. It appears all the more astounding5 when we remember that the lesser6 kingdom was once conquered, and held down for sixty years, by the greater power. Few states have won back and maintained their independence in such masterful fashion as did Portugal, in the long ‘War of Independence’ that followed the insurrection of 1640 under the house of Braganza. But intense national spirit and heroic obstinacy7 on the part of the smaller people are not sufficient to account for the survival of the Portuguese8 kingdom as a separate entity9. Its geography, which at the first sight seems hopelessly unfavourable to its defence, turns out on investigation10 to be eminently11 suitable for resistance against an attack from the east. On a first glance at the map it appears as if Portugal was composed of no more than the lower valleys of three great Spanish rivers, the Douro, the Tagus, and the Guadiana, so that the state which owns three-quarters of the course of each of these streams has but to send down its armies from the uplands of Leon and New Castile, to conquer the narrow land which lies about their estuaries12. But nothing can be more deceptive13 than the map, when the Iberian Peninsula is in question. As we observed in our earlier volume[150], the rivers of Spain and Portugal are not highways, or lines of communication,[p. 154] but barriers—torrents sunk in gorges14 cut deep below the level of the face of the land. The chief roads, with few exceptions, avoid, instead of courting, the neighbourhood of the great streams. The leading routes which descend15 from Spain into Portugal in no case follow the lines of the Douro or the Tagus. Though the coast-plains, which form the heart of the kingdom of Portugal, its most wealthy and populous16 regions, lie about the mouths of those rivers, it is not by descending17 their banks that conquest or trade arrives most easily at its goal. As a matter of fact, Spain and Portugal turn their backs upon each other: the smaller realm looks out upon the sea; her strength and wealth lie upon the Atlantic coast: the inland that touches Spain is rugged18 and unpeopled, in many parts a mere19 waste of rock and heath. Nor, on the other hand, do Leon and New Castile look towards Portugal: the real ports of Madrid are Valencia and Alicante, not Lisbon, and that not from political reasons, but simply because those are the points where the sea can be reached with the minimum of mountain and desert to be passed through. The way down from the central tableland of Spain to the Mediterranean20 is less difficult than the way down to the Atlantic. Hence comes the fact that the high-roads leading from Spain into Portugal are so surprisingly few, and that the two main alternative routes from Madrid to Lisbon run, the one much further north, the other much further south, than might have been expected. There is not now, and never has been, any straight road down the Tagus between the two capitals, obvious though the line looks upon the map. The two main gates of Portugal are at Almeida and Elvas; at Alcantara, which appears the natural point of approach, there is but the most miserable21 of posterns—as Junot discovered in November 1807, much to his discomfiture22. Marshal Berwick had made the same experience in 1705, during the War of the Spanish Succession[151].
In the old wars between Spain and Portugal the whole land frontier of the smaller kingdom was exposed to attacks from the larger. But the circumstances of 1810 differed from those of[p. 155] 1705 or 1762 or 1801, in that the subsidiary campaigns in the extreme north and south, which had always accompanied the main clash along the frontiers of Beira and Alemtejo, could not on this occasion take place. The French were no longer in possession of Galicia, from which the Spaniards had been wont23 to demonstrate against Oporto, nor, at the other extremity24 of the line, had they a firm grip on Huelva, and the Condado de Niebla, from which alone an attack could be directed against the remote southern province of Algarve.
Portugal presents three sections of frontier to an invader25 coming from the side of Spain. The northernmost, that from the mouth of the Minho to Miranda-de-Douro, was not within the scope of operations in 1810. It can only be approached from Galicia; that province was not subdued26, nor had the French any intention of dealing27 with it till after they should have dealt with Portugal. An invasion of the Tras-os-Montes and the Entre-Douro-e-Minho would have been an objectless operation: they would fall of themselves if once Lisbon were captured and the English expelled from the Peninsula. A move against Oporto by some flanking division of the invading army might have been conceivable, but such an attempt would be made, if made at all, from the south of the Douro, through northern Beira, and not through the mountains of the Tras-os-Montes.
There remain two other sections of the Portuguese frontier: the one from the Douro to the Tagus, and the other from the Tagus to the Guadiana. Both of these were accessible to the French in 1810, since they were in possession alike of the plains of Leon and of La Mancha, and of northern Andalusia. It was open to them to choose one or the other front for attack, or to attack both at once. Lisbon being the objective, it was clear that an attack on the northern or Beira frontier possessed28 a paramount29 advantage over an attack on the southern or Alemtejo frontier. A successful advance north of the Tagus brings the invader directly to the gates of Lisbon; one south of the Tagus brings him only to the heights of Almada, where he is separated from the Portuguese capital by the broad estuary30 of the Tagus. Napoleon’s power, like that of the devil in mediaeval legends, ended at the edge of the salt water; and in face of the naval31 strength which the[p. 156] English always maintained at Lisbon, a victorious32 French army camped on the heights of Almada would be almost as far from final success as when it started from Spain. The 1,900 yards of strait which protected the Portuguese capital could not be crossed. The most that the invader could accomplish would be to worry the ships in the port, and the lower quarters of the city, by a distant bombardment, if he could bring up heavy guns from Spain[152]. For nearly twenty miles inland from Lisbon the estuary of the Tagus expands into a broad brackish33 lagoon34 four to eleven miles broad, a complete protection against any attack from the east. Only at Alhandra does this inland sea contract, and for some further miles northward35 from that point the eastern bank of the Tagus is formed by broad salt-marshes (lezirias) cut up by countless36 channels of water, and practically inaccessible37. It is only at Salvaterra, thirty miles north of Lisbon, that the Tagus assumes its ordinary breadth, and becomes an ordinary military obstacle. From that point upwards38 an invader from the Andalusian side might endeavour to cross it, and it presents no more difficulties than any other broad river. But, though even Rhines and Danubes may be passed in the face of an enemy, the operation is not one which a prudent39 general courts, and the Tagus is broad, absolutely bridgeless, and fickle41 in the extreme in its alternations of high and low water. To fight one’s way from the valley of the Guadiana in order to meet such a problem at the end does not seem inviting42. And even if the Tagus is passed, there are still thirty miles of road, including some formidable defensive43 positions, between the invader and Lisbon[153]. Yet there was one contingency44 under which an advance on the left bank of the river might be advantageous45 to the invader, and so possible was this contingency that Wellington from the very first had declared that he thought it probable that the French would move troops in that direction. If the[p. 157] Anglo-Portuguese army were drawn46 away to the Beira frontier, between Tagus and Douro, in order to resist a front attack delivered from the plains of Leon, and if it became involved in an active campaign somewhere far to the north, on the line of the Coa, or the Mondego, or the Alva, a subsidiary French force, striking south of the Tagus from the direction of Spanish Estremadura, might give dreadful trouble. If it could cross the Tagus anywhere between Abrantes and Salvaterra, it might get between the Anglo-Portuguese army and its base, and either fall upon its rear or capture Lisbon. For this reason Wellington, so far back as October 1809, had made up his mind that, if the French had an army on foot anywhere in the direction of Badajoz and Elvas, he must leave a considerable proportion of his own forces to watch them, and to defend, if need be, the line of the lower Tagus[154]. As long as the enemy had not yet subdued Badajoz and the neighbouring fortresses48, and while there was still a strong Spanish army in that quarter, the need for precaution was not so pressing. Nevertheless, all through the summer of 1810 Wellington kept Hill with one English and one Portuguese division at Portalegre, south of the Tagus, though he withdrew this detachment when Masséna marched on Coimbra. Matters were much more perilous49 after the battle of the Gebora and the fall of Badajoz in February 1811. From that time onward51, all through 1811 and 1812, nearly a third of the Anglo-Portuguese army was kept in the Alemtejo, first under[p. 158] Beresford, then under Hill, in order to guard against the possible stab in the back from the French army of Andalusia.
But the attack south of the Tagus was in Wellington’s, and also, we may add, in Napoleon’s conception[155], only a secondary operation. The main invasion was almost inevitably52 bound to take place on the Beira, not on the Alemtejo frontier. Between Fregeneda, where the Portuguese border line quits the Douro, to the pass of Villa53 Velha on the Tagus there is a distance of somewhat more than 100 miles. The division between Portugal and Spain does not lie along any well-marked natural feature, such as a mountain range or a broad river—though two small sections of the frontier are coincident with the insignificant54 streams of the Elga and the Agueda. It is rather drawn, in a somewhat arbitrary and haphazard55 fashion, through the midst of the desert upland, where Spain and Portugal turn their backs to each other. For the only piece of flat plain-land on the whole border is that from the Douro to Almeida, a mere ten or twelve miles, and immediately behind the Coa, only three or four miles from Almeida, the mountains begin. The rest of the frontier runs through thinly-peopled, barren highlands, from which the Coa, the Mondego, the Zezere, and the Pon?ul fall away towards Portugal, and the Agueda and the Alagon towards Spain. The mountains are not, for the most part, very high—the culminating peak of the Serra da Estrella is only 6,540 feet—but they are singularly rugged and scarped, and much cleft57 by ravines, along whose sides the few roads crawl miserably58, in constant precipitous dips and rises. This broad belt of upland, one long series of defiles60 for an invader, is some hundred miles broad, and does not cease till Coimbra, on the one side, or Abrantes, on the other, is reached: only then does the plain-land begin, and the country-side become fertile and thickly peopled. Only from those points onward is it possible for an army to live on the local produce: in the upland it must carry its food with it; for a single division would exhaust in a day the stores of the poor villages of the mountains; and the small[p. 159] poverty-stricken towns of Guarda, Celorico, Sabugal, Penamacor, and Idanha have few resources. Castello Branco and Vizeu are the only two places in the upland where there is a valley of some breadth and richness, which can supply an army for many days. In this simple fact lies the explanation of the difficulties of the Portuguese campaigns of 1810 and 1811. Both the invader and the defender61 must bring their food with them, and protracted62 operations can only be kept up by means of incessant63 convoys64 from the rear. The campaign not infrequently became a starving-match, and the combatant who first exhausted65 his provisions had to retire, and to disperse66 his divisions in search of the wherewithal to live. Thanks to Wellington’s providence67 it was always the French who were forced to this expedient68.
The Beira frontier is divided into two sections by the range of mountains which crosses the border at right angles, half way between Douro and Tagus: it is known as the Sierras de Gata and de Jarama while in Spain, as the Serra da Estrella when it reaches Portugal. Its central ganglion lies between the high-lying towns of Sabugal and Penamacor in Portugal and the pass of Perales in Spain. From this point run off the great spurs which separate the valleys of the Pon?ul, the Zezere, the Agueda, the Coa, and the Alagon. An invader must make his choice whether he will advance into Portugal south or north of the Serra da Estrella: to attempt to do so on both sides of the range would be risking too much, if there is an enemy of any strength in the field, since the columns to the right and to the left would be hopelessly separated, and liable to be beaten in detail. In the whole Peninsular War there was only one invasion made by the southern route, that of Junot in the winter of 1807-8. It was successful because it was absolutely unopposed. Nevertheless the French lost many men, had to leave their artillery69 behind them, and only arrived with the shadow of an army at Abrantes. It is true that Junot chose absolutely the worst path that could be found between the Serra da Estrella and the Tagus—the pass of Rosmarinhal, close above the latter river—and that he would have fared not quite so badly if he had marched from Zarza on Idanha and Castello Branco. But even at the best this region is most inhospitable: there are points where water is not procurable70 on stretches of eight or ten miles, others where the main[p. 160] road is so steep that a six-pounder requires not only a dozen horses but the assistance of fifty men to get it up the slope. Except in the immediate56 neighbourhood of Castello Branco, the country-side is almost uninhabited[156]. The whole ‘corregidoria,’ which took its name from that town, and extended from the Elga to the Zezere, had only 40,000 souls in its broad limits—it was forty miles long by thirty broad, the size of a large English county. Junot’s experiences served as a warning to his successors, and no French army during the rest of the war endeavoured to cross this corner of Portugal when advancing on Lisbon. Castello Branco was seized once or twice by a raiding force, but it was never used as the starting-point of an army making a serious attempt to advance towards the Portuguese capital.
There remains71 to be considered only the section of the frontier between the Douro and the Serra da Estrella, the front on which Masséna’s great blow was delivered in the autumn of 1810. It was a region which had from the earliest times been the battle-ground of the Spanish and Portuguese. Half a dozen times since the Middle Ages armies from the plains of Leon had invaded the Beira on this front. Such campaigns always began with a siege of Almeida, the sentinel-fortress47 pushed out in front of the mountains to face the Spanish Ciudad Rodrigo. Almeida generally fell—it is too advanced a position for safety, and (as Dumouriez remarked in his military study of Portugal) its value would have doubled if it had only been placed upon the west instead of the east bank of the Coa, close to the friendly mountains, and not on the outskirts72 of the perilous plain. But rare, indeed, were the occasions on which the Spaniard succeeded in piercing the broad belt of tangled73 upland beyond Almeida, and appearing at the gates of Coimbra or Oporto.
Map of Central Portugal
Enlarge CENTRAL PORTUGAL
There are four lines of further advance open to an invader who has captured Almeida. The first, a march on Oporto via Pinhel and Lamego, may be mentioned only to be dismissed from consideration. It is of no use to an army which aims at Lisbon, and proposes to conquer Portugal by a blow at its heart. Masséna, whose directions were to drive the British into the sea in[p. 161] the shortest and most effective fashion, could not have contemplated74 such a secondary object as the capture of Oporto for a moment. There remain three other roads to be investigated.
(1) The road north of the river Mondego, by Celorico, Vizeu, Bussaco, and Coimbra. (2) The corresponding and parallel road south of the Mondego, from Celorico by Chamusca, Maceira and Ponte de Murcella to Coimbra. (3) The road which, striking south from Celorico, crosses the headwaters of the Zezere, by Belmonte and Fund?o, and then, climbing the Serra de Moradal, descends75 to Castello Branco, and from thence reaches Abrantes by the Sobreira Formosa. It may be remarked, by the way, that nothing in all the geography of Portugal seems more astonishing than that there should not be a fourth alternative road, one down the long valley of the Zezere, which, running in a straight line from Belmonte to Abrantes, looks on the map as if it ought to be a main artery76 of communication, and seems to indicate the obvious road to Lisbon from Almeida, since a straight line drawn between these points would run along the river for some forty miles. But as a matter of fact there was neither a first nor a second-rate road down the Zezere: the only towns on its course, Covilh?o and Belmonte, lie hard by its sources, and its central reaches were almost uninhabited. The only good line of communication running near it is a by-road or duplication of the third route mentioned above, called the Estrada Nova, which, leaving the upper Zezere at Belmonte, keeps high up the side of the Serra de Moradal, and rejoins the Castello Branco road at Sobreira Formosa. This route was much employed by Wellington in later years, as a military road from north to south, usable even when Castello Branco was threatened by the French. But in 1810 he had ordered it to be rendered impassable, and this had been done by making several long cuttings at points where the track passed along precipices77, the whole roadway being blown or shovelled78 down into the gulf79 below[157]. The French were, of course, unaware80 of this, and[p. 162] Masséna is said by his confidant Foy to have taken the Estrada Nova into serious consideration, and to have decided81 against it because of the necessity for forcing the passage of the Zezere when the defiles were passed, and for laying siege to Abrantes[158]. A far more practical objection was its extreme wildness: it runs along an absolutely uninhabited mountain-side, and the neighbourhood is destitute82 not only of food but of water for great sections of its length. This Masséna ought to have known, if his Portuguese advisers83 had been competent. Apparently84 he was wholly unaware of its character, just as he was necessarily ignorant of the fact that his prescient adversary85 had blasted away huge sections of it, so that it was absolutely impassable for guns or wagons86, as also that earthworks had been carefully constructed to cover the point where it debouches on to the Zezere.
The Castello Branco road, therefore, with this dependent by-road, the Estrada Nova, was practically left out of consideration by the Marshal. There remains the choice between the two northern routes, Celorico-Vizeu-Coimbra, and Celorico-Chamusca-Ponte de Murcella-Coimbra. Both traverse rough ground—but ground less rough than that to be found on some parts of the Castello Branco road. Along both there is an intermittent87 belt of cultivated land, and not unfrequent villages. Both are intersected by many good military positions, on which a defending army can offer battle to an invader with advantage. In especial, the northern road strikes and climbs the granite88 ridge40 of Bussaco with every disadvantage for the attacking side, and the southern road is contracted into a difficult defile59 at the passage of the Alva near Ponte de Murcella. On the whole,[p. 163] however, this last is the better line for advance:—the strongest testimonial to the fact is that Wellington expected Masséna to take it, and erected89 at the passage of the Alva almost[159] the only earthworks, save those of the lines of Torres Vedras, which he constructed in his preparations for the reception of the invader. When he first heard that the Marshal was moving forward from Almeida to Celorico, and was clearly aiming at the Mondego valley, he announced that he should endeavour to stop the invader on the Alva[160], not apparently thinking it at all probable that Masséna would move by Vizeu and the north bank of the Mondego. On realizing that this was really his adversary’s design, he observed with some exultation90 that, while there were certainly many bad roads in Portugal, the enemy had taken decidedly the worst of those open to him[161]; moreover, he had committed himself to attack the heights of Bussaco, the most formidable position in the whole of northern Portugal. How the French commander came to make this choice we shall discuss in its proper place. Suffice it to say that Wellington had not realized how bad was Masséna’s information, how worthless his maps, and—what is most surprising of all—how entirely91 destitute of local knowledge were the Portuguese traitors—Alorna, Pamplona, and the other renegade officers—whom the Emperor had sent as guides and advisers to the Marshal. And in truth, the unsuspected ignorance of Masséna and his advisers added an incalculable element of chance to the problem set before Wellington. He was obliged to make his plans on the hypothesis that the enemy would make the correct move: and not unfrequently the enemy, for reasons which the English general could not possibly foresee, made the wrong one.
The French invasion was bound to commence with a preliminary clearance93 of the outlying fortresses still in the hands of the Spaniards. These to some extent protected the Portuguese frontier in 1810, though they had been built with the express purpose, not of protecting, but of threatening it, and had never[p. 164] before been attacked by an enemy coming from the east. Only three of these fortresses were of any importance—Astorga, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz. The other strongholds of Spanish Estremadura, Alcantara (which had stood a siege in the War of the Spanish Succession), Albuquerque, Olivenza, were either not in a state of defence at all, or were hopelessly antiquated94, and little suited to face modern artillery and modern siegecraft.
Astorga lies so far to the north that it might have been neglected without much peril50 to the French scheme of invasion. But the Emperor had ordered that it should be reduced before the great enterprise began: it gave the Spanish army of Galicia a foothold in the plains of Leon, from which it might operate against Masséna’s rear, if he should pass it by. Its capture, too, was considered a matter of small difficulty, for it was but a mediaeval walled town, to which some hasty outworks had been added during the last year. It will be remembered that when Moore passed that way in January 1809, Astorga had been treated by both sides as an open town, and no attempt had been made to garrison95 or defend it. Since then La Romana had repaired its dilapidated enceinte, stockaded its suburbs, and armed it with guns brought from Ferrol. As late as January 11, 1810, Napoleon seems hardly aware of this fact: in a dispatch of that date he orders Loison to make his head quarters there, evidently under the impression that it is not held by the Spaniards, or at least that it is a place which they will evacuate96 at the first appearance of a serious attack[162]. It is only in March that he writes to Junot that Astorga must be besieged97 and taken, in order to occupy the attention of the Galicians and to thrust them back into their mountains[163].
Ciudad Rodrigo was a more serious business. It was a regular fortress, though only one of the second class; its prestige, as the only Spanish stronghold on the Portuguese frontier, was great. It commands the whole southern stretch of the plains of Leon, being the only place out of the control of an invader who is superior in cavalry99, and therefore master of the defenceless Tierra de Campos. There was also a small Spanish army depending upon it, and clinging to the skirts of the Sierra de Gata. This was the division[p. 165] of Martin de la Carrera, which had been left behind when the greater part of Del Parque’s Army of the Left marched down into Estremadura in January 1810, in order to replace there the troops which had gone off to the defence of Cadiz. It was clear that Ciudad Rodrigo must be taken, and Martin de la Carrera brushed away or destroyed, before any serious attempt to invade Portugal was begun. If the Emperor thought that such a remote place as Astorga was worth his notice, it was obvious that he would regard Ciudad Rodrigo as absolutely indispensable to his designs. It was for its reduction that he gave Masséna the great battering100 train of fifty heavy guns, with 2,500 artillerymen and sappers, which was assigned to him, independent of the artillery of the three corps101 of the Army of Portugal.
Badajoz, far to the south, in Spanish Estremadura, stood to the defence of Southern Portugal exactly as Ciudad Rodrigo to the defence of Northern Portugal. It possessed also in Elvas a counterpart to Almeida. But Badajoz is immensely larger and stronger than Rodrigo, just as Elvas is infinitely102 more formidable than Almeida. The two fortresses on the frontier of Leon are small places crowning mere mounds103 set in a plain. Badajoz and Elvas have towering citadels104 set on rugged hills, and overlooking the whole country-side. They have also strong detached forts on dominant105 positions: the circuit of ground that must be taken up by an army that intends to besiege98 them is very large, and at Badajoz there is a first-class river, the Guadiana, which cuts in two the lines which the assailant must occupy. It may be added that based on Badajoz there was a whole Spanish army of 15,000 men, not a mere division of 3,000, like that which lurked106 in the mountains above Rodrigo. Noting the strength of Badajoz and Elvas, the Emperor had made up his mind that they should be observed and ‘contained’ by troops from the Army of Andalusia, but not attacked till Lisbon had been conquered and the English expelled from Portugal. ‘Les Anglais une fois battus et rembarqués, Badajoz et Elvas tombent d’eux-mêmes,’ he wrote in a holograph minute addressed to Masséna, just before the advance across the Portuguese frontier began[164]. It was only when the invasion had been brought to a standstill before the lines of Torres Vedras, that he came to the conclusion that pressure must[p. 166] be applied107 south of the Tagus, to distract Wellington, and that Soult, as a preliminary to an attack on the Alemtejo, must capture Badajoz and Elvas, and disperse the Spanish Army of Estremadura. The idea came to him tardily108: thanks to Wellington’s careful starvation of the main French army, Masséna was forced to retreat into Leon when Soult had only recently captured Badajoz, and had not yet shown a man in front of Elvas. The scheme was hatched, like so many of Napoleon’s Spanish plans, about three months too late for effective realization109. As late as November 1810 the orders to Soult are merely to demonstrate against Badajoz, and to hinder the departure of La Romana’s army for the lines of Torres Vedras, but not to besiege the Estremaduran fortress. Probably it was Foy’s information as to the existence and strength of the unsuspected lines of Torres Vedras, which reached him late in November, that made the Emperor realize the advisability of that secondary attack by the south bank of the Tagus which Wellington had foreseen and taken means to meet a full year before. Fortunately a capable general on the defensive always knows his own weak spots long before they are discovered by the enemy. By the time that Soult had at last captured Badajoz and the small dependent places—Olivenza, Albuquerque, Campo Mayor—Wellington had got rid of Masséna from the neighbourhood of Lisbon, and was preparing to chase him home across Northern Portugal. Within a few weeks of its surrender by the traitor92 Imaz, Badajoz was being besieged by a detachment of the British army, and Soult had his hands full, as he strove at once to hold down Andalusia and to relieve the beleaguered110 fortress.
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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inexplicable
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phenomena
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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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lesser
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obstinacy
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Portuguese
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entity
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investigation
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eminently
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estuaries
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deceptive
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gorges
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descend
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populous
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descending
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rugged
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mere
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Mediterranean
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wont
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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invader
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| n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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28
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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29
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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30
estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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31
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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32
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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brackish
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| adj.混有盐的；咸的 | |
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34
lagoon
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| n.泻湖，咸水湖 | |
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35
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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37
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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38
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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39
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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40
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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41
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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42
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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43
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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contingency
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| n.意外事件，可能性 | |
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45
advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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46
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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53
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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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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defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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convoys
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| n.（有护航的）船队( convoy的名词复数 )；车队；护航（队）；护送队 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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69
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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procurable
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| adj.可得到的，得手的 | |
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71
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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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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artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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shovelled
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| v.铲子( shovel的过去式和过去分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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81
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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82
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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83
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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84
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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85
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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86
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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88
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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89
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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90
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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91
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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92
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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93
clearance
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| n.净空；许可(证)；清算；清除，清理 | |
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antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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95
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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96
evacuate
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| v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便 | |
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besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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98
besiege
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| vt.包围，围攻，拥在...周围 | |
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99
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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100
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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101
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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102
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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103
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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104
citadels
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| n.城堡，堡垒( citadel的名词复数 ) | |
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105
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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106
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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107
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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108
tardily
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| adv.缓慢 | |
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109
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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110
beleaguered
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| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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