Battle of Busaco
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The Battle of Buçaco was fought by British and Portuguese forces under the command of theDuke of Wellington on September 27 1810, to check French pursuit of his retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras. Having occupied the heights of Buçaco (a 10-mile long ridge) with 25,000 British and the same number of Portuguese, he was attacked five times successively by 65,000 French under Marshal Masséna. Massena was uncertain as to the disposition and strength of the opposing forces because Wellington deployed them on the reverse slope of the ridge, where they could neither be easily seen or easily softened up with artillery. The actual assaults were delivered by the corps of Marshal Ney and General Reynier, but after much fierce fighting they failed to dislodge the British and were driven off with a loss to them of 4,500 killed or wounded, as against Anglo-Portuguese losses of about 1,250. Massena then moved off to the right to flank the position, and Wellesley resumed the retreat of his army into previously fortified lines at Torres Vedras by October 10.
Masséna, finding them too strong to attack, withdrew into wider quarters. Deprived of food for his men and harried by British hit-and-run tactics, he lost a further 25,000 men captured or dead from starvation or sickness before he retreated into Spain early in 1811. Wellington had now freed Portugal from French occupation except for Almeida, near the frontier.
This was the first major battle of the Peninsular War in which units of the reconstituted Portuguese Army had fought
See also
- The Peninsular War