Ban Visits Battlefields Pt. 1 -Roliça
So, while in Portugal last week I managed to visit 4 Peninsular War battlefields in one day. This is the story of those battles, in 4 parts.
At the start of August, 1808, a British army commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, landed in Portugal. Their objective was to defend the country - one of the last in Europe still allied with Britain against Napoleonic France - from a French invasion.
On the 17th of August, Wellesley encountered a French army under General Delaborde not far north of Lisbon. Delaborde had taken up a defensive position on a small, isolated hill just above the village of Roliça. Rather than attack head on, Wellesley sent troops around to the east, using the ridge pictured below from Roliça, to mask their movements.
Outlying French troops, expecting to link up with reinforcements, detected the flanking movement early. Realising the danger, Delaborde withdrew south a short distance, beyond the village of Columbeira, to a string of low hills interrupted by four gullies. The image below shows the hills in the distance occupied by the French, as well as the gullies that ran between them.
Wellesley intended to repeat his flanking trick, and ordered the centre of his army to only skirmish with the French and keep them occupied. Lieutenant Colonel Lake, commanding the 29th Regiment (and with a new uniform and hat to boot) decided he knew better, and ordered his men to attack straight up the deepest gully on the right (pictured below).
The 29th pushed up through the narrow defile and only discovered too late that they’d walked into a trap, with the French opening fire from three sides. Below is an image of the gulley the 29th tried to advance up.
Lt. Col. Lake made it just beyond the point pictured below (looking back down the gulley), attempting to lead a counter-attack where he was fatally shot.
His grave remains at the site of his death.
Rather than leave the 29th to their fate, Wellesley decided he had to ordered a general attack, even though his flanking brigades weren’t in position yet. The British centre launched multiple assaults up the hills. Below is a shot of the battlefield from the highest point. The ridges on the right after the French positions, while the British started on the left on the low ground.
Following repeated attacks the French were forced to withdraw. Initially panicking when threatened by British cavalry, they managed to regain their order and fell back. At the end of the first battle of the Peninsular War, 487 British troops have been killed or wounded to around 700 French. Just four days later the armies would meet again at Vimeiro.
Link to more pics of Lieutenant Colonel Lake’s grave.
