* Chapter headers and Table of contents have been made consistent. * Footnotes have been renumbered into a single series. Each footnote is placed at the end of the paragraph or the table that includes its anchor. * The anchor placements in the main text for footnotes [219], [247] and [777] are conjectured. No anchors were found in the printed original. * Two anchors were found for footnote [160], both in p. 125; only one has been retained. * In p. 302, end of paragraph, the adjective “best” has been added to obtain the more usual reading: “the best condition”. [Illustration:_Major General Sir Thomas Picton_] A HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR BY CHARLES OMAN M.A. OXON., HON. LL.D. EDIN. FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY CHICHELE PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE REAL ACADEMIA DE LA HISTORIA OF MADRID, OF THE ACADEMY OF LISBON AND THE ACADEMY OF SAN LUIS OF SARAGOSSA VOL. IV DEC. 1810-DEC. 1811 MASSÉNA’S RETREAT FUENTES DE OÑORO ALBUERA TARRAGONA WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1911 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE PREFACE In this volume are contained the annals of all the many campaigns of 1811, with the exception of those of Suchet’s Valencian expedition in the later months of the year, which for reasons of space have to be relegated to Volume V. It was impossible to exceed the bulk of 660 pages, and the operations on the Mediterranean coast of Spain can be dealt with separately without any grave breach of continuity in the narrative, though this particular Valencian campaign affected the general course of the war far more closely than any other series of operations on the Eastern side of the Peninsula, as I have been careful to point out in the concluding chapters of Section XXIX. The main interest of 1811, however, centres in the operations of Wellington and his opponents, Masséna, Soult, and Marmont. In the previous year the tide of French conquest reached its high-water mark, when Soult appeared before the walls of Cadiz, and Masséna forced his way to the foot of the long chain of redoubts that formed the Lines of Torres Vedras. Already, before 1810 was over, Masséna’s baffled army had fallen back a few miles, and this first short retreat to Santarem marked the commencement of a never-ceasing ebb of the wave of conquest on the Western side of the Peninsula. Matters went otherwise on the Eastern coast in 1811, but all Suchet’s campaigns were, after all, a side issue. The decisive point lay not in Catalonia or Valencia, but in Portugal.