2pm: Allied advance to Venda de Cruz[Light Div - left, Pack's Port -centre, 3rd Div - right, 4th Div - support]
2pm: Allied advance to Venda de Cruz
[Light Div - left, Pack's Port -centre, 3rd Div - right, 4th Div - support]
Ney (6 Corps) retires from Venda de Cruz to Redinha (Bridge over River Soure, Plateau in front [Mermet's Div], Soure in Ravine behind the village [Marchand's Div]), Loison's Div at Rabaçal
Junot's 8th Corps at Condeixa
Drouet (9 Corps) with Conroux's Div on Ponte de Murcella Rd escorting sick & wounded & trying to contact Claparede's Div at Celorico
Since the 10th Montbrun (Reserve Cavalry) had been prowling the south bank of the Mondego opposite Coimbra, but Trant's Portuguese face them off.
The 1st & 5th Divs arrive to support the vanguard and the Allies attack:
The 3rd Div turn the French left while the Lt Div turn the other flank through the woods either side of the village.
Ney draws Mermet back over the stream, a "log jam" at the bridge leaves the French exposed to the approaching Lt Div and they suffer some losses.
The French take up position on the ridge behind Redinha but the Light and 3rd Divs repeat their maneuvre and Ney retires on Condeixa before he is trapped.
In the meantime, the 6th Div are marching via Soure, to approach Coimbra from the west along the Mondego.
... At Redinha my Company was in the advance [12 Mar], supported by Captain O'Hare's. A wood on our front and right was full of Frenchmen. The Light Companies of the 3rd Division came up. I asked, "Are you going to attack that wood?" A Captain of the 88th Light Company, whom I knew, quite laughed at my question. I said very quietly, "You will be beat back, and when you are, I will move on the edge of the wood and help you." How he laughed! My prediction was very soon verified: he was wounded and picked up by my Company, which I moved on the right flank of the French and stopped them immediately. I sent to my support, O'Hare, to move up to me. The obstinate old Turk would not, and so so I was obliged to come back and had most unnecessarily five or six men wounded.
The Plain of Redinha is a fine field for military display, and our lines formed to attack Ney's rearguard were magnificent. The enemy had many guns in the field, with prolonged lines, an excellent mode for retreat on such ground, and no rearguard was ever drawn off in more masterly style, while I thought our attack in lines was heavy, slow, and not half so destructive as a rush of many contiguous columns would have been. The enemy had to retire over a bridge through the village of Redinha, and we Riflemen sorely pressed them on their left. A line of French infantry, concealed behind an alataza (or tower) on a hill good for the purpose, were lying down as my Company and the one commanded by that wonderful Rifleman, Willie Johnstone, got within twenty yards of them. To our astonishment, up jumped the line, fired a volley (they did not hit a man), and went about. At them we all went like devils, a regular foot race, except for me and my little horse Tiny, from which I could not dismount*. In the pursuit he carried me down a rock twelve feet high, and Johnstone and I got to the bridge and cut off half a Battalion of French. So many Legions of Honour I scarcely ever saw in a group, but the eagle was off!
*Harry had just had the ball in his ankle (from the Coa action) cut out and was still healing.
March 12th. - We stood to our arms before daylight. Finding that the enemy had quitted the position in our front, we proceeded to follow them and had not gone far before we hard the usual morning's salutation of a couple of shots between their rear and our advanced guard. On driving in their outposts, we found their whole army drawn out on the plain, near Redinha, and instantly quarrelled with them on a large scale.
... I was one of a crowd of skirmishers who were enabling the French ones to carry the news of their own defeat through a thick wood at an infantry canter when I found myself all at once within a few yards of one of their regiments in line, which opened such a fire that had I not, rifleman-like, taken instant advantage of the cover of a good fir tree, my name would have unquestionably been transmitted to posterity by that night's gazette. And, however opposed it may be to the usual system of drill, I will maintain, from that day's experience, that the cleverest method of teaching a recruit to stand at attention is to place him behind a tree and fire balls at him; as, had our late worthy disciplinarian, Sir David Dundas himself, been looking on, I think that even he must have admitted that he never saw anyone stand to fiercely upright as I did behind mine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as if a fellow had been hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to mention the numbers that were whistling past, within the eighth of an inch of every part of my body, before and behind, particularly in the vicinity of my nose, for which the upper part of the tree could barely afford protection.
This was a last and a desperate stand made by their rear-guard for their own safety immediately above the town, as their sole chance of escape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the only bridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. But they could not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing a temporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went working round their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with us intermixed, at full cry down the streets.
... When we reached the bridge the scene became exceedingly interesting, for it was choked up by the fugitives who were, as usual, impeding each other's progress, and we did not find that the application of our swords to those nearest to us tended at all towards lessening their disorder, for it induced about a hundred of them to rush into an adjoining house for shelter, but that was getting regularly out of the frying pan into the fire, for the house happened to be really in flames and too hot to hold them, so that the same hundred were quickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked, into the very jaws of their consumers.
John Bull, however, is not a bloodthirsty person, so that those who could not better themselves had only to submit to a simple transfer of personal property to ensure his protection. We consequently made many prisoners at the bridge and followed their army about a league beyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark.
Just as Mr Simmons and myself had crossed the river and were talking over the events of the day, not a yard asunder, there was a Portuguese soldier in the act of passing between us when a cannon-ball plunged into his belly - his head doubled down to his feet, and he stood for a moment in that posture before he rolled over a lifeless lump.
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Last update 22/1/03