During four months after Wellington’s famous retreat terminated in his occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena lay encamped before that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British army back into the field.  He attempted to turn first the one flank of the position and then the other; but at either point he found his antagonist’s preparations perfect.  Meantime his communication with Spain was becoming every day more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from the want of provisions.  Massena at length found himself compelled to retreat; and, if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever disgraced his name by the horrible licence which he permitted to his soldiery.  Every crime of which man is capable—­every brutality which can dishonour rational beings—­must be recorded in the narrative of that fearful march.  Age, rank, sex, character, were alike contemned; it seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they could neither conciliate nor subdue.

Lord Wellington followed hard on their footsteps until they were beyond the Portuguese frontier; within it they had left only one garrison—­at Almeida, and of this town the siege was immediately formed; while the British general himself invested the strong Spanish city and fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo.  But Massena, on regaining communication with the French armies in Castile, swelled his numbers so much, that he ventured to resume the offensive.  Lord Wellington could not maintain the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of such an army as Massena had now assembled; but when the marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he disdained to decline the invitation.  The armies met at Fuentes d’Onor, on the 5th May 1811, and the French were once more defeated.  The garrison of Almeida contrived to escape across the frontier, before the siege, which had been interrupted, could be renewed.  Portugal remained in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, but altogether delivered of her invaders; and Napoleon, as if resolved that each of his marshals in succession should have the opportunity of measuring himself against Wellington, now sent Marmont to displace Massena.

Soult meanwhile had advanced on the southern frontier of Portugal from Estremadura, and obtained possession of Badajos, under circumstances which Lord Wellington considered as highly disgraceful to the Spanish garrison of that important place, and the armies which ought to have been ready to cover it.  On the other hand, an English corps, under General Graham, sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged city.