Note 154 — Chapter I

Wellington to Col. Fletcher, commanding Royal Engineers, Oct. 20, 1809 (Dispatches, v. 235): ‘The enemy will probably attack on two distinct lines, the one south, the other north of the Tagus, and the system of defence must be founded upon this general basis.... His object will be, by means of the corps south of the Tagus, to turn the positions which we shall take up in front of the corps north of that river, to cut off from Lisbon the corps opposed to him, and to destroy it by an attack in front and rear. This can be avoided only by the retreat of the right, centre, and left of the allies to a point at which (from the state of the river) they cannot be turned, by the passage of the Tagus by the enemy’s left corps.’

Six days later (Disp. v. 245) Wellington wrote to Admiral Berkeley in similar terms: ‘It is probable that in the event of the enemy being enabled to invade this country in force, he will make his main attack by the right of the Tagus: but he will employ one corps on the left of the river, with the object of embarrassing, if not of preventing, the embarcation of the British army.’