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THE BATTLE OF LEMOS (April 20th 1809)

 

On April 20th 1809, Galician Patriots organized near Monforte de Lemos (Lugo) one of the first uprisings in Spain against the invading armies of Napoleon. This action, remembered as the Battle of Monforte de Lemos, was a suicidal mission intended to slow the march of Marshal Michel Ney's 6th Corps, which was quickly advancing to reconquer the recently lost harbor of Vigo.

 

 

BACKGROUND

The Royal Navy evacuated the broken army of Lieutenant General Sir John Moore from A Coruña in January 1809. It appeared Napoleon might again overrun Iberia and win the Peninsular War. An improvised irregular militia of Galician Patriots stood up against the French invader and delivered the first major defeat of Napoleon.

 

Soult began his advance on 30 January and, despite the difficult terrain and season, and harassment by Portuguese and Spanish forces throughout the march, the French inexorably advanced on Oporto, and captured that city on 29 March. Enroute Soult created garrisons at Vigo and Tuy. He entrusted this latter fortress on the Minho river, with 36 heavy guns and 1250 men, to General Thomas Lamartinière.  At Vigo Soult left 700 infantry under Colonel Jacques Chalot, twelve miles to the north of Tuy, to prevent the British from using its superb harbor to provide aid to the Spanish forces behind him. Chalot's garrison eventually increased to 1,300 men. Soult also left garrisons in Portugal along his line of march, at Chaves and Braga, to secure his communications with Galicia. When he finally reached Oporto the effective strength of the corps was only 16,000 men. The four garrisons had drained 7,000 men from his main force. Concurrently, Victor crushed the Spanish at Medellin on 28 March, and awaited word of Soult's advance toward Lisbon. That marshal, however, learned of the serious nature of an insurrection in Galicia and decided to establish communications directly with Tuy before continuing his advance. Simultaneously, he attempted to open communications with General Pierre Lapisse, whose large division was to cover the gap between the corps of Soult and Victor.

 

—LTC Brian De Toy, Ph.D., U.S. Military Academy, West Point[1]

 

Thus the alzamientos were achieving the key strategic objective of draining as much as one third of the entire French Army, forcing Marshals Ney and Soult to leave strong garrisons on every small village or city. Unfortunately, this meant that civilian population suffered the mass murder and terrorist tactics of the French.

 

Without the support of the army, the Galician irregular militia had to protect the civilian population against the atrocities committed by the French

 

By mid-June 1809, the situation had completely turned around, with the French driven out of both northern Portugal and Galicia in Spain’s northwest corner. This victory came however at an enormous expense of civilian lives, victims of mass murder and massacres by the French, as Francisco de Goya would record in his The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra).

 

 

FRENCH STRATEGY

Marshal Nicolas Soult had driven Moore's army from A Coruña in the middle of January, and by the end of the month occupied the key naval base at Ferrol. On the 28th the Marshal received Napoleon's order for the conquest of Galicia and the invasion of Portugal. The Emperor's strategy called for a two-pronged attack to capture Lisbon. Soult's 2nd Corps, the primary effort, would march south to Oporto and then on to the capital. Marshal Michel Ney's 6th Corps would protect his rear and complete the "pacification" of northwest Spain. Meanwhile, Marshal Claude Perrin Victor's 1st Corps, the secondary effort, would drive on Lisbon from the east along the Tagus[2].

 

 

PATRIOT STRATEGY

Systematic Guerrilla Warfare appeared for the first time in history during the Peninsular War. The strategy embraced by the Galician Patriots is best summarized by LTC Brian De Toy, Ph.D., a leading military historian who has studied this campaign:

 

The rising of irregular forces in Galicia and northern Portugal coincided with the departure of Soult's main force. While the 2nd Corps, like a ship, plowed through the waves to Oporto, like the sea, the Spanish and Portuguese closed in behind it so that soon not a trace of its passing appeared. Soult's forces commanded only the ground they occupied.  Elsewhere, the insurgents enjoyed freedom of movement.  The Galician rising, or ''alzamiento'', was general and violent. Ney's 6th Corps would be engaged in a guerrilla conflict for the next three months and could not provide support to Soult.


—LTC Brian De Toy, Ph.D., U.S. Military Academy, West Point[3]

 

Centres of insurrection during the years 1808-1809.

 

 

THE BATTLE

About 400 Galician Patriots fought against Marshal Michel Ney's Army of more than 6000 men, using cannon-trees (rustic cannons made of core-emptied trees). After 39 cannonballs had been fired, the wooden-made artillery was useless. The result was the complete annihilation of the Patriot forces. Fearing further uprisings in the region, the French were obliged to divide their forces and leave a garrison in the area, which further delayed and weakened their plans to reinforce Vigo[4]. Pillage and butchering of civilians by the French followed at large scale[5].

 

 

THE AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE

George McKinley, Captain of the frigate HMS Lively (later to become Rear Admiral of the Royal Navy[6]), relates the criminal actions of the French:

 

On the 22nd ultimo a string detachment of the Enemy from Lugo made an attack on Monforte where a Junta was assembled, as mentioned in my letter of the 26th, and put them to the route. Marshal Ney makes a boast in his Proclamation ''of having no prisoners and of killing 1500 Spaniards [...] Romana is bringing his army and joined by that of the Asturians, and is nine miles from Ferrol. The French appear to be retiring upon Corunna. [...] The Patriots are in very great spirits. The diabolical conduct of the Enemy has increased their ardor and determination to expel them''.

—Captain George McKinley, HMS Lively, in a letter dated May 6th 1809 to WW Pole[7]

 

Francisco de Goya: ''The Third of May 1808'', 1814. Museo del Prado.

Massive executions of civilians by Napoleonic troops following uprisings of the population were common practice during the Peninsular War.

 

Historians Manuel Garcia del Barrio[8], Pedro de Frutos García[9] and German Vazquez[10] count 400 as the number of Patriots who fought in the battle, against a force of 6,000 French soldiers. The other 1,100 Galicians killed by Marshal Ney's 6th Corps correspond to pacific civilians murdered by the French in the days subsequent to the battle. Among the innocent civilians murdered by the French was Don Manuel Joseph Martin Lopez de Prado.

 

 

OUTCOME OF THE BATTLE

As a result of the battle, Marshal Michel Ney's 6th Corps was unable to reconquer Vigo, which resulted into the definitive loss of that important city and harbor. This became one of the first defeats of Napoleon, and a major blow to his image of invincibility[11].

 

 

EXTERNAL LINKS

 

 

[1] De Toy, Brian (2009): "Defeating Napoleon’s Designs: Littoral Operations in Galicia, 1809", International Journal of Naval History.
[2] Louis Alexandre Berthier to Soult, 21 Jan 1809, cited in William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula, (London, 1851), II, 12-3;  Napoleon to Berthier, 15 Jan 1809, Correspondance de Napoleon Ier , (Paris, 1865), XVIII, 220-23; Pierre Le Noble, Mémoires sur les Opérations Militaires des Francais en Galice, en Portugal, et dans la Vallée du Tage, en 1809 sous le Commandement du Maréchal Soult, duc de Dalmatie, (Paris, 1821), 64-7.
[3] De Toy, Brian (2009): "Defeating Napoleon’s Designs: Littoral Operations in Galicia, 1809", International Journal of Naval History.
[4] De Frutos García, Pedro (1992): "Leyendas Gallegas II", p. 82.
[5] Record of Deceased in the Parish of San Christobal de Martin, April 20th 1809. Archives of the Bishop of Lugo, Spain.
[6] http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/archive/catalogue/record.cfm?ID=MCK
[7] Public Record Office. ADM 1 / 2160, Captains In-Letters (M 1809). Letter from Captain George McKinley to WW Pole, on May 6th 1809 from HMS Lively stationed in Vigo, received on May 22nd.

[8] García del Barrio, Coronel Manuel (1891): Sucesos Militares de Galicia en 1809, Ed. Andrés Martínez (La Coruña), pp. 90-91.

[9] ib. idem.
[10] Vázquez, Germán (1990): Historia de Monforte y su Tierra de Lemos, Ed. Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Monforte de Lemos, pág. 788. ISBN84-241-9865-4
[11] http://ijnhonline.org/volume7_number3_Dec08/article_detoy_dec08.htm