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Massena, who directed it, at first obliged Wellington to retreat, and took Oporto and Olivenca; but the English general having entrenched himself in the strong position of Torres-Vedras, Massena, unable to force it, was compelled to evacuate the country. While the war was proceeding in the peninsula with advantage, but without any decided success, a new campaign was preparing in the north.
It may be seen by the example of the camp of Buntzelwitz, which saved Frederick in 1761, and by those of Kehl and Dusseldorf in 1796, that such a refuge may prove of the greatest importance. The camp of Ulm, in 1800, enabled Kray to arrest for a whole month the army of Moreau on the Danube; and Wellington derived great advantages from his camp of Torres-Vedras.
Wellington, coming with a fleet to the relief of Spain and Portugal, could not have secured a better base than that of Lisbon, or rather of the peninsula of Torres-Vedras, which covers all the avenues to that capital on the land side. The sea and the Tagus not only protected both flanks, but secured the safety of his only possible line of retreat, which was upon the fleet.
Blinded by the advantages which the intrenched camp of Torres-Vedras secured for the English, and not tracing effects to their real causes, many generals in other respects wise contend that no bases are good except such as rest on the sea and thus afford the army facilities of supply and refuge with both flanks secured.
However good may be the site of such a camp, it will always be difficult to locate it so that it may not be turned, unless, like the camp of Torres-Vedras, it be upon a peninsula backed by the sea. Whenever it can be passed either by the right or the left, the army will be compelled to abandon it or run the risk of being invested in it.
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