Battle of Buçaco

The Battle of Buçaco was fought by General Lord Wellington on September 27 1810, to secure his retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras. Having occupied the far side of a ridge on the heights of Buçaco with 25,000 British and the same number of Portuguese, he was attacked five times successively by 65,000 French under Marshal Masséna. The actual assaults were delivered by the corps of Marshal Ney and General Reynier , but after much fierce fighting they failed to dislodge the British and were driven off with a loss to them of 4,500 killed or wounded. Wellesley then withdrew his army into previously fortified lines at Torres Vedras by October 10. Masséna, finding them too strong to attack, withdrew into wider quarters. Deprived of food for his men and harried by British hit-and-run tactics, he lost a further 25,000 men captured or dead from starvation or sickness before he retreated into Spain early in 1811. Wellington had now freed Portugal from French occupation except for Almeida, near the frontier.

See also

• The Peninsular War