In the Words of Wellington’s Fighting Cocks:
The After-Action Reports of the Portuguese Army During the Peninsular War 1812-14
Moises Gaudencio and Robert Burnham (foreword by Rory Muir)
Pen & Sword Books (2021)
ISBN 9781526761682
Hardback, 338 pages & 16 pages of B&W illustrations, no maps.
All historians of the Peninsular War are painfully aware that the contribution of the Portuguese to this campaign is very poorly represented in the English language, with great reliance on Oman for what there is. This has largely occurred because there are strangely no Portuguese memoirs of this fascinating period in Portuguese history and indeed very little primary source material beyond the regiments and their internal structure. This has forced historians into having to rely on the rare glimpses of the Portuguese soldier through the jaundiced eye of their British counterparts.
News, therefore, of the publication of a mass of Portuguese after-action reports should rightly cause a wave of interest from all historians interested in this conflict. For this alone Moises Gaudencio and Robert Burnham should be warmly congratulated.
The work focusses very heavily on these Portuguese reports but provides a very necessary background to each action in which the Portuguese troops were involved, concentrating very much on their participation, ignoring much of the British participation, unless linked to that of the Portuguese. This does of course mean that the reader does need to be pretty well conversant with the entire action or have ready access to Oman or another history of the wars to fully comprehend the Portuguese participation. It is disappointing that there are no maps to aid the reader in their comprehension of the events described, but I do understand from the authors that they were heavily constrained by the publisher on the size of book, which is a pity.
Chapter 1 gives an excellent, in-depth description of the Portuguese Military System and how they fitted into Wellington’s divisional system. Chapter 2 explains the alterations made when a number of British officers were seconded into the service, but clearly shows that a number of Portuguese officers commanded regiments and brigades and by 1813 British units were even serving under Portuguese generals.
Chapters 3 to 22 form the meat of the book, describing each campaign in brief detail and specifically listing the actions of Portuguese units, but the heart of the book is the 158 after-action reports and the 115 casualty returns found in the Portuguese Military Archives and all translated into English by Moises Gaudencio. The reader will note that the reports only cover 1812-14, whereas Portuguese involvement began as early as 1808. However, it seems that no earlier reports can be found, which is a shame as the Portuguese view of their participation at the Coa, Busaco and Fuentes d’Onoro would have been fascinating. Let us hope that some of these reports may ultimately be discovered.
These reports range in quality from banal statements that they are unable to add anything to other reports and many simply listing those who deserved recognition/advancement for their actions. Nestled amongst them, however, are a number that deal with the actions of individuals or units in some detail, giving valuable new material regarding the actions of Portuguese troops which are very enlightening.
Two appendices list the careers of a number of Portuguese officers mentioned in the reports, another invaluable source for historians and a list of British officers who were attached to the Portuguese service and their later careers, this list is not exhaustive, however.
If I was to have a personal gripe regarding the book, it was the decision to place all 1,330 notes as endnotes at the back of the book. The constant referring to the back became so distracting that I abandoned the attempt and read them all together at the end, so many notes demanded them being made into footnotes.
This book is inevitably a heavy read, particularly for those uninitiated with the Peninsular war. However, its real target audience are serious students of this conflict and those who wish to fully understand the part played by the Portuguese in Wellington’s victories. It is An ABSOLUTE MUST for any historian researching the Peninsular War and any work covering this war between 1812 and 1814 which does not refer to this book will be much the poorer for it. It is THOROUGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone with a serious interest in the Peninsular War.
Gareth Glover
January 2022