The hopes built on intervention in Spain were dashed by the result of Moore's campaign and by the masses of French troops (over three hundred thousand) poured into the Peninsula. But at the end of January 1809 they began to revive. Austria's preparations for war recalled Napoleon to Paris, and obliged him to withdraw forty thousand men. The Portuguese regency asked for a British officer to organise and command their troops, and at the suggestion of Wellesley, who himself declined the post, Beresford was sent out. In a memorandum to Castlereagh, which was laid before the cabinet, Wellesley maintained that 'Portugal might be defended, whatever might be the result of the contest in Spain' (Desp. 7 March). There still remained some British troops near Lisbon, under Sir John Francis Cradock [q. v.] It was decided to raise them to twenty-three thousand men, and on 2 April Wellesley was appointed to the command, superseding Cradock. Samuel Whitbread had called in question the propriety of a man holding office and drawing pay as chief secretary while absent from the realm, and Wellesley, though he justified himself, had declared that if again appointed to a military command he should resign (Speeches, 2 and 6 Feb.) Accordingly he resigned both his office and his seat on 4 April, embarked on the 16th, and landed at Lisbon on 22 April 1809.
He was warmly welcomed, for 'the nation was dismayed by defeats, distracted with anarchy, menaced on two sides by powerful armies (Napier, i. 114). Soult, with more than twenty thousand men, was in the north of Portugal, having stormed Oporto on 27 March. Victor, with thirty thousand, was at Merida, having beaten the Spanish general, Cuesta, at Medellin on 29 March, and driven him into the Sierra Morena. Wellesley decided to deal first with Soult, and on 27 April, the day on which he took over the command, orders were issued for the troops to assemble at Coimbra. He had thirty-seven thousand men, of which nearly half were Portuguese. Leaving twelve thousand to guard the Tagus, in case Victor should approach,and directing eight thousand under Beresford on Lamego, to pass the Duero and descend the right bank, he moved with the remainder on Oporto. The advance began on 6 May. Soult, hemmed in by insurgent bands, had been forced to scatter his troops, and had only ten thousand men with him in Oporto. He knew nothing of the danger threatening him until the 10th, when a French division on the Vouga was attacked and driven in. He then destroyed the bridge over the Duero, seized all the boats near Oporto, and made arrangements for retreat. But on the 12th Wellesley forced the passage of the river. Three boats were obtained by Colonel John Waters [q .v.], and three companies were thrown into the Seminary, a large building on the right bank. More troops followed them, while others passed the river three miles higher up. After trying in vain to recover the Seminary, the French retired in disorder from the city. Soult found that his intended line of retreat was barred by Beresford; so he destroyed his guns, abandoned his stores, took a path over the mountains, and on the 19th crossed the frontier into Galicia (Desp. 12 and 18 May; Mémoires de Saint-Chamans, pp. 142-9).
Wellesley, learning on that day that Victor had sent a division across the Tagus at Alcantara on the 14th, abandoned further pursuit, marched southward, and by 12 June was on the Tagus at Abrantes. The army remained there a fortnight for rest and reequipment. Its lax discipline drew from Wellesley the first of many complaints: 'We are an excellent army on parade, an excellent one to fight; but we are worse than an enemy in a country; and take my word for it, that either defeat or success would dissolve us' (Desp. 17 June). Having asked for and received authority to invade Spain, he now concerted arrangements with Cuesta for attacking Victor, who had retired on his approach.
On the 27th the British army passed the frontier, about twenty thousand strong. Beresford was left near Almeida, with one British brigade, to organise the Portuguese troops and guard the only vulnerable part of the frontier. As the Spanish government had pressed for British co-operation, Wellesley supposed that it would help him to obtain transport and provisions; but he was disappointed, and by the time the British and Spanish armies met at Talavera on 22 July, the former was so short of supplies that it could move no further. Cuesta had thirty-eight thousand men under his immediate command, and the corps of Venegas, eighteen thousand men, was also under his orders. This corps was to threaten Madrid from the south-east, and so distract the French forces; but it did not play its part, and Cuesta, having advanced a few miles towards Madrid, was driven back.
King Joseph had joined Victor with reinforcements, raising his numbers to fifty thousand men, and on 27 and 28 July the French attacked the allied armies at Talavera. The British, who were on the left,
