Masséna was not the type of man who easily acknowledges defeat. He had been busily engaged at Salamanca in getting what remained of his army into working order. He had lost at least 25,000 of the 70,000 men who had entered Portugal, but when he decided to go to the assistance of Almeida he could with difficulty muster only 39,000, some 5000 more than Wellington could put into the field. Having relieved Ciudad Rodrigo, Masséna crossed the Agueda, with the fixed intention of raising the blockade of Almeida. On the 3rd May he was in sight of the British army, now arrayed at Fuentes de Oñoro.
The Commander-in-Chief had returned from his travels on the 28th of the previous month, after having been informed by Spencer of the gathering of the enemy. “I’ll venture to say,” remarks Kincaid, “that there was not a heart in the army that did not beat more lightly when we heard the joyful news of his arrival the day before the enemy’s advance.” On the 3rd May the British were “warmly but partially engaged,” and “made no progress in raising the blockade.”
The real battle began on the 5th, and was, in Alison’s opinion, “the most critical in which Lord Wellington was engaged in the whole war, and in which the chances of irreparable defeat were most against the British army.” He then gives some of Sir Charles Stewart’s reflections on the fight, which help us to appreciate its difficulties from the point of view of an actual eye-witness who took a leading part in the battle. “Masséna’s superiority to us,” he notes, “both in cavalry and artillery, was very great; whilst the thick woods in our front afforded the most convenient plateau which he could have desired for the distribution of his columns unseen, and therefore disregarded. Had he rightly availed himself of this advantage, he might have poured the mass of his force upon any single point, and perhaps made an impression before we could have had time to support it. Had he commenced his attack with a violent cannonade, it must have produced some havoc, and probably considerable confusion, in our line. He might then have moved forward his cavalry _en masse_, supporting it by strong columns of infantry; and had either the one or the other succeeded in piercing through, our situation would have been by no means an enviable one.... Had he thrown his cavalry round our right flank--a movement which we should have found it no easy matter to prevent--crossed the Coa, advanced upon our lines of communication, and stopped our supplies, at the moment when, with his infantry, he threatened to turn us; then pushed upon Sabugal and the places near, he might have compelled us to pass the Coa with all our artillery at the most disadvantageous places, and cut us off from our best and safest retreat. There was, indeed, a time during the affair of the 5th, when his design of acting in this manner was seriously apprehended; and Lord Wellington was in consequence reduced to the necessity of deciding whether he should relinquish the Sabugal road or raise the blockade of Almeida. But Lord Wellington’s presence of mind never for a moment forsook him. He felt no distrust in his troops; to retain his hold over a secure and accessible line of retreat was therefore to him a consideration of less moment than to continue an operation of which the ultimate success could now be neither doubtful nor remote; and he at once determined to expose Sabugal rather than throw open a communication with Almeida. It was a bold measure, but it was not adopted without due consideration, and it received an ample reward in the successful termination of this hard-fought battle.”