The Napoleon Series

Getting Lost and Finding the Way: the Use, Misuse and Non-
use of Maps and Reconnaissance for Route Planning in the
Peninsular War (1807 – 1814)
By Richard H. P. Smith

This article is an adapted version of a talk given by the author in May 2015 at
the Warburg Institute of London University for the “Maps and Society” series of
lectures. For the purposes of reproduction in this format it is unfortunately only
possible to illustrate maps with selected details.
Introduction
The subject to be addressed in this paper is how Peninsular War commanders
and their staff planned enormous movements of armies across hundreds of
miles of often difficult unknown territory and the role played by maps and
reconnaissance in this activity.
After describing the general considerations concerning the information needed
for the preparation of movement plans and the corresponding Orders of March
the article goes on to study two British and two French movements and shows
how maps and other documentation were used - or otherwise - with their
implication on military outcomes. A modern map of Spain in Fig. 1 shows the
location of places and the maps referred to in the text.

Fig.1: Map of Spain and Portugal showing the location of places referred to
in the text and the illustrated maps.

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Planning Orders of March
The Orders of March used in the Peninsula to implement plans of movement
came in a variety of layout and their neatness depended on the urgency of the
moment but essentially they all said the same thing, namely where each army
unit would march to and encamp the next day. Sometimes they were prepared
on a daily basis and on other occasions looking up to a week ahead. Their
planning was the responsibility of senior staff officers according to the dictates
of the commander-in-chief.
To prepare successful Orders of March required information not only on starting
locations, destinations, and distances but much other important intelligence.
Paved roads as such were few and far between and many movements were
made using only simple country paths and bridleways for which it was essential
to know if their widths and incline were suitable for artillery trains and supply
wagons. Crossing the often wide and fast flowing larger rivers of the Iberian
Peninsula was a problem: on the wider stretches of river only a limited number
of bridges existed and in any case easily blown up by a retreating enemy.
These and the alternative fords and ferries had to be identified along with their
capacity for troops and seasonal river flow. Finding sufficient billeting or suitable
bivouac sites was a daily problem for staff officers while food supplies had to be
provided not only for men but also cavalry horses and draught animals.
Locating ovens for baking bread and forges for shoeing horses was extremely
useful. Not least it was necessary to know the enemy’s dispositions.
The essentially rural nature of early nineteenth century Spain and Portugal
meant that sufficient accommodation and food supplies even for a small division
were rarely found in one single location and this frequently led to an Army
marching either along parallel routes or staggering its movement over several
days. An important difference between the British and French armies was the
extent to which the latter tended to use a requisition system, i.e. living off the
land, while the former used forward depots or took substantial food supplies
with them: ox drawn wagons were a supply of meat as well as transport.
The term “getting lost” in the title of the paper implies failure to acquire
adequate information about all these aspects and not only an incorrect
direction. How then were staff officers to find out this vital information? Maps
seem one obvious answer but we must reflect on the ability or otherwise of
early nineteenth century cartographic content, even the best, to answer all
these requirements. Maps alone, without adequate reconnaissance reporting
were very blunt instruments if not misleading and in this respect the British,
operating as allies of the Spanish and Portuguese clearly enjoyed a freedom
denied to the French whose small patrols were constantly attacked by
guerilleros.
The sources of maps and geographical information relevant to route planning
include the following:
National maps based on triangulation.
Commercial topographical maps
Commercial Post Road maps
Geographies and travel guides

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Military topography
Military map itineraries
Reconnaissance maps
Reconnaissance reports and itineraries (without maps)
Cantonment plans
Military histories / cartography of previous wars
National maps based on triangulation similar to the Cassini map of France or
the Ordnance Survey in England had been planned but not started in Spain,
while in Portugal only a few manuscript sheets of the Lisbon Peninsula had
been produced by the start of the war. 1 The only national survey of the Iberian
Peninsula undertaken scientifically and completed by this date was the detailed
charting of the Iberian coast by Brigadier Vicente Tofiño of the Spanish Navy
and published as the Atlas Marítimo in 1789. This was a highly important piece
of accurate cartography used by the Royal Navy for sailing instructions and
finding suitable harbours for transporting British troops and supplies
The most important commercial maps of Spain and Portugal were the national
and provincial maps by Tomás López (Madrid 1730 – 1802) and copies of them
published by the London and Paris map trades. Lopez’s maps were produced
and re-edited between 1760 and the end of the war. They were based on office
compilation through correspondence with a variety of civil officials, the
occasional engineer, and very often local priests – obviously the quality of the
final map depend on the very variable quality of input and varied from one part
of it to another. Relief was represented by simple “molehill” profile designs and
the variable scales used for each map made it impossible to join sheets
together. We must recognise that Lopez’s maps weren’t meant for military
applications but despite much criticism they were widely used by all the armies.
An example of Lopez’s work is examined and illustrated below. There also
existed various commercial post road maps sold to the public as well as
government manuscript maps for the construction of new communications.
Military movement cartography was undertaken by the regular engineer corps in
the armies of Spain and Portugal and by a specialist corps of Ingénieurs
Geógraphiques in the case of France. In the British army the Royal Engineers
(RE) concentrated mainly on fortifications and siege work while most
topography and reconnaissance was undertaken by the Quartermaster
General’s Department (QMG) and the Royal Staff Corps, both under the
command of General Sir George Murray (1772 – 1864). Although Murray
produced many maps the training of his officers, with one or two notable
exceptions, was less professional than that of the engineers in the other armies
and the RE. 2 Pre-war Spanish and Portuguese military cartography had
concentrated on fortifications as demanded by 17th and 18th century warfare

1 Four generations of the Cassini family had worked between 1673 and 1793 to produce a 182

sheet map of France at a scale of 1: 86,400. The Portuguese National Map was started in the
last decade of the 18th century. By 1807 only several manuscript sheets of the Lisbon peninsula
had been completed but when the French invaded were taken to Brazil by the fleeing royal
family.
2 Smith, Richard H. P. “Peninsular War Cartography: A New Look at the Military Mapping of

General Sir George Murray and the Quartermaster General’s Deptament” Imago Mundi, The
International Journal for the History of Cartography, Vol. 65 Part II, 2013, pp. 249-9

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but their engineers had also produced various itineraries and topographical
maps, especially of the frontier areas which could be applicable to route
planning.
Junot’s Invasion of Portugal 1807
Portugal was a continuous thorn in Napoleon’s side regarding the
implementation of his “Continental System” against British trade interests in
Europe. Enraged by continuous stalling in diplomatic negotiations he finally
decided to occupy this small European periphery nation and had no problem in
obtaining Spanish collaboration both for the passage of his troops led by
General Jean-Androche Junot (1771 – 1813) and additional manpower.
Junot’s leading staff officer General Baron Paul Charles François Thiérbault
was responsible for quartermaster operations but he makes not a single
reference to maps in his 360 page account of the campaign. His references to
route planning refer solely to the advice of local authorities and guides and his
recriminations regarding their ignorance and inabilities. Indeed the route they
followed had been dictated by Napoleon urging Junot that “the march of the
army should not be delayed for a single day under pretence of securing
subsistence...20,000 men can live anywhere, even in the desert”. 3
Believing implicitly in this fallacy he ordered Junot to deviate from the usual
roads connecting the Spanish northern meseta to Lisbon through Almeida and
Coimbra and instead follow what seems to be the shortest route from
Salamanca by turning south over the difficult Sierra de Gata to Alcántara and
then following the River Tajo [Tagus] down to the Portuguese capital. This plan
ignores what every post road map of Iberia made quite clear. These maps had
been printed and sold widely by various authors since the last decades of the
18th century and it would be highly improbable that the Paris Depòt de la
Guerre did not have one available. As can be seen in the detail shown in Fig. 2
the Madrid – Lisbon post road avoids the Portuguese section of the Tajo by
continuing south at Almaraz onto Truxillo and the Guadiana valley which it joins
at Merida. After passing the border at Badajoz the road crosses the Portuguese
Alemtejo on to Lisbon. (Today’s modern Madrid – Lisbon motorway follows
exactly the same route). The barren southern part of Salamanca had no post
roads and the secondary post road (blue line) to Alcántara doesn`t follow the
short distance down the Tagus from Almaraz but the much longer loop from
Truxillo.

3Quoted in Lipscombe, Col. Nick “The Peninsular War Atlas” Oxford, Ospry Publishing, 2010,
p.28

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 Fig. 2: Detail from the Spanish post road map by Francisco de Ita, a post road official,
drawn in 1789. (Reproduced with permission of the Centro Geográfico del Ejército,
Madrid , Mapas Generales de España, 23)

After a wet and hungry march from Salamanca Junot arrived at Alcántara on the
18th of November 1807 where a Spanish division under the command of Juan
Carrafa, the Captain General of the Province of Extremadura was awaiting his
arrival. In his report Carrafa says that a joint French and Spanish patrol was
sent out to reconnoitre inside Portugal and also that Spanish engineer officers
presented Junot with both a copy of López’s map of Portugal (see below) and a
descriptive route from Alcántara to Lisbon via Castelo Branco and Abrantes. 4 A
similar route had been used during previous Spanish army invasions of Portugal
as Cafalla points out but what the engineers failed to bring with them is an
excellent map of this area produced forty years earlier during the Seven Years
War. The detail shows quite clearly the alternative roads, river crossings and
relief between Alcantara and Castelo Branco and would have at least warned
Junot of what to expect.

4Cafalla, General Juan “Diario de los Exercitos Frances y Español dentro del Reyno de
Portugal” Part 1 MS dated “Tomar 4,5, y 6 de diciembre” [1807] Archive of the Instituto Histórico
Militar Madrid document 5-3-5-13 p.4

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 Fig. 3: Detail from a Spanish military map “Mapa de la Frontera de Portugal entre los
Ríos Duero y Tajo…” showing the area along the River Tajo produced during the
Seven Years War (1754- 1763). The red bars indicate the locations occupied by
Spanish troops. (Reproduced with permission of the Centro Geográfico del Ejército,
Madrid Ar. I-T.6-C.1-10).

This route led Junot’s army through ravines and barren upland making a
requisition system impossible. Worse still, being November the numerous
bridgeless Tajo tributary crossings along Junot’s route (no less than ten rivers
are clearly located on the above map) were full of autumn rains and almost
impassable. In his 14 day march between Salamanca, Alcántara and Abrantes
Junot lost nearly ten percent of his force through starvation, sickness and
drowning plus most of his artillery. Any semblance of an organised army
became reduced to a straggling line which trickled into Abrantes over four days.
Military opinion is unanimous in predicting that if the Portuguese, despite their
deplorable state, had put up any resistance they would have annihilated the
French invasion. Instead the Portuguese had issued their surrender even before
Junot arrived at Abrantes and the annihilation had to be left to Wellington at
Vimeiro nine months later. Ignoring the road map and blind faith in the
requisition system plus the Spanish failure to bring existing military cartography
plus cost Napoleon and Junot dearly and could have put paid to their campaign
even before reaching Lisbon.

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Moore’s Campaign 1808-09
When General Sir John Moore (1761 – 1809) took command of the British Army
at Lisbon in October 1808 his main concern was to give assistance to the
Spanish resistance of the French invasion by making a junction with General Sir
David Baird’s division recently landed at La Coruña [Corunna] and joining the
Spanish army under General Pedro Caro y Sureda, the Marques de la Romana
based in Old Castile. By Christmas Moore and the Spanish army were on the
point of attacking the much smaller forces of General Soult on the River Carrión
near Saghún with good chances of success. But on the eve of battle Moore
received news from Romana which informed him that an army of
reinforcements under Napoleon was fast approaching. Moore immediately
retreated through the snow covered mountains of Galicia to Vigo and La Coruña
where the army was successfully embarked for England though the General
was killed in the covering action.
In a letter dated 9th October 1808 to War Minister Lord Castlereagh Moore had
stated that “....when the troops will be able to move forward or enter Spain it is
impossible, at this moment, for me to say; it depends on the knowledge of a
country which I am still without.” 5
This statement about his lack of geographic information clearly underlines the
frustrations he suffered in planning his initial Orders of March. Complaining
about the Portuguese army lack of knowledge of their own country he finally
decided to split his army into four columns and believing – incorrectly - that the
roads of the first three columns were unsuitable sent his artillery and some of
the cavalry under General Sir John Hope on a long and unnecessary circuitous
trail almost to Madrid before ordering them to join him in Salamanca. Without
the resulting delay in the arrival of this column Moore would almost certainly
have had time to defeat Soult before Napoleon’s reinforcements arrived on the
scene: an excellent example of failure in route planning leading to failure in
military objectives.
There has been much debate among military historians about the reasons for
this mistake. Oman’s comments about the lack of geographical knowledge of
their own countries by the Portuguese and Spanish military and governments is
repeated time and again by many historians giving the impression that the
Portuguese and Spanish military hardly had any maps at all but this is
manifestly incorrect. In Portugal, itineraries and frontier maps were an
established military engineer exercise and many maps still exist though with
variable accuracy.
For example, the following Portuguese frontier map was drawn by military
engineer Luis Furtado in 1797 and covers the approximately 100 kilometre
frontier with Spain between the Rivers Tejo [Tagus] and Guadiana. The detail
shows the town of Arronches with its approach roads, rivers and relief as well
as atalayas or watch towers. The map has an average error of about 6% in
distance accuracy and the scale of approximately 1: 62 000 allows great detail

5Quoted in Moore, James “A Narrative of the British Army in Spain commanded by his
Excellency Lt.-General Sir John Moore KCB” London, Johnstone 1809. [James Moore was
brother to Sir John and wrote this book in response to criticism about his brother’s command]

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of the surrounding country. Arronches and other nearby towns were
cantonments for Hope’s army before entering Spain and the map would
certainly have been of use to him but there is no evidence that he had
possession of it. 6

Fig. 4: Detail from the frontier map “Reconhecimiento Militar feito na Frontera do
Alemtejo feito em 1797” by Luis Furtado. (Reproduced with permission of the Direcçao
de Infra-Estructuras do Exercito, Lisbon, 498-1-4-7).

If this map and others like them had been produced before the war why
shouldn’t they have been available to the British ally? One possibility is that
many were included with the manuscript sheets of the National Map that had
been taken to Brazil by the fleeing Bourbon monarchy just before the arrival of
the invading French army in November 1807. In the case of those left behind
many were probably sequestered by the French when they sacked the
Portuguese Engineer’s headquarters. 7 More maps and itineraries were made by
the Portuguese under supervision of the French during 1808 and early 1809 but
as the terms of the Cintra agreement after Wellington’s victory at Vimeiro
allowed Junot’s army to return to France with all their belongings much of this
cartographic treasure probably finished up in the Paris Dépôt de la Guerre. Sir
John Moore’s “vain search for maps” as Oman puts it was not due therefore to
lack of previous Portuguese military cartographic productions but their
disappearance. Still, even if the maps weren’t physically available, many of the

6 Arronches was occupied by the 60th regiment. See “Table of the movement of the troops

under Lieutenant General Sir John Moore” National Library of Scotland, Murray Achives 46.1.22
folio 156
7 Dias, Prof. Mª Helena “Portugal em Vésperas das Invasoes Francesas. Conhocimiento

Geográfico & Cofiguraçoes” Lisbon Exhibition organised by the Centro de Estudios Geograficos
da Universidade de Lisboa, the Direcçao de Infra-estructuras do Exercito and the Instituto
Geografico do Exército, 2007

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officers who had produced them were still on active service and surely they
should have been able to drawn suitable simple route maps and give advice to
Moore based on memory. Possibly Moore’s contacts with the Portuguese
military were limited to the aristocratic and largely unprofessional generals
rather than with the practical and useful engineers. This raises, not for the first
time in this paper the question of relations between commanders and engineers
within armies.
Could Moore and Murray hope for more fruitful cartographic collaboration from
their Spanish ally? The Spanish government had appointed a Col. López (not a
known relation to Tomás López) as liaison officer for Moore but the only proof of
assistance in route planning found by the author is an itinerary listing of
locations and distances for the planned march of Hope’s division. 8
Spain too had a long history of military cartography but little if any seems to
have arrived at Moore’s headquarters. For example a magnificent road map
between Madrid and the Portuguese frontier town of Elvas was produced by
Spanish military engineers in the 1770s and measures 190 x 56 cm. with a
scale of just over 3 miles to 1 inch. Its main purpose is to show the Spanish
section of the new post road linking Madrid and Lisbon.

Fig. 5: Detail from the “Mapa General.…de la Carretera de Estremadura….” showing

the new post Road from Madrid to Badajoz constructed c.1770. (Reproduced with
permission of the Centro Geográfico del Ejercito, Madrid , Ar.E.-T.10-C-13)

The detail shows the bridge at Almaraz together with its toll house where the
road swings SW away from the River Tajo as already described above. Besides

8“Itinerario desde Badajoz a Burgos pasando por Talavera de la Reyna, Guadarrama y

Valadolid [sic]” National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Murray Archive MS 46.1.22 p. 295

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the road and rivers the map locates towns and villages, distinguishes bridges
from fords and illustrates both hills and wooded areas. Distances between
towns are given as a side panel. Despite its civil purpose the map would have
been ideal for facilitating army movements and clearly much better than the
small scale commercial post road maps and obviously much more useful to
Murray and Hope than the simple listing provided by Col. López.
It has proved impossible to locate the whereabouts of this map in 1808 but
Spain did not have a centralised military depot until 1810. Like the map of the
Tajo route which Cafalla failed to bring with him, military maps would normally
have been held in the corresponding provincial engineer’s depot where they
were drawn, but to quote Miquel Alonso Baquer, one of Spain’s leading
historians of military cartography “....the generals for infantry, cavalry and
artillery didn’t usually count on the military engineer for the planning of
operations though they could use his services for their execution.” 9
Once again we seem to be faced with a vacuum between engineers and army
commanders which probably left Col. López as equally poorly provided with
maps as General Cafalla.
There is little evidence in the archives that Sir George Murray spent much time
on map making during the early period of the war. To some extent the army’s
lack of maps was improved when Moore reached Salamanca in November
1808 where a new map of Spain and Portugal published by John Stockdale of
London on 30th September 1808 finally caught up with him. The full map
measured 96 x 123 cm and was issued both as a single sheet and in atlas
format with nine partial maps. The map is a direct copy of that produced in Paris
by the geographer Edme Mentelle published by Chanlaire in 1799 in Paris and
which in its turn was largely copied from López.The small scale and very
incorrect representation of relief make the map a poor document for route
planning but the urgency of movement and the atrocious weather conditions
would have rendered reconnaissance all but impossible. Moore probably also
received around the same time a rare example of early QMG mapping in the
Peninsular War: an exceptionally good reconnaissance map of the rivers Coa
and Agueda which had been drawn by Captains Charles Pierrepoint and
Benjamin D’Urban, the latter to become the Quartermaster General for the
Portuguese Army, but completed only after Moore’s columns had passed
through the territory and thus too late to be of use. 10
The QMG Department however did make good use of the British freedom of
movement to undertake numerous reconnaissance reports. Here are some
extracts from typical reconnaissance reports sent to Lt. Colonel James
Bathhurst, the QMG officer appointed to General Baird after landing at La
Coruña

9 Alonso Baquer, Miguel “Aportación Militar a la Cartografía Española en la Historia

Contemporánea” Madrid, Instituto de Geografía Aplicada, 1972 p.17. [Author’s translation]
10 In his memoirs D’Urban says that General Robert Anstruther who had been sent ahead of the

columns issued the orders for the survey intended to show areas for cantonment on 18th
November and the completed map was presented on 3rd December 1808.

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 Extracts from Reconnaissance Reports
Capt. Algernon Langton of the QMG Department: report on the road from
Santiago to Orense, 3rd November 1808 11
“At the foot of the hill there is a road paved with large stones, very rough; at half
a mile the road to Puente Ledesma turns to the left, becomes very narrow with
steep hills composed of rock or badly paved with very large stones….
…the road turns to the right…. and crosses a bridge composed of stone piers
with timber laid across, and in bad repair and of the same width as the road, of
course impassible but for the cars of the country.
…Indian corn, rye, and a small quantity of wheat are their general crops, a
small quantity of each may be procured in every village, but at the fair held at La
Chapa the fourteenth of every month, every sort of produce is exposed to sale,
and a considerable supply may be procured at this place…
At the several stages of Puente Ledesma, Jose de Deza, Getta, and Cea one
thousand men may be lodged on the march, there being many villages in the
vicinity of each which together could contain a greater number.”
Capt. Henry D’Oyly, 1st Guards: from Mombuey, 26th & 27th Nov. 1808 12
“….Amongst many contradictory accounts it is difficult to arrive at the exact
truth but it appears certain that the French have not advanced farther this way
than Mayoga…
…there is a ferry over the river Tera: over this cavalry might pass but not
artillery; close to it there is a ford [suitable for] artillery as it is not above a foot
and a half in depth, but sometimes in rainy weather is not passable.
From muleteers arrived from Zamora I learn that an English officer was there
making arrangements for quarters and rations…. I am going to send a
messenger there to inform Sir John Moore of my being here, and that I have
dragoons ready to carry dispatches from him to Sir David Baird……”
Although purely descriptive reporting fails to transmit a good sense of spatial
relationships, it can be readily appreciated that this type of information inflow
was far more detailed than anything that could be obtained from a map. The
archives reveal that Bathurst was receiving a substantial inflow of
reconnaissance reports in this period, but as Oman remarks it is a mystery why
similar dispatches either weren’t sent by General Ansthruther to Moore and
Murray from his forward position at Almeida or if they were, why they were
ignored.

11 Langton, Capt. Algernon Report on the Roads from Santiago to Orense, MS dated 3rd
November 1808 National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Murray Archive MS 46.1.23. p.7-8
12 D’Oyley, Capt. Henry Reports from Outpost at Monbuey MS dated 26th November 1808

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Murray Archive MS 46.1.23 p. 225

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Massena’s Invasion of Portugal 1810
In spring 1810 another French army at Ciudad Rodrigo was about to enter
Portugal this time led by Napoleon’s highly trusted, but now aging Marshal
André Masséna (1758 – 1817).
Following the near disaster of Junot’s earlier invasion and perhaps because of
it, Napoleon created a Bureau Topographique for Spain in February 1808
staffed by a highly trained corps of surveyors known as the Ingénieurs
Géographiques. Their first task had been to survey the great post road between
Irun on the French frontier and Madrid so as to maintain control of
communications with Paris. One of the major difficulties on this route, used by
Masséna, was the 4 kilometre long defile at Pancorbo which when travelling
south led from the Basque country to the Castilian meseta. The collapsed
caverns of subterranean rivers in limestone country are similar geologically to
Cheddar Gorge in England and Pancorbo presented an excellent site for
guerrilla raids on French detachments so a careful survey was made of the
area. With a scale of 1: 10 000 and very accurate measurements, we can
appreciate just how much detail it showed, especially those parts of the road
which ran directly under the well-illustrated steep sided cliffs. The chemin pour
artillerie for the guns to be placed at the protecting fort above the town is clearly
distinguished from the chemin de mullets (path for mules).

Fig. 6: Detail from the “Plan topographique du défilé de Pancorbo” surveyed and
drawn by the French Ingenieurs Géografiques in 1808 (Reproduced with permission of
the Centro Geográfico del Ejército Madrid Ar.M-T.1-C.4-47(2))

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During their time in Spain and Portugal the Ingénieurs Géographiques
completed over 600 maps and plans of the highest quality though they seem to
have been remitted directly to the Depôt de la Guerre in Paris rather than to the
field commanders. 13
We should therefore expect Masséna to have been well equipped with maps,
especially as his first aide-de-camp Jean Jacques Pelet was a mathematician
and a trained surveyor. Amazing as it may seem however the only cartography
this army had available was King Joseph’s personal copy of López’s 1804 Atlas
and some notes from Thiérbault. The reason given by Pelet contrasts again with
the usually good impression of Napoleonic cartographic organisation and usage
when he claims that the all important French map depositary “withheld” these
maps. 14 Rauben has suggested in his 1989 conference paper that the Paris
Depôt didn’t have time to get them copied and feared the capture of the
originals. 15 In any event yet again there is an apparent lack of cooperation
between engineers and an army commander.
So, by studying his López map Masséna decided to take the conventional route
down the Mondego valley and reach Lisbon via Coimbra. Lopez’s distance
errors usually average around 10% compared to modern maps but with a very
wide range. His maps of Portugal are, perhaps understandably, less reliable
than those of his native Spain and in this particular case his location of the
Buçaco [Bussaco] ridge is totally misplaced being shown as a separate sierra
from that of the Alcoba rather than as a central part of the latter thus adding
further confusion to Massena’s planning.
Lacking the ability to make much forward reconnaissance compounded by the
errors on Lopez´s map and contradictory information from the local population
he was unaware of the real nature of the country in front of him as well as
Wellington’s unassailable position on the ridge of Buçaco where he lost heavily
in the ensuing battle (27th September 1810).
The illustration is taken from the very same López Atlas which Masséna used
and in which he traced his routes in red pencil – this is a rare and very welcome
proof of military use of maps. The Atlas was captured by the British at the battle
of Vitoria in 1813 and is now in the McClay Library of Belfast University.

13 De Villéle, Marie-Anne “Acerca del trabajo cartográfico de los oficiales franceses en España

1808 -14” in “Madrid 1808 Guerra y Territorio” Madrid, Museo de la Historia, Exhibition
catalogue with the same title, 2008 p.28
14 Pelet, Jean Jacques “The French Campaign in Portugal 1810 -11”. Translated by Donald

Horward University of Minnisota, 1973 p. 135

15 Rauben,Charles “Military Topographical Reconnaissance in Portugal, 1810” in conference

papers “New Light son the Peninsular War. International Congress on the Iberian Peninsula.
Selected papers.” Lisbon, The British Historical Society of Portugal, 1991 pp. 165 - 177

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 Fig. 7: Detail from López’s Map of Portugal (1782) included in the “Atlas Geográfico de
España” published posthumously by his sons in 1804. This illustration is taken from
the same copy that Masséna used and his thin red pencil lines can be clearly seen.
(Reproduced with permission of the McClay Library, Belfast University)

We can appreciate on this map Masséna’s choice to follow a route north of the
river Mondego although the roads to the south leading directly to Coimbra were
definitely better. By 1810 Murray and his team were dedicating more and more
time to reconnaissance and mapping and their knowledge of the geography of
the Mondego valley and Buçaco was far superior to that of the French as
demonstrated by Wellington’s well known comment that “...there are certainly
many bad roads in Portugal, but the enemy has decidedly taken the worst in the
whole kingdom.”
Interestingly Massena’s red line stops at Montagoa (shown on Lopez’s map as
Martigao) where he established his headquarters before the battle but fails to
show the route the French followed on the night of 28-29th September after the
battle. However López indicates correctly the path they finally followed via
Avelans de Cima and Avelans de Caminho (near to the Boialvo frequently
referred to in French accounts but not shown on this map) while Massena’s red
pencil only starts again at Pedrera which he reached on the 30th. This lack of
continuity can only confirm the confusion that is reported to have existed about
the choice of route for their retreat.

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Massena’s invasion of Portugal is an excellent example of poor route planning
due to insufficient and inaccurate maps and the inability (due to enemy
presence) to be able to undertake adequate reconnaissance, deficiencies which
did not occur in the British army and clearly contributed to their victory.

Wellington’s 1813 Route to Victory at Vitoria.

Reporting to a military commission referring to his 1813 campaign the Duke of
Wellington stated that “I have always thought that I could have gone anywhere
and done anything with this army. It was impossible to have a machine more
highly mounted and in better order”. 16
That “he could have taken his army anywhere” contrasts strongly with Moore’s
desperation at his lack of “knowledge about the country I am about to enter”
four years earlier. This positive change in British route planning capability was
never better evidenced than in Murray’s Orders of March for Wellington’s
audacious flanking movement against the French army in 1813 which
culminated in the great victory at Vitoria. After criticism of poor quartermaster
administration in Moore’s campaign Murray had steadily grown to become
Wellington’s most trusted staff officer. 17 Although the British cartographic
training and technical standards of RSC and QMG officers were not as high as
those of the French engineers – or those of their Spanish and Portuguese allies
- they had the advantage that topography and reconnaissance were directly
under the same person responsible for route planning and consequently better
advantage was taken of the work done than appears to have been the case in
the other armies. It is obvious that the rough sketches of the British were put to
good use than the magnificent French maps that laid idle in the Paris depot.
Leaving their winter cantonments in May, the movement was so organised that
one division with Wellington at its head followed the usual northern route from
Portugal into Spain via Salamanca. The French, reduced by troop transfers
following Napoleon’s defeat in Russia the previous year were alarmed and
retreating but initially totally unaware that the main allied army had already
crossed the Duero River after marching through the little known and difficult
country of north east Portugal and concentrating at Carvajales. Subsequently
the allied army including a Spanish Division marched north of the Duero and
even crossed the upper Ebro River bringing King Joseph to battle at Vitoria in
June.
Murray had done his homework well by organising numerous reconnaissance
reports and sketch maps during the early spring of the route through Tras-os-
Montes as far as the River Esla.

16 Quoted by Graves, D.E. “British Military Discipline in the Napoleonic Period” Napoleon Series,

2009 Accessed 6th November 2015.

17 Ward, Stephen “Wellington’s Headquarters. A study in administrative problems in the

Peninsula 1808 – 1814” Oxford University Press, 1954

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 Fig. 8: The first of a three page report titled “Report on the roads leading from Regoa
[sic] and Vila Real across the higher reaches of the Tua river in the direction of
Braganza” by QMG Captain Philip Bainbrigge, April 1813. (Reproduced with the
permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, Murray Archives MS
46.02.16 folios 36 – 37).

In Fig. 8 we see an excellent example of a three page reconnaissance report

including a sketch map by a QMG officer which also clearly suggests the
urgency in its commission. The map shows the roads from the Douro [Duero]

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River crossing at Peso da Regua to just south west of Braganza which later
became the route that was followed by Wellington’s 1st and 5th divisions.
Included are statistics on distances in leagues along alternative routes and
billeting capacity in each village. The report analyses the suitability of roads and
bridges for artillery, the forms of river crossing and comments on food and
forage availability as well as indicating a pine forest bivouac area near Vila
Nova for 5,000 troops. The map can’t be said to be particularly elegant or even
very accurate but together with the report it displays all the essential information
that Murray needed.
In 1813 Wellington was not only commander of the Anglo-Portuguese army but
had been appointed commander of the Spanish armies as well. A Spanish
Division under General Girón therefore participated in this campaign and it is
possible that the March 1813 date and the subject of a Spanish engineer’s map
of the approximately 100 kilometre course of the river Duero between its
junctions with the rivers Esla and Pisuegra was produced at the request of
Murray. It is a natural continuation of Murray’s maps and the engineer who
produced it was based in Zamora.

Fig. 9: Detail from a Spanish military engineer’s “Mapa geográfico en que se manifiesta
el curso del Rio Duero desde la confluencia del Rio Esla hasta Valladolid”
(Reproduced with permission of the Centro Geográfico del Ejército, Madrid Ar.E-T-C2-
332 bis)
The map with a scale of 1: 220,000 gives vital information about river crossings,
distinguishing maintained from broken bridges, ferries and fords. In the detail
we can see the ford at Almendra where Wellington decided to construct his
pontoon bridge after several men had been drowned in the swollen river. Like
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all the Spanish military maps, and unlike many of the British, it makes a clear
statement of the title, exact date (18th of March, 1813) and cartographer
(Manuel Sipos, Master in Fortifications).
It is a good example of the high standard of the multitude of Spanish military
maps produced during the war, but the author must repeat that although highly
appropriate to Wellington’s plans he has found no evidence that it, or a copy
was ever in the possession of the British Army. Indeed there is little evidence of
cartographic collaboration between the Spanish and British Armies at any time
during the war in contrast to collaboration in naval hydrography, but that is
another story.
Conclusions
Manoeuvres were a key element in the Peninsular War campaign successes
and failures but despite the popular picture of generals intently studying maps,
cartography appears to have played a limited role in route planning.
Reconnaissance was a far better tool for making available correct and detailed
information for movement plans though obviously better still if accompanied by
a sketch map.
Pre-war commercial maps though widely used were of limited content for the
job in hand and their variable reliability could lead to disastrous decisions.
Military maps, both pre-war and war-time on the other hand could offer useful
and some accurate detail but many appear to have remained captive in military
depots or otherwise “lost” rather than being made available to commanders,
especially in the case of France, Spain and Portugal. In the case of Britain
reconnaissance mapping only appears to have become a regular exercise from
about 1810 onwards with the advantage that it was the responsibility of the
Quartermaster General and hence used to great advantage in route planning.
These maps did not need to be a work of great cartographic technicality or
draughtsmanship which could result in time consuming spurious quality when
urgency and approximation were the order of the day.

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