PLEnlist

Battle of Bussaco, 1810: Wellington's ridge stops Masséna

Peninsular War · 27 September 1810 · Britain and Portugal vs France · ~10 min read · Updated October 2026

Next anniversary: 27 September 2027, the 217th anniversary 27 September in history ›

By

Early nineteenth-century engraving of a battle on a mountain slope: cavalry and infantry clash in the foreground among fallen men and horses, columns of troops climb the hills behind, and clouds of gunsmoke rise under a broad sky.

Niccolò Schiavonetti after H. L'Evêque, The Battle of Bussaco, engraving (London, 1813), Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

At a glance

Britain and PortugalViscount Wellington; Marshal William Beresford; Thomas Picton; Robert Craufurd
vs
France (Army of Portugal)Marshal André Masséna; Marshal Michel Ney; Jean Reynier
Date
27 September 1810
Location
Serra do Buçaco, north of Coimbra (Portugal)
War
Peninsular War
Strength
52,000 British and Portuguese, about half of them Portuguese; Masséna's army began the invasion 65,000 strong by Charles Oman's count, 62,000 by John Rickard's
Losses
French 4,498 by their own return (522 killed, 3,612 wounded, 364 missing), about 4,600 in Oman's estimate; allies 1,252 (200 killed, 1,001 wounded, 51 missing)
Outcome
Allied defensive victory; Wellington later outflanked and falls back to the Lines of Torres Vedras
Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Bussaco?

On 27 September 1810, during Marshal Masséna's invasion of Portugal, the French Army of Portugal attacked Wellington's British and Portuguese army on the long, steep ridge of Bussaco north of Coimbra. Reynier's corps reached the crest in the morning mist but was thrown back by bayonet charges, and Ney's columns were broken by the hidden Light Division and by Portuguese battalions. The French lost about 4,500 men to the allies' 1,252. Masséna then marched around the ridge, and Wellington fell back, as planned, to the Lines of Torres Vedras.1

The French came up the mountain with astonishing power and resolution, wrote William Napier, the historian of the war, and in two places they reached the top. Each time a line of red coats, or of Portuguese blue, rose out of the heather and threw them back down the slope. In Charles Oman's judgment it was the position, not any superiority of numbers, that beat them.2

Dark locator map of central Portugal and western Spain with the Atlantic coast on the left, the Mondego and Tagus rivers, a gold star in a glowing circle north of the Mondego near the coast, and a small world map inset with the area boxed
The ridge of Bussaco lies north of the Mondego in central Portugal, across the road from the Spanish frontier to Coimbra and on toward Lisbon. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

Background: Masséna's invasion of Portugal

By 1810 Wellington's British army had been fighting in Portugal and Spain for two years, and after Talavera in 1809 it had fallen back into Portugal. Napoleon now sent Marshal André Masséna with the Army of Portugal to drive the British into the sea. It began the invasion 65,000 strong by Oman's count, 62,000 by Rickard's, in three corps under Reynier, Ney and Junot.3

Engraved portrait of a curly-haired French marshal in a dark coat with an embroidered collar, with the name Masséna beneath
Marshal André Masséna, whom Napoleon sent in 1810 to drive the British out of Portugal, in a nineteenth-century steel engraving by Carl Mayer of Nuremberg. Public domain (CC0). Carl Mayer, steel engraving, between 1808 and 1868, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1920-1753, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wellington did not mean to fight a decisive battle on the frontier. North of Lisbon he had built the fortified Lines of Torres Vedras, and his plan was to fall back behind them, strip the country of food and let hunger defeat the French in front of them.4

That summer the French took the two frontier fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain and Almeida in Portugal, where the main powder magazine blew up during the siege and the town surrendered. At the start of September Masséna crossed into Portugal, and Wellington gave up his forward position at Guarda and fell back down the valley of the Mondego.5

Wellington expected the French to follow the good road on the south bank of the river, where he had prepared positions on the Alva. Instead, on 17 September they began to cross to the north bank, onto a road that Wellington called decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom. That road crossed the ridge of Bussaco, one of the best natural positions in the whole Peninsula, and he chose to stand there.6

Armies and commanders

The Serra do Buçaco runs northwest from the Mondego as a single continuous line of heights, covered with heather and broken by granite outcrops, its face steep and cut by gullies. Near the convent of Bussaco, which stood in a walled wood on the reverse slope, the main road to Coimbra climbed a spur to the crest. The allied line was some nine miles long, a vast front for the troops Wellington had.7

He had 52,000 men on the ridge, about half of them Portuguese. The Portuguese army had been rebuilt under Marshal William Beresford and his British officers and had not yet fought a great battle. Wellington kept most of his troops out of sight behind the crest, and along the top, or a little below it on the reverse side, ran tracks on which he could shift battalions from one threatened point to another unseen.8

Reynier's and Ney's corps reached the foot of the ridge on 25 September. Both commanders were eager to attack, but Masséna stayed in the rear and only came up to look at the position in the afternoon of the next day, by which time Wellington had his whole army on the heights.9

The French commanders misjudged what lay before them. Ney, scouting the ridge on 26 September, thought he faced only a rearguard, and Masséna did not realize how far the allied line extended. His plan was for Reynier's 2nd Corps to climb the ridge by the pass above San Antonio de Cantaro, and for Ney's 6th Corps to attack along the main road once Reynier was on the crest. Junot's 8th Corps stayed in reserve.10

Hand-colored engraved plan of a long mountain ridge running from top to bottom, with the walled convent of Busaco at upper left, the Mondego river along the bottom, small red, blue and green blocks marking the positions of the British, Portuguese and French brigades, and a numbered list of references on the right
The battlefield as an engineer officer mapped it: the ridge runs from the Mondego (bottom) to the convent of Busaco (upper left), with the allied brigades in red and blue along the crest and the French corps in green in the valley below. The dotted lines mark the French columns of attack, and the road at upper right is the one by which the French turned the position after the battle. After Col. George Thomas Landmann, Plan of the Battle of Busaco, 27th September 1810, published by Cadell and Davies, 1818, British Museum 1982,U.739. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The battle in phases

Reynier in the mist. The dawn of 27 September was misty, and it hid the first French movements from the defenders. Reynier's columns came up so fast that within half an hour they were close to the summit. Heudelet's leading regiment, the 31st Léger, was stopped by artillery and by the British 74th and the Portuguese 21st, but Merle's division, drifting to its left in the mist, reached the crest where the line was thin and broke the Portuguese 8th.11

The 88th charges. Lieutenant Colonel John Wallace of the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, saw the danger. With a wing of the 45th and the help of the Portuguese 8th, his regiment charged the French as they reached the top, still winded from the climb, and drove them back down the hill in a mass that left a trail of dead to the bottom of the valley. Wellington and Picton both praised the charge.12

Colored aquatint of a battle on a hillside: British infantry in red coats with a Union flag charge from the left into French infantry in blue coats coming up the slope, an officer on horseback waving his hat between them, smoke drifting over the ridge and mountains behind
Reynier's attack on the 3rd Division above San Antonio de Cantaro, with the 88th Foot making its charge, as drawn by an officer who served in the campaign, Major Thomas Staunton St Clair. Charles Turner after Thomas Staunton St Clair, Battle of Sierra de Basaco above St. Antonio de Cantaro, aquatint, Yale Center for British Art B1978.43.1025. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Foy and the 9th. Reynier sent in a second column, Foy's brigade, which won a foothold among the rocks on the crest. But General Leith, seeing no attack on his own front, had marched his division along the back of the ridge, and Colonel Cameron with the 9th Foot formed line under fire and drove the French off the summit at the point of the bayonet. Merle and Foy were both wounded.13

Ney and the hollow road. When the lifting mist showed Merle's men on the crest, Ney sent in his attack. Loison's division climbed toward Craufurd's Light Division, first fighting its way through a screen of British riflemen and Portuguese Caçadores, then making for the guns on the summit. Out of sight in a hollow stretch of road lay the 43rd and 52nd, about 1,800 bayonets.14

Craufurd waited until the French were almost at the top, then ordered the two regiments to charge. They rose over the brow and fired at a few yards' range, and companies wheeled in on both flanks of the French columns. The heads of the columns were shattered and the whole division broke and fled down the hill. Loison lost about 1,200 of the 6,500 men in his attack, and his brigadier, General Simon, was wounded and taken prisoner.15

Watercolor of a crowded hand-to-hand fight on a rocky hillside: infantry in blue coats with shakos and backpacks push down the slope into French grenadiers in tall bearskins, with dead and wounded men among the rocks and a hazy valley beyond
The Portuguese view of the battle: Alfredo Roque Gameiro painted it for Quadros da História de Portugal in 1917, showing Portuguese infantry in their blue coats driving the French down the rocky slope. Alfredo Roque Gameiro, Batalha do Buçaco, from Quadros da História de Portugal, 1917. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Marchand and Pack. On the other side of the ravine, Marchand's division advanced along the main road under fire from three batteries, turned aside to drive Portuguese light troops out of a pine wood and then fought a musketry duel with Pack's Portuguese brigade, which beat off every attempt to storm the slope. Seeing Loison routed and Reynier out of action, Ney called off the attack.16

Turning point: the ridge holds

By early afternoon the fighting had died down. Masséna still had fresh troops, Mermet's division and Junot's whole corps, but he could now see Wellington's army concentrated at the points that had been attacked, and he would not throw away more lives against a ridge that, as Napier put it, he now found impregnable.17

The French return gave 4,498 casualties: 522 killed, 3,612 wounded and 364 missing. Oman, adding the units the return left out, puts the loss at about 4,600, and Napier at about 4,500. The allies lost 1,252, and by a remarkable coincidence exactly 626 of them were British and 626 Portuguese.18

Aftermath

Masséna found another way. His cavalry discovered a road some nine miles to the north that crossed the mountains to Boialva and turned the allied left, and on 28 September the French marched round the ridge. Wellington, as he had always intended, resumed his retreat.19

In October the allies filed into the Lines of Torres Vedras. There Masséna found them in an even stronger position, too strong to attack, and his invasion came to a halt in front of the Lines.20

Legacy and memory

The most lasting result of Bussaco was trust. The Portuguese had done their full share of the fighting, as the casualty lists showed, and Pack's brigade and the Caçadores of the Light Division won the highest praise from their commanders. In Oman's words, Wellington now knew exactly how far he could rely on them, and for the rest of the war Portuguese brigades fought in his divisions alongside the British.21

For the British regiments the battle became a point of pride. The National Army Museum notes that the 88th, a regiment Picton had once mocked for its indiscipline, won its reputation at Bussaco under Wallace. Napier, who wrote the most famous history of the war, put the French defeat down to their trying to win by sheer daring rather than by fire against troops on such ground.22

Visiting today

The ridge rises above the town of Luso, north of Coimbra. Near the battlefield stands the Military Museum of Buçaco, devoted to the battle and to the Anglo-Portuguese army of the Peninsular War, with weapons, uniforms and equipment of the period.23

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

  1. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  2. William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”. ↩
  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Peninsular War”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”. ↩
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Peninsular War”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”. ↩
  5. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  6. John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  7. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  8. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  9. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  10. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  11. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  12. National Army Museum, “General Sir John Alexander Wallace”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  13. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  14. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  15. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  16. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  17. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  18. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  19. William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”. ↩
  20. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Peninsular War”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”; Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”. ↩
  21. Charles Oman, “A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. III”; John Rickard, “Battle of Bussaco, 27 September 1810”. ↩
  22. National Army Museum, “General Sir John Alexander Wallace”; William F. P. Napier, “History of the War in the Peninsula, vol. 3”. ↩
  23. Turismo Centro de Portugal, “Military Museum of Buçaco”; Rota da Bairrada, “Museu Militar do Buçaco”. ↩

Sources

Frequently asked questions

When was the Battle of Bussaco?

On 27 September 1810, on the ridge of the Serra do Buçaco north of Coimbra in central Portugal, during the Peninsular War.

Who won the Battle of Bussaco?

Wellington's British and Portuguese army, which beat off every French attack. Masséna then marched around the ridge, and Wellington continued his planned retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras.

Why did the French attack fail at Bussaco?

The ridge was steep and high, Wellington kept his troops hidden behind the crest and could move them along it unseen, and the French commanders misjudged the strength and extent of his line.

How many men were lost at Bussaco?

The French return gave 4,498 killed, wounded and missing, and Charles Oman estimates about 4,600. The British and Portuguese lost 1,252, exactly 626 each.

What did the 88th Foot do at Bussaco?

When Merle's French division reached the crest, the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, under Lieutenant Colonel John Wallace, charged it with a wing of the 45th and the Portuguese 8th and drove it back down the mountain.

How did the Light Division beat Ney at Bussaco?

Craufurd hid the 43rd and 52nd in a hollow road below the crest. When Loison's columns were almost at the top, the two regiments rose, fired at a few yards' range and charged, and the French broke.

Why was Bussaco important for Portugal?

The Portuguese battalions retrained under Beresford fought as well as the British, with 626 casualties each, which convinced Wellington that he could rely on them.

Battle honors of your homeland

The turning points of history

Marathon, Gaugamela, Cannae, Constantinople, Waterloo, Stalingrad: the days the world changed course.

The Battle of Marathon, 490 BCThe Battle of Gaugamela, 331 BCThe Battle of Cannae, 216 BCThe Fall of Constantinople, 1453The Battle of Waterloo, 1815The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942-1943

Based on your country, which we do not store · why? ·

Hold the crest above the fog

Echoes of Battle brings the great battles of history to life, scene by scene on the real map. Enlist below and we will send word to your inbox the day it launches.

Or supply the campaign on Ko-fi ›