Streets Sewn with Bodies

The French found themselves stuck in the campaign for the Iberian Peninsula - fighting insurgents and the British/Portuguesse Army. No way of winning, no way to pull out without a strategic defeat that might well threaten France itself.. Kind of does sound familiar...
"For a month Massena kept his army outside the Lines, while his men swept the countryside for any provisions they could find. The army then retreated 25 miles to a strong position and continued to forage for food. Portuguese militia and ordenança unmercifully harassed French foraging parties, killing stragglers and cutting Massena’s communications with Spain. Massena managed to get a pessimistic report to Paris in November, but orders came back from Napoleon for him to hold on. Meanwhile, Massena’s men battled hunger by rooting out hidden provisions stored by the peasants, using torture and murder if necessary to get them to reveal their meager caches.

By January 1, 1811, Massena had almost 20,000 fewer men than when he invaded Portugal, giving him a mere 46,600 functional soldiers. He was losing an additional 500 men a week to hunger, sickness, and Portuguese guerrillas. With no help coming from Marshal Nicolas Soult’s army in southern Spain, which was besieging the Spanish fortress of Badajoz, Massena ordered preparations for a retreat in late February. The army was issued 15 days’ worth of biscuits, with orders not to eat them until the retreat began. Some units near starvation could not wait. On March 4, Massena’s army began its retreat.

A trail of horror and death was left by the French in their retreat. “Nothing can exceed the devastation and cruelties committed by the enemy during his retreat: he has set fire to all the villages and murdered all the peasantry for leagues on each flank of his march,” commented Maj. Gen. Thomas Picton, commander of the British 3rd Division. On March 11, Wellington’s crack Light Division, made up of the 43rd and 52nd Light Infantry, the green-coated soldiers of the 95th Rifles, and the 1st and 3rd Caçadores (Portugese light infantry), came into contact with the French VI Corps under Marshal Michel Ney, who was directing Massena’s rear guard defense at Pombal. For the next five days, the two contingents battled each other sporadically while the French retreat continued."