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Title: History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1 of 6
Author: Napier, William Francis Patrick
Language: English
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PENINSULA, VOL. 1 OF 6. ***
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HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA
AND IN THE
SOUTH OF FRANCE,
FROM THE YEAR 1807 TO THE YEAR 1814.
BY
W. F. P. NAPIER, C. B.
LT. COLONEL H. P. FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
MDCCCXXVIII.
TO
FIELD-MARSHAL
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
This History I dedicate to your Grace, because I have served long
enough under your command to feel, why the Soldiers of the Tenth
Legion were attached to Cæsar.
W. F. P. NAPIER.
PREFACE.
For six years the Peninsula was devastated by the war of
independence. The blood of France, Germany, England, Portugal, and
Spain, was shed in the contest; and in each of those countries,
authors, desirous of recording the sufferings, or celebrating the
valour of their countrymen, have written largely touching that
fierce struggle. It may therefore happen that some will demand, why
I should again relate “a thrice-told tale?” I answer, that two men
observing the same object, will describe it diversely, following
the point of view from which either beholds it. That which in the
eyes of one is a fair prospect, to the other shall appear a barren
waste, and yet neither may see aright! Wherefore, truth being the
legitimate object of history, I hold it better that she should be
sought for by many than by few, lest, for want of seekers, amongst
the mists of prejudice and the false lights of interest, she be
lost altogether.
That much injustice has been done, and much justice left undone,
by those authors who have hitherto written concerning this war, I
can assert from personal knowledge of the facts. That I have been
able to remedy this without falling into similar errors, is more
than I will venture to assume; but I have endeavoured to render
as impartial an account of the campaigns in the Peninsula as the
feelings which must warp the judgment of a contemporary historian
will permit.
I was an eye-witness to many of the transactions that I relate; and
a wide acquaintance with military men has enabled me to consult
distinguished officers, both French and English, and to correct
my own recollections and opinions by their superior knowledge.
Thus assisted, I was encouraged to undertake the work, and I offer
it to the world with the less fear because it contains original
documents, which will suffice to give it interest, although it
should have no other merit. Many of those documents I owe to the
liberality of marshal Soult, who, disdaining national prejudices,
with the confidence of a great mind, placed them at my disposal,
without even a remark to check the freedom of my pen. I take this
opportunity to declare that respect which I believe every British
officer who has had the honour to serve against him feels for his
military talents. By those talents the French cause in Spain was
long upheld, and after the battle of Salamanca, if his counsel had
been followed by the intrusive monarch, the fate of the war might
have been changed.
Military operations are so dependent upon accidental circumstances,
that to justify censure it should always be shown that an
unsuccessful general has violated the received maxims and
established principles of war. By that rule I have been guided; but
to preserve the narratives unbroken, my own observations are placed
at the end of certain transactions of magnitude, where their real
source being known they will pass for as much as they are worth,
and no more: when they are not well supported by argument, I freely
surrender them to the judgment of abler men.
Of those transactions which, commencing with “the secret treaty of
Fontainebleau” ended with “the Assembly of Notables” at Bayonne,
little is known except through the exculpatory and contradictory
publications of men interested to conceal the truth; and to me it
appears that the passions of the present generation must subside,
and the ultimate fate of Spain be known, before that part of the
subject can be justly and usefully handled. I have, therefore,
related no more of those political affairs than would suffice to
introduce the military events that followed, neither have I treated
largely of the disjointed and ineffectual operations of the native
armies; for I cared not to swell my work with apocryphal matter,
and neglected the thousand narrow winding currents of Spanish
warfare; to follow that mighty stream of battle which, bearing the
glory of England in its course, burst the barriers of the Pyrenees,
and left deep traces of its fury in the soil of France.
The Spaniards have boldly asserted, and the world has believed,
that the deliverance of the Peninsula was the work of their hands:
this assertion so contrary to the truth I combat. It is unjust to
the fame of the British general, injurious to the glory of the
British arms. Military virtue is not the growth of a day, nor is
there any nation so rich and populous, that, despising it, can rest
secure. The imbecility of Charles IV., the vileness of Ferdinand,
and the corruption of Godoy, were undoubtedly the proximate causes
of the calamities that overwhelmed Spain; but the primary cause,
that which belongs to history, was the despotism arising from the
union of a superstitious court and a sanguinary priesthood, which,
repressing knowledge and contracting the public mind, sapped the
foundation of all military as well as civil virtues, and prepared
the way for invasion. No foreign potentate would have attempted to
steal into the fortresses of a great kingdom, if the prying eyes,
and the thousand clamorous tongues belonging to a free press, were
ready to expose his projects, and a well-disciplined army present
to avenge the insult; but Spain being destitute of both, was
first circumvented by the wiles, and then ravaged by the arms, of
Napoleon. She was deceived and fettered because the public voice
was stifled, but she was scourged and torn because her military
institutions were decayed.
From the moment that an English force took the field, the Spaniards
ceased to act as principals in a contest carried on in the heart
of their country, and involving their existence as an independent
nation; they were self-sufficient, and their pride was wounded
by insult; they were superstitious, and their religious feelings
were roused to fanatic fury by an all-powerful clergy, who feared
to lose their own rich endowments; but after the first burst of
indignation the cause of independence created little enthusiasm.
Horrible barbarities were exercised on those French soldiers
that sickness or the fortune of war exposed to the rage of the
invaded, and a dreadful spirit of personal hatred was kept alive
by the exactions and severe retaliations of the invaders, but no
great and general exertion to drive the latter from the soil was
made, or at least none was sustained with steadfast courage in the
field. Manifestoes, decrees, and lofty boasts, like a cloud of
canvas covering a rotten hull, made a gallant appearance, but real
strength and firmness were nowhere to be found.
The Spanish insurrection presented indeed a strange spectacle;
patriotism was seen supporting a vile system of government; a
popular assembly working for the restoration of a despotic monarch;
the higher classes seeking a foreign master; the lower armed in
the cause of bigotry and misrule. The upstart leaders secretly
abhorring freedom, yet governing in her name, trembled at the
democratic activity they had themselves excited. They called forth
all the bad passions of the multitude, but repressed the patriotism
that would regenerate as well as save. The country suffered the
evils, without enjoying the benefits, of a revolution! Tumults and
assassinations terrified and disgusted the sensible part of the
community; a corrupt administration of the resources extinguished
patriotism, and neglect ruined the armies: the peasant-soldier,
usually flying at the first onset, threw away his arms and returned
to his home, or, attracted by the license of the _partidas_, joined
the banners of men who, for the most part originally robbers,
were as oppressive to the people as the enemy. The _guerilla_
chiefs would, in their turn, have been quickly exterminated, but
that the French, pressed by lord Wellington’s battalions, were
obliged to keep in large masses. This was the secret of Spanish
constancy! Copious supplies from England, and the valour of the
Anglo-Portuguese troops, these were the supports of the war! and
it was the gigantic vigour with which the duke of Wellington
resisted the fierceness of France, and sustained the weakness of
three inefficient cabinets, that delivered the Peninsula. Faults
he committed, and who in war has not? but his reputation stands
upon a sure foundation, a simple majestic structure, that envy
cannot undermine, nor the meretricious ornaments of party panegyric
deform. The exploits of his army were great in themselves, and
great in their consequences: abounding with signal examples of
heroic courage and devoted zeal, they should neither be disfigured
nor forgotten, being worthy of more fame than the world has yet
accorded them--worthy also of a better historian.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1
CHAPTER II.
Dissensions in the Spanish court--Secret treaty and convention
of Fontainebleau--Junot’s army enters Spain--Dupont’s
and Moncey’s corps enter Spain--Duhesme’s corps enters
Catalonia--Insurrections of Aranjuez and Madrid--Charles the
fourth abdicates--Ferdinand proclaimed king--Murat marches to
Madrid--Refuses to recognise Ferdinand as king--The sword of
Francis the first delivered to the French general--Savary arrives
at Madrid--Ferdinand goes to Bayonne--Charles the fourth goes to
Bayonne--The fortresses of St. Sebastian, Figueras, Pampeluna,
and Barcelona, treacherously seized by the French--Riot at
Toledo, 23d April--Tumult at Madrid, 2d of May--Charles the
fourth abdicates a second time in favour of Napoleon--Assembly
of notables at Bayonne--Joseph Buonaparte declared king of
Spain--Arrives at Madrid. 12
CHAPTER III.
Council of Castile refuses to take the oath of
allegiance--Supreme junta established at Seville--Marquis
of Solano murdered at Cadiz, and the Conde d’Aguilar
at Seville--Intercourse between Castaños and sir Hew
Dalrymple--General Spencer and admiral Purvis offer to co-operate
with the Spaniards--Admiral Rossily’s squadron surrenders to
Morla--General insurrection--Massacre at Valencia--Horrible
murder of Filanghieri. 32
CHAPTER IV.
New French corps formed in Navarre--Duhesme fixes himself at
Barcelona--Importance of that city--Napoleon’s military plan and
arrangements. 45
CHAPTER V.
First operations of marshal Bessieres--Spaniards defeated at
Cabeçon, at Segovia, at Logroño, at Torquemada--French take St.
Ander--Lefebre Desnouettes defeats the Spaniards on the Ebro, on
the Huecha, on the Xalon--First siege of Zaragoza--Observations. 62
CHAPTER VI.
Operations in Catalonia--General Swartz marches against the
town of Manresa, and general Chabran against Taragona--French
defeated at Bruch--Chabran recalled--Burns Arbos--Marches
against Bruch--Retreats--Duhesme assaults Gerona--Is repulsed
with loss--Action on the Llobregat--General insurrection
of Catalonia--Figueras blockaded--General Reille relieves
it--First siege of Gerona--The marquis of Palacios arrives in
Catalonia with the Spanish troops from the Balearic isles,
declared captain-general under St. Narcissus, re-establishes
the line of the Llobregat--The count of Caldagues forces the
French lines at Gerona--Duhesme raises the siege and returns
to Barcelona--Observations--Moncey marches against Valencia,
defeats the Spaniards at Pajaso, at the Siete Aguas, and at
Quarte--Attacks Valencia, is repulsed, marches into Murcia,
forces the passage of the Xucar, defeats Serbelloni at San
Felippe, arrives at San Clemente--Insurrection at Cuenca,
quelled by general Caulincourt--Observations 74
CHAPTER VII.
Second operations of Bessieres--Blake’s and Cuesta’s armies unite
at Benevente--Generals disagree--Battle of Rio Seco--Bessieres’
endeavours to corrupt the Spanish generals fail--Bessieres
marches to invade Gallicia, is recalled, and falls back to
Burgos--Observations 101
CHAPTER VIII.
Dupont marches against Andalusia, forces the bridge of Alcolea,
takes Cordoba--Alarm at Seville--Castaños arrives, forms a new
army--Dupont retreats to Andujar, attacks the town of Jaen--Vedel
forces the pass of Despeñas Perros, arrives at Baylen--Spanish
army arrives on the Guadalquivir--General Gobert defeated and
killed--Generals Vedel and Darfour retire to Carolina--General
Reding takes possession of Baylen--Dupont retires from
Andujar--Battle of Baylen--Dupont’s capitulation, eighteen
thousand French troops lay down their arms--Observations--Joseph
holds a council of war, resolves to abandon Madrid--Impolicy of
so doing 112
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
The Asturian deputies received with enthusiasm in
England---Ministers precipitate--Imprudent choice of
agents--Junot marches to Alcantara, joined by the Spanish
contingent, enters Portugal, arrives at Abrantes, pushes on to
Lisbon--Prince regent emigrates to the Brazils, reflections
on that transaction--Dangerous position of the French
army--Portuguese council of regency--Spanish contingent well
received--General Taranco dies at Oporto, is succeeded by the
French general Quesnel--Solano’s troops retire to Badajos--Junot
takes possession of the Alemtejo and the Algarves; exacts
a forced loan; is created duke of Abrantes; suppresses the
council of regency; sends the flower of the Portuguese army to
France--Napoleon demands a ransom from Portugal--People unable
to pay it--Police of Lisbon--Junot’s military position; his
character; political position--People discontented--Prophetic
eggs--Sebastianists---The capture of Rossily’s squadron known
at Lisbon--Pope’s nuncio takes refuge on board the English
fleet--Alarm of the French 136
CHAPTER II.
Spanish general Belesta seizes general Quesnel and retires to
Gallicia--Insurrection at Oporto--Junot disarms and confines the
Spanish soldiers near Lisbon--General Avril’s column returns to
Estremos--General Loison marches from Almeida against Oporto; is
attacked at Mezam Frias; crosses the Douero; attacked at Castro
d’Año; recalled to Lisbon--French driven out of the Algarves--The
fort of Figueras taken--Abrantes and Elvas threatened--Setuval
in commotion--General Spencer appears off the Tagus--Junot’s
plan--Insurrection at Villa Viciosa suppressed--Colonel
Maransin takes Beja with great slaughter of the patriots--The
insurgents advance from Leria, fall back--Action at Leria--Loison
arrives at Abrantes--Observations on his march--French army
concentrated--The Portuguese general Leite, aided by a Spanish
corps, takes post at Evora--Loison crosses the Tagus; defeats
Leite’s advanced guard at Montemor--Battle of Evora--Town taken
and pillaged--Unfriendly conduct of the Spaniards--Loison reaches
Elvas; collects provisions; is recalled by Junot--Observations 155
CHAPTER III.
Political and military retrospect--Mr. Fox’s conduct contrasted
with that of his successors--General Spencer sent to the
Mediterranean--Sir John Moore withdrawn from thence; arrives in
England; sent to Sweden--Spencer arrives at Gibraltar--Ceuta,
the object of his expedition--Spanish insurrection diverts
his attention to Cadiz; wishes to occupy that city--Spaniards
averse to it--Prudent conduct of sir Hew Dalrymple and lord
Collingwood--Spencer sails to Ayamonte; returns to Cadiz; sails
to the mouth of the Tagus; returns to Cadiz--Prince Leopold of
Sicily and the duke of Orleans arrive at Gibraltar--Curious
intrigue--Army assembled at Cork by the whig administration,
with a view to permanent conquest in South America, the
only disposable British force--Sir A. Wellesley takes the
command--Contradictory instructions of the ministers--Sir John
Moore returns from Sweden; ordered to Portugal--Sir Hew Dalrymple
appointed commander of the forces--Confused arrangements made by
the ministers 169
CHAPTER IV.
Sir A. Wellesley quits his troops and proceeds to Coruña--Junta
refuse assistance in men, but ask for and obtain money--Sir
Arthur goes to Oporto; arranges a plan with the bishop; proceeds
to the Tagus; rejoins his troops; joined by Spencer; disembarks
at the Mondego; has an interview with general Freire d’Andrada;
marches to Leria--Portuguese insurrection weak--Junot’s position
and dispositions--Laborde marches to Alcobaça, Loison to
Abrantes--General Freire separates from the British--Junot quits
Lisbon with the reserve--Laborde takes post at Roriça--Action of
Roriça--Laborde retreats to Montachique--Sir A. Wellesley marches
to Vimiero--Junot concentrates his army at Torres Vedras 187
CHAPTER V.
Portuguese take Abrantes--Generals Ackland and Anstruther
land and join the British army at Vimiero--Sir Harry
Burrard arrives--Battle of Vimiero--Junot defeated--Sir Hew
Dalrymple arrives--Armistice--Terms of it--Junot returns to
Lisbon--Negotiates for a convention--Sir John Moore’s troops
land--State of the public mind in Lisbon--The Russian admiral
negotiates separately--Convention concluded--the Russian fleet
surrenders upon terms--Conduct of the people at Lisbon--The
Monteiro Mor requires sir Charles Cotton to interrupt the
execution of the convention--Sir John Hope appointed commandant
of Lisbon; represses all disorders--Disputes between the French
and English commissioners--Reflections thereupon 207
CHAPTER VI.
The bishop and junta of Oporto aim at the supreme power;
wish to establish the seat of government at Oporto; their
intrigues; strange proceedings of general Decken; reflections
thereupon--Clamour raised against the convention in England
and in Portugal; soon ceases in Portugal--The Spanish general
Galluzzo refuses to acknowledge the convention; invests fort
Lalippe; his proceedings absurd and unjustifiable--Sir John
Hope marches against him; he alters his conduct--Garrison of
Lalippe--March to Lisbon--Embarked--Garrison of Almeida; march
to Oporto; attacked and plundered by the Portuguese--Sir Hew
Dalrymple and sir Harry Burrard recalled to England--Vile conduct
of the daily press--Violence of public feeling--Convention,
improperly called, of Cintra--Observations--On the action of
Roriça--On the battle of Vimiero--On the convention 236
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
Comparison between the Portuguese and Spanish people--The general
opinion of French weakness and Spanish strength and energy,
fallacious--Contracted policy of the English cabinet--Account
of the civil and military agents employed--Many of them act
without judgment--Mischievous effects thereof--Operations of
the Spanish armies after the battle of Baylen--Murcian army
arrives at Madrid--Valencian army marches to the relief of
Zaragoza--General Verdier raises the siege--Castaños enters
Madrid--Contumacious conduct of Galluzzo--Disputes between
Blake and Cuesta--Dilatory conduct of the Spaniards--Sagacious
observation of Napoleon--Insurrection at Bilbao; quelled by
general Merlin--French corps approaches Zaragoza--Palafox
alarmed, threatens the council of Castille--Council of war held
at Madrid--Plan of operations--Castaños unable to march from want
of money--Bad conduct of the junta of Seville--Vigorous conduct
of major Cox--Want of arms--Extravagant project to procure them 269
CHAPTER II.
Internal political transactions--Factions in Gallicia,
Asturias, Leon, and Castile--Flagitious conduct of the junta
of Seville--Mr. Stuart endeavours to establish a northern
cortes--Activity of the council of Castile, proposes a supreme
government agreeable to the public--Local juntas become generally
odious--Cortes meet at Lugo, declare for a central and supreme
government--Deputies appointed--Clamours of the Gallician junta
and bishop of Orense--Increasing influence of the council
of Castile--Underhand proceedings of the junta of Seville,
disconcerted by the quickness of the Baily Valdez--Character
of Cuesta, he denies the legality of the northern cortes,
abandons the line of military operations, returns to Segovia,
arrests the Baily Valdez and other deputies from Lugo--Central
and supreme government established at Aranjuez, Florida Blanca
president--Vile intrigues of the local juntas--Cuesta removed
from the command of his army, ordered to Aranjuez--Popular
feeling in favour of the central junta, vain and interested
proceedings of that body, its timidity, inactivity, and folly,
refuses to name a generalissimo--Foreign relations--Mr. Canning
leaves Mr. Stuart without any instructions for three months--Mr.
Frere appointed envoy extraordinary, &c. 292
CHAPTER III.
Political position of Napoleon; he resolves to crush the
Spaniards; his energy and activity; marches his armies
from every part of Europe towards Spain; his oration to
his soldiers--Conference at Erfurth--Negotiations for
peace--Petulant conduct of Mr. Canning--160,000 conscripts
enrolled in France--Power of that country--Napoleon’s speech to
the senate--He repairs to Bayonne--Remissness of the English
cabinet--Sir John Moore appointed to lead an army into Spain;
sends his artillery by the Madrid road, and marches himself by
Almeida--The central junta impatient for the arrival of the
English army--Sir David Baird arrives at Coruña; is refused
permission to disembark his troops--Mr. Frere and the marquis
of Romana arrive at Coruña; account of the latter’s escape
from the Danish Isles--Central junta resolved not to appoint a
generalissimo--Gloomy aspect of affairs 315
CHAPTER IV.
Movements of the Spanish generals on the Ebro, their absurd
confidence, their want of system and concert--General opinion
that the French are weak--Real strength of the king--Marshal Ney
and general Jourdan join the army--Military errors of the king
exposed by Napoleon, who instructs him how to make war--Joseph
proposes six plans of operation--Observations thereupon 342
CHAPTER V.
Position and strength of the French and Spanish armies--Blake
moves from Reynosa to the Upper Ebro; sends a division to
Bilbao; French retire from that town--Ney quits his position
near Logroña, and retakes Bilbao--The armies of the centre and
right approach the Ebro and the Aragon--Various evolutions--Blake
attacks and takes Bilbao--Head of the grand French army arrives
in Spain--The Castilians join the army of the centre--The
Asturians join Blake--Apathy of the central junta--Castaños
joins the army; holds a conference with Palafox; their dangerous
position; arrange a plan of operations--The Spaniards cross the
Ebro--The king orders a general attack--Skirmish at Sanguessa,
at Logroño, and Lerim--The Spaniards driven back over the
Ebro--Logroño taken--Colonel Cruz, with a Spanish battalion,
surrenders at Lerim--Francisco Palafox, the military deputy,
arrives at Alfaro; his exceeding folly and presumption; controls
and insults Castaños--Force of the French army increases
hourly; how composed and disposed--Blake ascends the valley of
Durango--Battle of Zornosa--French retake Bilbao--Combat at
Valmaceda--Observations 361
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
Napoleon arrives at Bayonne--Blake advances towards Bilbao--The
count Belvedere arrives at Burgos--The first and fourth corps
advance--Combat of Guenes--Blake retreats--Napoleon at Vittoria;
his plan--Soult takes the command of the second corps--Battle
of Gamonal--Burgos taken--Battle of Espinosa--Flight from
Reynosa--Soult overruns the Montagna de St. Ander, and
scours Leon--Napoleon fixes his head-quarters at Burgos,
changes his front, lets 10,000 cavalry loose upon Castile and
Leon--Marshals Lasnes and Ney directed against Castaños--Folly
of the central junta--General St. Juan occupies the pass of the
Somosierra--Folly of the generals on the Ebro--Battle of Tudela 385
CHAPTER II.
Napoleon marches against the capital; forces the pass of
the Somosierra--St. Juan murdered by his men--Tumults in
Madrid--French army arrives there; the Retiro stormed--Town
capitulates--Remains of Castaños’s army driven across the Tagus;
retire to Cuenca--Napoleon explains his policy to the nobles,
clergy, and tribunals of Madrid--His vast plans, enormous
force--Defenceless state of Spain 407
CHAPTER III.
Sir John Moore arrives at Salamanca; hears of the battle of
Espinosa--His dangerous position; discovers the real state of
affairs; contemplates a hardy enterprise; hears of the defeat
at Tudela; resolves to retreat; waits for general Hope’s
division--Danger of that general; his able conduct--Central junta
fly to Badajos--Mr. Frere, incapable of judging rightly, opposes
the retreat; his weakness and levity; insults the general; sends
colonel Charmilly to Salamanca--Manly conduct of sir John Moore;
his able and bold plan of operations 425
CHAPTER IV.
British army advances towards Burgos--French outposts surprised
at Rueda--Letter from Berthier to Soult intercepted--Direction
of the march changed--Mr. Stuart and a member of the junta
arrive at head-quarters--Arrogant and insulting letter of Mr.
Frere--Noble answer of sir John Moore--British army united at
Majorga; their force and composition--Inconsistent conduct of
Romana; his character--Soult’s position and forces; concentrates
his army at Carrion--Combat of cavalry at Sahagun--The British
army retires to Benevente--The emperor moves from Madrid, passes
the Guadarama, arrives at Tordesillas, expects to interrupt
the British line of retreat, fails--Bridge of Castro Gonzalo
destroyed--Combat of cavalry at Benevente--General Lefebre
taken--Soult forces the bridge of Mansilla, takes Leon--The
emperor unites his army at Astorga; hears of the Austrian war;
orders marshal Soult to pursue the English army, and returns to
France 450
CHAPTER V.
Sir John Moore retreats towards Vigo; is closely
pursued--Miserable scene at Bembibre--Excesses at Villa
Franca--Combat at Calcabellos--Death of general Colbert--March
to Nogales--Line of retreat changed from Vigo to Coruña--Skilful
passage of the bridge of Constantino; skirmish there--The army
halts at Lugo--Sir John Moore offers battle; it is not accepted;
he makes a forced march to Betanzos; loses many stragglers;
rallies the army; reaches Coruña--The army takes a position; two
large stores of powder exploded--Fleet arrives in the harbour;
army commences embarking--Battle of Coruña--Death of sir John
Moore--His character 473
CHAPTER VI.
Observations--The conduct of Napoleon and that of the English
cabinet compared--The emperor’s military dispositions
examined--Propriety of sir John Moore’s operations
discussed--Diagram, exposing the relative positions of Spanish,
French, and English armies--Propriety of sir John Moore’s retreat
discussed, and the question whether he should have fallen back
on Portugal or Gallicia investigated--Sir John Moore’s judgment
defended; his conduct calumniated by interested men for party
purposes--Eulogised by marshal Soult, by Napoleon, by the duke of
Wellington 502
APPENDIX.
No.
1. Observations on Spanish affairs by Napoleon _Page_ i
2. Notes on Spanish affairs ditto v
3. Ditto ditto ditto xiii
4. Ditto ditto ditto xvii
5. Ditto ditto ditto xxiii
6. Plan of campaign by king Joseph xxvi
7. Five Sections, containing four letters from Berthier to
general Savary--One from marshal Berthier to king Joseph xxx
8. Four letters.--Mr. Drummond to sir A. Ball--Ditto to sir
Hew Dalrymple--Sir Hew Dalrymple to lord Castlereagh--Lord
Castlereagh to sir Hew Dalrymple xxxv
9. Two letters from sir Arthur Wellesley to sir Harry Burrard xxxvii
10. Articles of the convention for the evacuation of Portugal xlii
11. Three letters from brigadier-general Von Decken to sir Hew
Dalrymple xlvi
12. Two letters.--General Leite to sir Hew Dalrymple--Sir Hew
Dalrymple to lieutenant-general Hope li
13. Nine Sections, containing justificatory extracts from sir
John Moore’s correspondence.--Section 1st. Want of money--2d.
Relating to roads--3d. Relating to equipments and supplies--4th.
Relating to the want of information--5th. Relating to the conduct
of the local juntas--6th. Central junta--7th. Relating to the
passive state of the people--8th. Miscellaneous liii
14. Justificatory extracts from sir John Moore’s
correspondence lxviii
15. Despatch from the conde de Belvedere relative to the battle
of Gamonal lxxi
16. Extract of a letter from the duke of Dalmatia to the author ib.
17. Letters from Mr. Canning to Mr. Frere lxxii
18. Return of British troops embarked for Portugal and Spain lxxviii
19. Return of killed, &c. sir Arthur Wellesley’s army lxxix
20. British order of battle--Roriça ib.
21. British order of battle--Vimiero lxxx
22. Return of sir Hew Dalrymple’s army ib.
23. Embarkation return of the French under Junot lxxxi
24. Detail of troops--Extracted from a minute made by the duke
of York ib.
25. Order of battle--Sir John Moore’s army--Return of ditto
December 19th, 1808 lxxxii
26. Especial return of loss during sir John Moore’s campaign lxxxiii
27. States of the Spanish armies lxxxiv
28. Five sections, containing returns of the French armies in
Spain and Portugal lxxxvi
29. Three letters from lord Collingwood to sir Hew Dalrymple xc
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Explanatory Sketch_ of the BATTLE OF BAYLEN. 124
_SKETCH OF THE_ COMBAT OF RORIÇA. 203
_SKETCH OF THE_ BATTLE OF VIMIERO. 216
_Explanatory Sketch_ of the CAMPAIGN IN PORTUGAL 258
_Explanatory Sketch_ of the FRENCH & SPANISH POSITIONS 372
_Explanatory Sketch_ of BLAKE’S POSITION 382
_SKETCH OF THE_ BATTLE OF CORUÑA 498
_Plate VIII_ 516
NOTICE.
Of the manuscript authorities consulted for this history, those
marked with the letter S. the author owes to the kindness of
marshal Soult.
For the notes dictated by Napoleon, and the plans of campaign
sketched out by king Joseph, he is indebted to his grace the duke
of Wellington.
The returns of the French army were extracted from the original
half monthly statements presented by marshal Berthier to the
emperor Napoleon.
Of the other authorities it is unnecessary to say more than that
the author had access to the original papers, with the exception of
Dupont’s memoir, of which a copy only was obtained.
CORRIGENDA.
Page 92, line 27, _for_ Agnas, _read_ Aguas.
202, __ 30, __ Catlin’s, Craufurd’s, _read_ Catlin Craufurd’s.
214, __ 32, __ above ridge, _read_ ridge above.
215, __ 2, __ deep, _read_ steep.
256, __ 17, __ Alhambra, _read_ Alhandra.
274, __ 9, __ of the first class _to be erased:
it is an error_.
289, __ 27, __ tlme, _read_ time.
343, __ 7, __ Orma, _read_ Osma.
365, __ 16, __ Carella, _read_ Corella.
374, __ 1, __ Montejo, _read_ Montijo.
381, __ 9, __ were, _read_ was.
394, __ 11, __ Sahugan, _read_ Sahagun.
424, __ 30, __ wnose, _read_ whose.
425, __ 3, __ communications, _read_ communication.
428, __ 6, __ transports, _read_ transport.
426, __ 1, __ {one hundred thousand, _read_ one hundred and
{ seventy thousand.
464, __ 20, __ fine plain, _read_ plain.
468, __ 26, __ six guns, _read_ two guns.
481, __ 2, __ {who, having turned Villa Franca and scoured
{ the valley of the Syl, _read_ who, after
{ turning Villa Franca and scouring the valley
{ of the Syl.
483, __ 21, __ three or four hundred, _read_ three and four
hundred.
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
[Sidenote: Introduction.]
The hostility of the European aristocracy caused the enthusiasm of
republican France to take a military direction, and forced that
powerful nation into a course of policy which, however outrageous
it might appear, was in reality one of necessity. Up to the treaty
of Tilsit, the wars of France were essentially defensive; for the
bloody contest that wasted the continent so many years was not a
struggle for pre-eminence between ambitious powers, not a dispute
for some accession of territory, nor for the political ascendancy
of one or other nation, but a deadly conflict to determine whether
aristocracy or democracy should predominate; whether equality
or privilege should henceforth be the principle of European
governments.
The French revolution was pushed into existence before the hour
of its natural birth. The power of the aristocratic principle was
too vigorous and too much identified with that of the monarchical
principle, to be successfully resisted by a virtuous democratic
effort, much less could it be overthrown by a democracy rioting in
innocent blood, and menacing destruction to political and religious
establishments, the growth of centuries, somewhat decayed indeed,
yet scarcely showing their grey hairs. The first military events
of the revolution, the disaffection of Toulon and Lyons, the civil
war of La Vendee, the feeble, although successful resistance made
to the duke of Brunswick’s invasion, and the frequent and violent
change of rulers whose fall none regretted, were all proofs
that the French revolution, intrinsically too feeble to sustain
the physical and moral force pressing it down, was fast sinking
when the wonderful genius of Buonaparte, baffling all reasonable
calculation, raised and fixed it on the basis of victory, the only
one capable of supporting the crude production.
Sensible, however, that the cause he upheld was not sufficiently
in unison with the feelings of the age, Napoleon’s first care
was to disarm or neutralize monarchical and sacerdotal enmity,
by restoring a church establishment, and by becoming a monarch
himself. Once a sovereign, his vigorous character, his pursuits,
his talents, and the critical nature of the times, inevitably
rendered him a despotic one; yet while he sacrificed political
liberty, which to the great bulk of mankind has never been more
than a pleasing sound, he cherished with the utmost care political
equality, a sensible good, that produces increasing satisfaction as
it descends in the scale of society; but this, the real principle
of his government, the secret of his popularity, made him the
people’s monarch, not the sovereign of the aristocracy; hence, Mr.
Pitt called him, “the child and the champion of democracy,” a truth
as evident as that Mr. Pitt and his successors were the children
and the champions of aristocracy; hence also the privileged
classes of Europe consistently transferred their natural and
implacable hatred of the French revolution to his person, for they
saw that in him innovation had found a protector; that he alone
had given pre-eminence to a system so hateful to them, and that he
really was what he called himself, “the State.”
The treaty of Tilsit, therefore, although it placed Napoleon in
a commanding situation with regard to the potentates of Europe,
unmasked the real nature of the war, and brought him and England,
the respective champions of equality and privilege, into more
direct contact; peace could not be between them while both were
strong, and all that the French emperor had hitherto gained only
enabled him to choose his future field of battle.
When the catastrophe of Trafalgar forbade him to think of invading
England, his fertile genius conceived the plan of sapping her naval
and commercial strength, by depriving her of the continental market
for her manufactured goods; he prohibited the reception of English
wares in any part of the continent, and he exacted from allies and
dependants the most rigid compliance with his orders; but this
“continental system,” as it was called, became inoperative when
French troops were not present to enforce his commands. It was thus
in Portugal, where British influence was really paramount, although
the terror inspired by the French arms seemed at times to render
this doubtful; fear however is momentary, self-interest lasting,
and Portugal was but an unguarded province of England.
[Sidenote: Monsieur de Champagny’s Report, 21st Oct. 1807.]
From Portugal and Gibraltar, English goods freely passed into
Spain; and to check this traffic by force was not easy, and
otherwise impossible. Spain stood nearly in the same position with
regard to France that Portugal did to England; a warm feeling
of friendship for the enemy of Great Britain was the natural
consequence of the unjust seizure of the Spanish frigates in a time
of peace; but although this rendered the French cause popular in
Spain, and that the court of Madrid was from weakness subservient
to the French Emperor, nothing could induce the people to refrain
from a profitable contraband trade; they would not pay that respect
to the wishes of a foreign power, which they refused to the
regulations of their own government; neither was the aristocratical
enmity to Napoleon asleep in Spain. A proclamation issued by the
Prince of Peace previous to the battle of Jena, although hastily
recalled when the result of that conflict was known, sufficiently
indicated the tenure upon which the friendship of the Spanish court
was to be held.
[Sidenote: Napoleon, in Las Casas, vol. ii. 4th part.]
This state of affairs drew the French Emperor’s attention towards
the Peninsula; a chain of remarkable circumstances fixed it there,
and induced him to remove the reigning family, and to place his
brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. He thought that the people
of that country, sick of an effete government, would be quiescent
under such a change; and although it should prove otherwise, the
confidence he reposed in his own fortune, unrivalled talents,
and vast power, made him disregard the consequences, while the
cravings of his military and political system, the danger to be
apprehended from the vicinity of a Bourbon dynasty, and above all
the temptations offered by a miraculous folly which outrun even his
desires, urged him to a deed, that well accepted by the people of
the Peninsula, would have proved beneficial; but being enforced
contrary to their wishes, was unhallowed either by justice or
benevolence.
In an evil hour, for his own greatness and the happiness of
others, he commenced this fatal project; founded in violence,
executed with fraud and cruelty, it spread desolation through the
fairest portions of the Peninsula; it was calamitous to France and
destructive to himself. The conflict between his hardy veterans
and the bloody vindictive race he insulted, assumed a character of
unmitigated ferocity disgraceful to human nature; for the Spaniards
did not fail to defend their just cause with hereditary cruelty,
and the French army struck a terrible balance of barbarous actions.
Napoleon observed with surprise the unexpected energy of the
people, and bent his whole force to the attainment of his object;
while England coming to the assistance of the Peninsula employed
all her resources to frustrate his efforts. Thus the two leading
nations of the world were brought into contact at a moment when
both were disturbed by angry passions, eager for great events, and
possessed of surprising power.
The extent and population of the French empire, including the
kingdom of Italy, the confederation of the Rhine, the Swiss
Cantons, the Duchy of Warsaw, and the dependent states of
Holland and Naples, enabled Buonaparte through the medium of the
conscription to array an army, in number nearly equal to the great
host that followed the Persian of old against Greece; like that
multitude also his troops were gathered from many nations, but they
were trained in a Roman discipline, and ruled by a Carthaginian
genius. The organization[1] of Napoleon’s army was simple, the
administration vigorous, the manipulations well contrived. The
French officers, accustomed to success, were bold, enterprising,
of great reputation, and feared accordingly. By a combination of
discipline and moral excitement, admirably adapted to the mixed
nature of his troops, the Emperor had created a power that appeared
to be resistless, and, in truth, it would have been so, if applied
to one great object at a time; but this the ambition of the man, or
rather the force of circumstances, would not permit.
[Sidenote: Exposé de l’Empire, 1807-8-9-13.]
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Memoirs, Las Casas, 7th part.]
[Sidenote: Lord Collingwood’s letters, vide Appendix.]
The ships of France were chained up in her harbours, and her naval
strength was rebuked, but not destroyed; inexhaustible resources
for building vessels, vast marine establishments, a coast line
of many thousand miles, and the creative genius of Napoleon were
nursing up a navy, formidable as a secondary arm; and the war then
pending between the United States and Great Britain promised to
nurture its growth, and to increase its efficacy.
[Sidenote: Exposé, 1808-9. Napoleon, in Las Casas, vol. ii. 4th
part.]
[Sidenote: Ibid. 6th part.]
Maritime commerce was indeed fainting in France, but her internal
and continental traffic was robust; her manufactures were rapidly
improving; her debt was small; her financial operations conducted
on a prudent plan, and with exact economy. The supplies were all
raised within the year without any very great pressure of taxation,
and from a sound metallic currency; thus there seemed to be no
reasonable doubt, that any war undertaken by Napoleon might be by
him brought to a favourable termination.
On the other hand, England, omnipotent at sea, was little regarded
as a military power. Her enormous debt was yearly increasing in an
accelerated ratio; and this necessary consequence of anticipating
the resources of the country, and dealing in a factitious currency,
was fast eating into the vital strength of the state; for although
the merchants and great manufacturers were thriving from the
accidental circumstances of the times, the labourers were suffering
and degenerating in character; pauperism and its sure attendant
crime were spreading over the land, and the population was fast
splitting into distinct classes,--the one rich and arbitrary, the
other poor and discontented: the former composed of those who
profited, the latter of those who suffered by the war. Of Ireland
it is unnecessary to speak; her wrongs and her misery, peculiar and
unparalleled, are too well known, and too little regarded, to call
for remark.
This general comparative statement, so favourable to France,
would however be a false criterion of the relative strength of
the belligerents, with regard to the approaching struggle in
the Peninsula. A cause manifestly unjust is a heavy weight upon
the operations of a general: it reconciles men to desertion--it
sanctifies want of zeal--is a pretext for cowardice--renders
hardships more irksome, dangers more obnoxious, and glory less
satisfactory to the mind of the soldier. Now the invasion of the
Peninsula, whatever might have been its real original, was an act
of violence on the part of Napoleon repugnant to the feelings of
mankind. The French armies were burthened with a sense of its
iniquity, the British troops exhilarated by a contrary sentiment.
All the continental nations had smarted under the sword of
Napoleon, but, with the exception of Prussia, none were crushed; a
common feeling of humiliation, the hope of revenge, and the ready
subsidies of England, were bonds of union among their governments
stronger than the most solemn treaties. France could only calculate
on their fears, England was secure in their self-love.
The hatred to what were called French principles was at this
period in full activity. The privileged classes of every country
hated Napoleon, because his genius had given stability to the
institutions that grew out of the revolution, because his victories
had baffled their calculations, and shaken their hold of power. As
the chief of revolutionary France he was constrained to continue
his career until the final accomplishment of her destiny, and
this necessity, overlooked by the great bulk of mankind, afforded
plausible ground for imputing insatiable ambition to the French
government and to the French nation, of which ample use was made.
Rapacity, insolence, injustice, cruelty, even cowardice, were
said to be inseparable from the character of a Frenchman; and,
as if such vices were nowhere else to be found, it was more than
insinuated that all the enemies of France were inherently virtuous
and disinterested. Unhappily history is but a record of crimes,
and it is not wonderful that the arrogance of men, buoyed up by
a spring-tide of military glory, should, as well among allies,
as among vanquished enemies, have produced sufficient disgust to
ensure a ready belief in any accusation, however false and absurd.
Napoleon was the contriver and the sole support of a political
system that required time and victory to consolidate; he was the
connecting link between the new interests of mankind and what of
the old were left in a state of vigour; he held them together
strongly, but he was no favourite with either, and consequently
in danger from both. His power, unsanctified by time, depended
not less upon delicate management than upon vigorous exercise; he
had to fix the foundations of, as well as to defend, an empire,
and he may be said to have been rather peremptory than despotic.
There were points of administration with which he durst not
meddle even wisely, much less arbitrarily; customs, prejudices,
and the dregs of the revolutionary licence interfered with his
policy, and rendered it complicated and difficult. It was not so
with his inveterate adversaries; the delusion of parliamentary
representation enabled the English government safely to exercise an
unlimited power over the persons and the property of the nation,
and through the influence of an active and corrupt press they
exercised nearly the same power over the public mind.
The vast commerce of England, penetrating by a thousand channels
(open or secret) as it were into every house on the face of the
globe, supplied unequalled sources of intelligence. The spirit
of traffic, which seldom acknowledges the ties of country, was
universally on the side of Great Britain, and those twin curses,
paper-money and public credit, so truly described as “strength in
the beginning but weakness in the end,” were recklessly used by
statesmen whose policy regarded not the interests of posterity.
Such were the adventitious causes of England’s power; and her
natural, legitimate resources were many and great.
If any credit is to be given to the census, the increasing
population of the United Kingdom, amounted at this period to nearly
twenty millions: France reckoned but twenty-seven millions when
Frederick the Great declared that if he were her king, “not a gun
should be fired in Europe without his leave.”
The French army was undoubtedly very formidable from numbers,
discipline, skill, and bravery; but contrary to the general
opinion, the British army was inferior to it in none of these
points save the first, and in discipline it was superior, because
a national army will always bear a sterner code than a mixed force
will suffer. With the latter, the military not the moral crimes
can be punished; men will submit to death for a breach of great
regulations which they know by experience to be useful, but the
constant restraint of petty though wholesome rules they will escape
from by desertion, or resist by mutiny, when the ties of custom
and country are removed; for the disgrace of bad conduct attaches
not to them, but to the nation under whose colours they serve;
great indeed is that genius that can keep men of different nations
firm to their colours, and preserve a rigid discipline at the same
time. Napoleon’s military system was, from this cause, inferior
to the British, which, if it be purely administered, combines the
solidity of the Germans with the rapidity of the French, excluding
the mechanical dulness of the one, and the dangerous vivacity of
the other; yet, before the campaign in the Peninsula had proved its
excellence in every branch of war, the English army was absurdly
under-rated in foreign countries, and absolutely despised in its
own. It was reasonable to suppose that it did not possess that
facility of moving in large bodies which long practice had given
to the French; but the individual soldier was (and is still) most
falsely stigmatized as deficient in intelligence and activity, the
officers ridiculed, and the idea that a British could cope with a
French army, even for a single campaign, considered chimerical.
The English are a people very subject to receive and to cherish
false impressions; proud of their credulity as if it were a
virtue, the majority will adopt any fallacy, and cling to it with a
tenacity proportioned to its grossness. Thus an ignorant contempt
for the British soldiery had been long entertained, before the ill
success of the expeditions in 1794 and 1799 appeared to justify the
general prejudice. The true cause of those failures was not traced,
and the excellent discipline afterwards introduced and perfected by
the duke of York was despised. England, both at home and abroad,
was, in 1808, scorned as a military power, when she possessed,
without a frontier to swallow up large armies in expensive
fortresses, at least two hundred thousand[2] of the best equipped
and best disciplined soldiers in the universe, together with an
immense recruiting establishment, and through the medium of the
militia, the power of drawing upon the population without limit.
It is true that of this number many were necessarily employed in
the defence of the colonies, but enough remained to compose a
disposable force greater than that with which Napoleon won the
battle of Austerlitz, and double that with which he conquered
Italy. In all the materials of war, the superior ingenuity and
skill of the English mechanics were visible, and that intellectual
power that distinguishes Great Britain amongst the nations, in
science, arts, and literature, was not wanting to her generals in
the hour of danger.
CHAPTER II.
[Sidenote: Nellerto.[3]]
[Sidenote: Vide Doblado’s Letters.]
For many years antecedent to the French invasion, the royal family
of Spain was distracted with domestic quarrels; the son’s hand was
against his mother, the father’s against his son, and the court was
a scene of continual broils, under cover of which artful men, as
is usual in such cases, pushed their own interest forward, while
they seemed to act only for the sake of the party whose cause they
espoused. Charles IV. attributed this unhappy state of his house to
the intrigues of his sister-in-law, the queen of the Two Sicilies.
He himself, a weak and inefficient old man, was governed by his
wife, and she again by don Manuel Godoy, of whose person she was
enamoured even to folly. From the rank of a simple gentleman of the
Royal Guards, this person had, through her influence, been raised
to the highest dignities; and the title of Prince of the Peace was
conferred upon a man whose name must be for ever connected with one
of the bloodiest wars that fill the page of history.
Ferdinand prince of the Asturias, naturally hated this favourite,
and the miserable death of his young wife, his own youth and
apparently forlorn condition created such an interest in his
favour, that the people partook of his feelings; and the disunion
of the royal family extending its effects beyond the precincts
of the court, involved the nation in ruin. Those who know how a
Spaniard hates, will readily comprehend why Godoy, who was really
a mild, good-natured man, although a sensual and corrupt one, has
been so overloaded with imprecations, as if he, and he alone, had
been the cause of the disasters of Spain.
[Sidenote: Napoleon in Las Casas.]
[Sidenote: Nellerto.]
The canon, Escoiquiz, a daring and subtile politician, appears to
have been the chief of Ferdinand’s party; finding the influence
of the Prince of the Peace too strong, he looked for support in a
powerful quarter; and under his tuition, Ferdinand wrote upon the
11th of October, 1807, to the emperor Napoleon; in this letter
he complained of the influence which bad men had obtained over
his father, prayed for the interference of the “hero destined
by Providence,” so run the text, “to save Europe and to support
thrones;” asked an alliance by marriage with the Buonaparte family,
and finally desired that his communication might be kept secret
from his father, lest it should be taken as a proof of disrespect.
To this letter he received no answer, and fresh matter of quarrel
being found by his enemies at home, he was placed in arrest, and
upon the 29th of October, Charles denounced him to the Emperor
as guilty of treason, and of having projected the assassination
of his own mother. Napoleon caught eagerly at this pretext for
interfering in the domestic policy of Spain, and thus the honour
and independence of a great people were placed in jeopardy by the
squabbles of two of the most worthless persons in the nation.
Some short time before this, Godoy, either instigated by an
ambition to found a dynasty, or fearing that the death of the king
would expose him to the vengeance of Ferdinand, had made proposals
to the French court to concert a plan for the conquest and division
of Portugal, promising the assistance of Spain, on condition that
a principality for himself should be set apart from the spoil.
At least such is the turn given by Napoleon to this affair; but
the article which provided an indemnification for the king of
Etruria a minor, who had just been obliged to surrender his Italian
dominions to France, renders it very doubtful if the first offer
came from Godoy. That, however, is a point of small interest,
for Napoleon eagerly adopted the project if he did not propose
it; and the advantages were all on his side. Under the pretext
of supporting his army in Portugal, he might fill Spain with his
troops; the dispute between the father and the son, now referred to
his arbitration, placed the golden apples within his reach, and he
resolved to gather the fruit if he had not planted the tree.
A secret treaty was immediately concluded at Fontainebleau, between
marshal Duroc on the part of France, and Eugenio Izquerdo on the
part of Spain. This treaty, together with a convention dependant
on it, was signed the 27th, and ratified by Napoleon on the 29th
of October; the contracting parties agreeing to the following
conditions.
The house of Braganza to be driven forth of Portugal, and that
kingdom divided into three portions, of which the province of Entre
Minho e Duero and the town of Oporto, forming one, was to be given
as an indemnification to the dispossessed king of Etruria, and to
be called the kingdom of North Lusitania.
The Alemtejo and the Algarves to be erected into a principality for
Godoy, who taking the title of prince of the Algarves, was still to
be in some respects dependant upon the Spanish crown.
The central provinces of Estremadura, Beira, and the Tras os
Montes, together with the town of Lisbon, to be held in deposit
until a general peace, and then to be exchanged under certain
conditions for English conquests.
The ultra-marine dominions of the exiled family to be equally
divided between the contracting parties, and in three years at
the longest, the king of Spain to be gratified with the title of
Emperor of the Two Americas. Thus much for the treaty. The terms of
the convention were:
That France should employ 25,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Spain
24,000 infantry, 30 guns, and 3,000 cavalry.
The French contingent to be joined at Alcantara by the Spanish
cavalry, artillery, and one-third of the infantry, and from thence
to march at once to Lisbon. Of the remaining Spanish infantry
10,000 were to take possession of the Entre Minho e Duero and
Oporto, and 6,000 were to invade Estremadura and the Algarves.
In the mean time a reserve of 40,000 men was to be assembled at
Bayonne, ready to take the field by the 20th of November, if
England should interfere, or the Portuguese people resist.
If the king of Spain or any of his family joined the troops, the
chief command was to be vested in the person so joining, but with
that exception, the French general was to be obeyed whenever the
armies of the two nations came into contact, and during the march
through Spain the French soldiers were to be fed by that country,
but paid by their own government.
The revenues of the conquered provinces were to be administered
by the general actually in possession, and for the benefit of the
nation in whose name the province was held.
Although it is evident that this treaty and convention favoured
Napoleon’s ulterior operations in Spain, by enabling him to mask
his views, and introduce large bodies of men into that country
without creating much suspicion of his real intention; it does not
follow, as some authors have asserted, that they were contrived by
the emperor for the sole purpose of rendering the Spanish royal
family odious to the world, and by this far-fetched expedient to
prevent other nations from taking an interest in their fate when he
should find it convenient to apply the same measure of injustice to
his associates that they had accorded to the family of Braganza.
[Sidenote: Voice from St. Helena, vol. ii.]
To say nothing of the weakness of such a policy, founded as it
must be on the error that governments acknowledge the dictates of
justice at the expense of their supposed interests; it must be
observed that Portugal was intrinsically a great object. History
does not speak of the time when the inhabitants of that country
were deficient in spirit; the natural obstacles to an invasion had
more than once frustrated the efforts of large armies, and the long
line of communication between Bayonne and the Portuguese frontier
could only be supported by Spanish co-operation. Add to this, the
facility with which England could, and the probability that she
would, succour her ancient ally, and the reasonable conclusion
is, that Napoleon’s first intentions were in accordance with the
literal meaning of the treaty of Fontainebleau, and that his
subsequent proceedings were the result of new projects conceived as
the wondrous imbecility of the Spanish Bourbons became manifest.
Again, the convention provided for the organization of a large
Spanish force, to be stationed in the north and south of Portugal,
that is, in precisely the two places from whence they could most
readily march to the assistance of their country, if it was
invaded; and in fact the division of the marquis of Solano in the
south, and that of general Taranco in the north of Portugal, did
afterwards (when the Spanish insurrection broke out) form the
strength of the Andalusian and Gallician armies, the former of
which gained the victory at Baylen, while the latter contended for
it, although ineffectually, at Rio Seco.
The French force destined to invade Portugal was already assembled
at Bayonne, under the title of the first army of the Garonne. It
was commanded by general Junot, a young man of a bold ambitious
disposition, but of greater reputation for military talent than he
was able to support. The men were principally conscripts, and ill
fitted to endure the hardships which awaited them.
[Sidenote: Thiebault, Exp. du Portugal.]
At first, by easy marches and in small divisions, Junot led his
army through Spain; the inhabitants were by no means friendly
to their guests; but whether from any latent fear of what was
to follow, or from a dislike of foreign soldiers common to all
secluded people, does not clearly appear. When the head of the
columns reached Salamanca, Junot halted, intending to complete the
organization of his troops in that rich country, and there to await
the most favourable moment for penetrating the sterile frontier
which guarded his destined prey; but political events marched
faster than his calculations, and fresh instructions from the
emperor prescribed an immediate advance upon Lisbon. Junot obeyed,
and the family of Braganza, at his approach, fled to the Brazils.
The series of interesting transactions which attended this invasion
will be treated of hereafter; at present I must return to Spain
already bending to the first gusts of that hurricane, which was
soon to sweep over her with such destructive violence.
[Sidenote: Nellerto.]
[Sidenote: Historia de la Guerra contra Nap.]
The accusation of treason and intended parricide, preferred by
Charles IV. against his son Ferdinand, gave rise to some judicial
proceedings which ended in the submission of the latter; and
Ferdinand being absolved of the imputed crime, wrote a letter to
his father and mother, acknowledging his own faults, but accusing
the persons who surrounded him of being the instigators of deeds
which he abhorred. The intrigues of his advisers, however,
continued, and the plans of Napoleon advanced as a necessary
consequence of the divisions in the Spanish court.
[Sidenote: Return of the French army. Appendix.]
[Sidenote: Journal of Dupont’s Operations MSS.]
By the terms of the convention of Fontainebleau, forty thousand men
were to be held in reserve at Bayonne; but a greater number were
assembled on different points of the frontier; and in the course
of December, two corps had entered the Spanish territory, and were
quartered in Vittoria, Miranda, Briviesca, and the neighbourhood.
The one, commanded by general Dupont, was called the second army
of observation of the “Gironde.” The other, commanded by marshal
Moncey, took the title of the army of observation of the “Côte
d’Ocean.” In the gross they amounted to fifty-three thousand men,
of which above forty thousand were fit for duty; and in the course
of the month of December, Dupont advanced to Valladolid, while a
reinforcement for Junot, four thousand seven hundred in number,
took up their quarters at Salamanca.
[Sidenote: Notes of Napoleon. Appendix, No. 2.]
It thus appeared as if the French troops were quietly following the
natural line of communication between France and Portugal; but in
reality Dupont’s position cut off the capital from all intercourse
with the northern provinces, while Moncey secured the direct road
from Bayonne to Madrid. Small divisions under different pretexts
continually reinforced these two bodies, and through the Eastern
Pyrenees twelve thousand men, commanded by general Duhesme,
penetrated into Catalonia, and established themselves in Barcelona.
In the mean time the dispute between the king and his son, or
rather between the Prince of the Peace and the advisers of
Ferdinand, was brought to a crisis by insurrections at Aranjuez
and Madrid, which took place upon the 17th, 18th, and 19th of
March, 1808. The old king, deceived by intrigues, or frightened at
the difficulties which surrounded him, had determined, as it is
supposed by some, to quit Spain, and, in imitation of his brother
of Portugal, to retire from the turmoil of European politics, and
take refuge in his American dominions. Certain it is that every
thing was prepared for a flight to Seville, when the prince’s
grooms commenced a tumult, in which the populace of Aranjuez
joined, and were only pacified by the assurance that no journey was
in contemplation.
Upon the 18th the people of Madrid, following the example of
Aranjuez, sacked the house of the obnoxious favourite, Manuel
Godoy. Upon the 19th the riots recommenced in Aranjuez: the Prince
of the Peace secreted himself from the fury of the mob; but his
retreat being discovered, he was maltreated, and on the point of
being killed, when the soldiers of the royal guard rescued him.
Upon the 18th Charles IV., terrified by the violent proceedings of
his subjects, abdicated. This event was proclaimed at Madrid on
the 20th, and Ferdinand was declared king, to the great joy of the
nation at large: little did the people know what they rejoiced at,
time has since taught them that the fable of the frogs and their
monarch had its meaning.
During these transactions, Murat, grand duke of Berg, who had
taken the command of all the French troops in Spain, quitted his
quarters at Aranda de Duero, passed the Somosierra, and entered
Madrid the 23d, with Moncey’s corps and a fine body of cavalry,
Dupont at the same time deviating from the road to Portugal,
crossed the Duero and occupied Segovia, the Escurial, and Aranjuez.
[Sidenote: Napoleon in Las Casas.]
Ferdinand arrived at Madrid on the 24th, but was not recognised by
Murat as king; nevertheless, at the demand of that powerful guest,
he surrendered the sword of Francis I., which was delivered with
much ceremony to the French general. Charles, who had sent a paper
to Murat, declaring that his abdication had been the result of
force, wrote also to Napoleon in the same strain; and this state
of affairs being unexpected by the emperor, he employed general
Savary to conduct his plans, which appear to have been considerably
deranged by the vehemence of the people, and the precipitation of
Murat in taking possession of the capital.
Before Savary’s arrival, don Carlos the brother of Ferdinand,
departed from Madrid hoping to meet the emperor Napoleon, whose
presence in that city was confidently expected; and upon the 10th
of April, Ferdinand, having first appointed a supreme junta, of
which his uncle, don Antonio, was president, and Murat a member,
commenced his own remarkable journey to Bayonne, the true causes of
which certainly have not yet been developed; and perhaps when they
shall be known, some petty personal intrigue may be found to have
had a greater share in producing it, than the grand machinations
attributed to Napoleon, who could not have anticipated, much less
have calculated, a great political measure upon such a surprising
example of weakness.
The people everywhere manifested their repugnance to this journey;
at Vittoria they cut the traces of Ferdinand’s carriage, and at
different times several gallant men offered, at the risk of their
lives, to carry him off, in defiance of the French troops quartered
along the road. But Ferdinand, unmoved by their entreaties and
zeal, and regardless of the warning contained in a letter that he
received at this period from Napoleon (who, withholding the title
of majesty, sharply reproved him for his past conduct, and scarcely
expressed a wish to meet him), continued his progress, and on the
20th of April, 1808, found himself a prisoner in Bayonne. In the
mean time Charles, who, under the protection of Murat, had resumed
his rights, and obtained the liberty of Godoy, quitted Spain, and
also threw himself, his cause, and kingdom, into the hands of the
emperor.
These events were in themselves quite enough to urge a more
cautious people than the Spaniards into action; but other measures
had been pursued, which proved beyond the possibility of doubt,
that the country was destined to be the spoil of the French.
The troops of that nation had been admitted without reserve or
precaution into the different fortresses upon the Spanish frontier,
and, taking advantage of this hospitality to forward the views of
their chief, they got possession, by various artifices, of the
citadels of St. Sebastian in Guipuscoa, of Pampeluna in Navarre,
and of that of Figueras, and the forts of Monjuik, and citadel of
Barcelona in Catalonia; and thus, under the pretence of mediating
between the father and the son, in a time of profound peace, a
foreign force was suddenly established in the capital--on the
communications--and in the principal frontier fortresses; its
chief was admitted to a share of the government, and a fiery,
proud, and jealous nation was laid prostrate at the feet of a
stranger, without a blow being struck, without one warning voice
being raised, without a suspicion being excited in sufficient time
to guard against those acts, upon which all were gazing in stupid
amazement.
It is idle to attribute this surprising event to the subtlety of
Napoleon’s policy, to the depth of his deceit, or to the treachery
of Godoy. Such a fatal calamity could only be the result of bad
government, and a consequent degradation of public feeling; and
it matters but little to those who wish to derive a lesson from
experience, whether it be a Godoy or a Savary that strikes the
last bargain of corruption, the silly father or the rebellious son
that signs the final act of degradation and infamy. Fortunately,
it is easier to oppress the people of all countries, than to
destroy their generous feelings; when all patriotism is lost among
the upper classes, it may still be found among the lower. In the
Peninsula it was not found, but started into life, and with a
fervour and energy that ennobled even the wild and savage form in
which it appeared; nor was it the less admirable that it burst
forth attended by many evils. The good feeling displayed was the
people’s own; their cruelty, folly, and perverseness, were the
effects of bad government.
There are many reasons why Napoleon should have meddled with the
interior affairs of Spain; there seems to be no good one for his
manner of doing it. It is true that the Spanish Bourbons could
never have been sincere friends to France while Buonaparte held
the sceptre, and the moment that the fear of his power ceased to
operate, it was quite certain that their apparent friendship would
change to active hostility; the proclamation issued by the Spanish
cabinet just before the battle of Jena, is evidence of this
feeling; but if the Bourbons were his enemies, it did not follow
that the people sympathised with their rulers. The resources of the
country were, it is said, already at his disposal; but that availed
him little, as the corruption and weakness of the administration
had reduced those resources to the lowest ebb. His great error
was, that he looked only to the court, and treated the nation with
contempt. Had Napoleon taken care to bring the people and their
government into hostile contact first,--and how many points of
contact would not such a government have afforded!--instead of
appearing as the treacherous arbitrator in a domestic quarrel, he
would have been hailed as the deliverer of a great people.
[Sidenote: Journal of Dupont’s Operations. MSS.]
The journey of Ferdinand, the liberation of Godoy, and the flight
of Charles, the appointing Murat to be a member of the governing
Junta, and the movements of the French troops, who were advancing
from all parts towards Madrid, roused the indignation of the
Spanish people; tumults and assassinations had taken place in
various parts; and at Toledo a serious riot occurred on the 23d
of April; the peasants joined the inhabitants of the town, and it
was only by the advance of a division of infantry and some cavalry
of Dupont’s corps (then quartered at Aranjuez) that order was
restored. The agitation of the public mind, however, increased, the
French troops were all young men, or rather boys, taken from the
last conscription, and disciplined after they had entered Spain,
their youth and apparent feebleness excited the contempt of the
Spaniards, who pride themselves much upon individual prowess; and
the swelling indignation at last broke out.
[Sidenote: Memoir of Azanza and O’Farril.]
Upon the 2d of May, a carriage being prepared (as the people
supposed) to convey don Antonio, the uncle of Ferdinand, to
France, a crowd collected about it, and their language indicated
a determination not to permit the last of the royal family to
be spirited away: the traces of the carriage were cut, and loud
imprecations against the French burst forth on every side. At that
moment, colonel La Grange, an aide-de-camp of Murat’s, appearing
amongst them, was assailed and maltreated; in an instant the
whole city was in commotion, and the French soldiers expecting no
violence, were taken unawares and killed in every quarter: above
seven hundred fell. The hospital was attacked by the populace; but
the attendants and the sick beat them off; and the alarm having
spread to the camp outside the town, the French cavalry came to the
assistance of their countrymen by the gate of Alcala; while general
Lanfranc, with a column of three thousand infantry, descending from
the heights on the north-west quarter, entered the Calle Ancha de
Bernardo. As this column crossed the street of Maravelles, in which
the arsenal was situated, two Spanish officers, named Daois and
Velarde, who were in a state of great excitement, discharged some
guns upon the passing troops, and were immediately put to death
by the voltigeurs; meanwhile, the column, continuing its march,
released, as it advanced, several superior French officers, who
were in a manner besieged in the houses by the mob. The cavalry at
the other end of the town, treating the affair as a tumult, and not
as an action, made some hundred prisoners; and by the exertions
of marshal Moncey, general Harispe, Gonzalvo O’Farril, and some
others, order was soon restored.
After night-fall, the peasantry of the neighbourhood came armed and
in considerable numbers towards the city, and the French guards at
the different gates firing upon them, killed twenty or thirty, and
wounded others, some few were also crushed to death or lamed by the
cavalry in the morning.
In the first moment of irritation, Murat ordered all the prisoners
to be tried by a military commission, which condemned them to
death; but the municipality interfered, and represented to that
prince the extreme cruelty of visiting this angry ebullition of
an injured and insulted people with such severity. Murat admitted
the weight of their arguments, and forbade any executions on the
sentence; but it is said that general Grouchy, in whose immediate
power the prisoners remained, exclaiming that his own life had been
attempted! that the blood of the French soldiers was not to be
spilt with impunity! and that the prisoners having been condemned
by a council of war, ought and should be executed! proceeded to
shoot them in the Prado; and forty were thus slain before Murat
could cause his orders to be effectually obeyed. The next day
some of the Spanish authorities having discovered that a colonel
commanding the imperial guards still retained a number of prisoners
in the barracks, applied to the duke of Berg to have them released.
Murat consented to have those prisoners also enlarged: but the
colonel getting intelligence of what was passing, and being enraged
at the loss of so many choice soldiers, put forty-five of the
captives to death before the order could arrive to stay his bloody
proceedings[4].
Such were nearly the circumstances that attended this celebrated
tumult, in which the wild cry of Spanish warfare was first heard;
but as many authors, adopting without hesitation all the reports of
the day, have represented it sometimes as a wanton and extensive
massacre on the part of the French, at another as a barbarous
political stroke to impress a dread of their power, I think it
necessary to make the following observations.
[Sidenote: Manifesto of the council of Castile. Page 28.]
[Sidenote: Surgical Campaigns of Baron Larrey.]
That it was commenced by the Spaniards is undoubted: their fiery
tempers, the irritation produced by passing events, and the habits
of violence which they had acquired by their late successful
insurrection against Godoy, rendered an explosion inevitable. But
if the French had secretly stimulated this disposition, and had
prepared in cold blood to make a terrible example, undoubtedly
they would have prepared some check on the Spanish soldiers of
the garrison, and they would scarcely have left their hospital
unguarded; still less have arranged the plan so that their own
loss should far exceed that of the Spaniards; and surely nothing
would have induced them to relinquish the profit of such policy
after having suffered all the injury. Yet marshal Moncey and
general Harispe were actively engaged in restoring order; and it is
certain that, including the peasants shot outside the gates, the
executions on the Prado and in the barracks of the imperial guards,
the whole number of Spaniards slain did not amount to one hundred
and twenty persons, while more than seven hundred French fell. Of
the imperial guards seventy men were wounded, and this fact alone
would suffice to prove that there was no premeditation on the part
of Murat; for if he was base enough to sacrifice his own men with
such unconcern, he would not have exposed the select soldiers of
the French empire in preference to the conscripts who abounded in
his army. The affair itself was certainly accidental, and not very
bloody for the patriots, but policy induced both sides to attribute
secret motives, and to exaggerate the slaughter. The Spaniards
in the provinces, impressed with an opinion of French atrocity,
were thereby excited to insurrection on the one hand; and, on the
other, the French, well aware that such an impression could not
be effaced by an accurate relation of what did happen, seized the
occasion to convey a terrible idea of their power and severity;
but, while it is the part of history to reduce such amplifications,
it is impossible to remain unmoved in recording the gallantry and
devotion of a populace that could thus dare to assail the force
commanded by Murat, rather than abandon one of their princes; such,
however, was the character of the lower classes of Spain throughout
this war; fierce, confident, and prone to sudden and rash actions,
they had an intuitive perception of all that was great and noble,
but were miserably weak in execution.
The commotion of the 2d of May was the forerunner of insurrections
in every part of Spain, few of which were so honourable to the
actors as that of Madrid. Unprincipled villains hailed this
opportunity of directing the passions of the multitude, and, under
the mask of patriotism, turned the unthinking fury of the people
against whoever it pleased them to rob or to destroy: pillage,
massacres, assassinations, cruelties of the most revolting kind
were everywhere perpetrated; and the intrinsic goodness of the
cause was disfigured by the enormities committed at Cadiz, Seville,
Badajos, and other places, but chiefly at Valencia, pre-eminent in
barbarity at a moment when all were barbarous! The first burst
of popular feeling being thus misdirected, and the energy of the
people wasted in assassinations; lassitude and fear succeeded to
the insolence of tumult at the approach of real danger; for it
is one thing to shine in the work of butchery, and another to
establish that discipline which can alone sustain the courage of
the multitude in the hour of trial.
To cover the suspicious measure of introducing more troops than
the terms of the convention warranted, a variety of reports
relative to the ultimate intentions of the French emperor had been
propagated: at one time Gibraltar was to be besieged, and officers
were despatched to examine the Mediterranean coasts of Spain
and Barbary; at another, Portugal was to become the theatre of
great events, and a mysterious importance was attached to all the
movements of the French armies, with a view to deceive a court that
fear and sloth disposed to the belief of any thing but the truth,
and to impose upon a people whose unsuspicious ignorance was at
first mistaken for tameness.
In the mean time, active agents were employed to form a French
party at the capital; but as the insurrections of Aranjuez and
Madrid discovered the fierceness of the Spanish character, Napoleon
enjoined more caution and prudence upon his lieutenants than the
latter were disposed to practise. In fact, Murat’s precipitation
was the cause of hastening the discovery of his master’s real views
before they were ripe for execution; for Dupont’s first division
and cavalry crossed the Duero as early as the 14th of March, and
upon the 10th of April occupied Aranjuez, while his second and
third divisions took post at the Escurial and at Segovia; thus
encircling the capital while Moncey’s corps occupied it. Hence an
intention to control the provincial government left by Ferdinand
became manifest, and the riot at Toledo, although promptly quelled
by the interference of the French troops, indicated the state of
the public mind before the explosion at Madrid had placed the
parties in a state of direct hostility.
Murat seems to have been intrusted with only a half confidence,
and as his natural impetuosity urged him to play a rash rather
than a timid part, he appeared with the air of a conqueror before
a ground of quarrel was laid; not that he acted entirely without
grounds, for a letter addressed to him about this time by Napoleon,
contained the following instructions: “_The duke of Infantado has
a party in Madrid; they will attack you; dissipate them, and seize
the government._” But Murat’s policy, as his after life proved, was
too coarse and open for such difficult affairs.
At Bayonne the political events kept pace with those of Madrid.
Charles IV. having reclaimed his rights in presence of Napoleon,
sent orders to the infant, don Antonio, to resign his office, the
presidency of the governing junta, to Murat, who, at the same time,
received the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom: this
appointment, and the restoration of Charles to the regal dignity,
were proclaimed in Madrid, with the acquiescence of the council of
Castile, on the 10th of May; but five days previous to that period,
the old monarch had again resigned his sceptre into the hands of
Napoleon, and Ferdinand and himself were consigned, with large
pensions, to the tranquillity of private life.
The throne of Spain being now vacant, the right to fill it was
assumed by the French emperor, in virtue of the cession made by
Charles IV. He desired that a king might be chosen from his own
family, and after some hesitation upon the part of the council of
Castile, that body, in concert with the municipality of Madrid, and
the governing junta, declared that their choice had fallen upon
Joseph Buonaparte, at that time king of Naples. Cardinal Bourbon,
primate of Spain, first cousin of Charles IV., and archbishop of
Toledo, not only acceded to this arrangement, but actually wrote
to Napoleon a letter testifying his adhesion to the new order of
things.
As it was easy to foretel the result of the election, the king of
Naples was already journeying towards Bayonne, and arrived there
on the 7th of June. The principal men of Spain were also invited
to meet in that town upon the 15th, with a view to obtain their
assent to a constitution prepared by Napoleon. At this meeting,
called “the Assembly of Notables,” ninety-one Spaniards of eminence
appeared, and, first accepting Joseph as their king, proceeded to
discuss the constitution in detail, and after several sittings
adopted it, and swore to maintain its provisions. Thus finished the
first part of this eventful drama.
The new constitution was calculated to draw forth the resources
of Spain: compared to the old system it was a blessing, and it
would have been received as such under different circumstances;
but now arms were to decide its fate, for in every province of
Spain the cry of war had been raised. In Catalonia, in Valencia, in
Andalusia, Estremadura, Gallicia, and the Asturias, the people were
gathering, and fiercely declaring their determination to resist
French intrusion.
But Joseph, apparently contented with the acquiescence of the
ninety-one notables, and trusting to the powerful support of
his brother, crossed the frontier on the 9th of July; and on
the 12th arrived at Vittoria. The inhabitants still nourishing
the discontent caused by Ferdinand’s journey to Bayonne, seemed
disposed to hinder Joseph’s entrance; but their opposition did not
break out into actual violence, and the next morning he continued
his progress by Miranda del Ebro, Breviesca, Burgos, and Buitrago.
The 20th of July he entered Madrid, and upon the 24th he was
proclaimed king of Spain and the Indies, with all the solemnities
usual upon such occasions; not hesitating to declare himself
the enemy of eleven millions of people, the object of a whole
nation’s hatred; calling, with a strange accent, from the midst
of foreign bands, upon that fierce and haughty race, to accept of
a constitution which they did not understand, and which few of
them had ever heard of; his only hope of success resting on the
strength of his brother’s arms; his claims upon the consent of an
imbecile monarch, and the weakness of a few pusillanimous nobles,
in contempt of the rights of millions now arming to oppose him.
This was the unhallowed part of the enterprise; this it was that
rendered his offered constitution odious, covered it with a leprous
skin, and drove the noble-minded far from the pollution of its
touch!
CHAPTER III.
[Sidenote: Memoir of O’Farril, and Azanza.]
Joseph being proclaimed king, required the council of Castile to
take the oath of allegiance prescribed by the constitution; but
with unexpected boldness, that body, hitherto obedient, met his
orders with a remonstrance. War, virtually declared on the 2d of
May, was at this time raging in all parts of the peninsula, and the
council was secretly apprized that a great misfortune had befallen
the French arms. It was no longer a question between Joseph and
some reluctant public bodies, but an awful struggle between
great nations; and how the spirit of insurrection breaking forth
simultaneously in every province was nourished in each, until it
acquired the consistence of regular warfare, I shall now relate.
Just before the tumult of Aranjuez, the marquis of Solano y Socoro,
commanding the Spanish auxiliary force in the Alentejo, received
orders from Godoy to withdraw from that country with his division,
and to post it on the frontier of Andalusia, to cover the projected
journey of Charles IV. Napoleon was aware of these orders, but
would not interrupt their execution. Solano quitted Portugal
without difficulty, and in the latter end of May, observing the
general agitation, repaired to his government of Cadiz, where a
French squadron[5], under admiral Rossily, had just before taken
refuge from the English fleet. As Solano passed through Seville
(that city being in a state of great ferment), he was required to
put himself at the head of an insurrection in favour of Ferdinand
VII. He refused, and passed on to his own government; but there
also the people were ripe for a declaration against the French;
and a local government having been in the mean time established
at Seville, the members at once assumed the title of the “Supreme
Junta of Spain and the Indies,” declared war in form against the
intrusive monarch, commanded all men between the ages of sixteen
and forty-five to take arms, called upon the troops of the camp
of St. Roch to acknowledge their authority, and ordered Solano
to attack the French squadron. That unfortunate man hesitated
to commit his country in a war with a power whose strength and
means he was better acquainted with than the temper of his own
countrymen, and was instantly murdered: he died with a courage
worthy of his amiable and unblemished character. There is too much
reason to believe that his death was coolly projected, and that the
junta at Seville sent an agent to Cadiz for the express purpose of
exciting the populace to commit this odious assassination.
This foul stain upon the cause was intensely deepened by the
perpetration of similar or worse deeds in every part of the
kingdom. At Seville the conde d’Aguilar was dragged from his
carriage, and, without even the imputation of guilt, inhumanly
butchered; and here again it is said that the mob were instigated
by a leading member of the junta, count Gusman de Tilly, a man
described as “capable of dishonouring a whole nation by his
crimes,” while his victim was universally admitted to be virtuous
and accomplished.
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s correspondence.]
As early as April, general Castaños (then commanding the camp of
St. Roch) had entered into communication with sir Hew Dalrymple,
the governor of Gibraltar; he was resolved to seize any
opportunity that offered to resist the French, and he appears
to have been the first, if not the only Spaniard, who united
patriotism with prudent calculation, readily acknowledging the
authority of the junta of Seville, and stifling the workings of
self-interest with a virtue by no means common to his countrymen
at that period. When the insurrection first broke out, admiral
Purvis, commanded the British squadron off Cadiz, and in concert
with general Spencer (who happened to be in that part of the world
with five thousand men), offered to co-operate with Solano, if he
would assail the French ships of war in the harbour: upon the death
of that unfortunate man, this offer was renewed and pressed upon
don Thomas Morla, his successor; but he, for reasons hereafter
to be mentioned, refused all assistance, and reduced the hostile
ships himself. Castaños, on the contrary, united closely with all
the British commanders, and obtained from them supplies of arms,
ammunition, and money; and at the insistence of sir Hew Dalrymple,
the merchants of Gibraltar advanced a loan for the service of the
Spanish patriots[6].
[Sidenote: Moniteur. Azanza an O’Farril. Nellerto.]
Meanwhile the assassinations at Cadiz and Seville were imitated
in every part of Spain; hardly can a town be named in which
some innocent and worthy persons were not slain. Grenada had
its murders; Carthagena rivalled Cadiz in ruthless cruelty; and
Valencia was foul with slaughter. Don Miguel de Saavedra, the
governor of that city, was killed, not in the fury of the moment,
for he escaped the first danger and fled, but being pursued and
captured, was brought back and deliberately sacrificed. Balthazar
Calvo, a canon of the church of St. Isidro, then commenced a
massacre of the French residents. For twelve days unchecked he
traversed the streets of Valencia, followed by a band of fanatics,
brandishing their knives, and filling all places with blood: many
hundred helpless people fell the victims of his thirst for murder;
and at last, emboldened by the impunity he enjoyed, Calvo proceeded
to threaten the junta itself; but there his career was checked.
Those worthy personages, who (with the exception of Mr. Tupper, the
English consul, then a member), had calmly witnessed his previous
violence, at once found the means to crush his power when their own
safety was concerned. The canon, being in the act of braving their
authority, was seized by stratagem, imprisoned, and soon afterwards
strangled, together with two hundred of his band.
The conde de Serbelloni, captain-general of the province, placed
himself at the head of the insurrection, and proceeded to organise
an army; and at the same time the old count Florida Blanca assumed
the direction of the Murcian patriots, and those two kingdoms acted
cordially together.
In Catalonia the occupation of Barcelona impeded the development of
the popular effervescence, but the feeling was the same, and the
insurrection breaking out at the town of Manresa, soon spread to
all the unfettered parts of the province.
In Aragon the arrival of don Joseph Palafox kindled the fire of
patriotism; he had escaped from Bayonne, and his family were
greatly esteemed in a country where it was of the noblest among a
people absurdly vain of their ancient descent. The captain-general,
fearful of a tumult, ordered Palafox to quit the province. This
circumstance, joined to some appearance of mystery in his escape,
inflamed the passions of the multitude; they surrounded his abode,
and forced him to put himself at their head: the captain-general
was displaced and confined, some persons were murdered, and a junta
was formed. Palafox was considered by his companions as a man of
slender capacity and great vanity, and there is nothing in his
exploits to create a doubt of the justness of this opinion. It was
not Palafox that upheld the glory of Aragon, it was the spirit of
the people, which he had not excited, and could so little direct,
that for a long time after the commencement of the first siege, he
was kept a sort of prisoner in Zaragoza; and evident distrust of
his courage and fidelity was displayed by the population which he
is supposed to have ruled.
The example of Aragon aroused the Navarrese, and Logroño became the
focus of an insurrection which extended along most of the valleys
of that kingdom. In the northern and western provinces the spirit
of independence was equally fierce, and as decidedly pronounced,
accompanied also by the same brutal excesses. In Badajos the conde
de la Torre del Frenio was butchered by the populace, and his
mangled carcass dragged through the streets in triumph. At Talavera
de la Reyna, the corregidor with difficulty escaped a similar
fate by a hasty flight. Leon presented a wide, unbroken scene of
anarchy. In Valladolid, and all the great towns, the insurgent
patriots laid violent hands upon every person who did not instantly
concur in their wishes, and pillage was added to murder.
Gallicia seemed to hold back for a moment; but the example of
Leon, and the arrival of an agent from the Asturias, where the
insurrection was in full force, produced a general movement.
Filanghieri, the governor of Coruña, an Italian by birth, was
by a tumultuous crowd called upon to exercise the rights of
sovereignty, and to declare war in form against the French: like
every man of sense in Spain, he was unwilling to commence such an
important revolution upon such uncertain grounds; the impatient
populace instantly attempted his life, which was then saved by
the courage of an officer of his staff; but his horrible fate
was only deferred. He was a man of talent, sincerely attached to
Spain, and he exerted himself with success in establishing a force
in the province: no suspicion of guilt seems to have attached to
his conduct, and his death marks the temper of the times and the
inherent ferocity of the people. A part of the regiment of Navarre
seized him at Villa Franca del Bierzo, planted the ground with
their bayonets, and then tossing him in a blanket, let him fall on
the points thus disposed, and there leaving him to struggle, they
dispersed and retired to their own homes.
The Asturians were the first who proclaimed their indefeasible
right of choosing a new government when the old one ceased to
afford them protection. Having established a local junta, and
invested it with all the functions of royalty, they declared war
against the French, and despatched deputies to England to solicit
assistance.
In Biscay and the Castiles, fifty thousand bayonets overawed the
great towns; but the peasantry commenced a war in their own manner
against the stragglers and the sick, and thus a hostile chain
surrounding the French army was completed in every link.
This universal and nearly simultaneous effort of the Spanish people
was beheld by the rest of Europe with astonishment and admiration:
astonishment at the energy thus suddenly put forth by a nation
hitherto deemed unnerved and debased; admiration at the devoted
courage of an act, which, seen at a distance, and its odious
parts unknown, appeared with all the ideal beauty of Numantian
patriotism. In England the enthusiasm was unbounded; dazzled
at first with the splendour of such an agreeable, unlooked-for
spectacle, men of all classes gave way to the impulse of a generous
sympathy, and forgot, or felt disinclined to analyse, the real
causes of this apparently magnanimous exertion. But without wishing
to detract from the merit of the Spanish people, and certainly that
merit was very great, it may be fairly doubted if the disinterested
vigour of their character was the true source of their resistance.
Constituted as modern states are, with little in their systems of
government or education which conduces to nourish intense feelings
of patriotism, it would be miraculous indeed if such a result was
obtained from the pure virtue of a nation, which for two centuries
had groaned under the pressure of civil and religious despotism.
It was, in fact, produced by several co-operating causes, many of
which were any thing but commendable.
The Spanish character, with relation to public affairs, is
distinguished by inordinate pride and arrogance. Dilatory and
improvident, the individual as well as the mass, all possess an
absurd confidence that every thing is practicable which their
heated imagination suggests; once excited, they can see no
difficulty in the execution of a project, and the obstacles they
encounter are attributed to treachery; hence the sudden murder
of so many virtuous men at the commencement of this commotion.
Kind and warm in his attachments, but bitter in his anger, the
Spaniard is patient under privations, firm in bodily suffering,
prone to sudden passion, vindictive, bloody, remembering insult
longer than injury, and cruel in his revenge. With a strong natural
perception of what is noble, his promise is lofty, but as he
invariably permits his passions to get the mastery of his reason,
his performance is mean.
In the progress of this war the tenacity of vengeance peculiar to
the nation supplied the want of cool, persevering intrepidity;
but it was a poor substitute for that essential quality, and
led rather to deeds of craft and cruelty than to daring acts of
patriotism. Now the abstraction of the royal family, and the
unexpected pretension to the crown, so insultingly put forth by
Napoleon, aroused all the Spanish pride. The tumults of Madrid
and Aranjuez had agitated the public mind, and prepared it for a
violent movement, and the protection afforded by the French to
the obnoxious Godoy increased the ferment of popular feeling:
a dearly cherished vengeance was thus frustrated at the moment
of its expected accomplishment, and the disappointment excited
all that fierceness of anger which with Spaniards is, for the
moment, uncontrollable. Just then the tumult of Madrid, swollen
and distorted, wrought the people to frenzy, and they arose with
one accord, not to meet a danger the extent of which they had
calculated, and were prepared, for the sake of independence, to
confront, but to gratify the fury of their hearts, and to slake
their thirst of blood.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Memoires, Campagne d’Italie, Venise.]
During Godoy’s administration the property of the church had been
trenched upon, and it was evident, from the example of France
and Italy, that, under the new system, that operation would be
repeated. This was a matter that involved the interests, and,
of course, stimulated the activity of a multitude of monks and
priests, who found no difficulty in persuading an ignorant and
bigoted people that the aggressive stranger was also the enemy
of religion and accursed of God; hence processions, miracles,
prophecies, distribution of reliques, and the appointment of saints
to the command of the armies, were freely employed to fanaticize
the mass of the patriots. In every part of the peninsula the
clergy were distinguished for their active zeal, and monks or
friars were leaders in the tumults, or at the side of those who
were instigating them to barbarous actions. Buonaparte found the
same cause produce similar effects during his early campaigns in
Italy; and if the shape of that country had been as favourable for
protracted resistance, and that a like support had been afforded to
them by Great Britain, the heroes of Spain would have been rivalled
by modern Romans!
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 9.]
The continental system of mercantile exclusion was another spring
of this complicated machinery. It threatened to lessen the already
decayed commerce of the maritime towns; but the contraband trade,
which has always been carried on in Spain to an incredible extent,
was certain of destruction; and with that trade the fate of one
hundred thousand excise and custom-house officers was involved.
It required but a small share of penetration to perceive, that
a system of armed revenue officers, organized after the French
manner, and stimulated by a vigorous administration, would
quickly put an end to the smuggling, which was, in truth, only a
consequence of the monopolies and internal restrictions upon the
trade of one province with another--vexations abolished by the
constitution of Bayonne: hence all the activity and intelligence
of the merchants engaged in foreign trade, and all the numbers and
lawless violence of the smugglers, were enlisted in the cause of
the country, and swelled the ranks of the insurgent patriots; and
hence also the readiness of the Gibraltar merchants to advance the
loan before spoken of.
The state of civilisation in Spain was likewise exactly suited to
an insurrection: if the people had been a little more enlightened,
they would have joined the French; if very enlightened, the
invasion could not have happened at all; but, in a country where
the comforts of civilized society are less needed, and therefore
less attended to than in any other part of Europe, where the warmth
and dryness of the climate render it no sort of privation or even
inconvenience to sleep for the greatest part of the year in the
open air, and where the universal custom is to go armed, it was not
difficult for any energetic man to assemble and keep together large
masses of the credulous peasantry. No story could be too gross
for their belief, if it agreed with their wishes. “Es verdad, los
dicen,” “It is true, they say it,” is the invariable answer of a
Spaniard if a doubt is expressed of the truth of an absurd report.
Of temperate habits, possessing little furniture, and generally
hoarding all the gold he can get, the Spanish peasant is less
concerned for the loss of his house than the inhabitant of another
country would be: the effort that he makes in relinquishing his
abode must not be measured by the scale of an Englishman’s exertion
in a like case; and once engaged in an adventure, the lightness of
his spirits, and the brilliancy of his sky, make it a matter of
indifference to the angry Spanish peasant whither he wanders.
[Sidenote: Historia de la Guerra contra Napoleon.]
The evils which had afflicted the country previous to the period of
the French interference was another cause which tended to prepare
the Spaniards for violence, and aided in turning that violence
against the intruders. Famine, oppression, poverty, and disease,
the loss of commerce, and unequal taxation, had pressed sorely
upon them; for such a system the people could not be enthusiastic;
but they were taught to believe, that Godoy was the sole author of
the misery they suffered, and that Ferdinand would redress their
grievances; and as the French were the strenuous protectors of the
former, and the oppressors of the latter, it was easy to add this
bitterness to their natural hatred of the domination of a stranger;
and it was so done.
Such were the principal causes which combined to produce this
surprising revolution, from which so many great events flowed,
without one man of eminent talent being cast up to control or
direct the spirit which was thus accidentally excited. Nothing
proves more directly the heterogeneous nature of the feelings and
interests which were united together than this last fact, which
cannot be attributed to a deficiency of natural talent, for the
genius of the Spanish people is notoriously ardent, subtle, and
vigorous; but there was no common bond of feeling which a great man
could lay hold of to influence large masses. Persons of sagacity
perceived very early that the Spanish revolution, like a leafy
shrub in a violent gale of wind, greatly agitated but disclosing
only slight unconnected stems, afforded no sure hold for the
ambition of a master-spirit, if such there were. It was clear that
the cause would fail unless supported by England, and then England
would direct all, and not suffer her resources to be wielded for
the glory of an individual, whose views and policy might hereafter
thwart her own; nor was it difficult to perceive that the downfall
of Napoleon, not the regeneration of Spain, was the object of her
cabinet.
The explosion of public feeling was fierce in its expression,
because political passions will always be vehement at the first
moment of their appearance among a people new to civil commotion,
and unused to permit their heat to evaporate in public discussions.
The result was certainly a wonderful change in the affairs of
Europe; it seems yet undecided whether that change has been for the
better or for the worse. In the progress of their struggle, the
Spaniards developed more cruelty than courage, more violence than
intrepidity, more personal hatred of the French than enthusiasm for
their own cause. They opened indeed a wide field for the exertions
of others; they presented a fulcrum upon which a lever was rested
that moved the civilised world; but assuredly the presiding genius,
the impelling power, came from another quarter. Useful accessories
they were, but as principals they displayed neither wisdom, spirit,
nor skill sufficient to resist the prodigious force by which they
were assailed. If they appeared at first heedless of danger, it was
not because they were prepared to perish rather than submit, but
that they were reckless of provoking a power whose terrors they
could not estimate, and in their ignorance despised.
It is, however, not surprising that great expectations were
at first formed of the heroism of the Spaniards, and those
expectations were greatly augmented by their agreeable qualities.
There is not upon the face of the earth a people so attractive in
the friendly intercourse of society: their majestic language, fine
persons, imposing dress and lively imaginations, the inexpressible
beauty of the women, and the air of romance which they throw
over every action, and infuse into every feeling, all combine to
delude the senses and to impose upon the judgment. As companions
they are incomparably the most agreeable of mankind; but danger
and disappointment attend the man who, confiding in their promises
and energy, ventures upon a difficult enterprise. “Never do to-day
what you can put off until to-morrow,” is the favourite proverb in
Spain, and, unlike most proverbs, it is rigidly attended to.
CHAPTER IV.
The commotion of Aranjuez had undeceived the French emperor;
he perceived that he was engaged in a delicate enterprise, and
that the people he had to deal with were any thing but tame and
quiescent under insult. Determined, however, to persevere, he
pursued his political intrigues, and, without relinquishing the
hope of a successful termination to the affair by such means, he
arranged a profound plan of military operations, and so distributed
his forces, that, at the moment when Spain was pouring forth her
swarthy bands, the masses of the French army were concentrated upon
the most important points, and combined in such a manner, that,
from their central position they had the power of overwhelming each
separate province, no three of which could act in concert without
first beating a French corps; and if any of the Spanish armies
succeeded in routing a French force, the remaining corps of the
latter could unite without difficulty, and retreat without danger.
It was the skill of this disposition which enabled seventy thousand
men, covering a great extent of country, to brave the simultaneous
fury of a whole nation: an army less ably distributed would have
been trampled under foot, and lost amidst the tumultuous uproar of
eleven millions of people.
[Sidenote: Historia de la Guerra contra Napoleon Buonaparte.]
The inconvenience in a political point of view that would have
arisen from suffering a regular army to take the field was evident.
To have been able to characterise the opposition of the Spanish
people as a partial insurrection of peasants, instigated by some
evil-disposed persons to act against the wishes of the respectable
part of the nation, would have given some colour to the absorbing
darkness of the invasion: but to have permitted that which was at
first an insurrection of peasants to take the form and consistence
of regular armies and methodical warfare, would have been a
military error, and dangerous in the extreme. Napoleon, who well
knew that scientific war is only a wise application of force,
laughed at the delusion of those who regarded the want of a regular
army as a favourable circumstance, and who hailed the undisciplined
peasant as the more certain defender of the country. He knew that
a general insurrection can never last long, that it is a military
anarchy, and incapable of real strength: he knew that it was the
disciplined battalions of Valley Forge, not the volunteers of
Lexington, that established American independence; that it was
the veterans of Arcole and Marengo, not the republicans of Valmy,
that fixed the fate of the French revolution; and consequently his
efforts were directed to hinder the Spaniards from drawing together
any great body of regular soldiers; an event that might easily
happen, for the gross amount of the organized Spanish force was,
in the month of May, about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand
men of all arms. Fifteen thousand of these were in Holstein, under
the marquis of Romana, but twenty thousand were already partially
concentrated in Portugal. The remainder, in which were comprised
eleven thousand Swiss and thirty thousand militia, were dispersed
in various parts of the kingdom, principally in Andalusia. Besides
this force, there was a sort of local reserve called the urban
militia, much neglected, and indeed more a name than a reality.
Nevertheless the advantage of such an institution was considerable;
men were to be had in abundance: and as the greatest difficulty in
a sudden crisis is to prepare the frame-work of order, it was no
small resource to find a plan of service ready, the principle of
which was understood by the people.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes. Appendix, No. 3.]
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal. MSS.]
The French army in the Peninsula about the same period, although
amounting to eighty thousand men, exclusive of those under Junot
in Portugal, had not more than seventy thousand capable of active
operations; the remainder were sick or in depôts. The possession
of the fortresses, the central position, and the combination of
this comparatively small army, gave it great strength; but it had
also many points of weakness; it was made up of the conscripts
of different nations, French, Swiss, Italians, Poles, and even
Portuguese, whom Junot had expatriated, partly to strengthen
the French army, partly to weaken the nation which he held in
subjection; and it is a curious fact, that some of them remained
in Spain until the end of the war. A few of the imperial guards
were also employed, and here and there an old regiment of the line
was mixed with the young troops to give them consistence; but
with these exceptions the French army must be considered as a raw
levy fresh from the plough and unacquainted with discipline: so
late even as the month of August many of the battalions had not
completed the first elements of their drill, and if they had not
been formed upon good skeletons, the difference between them and
the insurgent peasantry would have been very trifling. This fact
explains, in some measure, the otherwise incomprehensible checks
and defeats which the French sustained at the commencement of the
contest, and it likewise proves how little of vigour there was in
Spanish resistance at the moment of the greatest enthusiasm.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
In the distribution of these troops Napoleon attended principally
to the security of Madrid. The capital city, and the centre of
all interests, its importance was manifest, and the great line
of communication between it and Bayonne was early and constantly
covered with troops. But the imprudence with which the grand
duke of Berg brought up the corps of Moncey and Dupont to the
capital, the manner in which those corps were posted, cutting off
the communication between the northern and southern provinces,
and the haughty impolitic demeanour assumed by that prince, drew
on the crisis of affairs before the time was ripe, and obliged
the French monarch to hasten the advance of other troops, and to
make a greater display of his force than was consistent with his
policy; for Murat’s movement, while it threatened the Spaniards
and provoked their hostility, placed the French army in an
isolated position, leaving the long line of communication with
France unprovided with soldiers and requiring fresh battalions
to fill up the void thus discovered; and this circumstance
generated additional anger and suspicion at a very critical
period of time. To supply the chasm left by Moncey’s advance,
the formation of a new corps was commenced in Navarre, and by
successive reinforcements so increased; that in June it amounted
to twenty-three thousand men, who were placed under the command of
marshal Bessieres, and took the title of the “army of the Western
Pyrenees.”
Bessieres, at the first appearance of the commotion, fixed his
head quarters at Burgos and occupied Vittoria, Miranda de Ebro,
and other towns, placing posts in his front towards Leon; this
position, while it protected the line from Bayonne to the capital,
enabled him to awe the Asturias and Biscay, and (by giving him
the command of the valley of the Duero,) to keep the kingdom of
Leon and the province of Segovia in check. The town and castle of
Burgos, being put into a state of defence, contained his dépôts,
and became the centre and pivot of his operations; while some
intermediate posts and the fortresses connected him with Bayonne,
where a reserve of twenty thousand men was formed under general
Drouet, then commanding the eleventh military division of France.
[Sidenote: St. Cyr.]
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
[Sidenote: Duhesme’s Instructions, Jan. 28th. Vide St. Cyr.]
By the convention of Fontainebleau, the emperor was entitled to
send forty thousand men into the northern parts of Spain. The right
thus acquired was grossly abused, but the exercise of it being
expected, created at first but little alarm. It was different
on the eastern frontier: Napoleon had never intimated a wish to
pass forces by Catalonia; neither the treaty nor the convention
authorized such a measure, nor could the pretence of supporting
Junot in Portugal be advanced as a mask. Nevertheless, so early
as the 9th of February, eleven thousand infantry, sixteen hundred
cavalry, and eighteen pieces of artillery, under the command of
general Duhesme, crossed the frontier at La Jonquera, and marched
upon Barcelona, leaving a detachment at the town of Figueras,
the strong citadel of which commands the principal pass of the
mountains. Arrived at Barcelona, Duhesme prolonged his residence
there under the pretext of waiting for instructions from Madrid,
relative to a pretended march upon Cadiz; but his secret orders
were, to obtain exact information concerning the Catalonian
fortresses, dépôts, and magazines,--to ascertain the state of
public feeling,--to preserve a rigid discipline,--scrupulously to
avoid giving any offence to the Spaniards, and to enter into close
communication with marshal Moncey, at that time commanding the
whole of the French army in the north of Spain.
The political affairs were even then beginning to indicate serious
results, and as soon as Duhesme’s report was received, and the
troops in the north were in a condition to execute their orders,
he was directed to seize upon the citadel of Barcelona, and the
fort of Monjuick. The citadel was obtained by stratagem; the fort,
one of the strongest in the world, was surrendered by the governor
Alvarez. That brave and worthy officer, knowing the baseness of
his court, was certain that he would receive no support from that
quarter, and did not resist the demand of the French general, who
having failed to surprise the vigilance of the garrison, impudently
insisted upon a surrender of the place. Alvarez consented to
relinquish his charge, although he felt the disgrace of his
situation so acutely that, it is said, he had some thoughts of
springing a mine beneath a French detachment during the conference;
but his mind, unequal to the occasion, betrayed his spirit, and he
sunk, oppressed by the force of unexpected circumstances.
What a picture of human weakness do these affairs present; the
boldest men shrinking from the discharge of their trust like the
meanest cowards, and the wisest following the march of events,
confounded and without a rule of action! If such a firm man, as
Alvarez afterwards proved himself to be, could think the disgrace
of surrendering his charge at the demand of an insolent and
perfidious guest a smaller misfortune than the anger of a miserable
court, what must the state of public feeling have been, and how
can those men who, like O’Farril and Azanza, served the intruder
be with justice blamed, if, amidst the general stagnation, they
could not perceive the elements of a salutary tempest? At the view
of such scenes Napoleon might well enlarge his ambitious designs,
his fault was not in the projection, but in the rough execution
of his plan; another combination would have ensured success, and
the resistance he encountered only shows, that nations as well as
individuals are but the creatures of circumstances, at one moment
weak, trembling, and submissive; at another proud, haughty, and
daring; every novel combination of events has an effect upon public
sentiment distinct from, and often at variance, with what is called
national character.
The treacherous game played at Barcelona was renewed at Figueras,
and with equal success; the citadel of that place fell into the
hands of the detachment left there, and thus a free entrance, and
a secure base of operations, was established in Catalonia, and the
magazines of Barcelona being filled, Duhesme, whose corps took the
name of the “army of the Eastern Pyrenees,” concluded that his task
was well accomplished.
The affair was indeed a momentous one, and Napoleon earnestly
looked for its termination before the transactions at Madrid could
give an unfavourable impression of his ulterior intentions; he saw
the importance which, under certain circumstances, a war would
confer upon Barcelona. With an immense population, great riches,
a good harbour, and almost impregnable defences, that town might
be called the key of the south of France or Spain, just as it
happened to be in the possession of the one or the other nation.
The proximity of Sicily, where a large British force was kept in a
state of constant preparation, made it more than probable that if
hostilities broke out between himself and the Spaniards, an English
army would be quickly carried to Barcelona, and a formidable
systematic war be established upon the threshold of France. Such
an occurrence would have been fatal to his projects, he felt the
full extent of the danger, and at the risk of rendering abortive
the efforts to create a French party at Madrid, guarded against it
by this open violation of Spanish independence; but the peril of
exposing Barcelona to the English was too imminent to leave room
for hesitation.
Thirty or forty thousand British troops occupying an entrenched
camp in front of that town, supported by a powerful fleet, and
having reserve magazines and dépôts in Sicily and the Spanish
islands, might have been so wielded as to give ample occupation
to a hundred and fifty thousand enemies. Under the protection of
such an army, the Spanish levies might have been organised and
instructed, and as the actual numbers assembled could have been
at all times easily masked, increased, or diminished, and the
fleet ready to co-operate, the south of France (from whence all
the provisions of the enemy must have been drawn) would have been
exposed to descents, and have sustained all the inconvenience of
actual hostilities. The Spanish provinces of Valencia, Murcia, and
even Andalusia, being thus covered, the war would have been drawn
to a head, and concentrated about Catalonia, the most warlike,
rugged, and sterile portion of Spain. But Duhesme’s success
having put an end to this danger, the affairs of Barcelona sunk
into comparative insignificance. Nevertheless, the emperor kept
a jealous watch upon that quarter, the corps employed there was
increased to twenty-two thousand men, the general commanding it
corresponded directly with Napoleon, and Barcelona was made the
centre of a system complete in itself, and distinct from that
which held the other corps, rolling round Madrid as their point of
attraction.
The capital of Spain is situated in a sort of basin, formed by
a semicircular range of mountains, which under the different
denominations of the Sierra de Guadarama, the Carpentanos, and the
Sierra de Guadalaxara, sweep in one unbroken chain from east to
west, touching the Tagus at either end of an arch, of which that
river is the chord.
All direct communications between Madrid and France, or between the
former and the northern provinces of Spain, must necessarily pass
over one or other of those Sierras, which are separated from the
great range of the Pyrenees by the valley of the Ebro, and from the
Biscayan and Asturian mountains by the valley of the Duero.
The four principal roads which lead from France directly upon
Madrid are, first, the royal causeway, which passing the frontier
at Irun runs under St. Sebastian, and then through a wild and
mountainous country (full of dangerous defiles) to the Ebro,
crosses that river by a stone bridge at Miranda, and leads upon
Burgos, from which town it turns short to the left, is carried over
the Duero at Aranda, and soon after encountering the Carpentanos
and the Sierra de Guadalaxara, penetrates them by the strong pass
of the Somosierra, and descends upon the capital. Vittoria stands
in a plain about half way between St. Sebastian and Burgos.
The second, which is inferior to the first, commences at St. Jean
Pied de Port, and unites at Pampelona: it runs through Taffalla,
crosses the Ebro at Tudela, and enters the basin of Madrid by the
eastern range of the Sierra de Guadalaxara, where the declination
of the mountains presents a less rugged barrier than the snowy
summits of the northern and western part of the chain.
The third threads the Pyrenees by the way of Jaca, passes the Ebro
at Zaragoza, and uniting with the second, likewise crosses the
Guadalaxara ridge.
The fourth is the great route from Perpignan by Figueras and Gerona
to Barcelona; from this latter town it leads by Cervera and Lerida
to Zaragoza.
Hence Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, one of the great dépôts of
Spain for arms and ammunition, and at that time containing fifty
thousand inhabitants, was a strategetical point of importance. An
army in position there could operate on either bank of the Ebro,
intercept the communication between the armies of the Eastern and
Western Pyrenees, and block three out of the four great roads
leading upon Madrid; if the French had occupied it in force, their
army in the capital would have been free and unconstrained in
its operations, and might have acted with more security against
Valencia; and the dangerous importance of the united armies of
Gallicia and Leon would also have been diminished, when the
road of Burgos ceased to be the only line of retreat from the
capital. Nevertheless, Napoleon neglected Zaragoza at first,
because that having no citadel, a small body of troops could not
control the inhabitants, and a large force would have created
suspicion too soon, and perhaps have prevented the success of
the attempts against Pampelona and Barcelona (objects of still
greater importance); neither was the heroic defence which that city
afterwards made within a reasonable calculation.
The grand duke of Berg and the duke of Rovigo remained at Madrid,
and from that central point appeared to direct the execution of
the French emperor’s projects; but he distrusted their judgment,
and exacted the most detailed information of every movement and
transaction.
In the course of June, Murat, who was suffering from illness,
quitted Spain, leaving behind him a troubled people, and a name for
cruelty which was foreign to his character. Savary remained the
sole representative of the new monarch: his situation was delicate;
he was in the midst of a great commotion; upon every side he beheld
the violence of insurrection and the fury of an insulted nation; it
behoved him, therefore, to calculate with coolness and to execute
with vigour.
[Sidenote: Cabanes’ War in Catalonia, 1st Part.]
Each Spanish province had its own junta of government; but
although equally enraged, they were not equally dangerous in their
anger. The attention of the Catalonians was completely absorbed
by Duhesme’s operations; but the soldiers of the regiments which
composed the Spanish garrisons of Barcelona, Monjuick, and
Figueras, quitting their ranks after the seizure of those places,
flocked to the patriotic standards in Murcia and Valencia. The
greatest part belonged to the Spanish and Walloon guards, and
they formed a good basis for an army which the riches of the two
provinces and the arsenal of Carthagena afforded ample military
resources to equip.
The French had, however, nothing to fear from any direct movement
of this army against Madrid, as such an operation could only bring
on a battle; but if by a march towards Zaragoza, the Valencians had
united with the Aragonese and then operated against the line of
communication with France, the insurrection of Catalonia would have
been supported, and a point of union for three great provinces
fixed. In the power of executing this project lay the sting of the
Valencian insurrection. To besiege Zaragoza and prevent such a
junction was the remedy.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters, vide Parliamentary Papers, 1810.]
The importance of Andalusia was greater; the division of regular
troops which under the command of the unhappy Solano had been
withdrawn from Portugal, was tolerably disciplined; a large
veteran force was assembled at the camp of St. Roque under general
Castaños; and the garrisons of Ceuta, Algeziras, Cadiz, Granada,
and other places being united, the whole formed a considerable
mass of troops; while a superb cannon foundry at Seville, and
the arsenal of Cadiz, furnished the means of equipment and the
materials for a train of artillery. An active intercourse was
maintained between the patriots and the English: the juntas of
Granada, Jaen, and Cordova admitted the supremacy of the junta
of Seville, and the army of Estremadura consented to obey their
orders. The riches of the province, its distance from Madrid, the
barrier of the Sierra Morena, which like a strong wall covered
Andalusia, and favoured the insurrection, afforded the means
of establishing a systematic war, and drawing together all the
scattered elements of resistance in the southern and western
provinces of Spain and Portugal; but this danger, although pregnant
with future consequences, was not immediate: there was no line of
offensive movement against the flank or rear of the French army
open to the Andalusian patriots, and a march to the front against
Madrid would have been tedious and dangerous; the true policy of
the Andalusians was palpably defensive.
[Sidenote: Thiebault. Exped. Portugal.]
In Estremadura the activity and means of the junta were not at
first sufficient to excite much attention; but in Leon, Old
Castile, and Gallicia, a cloud was gathering that threatened a
perilous storm. Don Gregorio Cuesta was captain-general of the two
former kingdoms: inimical to popular movements, and of a haughty
resolute disposition, he at first checked the insurrection with a
rough hand; by this conduct he laid the foundation for quarrels
and intrigues, which afterwards impeded the military operations,
and split the northern provinces into factions; finally, however,
he joined the side of the patriots. Behind him the kingdom of
Gallicia, under the direction of Filanghieri, had prepared a
large and efficient force. It was composed of the strong and
disciplined body of troops which, under the command of Tarranco,
had taken possession of Oporto, and after that general’s death
had returned with general Belesta to Gallicia. The garrisons
of Ferrol and Coruña and a number of soldiers, flying from the
countries occupied by the French, swelled the regular army, the
agents of Great Britain were actively employed in blowing the flame
of insurrection; money, arms, and clothing, were poured into the
province through their hands; Coruña afforded an easy and direct
intercourse with England, and a strict connexion was maintained
between the Gallician and Portuguese patriots.
The facility of establishing the base of a regular systematic war
in Gallicia was therefore as great as in Andalusia, the resources
perhaps greater on account of the proximity of Great Britain, and
the advantage of position at this time was essentially in favour
of Gallicia, because the sources of her strength were equally
well covered from the direct line of the French operations, and
the slightest offensive movement upon her part threatened the
communications of the French army in Madrid, and endangered
the safety of any corps marching from the capital against the
southern provinces. To be prepared against the Gallician forces
was, therefore, a matter of pressing importance; a defeat from
that quarter would have been felt in all parts of the army; and
no considerable or sustained operation could have been undertaken
against the other insurgent forces until the strength of Gallicia
had been first broken.
In Biscay and the Asturias the want of regular troops and fortified
towns, and the contracted shape of those provinces, placed them
completely within the power of the French, who had nothing to fear
as long as they could maintain possession of the sea-ports.
From this sketch it results that Savary, in classing the dangers of
his situation, should have rated Gallicia and Leon in the first,
Zaragoza in the second, Andalusia in the third, and Valencia in
the fourth rank, and by that scale he should have regulated his
operations. It was thus Napoleon looked at the affair, but the duke
of Rovigo, wavering in his opinions, neglected or misunderstood the
spirit of his instructions, lost the control of the operations, and
sunk amidst the confusion which he had himself created.
Nearly fifty thousand men and eighty guns were disposable for
offensive operations in the beginning of June: collected into one
mass such an army was more than sufficient to crush any or all
of the insurgent armies combined; but it was necessary to divide
it and to assail several points at the same time; in doing this
the safety of each minor body depended upon the stability of the
central point from whence it emanated; and again the security of
that centre depended upon the strength of its communications with
France; in other words, Bayonne was the base of operations against
Madrid, and this town in turn became the base of operations
against Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia.
To combine all the movements of a vast plan which would embrace
the operations against Catalonia, Aragon, Biscay, the Asturias,
Gallicia, Leon, Castille, Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia, in
such a simple manner that the corps of the army working upon one
principle might mutually support and strengthen each other, and at
the same time preserve their communication with France, was the
great problem to be solved. Napoleon felt that it required a master
mind, and from Bayonne he put all the different armed masses in
motion himself, and with the greatest caution; for it is a mistaken
notion, although one very generally entertained, that he plunged
headlong into this contest without precaution, as having to do with
adversaries he despised.
In his instructions to the duke of Rovigo he says, “_In a war of
this sort it is necessary to act with patience, coolness, and upon
calculation._” “_In civil wars it is the important points only
which should be guarded, we must not go to all places_;” and he
inculcates the doctrine that to spread the troops over the country
without the power of uniting upon emergency would be a dangerous
and useless display of activity. The principle upon which he
proceeded may be illustrated by the comparison of a closed hand
thrust forward and the fingers afterwards extended: as long as
the solid part of the member was securely fixed and guarded, the
return of the smaller portions of it and their flexible movement
was feasible and without great peril; but a wound given to the
hand or arm not only endangered that part but paralyzed the action
of the whole limb. Hence all the care and attention with which
his troops were arranged along the road to Burgos; hence all the
measures of precaution already described, such as the seizure of
the fortresses, and the formation of the reserves at Bayonne.
The insurrection having commenced, Bessieres was ordered to put
Burgos into a state of defence,--to detach a division of four
or five thousand men under general Lefebre Desnouettes against
Zaragoza,--to keep down the insurgents of Biscay, Asturias, and Old
Castille,--and to watch the army assembling in Gallicia; he was
likewise enjoined to occupy and watch with jealous care the port
of St. Ander and the coast towns. At the same time a reinforcement
of nine thousand men was preparing for Duhesme, which, it was
supposed, would enable him to tranquillize Catalonia, and
co-operate with a division marching from Madrid against Valencia.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
The reserve under general Drouet was nourished by drafts from the
interior: it supplied Bessieres with reinforcements, and afforded
a detachment of four thousand men to watch the openings of the
valleys of the Pyrenees, especially towards the castle of Jaca,
which was in possession of the Spanish insurgents. A smaller
reserve was established at Perpignan, and another detachment
watched the openings of the eastern frontier. All the generals
commanding corps, or even detachments, were directed to correspond
daily with general Drouet.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Moncey’s Operations. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes, Appendix, No. 1.]
The security of the rear being thus provided for, the main body at
Madrid commenced offensive operations. Marshal Moncey was directed,
with part of his corps upon Cuenca, to intercept the march of the
Valencian army upon Zaragoza, and general Dupont, with ten thousand
men, marched towards Cadiz; the remainder of his and Moncey’s
troops were kept in reserve and distributed in various parts of La
Mancha and the neighbourhood of Madrid. Napoleon likewise directed,
that Segovia should be occupied and put in a state of defence, that
a division (Gobert’s) of Moncey’s corps should co-operate with
Bessieres on the side of Valladolid, and that moveable columns
should scour the country in rear of the acting bodies, and unite
again at stated times upon points of secondary interest. Thus
linking his operations together, Napoleon hoped, by grasping as it
were the ganglia of the insurrection, to paralyze its force, and
reduce it to a few convulsive motions which would soon subside.
The execution of his plan failed in the feebler hands of his
lieutenants, but it was well conceived, and embraced every probable
immediate chance of war, and even provided for the distant and
uncertain contingency of an English army landing upon the flanks or
rear of the corps at either extremity of the Pyrenean frontier.
Military men would do well to reflect upon the prudence which
the French emperor displayed upon this occasion. Not all his
experience, his power, his fortune, nor the contempt which he felt
for the prowess of his adversaries, could induce him to relax in
his precautions; every chance was considered, and every measure
calculated with as much care and circumspection as if the most
redoubtable enemy was opposed to him. The conqueror of Europe was
as fearful of making false movements before an army of peasants, as
if Frederick the Great had been in his front, and yet he failed!
Such is the uncertainty of war!
CHAPTER V.
All the insurrections of the Spanish provinces took place nearly
at the same period; the operations of the French divisions were,
of course, nearly simultaneous; I shall, therefore, narrate their
proceedings separately, classing them by the effect each produced
upon the stability of the intrusive government in Madrid, and
commencing with the
FIRST OPERATIONS OF MARSHAL BESSIERES.
[Sidenote: Moniteur. Victoires et Conquêtes des Français.]
That officer had scarcely fixed his quarters at Burgos when a
general movement of revolt took place. On his right, the bishop of
St. Ander excited the inhabitants of the diocese to take arms. In
his rear, a mechanic assembled some thousand armed peasants at the
town of Logroño. In front, five thousand men took possession of the
Spanish artillery dépôt at Segovia; an equal number assembling at
Palencia armed themselves from the royal manufactory at that place,
and advanced to the town of Torquemada; while general Cuesta, with
some regular troops and a body of organized peasantry, posted
themselves on the Pisuerga at Cabeçon.
Bessieres immediately divided his disposable force, which was not
more than twelve thousand men, into several columns, and traversed
the country in all directions, disarming the towns and interrupting
the combinations of the insurgents; while a division of Dupont’s
corps, under general Frere, marched from the side of Madrid to aid
his operations. General Verdier attacked Logroño on the 6th of
June, dispersed the peasantry, and put the leaders to death after
the action. General Lasalle, departing from Burgos with a brigade
of light cavalry, passed the Pisuerga, fell upon the Spaniards at
Torquemada on the 7th, broke them, and pursuing with a merciless
sword, burnt that town, and entered Palencia on the 8th.
Meanwhile Frere defeated the Spanish force at Segovia taking
thirty pieces of artillery; and general Merle marching through the
country lying between the Pisuerga and the Douero with a division
of infantry, joined Lasalle at Dueñas on the 12th. From thence
they proceeded to Cabeçon, where Cuesta accepted battle, and was
overthrown, with much slaughter, the loss of his artillery, and
several thousand musquets. The flat country being thus subdued,
Lasalle’s cavalry remained to keep it under; but Merle, marching
northward, commenced operations, in concert with general Ducos,
against the province of St. Ander. On the 20th, the latter general
drove the Spaniards from the pass of Soncillo; the 21st, he forced
the pass of Venta de Escudo, and descending the valley of the
river Pas, approached St. Ander; on the 22d, Merle, after some
resistance, penetrated by Lantueño, and followed the course of
the Besaya to Torre La Vega, then turning to his right entered
St. Ander on the 23d; and Ducos arriving at the same time, the
town submitted, and the bishop fled with the greatest part of the
clergy. The authorities of Segovia, Valladolid, Palencia, and
St. Ander, were compelled to send deputies to take the oath of
allegiance to Joseph.
By these operations, the above-named provinces were completely
disarmed, and so awed by the activity of Bessieres, that no further
insurrections took place, and his cavalry raised contributions
and collected provisions without the least difficulty. Frere’s
division then returned to Toledo, and from thence marched to San
Clemente, on the borders of Murcia. The imprudence of Cuesta, and
the general deficiency of talent and judgment manifested by the
Spaniards throughout these proceedings, were very remarkable.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
While Bessieres thus broke the northern insurrections, the march
of general Lefebre Desnouettes against the province of Aragon
brought on the first siege of Zaragoza. Palafox being declared
captain-general, recalled the retired officers into service; a
number of volunteers repaired to him from distant parts, and the
soldiers and officers who could escape from Pampelona and Madrid
joined his standard, and among others the officers of engineers
employed in the school of Alcala. With their assistance his forces
were rapidly organized, and many battalions were formed and posted
at different points on the roads leading towards Navarre. The baron
de Versage, an officer of the Walloon guards, occupied Calatayud
with a regiment composed of students who were volunteers; he raised
more men in that quarter, kept up a communication with the juntas
of Soria and Siguenza, and covered the powder-mills in Villa
Felice. The arsenal of Zaragoza supplied the patriots with arms. At
Tudela the people broke down the bridge over the Ebro, and Palafox
detached five hundred fuzileers to assist them in defending the
passage of that river.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Moniteur. Victoire et Conquêtes des Français.]
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
In this situation of affairs Lefebre commenced his march from
Pampelona the 7th of June, at the head of three or four thousand
infantry, some field batteries, and a regiment of Polish cavalry.
On the 9th he forced the passage of the Ebro, put the leaders of
the insurrection to death after the action, and then continued his
movement by the right bank to Mallen. Palafox, with ten thousand
infantry, two hundred dragoons, and eight pieces of artillery,
awaited him there in a position behind the Huecha. The 13th,
Palafox was overthrown; the 14th, the French reached the Xalon;
another combat and another victory carried Lefebre across that
river; and the 15th, he was on the Huerba, in front of the heroic
city.
FIRST SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
[Sidenote: Siege of Zaragoza.]
Zaragoza contained at that period fifty thousand inhabitants;
situated on the right bank of the Ebro, it was connected with
a suburb on the opposite side by a handsome stone bridge. The
immediate vicinity is flat, and on the side of the suburb low and
marshy. The small river Huerba, running through a deep cleft, cuts
the plain on the right bank, and taking its course close to the
walls, falls into the Ebro nearly opposite to the mouth of the
Gallego, which, descending from the mountains on the opposite side,
cuts the plain on the left bank. The convent of St. Joseph, built
on the right of the Huerba, covered a bridge over that torrent;
and, at the distance of cannon-shot, a step of land commenced,
which, gradually rising, terminated at eighteen hundred yards from
the convent, in a hill called the Monte Torrero. On this hill,
which commanded all the plain and overlooked the town, several
storehouses and workshops, built for the use of the canal, were
entrenched, and occupied by twelve hundred men. The canal itself,
a noble work, formed a water carriage without a single lock from
Tudela to Zaragoza. The city, surrounded by a low brick wall,
presented no regular defences, and possessed very few guns in a
state fit for service, but the houses were strongly constructed,
some of stone, others of brick; they were mostly of two stories
high, each story being vaulted so as to be nearly proof against
fire; and the massive walls of the convents, rising like castles
all round the circuit as well as inside the place, were to be seen
crowded with armed men.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
Such was Zaragoza when Lefebre Desnouettes first appeared before
it: his previous movements had cut the direct communication with
Calatayud, and obliged the baron Versage to retire to Belchite
with the volunteers and several thousand fresh levies. Palafox
occupied the olive groves and houses on the step of land between
the convent of St. Joseph and Monte Torrero; but his men, cowed by
their previous defeats, were easily driven from thence on the 16th,
and the town was closely invested on the right bank of the Ebro.
Indeed so great was the terror and confusion of the Spaniards, that
some of the French penetrated without difficulty into the street
of St. Engracia, and the city was on the point of being taken
that day, for Palafox, accompanied by his brother Francisco, an
aide-de-camp, and one hundred dragoons, under pretence of seeking
succour, endeavoured to go forth on the side of the suburb at the
moment when the French were entering on the side of Engracia; but
the plebeian leaders being suspicious of his intentions, would not
suffer him to depart without a guard of infantry, and Tio Jorge[7]
accompanied him to watch his conduct and to ensure his return. It
was a strange proceeding, and ill-timed, that the chief should thus
fly out at one gate while the enemy was pressing in at another,
when the streets were filled with clamour, the dismayed garrison
making little or no resistance, and all things in confusion.
Zaragoza was that day on the very verge of destruction, when
the French, either fearful of an ambuscade, or ignorant of their
advantages, retired, and the people, as if inspired, changing from
the extreme of terror to that of courage, suddenly fell to casting
up defences, piercing loop-holes in the walls of the houses,
constructing ramparts with sand-bags, and working with such vigour,
that, under the direction of their engineers, in twenty-four
hours they put the place in a condition to withstand an assault.
Whereupon Lefebre confining his operations to the right bank of
the Ebro, established posts close to the gates, and waited for
reinforcements.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
Meanwhile Palafox crossing the Ebro at Pina, joined Versage at
Belchite, and having collected seven or eight thousand men, and
four pieces of artillery, gained the Xalon in rear of the French;
from thence he proposed to advance through Epila and endeavour
to relieve Zaragoza by a battle. His officers, struck with the
imprudence of this measure, resisted his authority, and prepared to
retire to Valencia. Palafox, ignorant of war, and probably awed by
Tio Jorge, expressed his determination to fight, saying, with an
imposing air, “that those who feared danger might retire.” Touched
with shame, all agreed to follow him to Epila; and he advanced: but
two French regiments, detached by Lefebre, met him on the march,
and a combat commencing at nine in the evening, the Spaniards were
unable to form any order of battle, and, notwithstanding their
superior numbers, were defeated with the loss of three thousand
men. Palafox, who did not display that firmness in danger which
his speech promised, must have fled early, as he reached Calatayud
in the night, although many of his troops arrived there unbroken
the next morning. After this disaster, Palafox, leaving Versage at
Calatayud to make fresh levies, returned himself, with all the
beaten troops that he could collect, to Belchite, and from thence
regained Zaragoza on the 2d of July. Meanwhile Lefebre had taken
the Monte Torrero by assault on the 27th of June.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS.]
The 29th or 30th, general Verdier arrived on the Huerba with a
division of infantry, and a large train of battering artillery; and
the besiegers being now nearly twelve thousand strong, attacked
the convents of St. Joseph and the Capuchins on the same day that
Palafox returned; the first assault on St. Joseph’s failed, the
second succeeded; but the Capuchins, after some fighting, was set
fire to by the Spaniards and abandoned. All this time the suburb
was left open and free for the besieged. But Napoleon blamed this
mode of attack, and sent orders to throw a bridge across the
Ebro,--to press the siege on the left bank,--and to profit of the
previous success by raising a breaching battery in the convent of
St. Joseph. A bridge was accordingly constructed at St. Lambert,
two hundred yards above the town, and two attacks were carried on
at the same time.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
Hitherto the French troops employed in Aragon formed a part of
marshal Bessieres’ corps, but the emperor now directed Lefebre to
repair with his brigade to reinforce that marshal, and constituting
the ten thousand men who remained with Verdier a separate corps,
gave this last general the command of it, and promised him
reinforcements. Verdier continued to press the siege as closely as
his numbers would permit, but, all around him, the insurgents were
rapidly organising small armies, and threatened to enclose him in
his camp. This obliged him to send detachments against them: and
it is singular, that with so few men, while daily fighting with
the besieged, he should have been able to scour the country, and
put down the insurrection, as far as Lerida, Barbastro, Tudela,
Jacca, and Calatayud; the garrison of Pampelona only assisting
him from the side of Navarre. In one of these expeditions the
powder-mills of Villa Felice, thirty miles distant, were destroyed,
and the baron Versage being defeated, was forced to retire with his
division towards Valencia.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
During the course of July, Verdier made several assaults on the
gate of El Carmen, and others on the Portillo, but he was repulsed
in all. The besieged having been reinforced by the regiment of
Estremadura, composed of eight hundred old soldiers, in return
made a sally with two thousand men to retake the Monte Torrero,
but they were beaten, with the loss of their commander; regular
approaches were then commenced by the French against the quarter
of St. Engracia and the castle of Aljaferia. The 2d of August, the
besieged were again reinforced by two hundred men of the Spanish
guard and volunteers of Aragon, who brought some artillery with
them; the French likewise were strengthened by two old regiments of
the line, which increased their numbers to fifteen thousand men.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
On the 3d of August, the breaching batteries opened against St.
Engracia and Aljaferia; the mortar batteries threw shells at the
same time, and a Spanish magazine of powder blowing up in the
Cosso (a public walk formed on the line of the ancient Moorish
ramparts), destroyed several houses, and killed many of the
defenders. The place was then summoned to surrender on terms, but
Palafox having rejected all offers, on the 4th of August the town
was stormed through a breach in the convent of St. Engracia; the
French penetrated to the Cosso, and a confused and terrible scene
ensued. Some defended the houses, some drew up in the streets,
some fled by the suburb to the country, where the French cavalry
fell upon them; cries of treason were every where heard, and became
the signal for assassinations; all seemed lost, when a column of
the assailants seeking the way to the bridge over the Ebro, got
entangled in the Arco de Cineja, a long crooked street, and being
attacked in that situation, were driven back to the Cosso; others
began to plunder, and the Zaragozans recovering courage, fought
with desperation, and set fire to the convent of Francisco. At
the close of day the French were in possession of one side of the
Cosso, and the Spaniards of the other. A hideous and revolting
spectacle was exhibited during the action; the public hospital
being taken and fired, the madmen confined there issued forth among
the combatants, muttering, shouting, singing, and moping, according
to the character of their disorder, while drivelling idiots mixed
their unmeaning cries with the shouts of contending soldiers.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS.]
The Spaniards now perceived, that with courage the town might still
be defended; and from that day the fighting was murderous and
constant, one party endeavouring to take, the other to defend the
houses. In this warfare, where skill was nearly useless, Verdier’s
force was too weak to make a rapid progress; and events disastrous
to the French arms taking place in other parts of Spain, he
received, about the 10th of August, orders from the king to raise
the siege, and retire to Logroña. Of this operation I shall speak
in due time.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. Mere professional skill and enterprise do not constitute a
great general. Lefebre Desnouettes, by his activity and boldness,
with a tithe of their numbers, defeated the insurgents of
Aragon in several actions, and scoured the open country; but the
same Lefebre, wanting the higher qualities of a general, failed
miserably where that intuitive sagacity that reads passing events
aright was required. There were thousands in the French army who
could have done as well as him; probably not three who could
have reduced Zaragoza, and yet it is manifest that Zaragoza owed
her safety to accident, and that the desperate resistance of the
inhabitants was more the result of chance than of any peculiar
virtue.
2º. The feeble defence made at Mallen, at the Xalon; at the Monte
Torrero, at Epila; the terror of the besieged on the 16th, when
the French penetrated into the town; the flight of Palafox under
the pretence of seeking succour, nay, the very assault which in
such a wonderful manner called forth the energy of the Zaragozans,
and failed only because the French troops plundered, and missing
the road to the bridge, missed that to victory at the same time,
proves, that the fate of the city was determined by accident in
more than one of those nice conjunctures which men of genius know
how to seize, but others leave to the decision of fortune.
3º. However, it must be acknowledged that Lefebre and Verdier,
especially the latter, displayed both vigour and talent; for it was
no mean exploit to quell the insurrections to a distance of fifty
miles on every side, at the same time investing double their own
numbers, and pushing the attack with such ardour as to reduce to
extremity a city so defended.
4º. The current romantic tales of women rallying the troops, and
leading them forward at the most dangerous periods of this siege,
I have not touched upon, and may perhaps be allowed to doubt,
although it is not unlikely that when suddenly environed with
horrors, the delicate sensitiveness of women driving them to a kind
of phrensy, might produce actions above the heroism of men; and in
patient suffering their superior fortitude is manifest; wherefore I
neither wholly believe, nor will deny, their exploits at Zaragoza;
merely remarking that for a long time afterwards Spain swarmed with
heroines, clothed in half uniforms, and loaded with weapons.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
5º. The two circumstances that principally contributed to the
success of the defence were, first, the bad discipline of the
French soldiers; and secondly, the system of terror which was
established by the Spanish leaders, whoever those leaders were.
Few soldiers can be restrained from plunder when a town is taken
by assault; yet there is no period when the chances of war are
so sudden and so decisive, none where the moral responsibility
of a general is so great. Will military regulations alone secure
the necessary discipline at such a moment? The French army are
not deficient in a stern code, and the English army, taken
altogether, is probably the best regulated of modern times; but
here it is seen that Lefebre failed to take Zaragoza in default
of discipline; and in the course of this work it will appear that
no wild horde of Tartars ever fell with more licence upon their
rich effeminate neighbours than did the English troops upon the
Spanish towns taken by storm. The inference to be drawn is, that
national institutions alone will produce that moral discipline
necessary to make a soldier capable of fulfilling his whole duty;
yet a British statesman[8] was not ashamed to declare in parliament
that the worst men make the best soldiers; and this odious,
narrow-minded, unworthy maxim, had its admirers. That a system
of terror was at Zaragoza successfully employed to protract the
defence is undoubted. The commandant of Monte Torrero, ostensibly
for suffering himself to be defeated, but according to some, for
the gratification of private malice, was tried and put to death;
and a general of artillery was in a more summary manner killed
without any trial; the chief engineer, a man of skill and undaunted
courage, was arbitrarily imprisoned; and the slightest word or even
gesture of discontent, was punished with instant death. A stern
band of priests and plebeian leaders, in whose hands Palafox was a
tool, ruled with such furious energy, that resistance to the enemy
was less dangerous than disobedience to their orders. Suspicion was
the warrant of death, and this system once begun, ceased not until
the town was taken in the second siege.
CHAPTER VI.
OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA.
[Sidenote: Cabanes, 1st Part.]
When Barcelona fell into the power of the French, the Spanish
garrison amounted to nearly four thousand men; but Duhesme daily
fearing a riot in the city, connived at their escape in parties,
and even sent the regiment of Estremadura (which was eight hundred
strong) entire to Lerida, where, strange to relate, the gates were
shut against it; and thus, discarded by both parties, it made its
way into Zaragoza during the siege of that place. Many thousand
citizens also fled from Barcelona, and joined the patriotic
standards in the neighbouring provinces.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
[Sidenote: Cabanes, 1st Part.]
After the first ebullition at Manresa, the insurrection of
Catalonia lingered awhile; but the junta of Gerona continued to
excite the people to take arms, and it was manifest that a general
commotion approached; and this was a serious affair, for there
were in the beginning of June, including those who came out of
Barcelona, five thousand veteran troops in the province, and in the
Balearic islands above ten thousand. Sicily contained an English
army, and English fleets covered the Mediterranean. Moreover, by
the constitution of Catalonia, the whole of the male population fit
for war are obliged to assemble at certain points of each district
with arms and provisions, whenever the alarum bell, called the
_somaten_, is heard to ring; hence the name of _somatenes_; and
these warlike peasants, either from tradition or experience, are
well acquainted with the military value of their mountain holds.
[Sidenote: St. Cyr.]
[Sidenote: Victoire et Conquestes des Francois.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
[Sidenote: Cabanes.]
Hostilities soon commenced; Duhesme, following his instructions
from Bayonne, detached general Chabran and five thousand two
hundred men, with orders to secure Tarragona and Tortosa, to
incorporate the Swiss regiment of Wimpfen with his own troops,
and to aid marshal Moncey in an attack on Valencia. At the same
time general Swartz having more than three thousand men, Swiss,
Germans, and Italians, under his command, was detached by the
way of Martorel and Montserrat to Manresa, with orders to raise
contributions, to put down the insurrection, and to destroy the
powder mills at the last town; then to get possession of Lerida,
and to incorporate all the Swiss troops found there in his own
brigade, placing five hundred men in the citadel; after which
he was to penetrate into Aragon, and to co-operate with Lefebre
against Zaragoza.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
These two columns quitted Barcelona the 3d and the 4th of June.
A heavy rain induced Swartz to stop all the 5th at Martorel: the
6th he resumed his march, but without any military precautions,
although the object of his expedition was known, and the somaten
ringing out among the hills, the peasants of eight districts were
assembled in arms; these men took a resolution to defend the
pass of Bruch, and the most active of the Manresa and Igualada
districts, assisted by a few old soldiers, immediately repaired
there, and posted themselves on the rocks. Swartz coming on in a
careless manner, a heavy but distant fire opened from all parts
on his column, and created a little confusion, but order was soon
restored, and the Catalans being beaten from their strong holds,
were pursued for four or five miles along the main road. At Casa
Mansana, where a cross road leads to Manresa, one part broke away,
the others continued their flight to Igualada. Swartz, a man
evidently destitute of talent, halted at the very moment when his
success was complete, and the road to Manresa open; the Catalans
seeing his hesitation first rallied in the rear of Casa Mansana,
then returned to the attack, and drove the advanced guard back
upon the main body. The French general became alarmed, formed a
square, and retired hastily towards Esparraguéra, followed and
flanked by clouds of somatenes, whose courage and numbers increased
every moment; at Esparraguéra, which was a long single street,
the inhabitants had prepared an ambush; but Swartz, who arrived
at twilight, getting intelligence of their design, passed to the
right and left of the houses, and continuing his flight reached
Martorel the 7th, having lost a gun and many men by this inglorious
expedition, from which he returned in such disorder, and with his
soldiers so discouraged, that Duhesme thought it necessary to
recall Chabran from Tarragona.
The country westward of the Llobregat is rugged and difficult
for an army, yet Chabran reached Tarragona on the 8th without
encountering an enemy; but when he attempted to return, the line
of his march was intercepted by the insurgents, who took post at
Vendrill, Arbos, and Villa Franca, and spread themselves along the
banks of the Llobregat. As he approached Vendrill the somatenes
fell back to Arbos, but a skirmish commencing at this latter place,
the Catalans were defeated. Chabran set fire to the town, and
proceeded to Villa Franca. Here the excesses so common at this time
among the Spaniards were not spared; the governor, an old man,
and several of his friends, were murdered, and the perpetrators
of these crimes, as might be expected, made little or no defence
against the enemy.
Meanwhile general Lechi moved out of Barcelona, and acting in
concert with Swartz’s brigade, which marched from Martorel, cleared
the banks of the Llobregat, and formed a junction at San Felice
with Chabran on the 11th. The latter, after a day’s rest, having
his division completed by the brigade of Swartz, marched against
Manresa to repair the former disgrace; he arrived at Bruch the
14th, but the somatenes were also there, and assisted by some
regular troops with artillery. Finding that in a partial skirmish
he made no impression, Chabran, more timid even than Swartz, took
the extraordinary resolution of retreating, or rather flying from
those gallant peasants, who pursued him with scoffs and a galling
fire back to the very walls of Barcelona.
This success spurred on the insurrection; Gerona, Rosas,
Hostalrich, and Tarragona prepared for defence. The somatenes
assembling in the Ampurdan obliged the French commandant to quit
the town of Figueras, and shut himself up with three hundred men in
the citadel, while others gathering between the Ter and the Besos,
intercepted all communication between France and Barcelona.
In this predicament Duhesme resolved to make a sudden attempt on
Gerona, and for this purpose drew out six thousand of his best
troops, and eight pieces of artillery; but as the fortress of
Hostalrich stood in the direct road, he followed the coast line,
and employed a French privateer, then in the harbour, to attend
his march. The somatenes got intelligence of his designs: one
multitude took possession of the heights of Moncada, which are six
miles from Barcelona, and overhang the road to Hostalrich; another
multitude was posted on the ridge of Mongat, which, at the same
distance from Barcelona, abuts on the sea; an intrenched castle,
with a battery of fifteen guns, protected their left, and their
right was slightly connected with the people at Moncada.
The 17th, Duhesme, after some false show to hide his real attack,
fell upon the castle of Mongat, where the greater mass of the
Catalans being posted, were defeated with slaughter; a detachment
from Barcelona dispersing those of Moncada at the same time.
The 18th, the town of Mattaro being taken was plundered, although a
few cannon-shot only had been fired in its defence. The somatenes
were also defeated at the pass of San Pol. The 19th, the French
halted at San Tione, but at nine o’clock on the morning of the
20th, they appeared before the walls of Gerona.
This town, built on the right bank of the Ter, is cut in two by
the Oña. To the eastward it is confined by strong rocky hills,
whose points filling the space between the right bank of the Oña
and the Ter, overlook the town at different distances. Fort Mont
Jouy, a regular fortification, crowned the nearest hill or table
land, at five hundred yards distance, and three forts (that of the
Constable, of queen Anne, and of the Capuchins), being connected by
a ditch and rampart, formed one irregular outwork, a thousand yards
in length, and commanding all the ridge to the south-east. The
summit of this ridge is five, eight, and twelve hundred yards from
Gerona, and sixteen hundred from Fort Mont Jouy, being separated
from the latter by the narrow valley and stream of the Gallegan.
South-west, between the left of the Oña and the Ter, the country,
comparatively flat, is, however, full of hollows and clefts close
to the town. The body of the place on that side was defended by a
ditch and five regular bastions connected by a wall with towers. To
the west the city was covered by the Ter, and on the east fortified
by a long wall with towers having an irregular bastion at each
extremity, and some small detached works placed at the opening of
the valley of Gallegan. Three hundred of the regiment of Ultonia
and some artillerymen composed the garrison of Gerona, but they
were assisted by volunteers and by the citizens; and the somatenes
also assembled on the left of the Ter to defend the passage of that
river.
[Sidenote: St. Cyr.]
Duhesme, after provoking some cannon-shot from the forts, occupied
the village of St. Eugenia in the plain, and making a feint as
if to pass the Ter by the bridge of Salt, engaged the somatenes
in a useless skirmish. Great part of the day was spent by him in
preparing ladders for an attack; but at five o’clock in the evening
the French artillery opened from the heights of Palau, and a column
crossing the Oña passed between the outworks and the town, threw
out a detachment to keep the garrison of the former in check, and
assaulted the gate of El Carmen. This attempt failed completely
and with great loss to the assailants. Two hours afterwards
another column, advancing by the plain on the left of the Oña,
made an assault on the bastion of Santa Clara, but with so little
arrangement, or discipline, that the storming party moved forward
without their ladders, and although the hollows favoured them so
much that they arrived under the walls without being perceived, and
that the Neapolitan colonel Ambrosio, with a few others, actually
gained the ramparts by means of the single ladder brought up, the
confusion was too great to be remedied. And a detachment of the
regiment of Ultonia coming from the other side of the town, charged
the assailants, bayoneted those who were upon the walls, and drove
the rest back. Another feeble effort made after dark likewise
failed.
Duhesme tried some useless negotiations on the following day; but
dreading a longer absence from Barcelona, broke up on the 22d, and
returned by forced marches. As he passed Mattaro he left Chabran
with some troops in that town. Meanwhile the victorious somatenes
of Bruch had descended the Llobregat, rallied those of the lower
country, and getting artillery from Taragona and other fortresses,
planted batteries at the different passages of the river, and
entrenched a line from San Boy to Martorel. Regular officers now
took the command of the peasants; colonel Milans assembled a body
at Granollers; don Juan Claros put himself at the head of the
peasants of the Ampurdan; and colonel Baget took the command of
those at Bruch.
General Chabran, after a few days’ rest at Mattaro, made a foraging
excursion through the district of El Vallés. Milans, who held the
valley of the Congosta, encountered him near Granollers; both sides
claimed the victory, but Chabran retired to Barcelona, and Milans
remained on the banks of the Besos. The 30th Duhesme caused the
somatenes on the Llobregat to be attacked; general Lechi menaced
those at the bridge of Molinos del Rey, while the brigades of
Bessieres and Goullus, crossing at San Boy, surprised a battery
at that point and turned the whole line. Lechi then crossed the
river by the bridge of Molinos, ascended the left bank, took
all the artillery, burnt several villages, killed a number of
the somatenes, and put the rest to flight. They rallied again,
however, at Bruch and Igualada, and returning the 6th of July,
infested the immediate vicinity of Barcelona, taking possession of
all the hills between San Boy and Moncada, and connecting their
operations with colonel Milans. Other parties collected between the
Besos and the Ter, and extended the line of insurrection to the
Ampurdan; Juan Claros occupied the flat country about Rosas, and
the French garrison of Figueras having burnt the town, were blocked
up in the fort of San Fernando by two thousand somatenes of the
Pyrenees. A nest of Spanish privateers was formed in Palamos Bay,
and two English frigates, the Imperieuse and the Cambrian, watched
the coast from Rosas to Barcelona.
A supreme junta being now established at Lerida, opened an
intercourse with Aragon, Valencia, Seville, Gibraltar, and the
Balearic islands, and decreed that forty tercios or regiments of
one thousand men, to be selected from the somatenes, should be paid
and organized as regular troops, and that forty others should be
kept in reserve, but without pay.
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
[Sidenote: Lord Collingwood’s despatch, Aug. 27.]
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
This state of affairs being made known to Napoleon through the
medium of the moveable columns watching the valleys of the eastern
Pyrenees, he ordered general Reille, commanding the reserve at
Perpignan, to take the first soldiers at hand and march to the
relief of Figueras, after which, his force being increased by
drafts from the interior of France, to nine thousand men, he was
to assault Rosas and to besiege Gerona. The emperor imagined, that
the fall of the latter place would induce the surrender of Lerida,
and would so tranquillize Catalonia, that five thousand men might
again be detached towards Valencia. On receiving this order, Reille
with two battalions of Tuscan recruits, conducted a convoy safely
to Figueras and raised the blockade, but not without difficulty,
for his troops were greatly terrified and could scarcely be kept
to their colours. He relieved the place the 10th of July, and the
same day Duhesme, who had been preparing for a second attack on
Gerona, quitted Barcelona with six thousand infantry, some cavalry,
a battering train of twenty-two pieces, and a great number of
country carriages to transport his ammunition and stores, general
Lechi remaining in the city with five thousand men. Meanwhile
Reille having victualled Figueras and received a part of his
reinforcements, proceeded to invest Rosas; but he had scarcely
appeared before it when Juan Claros raised the country in his rear;
and Captain Otway, of the Montague, landing with some marines,
joined the migueletes: the French were forced to retire, and lost
two hundred men in their retreat.
[Sidenote: St. Cyr. Campaign in Catalonia.]
Duhesme pursued his march by the coast, whereupon the somatenes
of that part broke up the road in his front; Milans hung upon his
left, and lord Cochrane, with the Imperieuse frigate and some
Spanish vessels, cannonaded his right flank. In this dilemma he
remained five days in front of Arenas de Mar; and then dividing
his forces, sent one part across the mountains by Villagorguin,
and another by St. Iscle; the first made an attempt on Hostalrich,
but failed; the second beat away colonel Milans and dispersed
the somatenes of the Tordera; finally, Duhesme united his people
before Gerona on the 22d, but he had lost many carriages during the
march. The 23d he passed the Ter and dispersed the migueletes that
guarded the left bank. The 24th general Reille coming from Figueras
with six thousand men, took post at Puente Mayor, and the town was
invested with a line extending from that point by the heights of
San Miguel to the Monte Livio; from Monte Livio by the plain to the
bridge of Salt, and from thence along the left bank of the Ter to
Sarria. The garrison consisting of five hundred migueletes and four
hundred of the regiment of Ultonia, was reinforced on the 25th by
thirteen hundred of the regiment of Barcelona, who entered the town
with two guns. All the defences were in bad repair, but the people
were resolute. The night of the 27th, a French column passing the
valley of Galligan, gained the table land of Fort Mont Jouy, and
made lodgements in three towers of masonry which the Spaniards
had abandoned in the first moment of surprise. This advantage
elated Duhesme so much, that he resolved, without consulting his
engineers, to break ground on that side.
[Sidenote: Cabanes’ History.]
[Sidenote: Cabanes’ History, 2d Part.]
At this period a great change in the affairs of Catalonia took
place; the insurrection had hitherto been confined to the exertions
of the unorganised somatenes and was without system; but now
a treaty between lord Collingwood, who commanded the British
navy in the Mediterranean, and the marquis of Palacios, who was
captain-general of the Balearic isles, having been concluded, the
Spanish fleet and the troops in Minorca, Majorca, and Ivica, became
disposable for the service of the patriots. Palacios immediately
sent thirteen hundred to the port of San Felice di Quixols to
reinforce the garrison of Gerona. These men entered that city, as
we have seen, on the 25th, and Palacios himself disembarked four
thousand others at Tarragona on the 22d, together with thirty-seven
pieces of artillery; an event that excited universal joy, and
produced a surprising eagerness to fight the French.
[Sidenote: St Cyr.]
[Sidenote: Cabanes’ History, 2d Part.]
The supreme junta immediately repaired to Tarragona, declared
Palacios their president, and created him commander-in-chief,
subject, however, to the tutelar saint Narcissus, who was appointed
generalissimo of the forces by sea and land, and the ensigns of
authority, with due solemnity, placed on his coffin. The first
object with Palacios was to re-establish the line of the Llobregat.
To effect this, the count of Caldagues, with eighteen hundred men
and four guns, marched from Tarragona in two columns, the one
moving by the coast way to San Boy, and the other by the royal
road, through Villafranca and Ordal. Caldagues, in passing by
the bridge of Molino del Rey, established a post there, and then
ascending the left bank, fixed his quarters at Martorel, where
colonel Baget joined him with three thousand migueletes of the new
levy.
[Sidenote: Lord Collingwood’s despatches.]
[Sidenote: St. Cyr.]
The Llobregat runs within a few miles of Barcelona, but the right
bank being much the steepest, the lateral communications easier,
and the heights commanding a distinct view of every thing passing
on the opposite side; the line taken by Caldagues was strong, and
the country in his rear rough, full of defiles, and very fitting
for a retreat after the loss of a battle. General Lechi, thus
hemmed in on the west, was also hampered on the north, for the
mountains filling all the space between the Llobregat and the
Besos, approach in tongues as near as two and three miles from
Barcelona; and the somatenes of the Manresa and Valls districts
occupied them, and skirmished daily with the French outposts.
Beyond the Besos, which bounds Barcelona on the eastward, a lofty
continuous ridge extending to Hostalrich, runs parallel to, and at
the distance of two or three miles from the sea coast, separating
the main and the marine roads, and sending its shoots down to the
water’s edge. This ridge also swarmed with somatenes, who cut off
all communication with Duhesme, and lay in leaguer round the castle
of Mongat, in which were eighty or ninety French. The Cambrian and
the Imperieuse frigates blockaded the harbour of Barcelona; and, on
the 31st of July, lord Cochrane having brought his vessel alongside
of Mongat, landed his marines, and, in concert with the somatenes,
took it, blew up the works, and rolled the rocks and ruins down
in such a manner as to destroy the road. Thus, at the very moment
that Duhesme commenced the siege of Gerona, he was cut off from his
own base of operations, and the communication between Figueras and
general Reille’s division, was equally insecure, for the latter’s
convoys were attacked the 28th of July, the 3d of August, and so
fiercely on the 6th, that a Neapolitan battalion was surrounded,
and lost one hundred and fifty men.
Palacios, whose forces increased daily, wished to make an effort in
favour of Gerona, and with this view sent the count of Caldagues,
at the head of three or four thousand men (part migueletes, part
regulars), to interrupt the progress of the siege, intending to
follow himself with greater forces. Caldagues left Martorel the
evening of the 6th, marched by Tarrasa, Sabadell, Granollers, and
San Celoni, and reached Hostalrich the morning of the 10th; there
his force was increased to five thousand men and four guns. The
13th, he entered Llagostera; the 14th Castellar, a small place
situated behind the ridges that overlook Gerona, and only five
miles from the French camps. Don Juan Claros, with two thousand
five hundred migueletes, mixed with some Walloon and Spanish guards
from Rosas, met him at Castellar, as did also colonel Milans with
eight hundred somatenes.
Caldagues having opened a communication with the junta of Gerona,
found that Fort Mont Jouy was upon the point of surrendering, and
that the French, who were ignorant of his approach, had, contrary
to good discipline, heaped their forces in the plain between the
left of the Oña and the Ter, but only kept a slender guard on the
hills, while a single battalion protected the batteries raised
against Mont Jouy. Being an enterprising man, Caldagues resolved to
make an immediate effort for the relief of the place, and, after a
careful observation on the 15th, divided his forces, and the 16th
fell, with several columns, on the weakest part of the besiegers’
line. The garrison sallied forth at the same time from Mont Jouy,
and the French guards being taken between two fires, were quickly
overpowered, and driven first to the Puente Mayor and finally over
the Ter. The Spaniards re-formed on the hills, expecting to be
attacked; but Duhesme and Reille remained quiet until dark, then
breaking up the siege, they fled away, the one to Figueras, the
other to Barcelona, leaving both artillery and stores behind.
Duhesme endeavoured to pass along the coast, but, on his arrival
at Callella, he discovered that the road was cut by ditches, that
an English frigate was prepared to rake his columns on the march,
and that all the heights were occupied by the somatenes; whereupon,
destroying his ammunition, throwing his remaining artillery over
the rocks, and taking to by-ways in the mountains, he forced a
passage through the midst of the somatenes to Mongat, where general
Lechi met him the 20th, and covered his retreat into Barcelona.
Thus ended Duhesme’s second attempt against Gerona.
OBSERVATION 1.--Three great communications pierce the Pyrenean
frontier of Catalonia, leading directly upon Barcelona.
The first, or Puycerda road, penetrates between the sources of the
Segre and the Ter.
The second, or Campredon road, between the sources of the Ter and
the Fluvia.
The third, or Figueras road, between the sources of the Muga and
the sea-coast.
The first and second unite at Vicque; the second and third are
connected by a transverse road running from Olot, by Castle Follit,
to Gerona; the third also dividing near the latter town, leads with
one branch through Hostalrich, and with the other follows the line
of the coast. After the union of the first and second at Vicque,
a single route pursues the stream of the Besos to Barcelona, thus
turning the Muga, the Fluvia, the Ter, the Tordera, Besos, and an
infinity of minor streams, that, descending from the mountains, in
their rapid course to the Mediterranean, furrow all the country
between the eastern Pyrenees and Barcelona. The third, which is the
direct and best communication between Perpignan and the capital of
Catalonia, crosses all the above-named rivers, whose deep channels
and sudden floods offer serious obstacles to the march of an army.
All these roads, with the exception of that from Olot to Gerona,
are separated by craggy ridges of mountains scarcely to be
passed by troops; and the two first leading through wild and
savage districts, are incommoded by defiles, and protected by a
number of old castles and walled places, more or less capable of
resistance. The third, passing through many rich and flourishing
places, is however completely blocked to an invader by the strong
fortresses of Figueras and Rosas on the Muga, of Gerona on the
Ter, and Hostalrich on the Tordera. Palamos and several castles
likewise impede the coast road, which is moreover skirted by rocky
mountains, and exposed for many leagues to the fire of a fleet.
Such is Catalonia, eastward and northward of Barcelona.
On the west, at five or six miles distance, the Llobregat cuts it
off from a rough and lofty tract, through which the Cardena, the
Noga, the Foix, Gaya, Anguera, and Francoli rivers, break in deep
channels, descending in nearly parallel lines to the coast, and
the spaces between being gorged with mountains, and studded with
fortified places which command all the main roads. The plains and
fertile valleys are so few and contracted, that Catalonia may,
with the exception of the rich parts about Lerida and the Urgel,
be described as a huge mass of rocks and torrents, incapable of
supplying subsistence even for the inhabitants, whose prosperity
depends entirely upon manufactures and commerce.
Barcelona, the richest and most populous city in Spain, is the
heart of the province, and whoso masters it, if he can hold it,
may suck the strength of Catalonia away. A French army, without a
commanding fleet to assist, can scarcely take or keep Barcelona;
the troops must be supplied by regular convoys from France;
the fortresses on the line of communication must be taken and
provisioned, and the active intelligent population of the country
must be beaten from the rivers, pursued into their fortresses, and
warred down by exertions which none but the best troops are capable
of: for the Catalans are robust, numerous, and brave enough after
their own manner.
OBSERVATION 2d.--It follows from this exposition, that Duhesme
evinced a surprising want of forethought and military sagacity,
in neglecting to secure Gerona, Hostalrich, and Tarragona, with
garrisons, when his troops were received into those places. It was
this negligence that rendered the timid operations of Swartz and
Chabran capital errors; it was this that enabled some poor injured
and indignant peasants to kindle a mighty war, and in a very few
weeks obliged Napoleon to send thirty thousand men to the relief of
Barcelona.
[Sidenote: St Cyr.]
OBSERVATION 3d.--Duhesme was experienced in battles, and his energy
and resources of mind have been praised by a great authority; but
undoubtedly an absence of prudent calculation and arrangement, a
total neglect of military discipline, marked all his operations in
Catalonia; witness his mode of attack on Gerona, the deficiency
of ladders, and the confusion of the assaults. Witness also his
raising of the second siege, and absolute flight from Caldagues,
whose rash enterprise, although crowned with success, should have
caused his own destruction.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
[Sidenote: St. Cyr.]
[Sidenote: Cabanes.]
In those affairs it is certain Duhesme displayed neither talent
nor vigour; but in the severities he exercised at the sacking of
Mattaro, in the burning of villages, which he executed to the
extreme verge of, if not beyond what the harshest laws of war will
justify, an odious energy was apparent, and as the ardour of the
somatenes was rather increased than repressed by these vigorous
proceedings, his conduct may be deemed as impolitic as it was
barbarous.
OBSERVATION 4th.--In Catalonia all the inherent cruelty of the
Spaniards was as grossly displayed as in any other province of
Spain. The Catalans were likewise vain and superstitious; but their
courage was higher, their patriotism purer, and their efforts
more sustained; the somatenes were bold and active in battle,
the population of the towns firm, and the juntas apparently
disinterested. The praise merited and bestowed upon the people of
Zaragoza is great; but Gerona more justly claims the admiration of
mankind; for the Aragonese troops were by Lefebre driven from the
open country in crowds to their capital, and little was wanted to
induce them to surrender at once; it was not until the last hour
that, gathering courage from despair, the people of Zaragoza put
forth all their energy: whereas those of Gerona, although attacked
by a greater force, and possessing fewer means of defence, without
any internal system of terror to counterbalance their fear of the
enemy, manfully and successfully resisted from the first. The
people of Zaragoza rallied at their hearthstone; those of Gerona
stood firm at the porch. But quitting these matters, I must now,
following the order I have marked out, proceed to relate the
occurrences in Valencia.
OPERATIONS OF MARSHAL MONCEY.
The execution of Calvo and his followers changed the horrid aspect
of the Valencian insurrection; the spirit of murder was checked,
and the patriotic energy assumed a nobler appearance. Murcia and
Valencia were united as one province; and towards the end of June,
nearly thirty thousand men, armed and provided with artillery,
attested the resources of these rich provinces, and the activity of
their chiefs. The Valencians then conceived the plan of marching
to the assistance of the Aragonese; but Napoleon had already
prescribed the measures which were to render such a movement
abortive.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Moncey’s Operations. MSS.]
An order, dated the 30th of May, directed Moncey to move, with a
column of ten thousand men, upon Cuenca; from that point he was to
watch the country comprised between the lower Ebro and Carthagena,
and he was empowered to act against the city of Valencia if
he judged it fitting to do so. The position of Cuenca was
advantageous; a short movement from thence to the left would place
Moncey’s troops upon the direct line between Valencia and Zaragoza,
and enable him to intercept all communication between those towns;
and a few marches to the right placed him upon the junction of the
roads leading from Carthagena and Valencia to Madrid. If Moncey
thought it essential to attack Valencia, the division of general
Chabran was to co-operate from the side of Catalonia. By this
combination the operations of Lefebre Desnouettes at Zaragoza, and
those of Duhesme in Catalonia, were covered from the Valencians;
and at the same time the flank of the French army at Madrid was
protected on the side of Murcia.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The 6th of June Moncey marched from Aranjuez by Santa Cruz,
Tarancon, Carascoso, and Villa del Orma, and reached Cuenca the
11th. There he received information of the rapid progress of the
insurrection, of the state of the Valencian army, and of the
projected movement to relieve Zaragoza; he immediately resolved to
make an attempt against the city of Valencia, and wrote to general
Chabran, whom he supposed to be at Tortosa, directing him to march
upon Castellon de la Plana, a town situated at some distance
eastward of the river Guadalaviar. Moncey himself proposed, by a
march through Requeña, to clear the country westward of that river,
and fixed upon the 25th of June as the latest period at which
the two columns were to communicate in the immediate vicinity of
Valencia.
Halting from the 11th to the 16th at Cuenca, he marched the 17th to
Tortola, the 18th to Buenaches, the 19th to Matilla, the 20th to
Minglanilla, and the 21st to Pesquiera. From Buenaches to Pesquiera
no inhabitants were to be seen; the villages were deserted, and
either from fear or hatred, every living person fled before his
footsteps. At length, a Swiss regiment, some of the Spanish guards,
and a body of armed peasantry, made a stand at the bridge of
Pajaso, upon the river Cabriel; the manner in which the country
had been forsaken, the gloomy and desolate marches, and the sudden
appearance of an armed force ready to dispute this important pass,
prognosticated a desperate conflict; but the event belied the
omens; and scarcely any resistance was made; the French easily
forced the passage of the bridge; the peasants fled, and the Swiss
and Spanish guards came over to the side of the victors.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Moncey informed general Chabran of this success, and appointed the
27th and 28th for a junction under the walls of Valencia. The next
day he took a position at Otiel; but hearing that the defeated
patriots had rallied and being reinforced, were, to the number
of ten or twelve thousand, intrenching themselves upon his left,
he quitted the direct line of march to attack them in their post
of Cabreras, which was somewhat in advance of the Siete Aguas.
The Spanish position was of extraordinary strength, the flanks
rested upon steep rocky mountains, and the only approach to the
front was through a long narrow defile, formed by high scarped
rocks, whose tops, inaccessible from the French side, were covered
with the armed peasantry of the neighbourhood. A direct assault
upon such a position could not succeed, and general Harispe was
directed to turn it by the right, while the cavalry and artillery
occupied the attention of the Spaniards in front; after overcoming
many obstacles offered by the impracticable nature of the ground,
Harispe reached the main body of the Spaniards, and then easily
defeated them, taking all their cannon, ammunition, and baggage.
This action, which took place upon the 24th, freed the left flank
of Moncey’s army, and he resumed his march upon the direct road
to Valencia. The 25th he was at the Venta de Buñol, the 26th in
advance of Chieva, and the 27th he arrived in front of Valencia.
A complete circuit of the ancient walls was in existence, and all
the approaches were commanded by works which had been hastily
repaired or newly raised by the inhabitants; the citadel was in a
tolerable state of defence, and the population were preparing for
a vigorous resistance. A city containing eighty thousand people,
actuated by the most violent passions, cannot be easily overcome,
and the Valencians derived additional strength from the situation
of their town, built as it was upon low ground, and encircled with
numerous canals and cuts, made for the purposes of irrigation;
the deep ditches of the place were filled with water, so that no
approach could be made by the small force under Moncey except
against the gates. It is said that the marshal had corrupted a
smuggler, who promised to betray the city during the heat of the
assault, and it is probable that some secret understanding of that
kind induced the French commander to make an attempt which would
otherwise have been rash and unmilitary.
Don Joseph Caro, a brother of the marquis of Romana, was with
four thousand men entrenched behind the canal of the Guadalaviar,
which was five miles in advance of the city gates. The village of
Quarte, and some thickly planted mulberry trees, helped to render
this post very strong; and when Moncey attacked it upon the 27th,
he met with a vigorous resistance. Caro was, however, beaten, and
chased into the city, with the loss of some cannon, and on the 28th
the French drove in the outposts, and occupied all the principal
avenues of the town.
However enthusiastic the patriots were while their enemy was at
a distance, his near approach filled them with terror, and it
is possible that a vigorous assault might have succeeded at the
first moment of consternation. But the favourable opportunity,
if it really existed, quickly passed away; Padre Rico, a friar
distinguished by his resolution, traversing the streets, with a
cross in one hand and a sword in the other, aroused the sinking
spirit and excited the fanaticism of the multitude; the fear of
retaliation for the massacre of the French residents, and the
certainty that Moncey’s troops were few, powerfully seconded his
efforts; and as it is usual for undisciplined masses of people to
pass suddenly from one extreme to another, fear was soon succeeded
by enthusiasm.
After disposing his field-pieces on the most favourable points, and
while the impression of the first defeat was still fresh, Moncey
summoned the governor to surrender. But the latter answered, “That
he would defend the city.” The French guns then opened upon the
place; the heavy guns of the Spaniards, however, soon overpowered
them, and a warm skirmish ensuing about the houses of the suburbs
and the vicinity of the gates, the Valencians so obstinately
resisted, that when the night fell, not only no serious impression
had been made upon the defences, but the assailants were repulsed
with loss at every point. The situation of the French marshal
became delicate; the persons sent to seek Chabran could gain no
intelligence of that general’s movements; the secret connexions in
the town, if any there were, had failed; the ammunition was nearly
expended, and the army was encumbered with seven or eight hundred
wounded men, and among them the general of engineers. Moncey,
swayed by these embarrassments, relinquished his attack, and fell
back to Quarte on the 29th, being harassed by Caro and the populace
in his retreat.
When it is considered that in a great city only a small number
of persons can estimate justly the immense advantages of their
situation, and the comparative weakness of the enemy, it must be
confessed that the spirit displayed by the Valencians upon this
occasion was very great; unfortunately it ended there, nothing
worthy of such an energetic commencement was afterwards performed,
although very considerable armies were either raised or maintained
in the province.
[Sidenote: Journal of Moncey.]
At Quarte Moncey, hearing that the captain-general, Serbelloni,
was marching upon Almanza to intercept the communication with
Chieva and Buñol, resolved to relinquish the line of Cuenca, and
to attack Serbelloni before he could quit the kingdom of Murcia.
This vigorous resolution he executed with great celerity; for,
directing the head of his column towards Torrente, he continued his
march until night, halting a short distance from that town. And a
forced march the next day brought him near Alcira, only one league
from the river Xucar; from his bivouac at that place he despatched
advice to general Chabran of this change of affairs.
In the mean time the conde de Serbelloni, surprised in the midst of
his movement, and disconcerted in his calculations by the decision
and rapidity of Moncey, took up a position to defend the passage
of the Xucar; the line of that river is strong, and offers many
advantageous points of resistance; but the Spaniards imprudently
occupied both banks, and in this exposed situation were attacked
upon the morning of the 1st of July; the division on the French
side was overthrown, and the passage forced without loss of time.
Serbelloni then retired to the heights of San Felice, which covered
the main road leading from Alcira to Almanza, hoping to secure the
defiles in front of the latter town before the enemy could arrive
there; but Moncey was again too quick for him; for leaving San
Felice to his left, he continued his march on another route, and
by a strenuous exertion seized upon the gorge of the defiles near
Almanza late in the night of the 2d; the Spanish troops in the mean
time approached his position, but were dispersed at day-break on
the 3d, and some of their guns captured; the road being now open,
Moncey entered the town of Almanza the same day. The 4th he took
post at Bonete. The 5th near Chinchilla, and the 6th at Albacete,
where he got intelligence that general Frere, who should have been
at St. Clemente with a division, was gone towards Mequeña.
To explain this movement it is necessary to observe that when
Dupont marched towards Andalusia, and Moncey against Valencia, the
remaining divisions of their corps were employed by Savary to scour
the country in the neighbourhood of Madrid, and to protect the rear
and connect the operations of those generals; thus general Gobert,
who, following Napoleon’s orders, should have been at Valladolid,
was sent with the third division of Dupont towards Andalusia; and
general Frere (commanding the second division of Moncey’s), who
should have been at San Clemente, a central point, from whence
he could gain the road leading from Seville to La Mancha, and
intercept the communication between Valencia and Cuenca, or seize
upon the point of junction where the route from Carthagena and
Murcia falls into the road of Valencia, was sent by Requeña to
reinforce Moncey.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Cuenca rose in arms, and being
joined by a force of seven or eight thousand peasants, overpowered
and destroyed a French detachment left in that town. The duke of
Rovigo, fearing that Moncey’s column would be compromised by this
insurrection, ordered general Caulaincourt, then at Taracon, to
quell it with a force composed of cavalry and some provisional
battalions. Caulaincourt arrived in front of Cuenca on the evening
of the 3d of July; finding the insurgents in position, he attacked
and dispersed them with great slaughter, and the town being
deserted by the inhabitants, was given up to pillage.
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
In the mean time, Frere, who had quitted San Clemente upon the
26th, made his way to Requeña; there he received intelligence of
Caulaincourt’s success, and that Moncey had passed the Xucar;
whereupon, retracing his steps, he returned to San Clemente, his
troops being wearied, sickly, and exhausted by these long and
useless marches in the heats of summer. Moncey now re-organized his
forces, and prepared artillery and other means for a second attempt
against Valencia; but he was interrupted by Savary, who, alarmed
at the advance of Cuesta and Blake, recalled Frere towards Madrid,
and Moncey, justly offended that Savary, inflated with momentary
power, should treat him with so little ceremony, broke up from San
Clemente, and likewise returned by the way of Ocaña to the capital.
OBSERVATIONS.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 7.]
1º. The result of marshal Moncey’s campaign being published by the
Spaniards as a great and decisive failure, produced extravagant
hopes of final success; a happy illusion if the chiefs had not
partaken of it, and pursued their wild course of mutual flattery
and exaggeration, without reflecting that in truth there was
nothing very satisfactory in the prospect of affairs. Moncey’s
operation was in the nature of a moveable column; the object of
which was to prevent the junction of the Valencian army with the
Aragonese. The attempt upon the town of Valencia was a simple
experiment, which, if successful, would have produced great
effects, but having failed, the evil resulting was but trifling in
a military point of view. Valencia was not the essential object of
the expedition, and the fate of the general campaign depended upon
the armies in Old Castile.
2º. It was consoling that a rich and flourishing town had not
fallen into the power of the enemy; but at the same time a want of
real nerve in the Spanish insurrection was visible. The kingdoms
of Murcia and Valencia acted in concert, and contained two of
the richest sea-port towns in the Peninsula; their united force
amounted to thirty thousand organised troops, exclusive of the
armed peasants in various districts; and the populace of Valencia
were deeply committed by the massacre of the French residents. Here
then, if in any place, a strenuous resistance was to be expected;
nevertheless, marshal Moncey, whose whole force was at first only
eight thousand French, and never exceeded ten thousand men,
continued marching and fighting without cessation for a month,
during which period he forced two of the strongest mountain passes
in the world, crossed several large and difficult rivers, carried
the war into the very streets of Valencia; and being disappointed
of assistance from Catalonia, extricated his division from a
difficult situation, after having defeated his opponents in five
actions, killed and wounded a number of them, equal in amount to
the whole of his own force, and made a circuit of above three
hundred miles through a hostile and populous country, without
having sustained any serious loss, without any desertion from the
Spanish battalions incorporated with his own, and what was of more
importance, having those battalions much increased by desertions
from the enemy. In short, the great object of the expedition
had been attained, the plan of relieving Zaragoza was entirely
frustrated, and the organization of an efficient Spanish force
retarded.
3º. Moncey could hardly have expected to succeed against the town
of Valencia; for to use Napoleon’s words, “_a city, with eighty
thousand inhabitants, barricadoed streets, and artillery placed at
the gates, cannot be_ TAKEN BY THE COLLAR.”
4º. General Frere’s useless march to Requeña was very hurtful to
the French; and the duke of Rovigo was rated by the emperor for his
want of judgment upon the occasion; “it was a folly,” the latter
writes, “to dream of reinforcing Moncey; because if that marshal
failed in taking the city by a sudden assault, it became an affair
of artillery; and twenty thousand men, more or less, would not
enable him to succeed.” “Frere could do nothing at Valencia, but he
could do a great deal at San Clemente; because from that post he
could support either Madrid or general Dupont.”
5º. Moncey was slightly blamed by the emperor for not halting
within a day’s march of Valencia, in order to break the spirit of
the people, and make them feel the weight of the war; but this
opinion was probably formed upon an imperfect knowledge of the
local details. The marshal’s line of operations from Cuenca was
infested by insurgent bands, his ammunition was nearly exhausted,
he could hear nothing of Chabran’s division, and the whole force
of Murcia was collecting upon his flank and rear. The country
behind him was favourable for his adversaries, and his army was
encumbered by a number of wounded men; it was surely prudent under
such circumstances, to open his communication again with Madrid as
quickly as possible.
By some authors, the repulse at Valencia has been classed with
the inglorious defeat of Dupont at Baylen; but there was a wide
difference between those events, the generals, and the results.
Moncey, although an old man, was vigorous, active, and decided;
and the check he received produced little effect. Dupont was
irresolute, slow, and incapable, if not worse, as I shall hereafter
show; but before describing his campaign, I must narrate the
operations of the Gallician army.
CHAPTER VII.
OPERATIONS OF BESSIERES AGAINST BLAKE AND CUESTA.
While the moveable columns of Bessieres’ corps ranged over the
Asturian and Biscayan mountains, and dispersed the insurgent
patriots of those provinces, Cuesta, undismayed by his defeat at
Cabezon, collected another army at Benevente, and, in concert with
the Gallician forces, prepared to advance again towards Burgos.
Filanghieri, the captain-general of Gallicia, had organised the
troops in that kingdom without difficulty, because the abundant
supplies poured in from England were beginning to be felt; and
patriotism is never more efficacious than when supported by large
sums of money. Taranco’s soldiers joined to the garrisons of Ferrol
and Coruña were increased, by new levies, to twenty-five thousand
men, organised in four divisions, and being well equipped, and
provided with a considerable train of artillery, were assembled
at Manzanal, a strong post in the mountains, twelve miles behind
Astorga.
The situation of that city offered great advantages to the
Spaniards; the old Moorish walls which surrounded it were complete,
and susceptible of being strengthened, so as to require a regular
siege; but a siege could not be undertaken by a small force, while
the army of Gallicia was entrenched at Manzanal, and while Cuesta
remained at Benevente; neither could Bessieres, with any prudence,
attack the Gallicians at Manzanal while Cuesta was at Benevente,
and while Astorga contained a strong garrison. Filanghieri appears
to have had some notion of its value, for he commenced forming an
entrenched camp in the mountains; but being slain by his soldiers,
don Joachim Blake succeeded to the command, and probably fearing a
similar fate if the army remained stationary, left one division at
Manzanal, and with the remainder marched towards Benevente to unite
with Cuesta.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Bessieres’ Operations. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 2.]
On the French side, marshal Bessieres collected his scattered
columns at Palencia; his plan, founded upon instructions from
Bayonne, was to make a rapid movement against Cuesta, in the hope
of beating him, while Blake was still behind Leon; then wheeling
to his right, to attack and drive the Gallicians back to the
mountains, to overrun the flat country with his numerous cavalry,
to open a communication with Portugal, and after receiving certain
reinforcements then preparing for him, to subdue Gallicia, or
assist Junot, as might seem most fitting at the time.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
At this period the king was on his journey to Madrid, and the
military system of Napoleon was brought to its first great crisis;
for unless Bessieres was successful, there could be no sure footing
for the French in the capital, and as Madrid was the base of
Moncey’s and Dupont’s operations, the farther prosecution of their
plans depended upon the result of the approaching struggle in the
plains of Leon. Napoleon, foreseeing this crisis, had directed
Savary to occupy Segovia, to send general Gobert’s division
to Valladolid, and to hold Vedel’s and Frere’s, the one in La
Mancha, a few marches from the capital, and the other at San
Clemente, a central point connecting Moncey, Dupont, and Madrid.
But Savary, unable to estimate justly the relative importance of
the different operations, sent Vedel and Gobert into Andalusia to
reinforce Dupont, when he should rather have recalled the latter
to the northern side of the Sierra Morena; he caused Frere, as
we have seen, to quit San Clemente, and march by Requeña against
Valencia, at the moment when Moncey was retiring from that city
through Murcia to San Clemente, and thus dispersed and harassed his
reserves by long marches to the south without any definite object
when the essential interests were at stake in the north; and now,
struck with fear at the approach of Cuesta and Blake, whose armies
he had hitherto disregarded, he precipitately recalled Frere,
Vedel, Gobert, and even Dupont to Madrid, too late to take part
with Bessieres in the coming battle, but exactly timed to frustrate
Moncey’s projects, and, as we shall hereafter find, to ensure the
ruin of Dupont. In this manner steering his vessel before every
wind that blew, he could not fail of storms.
Greatly was Napoleon discontented with these errors; he relied,
and with reason, on the ability of Bessieres for a remedy; but to
Savary he sent the following instructions, dated the 13th of July:
“_The French affairs in Spain would be in an excellent state if
Gobert’s division had marched upon Valladolid, and Frere’s had
occupied San Clemente, with a moveable column, three or four
marches upon the route of general Dupont. Gobert having been
directed upon Dupont, Frere being with Moncey, harassed and
enfeebled by marches and countermarches, the position of the
French army is become less advantageous._
“_Marshal Bessieres is this day at Medina del Rio Seco with fifteen
thousand men, infantry, cavalry, and artillery; the 15th or 16th he
will attack Benevente, open a communication with Portugal, drive
the rebels into Gallicia, and seize upon Leon. If his operations
succeed thus, and in a brilliant manner, the position of the French
army will again be as good as it was._
“_If general Cuesta retires from Benevente without fighting, he
will move by Zamora and Salamanca to gain Avila and Segovia,
certain that then Bessieres cannot pursue him, as, in that case,
he would be menaced by the army of Gallicia, whose advanced guard
is at Leon. The general who commands at Madrid must then be able
to assemble six or seven thousand men and march upon Cuesta; the
citadel of Segovia must be occupied by three or four hundred
convalescents, with some guns and six weeks biscuit. It was a great
fault not to have occupied this citadel when the major-general
ordered it; of all the possible positions, Segovia is the most
dangerous for the army; the capital of a province, situated between
two routes, it deprives the army of all its communications, and the
enemy once posted in the citadel, the French army cannot dislodge
him. Three or four hundred convalescents, a good commandant, and a
squad of artillery, will render the castle of Segovia impregnable
for some time, and will insure to the army the important position
of Segovia._
“_If general Cuesta throws himself into Gallicia without fighting
or suffering a defeat, the position of the army will become
better; of course it will be still better if he does so after
having suffered a defeat._
“_If marshal Bessieres faces Cuesta at Benevente without attacking
him, or if he is repulsed by him, his object will always be to
cover Burgos, and to hold the enemy in check as long as possible;
he could, perhaps, be reinforced with the three hundred troops of
the line which accompany the king, but then there would be no room
for hesitation. If Bessieres retires without a battle, he must be
reinforced instantly with six thousand men. If he retreats after
a battle wherein he has suffered great loss, it will be necessary
to make great dispositions; to recall Frere, Gobert, Caulaincourt,
and Vedel by forced marches to Madrid; to withdraw Dupont into the
Sierra Morena, or even bring him nearer to Madrid (keeping him
always, however, seven or eight marches off), then crush Cuesta
and all the Gallician army, while Dupont will serve as an advanced
guard to hold the army of Andalusia in check._”
Before Bessieres could collect his troops, Blake effected a
junction with Cuesta at Benevente. Three plans were open to those
generals:
1º. To remove into the mountains, and take a position covering
Gallicia.
2º. To maintain the head of the Gallician army in advance of
Astorga, while Cuesta, with his Castilians, pushing by forced
marches through Salamanca and Avila, reached Segovia.
3º. To advance farther into the plains, and try the fate of a
battle.
This last plan was rash, seeing that Bessieres was well provided
with horsemen, and that the Spaniards had scarcely any; but
Cuesta, assuming the chief command, left a division at Benevente
to protect his stores, and advanced, much against Blake’s wishes,
with twenty-five thousand infantry (regular troops), a few hundred
cavalry, and from twenty to thirty pieces of artillery, in the
direction of Palencia. His march, as we have seen, dismayed Savary.
To use Napoleon’s expressions, he who had been “_hitherto acting
as if the army of Gallicia was not in existence_,” now acted “_as
if Bessieres was already beaten_;” but that marshal, firm and
experienced, rather than risk an action of such importance with
insufficient means, withdrew even the garrison from the important
post of St. Ander, and having quickly collected fifteen thousand
men and thirty pieces of artillery at Palencia, moved forward on
the 12th of July to the encounter. His line of battle consisted of
two divisions of infantry, one of light cavalry, and twenty-four
guns, his reserve was formed of four battalions and some horse
grenadiers of the imperial guards, with six pieces of artillery.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Bessieres’ Operations.]
The 13th he halted at Ampudia and Torre de Mormojon, from thence
advancing on the 14th in two columns, he drove in an advanced guard
of one hundred and fifty Spanish cavalry, and arrived about nine
o’clock in front of Rio Seco, where Cuesta’s army was drawn up like
a heavy domestic animal awaiting the spring of some active wild
beast.
BATTLE OF RIO SECO.
The first line of the Spaniards was posted along the edge of a step
of land, with an abrupt fall towards the French; the heaviest guns
were distributed along the front. The second line, composed of
the best troops, strengthened, or rather weakened, by seventeen
or eighteen thousand peasants, was displayed at a great distance
behind the first; the town of Rio Seco was in rear of the centre.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Bessieres’ Operations.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Bessieres was at first startled at their numbers, and doubted
if he should attack; but soon perceiving the vice of Cuesta’s
disposition, he ordered general Lasalle to make a feint against the
front with the light cavalry, while he himself marching obliquely
to the right, outstretched the left of the Spaniards, and suddenly
thrust Merle’s and Mouton’s divisions and the imperial guards,
horse and foot, between their lines, and threw the first into
confusion; at that moment Lasalle charging furiously, the Spanish
front went down at once, and fifteen hundred dead bodies strewed
the field; but the victor’s ranks were disordered, and Cuesta made
a gallant effort to retrieve the day, for, supported by the fire of
all his remaining artillery, he fell with his second line upon the
French, and with his right wing broke in boldly and took six guns;
but his left hanging back, the flank of the right was exposed.
Bessieres, with great readiness, immediately charged on this naked
flank with Merle’s division and the horse grenadiers, while the
fourteenth provisionary regiment made head against the front; a
fierce short struggle ensued; and the Spaniards were overborne,
were broken and dispersed; meanwhile the first line rallied in
the town of Rio Seco, but were a second time defeated by Mouton’s
division, and fled over the plains, pursued by the light cavalry,
and suffering severely in their flight.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers.]
From five to six thousand Spaniards were killed and wounded on the
field, and twelve hundred prisoners, eighteen guns, and a great
store of ammunition, remained in the hands of the French. The
vanquished sought safety in all directions, but chiefly on the side
of Benevente. Blake and Cuesta separated in wrath with each other,
the former making for the mountains of Gallicia, the latter towards
Leon, and the division left at Benevente dispersed.
The French, who had lost fifty killed and three hundred wounded,
remained at Rio Seco all the 15th; the 16th they advanced to
Benevente, where they found many thousand English muskets and vast
quantities of ammunition, clothing, and provisions.
The communication with Portugal was now open, and Bessieres at
first resolved to give his hand to Junot; but hearing that the
fugitives were likely to rally on the side of Leon, he pursued
them by the road of Villa-fere. On his march, learning that Cuesta
was gone to Mayorga, he turned aside to that place, and on the 22d
captured there another great collection of stores; for, the Spanish
general, with the usual improvidence of his nation, had established
all his magazines in the open towns of the flat country.
After this Bessieres entered the city of Leon and remained there
until the 29th, during which time he received the submission of
the municipality, and prepared to carry the war into Gallicia. The
junta of Castile and Leon, whose power had hitherto been restrained
by Cuesta, now retired to Puente-Ferrada and assumed supreme
authority, and the quarrel between the generals becoming rancorous,
they sided with Blake. This appearing to Bessieres a favourable
occasion to tamper with the fidelity of those chiefs; he sent his
prisoners back, and endeavoured, by offering the vice-royalty of
Mexico to the one, and by reasoning on the hopeless state of the
insurrection, and the promise of rank and honours to the other, to
shake the loyalty of both; but neither would listen to him.
This failing, he marched to Puente Orvigo the 31st, intending to
break into Gallicia, but he was suddenly recalled from thence to
protect the retreat of the king from Madrid. Dupont had surrendered
with a whole army in Andalusia, the court was in consternation, the
victory of Rio Seco was rendered fruitless; and Bessieres retracing
his steps to Mayorga, took a defensive position near that town.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. As Blake was overruled by Cuesta he is not responsible for the
errors of this short campaign; but the faults were gross on both
sides, and it seems difficult to decide whether Savary or Cuesta
made the greatest number.
2º. If the former had sent Gobert’s division to Valladolid,
Bessieres would have had twenty-two thousand men and forty pieces
of artillery in the field, a force not at all too great, when it
is considered that the fate of three French armies depended upon
the success of a battle to which Cuesta might have brought at least
double that number. The latter having determined upon an offensive
movement, disregarded the powerful cavalry of his enemy, chose
a field of battle precisely in the country where that arm would
have the greatest advantage, and when he should have brought every
man to bear upon the quarter which he did attack, he displayed
his ignorance of the art of war by fighting the battle of Rio
Seco with twenty-five thousand men only, and leaving ten thousand
disciplined troops guarding positions in his rear, which could not
be approached until he himself was first beaten. Neither was the
time well chosen for his advance; had he waited a few days the port
of St. Ander would have been attacked by eight English frigates
and a detachment of Spanish troops under the command of general
da Ponte, an enterprise that would have distracted and weakened
Bessieres, but which was relinquished in consequence of the battle
of Rio Seco.
3º. Once united to Blake, Cuesta’s real base of operations was
Gallicia, and he should have kept all his stores within the
mountains, and not have heaped them up in the open towns of the
flat country, exposed to the marauding parties of the enemy, or
covered, as in the case of Benevente, by strong detachments which
weakened his troops in the field and confined him to a particular
line of operations in the plain.
4º. The activity and good sense of marshal Bessieres overbalanced
the errors of Savary; and the victory of Rio Seco was of infinite
importance, because as we have seen a defeat in that quarter
would have shaken the French military system to its centre and
have obliged the king, then on his journey to Madrid, to halt at
Vittoria, until the distant divisions of the army were recalled to
the capital, and a powerful effort made to crush the victorious
enemy. Napoleon’s observations are full of strong expressions of
discontent at the imprudence of his lieutenant. “_A check given
to Dupont_,” he says, “_would have a slight effect, but a wound
received by Bessieres would give a locked jaw to the whole army.
Not an inhabitant of Madrid, not a peasant of the valleys that does
not feel that the affairs of Spain are involved in the affair of
Bessieres; how unfortunate, then, that in such a great event you
have wilfully given the enemy twenty chances against yourself._”
When he heard of the victory he exclaimed that it was the battle of
Almanza, and that Bessieres had saved Spain.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s Notes, Appendix, No. 3.]
The prospect was indeed very promising; the king had arrived in
Madrid, bringing with him the veteran brigade of general Rey and
some of the guards, and all fears upon the side of Leon being
allayed, the affairs of Andalusia alone were of doubtful issue; for
Zaragoza, hard pushed by Verdier, was upon the point of destruction
in despite of the noble courage of the besieged; nor did the
subjugation of Andalusia appear in reason a hard task, seeing that
Moncey was then at San Clemente, and from that point threatened
Valencia without losing the power of succouring Dupont, and Frere’s
and Caulincourt’s troops were disposable for any operation. The
French army possessed the centre, and the Spaniards were dispersed
upon a variety of points on the circumference without any connexion
with each other, and in force only upon the side of Andalusia.
5º. The great combinations of the French emperor were upon the
point of being crowned with success, when a sudden catastrophe
overturned his able calculations and raised the sinking hopes of
the Spaniards. It was the campaign in Andalusia which produced
such important effects, and it offers one of the most interesting
and curious examples recorded by history of the vicissitudes of
war; for there disorder unaccompanied by superior valour triumphed
over discipline; inexperienced officers were successful against
practised generals; and a fortuitous combination of circumstances
enabled the Spaniards, without any skill, to defeat in one day an
immense plan wisely arranged, embracing a variety of interests, and
until that moment happily conducted in all its parts. This blow,
which felled Joseph from his throne, marked the French army with a
dishonourable scar, the more conspicuous, because it was the only
one of its numerous wounds that misbecame it.
CHAPTER VIII.
OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA.
[Sidenote: Journal of Dupont’s Operations. MS.]
General Dupont received orders to march against Cadiz with a
column, composed of two Swiss regiments (Preux and Reding), taken
from the Spanish army, a French division of infantry under general
Barbou, a division of cavalry commanded by general Fresia, a marine
battalion of the imperial guards, and eighteen pieces of artillery.
Three thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and ten guns, drawn
from the army of Portugal, were to join him in Andalusia, and he
was to incorporate among his troops three other Swiss regiments,
quartered in that province.
The latter end of May he traversed La Mancha, entered the Sierra
Morena, by the pass of Despeñas Perros, and proceeded by Carolina
and Baylen to Andujar, where he arrived the 2d of June; there he
was informed that a supreme junta of government was established at
Seville, that minor juntas ruled in Granada, Jaen, and Cordoba,
that war was formally declared against the French, that the whole
of Andalusia was in arms, and the Swiss regiments ranged under the
Spanish banners, and finally, that general Avril, commanding the
detachment expected from Portugal, had halted in Tavora, and was
preparing to return to Lisbon.
Alarmed by this intelligence, Dupont wrote to Murat and Savary to
demand reinforcements, and in the mean time closed up the rear of
his columns, and established an hospital in Andujar. The 6th he
crossed the Guadalquivir, and continued his march towards Cordoba,
following the left bank of the river. Two leagues from that ancient
city the road recrossed the Guadalquivir by a long stone bridge,
at the furthest end of which stood the village of Alcolea. The
French general arrived there at day-break on the 7th, but his
further progress was opposed by the Spanish general Echevaria, who,
having fortified the head of the bridge, manned the works, placed
twelve guns in battery on the right bank, and drawn together three
thousand regular troops, and ten thousand new levies and smugglers,
occupied the village, and was prepared to dispute the passage of
the river. A small reserve remained in a camp close to Cordoba, and
a cloud of armed peasants from the side of Jaen were also gathered
on the hills behind the French army, ready to fall on its rear when
the bridge should be attacked.
Dupont having observed this disposition, placed the cavalry,
the Swiss regiments, and the marine battalion in reserve facing
to the hills, and with the division of Barbou stormed the head
of the bridge. The Spaniards, making a feeble resistance, were
driven across the river, and their whole line immediately fled to
the camp at Cordoba. The multitude on the hills descended during
the battle, but were beaten back by the cavalry with loss, and
the French general, leaving the marine battalion at Alcolea to
secure the bridge, marched with the rest of his forces to complete
the victory. At his approach the Spaniards abandoned their new
position, took refuge in the town, and being summoned to surrender,
opened a fire of musketry from the walls, whereupon the French
bursting the gates with their field-pieces, broke into the town,
and after a short and confused fight Echevaria’s men fled in
disorder along the Seville road, and were pursued by the cavalry.
As the inhabitants took no part in the contest, and received the
French without any signs of aversion, the town was protected from
pillage, and Dupont fixing his quarters there, sent his patroles as
far as Ecija without meeting with an enemy.
[Sidenote: Nellerto.]
In Seville the news of this disaster, and the arrival of fugitives,
struck such a terror, that the junta were only prevented from
retiring to Cadiz by their dread of the populace, and even
entertained thoughts of abandoning Spain altogether, and flying to
South America. Castaños, who a few days before had been declared
captain-general of the armies, was at this time in march with
seven thousand troops of the line from San Roque; being called to
Seville, he arrived there on the 9th, and after a short conference
with the junta proceeded to take the command of Echevaria’s forces,
the greater part of which were reassembled at Carmona, but in such
confusion and so moody that he returned immediately, and having
persuaded the president Saavedra to accompany him, fixed his
head-quarters at Utrera, where he gathered two or three thousand
regulars from the nearest garrisons, and directing the new levies
to repair to him, hastened the march of his own men from St.
Roche. He also pressed general Spencer to disembark, and take up a
position with the British forces at Xeres; but Spencer, for reasons
hereafter to be mentioned, sailed to Ayamonte, a circumstance that
augmented a general distrust of the English prevailing at the time,
and which was secretly fomented by Morla, and by several members of
the junta.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13.]
At this moment Andalusia was lost if Dupont had advanced; his
inactivity saved it: instead of pushing his victory, he wrote to
Savary for reinforcements, and to general Avril, desiring that he
would without delay come to his assistance, but he himself remained
in Cordoba, overwhelmed with imaginary dangers and difficulties;
for although Castaños had in a few days collected at Carmona and
Utrera seven or eight thousand regulars, and above fifty thousand
new levies, and that Dupont’s letters were intercepted and
brought to him, such was the condition of affairs that, resigning
all thoughts of making a stand, he had, under the pretence of
completing the defences of Cadiz, embarked the heavy artillery and
stores at Seville, and was prepared, if Dupont should advance, to
burn the timbers and harness of his field artillery, and to retreat
to Cadiz.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Papers.]
Meanwhile continuing the organization of his forces, he filled up
the old regiments with new levies, and formed fresh battalions, in
which he was assisted by two foreigners, the marquis de Coupigny,
a crafty French emigrant, of some experience in war, and Reding,
a Swiss, a bold, enterprising, honest man, but without judgment,
and of very moderate talents as an officer. Castaños wished to
adopt a defensive plan, to make Cadiz his place of arms, and to
form an entrenched camp, where he hoped to be joined by ten or
twelve thousand British troops, and, in security, to organize and
discipline a large army; but, in reality, he had merely the name
and the troubles of a commander-in-chief, without the power; for
Morla was his enemy, and the junta containing men determined to
use their authority for their own emolument and the gratification
of private enmity, were jealous lest Castaños should control their
proceedings, and thwarted him; humouring the caprice and insolence
of the populace, and meddling with affairs foreign to the matter in
hand.
As the numbers at Utrera increased, the general confidence
augmented, and a retreat was no longer contemplated: plans were
laid to surround Dupont in Cordoba; one detachment of peasants,
commanded by regular officers, was sent to occupy the passes of
the Sierra Morena, leading into Estremadura; another marched
from Grenada, accompanied by a regiment of the line, to seize
Carolina, and cut off the communication with La Mancha; a third,
under colonel Valdecanas, proposed to attack the French in Cordoba
without any assistance, and this eagerness for action was increased
by a knowledge of the situation of affairs in Portugal, and by
rumours exaggerating the strength of Filanghieri and Cuesta. It was
believed that the latter had advanced to Valladolid, and offered
Murat the option of abiding an attack, or retiring immediately to
France by stated marches, and that, alarmed at Cuesta’s power, the
grand duke was fortifying the Retiro.
These reports, so congenial to the wishes and vanity of the
Andalusians, caused the plan proposed by Castaños to be rejected;
and when Dupont’s despatches magnifying his own danger, and
pressing in the most urgent manner for reinforcements were again
intercepted and brought to head-quarters, it was resolved to
attack Cordoba immediately; but Dupont’s fears outstripped their
impatience.
[Sidenote: Journal of Dupont’s Operations.]
After ten days of inactivity, by which he lost the immediate fruit
of his victory at Alcolea,--the lead in an offensive campaign, and
all the imposing moral force of the French reputation in arms,
Dupont, finding that, instead of receiving direct reinforcements
from Savary, he must wait until Moncey, having first subdued
Valencia, could aid him by the circuitous route of Murcia, resolved
to fall back to Andujar.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes, Appendix, No. 1.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham. Journal of Dupont.]
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
[Sidenote: Victoire et Conquêtes.]
He commenced his retreat the 17th of June, being followed as far
as Carpio by the advanced guard of the Andalusians, under general
Coupigny. Along the line of march, and in the town of Andujar,
where he arrived the evening of the 18th, he found terrible proofs
of Spanish ferocity; his stragglers had been assassinated, and his
hospital taken, the sick, the medical attendants, the couriers,
the staff officers, in fine, all who had the misfortune to be
weaker than the insurgents, were butchered, with circumstances of
extraordinary barbarity; upwards of four hundred men had perished
in this miserable manner since the fight of Alcolea. The fate
of colonel Renè was horrible; he had been sent on a mission to
Portugal previous to the breaking out of hostilities; and was on
his return, travelling in the ordinary mode, without arms, attached
to no army, engaged in no operations of war, but being recognised
as a Frenchman he was seized, mutilated, and then placed between
two planks and sawed alive.
Dupont now collected provisions, and prepared to maintain himself
in Andujar until he should be reinforced; but wishing to punish
the city of Jaen, from whence the bands had come that murdered his
sick, he sent captain Baste, a naval officer, with a battalion of
infantry and some cavalry, to accomplish that object. The French
soldiers, inflamed by the barbarity of their enemies, inflicted a
severe measure of retaliation, for it is the nature of cruelty to
reproduce itself in war; and for this reason, although the virtue
of clemency is to all persons becoming, it is peculiarly so to an
officer, the want of it leading to so many and such great evils.
The Andalusian army having remained quiet, Dupont, who knew that
Vedel’s division, escorting a large convoy for the army, was
marching through La Mancha, sent captain Baste with a second
detachment to clear the pass of Despeñas Perros which was occupied
by insurgents and smugglers from Grenada to the number of three
thousand: the pass itself was of incredible strength, and the
Spaniards had artillery, and were partially entrenched; but their
commander, a colonel of the line, deserted to the enemy, and before
Baste could arrive, Vedel forced the road without difficulty and
reached Carolina. He posted a detachment there to keep open the
communication with La Mancha, and then descended himself to Baylen,
a small town sixteen miles from Andujar.
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal.]
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
Meanwhile other insurgents from Grenada having arrived at Jaen were
preparing to move by the Linhares road to Carolina and Despeñas
Perros. General Cassagne, with a brigade of Vedel’s division,
marched against them the 29th of June, and after fighting on the
2nd and 3d of July, he took possession of Jaen, and drove the
Grenadans back with considerable slaughter, but lost two hundred
men himself, and returned on the 25th to Baylen. Notwithstanding
these successes, and that Vedel brought reinforcements for Barbou’s
division and the cavalry, Dupont’s fears increased. His position
at Andujar covered the main road from Seville to Carolina; but
eight miles lower down the river it could be turned by the bridge
of Marmolexo, and sixteen miles higher up by the roads leading
from Jaen to the ferry of Mengibar and Baylen; and beyond that
line by the roads from Jaen and Grenada to Uzeda, Linhares, and
the passes of El Rey and the Despeñas Perros. The dryness of
the season had also rendered the Guadalquivir fordable in many
places. The regular force under Castaños was daily increasing in
strength, the population around was actively hostile, and the
young French soldiers were drooping under privations and the heat
of the climate. Six hundred were in hospital, and the whole were
discouraged. It is in such situations that the worth of a veteran
is found: in battle the ardour of youth often appears to shame
the cool indifference of the old soldier, but when the strife
is between the malice of fortune and fortitude, between human
endurance and accumulating hardships, the veteran becomes truly
formidable, when the young soldier resigns himself to despair.
After the actions at Jaen, both sides remained quiet until the 14th
of July, on which day general Gobert, who should have been at Rio
Seco with Bessieres, arrived at Carolina with the greatest part of
a division, the next day he joined Vedel at Baylen, and the latter
general pushed on a brigade, under general Leger Bellair, to watch
the ferry of Mengibar, and it was full time, for the Spanish army
was already on the opposite bank of the river.
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence.]
When Dupont’s retreat from Cordoba had frustrated the plan of the
Spaniards to surround him, Castaños returned to his old project
of a rigorous defensive system. The junta at first acquiesced,
but being unsettled in their policy, and getting intelligence of
Vedel’s march, they ordered Castaños to attack Dupont at Andujar
before the reinforcements could arrive. The regular troops were
about twenty-five thousand infantry, and two thousand cavalry. A
very heavy train of artillery, and large bodies of armed peasantry,
commanded by officers of the line, attended the army; the numbers,
of course, varied from day to day, but the whole multitude that
advanced towards the Guadalquivir could not have been less than
fifty thousand men, hence the intelligence that Vedel had actually
arrived did not much allay the general fierceness. Castaños,
however, was less sanguine than the rest, and learning that
Spencer had just returned to Cadiz with his division, he once more
requested him to land and advance to Xeres, to afford a point of
retreat in the event of a disaster; the English general consented
to disembark, but refused to advance further than Port St. Mary.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The 1st of July the Spanish army occupied a position extending from
Carpio to Porcuñas; the 11th a council of war being held, it was
resolved that Reding’s division should cross the Guadalquivir at
the ferry of Mengibar, and gain Baylen; that Coupigny should cross
at Villa Nueva, and support Reding; and that Castaños, with the
other two divisions, advancing to the heights of Argonilla, should
attack Andujar in front, while Reding and Coupigny should descend
from Baylen and attack it in the rear. Some detachments of light
troops under colonel Cruz were ordered to pass the Guadalquivir by
Marmolexo, and to seize the passes leading through the Morena to
Estremadura.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
The 13th, Reding, with the first division, and three or four
thousand peasantry, marched towards Mengibar; and Coupigny, with
the second division, took the road of Villa Nueva. The 15th,
Castaños crowned the heights of Argonilla, in front of Andujar,
with two divisions of infantry, and a multitude of irregular
troops. Coupigny skirmished with the French picquets at Villa
Nueva; and Reding crossing the river at Mengibar, attacked Leger
Bellair; but Vedel came to the assistance of the latter, and
Reding recrossed to the left bank. When Dupont saw the heights
of Argonilla covered with Spanish troops, he sent to Vedel for a
brigade of infantry, broke down the bridge of Marmolexo, occupied
some works that he had thrown up to cover the bridge of Andujar,
put a garrison in an old tower built over one of the arches, and
drew the remainder of his troops up in position on the bank of the
river; his cavalry being posted in the plain behind the town, with
posts watching the fords above and below the position.
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The 15th, Castaños merely cannonaded the bridge; the 16th, colonel
Cruz crossed with four thousand men near Marmolexo, and fell upon
Dupont’s rear, while Castaños attacked him in front. Cruz was
beaten, and chased into the mountains by a single battalion, and a
few discharges checked Castaños. Meanwhile, Vedel, either thinking
all safe at Baylen, or mistaking Dupont’s meaning, instead of
sending a brigade, marched during the night of the 15th with his
whole division. The next day Reding again passed the Guadalquivir,
and attacked Leger Bellair. General Gobert, who had just arrived
at Baylen, marched to the latter’s assistance; the combat became
hot, Gobert fell mortally wounded, and the French retired to
Baylen. General Darfour succeeded Gobert, and as Reding did not
follow up his success, Darfour gave credit to a report that the
Spanish general was moving by the Linhares road upon Carolina, and
imprudently fell back to the latter town.
While this was passing, Dupont, already offended by Vedel’s
over-zeal, heard of Gobert’s death, and obliged the former to
return during the nights of the 16th and 17th, to Baylen, with
orders to secure that important point; but Vedel also fell into the
same error as Darfour, and marched the 18th to Carolina. Reding,
who had never moved from Mengibar, being now joined by Coupigny,
profited of this occasion to seize Baylen, and throwing out a
detachment on the side of Carolina, drew up in position facing
Andujar; his numbers, including the armed peasants, being about
twenty thousand.
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal.]
The armies were thus interlaced in a singular manner: Dupont being
posted between Castaños and Reding; and Reding between Dupont and
Vedel’s division: the affair became one of time; Castaños rested
tranquilly in his camp, apparently ignorant of Reding’s situation;
Dupont, more alive to what was passing, silently quitted Andujar
on the evening of the 18th, marched all night, and at day-break
came to Rio de las Tiedras, a torrent with rugged banks, two miles
from the Spanish position, in front of Baylen. Reding’s ground
was strong, intersected with deep ravines, and planted with olive
trees. Dupont hoping that Vedel would return upon the Spanish rear,
and having no choice, passed the Tiedras, and leaving Barbou with
a few battalions on that stream to keep Castaños in check, if he
should arrive during the action, attacked Reding.
[Sidenote: Whittingham.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
For some time the French appeared to be gaining ground; but,
fatigued with a long night march, and unable to force the principal
points, they became discouraged; the Swiss brigade went over to
the enemy; and at two o’clock, after losing about two thousand,
killed and wounded, Dupont yielded to his destiny, and sent to
desire a suspension of hostilities, with a view to a convention.
Reding, who could hardly maintain his position, willingly acceded
to the proposal. At this moment Barbou was attacked by general La
Pena, who arrived on the Tiedras with a third Spanish division;
for Castaños, when he had discovered Dupont’s retreat eight hours
after the latter had quitted his position, sent half the troops in
pursuit, and remained with the rest at Andujar.
[Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal. MSS.]
Vedel having heard the cannonade as early as three o’clock in
the morning, quitted Carolina at five o’clock, and marched in
the direction of Baylen. The continued sound of artillery became
more distinct as he advanced, and left no doubt of the fact of
Dupont’s division being seriously engaged, notwithstanding which he
halted at Guarroman, two Spanish leagues from Baylen, and remained
inactive for seven hours. At three o’clock in the evening, when the
firing had long ceased, he put himself in motion again, and coming
upon the rear of Reding’s troops, enveloped and made prisoners a
battalion of the detached corps which was posted by that general
to watch the road leading from Carolina. These troops relying upon
the faith of the armistice just agreed upon with Dupont, made no
resistance; and Vedel being informed of what was passing, released
them, and awaited the result of this singular crisis.
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes.]
One Villontreys, an officer of the emperor’s staff, opened the
negotiation with Reding, by whom he was referred to Castaños then
at Andujar; thither generals Chabert and Marescot repaired on
the 20th. They demanded permission for the whole army to retire
peaceably upon Madrid; and Castaños was at first inclined to grant
this as the most certain and ready mode of freeing Andalusia
from the French, and gaining time for further preparations;
but Savary’s letter to Dupont, written just before the battle
of Rio Seco, to recall him to the defence of the capital,
being intercepted, was brought at this moment to the Spanish
head-quarters, and changed the aspect of affairs. A convention was
no longer in question; Dupont’s troops were required to lay down
their arms and to become prisoners of war, on condition of being
sent to France by sea. Vedel’s troops were likewise required to
surrender on condition of being sent to France with the others,
but not to be considered as prisoners of war: and these terms were
accepted.
Meanwhile Vedel, informed, in the night of the 20th, by Dupont, of
this unexpected change, had retreated to Carolina. Castaños hearing
of it, menaced Dupont with death if Vedel did not return; and the
latter understanding that he was included in the capitulation, came
back to Baylen and surrendered.
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
Thus, above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid down their arms
on the 22d, before a raw army incapable of resisting half that
number if the latter had been led by an able man. Nor did this end
the disgraceful affair; but, as if to show to what extent folly
and fear combined will carry men, captain Villontrey’s, with a
Spanish escort, passed the Sierra Morena, and traversing La Mancha
to within a short distance of Toledo, gathered up the escorts, the
hospital attendants, and the detachments left by Dupont in that
province, and constituting them prisoners under the capitulation,
sent them to Andujar; and this unheard of proceeding was quietly
submitted to by men who belonged to that army which for fifteen
years had been the terror of Europe--a proof how much the firmness
of soldiers depends upon the character of their immediate chief.
[Illustration: _Explanatory Sketch_ of the BATTLE OF BAYLEN.
_London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._]
The capitulation, shameful in itself, was shamefully broken. The
French troops, instead of being sent to France, were maltreated,
and numbers of them murdered in cold blood, especially at Lebrixa,
where above eighty officers were massacred in the most cowardly
manner. Although armed only with their swords, they kept the
assassins for some time at bay, and gathering in a company, upon an
open space in the town, endeavoured to save their lives, but a fire
from the neighbouring houses was kept up until the last of those
unfortunate gentlemen fell.
[Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes.]
No distinction was made between Dupont’s and Vedel’s troops;
all who survived the march to Cadiz, after being exposed to
every species of indignity, were cast into some hulks, where the
greatest number perished in lingering torments: a few hundreds,
rendered desperate by their situation, contrived to escape, some
years afterwards, by cutting the cables of their prison-ship,
and drifting, under a heavy fire, and in the midst of a storm,
upon a lee-shore, where two-thirds of them were picked up by
their countrymen at that time blockading Cadiz. Dupont himself
was permitted to return to France, and to take with him all
the generals; and it is curious that general Privé, who had
remonstrated strongly against the capitulation, and pressed Dupont
on the field to force a passage through Reding’s army, was the only
one left behind.
Don Thomas Morla, after a vain attempt to involve lord Collingwood
and sir Hew Dalrymple in the disgraceful transaction, formally
defended the conduct of the junta in breaking the capitulation; his
reasoning was worthy of the man who so soon afterwards betrayed his
own country with the same indifference to honour that he displayed
on this occasion.
OBSERVATIONS.
[Sidenote: Return of the French army. Appendix.]
1º. The gross amount of Dupont’s corps when it first entered
Spain was about twenty-four thousand men, with three thousand
five hundred horses; of these twenty-one thousand were fit for
duty. It was afterwards strengthened by a provisionary regiment of
cuirassiers, a marine battalion of the guard, and the two Swiss
regiments of Preux and Reding. It could not therefore have been
less than twenty-four thousand fighting men when Dupont arrived in
Andalusia, and as the whole of Vedel’s, and the greatest part of
Gobert’s division, had joined before the capitulation, and that
eighteen thousand men laid down their arms at Baylen, Dupont must
have lost by wounds, desertion, and deaths in hospital or the
field, above four thousand men.
2º. The order which directed this corps upon Cadiz was despatched
from Bayonne before the Spanish insurrection broke out; it was
therefore strange that Dupont should have persevered in his
march when he found affairs in such a different state from that
contemplated by Napoleon at the time the instructions for this
expedition were framed. If the emperor considered it necessary to
reinforce the division which marched under Dupont’s own command,
with a detachment from the army in Portugal before the insurrection
broke out, it was evident that he never could have intended that
that general should blindly follow the letter of his orders, when
a great and unexpected resistance was opposed to him, and that
the detachment of Portugal was unable to effect a junction. The
march to Cordoba was therefore an error, and it was a great error,
because Dupont confesses in his memoir that he advanced under the
conviction that his force was too weak to obtain success, and,
consequently, having no object, his operations could only lead to a
waste of lives.
3º. At Cordoba, Dupont remained in a state of torpor for ten days;
this was the second error of a series which led to his ruin: he
should either have followed up his victory and attacked Seville
in the first moment of consternation, or he should have retired
to Andujar while he might do so without the appearance of being
compelled to it. If he had followed the first plan, the city would
inevitably have fallen before him, and thus time would have been
gained for the arrival of the 2d and 3d division of his corps.
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal of Operations.]
4º. It may be objected that ten thousand men durst not penetrate so
far into a hostile country; but at Alcolea, Dupont boasts of having
defeated forty thousand men without any loss to himself; from such
armies then he had nothing to fear, and the very fact of his having
pushed his small force between the multitudes that he defeated upon
the 7th, proves that he despised them. “He retired from Cordoba,”
he says in his memoir, “because to fight a battle when victory can
be of no use is against all discretion;” but to make no use of a
victory when it is gained comes to the same thing; and he should
never have moved from Andujar unless with the determination of
taking Seville.
5º. Those errors were, however, redeemable; the position behind
the Guadalquivir, the checks given to the patriots at Jaen after
the arrival of Vedel at Carolina upon the 27th, and above all the
opportune junction of Gobert at the moment when Castaños and
Reding appeared in front of the French line, proved that it was not
fortune but common sense that deserted Dupont on this occasion,
for the Spanish forces being divided and extended from Andujar to
Mengibar were exposed to be beaten in detail; but their adversary
was indulgent to them, and amidst the mass of errors committed upon
both sides, this false disposition appeared like an act of wisdom,
and being successful was stamped accordingly.
6º. At Mengibar a variety of roads branch off leading to Jaen, to
Linhares, to Baylen and other places. From Andujar, a road nearly
parallel to the Guadalquivir runs to the ferry of Mengibar and
forms the base of a triangle, of which Baylen may be taken as the
apex. From this latter town to the ferry is about six miles, from
the ferry to Andujar is about eighteen, from the latter to Baylen
the distance may be sixteen miles. Fifteen miles above Baylen the
town of Carolina, situated in the gorge of the Sierra Morena, was
the point of communication with La Mancha, and the line of retreat
for the French in the event of a defeat, hence Baylen, not Andujar,
was the pivot of operations.
[Sidenote: Dupont’s Journal. MS.]
7º. The French force was inferior in number to that under Castaños,
yet Dupont disseminated his divisions upon several points. The
natural results followed. The Spaniards, although the most
unwieldy body, took the lead and became the assailants; the French
divisions were worn out by useless marches; the orders of their
chief were mistaken or disobeyed; one position being forced,
another was of necessity abandoned; confusion ensued, and finally
Dupont says he surrendered with _eighteen thousand_ men, because
his fighting force was reduced to _two thousand_: such an avowal
saves the honour of his soldiers, but destroys his own reputation
as a general. The first question to ask is, what became of the
remainder? Why had he so few when ten thousand of his army never
fired a shot? It must be confessed that Dupont, unless a worse
explanation can be given of his conduct, was incapable to the last
degree.
8º. There were two plans, either of which promised a reasonable
chance of success, under the circumstances in which the French
army was placed on the 14th. 1st. To abandon Andujar, send all
the incumbrances into La Mancha, secure the passes, unite the
fighting men at Carolina, and fall in one mass upon the first corps
of Spaniards that advanced; the result of such an attack could
hardly have been doubtful; but if, contrary to all probability, the
Spaniards had been successful, the retreat of the French was open
and safe. 2dly. To secure Carolina by a detachment, and placing
small bodies in observation at Andujar and the ferry of Mengibar,
to unite the army on the 15th at Baylen, and in that central
position await the enemy. If the two corps of the Spanish army had
presented themselves simultaneously upon both roads, the position
was strong for battle and the retreat open; if one approached
before the other, each might have been encountered and crushed
separately. Dupont had a force more than sufficient for this
object, and fortune was not against him.
9º. The direction in which Reding marched was good, but it should
have been followed by the whole army. The heights of Argonilla
would have screened the march of Castaños, and a few troops with
some heavy guns left in front of the bridge of Andujar, would
have sufficed to occupy Dupont’s attention. If the latter general
had attacked Castaños upon the morning of the 16th, when Vedel’s
division arrived from Baylen, the fourteen thousand men thus
united by accident would easily have overthrown the two Spanish
divisions in front of Andujar; and Reding, if he had lost an
hour in retreating to Jaen, might have been taken in flank by
the victorious troops, and in front by Gobert, and so destroyed.
Instead of availing himself of this opening, the French general
sent Vedel back to Baylen, and followed himself the day after;
being encountered by Reding, he vainly hoped that the divisions
(which with so much pains he had dispersed) would reunite to
relieve him from his desperate situation; it is difficult to say
why those divisions did not arrive during the battle, and more
difficult to assign to each person a just portion of censure where
all were to blame.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.]
10º. In the action Dupont clung tenaciously to the miserable
system of dividing his forces; his only chance of safety was to
force Reding before Castaños could arrive upon the Tiedras; it was
therefore a wretched misapplication of rules to have a reserve
watching that torrent, and to fight a formal battle with a first
and second line and half a dozen puny columns of attack. An
energetic officer would have formed his troops in a dense mass and
broken at once through the opposing force upon the weakest point;
there are few armies so good, that such an assault would not open
a passage through them; seven thousand infantry with cavalry and
artillery is a powerful column of attack, and the Spanish line
could not have withstood it for a moment. The battle should have
been one of half an hour; Dupont, by his ridiculous evolutions,
made it one of ten hours, and yet so badly did the patriots fight,
that in all that time not a single prisoner or gun fell into their
hands, and the fact of Reding’s entering at all into a convention,
proves his fears for the final result. It is truly astonishing that
Dupont, who, from his rank, must have been well acquainted with
Napoleon’s Italian campaigns, should have caught so little of the
spirit of his master. And then the inexplicable capitulation of
Vedel after his retreat was actually effected! Vedel, who might
have given battle and disputed the victory by himself without
any great imprudence! Joseph called Dupont’s capitulation a
“_defection_;” perhaps he was right.
11º. Castaños, although active in preparation, discovered but
little talent in the field, his movements were slow, uncertain,
and generally false: the attempt to turn the French position at
Andujar by detaching four thousand men across the river was ill
conceived and badly supported; it was of that class of combinations
to which the separate march of Reding’s corps belonged. To the
latter general the chief honour of the victory is due; yet, if
Vedel had returned from Carolina upon the 19th, with the rapidity
which the occasion required, Reding would have repented taking post
at Baylen. It was undoubtedly a bold energetic step; but instead of
remaining at that place, he should have descended instantly upon
the rear of Dupont, leaving a corps of observation to delay the
march of Vedel. Time not being taken into his calculation, Reding
acted like a bold but rash and unskilful officer. Fortune, however,
favoured his temerity, and with her assistance war is but a child’s
play.
[Sidenote: Foy’s History.]
Intelligence of the capitulation of Baylen was secretly spread
among the Spaniards in Madrid as early as the 23d or 24th of
July, but the French, although alarmed by rumours of some great
disaster, were unable to acquire any distinct information,
until the king sent two divisions into La Mancha to open the
communication; these troops arriving at Madrilejos, one hundred and
twenty miles from Baylen, met captain Villontreys with his Spanish
escort collecting prisoners, and apparently intending to proceed in
his task to the very gates of Madrid. The extent of the disaster
thus became known, and the divisions retraced their steps. Joseph
called a council of war on the 29th, and Savary, enlightened by
the instructions of Napoleon, proposed to unite all the French
forces, to place a small garrison in the Retiro, and to fall upon
the Spanish armies in succession as they advanced towards the
capital; but a dislike to the war was prevalent amongst the higher
ranks of the French army. The injustice of it was too glaring; and
the reasons for a retreat, which might perchance induce Napoleon
to desist, being listened to with more complacency than Savary’s
proposal, it was resolved to abandon Madrid and retire behind the
Ebro.
The king commenced this operation on the 1st of August, marching
by the Somosierra; while Bessieres posted at Mayorga, covered
the movement until the court reached Burgos, and then fell back
himself. In a short time the French invaders were all behind the
Ebro, the siege of Zaragoza was raised, and the triumphant cry of
the Spaniards was heard throughout Europe.
The retreat of the king was undoubtedly hasty and ill-considered;
whether as a military or political measure it was unwise.
Bessieres, with seventeen thousand victorious troops and forty
pieces of artillery, paralized the northern provinces, the Spanish
army of Andalusia was too distant from that of Valencia to concert
a combined movement, and if they had formed a junction their united
force could not have exceeded forty thousand fighting men, ill
provided, and commanded by jealous independent chiefs. Now the
king, without weakening Bessieres’s corps too much, could have
collected twenty thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and
eighty pieces of artillery, and the battle of Rio Seco shows what
such an army could have effected. Every motive of prudence and of
honour called for some daring action to wipe off the ignominy of
Baylen.
Let it be conceded that Joseph could not have maintained himself
in Madrid; the line of the Duero was the true position for
the French army. Taking Aranda as a centre, and occupying the
Somosierra, Segovia, Valladolid, Palencia, Burgos, and Soria on
the circumference; two ordinary marches would have carried the
king to the succour of any part of his position, and the northern
provinces would thus have been separated from the southern; for
Blake durst not have made a flank march to the Guadarama, Castaños
durst not have remained in the basin of Madrid, and the siege of
Zaragoza might have been continued, because from Aranda to Zaragoza
the distance is not greater than from Valencia or from Madrid, and
from Soria it is only three marches; hence the king could have
succoured Verdier in time if the Valencians attacked him, and it
was impossible for Castaños to have arrived at Zaragoza under a
month; now by taking up the line of the Ebro, Napoleon’s plan of
separating the provinces, and confining each to its own exertions,
was frustrated, and Joseph virtually resigned the throne; for
however doubtful the prudence of opposing the French might have
been considered before the retreat, it became imperative upon all
Spaniards to aid the energy of the multitude, when that energy was
proved to be efficient.
In this manner Napoleon’s first effort against Spain was
frustrated; not that he had miscalculated either the difficulties
of his task, or the means to overcome them; for although Bessieres
was the only general who perfectly succeeded in his operations,
the plan of the emperor was so well combined, that it required
the destruction of a whole army to shake it at all, and even when
the king, by committing the great faults of abandoning Madrid
and raising the siege of Zaragoza, had given the utmost force to
Dupont’s catastrophe; the political position only of the French was
weakened, their military hold of the country was scarcely loosened,
and the Spaniards were unable to follow up their victory.
The moral effect of the battle of Baylen was surprising: it was
one of those minor events which, insignificant in themselves, are
the cause of great changes in the affairs of nations. The defeat
of Rio Seco, the preparations of Moncey for a second attack on
Valencia, the miserable plight of Zaragoza, the desponding view
taken of affairs by the ablest men of Spain, and, above all, the
disgust and terror excited among the patriots by the excesses of
the populace, weighed heavy against the Spanish cause. One victory
more, and probably the moral as well as the physical force of
Spain would have been crushed; but the battle of Baylen, opening
as it were a new crater for the Spanish fire, all their pride,
and vanity, and arrogance burst forth, the glory of past ages
seemed to be renewed, every man conceived himself a second Cid,
and perceived in the surrender of Dupont, not the deliverance of
Spain, but the immediate conquest of France. “We are much obliged
to our good friends the English,” was a common phrase among them
when conversing with the officers of Sir John Moore’s army; “we
thank them for their good-will, and we shall have the pleasure
of escorting them through France to Calais: the journey will be
pleasanter than a long voyage, and we shall not give them the
trouble of fighting the French; we shall, however, be pleased at
having them as spectators of our victories.” This absurd confidence
might have led to great things if it had been supported by wisdom,
activity, or valour; but it was “a voice, and nothing more.”
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
The uninterrupted success that for so many years attended the arms
of Napoleon, gave him a moral influence doubling his actual force.
Exciting at once terror, admiration, and hatred, he absorbed the
whole attention of an astonished world, and openly or secretly all
men acknowledged the power of his wonderful genius. The continent
bowed before him, and even in England an increasing number of
absurd and virulent libels on his person and character indicated
the growth of secret fear. His proceedings against the Peninsula
were, in truth, viewed at first with anxiety rather than with the
hope of arresting their progress; yet when the full extent of the
injustice became manifest, the public mind was vehemently excited,
and a sentiment of some extraordinary change being about to take
place in the affairs of the world prevailed among all classes of
society; suddenly the Spanish people rose against the man that all
feared; and the admiration which energy and courage exact, even
from the base and timid, became enthusiastic in a nation conscious
of the same virtues.
No factious feelings interfered to check this enthusiasm: the party
in power, anxious to pursue a warlike system necessary to their
own political existence, saw with joy that the stamp of justice
and high feeling would, for the first time, be affixed to their
policy. The party out of power having always derided the impotence
of the ancient dynasties, and asserted that regular armies alone
were insufficient means of defence, could not consistently refuse
their approbation to a struggle originating with, and carried on
entirely by the Spanish multitude. The people at large exulted that
the manifest superiority of plebeian virtue and patriotism was
acknowledged.
The arrival of the Asturian deputies was, therefore, universally
hailed as an auspicious event. Their wishes were forestalled, their
suggestions were attended to with eagerness; their demands were so
readily complied with, and the riches of England were so profusely
tendered to them by the ministers, that it can scarcely be doubted
that the after arrogance and extravagance of the Spaniards arose
from the manner in which their first applications were met; for
there is a way of conferring a favour that appears like accepting
one: and this secret being discovered by the English cabinet, the
Spaniards soon demanded as a right what they had at first solicited
as a boon. In politics it is a grievous fault to be too generous;
gratitude, in state affairs, is unknown; and as the appearance of
disinterested kindness never deceives, it should never be assumed.
The capture of the Spanish frigates had placed Great Britain and
Spain in a state of hostility without a declaration of war. The
invasion of Napoleon produced a friendly alliance between those
countries without a declaration of peace, for the cessation of
hostilities was not proclaimed until long after succours had been
sent to the juntas.
The ministers seemed, by their precipitate measures, to be more
afraid of losing the assistance of the Spaniards than prepared
to take the lead in a contest which could only be supported by
the power and riches of Great Britain. Instead of adopting a
simple and decisive policy towards Spain, instead of sending a
statesman of high rank and acknowledged capacity to sustain the
insurrection, and to establish the influence of England by a
judicious application of money and other supplies, the ministers
employed a number of obscure men in various parts of the Peninsula
who, without any experience of public affairs, were empowered to
distribute succours of all kinds at their own discretion. Instead
of sifting carefully the information obtained from such agents,
and consulting distinguished military and naval officers in the
arrangement of some comprehensive plan of operations which, being
well understood by those who were to execute it, might be supported
vigorously, the ministers formed crude projects, and parcelled out
the forces in small expeditions, without any definite object in
view, altering their plans with every idle report, and changing the
commanders as lightly as the plans.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters.]
[Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s ditto.]
Entering into formal relations with every knot of Spanish
politicians that assumed the title of a supreme junta, the
government dealt with unsparing hands enormous supplies at the
demand of those self-elected authorities, yet took no assurance
that the succours should be justly applied, but, with affected
earnestness, disclaimed all intention of interfering with the
internal arrangements of the Spaniards, when the ablest men of
Spain expected and wished for such an interference to repress
the folly and violence of their countrymen, and when England was
entitled, both in policy and justice, not only to interfere,
but to direct the councils of the insurgents. The latter had
solicited and obtained her assistance; the cause was become common
to both nations, and their welfare demanded, that a prudent, just,
and vigorous interference on the part of the most powerful and
enlightened, should prevent that cause from being ruined by a few
ignorant and conceited men, accidentally invested with authority.
[Sidenote: Vide Instructions for sir Thos. Dyer, &c. &c.]
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, Section 5th.]
The numbers and injudicious choice of military agents were also
the source of infinite mischief; selected, as it would appear,
principally because of their acquaintance with the Spanish
language; few of those agents had any knowledge of war beyond the
ordinary duties of a regiment; there was no concert among them, for
there was no controlling power vested in any, but each did that
which seemed good to him. Readily affecting to consult men whose
inexperience rendered them amenable, and whose friendship could
supply the means of advancing their own interests in a disorganised
state of society, the Spanish generals received the agents with a
flattering and confidential politeness, that diverted the attention
of the latter from the true objects of their mission. Instead of
ascertaining the real numbers and efficiency of the armies, they
adopted the inflated language and extravagant opinions of the
chiefs, with whom they lived; and their reports gave birth to most
erroneous notions of the relative strength and situation of the
contending forces in the Peninsula. Some exceptions there were; but
the ministers seemed to be better pleased with the sanguine than
with the cautious, and made their own wishes the measure of their
judgments. Accordingly, enthusiasm, numbers, courage, and talent,
were gratuitously found for every occasion; but money, arms, and
clothing, were demanded incessantly, and supplied with profusion;
the arms were, however, generally left in their cases to rot, or to
fall into the hands of the enemy; the clothing seldom reached the
soldier’s back, and the money, in all instances misapplied, was in
some, embezzled by the authorities, into whose hands it fell, and
in others employed to create disunion, and to forward the private
views of the juntas, at the expense of the public welfare. It is
a curious fact, that from the beginning to the end of the war, an
English musket was rarely to be seen in the hands of a Spanish
soldier. But it is time to quit this subject, and to trace the
progress of Junot’s invasion of Portugal, that the whole circle of
operations in the Peninsula being completed, the reader may take a
general view of the situation of all parties, at the moment when
sir Arthur Wellesley, disembarking at the Mondego, commenced those
campaigns which form the proper subject of this history.
INVASION OF PORTUGAL BY JUNOT.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Peremptory orders obliged Junot to commence operations at an
unfavourable time of year, and before his preparations were
completed. In his front the roads were nearly impracticable, and a
part of his troops were still in the rear of Salamanca. Hence, his
march from that town to Alcantara (where he effected his junction
in the latter end of November, with the part of the Spanish force
that was to act under his immediate orders) was very disastrous,
and nearly disorganized his inexperienced army.
The succours he expected to receive at Alcantara were not
furnished, and the repugnance of the Spanish authorities to aid
him, was the cause of so much embarrassment, that his chief
officers doubted the propriety of continuing operations under
the accumulating difficulties of his situation; but Junot’s
firmness was unabated. He knew that no English force had landed at
Lisbon, and the cowardice of the Portuguese court was notorious.
Encouraged by these considerations, he undertook one of those hardy
enterprises which astound the mind by their success, and leave
the historian in doubt if he should praise the happy daring, or
stigmatise the rashness of the deed.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Without money, without transport, without ammunition sufficient
for a general action, with an auxiliary force of Spaniards by
no means well disposed to aid him, Junot, at the head of a raw
army, penetrated the mountains of Portugal on the most dangerous
and difficult line by which that country can be invaded. He was
ignorant of what was passing in the interior; he knew not if he
was to be opposed, nor what means were prepared to resist him; but
trusting to the inertness of the Portuguese government, to the
rapidity of his own movements, and to the renown of the French
arms, he made his way through Lower Beira, and suddenly appeared
in the town of Abrantes, a fearful and unexpected guest. There he
obtained the first information of the true state of affairs. Lisbon
was tranquil, and the Portuguese fleet was ready to sail, but the
court still remained on shore. On hearing this, Junot, animated by
the prospect of seizing the prince regent, pressed forward, and
reached Lisbon in time to see the fleet, having the royal family
on board, clearing the mouth of the Tagus. One vessel dragged
astern within reach of a battery, the French general himself fired
a gun at her; and on his return to Lisbon, meeting some Portuguese
troops, he resolutely commanded them to form an escort for his
person, and thus attended, passed through the streets of the
capital. Nature alone had opposed his progress; yet such were the
hardships his army had endured, that of a column which had numbered
twenty-five thousand in its ranks, two thousand tired grenadiers
only entered Lisbon with their general; fatigue, and want, and
tempests, had scattered the remainder along two hundred miles of
rugged mountains, inhabited by a warlike and ferocious peasantry,
well acquainted with the strength of their fastnesses, and proud
of many successful defences made by their fore-fathers against
former invaders. Lisbon itself contained three hundred thousand
inhabitants, and fourteen thousand regular troops were collected
there. A powerful British fleet was at the mouth of the harbour;
the commander, sir Sydney Smith, had urged the court to resist, and
offered to land his seamen and marines to aid in the defence of
the town; but his offers were declined; and the people, disgusted
with the pusillanimous conduct of their rulers, and confounded
by the strangeness of the scene, evinced no desire to impede the
march of events. Thus three weak battalions sufficed to impose a
foreign yoke upon this great capital, and illustrated the truth of
Napoleon’s maxim:--_that in war the moral is to the physical force
as three parts to one_.
The prince regent, after having at the desire of the French
government, expelled the British factory, ordered the British
minister plenipotentiary away from his court, sequestered British
property, and shut the ports of Portugal against British merchants;
after having degraded himself and his nation by performing every
submissive act which France could devise to insult his weakness,
was still reluctant to forego the base tenure by which he hoped
to hold his crown. Alternately swayed by fear and indolence,
a miserable example of helpless folly, he lingered until the
reception of a Moniteur, announcing that “_the house of Braganza
had ceased to reign_,” awoke all the energy he was capable of. At
that time lord Strangford, the British minister plenipotentiary,
had resigned all hope of persuading the royal family to emigrate;
but sir Sydney Smith, seizing the favourable moment, threatened to
commence hostilities if the emigration should be longer delayed;
and thus urged, the prince regent of Portugal, the old queen his
mother, and the rest of the royal family, had embarked on the 27th;
and quitting the Tagus on the 29th of November[9], sailed for the
Brazils, a few hours only before Junot arrived with his slight
escort of grenadiers.
This celebrated emigration was beneficial to the Brazils in the
highest degree, and of vast importance to England in two ways,
for it ensured great commercial advantages, and it threw Portugal
completely into her power in the approaching conflict; but it
was disgraceful to the prince, insulting to the brave people he
abandoned, and impolitic, inasmuch as it obliged men to inquire how
far subjects were bound to a monarch who deserted them in their
need? how far the nation could belong to a man who did not belong
to the nation?
It has been observed by political economists, that where a gold
and paper currency circulate together, if the paper be depreciated
it will drag down the gold with it, and deteriorate the whole
mass; but that after a time, the metal revolts from this unnatural
state, and asserts its own intrinsic superiority. So a privileged
class, corrupted by power and luxury, drags down the national
character; but there is a point when the people, like the gold, no
longer suffering such a degradation, will separate themselves with
violence from the vices of their effeminate rulers. Before that
time arrives a nation may appear to be sunk in hopeless lethargy,
when it is really capable of great and noble exertions. Thus it was
with the Portuguese, who were at this time unjustly despised by
enemies, and mistrusted by friends.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
The invading army, in pursuance of the convention of Fontainebleau,
was divided into three corps; the central one, composed of the
French troops, and a Spanish division, under general Caraffa, had
penetrated by the two roads, which from Alcantara lead, the one by
Pedragoa, the other by Sobreira Formosa; but at Abrantes, Caraffa’s
division separated from the French, and took possession of Thomar.
Meanwhile the right, under general Taranco, marching from Gallicia
established themselves at Oporto, and the marquis of Solano, with
the left, entered the Alemtejo, and fixed his quarters at Setuval.
The Spanish troops did not suffer on their route; but such had been
the distress of the French army, that three weeks afterwards it
could only muster ten thousand men under arms, and the privations
encountered on the march led to excesses which first produced that
rancorous spirit of mutual hatred, so remarkable between the French
and Portuguese. Young soldiers always attribute their sufferings
to the ill-will of the inhabitants; it is difficult to make them
understand that a poor peasantry have nothing to spare; old
soldiers, on the contrary, blame nobody, but know how to extract
subsistence in most cases without exciting enmity.
Junot passed the month of December in collecting his army, securing
the great military points about Lisbon, and in preparations to
supplant the power of a council of regency, to whom the prince at
his departure had delegated the sovereign authority. As long as the
French troops were scattered on the line of march, and that the
fortresses were held by Portuguese garrisons, it would have been
dangerous to provoke the enmity, or to excite the activity of this
council, and the members were treated with studious respect; but
they were of the same leaven as the court they emanated from, and
the quick resolute proceedings of Junot soon deprived them of any
importance conferred by the critical situation of affairs during
the first three weeks.
[Sidenote: Return of the French army. Appendix, No. 28.]
The Spanish auxiliary forces were well received in the north and
in the Alemtejo; but general Taranco dying soon after his arrival
at Oporto, the French general Quesnel was sent to command that
province. Junot had early taken possession of Elvas, and detached
general Maurin to the Algarves, with sixteen hundred men; and, when
Solano was ordered by his court to withdraw from Portugal, nine
French battalions and the cavalry, under the command of Kellerman,
took possession of the Alemtejo also, and occupied the fortress
of Setuval. At the same time Junot replaced Caraffa’s division
at Thomar by a French force, and distributed the former in small
bodies, at a considerable distance from each other, on both sides
of the Tagus, immediately round Lisbon.
[Sidenote: Foy.]
The provisions of the treaty of Fontainebleau were unknown to
the Portuguese, a circumstance that procured the Spanish troops
a better reception than the French; but that treaty was now no
longer regarded by Junot, whose conduct plainly discovered that he
considered Portugal to be a possession entirely belonging to France.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
When all his stragglers were come up, his army recovered from its
fatigues, and that he knew that a reinforcement of five thousand
men had arrived at Salamanca on its march to Lisbon, Junot
proceeded more openly to assume the chief authority; he commenced
by exacting a forced loan of two hundred thousand pounds, and not
only interfered with the different departments of state, but put
Frenchmen into all the lucrative offices; and his promises and
protestations of amity became loud and frequent in proportion to
his encroachments and the increase of his power. At last being
created by Napoleon duke of Abrantes, he threw off all disguise,
suppressed the council of regency, seized the reins of government
himself, and while he established many useful regulations, made the
nation sensibly alive to the fact that he was a despotic conqueror.
The flag and the arms of Portugal were replaced by those of France;
and of the Portuguese army, eight thousand men were selected and
sent from the kingdom, under the command of the marquis d’Alorna
and Gomez Frere, two noblemen of the greatest reputation for
military talent among the native officers. Five thousand more
were attached to the divisions of Junot’s army, and the rest were
disbanded.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
An extraordinary contribution of four millions sterling, decreed by
Napoleon, was then demanded, under the curious title of a ransom
for the state; this sum was exorbitant, and Junot prevailed on the
emperor to reduce it one half. He likewise on his own authority
accepted the forced loan, the confiscated English merchandise, the
church plate, and the royal property, in part payment; but the
people were still unable to raise the whole amount, for the court
had before taken the greatest part of the church plate and bullion
of the kingdom, and had also drawn large sums from the people,
under the pretext of defending the country, with which treasure
they departed, leaving the public functionaries, the army, private
creditors, and even domestic servants, unpaid.
But although great discontent and misery prevailed, the
tranquillity of Lisbon, during the first month after the arrival of
the French, was remarkable; no disturbance took place, the populace
were completely controlled by the activity of a police, established
under the prince regent’s government by the count de Novion, a
French emigrant, and continued by Junot on an extended scale.
No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want
of good police regulations, and the French general conferred
an unmixed benefit on the inhabitants by giving more effect to
Novion’s plans; yet so deeply rooted is the prejudice in favour
of ancient customs, that no act of the duke of Abrantes gave the
Portuguese more offence than his having the streets cleansed, and
the wild dogs (that infested them by thousands) killed. A French
serjeant, distinguished by his zeal in destroying those disgusting
and dangerous animals, was in revenge assassinated.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
In the course of March and April, Junot’s military system was
completed; the arsenal of Lisbon, one of the finest establishments
of the kind in Europe, contained all kinds of naval and military
stores in abundance, and ten thousand excellent workmen in every
branch of business appertaining to war; hence the artillery, the
carriages, the ammunition, and all the minor equipments of the
army, were soon renewed and put in the best possible condition,
and the hulks of two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, and
seven lighter vessels of war, were refitted, armed, and moored
across the river to defend the entrance, and to awe the town. The
army itself, perfectly recovered from its fatigues, reinforced,
and better disciplined, was grown confident in its chief from the
success of the invasion, and being well fed and clothed, was become
a fine body of robust men, capable of any exertion. In March it was
re-organized in three divisions of infantry and one of cavalry.
General La Borde commanded the first, general Loison the second,
general Travot the third, general Margaron the fourth, and general
Taviel directed the artillery. General Kellerman commanded in
the Alemtejo, general Quesnel at Oporto, general Maurin in the
Algarves, and Junot himself in Lisbon.
The fortresses of Faro in Algarve, of Almeida, of Elvas, La Lippe,
St. Lucie, Setuval, Palmela, and those between Lisbon and the mouth
of the Tagus, of Ericia and Peniché, were furnished with French
garrisons; and Estremos, Aldea-Gallegos, Santarem, and Abrantes
were occupied, and put in such a state of defence as their decayed
ramparts would permit.
[Sidenote: Return of the French army. Appendix, No. 28.]
The whole army, including the French workmen and marines attached
to it, amounted to above fifty thousand men, of which above
forty-four thousand were fit for duty; that is to say, fifteen
thousand five hundred Spaniards, five thousand Portuguese, and
twenty-four thousand four hundred French.
Of the latter 1000 were in Elvas and La Lippe,
1000 in Almeida,
1000 in Peniché,
1600 in the Algarves,
2892 in Setuval,
750 in Abrantes,
450 cavalry were kept in Valencia
d’Alcantara, in Spanish Estremadura,
and 350 distributed in the proportion of
fifteen men to a post, guarded the lines of communication which
were established from Lisbon to Elvas, and from Almeida to Coimbra.
Above fifteen thousand men remained disposable.
Thus Lisbon, the capital, containing all the civil, military, and
naval, and the greatest part of the commercial establishments, the
only fine harbour, two-eighths of the population, and two-thirds
of the riches of the whole kingdom, was secured by the main body,
which formed the centre, while on the circumference a number
of strong posts gave support to the operations of the moveable
column. By this disposition, the garrison of Peniché commanded the
only harbour between the Tagus and the Mondego, in which a large
disembarkation of English troops could take place; and the little
port of Figueras, which was held by a small garrison, blocked the
mouth of the latter river; while the division at Thomar secured
all the great lines of communication to the north-east, and in
conjunction with the garrison of Abrantes, commanded both sides of
the Zezere.
From Abrantes to Estremos and Elvas, and from the former to
Setuval, the lines of communication were short, and through an open
country, suitable for the operations of the cavalry, which was all
quartered on the south bank of the Tagus. Thus, without breaking up
the mass of the army, the harbours were sealed against the English,
and a great and rich tract was enclosed by posts, and rendered so
pervious to the troops, that any insurrection could be reached
by a few marches, and immediately crushed. The connexion between
the right and left banks of the Tagus at Lisbon was secured, and
the entrance to the port defended by the vessels of war which had
been refitted and armed. A light squadron was also prepared to
communicate with South America, and nine Russian line of battle
ships, and a frigate under the command of admiral Siniavin, which
had taken refuge some time before from the English fleet, were of
necessity engaged in the defence of the harbour, and formed an
unwilling, but not an unimportant auxiliary force.
These military arrangements were Junot’s own, and suitable enough
if his army had been unconnected with any other; but they clashed
with the general views of Napoleon, who regarded the force in
Portugal only as a division of troops, to be rendered subservient
to the general scheme of subjecting the Peninsula; wherefore,
in the month of May, he ordered that general Avril, with three
thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and ten guns, should
co-operate with Dupont in Andalusia, and that general Loison, with
four thousand infantry, should proceed to Almeida, and from thence
co-operate with Bessieres in the event of an insurrection taking
place in Spain.
General Thiebault complains of this order as injurious to Junot,
ill combined, and the result of a foolish vanity that prompted the
emperor to direct all the armies himself; yet it would be difficult
to show that the arrangement was faulty. Avril’s division, if he
had not halted at Tavora, for which there was no reason, would
have ensured the capture of Seville, and if Dupont’s defeat had
not rendered the victory of Rio Seco useless, Loison’s division
would have been eminently useful in controlling the country behind
Bessieres, in case the latter invaded Gallicia; and it was well
placed to intercept the communication between the Castilian and the
Estremaduran armies. Thus the emperor’s combinations, if they had
been fully executed, would have brought seventy thousand men to
bear on the defence of Portugal.
[Sidenote: Napoleon in Las Casas.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
Such was the military attitude of the French in May; their
political situation was far from being so favourable. Junot’s
natural capacity was very considerable; but it was neither enlarged
by study, nor strengthened by mental discipline. Of intemperate
habits, indolent in business, yet prompt and brave in action,
quick to give offence, ready to forget an injury; at one moment
a great man, the next below mediocrity, Junot was at all times
unsuited to the task of conciliating and governing a people like
the Portuguese, who, with passions as sudden and vehement as his
own, retain a sense of injury or insult with incredible tenacity;
otherwise, although he had many difficulties to encounter, and
his duty towards France was in some instances incompatible with
good policy towards Portugal, he was not without resources for
establishing a strong French interest. But he possessed neither the
ability nor disposition to soothe a nation that, without having
suffered a defeat, was suddenly bowed to a foreign yoke.
[Sidenote: Foy.]
The pride and the poverty of the Portuguese, and the influence
of ancient usages, interfered with Junot’s policy. The monks and
friars, and most of the nobility, were inimical to his sway; and
all the activity of the expelled British factory, and the secret
warfare of spies and writers in the pay of England, were directed
to undermine his plans, and to render him and his nation odious;
but on the other hand, he was in possession of the government and
of the capital, he had a fine army, and he could offer novelty so
dear to the multitude, and he had the name and the fame of Napoleon
to assist him. The promises of power are always believed by the
many; and there were abundance of grievances to remedy, and wrongs
to redress in Portugal. And such a strong feeling existed among the
best educated men (and especially at the universities) of dislike
to the Braganza family, and in favour of a reformed system, that
steps were actually taken to have prince Eugene declared king of
Portugal; and we shall find hereafter, that this spirit was not
extinguished at a much later date.
With these materials, and the military vanity of the Portuguese
to work upon, Junot might have established a powerful French
interest; and under an active government, the people would not long
have regretted the loss of an independence that had no wholesome
breathing amidst the corrupt stagnation of the old system. But the
arrogance of a conqueror, and the necessities of an army, which
was to be subsisted and paid by an impoverished people, soon gave
rise to all kinds of oppression; private abuses followed close
upon the heels of public rapacity, and insolence left its sting to
rankle in the wounds of the injured. The malignant humours broke
out in quarrels and assassinations, and the severe punishments that
ensued, many of them unjust and barbarous in the highest degree,
created rage, not terror; for the nation had not tried its strength
in battle, and would not believe that it was weak.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
The ports were rigorously blockaded by the English fleet, the
troubles in Spain interrupted the commerce in grain, by which
Portugal had been usually supplied from that country, and the
unhappy people suffered under the triple pressure of famine,
war-contributions, and a foreign yoke. With all external aliment
thus cut off, and a hungry army gnawing at its vitals, the nation
could not remain tranquil; and although the first five months of
Junot’s government was, with the exception of a slight tumult at
Lisbon (when the arms of Portugal were taken down), undisturbed
by commotion, the whole country was soon ripe for a general
insurrection. The harvest, however, proved remarkably fine, and
Junot hailed the prospect of returning plenty, as a relief from
his principal difficulty; but as one danger disappeared, another
presented itself. The Spanish insurrection excited the hopes of
the Portuguese; agents from the neighbouring juntas communicated
secretly with the Spanish generals in Portugal. The capture of the
French fleet in Cadiz became known, assassinations multiplied;
the pope’s nuncio fled on board the English fleet, and all things
tended to a general explosion. The English agents were of course
actively engaged in promoting this spirit; and the appearance of
two English fleets at different points of the coast, having troops
on board, produced great alarm among the French, and augmented the
impatient fierceness of the Portuguese.
Among the various ways in which the people discovered their
hatred of the invaders, one was very characteristic: an egg was
marked with certain letters by a chemical process, and then
placed in a nest; being taken from thence, it was exhibited,
and created a great sensation; the letters were interpreted to
indicate the speedy coming of don Sebastian, king of Portugal,
who, like Arthur of romantic memory, was supposed to be hidden
in a secret island, waiting for the destined period when he was
to re-appear and restore his country to her ancient glory. The
trick was turned against the contrivers; other eggs prophesied in
the most impatriotic manner, but the belief of the Sebastianists
lost nothing of its zeal; many people, and those not of the most
uneducated classes, were often observed upon the highest points of
the hills, casting earnest looks towards the ocean, in the hopes of
descrying the island in which their long lost hero was detained.
CHAPTER II.
The first serious blow was struck at Oporto; the news of what
had taken place all over Spain was known there in June. General
Bellesta, the chief Spanish officer, immediately took an honourable
and resolute part. He made the French general Quesnel, with his
staff, prisoners; after which, calling together the Portuguese
authorities, he declared that they were free to act as they judged
most fitting for their own interests, and then marched to Gallicia
with his army and captives.
The opinions of the leading men at Oporto were divided upon the
great question of resistance; but, after some vicissitudes, the
boldest side was successful, and the insurrection, although at
one moment quelled by the French party, was finally established
in Oporto, and soon extended along the banks of the Duero and the
Minho, and to those parts of Beira which lie between the Mondego
and the sea-coast.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Junot being informed of this event, perceived that no time was
to be lost in disarming the Spanish regiments quartered in the
neighbourhood of Lisbon; but this was not an easy operation.
Carraffa’s division was above six thousand men, and without
employing the garrisons of the citadel and forts of Lisbon, it
was difficult to collect an equal force of French. The suspicions
of the Spanish regiments had been already excited, they were
reluctant to obey the French generals, and one quartered at Alcacer
de Sal had actually resisted the orders of the general-in-chief
himself. To avoid a tumult was the great object, because in Lisbon
fifteen thousand Gallicians were ordinarily engaged as porters and
water-carriers, and if a popular movement had been excited, these
men would naturally have assisted their countrymen. Notwithstanding
these difficulties, Junot, in the night of that day upon which he
received the information of Bellesta’s defection, arranged all his
measures; and the next day the Spanish troops being, under various
pretexts, assembled in such numbers, and in such places, that
resistance became impossible, they yielded to necessity, and were
disarmed, and placed on board the hulks in the Tagus: eight hundred
of the regiment of Murcia and three hundred of that of Valencia
only escaping. Thus Junot in the course of twenty-four hours,
and with very little bloodshed, succeeded, by his promptness and
dexterity, in averting a very serious danger.
The decision and success of this stroke against the Spanish
division produced considerable effect, but not sufficient to
prevent the insurrection from becoming general; all couriers,
and officers carrying orders or commanding small posts of
communications, were suddenly cut off, and Junot, reduced by a
single blow from fifty to twenty-eight thousand men, found himself
isolated, and dependent upon his individual resources, and the
courage of his soldiers, for the maintenance of his conquest, and
even for the preservation of his army.
The Russian squadron indeed contained six thousand seamen and
marines, but, while they consumed a great quantity of provisions,
it was evident, from certain symptoms, that they could not be
depended upon as useful allies, except in the case of an English
fleet attempting to force the entrance of the river. In this
situation the duke of Abrantes at first thought of seizing
Badajos, with a view to secure still more effectually the best
line of retreat into Spain, but the Spanish army of Estremadura
had assembled there, under the command of general Galuzzo, and
frustrated that scheme.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
General Avril’s column having failed to effect its junction with
Dupont, returned to Estremos, and it is probable that Junot never
intended that it should be otherwise; for no great efforts appear
to have been made by Avril to attain the object of the march.
Loison was in the north, but orders were sent to him, to repair
with his column to Oporto and assume the command of that city. Upon
the 5th of June, one day previous to Bellesta’s defection, Loison
had arrived at Almeida, and upon the 12th had made himself master
of Fort Conception, a strong, but ill-placed Spanish fortification
on the frontier. The commandant being partly persuaded, and partly
frightened into a surrender of his charge, retired, with his
garrison, to Ciudad Rodrigo.
Upon receipt of the despatch which directed him to march to Oporto,
Loison quitted Almeida, and endeavoured to penetrate into the
province of Entre Minho e Duero by the route of Amarante, but
his division was too weak to force his way through such a strong
country (where the population was in full insurrection), and to
take a great city, and it was possible that general Bellesta
might have returned and fallen upon his flank. Swayed by these
reasons, Loison advanced cautiously, and without vigour. Being
slightly opposed at the position of Mezam Frias, and hearing that
his baggage had been attacked at the same time by insurgents in
his rear, he fell back at once upon Villa Real, there he engaged
in another trifling skirmish, and then quitting his first route,
crossed the Douero at Lamego, and marched to Castro d’Airo, being
harassed on the road by the armed peasantry of the mountains
skirting his line of march. At Castro d’Airo he faced about, and
dispersed the assailants with some slaughter, and then continued
his movement to Celerico without further molestation; at Celerico a
body of insurgents fled without firing a shot; and Loison dividing
his troops, sent one half to Trancoso, and with the other marched
to Guarda, intending to scour that part of the country, and to
put down the insurrection; but at this time he received one of
twenty-five despatches sent by Junot for the purpose of recalling
him to Lisbon; all the rest had been intercepted. Loison, upon the
receipt of this despatch, returned to Almeida the 1st of July.
Leaving his sick, his wounded, and weak men there, and making up
the garrison to the number of twelve hundred and fifty, he removed
all the palisades, guns, and materials from Fort Conception,
completely ruined the defences of that place, and then prosecuted
his march to Lisbon by the route of Guarda.
While these events were passing in the north, another insurrection
took place in the south: general Maurin commanded in the Algarves;
and some Portuguese artillerymen and other native troops were
attached to the French brigade under his orders. A rising of the
people commenced in the neighbourhood of Faro, and soon extended
to that town, and along the coast. Maurin was confined to his bed
by illness, and fell into the hands of the insurgents; colonel
Maransin supplied his place, but the country was too extensive
to be controlled by sixteen hundred men. The Portuguese soldiers
went over to their countrymen: the Spaniards from Andalusia
threatened to move across the Guadiana, and general Spencer, with
five thousand British soldiers, appeared off Ayamonte. Maransin
immediately fell back in haste upon Mertola, leaving part of his
baggage, his military chest, his accounts, and above a hundred
prisoners, besides killed and wounded, in the hands of the
patriots. At Mertola he was safe; and general Spencer merely landed
a few officers, and ordered rations for five thousand men; while
the Portuguese wisely remained within the range of the mountains
which protect the northern frontier of Algarve.
The circle was now closing fast round Junot; emissaries from Oporto
excited the people to rise as far as Coimbra. At that town a small
French post was easily overpowered, and a junta formed; from thence
new efforts spread the flame to Condexa, Pombal, and Leria; and a
student of the Coimbra university, named Zagalo, with considerable
address and boldness, got possession of the small, but important
fort of Figueras, at the mouth of the Mondego; the commandant (a
Portuguese officer), with a hundred men, capitulated; the terms
were broken, but no violence seems to have been committed upon the
prisoners.
On the other side, Abrantes was threatened by the insurgents
of the valley of the Zezere; and the Spaniards, under Galuzzo,
crossed the Guadiana at Juramenha, and occupied that place and
Campo Mayor. Kellerman’s head-quarters were at Elvas; a great,
although confused body of men menaced his position, but, supported
by the strength of the town and Fort La-Lyppe, he easily maintained
himself. Avril remained unmolested at Estremos, and Evora, held by
a small garrison, was tranquil; but the neighbourhood of Setuval
was in commotion; the populace of Lisbon was unquiet; and at this
critical moment general Spencer, whose force report magnified to
ten thousand men, appeared at the mouth of the Tagus.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Junot held a council of war. After hearing the opinions of the
principal general officers, he decided on the following plan: 1º.
To collect the sick in such hospitals as could be protected by
the ships of war. 2º. To secure the Spanish prisoners by moving
the hulks in which they were confined as far as possible from the
city. 3º. To arm and provision the fortresses of Lisbon, and to
remove the powder from the magazines to the ships. 4º. To abandon
all the other fortresses in Portugal with the exception of Setuval,
Almeida, Elvas, and Peniché, and, finally, to concentrate the
army in Lisbon. In the event of bad fortune, the duke of Abrantes
determined to defend the capital as long as he was able, and then
to cross the Tagus, make way by the left bank upon Elvas, and from
thence retreat to Madrid, Valladolid, or Segovia, as he might find
expedient. This well-conceived plan was not executed, the first
alarm soon died away, Spencer returned to Cadiz, and when the
insurrection was grappled with, it proved to be more noisy than
dangerous.
Kellerman recalled Maransin from Mertola and prepared himself to
march to Lisbon, but the inhabitants of the town of Villa Viciosa
having risen against a company of French troops quartered there,
the latter took refuge in an old castle, and defended themselves
until Kellerman sent general Avril from Estremos to succour them;
this the latter effected without difficulty; the Portuguese fled
the moment he appeared, and a very few were killed in the pursuit.
But the town of Beja followed the example of Villa Viciosa, and
colonel Maransin, who was preparing to retire from Mertola, being
informed of it, marched in that direction with such rapidity, that
he passed over forty miles in eighteen hours, and falling suddenly
upon the patriots, defeated them with considerable slaughter,
himself losing thirty killed and fifty wounded: the town was
pillaged, and some houses were burned.
General Thiebault writes, that an obstinate combat took place
in the streets, but the Portuguese never made head for a
moment against a strong body, during the whole course of the
insurrection. How, indeed, was it possible for a collection of
miserable peasants, armed with scythes, pitchforks, a few old
fowling pieces, and a little bad powder, under the command of
some ignorant countryman or fanatic friar, to maintain a battle
against an efficient and active corps of French soldiers? For there
is this essential difference to be observed in judging between
the Spanish and Portuguese insurrections; the Spaniards had many
great and strong towns free from the presence of the French, and
large provinces in which to collect and train forces at a distance
from the invaders; but in Portugal the naked peasants were forced
to go to battle the instant even of assembling. The loss which
Maransin sustained must have arisen from the stragglers (who in a
consecutive march of forty miles would have been numerous) having
been cut off and killed by the peasantry. This blow, however,
quieted the Alentejo for the moment, and Kellerman having cleared
the neighbourhood of Elvas from the Spanish parties, placed a
commandant in La-Lyppe, and concentrated the detachments under
Maransin and Avril, proceeded towards Lisbon.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Accursio de Neves.]
The duke of Abrantes was in great perplexity; the intercepting
of his couriers and isolated officers had been followed by the
detection of all his spies, and he was exposed, without assistance,
to every report which the fears of his army, or the ingenuity of
the people, could give birth to. Now there are few nations that can
pretend to vie with the Portuguese and Spaniards in the fabrication
of plausible reports: among those current, the captivity of
Loison was one; but nothing was certainly known except that the
insurgents from the valley of the Mondego were marching towards
Lisbon. General Margaron was therefore ordered to disperse them,
and, if possible, to open a communication with general Loison: he
advanced, with three thousand men and six pieces of artillery, to
Leria, whither the patriots had retired in disorder when they heard
of his approach. The greater part dispersed at once, but those who
remained were attacked on the 5th of July, and a scene similar to
that of Beja ensued; the French boasted of victory, the insurgents
called it massacre and pillage.
In a combat with armed peasantry, it is difficult to know where the
fighting ceases and the massacre begins: men dressed in peasants’
clothes are observed firing, and moving about, without order, from
place to place; when do they cease to be enemies? They are more
dangerous when single than together; they can hide their muskets
in an instant and appear peaceable; the soldier passes and is
immediately shot from behind.
The example at Leria did not however deter the people of Thomar
from declaring against the French; and the neighbourhood of
Alcobaça rose at the same time. Thus Margaron was placed between
two new insurrections at the moment he had quelled one. English
fleets, with troops on board, were said to be hovering off the
coast, and the most alarming reports relative to Loison were
corroborated, his safety was despaired of, when suddenly authentic
intelligence of his arrival at Abrantes revived the spirits of the
general-in-chief and the army.
After arranging all things necessary for the security of Almeida,
Loison had quitted that town the 2d of July, at the head of three
thousand four hundred and fifty men, and arrived at Abrantes upon
the 8th, having in seven days passed through Guarda, Atalaya,
Sarsedas, Corteja, and Sardoval. During this rapid march he
dispersed several bodies of insurgents that were assembled on the
line of his route, especially at Guarda and Atalaya. It has been
said that twelve hundred bodies were stretched upon the field of
battle near the first town; this is absurd beyond all measure.
Twelve hundred slain would give, at a low average, five thousand
wounded: six thousand two hundred killed and wounded by a corps
of three thousand four hundred and fifty men, in half an hour!
and this without cavalry or artillery, and among fastnesses that
vie in ruggedness with any in the world! The truth is, that the
peasants, terrified by the reports that Loison himself spread to
favour his march, fled on all sides, and if two hundred and fifty
Portuguese were killed and wounded during the whole passage, it was
the utmost. The distance from Almeida to Abrantes is more than a
hundred and eighty miles, the greatest part is a mountain pathway
rather than a road, and the French were obliged to gather their
provisions from the country as they passed; now, to forage, to
fight several actions, to pursue active peasants well acquainted
with the country so closely as to destroy them by thousands, and to
march a hundred and eighty miles over bad roads, and all in seven
days, is impossible.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
The whole French army was now concentrated; the insurrection at
Alcobaça had been quelled by Kellerman, and that of Thomar was also
quieted, but the insurgents from Oporto were gathering strength
at Coimbra; the last of the native soldiers deserted the French
colours; the Spanish troops at Badajos, strengthened by a body of
Portuguese fugitives, and commanded by one Moretti, were preparing
to enter the Alentejo, which was again in commotion: the English
admiral had opened a communication with the insurgents on the side
of Setuval, and the patriots were also assembled in considerable
numbers at Alcacer do Sal.
In this dilemma Junot resolved to leave the northern people quiet
for a while, and to bend his force against the Alentejo, because
that was his line of retreat upon Spain; from thence only he could
provision the capital, and there also his cavalry could act with
the most effect. Accordingly, Loison, with seven thousand infantry,
twelve hundred cavalry, and eight pieces of artillery, crossed the
Tagus the 25th of July, and marched by Os Pegoens, Vendanovas, and
Montemor. At the latter place he defeated an advanced guard, which
fled to Evora, where the Portuguese general Leite had assembled
the mass of the insurgents; and assisted by three or four thousand
Spanish troops under Moretti, had taken a position to cover the
town.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 12.]
When Loison came up he directed Margaron and Solignac to turn the
flanks of the patriots, and fell upon their centre himself. The
Spanish auxiliaries performed no service, and the Portuguese soon
took to flight, but there was a great and confused concourse; a
strong cavalry was let loose upon them, and many being cut off
from the main body, were driven into the town, which had been
deserted by the principal inhabitants. There, urged by despair,
they endeavoured to defend the walls and the streets for a few
moments, but were soon overpowered, the greater part slain, and
the houses pillaged. The French lost about two or three hundred
men, but the number of the Portuguese and Spaniards that fell was
very considerable; and disputes having arisen between the troops of
those nations, the latter ravaged the country in their retreat with
more violence than the French.
Loison, after resting two days at Evora, proceeded to Elvas, and
drove away the numerous Spanish parties which had long infested the
neighbourhood of that fortress, and were become extremely obnoxious
to friends and enemies. His detachments scoured the country round,
and were accumulating provisions to form great magazines at Elvas,
when their labours were suddenly interrupted by a despatch from the
duke of Abrantes, directing Loison to return to the right bank of
the Tagus. The British army, so long expected, had descended upon
the coast, and manly warfare reared its honest front amidst the
desolating scenes of insurrection.
OBSERVATIONS.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
1º. This expedition to the Alentejo was an operation of military
police, rather than a campaign. Junot wished to repress the spirit
of insurrection by sudden and severe examples. The actions of
general Loison were therefore of necessity harsh, but they have
been represented as a series of massacres and cruelties of the most
revolting nature, because he himself disseminated such stories
in order to increase the terror which it was the object of his
expedition to create; and the credulity of the nation that produced
the Sebastianists was not easily shocked. The Portuguese eagerly
listened to tales so derogatory to their enemies and congenial
to their own revengeful disposition. The anecdotes of French
barbarity current for two years after the convention of Cintra,
were notoriously false. The same story being related by persons
remote from each other, is no argument of their truth. The reports
that Loison was captured on his march from Almeida, reached Junot
through fifty different channels; there were men to declare that
they had beheld him bound with cords, others to tell how he had
been entrapped, some named the places he had been carried through
in triumph, and his habitual and characteristic expressions were
quoted. The story was complete and the parts were consistent; yet
the whole was not only false, but the rumour had not even the
slightest foundation of truth.
2º. The Portuguese accounts of the events of this period are but
angry amplifications of every real or pretended act of French
barbarity and injustice, and the crimes of individuals are made
matter of accusation against the whole army. The French accounts
are more plausible, but scarcely more safe as authorities, seeing
that they are written by men, who being for the most part actors in
the scenes they describe, are naturally concerned to defend their
own characters: their military vanity also has had its share in
disguising the simple facts of the insurrection; for willing to
enhance the merit of the troops, they have exaggerated the number
of the insurgents, the obstinacy of the combats, and the loss of
the patriots. English party writers, greedily fixing upon such
relations, have changed the name of battle into massacre; and thus
prejudice, conceit, and clamour, have combined, to violate the
decorum of history, and to perpetuate error.
[Sidenote: Napoleon in Las Casas.]
3º. It would, however, be an egregious mistake to suppose, that
because the French were not monsters, there existed no cause for
the acrimony with which their conduct has been assailed. The duke
of Abrantes, although not cruel, nor personally obnoxious to the
Portuguese, was a sensual and violent person, and his habits were
expensive; such a man is always rapacious, and as the character
of the chief influences the manners of those under his command,
it may be safely assumed that his vices were aped by many of his
followers. Now the virtuous general Travot was esteemed, and his
person respected, even in the midst of tumult, by the Portuguese,
while Loison was scarcely safe from their vengeance when surrounded
by his troops. The execrations poured forth at the mere mention of
“the bloody Maneta,” as, from the loss of his hand, he was called,
proves that he must have committed many heinous acts; and Kellerman
appears to have been as justly stigmatised for rapacity, as Loison
was for violence.
4º. It has been made a charge against the French generals, that
they repressed the hostility of the Portuguese and Spanish peasants
by military executions; but in doing so they only followed the
custom of war, and they are not justly liable to reproof, save
where they may have carried their punishments to excess, and
displayed a wanton spirit of cruelty. All armies have an undoubted
right to protect themselves when engaged in hostilities. An
insurrection of armed peasants is a military anarchy. Men in such
circumstances cannot be restrained within the bounds of civilised
warfare; they will murder stragglers, torture prisoners, destroy
hospitals, poison wells, and break down all the usages that soften
the enmities of modern nations. They wear no badge of an enemy,
and their devices cannot, therefore, be guarded against in the
ordinary mode. Their war is one of extermination, and it must
be repressed by terrible examples, or the civilized customs of
modern warfare must be discarded, and the devastating system of
the ancients revived. Hence, the usage of refusing quarter to an
armed peasantry, and burning their villages, however unjust and
barbarous it may appear at first view, is founded upon a principle
of necessity, and is in reality a vigorous infliction of a partial
evil, to prevent universal calamity. But however justifiable it may
be in theory, no wise man will hastily resort to it, and no good
man will carry it to any extent.
CHAPTER III.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
The subjugation of Portugal was neither a recent nor a secret
project of Napoleon’s. His intentions with respect to the house of
Braganza were known in 1806 to Mr. Fox, who sent lord Roslyn, lord
St. Vincent, and general Simcoe on a politico-military mission to
Lisbon, instructing them not only to warn the court that a French
force destined to invade Portugal was assembling at Bayonne, but to
offer the assistance of an English army to repel the danger. The
cabinet of Lisbon affected to disbelieve the information, Mr. Fox
died during the negotiation, and the war with Prussia diverting
Napoleon’s attention to more important objects, he withdrew his
troops from Bayonne. The tory administration, which soon after
overturned the Grenville party, thought no further of the affair,
or at least did not evince as much foresight and ready zeal as
their predecessors. They kept, indeed, a naval force off Lisbon,
under the command of sir Sydney Smith; but their views seem to
have been confined to the emigration of the royal family, and they
intrusted the conduct of the negotiations to lord Strangford,
a young man of no solid influence or experience. Suddenly, the
Russian squadron, under admiral Siniavin, took refuge in the Tagus,
and this unexpected event produced in the British cabinet an
activity which the danger of Portugal had not been able to excite.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Journal, MS.]
It was supposed, that as Russia and England were in a state of
hostility, the presence of the Russian ships would intimidate
the prince regent, and prevent him from passing to the Brazils,
wherefore sir Charles Cotton, an admiral of higher rank than sir
Sydney Smith, was sent out with instructions to force the entrance
of the Tagus, and to attack admiral Siniavin. To ensure success,
general Spencer, then upon the point of sailing with five thousand
men upon a secret expedition, was ordered to touch at Lisbon, and
sir John Moore, with ten thousand men, was withdrawn from Sicily,
and directed to aid the enterprise; but before the instructions
for the commanders were even written, the prince regent was on his
voyage to the Brazils, and Junot ruled in Lisbon.
Sir John Moore, however, arrived at Gibraltar, but hearing nothing
of sir Sydney Smith, nor of general Spencer, proceeded to England,
and reached Spithead the 31st of December, from whence, after a
detention of four months, he was despatched upon that well-known
and eminently foolish expedition to Sweden, which ended in such
an extraordinary manner, and which seems from the first to have
had no other object than to keep an excellent general and a superb
division of troops at a distance from the only country where their
services were really required.
Meanwhile, general Spencer’s armament, long baffled by contrary
winds, and once forced back to port, was finally dispersed in a
storm, and a part arrived at Gibraltar by single ships the latter
end of January. Sir Hew Dalrymple, the governor of that fortress,
being informed, on the 5th of February, that a French fleet had
just passed the strait, and run up the Mediterranean, became
alarmed for Sicily, then scantily furnished with troops, and caused
the first comers to proceed to that island the 11th. General
Spencer, whose instructions were to attack Ceuta, arrived on the
10th of March, and the deficiency in his armament being supplied
by a draft from the garrison of Gibraltar, a council was held
for the purpose of arranging the plan of attack: the operation
was, however, thought to be impracticable, and consequently
relinquished. General Spencer would then have carried the remainder
of his troops to Sicily, but the insurrection in Spain broke out
at the moment and altered his determination. In the relation
of Dupont’s campaign, I have already touched upon Spencer’s
proceedings at Cadiz; but in this place it is necessary to give
a more detailed sketch of those occurrences, which, fortunately,
brought him back to the coast of Portugal at the moment when sir
Arthur Wellesley was commencing the campaign of Vimiero.
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Correspondence. MS.]
When the French first entered Spain, general Castaños commanded the
Spanish troops at St. Roque; in that situation he was an object
of interest to Napoleon, who sent two French officers privately
to sound his disposition. Castaños secretly resolving to oppose
the designs of the emperor, thought those officers were coming
to arrest him, and at first determined to kill them, and fly to
Gibraltar; but soon discovering his mistake, he treated them
civilly, and prosecuted his original plans. Through the medium
of one Viale, a merchant of Gibraltar, he opened a communication
with sir Hew Dalrymple, and the latter, who had been closely
watching the progress of events, encouraged him in his views, and
not only promised assistance, but recommended several important
measures, such as the immediate seizure of the French squadron in
Cadiz, the security of the Spanish fleet at Minorca, and a speedy
communication with South America. But before Castaños could
mature his plans, the insurrection took place at Seville, and he
acknowledged the authority of the junta.
Meanwhile Solano arrived at Cadiz, and general Spencer, in
conjunction with admiral Purvis, pressed him to attack the French
squadron, and offered to assist if he would admit the English
troops into the town. Solano’s mind was, however, not made up
to resist the invaders, and expressing great displeasure at the
proposal to occupy Cadiz, he refused to treat at all with the
British. This was not unexpected by sir Hew; he knew that most
of the Spaniards were mistrustful of the object of Spencer’s
expedition, and the offer was made without his concurrence; thus a
double intercourse was carried on between the British and Spanish
authorities; the one friendly and confidential between sir Hew
and Castaños, the other of a character proper to increase the
suspicions of the Spaniards; and when it is considered that Spain
and England were nominally at war, that the English commanders were
acting without the authority of their government, that the troops
which it was proposed to introduce into Cadiz were in that part
of the world for the express purpose of attacking Ceuta, and had
already taken the island of Perexil, close to that fortress, little
surprise can be excited by Solano’s conduct.
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Correspondence.]
His death intervening, general Morla succeeded to the command,
and Spencer and Purvis renewed their offers; but Morla likewise
declined their assistance, and having himself forced the French
squadron to surrender, by a succession of such ill-directed
attacks, that some doubt was entertained of his wish to succeed, he
commenced a series of low intrigues calculated to secure his own
personal safety, while he held himself ready to betray his country
if the French should prove the strongest. After the reduction of
the enemy’s ships, the people were inclined to admit the English
troops, but the local junta, swayed by Morla’s representations,
were averse to it, and he, while confirming this disposition,
secretly urged Spencer to persevere in his offer, saying that he
looked entirely to the English troops for the future defence of
Cadiz; and thus dealing, he passed with the people for an active
patriot, yet made no preparations for resistance, and by his double
falsehoods preserved a fair appearance both with the junta and the
English general.
With these affairs sir Hew Dalrymple did not meddle, he early
discovered that Morla was an enemy of Castaños, and having more
confidence in the latter, carried on the intercourse at first
established between them without reference to the transactions
at Cadiz. He also supplied the Spanish general with arms and two
thousand barrels of powder, and placing an English officer near
him as a military correspondent, sent another in the capacity of a
political agent to the supreme junta at Seville.
Castaños being appointed commander-in-chief of the Andalusian army,
as I have before related, rallied Echevaria’s troops, and asked
for the co-operation of the British force; he had no objection
to their entering Cadiz, but he preferred having them landed at
Almeria to march to Xeres. General Spencer, however, confined his
offers to the occupation of Cadiz; and when Morla pretended that to
fit out the Spanish fleet was an object of immediate importance,
colonel sir George Smith, an officer employed by general Spencer to
conduct the negotiations, promised on his own authority, money to
pay the Spanish seamen, who were then in a state of mutiny. Lord
Collingwood and sir Hew Dalrymple refused to fulfil this promise,
and the approach of Dupont causing Morla to wish Spencer’s troops
away, he persuaded that general to sail to Ayamonte, under the
pretence of preventing Avril’s division from crossing the Guadiana,
although he knew well that the latter had no intention of doing so.
The effect produced upon colonel Maransin by the appearance of
the British force off Ayamonte has been already noticed. General
Thiebault says, that Spencer might have struck an important blow
at that period against the French; but the British troops were
unprovided with any equipment for a campaign, and to have thrown
five thousand infantry, without cavalry and without a single
place of arms, into the midst of an enemy who occupied all the
fortresses, and who could bring twenty thousand men into the field,
would have been imprudent to the greatest degree. General Spencer,
who had by this time been rejoined by his detachment from Sicily,
only made a demonstration of landing, and having thus materially
aided the insurrection, returned to Cadiz, from whence he was
almost immediately summoned to Lisbon, to execute a new project,
which proved to be both ill-considered and fruitless.
[Sidenote: Mr. Canning to lord Castlereagh, 28th Dec. 1807.]
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Correspondence.]
Sir Charles Cotton, after superseding sir Sydney Smith, had
blockaded the mouth of the Tagus with the utmost rigour, expecting
to force the Russian squadron to capitulate for want of provisions.
This scheme, which originated with lord Strangford, never had
the least chance of success; but the privations and misery of
the wretched inhabitants was so greatly aggravated thereby, that
Junot had recourse to various expedients to abate the rigour of
the blockade with regard to them, and among others, employed a
Portuguese, named Sataro, to make proposals to the English admiral.
This man at first pretended that he came without the privity of the
French, and in the course of the communications that followed, sir
Charles was led to believe that only four thousand French troops
remained in Lisbon. Under this erroneous impression, he requested
that general Spencer might be sent to him, for the purpose of
attacking the enemy while they were so weak. Spencer, by the advice
of sir Hew Dalrymple and lord Collingwood, obeyed the summons, but
on his arrival was led to doubt the correctness of the admiral’s
information. Instead of four thousand, it appeared that there could
not be much less than fifteen thousand French in or near Lisbon;
and the attack was of course relinquished. When Spencer returned to
Cadiz, Castaños again pressing him to co-operate with the Spanish
forces, he so far consented, as to disembark them at the port St.
Mary, and even agreed to send a detachment to Xeres; but being
deceived by Morla, who still gave him hopes of finally occupying
Cadiz, he resolved to keep the greater part close to that city.
At this period the insurrection of Andalusia attracted all the
intriguing adventurers in the Mediterranean towards Gibraltar and
Seville, and the confusion of Agramant’s camp would have been
rivalled, if the prudent firmness of sir Hew Dalrymple had not
checked the first efforts of those political pests; but among the
perplexing follies of the moment, one deserves particular notice,
on account of some curious circumstances that attended it, the full
explanation of which I must, however, leave to other historians,
who may perhaps find in that and the like affairs, a key to that
absurd policy, which in Sicily so long sacrificed the welfare of
two nations to the whims and follies of a profligate court.
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Correspondence.]
The introduction of the salique law had long been a favourite
object with the Bourbons of Spain; but the nation at large
would never agree to change the ancient rule of succession,
which admitted females to the throne. The project was, however,
secretly revived by some of the junta at this moment, and the
party favouring the salique law wished to offer the regency to the
prince of Sicily, who (Ferdinand and his brothers dying without
sons) would, under that law, have succeeded, to the prejudice of
the princess of the Brazils. The chevalier Robertoni, a Sicilian
agent, appeared early at Gibraltar, and from thence (as if under
the auspices of England), attempted to forward the views of his
court; but sir Hew Dalrymple, being accidentally informed that the
British cabinet disapproved of the object of his mission, sent
him away. Meanwhile Castaños, deceived by some person engaged
in the intrigue, was inclined to support the pretensions of the
Sicilian prince to the regency, and proposed to make use of sir Hew
Dalrymple’s name to give weight to his opinions; a circumstance
which must have created great jealousy in Spain, if sir Hew had not
promptly refused his sanction.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
After that, the affair seemed to droop for a moment; but in
the middle of July an English man of war suddenly appeared at
Gibraltar, having on board prince Leopold of Sicily, and a complete
court establishment of chamberlains with their keys, and ushers
with their white wands. The duke of Orleans, who attended his
brother-in-law the prince, made no secret of his intention to
negotiate for the regency of Spain, and openly demanded that he
should be received into Gibraltar. Sir Hew, foreseeing all the
mischief of this proceeding, promptly refused to permit the prince,
or any of his attendants, to land; and the captain of the ship,
whose orders were merely to carry him to Gibraltar, refused to take
him back to Sicily. To relieve his royal highness from this awkward
situation, sir Hew consented to receive him as a guest, provided
that he divested himself of his public character, and that the duke
of Orleans departed instantly from the fortress.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 8.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Sir William Drummond, the British envoy at Palermo; Mr. Viale;
and the duke of Orleans were the ostensible contrivers of this
notable scheme, by which, if it had succeeded, a small party in
a local junta would have appointed a regency for Spain, paved
the way for altering the laws of succession in that country,
established their own sway over the other juntas, and created
interminable jealousy between England, Portugal, and Spain; but
with whom the plan originated does not very clearly appear. Sir
William Drummond’s representations induced sir Alexander Ball to
provide the ship of war, nominally for the conveyance of the duke
of Orleans, but in reality for prince Leopold, with whose intended
voyage sir Alexander does not appear to have been made acquainted.
That the prince should have desired to be regent of Spain was
natural, but that he should have been conveyed to Gibraltar in a
British ship of the line, when the English government disapproved
of his pretensions, was really curious. Sir William Drummond
could scarcely have proceeded such lengths in an affair of so
great consequence, without secret instructions from some member
of his own government, yet lord Castlereagh expressed unqualified
approbation of sir Hew’s decisive conduct upon the occasion!
Did the ministers act at this period without any confidential
communication with each other? or was lord Castlereagh’s policy
secretly and designedly thwarted by one of his colleagues? But it
is time to quit this digression and turn to
THE PROCEEDINGS IN PORTUGAL.
The bishop of Oporto being placed at the head of the insurrectional
junta of that town, claimed the assistance of England. “We hope,”
said he, “for an aid of three hundred thousand cruzado novas; of
arms and accoutrements complete, and of cloth for forty thousand
infantry and for eight thousand cavalry; three thousand barrels of
cannon powder, some cargoes of salt fish, and other provisions,
and an auxiliary body of six thousand men at least, including some
cavalry.” This extravagant demand would lead to the supposition
than an immense force had been assembled by the prelate, yet he
could never at any time have put five thousand organized men in
motion against the French, and had probably not even thought of any
feasible or rational mode of employing the succours he demanded;
but the times were favourable for extravagant demands, and his were
not rejected by the English ministers, who sent agents to Oporto
and other parts, with power to grant supplies. The improvident
system adopted for Spain being thus extended to Portugal, produced
precisely the same effects, that is, cavils, intrigues, waste,
insubordination, and inordinate vanity and ambition among the
ignorant upstart men of the day.
[Sidenote: Par^y. Pap^s. L^d. Castle^h. to S. A. Well^y. 21st June,
1808.]
More than half a year had now elapsed since Napoleon first poured
his forces into the Peninsula; every moment of that time was marked
by some extraordinary event, and one month had passed since a
general and terrible explosion, shaking the unsteady structure
of diplomacy to pieces, had left a clear space for the shock of
arms; yet the British cabinet was still unacquainted with the real
state of public feeling in the Peninsula and with the Spanish
character; and although possessing a disposable army, of at least
eighty thousand excellent troops, was totally unsettled in its
plans, and unprepared for any vigorous effort. Agents were indeed
despatched to every accessible province; the public treasure was
scattered with heedless profusion, and the din of preparation
was heard in every department; but the bustle of confusion is
easily mistaken for the activity of business; time removing the
veil of official mystery covering those transactions, has exposed
all their dull and meagre features; and it is now clear that the
treasure was squandered without judgment, and the troops dispersed
without meaning. Ten thousand exiled to Sweden proved the truth of
Oxenstern’s address to his son; as many more idly kept in Sicily
were degraded into the guards of a vicious court; Gibraltar was
unnecessarily filled with fighting men; and general Spencer, with
five thousand excellent soldiers, being doomed to wander between
Ceuta, Lisbon, and Cadiz, was seeking, like the knight of La
Mancha, for a foe to combat.
A considerable force remained in England; but it was not ready
for service, when the minister resolved to send an expedition to
the Peninsula, and nine thousand men collected at Cork by other
hands and for other purposes, formed the only disposable army for
immediate operations. The Grey and Grenville administration, so
remarkable for unfortunate military enterprises, had assembled
this handful of men with a view to permanent conquests in South
America, upon what principle of policy it is not necessary
to inquire, but such undoubtedly was the intention of that
administration; perhaps in imitation of the Roman senate, who
sent troops to Spain when Hannibal was at the gates of the city.
The tory administration relinquished this scheme of conquest,
and directed sir Arthur Wellesley to inform general Miranda, the
military adventurer of the day, not only that he must cease to
expect assistance, but that all attempts to separate the colonies
of Spain from the parent state would be discouraged by the English
government. Thus the troops assembled at Cork became available,
and sir Arthur Wellesley being appointed to command them, sailed
on the 12th of July, to commence that long and bloody contest in
the Peninsula which he was destined to terminate in such a glorious
manner.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1808.]
[Sidenote: Ibid. L^d. Castle^h. to S. A. Well^y. 30th June.]
[Sidenote: Ibid. L^d. Castle^h. to g^l. Spenc^r. 28th and 30th
June.]
[Sidenote: D^o. to ad^l. Purvis, 28th June.]
Two small divisions were soon after ordered to assemble for
embarkation at Ramsgate and Harwich, under the command of generals
Anstruther and Acland, but a considerable time elapsed before they
were ready to sail; and a singular uncertainty in the views of the
ministers at this period subjected all the military operations to
perpetual and mischievous changes. General Spencer, supposed to
be at Gibraltar, was directed to repair to Cadiz, and wait for
sir Arthur’s orders; and the latter was permitted to sail under
the impression that Spencer was actually subject to his command;
but other instructions empowered Spencer at his own discretion to
commence operations in the south, without reference to sir Arthur
Wellesley’s proceedings; and admiral Purvis, who, after lord
Collingwood’s arrival, had no separate command, was also authorised
to undertake any enterprise in that quarter, and even to control
the operations of sir Arthur Wellesley by calling for the aid of
his troops, that general being enjoined to “pay all due obedience
to any such requisition!” Yet sir Arthur himself was informed, that
“the accounts from Cadiz were bad;” that “no disposition to move
either there or in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar was visible,” and
that “the cabinet were unwilling he should go far to the southward,
whilst the spirit of exertion appeared to reside more to the
northward.” Again the admiral, sir Charles Cotton, was informed
that sir Arthur Wellesley was to co-operate with him in a descent
at the mouth of the Tagus; but sir Arthur himself had no definite
object given for his own operations, although his instructions
pointed to Portugal, and thus in fact no one officer, naval or
military, knew exactly what his powers were, with the exception
of admiral Purvis, who, being only second in command for his own
service, was really authorised to control all the operations of the
land forces, provided he directed them to that quarter which had
been declared unfavourable for any operations at all.
[Sidenote: Par^y. Pap^s. L^d. Castle^h. to S. A. Well^y. 30th June,
1808.]
In recommending Portugal as the fittest field of action, the
ministers were chiefly guided by the advice of the Asturian
deputies; although having received sir Hew Dalrymple’s despatches
to a late date, their own information must have been more
recent and more extensive than any that they could obtain from
the deputies, who had left Spain at the commencement of the
insurrection, and were ill informed of what was passing in their
own province, utterly ignorant of the state of any other part
of the Peninsula, and under any circumstances were incapable of
judging rightly in such momentous affairs.
[Sidenote: Par^y. Pap^s. L^d. Castle^h. to S. A. Well^y. 30th June,
1808.]
The inconsistent orders of the ministers were well calculated to
introduce all manner of confusion, and to prevent all vigour
of action, but more egregious conduct followed. In sir Arthur
Wellesley’s instructions, although they were vague and undefined,
as to immediate military operations, it was expressly stated that
the intention of the government was to enable Portugal and Spain
to throw off the French yoke, and ample directions were given to
him as to his future political conduct in the Peninsula. He was
informed how to demean himself in any disputes that might arise
between the two insurrectional nations, how to act with relation
to the settlement of the supreme authority during the interregnum;
and directed to facilitate communications between the colonies
and the mother country, and to offer his good offices to arrange
any differences between them. The terms upon which Great Britain
would acquiesce in any negotiation between Spain and France were
stated, and finally he was empowered to recommend the establishment
of a paper system in the Peninsula, as a good mode of raising
money, and attaching the holders of it to the national cause. The
Spaniards were not, however, sufficiently civilized to adopt this
recommendation, and barbarously preferred gold to credit at a time
when no man’s life, or faith, or wealth, or power, was worth a
week’s purchase. Sir Hew Dalrymple was at this time also commanded
to furnish sir Arthur with every information that might be of use
to the latter in his operations.
[Sidenote: Ibid. L^d. Castle^h. to S. H. Dalrymple, 28th June,
1808.]
When the tenor of these instructions, and the great Indian
reputation enjoyed by sir Arthur Wellesley are considered, it is
not possible to doubt that he was first chosen as the fittest man
to conduct the armies of England at this important conjuncture; yet
scarcely had he sailed when he was superseded, not to make room
for a man whose fame and experience might have justified such a
change, but by an extraordinary arrangement, which can hardly be
attributed to mere vacillation of purpose, he was reduced to the
fourth rank in that army, for the future governance of which, he
had fifteen days before received the most extended instructions.
Sir Hew Dalrymple was appointed to the chief command, and sir
John Moore, who had suddenly and unexpectedly returned from the
Baltic, (having by his firmness and address saved himself and his
troops from the madness of the Swedish monarch), was, with marked
disrespect, directed, to place himself under the orders of sir
Harry Burrard and proceed to Portugal. Thus two men, comparatively
unknown and unused to the command of armies, superseded the only
generals in the British service whose talents and experience were
indisputable. The secret springs of this proceeding are not so deep
as to baffle investigation; but that task scarcely belongs to the
general historian, who does enough when he exposes the effects of
envy, treachery, and base cunning, without tracing those vices home
to their possessors.
[Sidenote: Ibid. L^d. Castle^h. to S. A. Well^y. 15th July, 1808.]
Notwithstanding these changes in the command, the uncertainty
of the minister’s plans continued. The same day that sir Hew
Dalrymple was appointed to be commander-in-chief, a despatch,
containing the following project of campaign, was sent to sir
Arthur Wellesley: “The motives which have induced the sending so
large a force to that quarter[10] are, 1st. to provide effectually
for an attack upon the Tagus; and, 2dly, to have such an additional
force disposable beyond what may be indispensably requisite for
that operation, as may admit of a detachment being made to the
southward, either with a view to secure Cadiz, if it should
be threatened by the French force under general Dupont, or to
co-operate with the Spanish troops in reducing that corps, if
circumstances should favour such an operation, or any other that
may be concerted. His Majesty is pleased to direct that the _attack
upon the Tagus should be considered as the first object to be
attended to_. As the whole force, of which a statement is enclosed,
when assembled, will amount to not less than thirty thousand, _it
is considered that both services may be provided for amply_. The
precise distribution, as between Portugal and Andalusia, both as to
time and proportion of force, must depend upon circumstances, to be
judged of on the spot; and should it be deemed advisable to fulfil
the assurance which lieutenant-general sir Hew Dalrymple appears
to have given to the supreme junta of Seville[11], under the
authority of my despatch of (no date), that it was the intention of
his majesty to employ a corps of 10,000 men to co-operate with the
Spaniards in that quarter. A corps of this magnitude may, I should
hope, be detached without prejudice to the main operation against
the Tagus, and may be reinforced, according to circumstances,
after the Tagus has been secured. But if, previous to the arrival
of the force under orders from England, Cadiz should be seriously
threatened, it must rest with the senior officer of the Tagus, at
his discretion to detach, upon receiving a requisition to that
effect, such an amount of force as may place that important place
out of the reach of immediate danger, _even though it should for
the time suspend operations against the Tagus_[12].”
In England at this period, personal enmity to Napoleon, and violent
party prejudices, had so disturbed the judgments of men relative to
that monarch, that any information speaking of strength or success
for him, was regarded with suspicion even by the ministers, who,
as commonly happens in such cases, becoming the dupes of their own
practices, listened with complacency to all those tales of mutiny
among his troops, disaffection of his generals, and insurrections
in France, which the cunning or folly of their agents transmitted
to them. Hence sprung such projects as the one above, the false
calculations of which may be exposed by a short comparative
statement.
The whole English force was not much above thirty thousand men,
distributed off Cadiz, off the coast of Portugal, on the eastern
parts of England, and in the channel. The French force in Spain
and Portugal was about a hundred and twenty thousand men: they
possessed all the Portuguese, and most of the Spanish fortresses.
The English army had no reserve, no fixed plan, and it was to be
divided, and to act upon a double line of operations. The French
had a strong reserve at Bayonne, and the grand French army of four
hundred thousand veterans was untouched, and ready to succour the
troops in the Peninsula if they required it.
Happily, this visionary plan was in no particular followed by the
generals entrusted with the conduct of it. A variety of causes
combined to prevent the execution. The catastrophe of Baylen marred
all the great combinations of the French emperor; fortune drew the
scattered divisions of the English army together, and the decisive
vigour of sir Arthur Wellesley sweeping away these cobweb projects,
obtained all the success that the bad arrangements of the ministers
would permit.
In the next chapter, resuming the thread of the history, I shall
relate the proceedings of the first British campaign in the
Peninsula; but I judged it necessary first to make an exposition
of the previous preparations and plans of the cabinet, lest the
reader’s attention not being fully awakened to the difficulties
cast in the way of the English generals by the incapacity of the
government, should, with hasty censure, or niggard praise, do the
former injustice; for, as a noble forest hides many noisome swamps
and evil things, so the duke of Wellington’s laurels have covered
the innumerable errors of the ministers.
CHAPTER IV.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
A few days after sailing from Cork, sir Arthur Wellesley quitting
the fleet, repaired in a frigate to Coruña, where he arrived the
20th of July, and immediately held a conference with the members of
the Gallician junta, by whom he was informed of the battle of Rio
Seco; but the account was glossed over in the Spanish manner, and
the issue of that contest had caused no change in their policy, if
policy that may be called, which was but a desire to obtain money
and to avoid personal inconvenience; they rejected all succour in
men, but earnestly pressed for arms and gold; and even while the
conference went on, the last was supplied, for an English frigate
entered the harbour with two hundred thousand pounds for their
use. Whereupon, the junta recommended that the British troops
should be employed in the north of Portugal, and promising to aid
them by sending a Spanish division to Oporto, supported their
recommendation by an incorrect statement of the number of men,
Spanish and Portuguese, who, they asserted, were in arms near that
city, and by a still more inaccurate estimate of the forces under
Junot; and in this manner persuaded sir Arthur not to land in their
province. Yet, at the moment they were rejecting the assistance of
the British troops, the whole kingdom of Gallicia was lying at the
mercy of marshal Bessieres, and there were neither men nor means to
impede the progress of his victorious army.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
Mr. Charles Stuart, appointed to reside as British envoy near the
junta, landed at Coruña, and sir Arthur Wellesley proceeded to
Oporto, where he found colonel Browne, an active and intelligent
officer, who had been sent there a short time before to collect
intelligence, and to distribute supplies. From his information it
appeared, that no Spanish troops were in the north of Portugal, and
that all the Portuguese force was upon the Mondego, to the south of
which river the insurrection had spread. A French division of eight
thousand men was supposed to be in their front, and some great
disaster was expected, for, to use colonel Browne’s words, “with
every good will in the people, their exertions were so short lived,
and with so little combination, that there was no hope of their
being able to resist the advance of the enemy;” in fact, only five
thousand regulars and militia, half armed, and associated with ten
or twelve thousand peasants without any arms, were in the field at
all. A large army was, however, made out upon paper by the bishop
of Oporto, who, having assembled his civil and military coadjutors
in council, proposed various plans of operation for the allied
forces, none of which sir Arthur was inclined to adopt; but after
some discussion it was finally arranged that the prelate and the
paper army should look to the defence of the Tras os Montes against
Bessieres, and that the five thousand soldiers on the Mondego
should co-operate with the British forces.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s and lord Collingwood’s
Correspondence.]
This being settled, sir Arthur Wellesley hastened to consult with
sir Charles Cotton relative to the descent at the mouth of the
Tagus, which had so long haunted the imaginations of the ministers.
The strength of the French, the bar of the river, the disposition
of the forts, and the difficulty of landing in the immediate
neighbourhood, occasioned by the heavy surf playing upon all the
undefended creeks and bays, convinced him that such an enterprise
was unadvisable, if not impracticable. There remained the
alternative of landing to the north of Lisbon at such a distance as
to avoid the danger of a disputed disembarkation, or of proceeding
to the southward to join general Spencer, and commence operations
in that quarter against Dupont. Sir Arthur Wellesley decided
against the latter, which promised no good result while Junot held
Portugal, and Bessieres hung on the northern frontier. He foresaw
that the jealousy of the Spaniards, evinced by their frequent
refusal to admit English troops into Cadiz, would assuredly bring
on a tedious negotiation, and waste the season of action before the
army could obtain a place of arms, or that the campaign must be
commenced without any secure base of operations. Nothing was then
known of the Spanish troops, except that they were inexperienced;
but without good aid from them it would have been idle with
fourteen thousand men to take the field against twenty thousand
strongly posted in the Sierra Morena and communicating freely with
the main body of the French army. A momentary advance was useless;
and if the campaign was protracted, the line of operations running
nearly parallel to the frontier of Portugal, would have required a
covering army on the Guadiana to watch the movements of Junot.
The double line of operations, proposed by lord Castlereagh, was
contrary to all military principle, and as Spencer’s despatches
announced that his division was at St. Mary’s, near Cadiz, and
disengaged from any connexion with the Spaniards (a fortunate
circumstance scarcely to have been expected), sir Arthur sent him
orders to sail to the mouth of the Mondego, whither he himself
also repaired, and joined the fleet having his own army on board.
Off the Mondego he received the despatches announcing sir Hew
Dalrymple’s appointment and the sailing of sir John Moore’s troops.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
This mortifying intelligence did not relax his activity; he
directed fast sailing vessels to look out for Anstruther’s
armament, and to conduct it to the Mondego, and having heard of
Dupont’s capitulation, resolved, without waiting for general
Spencer’s arrival, to disembark his own troops and commence the
campaign--a determination that marked the cool decisive vigour of
his character; for, although sure that (in consequence of Dupont’s
defeat) Bessieres would not enter Portugal, his information led
him to estimate Junot’s own force at sixteen to eighteen thousand
men, a number, indeed, below the truth, yet sufficient to make
the hardiest general pause before he disembarked with only nine
thousand men, and without any certainty that his fleet could remain
even for a day in that dangerous offing, at a moment also when
another man was coming to profit from any success that might be
obtained, and when a failure would have ruined his own reputation
in the estimation of the English public, always ready to deride the
skill of an Indian general.
It was difficult to find a good point of disembarkation, for the
coast of Portugal from the Minho to the Tagus, presents, with few
exceptions, a rugged and dangerous shore; all the harbours formed
by the rivers have bars, that render most of them difficult of
access even for boats, and with the slightest breeze from the
sea-board a terrible surf breaks along the whole line of coast
and forbids all approach, and when the south wind, which commonly
prevails from August to the winter months, blows, a more dangerous
shore is not to be found in any part of the world.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
The small peninsula of Peniché, about seventy miles northward of
the Lisbon Rock, alone offered a safe and accessible bay, perfectly
adapted for a disembarkation, but the anchorage was completely
within range of the fort, which contained a hundred guns and a
garrison of a thousand men. The next best place was the Mondego
river, and as the little fort of Figueras, taken, as I have before
related, by the student Zagalo, and now occupied by English
marines, secured a free entrance, sir Arthur commenced landing his
troops there on the 1st of August. The weather was calm, but the
operation was so difficult that it was not completed before the
5th. At that moment, by a singular good fortune, general Spencer
arrived; he had not received sir Arthur’s orders, but with great
promptitude had sailed for the Tagus the moment Dupont surrendered,
and by sir Charles Cotton had been directed to the Mondego. The
united forces, however, only amounted to twelve thousand three
hundred men, because the fourth veteran battalion being destined
for Gibraltar was left on board the ships.
The army being on shore, the British general repaired to Montemor
Velho to confer with don Bernardim Freire de Andrada, the
Portuguese commander-in-chief. The latter proposed that the troops
of the two nations should relinquish all communication with the
coast, and throwing themselves into the heart of Beira, commence
an offensive campaign; he promised ample stores of provisions;
but sir Arthur having already discovered the weakness of the
insurrection, placed no reliance on those promises. He supplied
Freire with five thousand stand of arms and ammunition, but refused
to separate from his ships; and seeing clearly that the insurgents
were unable to give any real assistance, he resolved to act with
reference to the probability of their deserting him in danger.
The Portuguese general, disappointed at this refusal, reluctantly
consented to join the British army, but he pressed sir Arthur to
hasten to Leria, lest a large magazine filled, as he affirmed,
with provisions for the use of the British army, should fall into
the enemy’s hands. After this the two generals separated, and the
necessary preparations for a march being completed, the advanced
guard of the English army quitted the banks of the Mondego on
the 9th, taking the road to Leria. The 10th sir Arthur Wellesley
followed with the main body, and thus commenced the
FIRST CAMPAIGN IN PORTUGAL.
His plan embraced three principal objects:
1º. To hold on by the sea coast, as well for the sake of his
supplies as to avoid the drain upon his weak army, which the
protection of magazines on shore would occasion, and also to cover
the disembarkation of the reinforcements expected from England.
2º. To keep his troops in a mass, that he might strike an important
blow.
3º. To strike that blow as near Lisbon as possible, that the
affairs of Portugal might be quickly brought to a crisis.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
He possessed very good military surveys of the ground in the
immediate neighbourhood of Lisbon, and he was anxious to carry
on his operations in a part of the country where he could avail
himself of this resource; but the utter inexperience of his
commissariat staff, and the want of cavalry, rendered his movements
slow, and obliged him to be extremely circumspect, especially as
the insurrection, although a generous, was but a feeble effort,
and its prolongation rather the result of terror than of hope. The
blow had been hastily struck in the moment of suffering, and the
patriots, conscious of weakness, trembled when they reflected on
their own temerity.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry.]
From the English stores Bernardim Freire had received arms and
equipments complete for five thousand soldiers, yet his army at
Leria did not exceed six thousand men of all arms fit for action;
and besides this force, there were in all the provinces north
of the Tagus only three thousand infantry, under the command of
the marquis of Valladeres, half of whom were Spaniards. Hence
it appears, that nothing could be more insignificant than the
insurrection, nothing more absurd than the lofty style adopted
by the junta of Oporto in their communications with the British
ministers.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Upon the other side, Junot, who received information of the
English descent in the Mondego as early as the 2d, was extremely
embarrassed by the distance of his principal force, and the hostile
disposition of the inhabitants of Lisbon. He also was acquainted
with the disaster of Dupont, and exaggerated notions of the
essential strength of the Portuguese insurgents were generated in
his own mind and in the minds of his principal officers.
The patriots of the Alemtejo and Algarves, assisted by some
Spaniards, and animated by the manifestos and promises assiduously
promulgated from the English fleet, had once more assembled at
Alcacer do Sal, from whence they threatened the garrisons of
St. Ubes and the French posts on the south bank of the Tagus,
immediately opposite to Lisbon. The capital itself was very
unquiet; the anticipation of coming freedom was apparent in
the wrathful looks and stubborn manners of the populace, and
superstition was at work to increase the hatred and the hopes
of the multitude. It was at this time that the prophetic eggs,
denouncing death to the French, and deliverance to the Portuguese,
appeared; but less equivocal indications of approaching danger were
to be drawn from the hesitations of Junot, who, wavering between
his fear of an insurrection in Lisbon, and his desire to check the
immediate progress of the British army, gave certain proof of an
intellect yielding to the pressure of events.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
At this period Loison, with between seven and eight thousand men,
was in the neighbourhood of Estremos, two thousand five hundred men
were in the fortresses of Elvas and Almeida, a few hundred were
at Abrantes, a thousand were in Santarem, and the same number in
Peniché. General Thomieres, with a brigade, was in the vicinity
of Alcobaca, and the remainder were quartered in Lisbon and on a
circuit round, including both sides of the river. The Tagus itself
was guarded on the north bank by the forts of Cascaes, St. Antonio,
St. Julians, Belem, and the citadel, between each of which smaller
works kept up a continued line of offence against ships entering
by the northern passage of the harbour. On the southern bank fort
Bugio, built upon a low sandy point, crossed its fire with St.
Julians in the defence of the entrance. Upon the heights of Almada
or Palmela, stood the fort of Palmela. St. Ubes and Traffaria
completed the posts occupied by the French on that side. The
communication between the north and south banks was kept up by the
refitted Portuguese ships of war, by the Russian squadron, and by
the innumerable boats, most of them very fine and large, with which
the Tagus is covered.
Such being the situation of the army on the 3d, Junot ordered
Loison to march by Portalegre and Abrantes, and from thence effect
a junction with general Laborde, who, with three thousand infantry,
five or six hundred cavalry, and five pieces of artillery, quitted
Lisbon upon the 6th, and proceeded by Villa Franca, Rio Mayor, and
Candeiros, charged to observe the movements of the British, and to
cover the march of Loison, with whom he expected to form a junction
at Leria.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Junot himself remained in Lisbon with a view of controlling the
inhabitants by his presence. He embarked all the powder from
the magazines, took additional precautions to guard his Spanish
prisoners, and put the citadel and forts into a state of siege; but
disquieted by the patriots assembled at Alcacer do Sal, he sent
general Kellerman with a moveable column to disperse them, and to
scour the country between that place and Setuval, ordering him to
withdraw the garrison from the latter, to abandon all the French
posts on the south of the Tagus except Palmela, and to collect
the whole force in one mass on the heights of Almada, where an
entrenched camp had been already commenced; but general Kellerman
had scarcely departed when two English regiments, the one from
Madeira, the other from Gibraltar, arriving off the bar of Lisbon,
distracted anew the attention of the French, and increased the
turbulence of the populace, and in this state of perplexity the
duke of Abrantes lingered until the 15th, when the progress of sir
Arthur Wellesley forced him to assume the command of the army in
the field.
Loison entered Abrantes the 9th, and Laborde arrived at Candeiros
the same day; from that point he could with facility carry his
division upon Alcobaca and Leria, or form a junction with Loison
upon the side of Santarem.
The armies on both sides were now in that state of attraction
towards each other, which indicates an approaching shock. In the
French camps the news of Bessieres’ victory at Rio Seco became
known, and produced a short-lived exultation; and at the same
moment intelligence of Joseph’s flight from Madrid reached the
British army, and increased their confidence of victory. The 10th,
Loison halted at Abrantes, and Laborde moved to Alcobaca, where he
was joined by Thomieres and the garrison of Peniché.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry.]
Sir Arthur’s advanced guard also entered Leria, and was there
joined by Bernardim Freire and the Portuguese army, who immediately
seized the magazine without making any distribution to the British
troops. The main body of the latter arrived the 11th, and the whole
marched in advance upon the 12th.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Laborde employed the 11th and 12th in looking for a position in the
neighbourhood of Battalha; but the ground was too extensive for
his numbers, and at the approach of the English, he fell back in
the night of the 12th to Obidos, a small town, with an old Moorish
castle situated on a gentle eminence in the middle of a valley.
Having occupied Obidos with his picquets, and placed a small
detachment at the windmill of Brilos, three miles in front, he
retired the 14th to Roriça, a village four miles to the southward,
situated at the intersection of the roads leading to Torres Vedras,
to Montachique, and to Alcoentre, and overlooking the whole valley
of Obidos.
This position enabled him to preserve his communication with Loison
open, but as it uncovered Peniché, the fourth Swiss regiment,
with the exception of the flank companies, was sent to regarrison
that important point, and at the same time three hundred men were
detached to the right by Bombarral, Cadaval, and Segura, to obtain
intelligence of Loison.
That general, having made a demonstration on the side of Thomar
the 11th, ascertained that Leria was in the hands of the British,
and fell back the same day upon Torres Novas, then following the
course of the Tagus he arrived at Santarem upon the 13th, but in
such an exhausted state, that he was unable to renew his march
until the 15th. Sir Arthur Wellesley’s first movement had thus cut
the line of communication between Loison and Laborde, caused a loss
of several forced marches to the former, and obliged the latter to
risk an action with more than twice his own numbers.
As the hostile troops approached each other, the Portuguese chiefs
became alarmed, notwithstanding the confident language of their
public manifestos and the bombastic style of their conversation, an
internal conviction that a French army was invincible pervaded all
ranks of the patriots. The leaders, aware of their own deficiency,
and incredulous of the courage of the English soldiers, dreaded
the being committed in a decisive contest, because a defeat (which
they expected) would deprive them of all hope to make terms with
the victors, whereas by keeping five or six thousand men together,
they could at any time secure themselves by a capitulation. The
junta of Oporto also, who were already aiming at supreme authority,
foresaw that in the event of a successful battle, it would be more
advantageous for their particular views, to be provided with an
army untouched and entirely disconnected with a foreign general,
and Freire being well instructed in the secret designs of his
party, resolved not to advance a step beyond Leria; but, to cover
his real motives, he required the British commander to supply him
with provisions, choosing to forget the magazine which he had just
appropriated to himself, and as readily forgetting the formal
promises of the bishop of Oporto, who had undertaken to feed the
English army.
This extraordinary demand, that an auxiliary force just disembarked
should nourish the native soldiers, instead of being itself fed
by the people, was met by sir Arthur Wellesley with a strong
remonstrance. He easily penetrated the secret motive which caused
it, but feeling that it was important to have a respectable
Portuguese force acting in conjunction with his own, he first
appealed to the honour and patriotism of Freire, and warmly
admonished him, that he was going to forfeit all pretension to
either, by permitting the British army to fight without his
assistance; but this argument had no effect upon don Bernardim. He
parried the imputations against his spirit and zeal by pretending
that his intention was to operate independently on the line of the
Tagus; and after some further discussion, sir Arthur, as a last
effort, changed his tone of rebuke to one of conciliation, and
recommended to him not to risk his troops by an isolated march, but
to keep in the rear of the British, and wait for the result of the
first battle. This advice was so agreeable to Freire, that at the
solicitation of captain Trant, a military agent, he consented to
leave fourteen hundred infantry, and two hundred and fifty cavalry,
under the immediate command of the English general.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
The defection of the native force was a serious evil. It shed
an injurious moral influence, and deprived sir Arthur of the
aid of troops whose means of gaining intelligence, and whose
local knowledge, might have compensated for his want of cavalry.
Nevertheless, continuing his own march, his advanced guard entered
Caldas the 15th, and that day also Junot reluctantly quitted
Lisbon, with a reserve composed of two thousand infantry, six
hundred cavalry, and ten pieces of artillery, carrying with him his
grand parc of ammunition, and a military chest, containing forty
thousand pounds. General Travot was left at Lisbon, with above
seven thousand men, of which number two battalions were formed of
stragglers and convalescents. He occupied both sides of the Tagus,
distributing two thousand men in Palmela, the Bugio fort, and on
the heights of Almada, in order to protect the shipping from the
insurgents of the Alemtejo, who, under the orders of the Monteiro
Mor, were again gathering at Setuval. A thousand French he kept
on board the vessels of war, to guard the Spanish prisoners and
the spare powder; with two thousand four hundred he garrisoned the
citadel and supported the police. A thousand were distributed in
the forts of Belem, St. Julians, Cascaes, and Ericeia (the last
named place is situated to the northward of the rock of Lisbon, and
commands a small harbour a few miles west of Mafra), and a thousand
were at Santarem, protecting a large depôt of stores; thus, if the
garrisons of Elvas, Peniché, and Almeida be included, nearly one
half of the French army was, by Junot’s combinations, rendered
inactive, and those in the field were divided into three parts,
without any certain point of junction in advance, yet each too weak
singly to sustain an action. The duke of Abrantes seems to have
reigned long enough in Portugal to forget that he was merely the
chief of an advanced corps, whose safety depended upon activity and
concentration.
The French reserve was transported to Villa Franca by water, from
whence it was to march to Otta; but the rope ferry-boat of Saccavem
being removed by the natives, it cost twenty-four hours to throw
a bridge across the creek at that place. On the 17th the troops
were on their march, when Junot hastily recalled them to Villa
Franca. This retrograde movement was occasioned by a report that
the English had landed near the capital. When the falsehood of this
rumour became known, the reserve resumed the road to Otta, under
the command of general Thiebault, Junot himself pushing forward
to Alcoentre, where he found Loison, and assumed the personal
direction of that general’s division.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s Despatch.]
During this time, sir Arthur Wellesley was pressing La Borde. The
15th he caused the post at Brilos to be attacked, and the piquets
to be driven out of Obidos. Two companies of the 95th, and two of
the 5th battalion, 60th, were employed in the former operation;
they carried the windmill without loss, but pursued the retiring
enemy with such inconsiderate eagerness, that at the distance
of three miles from their support, they were outflanked by two
superior bodies of French, and were only saved by the opportune
advance of general Spencer. Two officers and twenty-seven men were
killed and wounded in this slight affair, which gave a salutary
check to the rashness, without lowering the confidence of the
troops.
The 16th Laborde’s position was examined. The road from Caldas to
Obidos runs through a valley, formed by the ramifications of the
Monte Junto. The high table land upon which Roriça is situated
closed this valley to the southward, and Laborde’s division being
posted on a small plain immediately in front of that village,
completely overlooked the country as far as Obidos. All the
favourable points of defence in the valley, and on the nearest
hills on each side, were occupied by small detachments. One mile in
the rear, a steep ridge extending about three quarters of a mile
from east to west, and parallel to the French position, offered a
second line of great strength. The main road led by a deep defile
over this ridge, which was called the height of Zambugeira, or
Columbeira, and beyond it, very lofty mountains rose abruptly,
stretching from the sea-coast to the Tagus like a wall, and filling
all the space between that river and the ocean down to the rock of
Lisbon.
The valley leading from Obidos to Roriça was bounded on the left
by a succession of ridges that rose the one above the other like
steps, until they were lost in the great mass of the Sierra de
Baragueda, itself a shoot from the Monte-junto.
Laborde’s situation was becoming truly embarrassing. Loison was
at Alcoentre, and the reserve was at Villa Franca; that is one
and two marches distant from Roriça. If he retired upon Torres
Vedras, his communication with Loison would be lost. To fall back
on Montachique was to expose the line of Torres Vedras and Mafra.
To march upon Alcoentre, and unite with Loison, was to open the
shortest road to Lisbon (that of Montachique) for the British army;
and to remain at Roriça, it was necessary to fight three times his
own force.
Animated, however, by the danger, encouraged by the local
advantages of his position, and justly confident in his own
talents, Laborde resolved to abide his enemy’s assault, in the
feeble hope that Loison might arrive during the action.
COMBAT OF RORIÇA.
Sir Arthur Wellesley attacked upon the 17th.
Early in the morning of that day, a dense mass, consisting of
thirteen thousand four hundred and eighty infantry, four hundred
and seventy cavalry, and eighteen guns, issued from Obidos, and
soon afterwards broke into three distinct columns of battle.
The left, commanded by lieutenant-general Ferguson, was composed of
his own and major-general Bowe’s brigades of infantry, reinforced
by two hundred and fifty riflemen, forty cavalry, and six guns,
forming a total of four thousand nine hundred combatants. They
marched by the crests of the hills adjoining the Sierra de
Baragueda, being destined to turn the right flank of Laborde’s
position, and to oppose the efforts of Loison, if that general (who
was supposed to be at Rio Mayor) should appear during the action.
The column of the right, under captain Trant, composed of a
thousand Portuguese infantry, and fifty horse of the same nation,
moved by the village of St. Amias, with the intention of turning
the left flank of the French.
The centre column, nine thousand in number, with twelve guns, was
commanded by sir Arthur in person, and marched straight against the
enemy by the village of Mahmed. It was composed of generals Hill’s,
Nightingale’s, Catlin Craufurd’s, and Fane’s brigades of British
infantry, four hundred cavalry, two hundred and fifty of which were
Portuguese, and four hundred light troops of the same nation.
As this column advanced, general Fane’s brigade, extending to its
left, drove back the French skirmishers, and connected the march
of Ferguson’s division with the centre. When the latter approached
the elevated plain upon which Laborde was posted, general Hill,
who moved upon the right of the main road, being supported by
the cavalry, and covered by the fire of his light troops, pushed
forward rapidly to the attack. On his left general Nightingale
displayed a line of infantry, preceded by the fire of nine guns.
Craufurd’s brigade, and the remaining pieces of artillery, formed a
reserve.
At this moment, Fane’s riflemen crowned the nearest hills on the
right flank of the French; the Portuguese troops showed the head
of a column beyond St. Amias upon the enemy’s left, and general
Ferguson was seen descending from the higher grounds in the rear of
Fane. Laborde’s position appeared desperate; but with the coolness
and dexterity of a practised warrior, he evaded the danger,
and covered by his excellent cavalry, fell back rapidly to the
heights of Zambugeira. A fresh disposition of the English became
indispensable to dislodge him from that formidable and well chosen
post.
Colonel Trant continued his march, and turned the left of the new
field of battle.
Ferguson and Fane being united, were directed to penetrate by the
mountains, and outflank the French right.
[Illustration: _SKETCH OF THE_ COMBAT OF RORIÇA. 17^{th} August
1808.]
Generals Hill and Nightingale advanced against the front, which was
of singular strength, and only to be approached by narrow paths
winding through deep ravines. A swarm of skirmishers starting
forward, plunged into the passes, and spreading to the right and
left, won their way with extreme difficulty among the rocks and
tangled evergreens that overspread the steep ascent; with still
greater difficulty the supporting columns followed, and their
formation was soon disordered in the confined and rugged passes.
The hollows echoed with a continued roll of musketry; the shouts
of the advancing troops were loudly answered by the enemy, and the
curling smoke that broke out from the sides of the mountain marking
the progress of the assailants, showed how stoutly the defence was
maintained. Laborde, watching anxiously for the arrival of Loison,
gradually slackened his hold on the left, but clung tenaciously
to the right, in the hope of yet effecting a junction with that
general. The ardour of the 9th and 29th regiments, who led the
attack, favoured this skilful conduct. They pressed forward with
such vigour, as to force the two strongest passes and reach the
plain above, long before the flank movements of Ferguson and Trant
had shaken the credit of the position, the 29th first arrived
in disorder at the top; ere they could form, a French battalion
came forward at a rapid pace, poured in their fire, and breaking
gallantly through the midst of the English regiment, slew the
colonel and many others, and made the major and fifty or sixty men
prisoners; but the 29th were not to be overthrown. They rallied,
and being joined by the 9th, the colonel of which also fell in this
bitter fight, maintained their dangerous footing. Laborde, who
brought every arm into action at the proper time and place, made
repeated efforts to destroy these regiments before they could be
supported; failing in that, he yet gained time to withdraw his left
wing and to rally it upon the centre and right; but the English
troops were gathering thickly on the upper ground, and general
Ferguson, who had at first taken an erroneous direction towards the
centre, now regained the true line, and was rapidly passing the
right flank of the position. The French general, seeing that the
day was lost, commenced a retreat by alternate masses, protecting
his movements by vigorous charges of cavalry. At the village of
Zambugeira he made another desperate stand, but the English troops
bore on him too heavily to be resisted, and thus disputing the
ground, he fell back to the Quinta de Bugagliera, there he halted
until his detachments on the side of Segura had rejoined him, and
then taking to the narrow pass of Ruña he marched all night to gain
the position of Montechique, leaving three guns on the field of
battle, and the road to Torres Vedras open for the victors.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 19.]
The loss of the French was six hundred killed and wounded;
among the latter was Laborde himself. The British also suffered
considerably; two lieutenant-colonels and nearly five hundred men
being killed, taken, or wounded, and as not more than four thousand
men were actually engaged, this hard fought action was very
honourable to both sides.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s evidence. Court of Inquiry.]
The firing ceased a little after four o’clock, and sir Arthur
getting intelligence that Loison’s division was at Bombaral,
only five miles distant, took up a position for the night in an
oblique line to that which he had just forced, his left resting
upon a height near the field of battle, and his right covering the
road to Lourinham. Believing that Loison and Laborde had effected
their junction at the Quintade Bugagliera, and that both were
retiring to Montechique, he resolved to march the next morning to
Torres Vedras; but before night-fall he was informed that general
Anstruther’s and general Acland’s[13] divisions, accompanied by
a large fleet of store ships, were off the coast, the dangerous
nature of which rendered it necessary to provide for their safety
by a quick disembarkation. He therefore changed his plans, and
resolved to seek for some convenient post, that, being in advance
of his present position, would likewise enable him to cover the
landing of these reinforcements. The vigour of Laborde’s defence
had also an influence upon this occasion; before an enemy so bold
and skilful no precaution could be neglected with impunity.
The 18th sir Arthur marched to Lourinham, and Junot at the same
time quitting Cereal with Loison’s division, crossed the line of
Laborde’s retreat, and pushed for Torres Vedras, which he reached
in the evening of the same day. The 19th being joined by Laborde,
and the 20th by his reserve, he re-organized his army, and prepared
for a decisive battle.
CHAPTER V.
The day on which the combat of Roriça was fought the insurgents
attacked Abrantes, and the feeble garrison being ill commanded,
gave way, and was destroyed.
The 19th sir Arthur Wellesley took up a position at Vimiero, a
village near the sea-coast, and from thence sent a detachment to
cover the march of general Anstruther’s brigade, which had, with
great difficulty and some loss, been that morning landed on an open
sandy beach called the bay of Maceira.
The French cavalry scoured the neighbouring country, carried off
some of the women from the rear of the camp, and hemmed the army
round so closely that no information of Junot’s position could be
obtained.
In the night of the 20th, general Acland’s brigade was also
disembarked, and this reinforcement increased the army to sixteen
thousand fighting men, with eighteen pieces of artillery, exclusive
of Trant’s Portuguese and of two British regiments, under general
Beresford, which were with the fleet at the mouth of the Tagus.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 9.]
Estimating Junot’s whole force at eighteen thousand men, sir Arthur
Wellesley judged, that after providing for the security of Lisbon,
the French general could not bring more than fourteen thousand
into the field; he designed, therefore, not only to strike the
first blow, but to follow it up, so as to prevent the enemy from
rallying and renewing the campaign upon the frontier. In this view
he had, before quitting the Mondego, written to sir Harry Burrard,
giving an exact statement of his own proceedings and intentions,
and recommending that sir John Moore, with his division, should
disembark at the Mondego, and march without delay to Santarem, by
which he would protect the left of the army, block the line of
the Tagus, and at the same time threaten the French communication
between Lisbon and Elvas, and that without danger, because Junot
would be forced to defend Lisbon against the coast army, or if,
relinquishing the capital, he endeavoured to make way to Almeida
by Santarem, the ground there was so strong that sir John Moore
might easily maintain it against any efforts. Moreover, the
marquis of Valladeres commanded three thousand men at Guarda, and
general Freire, with five thousand men, was at Leria, and might be
persuaded to support the British at Santarem.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s evidence. Court of Inquiry.]
The distance from Vimiero to Torres Vedras was about nine miles;
but although the number and activity of the French cavalry
completely shrouded Junot’s position, it was known to be strong,
and very difficult of approach, by reason of a long defile through
which the army must penetrate in order to reach the crest of the
mountain. There was, however, a road leading between the sea-coast
and Torres Vedras, which, turning Junot’s position, opened a way
to Mafra. Sir Arthur possessed very exact military surveys of the
country through which that road led, and he projected, by a forced
march, on the 21st to turn the position of Torres Vedras, and to
gain Mafra with a strong advanced guard, while the main body,
seizing some advantageous heights a few miles short of that town,
would be in a position to intercept the French line of march to
Montachique. The army was reorganized during the 20th in eight
brigades of infantry, and four weak squadrons of cavalry, and every
preparation was made for the next day’s enterprise; but at that
critical period of the campaign the ministerial arrangements, which
provided three commanders-in-chief, began to work.
Sir Harry Burrard arrived in a frigate off the bay of Maceira, and
sir Arthur was checked in the midst of his operations on the eve of
a decisive battle. Having repaired on board the frigate, he made
his report of the situation of affairs, and renewed his former
recommendation relative to the disposal of sir John Moore’s troops;
but Burrard, who had previously resolved to bring the latter down
to Maceira, condemned this project, and forbid any offensive
movement until the whole army should be concentrated; whereupon sir
Arthur returned to his camp.
The ground occupied by the army, although very extensive, and not
very clearly defined as a position, was by no means weak. The
village of Vimiero, situated in a valley through which the little
river of Maceira flows, contained the parc and commissariat stores.
The cavalry and the Portuguese were on a small plain close behind
the village, and immediately in its front a rugged isolated height,
with a flat top, commanded all the ground to the southward and
eastward for a considerable distance.
Upon this height Fane’s and Anstruther’s brigades of infantry with
six guns were posted, the left of Anstruther’s occupied a church
and churchyard which blocked a road leading over the extremity of
the height to the village, the right of Fane’s rested on the edge
of the other extremity of the hill, the base of which was washed by
the Maceira.
A mountain that commenced at the coast swept in a half circle
close behind the right of the hill upon which these brigades were
posted, and commanded, at rather long artillery range, all its
upper surface. Eight guns, and the first, second, third, fourth,
and eighth brigades of infantry, occupied this mountain, which
was terminated on the left by a deep ravine that divided it from
another strong and narrow range of heights over which the road
from Vimiero to Lourinham passed. The right of these last heights
also overtopped the hill in front of the village, but the left,
bending suddenly backward, after the form of a crook, returned to
the coast, and ended in a lofty cliff. There was no water upon this
range, and some piquets only were placed there.
The troops being thus posted, on the night of the 20th, about
twelve o’clock, sir Arthur was aroused by a German officer of
dragoons, who galloped into the camp, and with some consternation
reported, that Junot, at the head of twenty thousand men, was
coming on to the attack, and distant but one hour’s march. The
general, doubting the accuracy of this gentleman’s information,
merely sent out some patrolles, and warned the piquets and guards
to be upon the alert. Before daybreak, according to the British
custom, the troops were under arms; the sun rose, and no enemy was
perceived; but at seven o’clock a cloud of dust was observed beyond
the nearest hills, and at eight o’clock an advanced guard of horse
was seen to crown the heights to the southward, and to send forward
scouts on every side. Scarcely had this body been discovered, when
a force of infantry, preceded by other cavalry, was descried moving
along the road from Torres Vedras to Lourinham, and threatening
the left of the British position; column after column followed in
order of battle, and it soon became evident that the French were
coming down to fight, but that the right wing of the English was
not their object. The second, third, fourth, and eighth brigades
were immediately directed to cross the valley behind the village,
and to take post on the heights before-mentioned as being occupied
by the piquets only. As those brigades reached the ground, the
second and third were disposed in two lines facing to the left,
and consequently forming a right angle with the prolongation of
Fane and Anstruther’s front. The fourth and eighth brigades were to
have furnished a third line; but before the latter could reach the
summit the battle commenced. From the flank of all these troops,
a line of skirmishers was thrown out upon the face of the descent
towards the enemy; the cavalry was drawn up in the plain a little
to the right of the village of Vimiero; and the fifth brigade and
the Portuguese were detached to the returning part of the crook to
cover the extreme left, and to protect the rear of the army. The
first brigade under general Hill remained on the mountain which the
others had just quitted, and formed a support for the centre and a
reserve for the whole.
The ground between the two armies was so wooded and broken, that
after the French had passed the ridge where they had been first
descried, no correct view of their movements could be obtained; and
the British being so weak in cavalry were forced to wait patiently
until the columns of attack were close upon them. Junot had quitted
Torres Vedras the evening of the 20th, intending to fall on the
English army at day-break; but the difficulty of the defile in his
front retarded his march for many hours and fatigued his troops.
When he first came in sight of the position of Vimiero, the British
order of battle appeared to him as being on two sides of an
irregular triangle, the apex of which formed by the hill in front
of the village, was well furnished with men, while the left face
appeared naked, for he could only see the piquets on that side, and
the passage of the four brigades across the valley was hidden from
him. Concluding, then, that the principal force was in the centre,
he resolved to form two connected attacks, the one against the
apex, the other against the left face; for he thought that the left
of the position was an accessible ridge, whereas a deep ravine,
trenched as it were along the base, rendered it utterly impervious
to an attack, except at the extremity, over which the road from
Torres Vedras to Lourinham passed. Junot had nearly fourteen
thousand fighting men organized in four divisions, of which three
were of infantry and one of cavalry, with twenty-three pieces of
artillery, but of small calibre. Each division was composed of two
brigades, and at ten o’clock, all being prepared, he commenced the
BATTLE OF VIMIERO.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Foy.]
Laborde marched with one brigade against the centre; general
Brennier led another against the left; Loison’s division followed
in the same order at a short distance. Kellerman, whose division
(called the reserve) was composed of grenadiers, moved in one body
behind Loison, and the cavalry under Margaron, about thirteen
hundred in number, was divided, a part being on the right of
Brennier, and the remainder in rear of the reserve. The artillery
was distributed among the columns, and opened their fire whenever
the ground was favourable for their practice.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s despatch.]
Junot designed that Laborde’s and Brennier’s attacks should be
simultaneous, but the latter coming unexpectedly upon the ravine
before mentioned as protecting the left, got entangled among the
rocks and water courses, and Laborde alone engaged Anstruther’s
brigade under a heavy and destructive fire of artillery that played
on his front and flank, for the eighth brigade being then in the
act of mounting the heights where the left was posted, observing
the advance of the columns against the centre, halted, and opened a
battery on their right flank. Junot, perceiving this failure in his
combinations, ordered Loison to support Laborde’s attack with one
brigade of his division, and directed general Solignac, with the
other, to turn the ravine in which Brennier was entangled, and to
fall upon the extremity of the English line.
Loison and Laborde formed one grand and two secondary columns
of attack; of the latter, the one advanced against Fane’s
brigade, while the other endeavoured to penetrate by a road which
passed between the ravine and the church on the extreme left of
Anstruther; but the principal column, headed by Laborde in person,
and preceded by a multitude of light troops, mounted the face of
the hill with great fury and loud cries; the English skirmishers
were forced in upon the lines in a moment, and the French masses
arrived at the summit; but, shattered by a terrible fire of the
artillery, and breathless from their exertions, and in this state,
first receiving a discharge of musketry from the fiftieth regiment
at the distance of half pistol shot, they were vigorously charged
in front and flank, and overthrown. At the same time Fane’s brigade
repulsed the attack on their side, and colonel Taylor, with the
very few horsemen he commanded, passing out by the right, rode
fiercely among the confused and retreating troops, and scattered
them with great execution. Margaron’s cavalry seeing this, came
suddenly down upon Taylor, who was there slain, and the half of
his feeble squadron cut to pieces, and Kellerman taking advantage
of this check, threw one half of the reserve into a pine wood, that
flanked the line of retreat followed by the beaten troops, and with
the other endeavoured to renew the attack by the road leading to
the church, where the forty-third regiment were engaged in a hot
skirmish among some vineyards.
The grenadiers coming on at a brisk pace, beat back the advanced
companies of the forty-third; but to avoid the artillery that swept
their left, they dipped a little into the ravine, and were taken
on the other flank by the guns of the eighth and fourth brigades,
and at the same time the forty-third rallying in a mass, broke down
upon the head of the column at a moment when the narrowness of the
way and the discharges of the artillery had somewhat disordered its
formation, a short yet desperate fight took place; the enemy were
repulsed in disorder, but the regiment suffered very severely.
The French being now wholly discomfited in the centre, and the
woods and hollows filled with their wounded and straggling men,
retired up the edge of the ravine in a direction almost parallel
to the British line, and left the road from Vimiero to Torres
Vedras open to their opponents; but sir Arthur Wellesley strictly
forbade any pursuit at that moment, partly because the grenadiers
in the pine wood flanked the line of the French retreat, and partly
because Margaron’s horsemen, riding stiffly between the two armies,
were not to be lightly meddled with. Meanwhile, (Brennier being
still hampered in the ravine), general Solignac passed along the
crest of the ridge above, and came upon general Ferguson’s brigade,
which was posted at the left of the English position. But where the
French expected to find a weak flank, they encountered a front of
battle on a depth of three lines protected by steep declivities
on either side; a powerful artillery swept away their foremost
ranks, and on their right the fifth brigade and the Portuguese
were seen marching by a distant ridge towards the Lourinham road
and threatening the rear. Ferguson instantly taking the lead, bore
down upon the enemy, the ridge widened as the English advanced,
and the regiments of the second line running up in succession,
increased the front, and constantly filled the ground. The French
falling fast under the fire drew back fighting, until they reached
the declivity of the ridge, and their cavalry made several efforts
to check the advancing troops, but the latter were too compact to
be disturbed by these attempts. Solignac himself was carried from
the field severely wounded, and his retiring column, continually
outflanked on the left, was cut off from the line of retreat, and
thrown into the low ground about the village of Perenza. There six
guns were captured, and general Ferguson leaving the eighty-second
and seventy-first regiments to guard them, was continuing to press
the disordered columns, when Brennier having at last cleared the
ravine, came suddenly in upon those two regiments, and re-took
the artillery. His success was but momentary; the surprised
troops rallied upon the higher ground, poured in a heavy fire of
musquetry, and with a shout returning to the charge, overthrew
him and recovered the guns. Brennier himself was wounded and made
prisoner, and Ferguson having completely separated the French
brigades from each other, would have forced the greatest part of
Solignac’s to surrender, if an unexpected order had not obliged
him to halt, and then the discomfited troops re-forming under
the protection of their cavalry with admirable quickness and
steadiness, made an orderly retreat, and were soon united to the
broken brigades which were falling back from the attack on the
centre.
Brennier, who, the moment he was taken, was brought to sir Arthur
Wellesley, eagerly demanded if the reserve under Kellerman had
yet charged, and sir Arthur, ascertaining from other prisoners
that it had, was then satisfied that all the enemy’s attacks were
exhausted, and that no considerable body of fresh troops could be
hidden among the woods and hollows in his front. It was only twelve
o’clock, the battle was already won; thirteen guns were in his
possession, for seven had been taken in the centre; the fourth and
eighth brigades had suffered very little; the Portuguese, the fifth
and the first brigades had not fired a shot, and the latter was two
miles nearer to Torres Vedras than any part of the French army,
which was moreover in great confusion. The relative numbers before
the action were considerably in favour of the English; and the
result of the action had increased that disparity. A portion of sir
Arthur’s army had defeated the enemy when entire; a portion then
could effectually follow up his victory, and he resolved with the
five brigades on the left to press Junot closely, and driving him
over the Sierra da Baragueda, force him upon the Tagus, while Hill,
Anstruther, and Fane, seizing the defile of Torres Vedras, should
push on to Montachique and cut him off from Lisbon.
[Illustration: _SKETCH OF THE_ BATTLE OF VIMIERO. 21^{st} August
1808.]
If this able and decisive operation had been executed, Junot
would probably have lost all his artillery, and several thousand
stragglers, and being buffeted and turned at every point, would
have been glad to seek safety under the guns of Almeida or Elvas,
and even that he could only have accomplished because sir John
Moore’s troops were not landed at the Mondego. But sir Harry
Burrard, who was present during the action, although partly from
delicacy, and partly from approving of sir Arthur’s arrangements,
he had not hitherto interfered, now assumed the chief command. From
him, the order which arrested Ferguson in his victorious career had
emanated, by him further offensive operations were forbidden, and
he resolved to wait in the position of Vimiero until the arrival of
sir John Moore. The adjutant-general Clinton and colonel Murray,
the quarter-master-general, supported sir Harry Burrard’s views,
and sir Arthur’s earnest representations could not alter his
determination.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Board of Inquiry.]
Sir Harry’s decision was certainly erroneous, but error is common
in an art which at best is but a choice of difficulties. The
circumstances of the moment were imposing enough to sway most
generals; for although the French were beaten in the attacks,
they rallied with surprising quickness under the protection of a
strong and gallant cavalry; sir Harry knew that his own artillery
carriages were so shaken as to be scarcely fit for service; that
the draft horses were few and bad, and that the commissariat parc
on the plain was in the greatest confusion. The hired Portuguese
carmen were making off with their carriages in all directions; the
English cavalry was totally destroyed, and finally, general Spencer
had discovered a line of fresh troops on the ridge behind that
occupied by the French army. Weighing all these things in his mind
with the caution natural to age, Burrard was reluctant to hazard
the fortune of the day upon what he deemed a perilous throw.
The duke of Abrantes, who had displayed all that reckless courage
to which he originally owed his elevation, profited by this
unexpected cessation of the battle, and re-formed his broken
infantry. Twelve hundred fresh men joined him at the close of the
contest, and, covered by his cavalry, he retreated with order
and celerity until he regained the command of the pass of Torres
Vedras, so that when the day closed, the relative position of the
two armies was the same as on the evening before.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
One general, thirteen guns, and several hundred prisoners fell into
the hands of the victors, and the total loss of the French was
estimated at three thousand men, an exaggeration, no doubt, but it
was certainly above two thousand, for their closed columns had been
exposed for more than half an hour to sweeping discharges of grape
and musquetry, and the dead lay thickly together. General Thiebault
indeed reduces the number to eighteen hundred, and asserts that the
whole amount of the French army did not much exceed twelve thousand
men, from which number he deducts nearly three thousand for the
sick, the stragglers, and all those other petty drains which form
the torment of a general-in-chief. But when it is considered
that this army was composed of men selected and organized into
provisionary battalions expressly for the occasion; that one half
had only been in the field for a fortnight, and that the whole had
enjoyed three days rest at Torres Vedras, it is evident that the
number of absentees bears too great a proportion to the combatants.
A French order of battle found upon the field gave a total of
fourteen thousand men present under arms, of which thirteen hundred
were cavalry, and this amount agrees too closely with other
estimates, and also with the observations made at the time, to
leave any reasonable doubt of its authenticity or correctness.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Board of Inquiry.]
The arrangements made by sir Harry Burrard did not remain in force
a long time. Early on the morning of the 22d, sir Hew Dalrymple
disembarked and assumed the chief command. Thus, in the short space
of twenty-four hours, during which a battle was fought, the army
fell successively into the hands of three men, who, coming from
different quarters, with different views, habits, and information,
had not any previous opportunity of communing even by letter, so as
to arrange a common plan of operations; and they were now brought
together at a critical moment, when it was more than probable they
must all disagree, and that the public service must suffer from
that want of vigour which is inherent to divided councils; for
when sir Hew Dalrymple was appointed to the command, sir Arthur
Wellesley was privately recommended to him by the minister as a
person who should be employed with more than usual confidence;
and this unequivocal hint was backed up with too much force by
the previous reputation and recent exploits of the latter, not
to produce some want of cordiality; for sir Arthur could not do
otherwise than take the lead in discussing affairs of which he had
more than laid the foundation, and sir Hew would have forfeited all
claims to independence in his command, if he had not exercised the
right of judging for himself between the conflicting opinions of
his predecessors.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Board of Inquiry.]
After receiving information upon the most important points, and
taking a hasty view of the situation of the army; although the
wounded were still upon the ground, and that the wains of the
commissariat were employed in removing them, sir Hew decided
to advance upon the 23d, and gave orders to that effect; but,
at the same time, he entirely agreed in opinion with sir Harry
Burrard, that the operation was a perilous one, which required
the concentration of all the troops, and the application of all
his means, to bring to a good conclusion; and for this reason he
did not rescind the order directing sir John Moore to fall down to
Maceira. This last measure was disapproved of by sir Arthur, who
observed that the provisions on shore would not supply more than
eight or nine days consumption for the troops already at Vimiero;
that the country would be unable to furnish any assistance, and
that the fleet could not be calculated upon as a resource because
the first of the gales common at that season of the year would
certainly send it away from the coast, if it did not destroy a
great portion of it. Sir Hew thought the evil of having the army
separated, would be greater than the chance of distress from such
events. His position was certainly difficult; the bishop of Oporto
had failed in his promise of assisting the troops with draft
cattle, as indeed he did in all his promises. Both the artillery
and commissariat were badly supplied with mules and horses; the
cavalry was a nullity; and the enemy was, with the exception of
his immediate loss in killed and wounded, suffering nothing from
his defeat, which, we have seen, did not deprive him of a single
position necessary to his defence.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Sir Hew, while weighing this state of affairs, was informed that
general Kellerman, escorted by a strong body of cavalry, was at
the outposts, and demanded an interview. It appears, that Junot
having regained Torres Vedras and occupied Mafra with half his
army, received news from Lisbon that gave him great uneasiness:
the symptoms of an immediate explosion in that city threatened him
with destruction, and he hastened to extricate himself while there
was yet time. Sending forward a false account of a victory, he
followed it up by a reinforcement for the garrison, and immediately
afterwards called a council of war to advise with upon the measures
fittest to pursue towards the English. It is an old and a sound
remark, that “a council of war never fights,” and Kellerman’s
mission was the result of the above consultation.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry.]
That general being conducted to the quarters of the
commander-in-chief, demanded a cessation of arms, and proposed
the ground-work of a convention under which Junot offered to
evacuate Portugal without further resistance. Nothing could be
more opportune than this proposition, and sir Hew Dalrymple
readily accepted of it as an advantage which would accrue, without
any drawback to the general cause of the Peninsula. He knew,
from a plan of operations sketched by the chief of the French
engineers, colonel Bory de St Vincent, and taken by the Portuguese,
that Junot possessed several very strong positions in front of
Lisbon, and that a retreat either upon Almeida, or across the
river upon Elvas, was not only within the contemplation of that
general, but considered in this report as a matter of course, and
perfectly easy of execution. Hence the proposed convention was
an unexpected advantage offered in a moment of difficulty, and
the only subject for consideration was the nature of the articles
proposed by Kellerman as a basis for the treaty. Sir Hew was of
necessity ignorant of many important details which bore upon the
question, and he naturally had recourse to sir Arthur Wellesley for
information. The latter, taking an enlarged view of the question
in all its bearings, coincided with the opinion of the former as
to the sound policy of agreeing to a convention by which a strong
French army would be quietly got out of a country that it had
complete military possession of, and by which not only a great
moral effect in favour of the general cause would be produced, but
likewise an actual gain made both of men and time, for the farther
prosecution of the war in Spain. By the convention, he observed,
1º. That a kingdom would be liberated, with all its fortresses,
arsenals, &c., and that the excited population of the Peninsula
might then be pushed forward in the career of opposition to France,
under the most favourable circumstances.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
2º. That the Spanish army of Estremadura, which contained the most
efficient body of cavalry in the Peninsula, (being first reinforced
with the four or five thousand Spanish soldiers who were prisoners
on board the vessels in the Tagus), would be enabled to unite with
the other patriot armies at a critical period, when every addition
of force must tend to increase the confidence, and forward the
impulse, which the victory of Baylen, and the flight of Joseph,
had given to the Spaniards; and, finally, that the sacrifice of
lives to be expected in carrying the French positions in Portugal,
all the difficulties of reducing the fortresses, and the danger
of losing a communication with the fleet, would be avoided by
this measure; the result of which would be as complete as the
most sanguine could expect from the long course of uncertain and
unhealthy operations which must follow a rejection of the proposal.
But, completely coinciding, as he did, with the commander-in-chief,
as to the utility of the measure itself, he differed with him as
to the mode of proceeding, and a long discussion (in which sir H.
Burrard took a part) followed the opening of Kellerman’s mission.
Sir Arthur’s first objection was, that, in point of form, Kellerman
was merely entitled to negotiate a cessation of hostilities. But
sir Hew Dalrymple judged, that as the good policy and the utility
of the convention were recognised, it would be unwise to drive the
French to the wall for the sake of a trivial ceremony. Wherefore
the proposition was accepted, and the basis of a definitive treaty
was arranged, subject, however, to the final approbation of sir
Charles Cotton, without whose concurrence it was not to be binding.
Articles 1st and 2d declared the fact of the armistice, and
provided for the mode of future proceedings.
Article 3d indicated the river Sizandre as the line of demarcation
between the two armies. The position of Torres Vedras to be
occupied by neither.
Article 4th. Sir Hew Dalrymple engaged to have the Portuguese
included in the armistice, and their boundary line was to extend
from Leria to Thomar.
Article 5th declared, that the French were not to be considered as
prisoners of war, and that themselves and their property, public
and private, were, without any detainder, to be transported to
France. To this article sir Arthur objected, as affording a cover
for the abstraction of Portuguese property. General Kellerman
replied, that it was to be taken in its fair sense of property
justly obtained; and upon this assurance it was admitted.
Article 6th provided for the protection of individuals. It
guaranteed from political persecution all French residents, all
subjects of powers in alliance with France, and all Portuguese who
had served the invaders, or become obnoxious for their attachment
to them.
Article 7th stipulated for the neutrality of the port of Lisbon as
far as the Russian fleet was concerned. At first Kellerman proposed
to have the Russian fleet guaranteed from capture, with leave to
return to the Baltic; but this was peremptorily refused; and
indeed the whole proceeding was designed to entangle the Russians
in the French negotiation, that in case the armistice should be
broken, the former might be forced into a co-operation with the
latter.
Sir Arthur strenuously opposed this article: he argued, 1º, that
the interests of the two nations were not blended, and that they
stood in different relations towards the British army. 2º. That it
was an important object to keep them separate, and that the French
general, if pressed, would leave the Russians to their fate. 3º.
That as the British operations had not been so rapid and decisive
as to enable them to capture the fleet before the question of
neutrality could be agitated, the right of the Russians to such
protection was undoubted, and in the present circumstances it was
desirable to grant it, because, independent of the chances of
their final capture, they would be prevented from returning to the
Baltic, which in fact constituted their only point of interest when
disengaged from the French negotiation; but, that viewed as allies
of the latter, they became of great weight. Lastly, that it was an
affair which concerned the Portuguese, Russians, and British, but
with which the French could have no right to interfere.
Sir Hew finding that the discussion of this question became
lengthened, and considering that sir Charles Cotton alone could
finally decide, admitted the article merely as a form, without
acquiescing in the propriety of it.
Article 8th provided, that all guns of French calibre, and the
horses of the cavalry, were to be likewise transported to France.
Article 9th stipulated, that forty-eight hours notice should be
given of the rupture of the armistice.
To this article also sir Arthur objected; he considered it
unnecessary for the interests of the British army, and favourable
to the French, because if hostilities recommenced, the latter would
have forty-eight hours to make arrangements for their defence, for
the passage of the Tagus, and for the co-operation of the Russian
fleet. Upon the other hand, sir Hew thought it was an absolute
advantage to gain time for the preparations of the British army,
and for the arrival of sir John Moore’s reinforcements.
By an additional article it was provided, that all the fortresses
held by the French, which had not capitulated before the 25th of
August, should be given up to the British, and the basis of a
convention being thus arranged, general Kellerman returned to his
chief, and colonel George Murray was ordered to carry the proposed
articles to the English admiral.
Previous to his landing, sir Hew had received none of the letters
addressed to him by sir Arthur Wellesley, he had met with no person
during his voyage from whom he could obtain authentic information
of the state of affairs, and his time had been completely occupied
since his arrival by the negotiations with Kellerman; he was
consequently ignorant of many details of importance. The day after
Kellerman’s departure, don Bernardim Freire Andrada the Portuguese
commander-in-chief, came to remonstrate against the armistice
just concluded. Now, from the circumstances before-mentioned, it
so happened that sir Hew was utterly ignorant of the existence of
don Bernardim or his army at the time the armistice was discussed,
and it was therefore difficult for him to manage this interview
with propriety, because Andrada had some plausible, although no
real ground of complaint. His remonstrances were, however, merely
intended for the commencement of an intrigue, to which I shall
hereafter revert.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry.]
Colonel Murray soon reached the fleet, and presented the articles
of convention to sir Charles Cotton, but the latter refused to
concur therein, and declared that he would himself conduct a
separate treaty for the Russian ships. With this answer colonel
Murray returned on the 24th, having first, in reply to a question
put by the French officer who accompanied him on board the
Hibernia, declared that nothing had passed between him and sir
Charles Cotton which ought to preclude further negotiation. Sir Hew
Dalrymple was now urged by sir Arthur Wellesley to give notice,
without further explanation, that hostilities would recommence,
and to leave it to general Junot to renew propositions, if he
chose to do so, separately from the Russians. But sir Hew felt
himself in honour bound, by colonel Murray’s observation to the
French officer, not to take advantage of the occasion; and he
likewise felt disinclined to relinquish a negotiation which, from
certain circumstances, he deemed upon the point of being crowned
with success. He therefore despatched colonel Murray to Lisbon,
with directions, to inform Junot of the admiral’s objection, and
to give notice of the consequent rupture of the armistice, Murray
himself being provided, however, with full powers to enter into and
conclude a definitive treaty upon a fresh basis.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Proc^{gs}. C^t. of Inquiry.]
The army was, at the same time, pushed forward to Ramalhal, and
sir John Moore’s troops commenced landing at Maceira Bay. When
the order to repair to that place first reached them, a part had
been already disembarked in the Mondego, and had to be re-shipped.
This and contrary winds detained them for four days, and when they
arrived at Maceira great difficulty was encountered, and some loss
was sustained, in the getting of them ashore, an operation effected
only by five days of incessant exertion on the part of the navy,
for the boats were constantly swamped by the surf, and such was
its fury that not more than thirty remained fit for service at the
conclusion.
On the 27th, information was received from colonel Murray that a
fresh treaty was in agitation upon an admissible basis. On the
28th, the army took a new position, a part occupying Torres Vedras,
and the remainder being placed in the rear of that town.
Meanwhile in Lisbon the agitation of the public mind was
excessively great, hope and fear were magnified by the obscurity of
affairs, and the contradictory news which was spread by the French,
and by those who held communication with the country, increased
the anxious feelings of joy or grief almost to phrensy. Junot made
every effort to engage admiral Siniavin in the negotiation, and
the necessity by which the latter was forced to put his ships in a
hostile and guarded attitude, contributed powerfully to control the
populace, and to give strength to an opinion, industriously spread,
that he would make common cause with the French. Siniavin had,
however, no intention of this kind, and very early gave notice that
he would treat separately.
The French, thus left to themselves, rested their hopes upon
their own dexterity, and brought all the ordinary machinery of
diplomatic subtlety into play. Among other schemes, Junot opened a
separate communication with sir Hew Dalrymple at the moment when
colonel Murray, invested with full powers, was engaged in daily
conferences with general Kellerman, and the difficulty of coming to
a conclusion was much increased by the natural sources of suspicion
and jealousy incident to such a singular transaction, where two
foreign nations were seen bargaining, and one of them honestly
bargaining, for the goods and interests of a third, yet scarcely
hinting even at the existence of the latter. The French were the
weakest party, and having of course the most to dread, put forward
claims which they knew could not be complied with, in order to
preserve the vital questions untouched. On the other hand, the
Portuguese leaders being relieved from all fear of a signal defeat,
were loudly remonstrating against the terms of the convention,
and taking advantage of the opportunity to attack some patroles
of the French, passed the bounds of demarcation, and threatened
the line of the Tagus by Santarem. This movement, and the breach
of faith in attacking the patroles, were promptly and distinctly
disavowed by sir Hew; but they kept suspicion awake, and the mutual
misunderstandings arose at last to such a height, that Junot,
seeming for a moment to recover all his natural energy, threatened
to burn the public establishments, and to make his retreat good
at the expense of the city; a menace which nothing could have
prevented him from executing. Finally, however, a definitive treaty
was concluded at Lisbon on the 30th, and soon afterwards ratified
in form.
[Sidenote: Vide Appendix, No. 10.]
This celebrated convention, improperly called “of Cintra,”
consisted of twenty-two original, and three supplementary articles,
upon the expediency of many of which, sir Arthur Wellesley and
the commander-in-chief disagreed; but as their disagreement had
reference to the details and not to the general principle, the
historical importance is not sufficient to call for remark.
An informality on the part of Junot caused some delay in the
ratification of the instrument; but the British army marched
notwithstanding to take up the position near Lisbon, assigned to
it by the 11th article of the treaty.
On the march, sir Hew Dalrymple met two Russian officers, who were
charged to open a separate negotiation for the Russian squadron.
The British general refused to receive their credentials, and
referred them to sir Charles Cotton. Baffled in this attempt to
carry on a double treaty (for a naval one was already commenced),
Siniavin, whose conduct appears to have been weak, was forced to
come to a conclusion with the English admiral. At first he claimed
the protection of a neutral port; but singly he possessed none of
that weight which circumstances had given him before the convention
with Junot, and his claim was answered by an intimation, that a
British flag was flying on the forts at the mouth of the Tagus; and
this was true, for the third and forty-second regiments, under the
command of major-general Beresford, had landed and taken possession
of them, in virtue of the convention, and the British colours were
hoisted instead of the Portuguese. Foiled by this proceeding, the
justice of which is somewhat doubtful, Siniavin finally agreed to
surrender, upon the following terms:
1º. The Russian ships, with their sails, stores, &c. to be held by
England, as a deposit, until six months after the conclusion of a
peace between the two governments of the contracting parties.
2º. The admiral, officers, and seamen, without any restriction
as to their future services, to be transported to Russia, at the
expense of the British government.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1809.]
Two additional articles were, subsequently to the ratification of
the original treaty, proposed by the Russians, and assented to by
the English admiral. The first stipulated that the imperial flag
should be displayed, even in the British harbours, as long as
the Russian admiral remained on board. The second provided that
the ships themselves and their stores should be delivered again
at the appointed time, in the same state as when surrendered. The
rights of the Portuguese were not referred to; but sir Charles
Cotton individually was justified by his instructions in this
breach of neutrality, for by them he was authorised to make prize
of the Russian fleet, which thus suffered all the inconvenience of
hostilities, and its commander the shame of striking his colours
without having violated in any manner the relations of amity in
which his nation stood with regard to the Portuguese. On the
other hand, for the sake of a few old and decaying ships, the
British government made an injudicious display of contempt for
the independence of their ally, as, with singular inconsistency,
they permitted the officers and crews, the real strength of the
squadron, to return to the Baltic, although scarcely a year had
elapsed since the national character was defiled to extinguish in
that quarter the existence of a navy inimical to Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Par^y. Pap^s. 1809. Admiralty Instructions to sir C.
Cotton, 16th April, 1808.]
[Sidenote: Ibid. Mr. Well^y. Pole to sir C. Cotton, 17th Sept.
1808.]
This inconsistency belonged wholly to the ministers; for the two
original articles of the treaty only were confirmed by them, and
they were copied verbatim from the Admiralty instructions delivered
to sir Charles Cotton four months previous to the transaction. Yet
that officer, by the very men who had framed those instructions,
was, with matchless inconsistency, rebuked, for having adopted a
new principle of maritime surrender!
The 2d of September head-quarters were established at Oyeras. The
right of the army occupied the forts at the mouth of the river, the
left rested upon the heights of Bellas.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The French army being concentrated in Lisbon, posted their piquets
and guards as if in front of an enemy, and at night the sentries
fired upon whoever approached their posts; the police disbanded
of their own accord, and the city became a scene of turbulence,
anarchy, and crime. Notwithstanding the presence of their enemies,
the inhabitants of the capital testified their joy, and evinced
their vengeful feelings in a remarkable manner; they refused to
sell any provisions, or to deal in any manner with the French,
they sung songs of triumph in their hearing, and in their sight
fabricated thousands of small lamps for the avowed purpose of
illuminating the streets at their departure. The doors of many
of the houses occupied by the troops were marked in one night;
men were observed bearing in their hats lists of Portuguese or
Frenchmen designed for slaughter, and the quarters of Loison were
threatened with a serious attack. Yet amidst all this disorder
and violence, general Travot, and some others of the French army,
fearlessly and safely traversed the streets, unguarded save by
the reputation of their just and liberal conduct when in power; a
fact extremely honourable to the Portuguese, and conclusive of the
misconduct of Loison. Junot himself was menaced by an assassin, but
he treated the affair with magnanimity, and, in general, he was
respected, although in a far less degree than Travot. The dread of
an explosion, which would have compromised at once the safety of
the French army and of the city, induced Junot to hasten the period
when an English division was to occupy the citadel and take charge
of the public tranquillity.
Emissaries from the junta of Oporto fomented the disposition of
the populace to commit themselves by an attack upon the French;
the convention was reprobated, and endeavours were fruitlessly
made to turn the tide of indignation even against the English, as
abettors of the invaders. The judge of the people, an energetic,
but turbulent fellow, issued an inflammatory address calling for
a suspension of the treaty, and designating the French as robbers
and as insulters of religion. The Monteiro Mor, who commanded a
rabble of peasantry which he dignified with the title of an army,
had taken possession of the south bank of the Tagus, and from his
quarters issued a protest against the convention, the execution
of which he had the audacity to call upon sir Charles Cotton to
interrupt. The latter sent his communications to sir Hew Dalrymple,
who treated them with the contemptuous indignation they merited.
Sir John Hope being appointed the English commandant of Lisbon,
took possession of the castle of Belem on the 10th, and of the
citadel on the 12th, and, by his firm and vigorous conduct, soon
reduced the effervescence of the public mind, and repressed the
disorders which had arisen to a height that gave opportunity for
the commission of any villany. The duke of Abrantes, with his
staff, embarked the 13th. The first division of his army sailed the
15th, it was followed by the second and third divisions, and on the
30th all the French, except the garrisons of Elvas and Almeida,
were out of Portugal.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Narrative. Court of Inquiry.]
The execution of the convention had not been carried on thus far
without much trouble and contestation. Lord Proby, the English
commissioner appointed to carry the articles of the treaty into
effect, was joined by major-general Beresford on the 5th, and their
united labours were scarcely sufficient to meet the exigencies
of a task in the prosecution of which disputes hourly arose.
Anger, the cupidity of individuals, and opportunity, combined
to push the French beyond the bounds of honour and decency, and
several gross attempts were made to appropriate property which
no interpretation of the stipulations could give a colour to;
amongst the most odious were the abstraction of manuscripts and
rare specimens of natural history from the national museum, and the
invasion of the deposito publico, or funds of money awaiting legal
decision for their final appropriation. Those dishonest attempts
were met and checked with a strong hand, and at last a committee,
consisting of an individual of each of the three nations, was
appointed by the commissioners on both sides. Their office was to
receive reclamations, to investigate them, and to do justice by
seizing upon all contraband baggage embarked by the French. This
measure was attended with excellent effect. It must, however, be
observed, that the loud complaints and violence of the Portuguese,
and the machinations of the bishop of Oporto, seem to have excited
the suspicions of the British, and influenced their actions more
than the real facts warranted; for the national character of the
Portuguese was not then understood, nor the extent to which they
supplied the place of true reports, by the fabrication of false
ones, generally known. Writers have not been wanting to exaggerate
the grounds of complaint. The English have imputed fraud, and
evasions of the most dishonourable kind to the French, and the
latter have retorted by accusations of gratuitous insult and breach
of faith, asserting that their soldiers when on board the British
ships were treated with cruelty in order to induce them to desert.
It would be too much to affirm that all the error was on one side,
but it does appear reasonable and consonant to justice to decide,
that as the French were originally aggressors and acting for
their own interest, and that the British were interfering for the
protection of the Portuguese, any indecorous zeal upon the part
of the latter, if not commendable, was certainly more excusable
than in their opponents. Upon the ground of its being evidently
impossible for him to know what was doing in his name, the British
commissioners acquitted Junot of any personal impropriety of
conduct, and his public orders, which denounced severe punishments
for such malpractices, corroborated this testimony; yet Kellerman,
in his communications with sir Hew Dalrymple, did not scruple to
insinuate matter to the duke’s disadvantage. But, amidst all these
conflicting accusations, the British commander’s personal good
faith and scrupulous adherence to justice has never been called in
question.
To define the exact extent to which each party should have pushed
their claims is not an easy task; but an impartial investigator
would begin by carefully separating the original rights of the
French from those rights which they acquired by the convention.
Much of the subsequent clamour in England against the authors
of that treaty sprung from the error of confounding these
essentially distinct grounds of argument. Conquest being the sole
foundation of the first, defeat, if complete, extinguished them,
if incomplete, nullified a part only. Now the issue of the appeal
to arms not having been answerable to the justice of the cause,
an agreement ensued, by which a part was sacrificed for the sake
of the remainder, and upon the terms of that agreement the whole
question of right hinges. If the French were not prisoners of war,
it follows that they had not forfeited their claims founded on the
right of conquest, but they were willing to exchange an insecure
tenure of the whole for a secure tenure of a part. The difficulty
consisted in defining exactly what was conceded, and what should be
recovered from them. With respect to the latter, the restitution
of plunder acquired anterior to the convention was clearly out
of the question: if officially made, it was part of the rights
bargained for, and if individually, to what tribunal could the
innumerable claims which would follow such an article be referred?
Abstract notions of right in such matters are misplaced. If an army
surrenders at discretion, the victors may say with Brennus, “Woe to
the vanquished;” but a convention implies some weakness, and must
be weighed in the scales of prudence, not in those of justice.
CHAPTER VI.
The interview that took place at Vimiero between don Bernardim
Freire d’Andrada and sir Hew Dalrymple has been already noticed as
the commencement of an intrigue of some consequence. The Portuguese
general objected at the time to the armistice just concluded
with Kellerman, ostensibly upon general grounds, but really, as
it appeared, to sir Hew, because the bishop and junta of Oporto
were not named in the instrument. At the desire of Freire, one
Ayres Pinto de Souza was received at the English head-quarters
as the protector of Portuguese interests during the subsequent
negotiation. He was soon apprised that a treaty for a definitive
convention was on foot, and both himself and his general were
invited to state their views and wishes before any further steps
were taken. Neither of them took any notice of this invitation, but
when the treaty was concluded clamoured loudly against it.
The British army was, they said, an auxiliary force, and should
only act as such; nevertheless it had assumed the right of treating
with the French for Portuguese interests. A convention had been
concluded which protected the enemy from the punishment due to
his rapine and cruelty. It was more favourable than the strength
of the relative parties warranted; no notice had been taken of
the Portuguese government, or of the native army in the Alemtejo.
Men who were obnoxious to their countrymen for having aided the
invaders were protected from a just vengeance, and finally the
fortresses were bargained for, as acquisitions appertaining to
the British army; a circumstance which must inevitably excite
great jealousy both in Portugal and Spain, and injure the general
cause, by affording an opportunity for the French emissaries to
create disunion among the allied nations. They dwelt upon the
importance of the native forces, the strength of the insurrection,
and insinuated that separate operations were likely to be carried
on notwithstanding the treaty. Noble words often cover pitiful
deeds: this remonstrance, apparently springing from the feelings of
a patriot whose heart was ulcerated by the wrongs his country had
sustained, was but a cloak for a miserable interested intrigue.
The bishop of Oporto, a meddling ambitious priest, had early
conceived the project of placing himself at the head of the
insurrectional authorities, and transferring the seat of government
from Lisbon to Oporto. He was aware that he should encounter great
opposition, and he hoped that by inveigling the English general to
countenance these pretensions, he might, with the aid of Freire’s
force and his own influence, succeed in the object of his wishes.
With this view he wrote a letter to sir Charles Cotton, dated the
4th of August, in which was enclosed (as the letter describes it)
“The form of government with which they (the junta of Oporto)
meant to govern Portugal when the city of Lisbon should be free
from the French.” This letter, together with its enclosure, being
transmitted to sir Arthur Wellesley, he placed them among other
public documents in the hands of sir Hew Dalrymple when the latter
first landed at Maceira. In the document itself it was declared
that “The body of government had taken the glorious resolution
of restoring the Portuguese monarchy in all its extent, and of
restoring the crown of Portugal to its lawful sovereign, don
Juan VI., their prince, who was actually living in his estates
of Brazil;” but this “glorious resolution” was burthened with
many forms and restrictions; and although the junta professed the
intention of restoring a regency, they provided, “that if this new
regency should be interrupted by a new invasion of the French,
(which God forbid!) or by _any other thing_, this government
will immediately take the government on themselves, and exercise
the authority and jurisdiction which it has done ever since its
institution.”
Thus prepared for some cabal, sir Hew Dalrymple was at no loss
for an answer to Freire’s remonstrance. He observed, that if the
government of Portugal had not been mentioned in the treaty,
neither had that of England nor that of France. The convention was
purely military, and for the present concerned only the commanders
in the field. With regard to the occupation of the fortresses, and
the fact of the British army being an auxiliary force, the first
was merely a measure of military precaution absolutely necessary,
and the latter was in no way rendered doubtful by any act which
had been committed; he sir Hew was instructed by his government to
assist in restoring the prince regent of Portugal to his lawful
rights, without any secret or interested motives; finally, the
Portuguese general had been invited to assist in the negotiations,
and if he had not done so, the blame rested with himself. And to
this sir Hew might have justly added, that the conduct of Freire in
withdrawing his troops at the most critical moment of the campaign,
by no means entitled him to assume a high tone towards those whom
he had so disgracefully deserted in the hour of danger.
The Portuguese general was silenced by this plain and decided
answer; but the English general was quickly convinced that the
bishop and his coadjutors, however incapable of conducting great
affairs, were experienced plotters. In his first interview with
Andrada, sir Hew Dalrymple had taken occasion to observe, that
“no government lawfully representing the prince regent actually
existed in Portugal.” In fact, a junta, calling itself independent,
was likewise established in Algarvé, and the members of the
regency legally invested by the prince with supreme authority
were dispersed, and part of them in the power of the French. This
observation, so adverse to the prelate’s views, was transmitted to
him by Freire, together with a copy of the armistice. The junta
were well aware that a definite convention, differing materially
from the armistice, was upon the point of being concluded, and that
the refusal of sir Charles Cotton to concur in the latter, had
rendered it null and void; but preserving silence on that point,
the bishop forwarded the copy of the armistice to the chevalier
Da Souza, Portuguese minister in London, accompanied by a letter
filled with invectives and misrepresentations of its provisions.
The chevalier placed this letter with its inclosures, in the hands
of Mr. Canning the English secretary of state for foreign affairs,
and at the same time delivered to him an official note in which,
adopting the style of the prelate and junta, he spoke of them as
the representatives of his sovereign, and the possessors of the
supreme power in Portugal.
But the efforts of the party were not confined to formal
communications with the ministers; the daily press teemed with
invectives against the English general’s conduct, and ex-parte
statements, founded on the provisions of an armistice that was
never concluded, being thus palmed upon the public, (always hasty
in judging of such matters), a prejudice against the convention
was raised before either the terms of, or the events which led to
it, were known. For, sir Hew, forgetting the ordinary forms of
official intercourse, neglected to transmit information to his
government until fifteen days after the commencement of the treaty,
and the ministers, unable to contradict or explain any of Souza’s
assertions, were placed in a mortifying situation, by which their
minds were irritated and disposed to take a prejudiced view of the
real treaty. Meanwhile the bishop pretended to know nothing of the
convention, hence the silence of Freire during the negotiations;
but those once concluded, a clamour was, by the party, raised
in Portugal, similar to that which they had already excited in
England; and thus both nations appeared to be equally indignant at
the conduct of the general, when, in fact, his proceedings were
unknown to either.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 11.]
It would appear that the bishop had other than Portuguese
coadjutors. The baron Von Decken, a Hanoverian officer, was
appointed one of the military agents at Oporto: he was subject to
sir Hew Dalrymple’s orders, but as his mission was of a detached
nature, he was also to communicate directly with the secretary
of state in England. Von Decken arrived at Oporto upon the 17th
August, and the same evening, in concert with the bishop, concocted
a project admirably adapted to forward the views of the latter;
they agreed that the prelate was the fittest person to be at the
head of the government, and that as he could not, or pretended
that he could not, quit Oporto, the seat of government ought to be
transferred to that city. But two obstacles to this arrangement
were foreseen; first, the prince regent at his departure had
nominated a regency, and left full instructions for the filling
up of vacancies arising from death or other causes; secondly, the
people of Lisbon and of the southern provinces would certainly
resist any plan for changing the seat of government. To obviate
these difficulties, Von Decken wrote largely in commendation of
the proposed arrangement, vilifying the conduct of the regency,
and urging sir Hew not only to give his sanction to the ambitious
project, but to employ the British troops in controlling the
people of Lisbon should they attempt to frustrate the bishop’s
plans. To conciliate the members of the regency, it was proposed
to admit a portion of them into the new government, and Francisco
Noronha, Francisco da Cunha, the Monteiro Mor, and the principal
Castro, were named as being the only men who were faithful to
their sovereign. Now the last had accepted the office of ministre
des cultes under the French, and was consequently unfaithful; but
he was the brother of the bishop, Castro being legitimately born.
Under the pretext of sparing the feelings of the people of Lisbon,
it was further proposed to appoint a Portuguese commandant, subject
to the British governor, but with a native force under his orders,
to conduct all matters of police; and the bishop took the occasion
to recommend a particular general for that office. Finally, civil
dissension and all its attendant evils were foretold as the
consequences of rejecting this plan.
Sir Hew Dalrymple’s answer was peremptory and decisive. He
reprimanded general Von Decken, and at once put an end to the
bishop’s hopes of support from the English army.
This second offence, for sir Hew’s answer did not reach Oporto
until after Freire’s report had arrived there, completed the
mortification of the bishop and the junta; they set no bounds to
their violence. Efforts were made to stimulate the populace of
Lisbon to attack not only the French but the English, in the hope
that the terrible scene which must have ensued would effectually
prevent the re-establishment of the old regency, and at the same
time render the transfer of the seat of government to Oporto an
easy task. Hence the outrageous conduct of the Monteiro Mor and
of the judge of the people, and the former’s insolent letter
calling upon sir Charles Cotton to interrupt the execution of the
convention.
The 3d of September, sir Hew Dalrymple received instructions
from home relative to the formation of a new regency, which were
completely at variance with the plan arranged between the bishop
and general Von Decken, yet no difficulty attended the execution.
Here, as in the case of prince Leopold, we are arrested by the
singularity of the transaction. Is it likely that general Von
Decken should plunge into such a delicate and important affair in
one hour after his arrival at Oporto, if he had not been secretly
authorised by some member of the English cabinet; and are we to
seek for a clue to these mysteries in that shameful Machiavelian
policy that soon afterwards forced lord Castlereagh to defend his
public measures by a duel?
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 23.]
The usual fate of plans laid by men more cunning than wise,
attended the bishop of Oporto’s projects; he was successful for
a moment in rendering the convention of Cintra odious to the
Portuguese, but the great mass of the people soon acknowledged
with gratitude the services rendered them by the English, and
rejoiced at the fulfilment of a treaty that freed their country
at once from the invaders; and well might they rejoice when they
beheld above twenty-five thousand bold and skilful soldiers
reluctantly quitting the strong holds of the kingdom, and to the
last maintaining the haughty air of an army unsubdued, and capable
on the slightest provocation of resorting once more to the decision
of battle.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 12.]
The Portuguese people were contented; but the Spanish general
Galluzzo appears to have favoured the views of the Oporto faction.
Detachments of his troops, and Portuguese refugees (principally
from the northern provinces), commanded by a Spaniard, were acting
in conjunction with the insurgents of the Alemtejo. Many disputes
arose between the two nations, as I have already related, and the
Spaniards treated Portugal as a conquered country, they denied
the authority of the Portuguese general Leite, who was not of the
bishop’s party; they insulted him personally, seized his military
chest at Campo Mayor, and in all things acted with the utmost
violence and rapacity. Galluzzo himself was required by his own
government to join the Spanish armies concentrating on the Ebro;
but instead of obeying, he collected his forces near Elvas, and
when he heard of the convention concluded at Lisbon, invested Fort
Lalippe, and refused to permit the execution of the treaty relative
to that impregnable fortress. Colonel Girod de Novillard commanded
the French garrison, and profiting from its situation, had
compelled the inhabitants of Elvas to shut their gates against the
Spaniards, and to supply the fort daily with provisions. Galluzzo’s
proceedings were also manifestly absurd in a military point of
view; his attacks were confined to a trifling bombardment of
Lalippe from an immense distance, and the utmost damage sustained,
or likely to be sustained by that fortress, was the knocking away
the cornices and chimneys of the governor’s house, every other part
being protected by bomb proofs of the finest masonry.
Through lord Burghersh, who had been appointed to communicate with
the Spanish troops in Portugal, Galluzzo was early in September
officially informed of the articles of the convention, and also
that the troops of his nation confined on board the hulks at
Lisbon, were by that treaty released, and would be clothed and
armed and sent to Catalonia. Upon the 5th of September, sir Hew
Dalrymple wrote to the Spaniard, repeating the substance of the
first communication, and requesting that his detachments might be
withdrawn from the Alemtejo where they were living at the expense
of the people. Galluzzo took no notice of either communication;
he pretended that he had opened his fire against Lalippe before
the date of the convention; that no third party had a right to
interfere, and that he would grant no terms to the garrison, nor
permit any but Portuguese to enter the fort. At this very moment
the Spanish armies on the Ebro were languishing for cavalry, which
he alone possessed; and his efforts were so despised by Girod that
the latter made no secret of his intention, (if the fate of the
French army at Lisbon should render such a step advisable), to blow
up the works, and march openly through the midst of Galluzzo’s
troops.
Colonel Ross, with the 20th regiment, being appointed by sir Hew to
receive the fort from colonel Girod, and to escort the garrison to
Lisbon under the terms of the convention, sent a flag of truce to
the French. Major Colborne, who carried it, was furnished with an
autograph letter from Kellerman, and was received by Girod with
civility; but the latter refused to surrender his post without more
complete proof of the authenticity of the treaty; and with the
view of acquiring that, he proposed that a French officer should
proceed to Lisbon to verify the information; not that he affected
to doubt the truth of Colborne’s information, but that he would not
surrender his charge while the slightest doubt, capable of being
removed, was attached to the transaction; and so acting he did
well, and like a good soldier.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 12.]
General Dearey, who commanded the investing force, was persuaded
to grant a truce for six days, to give time for the journey of the
officers appointed to go to Lisbon; but on their return it was
not without great difficulty and delay that they were permitted
to communicate with colonel Girod, and no argument could prevail
upon the obstinate Galluzzo to relinquish the siege. After a warm
intercourse of letters, sir Hew Dalrymple was forced to order
sir John Hope to advance to Estremos with a considerable body of
troops, for the purpose of giving weight to his remonstrances, or,
if pushed to extremity, of forcing the Spaniard to desist from
his unwarrantable pretensions. It must be observed that Galluzzo
was not only putting aside the convention by which he profited
himself, but also violating the independence of the Portuguese
who desired his absence from their territory; and he was likewise
setting at naught the authority of his own government, for the
army of Estremadura pretended to act under the orders of the junta
of Seville: and Laguna, an accredited agent of that junta, was at
this moment receiving from sir Hew Dalrymple the Spanish prisoners
liberated by the effect of the convention, together with money,
arms, &c., to prepare them for immediate service in Catalonia,
whither they were also to be transported in British vessels. One
more effort was however made to persuade this intractable man to
submit to reason, before recourse was had to violent measures which
must have produced infinite evil. Colonel Graham repaired upon
the 25th of September to Badajos, and his arguments being backed
up by the near approach of the powerful division under Hope, were
successful, and this troublesome affair ended in an amicable manner.
[Sidenote: Appendix to col. De Bosset’s Parga, p. 134.]
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
Colonel Girod evacuated the forts, and his garrison proceeded to
Lisbon, attended by the 52d regiment as an escort. The rival troops
agreed very well together, striving to out-do each other by the
vigour and the military order of their marches; but the Swiss and
French soldiers did not accord, and many of the latter wished to
desert. At Lisbon the whole were immediately embarked; but the
transports being detained for some time in the river, major de
Bosset, an officer of the Chasseurs Britanniques, contrived to
persuade near a thousand of the men to desert, who were afterwards
received into the British service. Girod de Novillard complained of
this as a breach of the convention, and it must be confessed that
it was an equivocal act, yet one common to all armies, and if done
simply by persuasion, very excusable.
The garrison of Almeida surrendered that fortress without any
delay, and being marched to Oporto, were proceeding to embark, when
the populace rose and would have slain them if great exertions had
not been made by the British officers to prevent such a disgraceful
breach of faith. The escort was weak, but resolute to sustain
the honour of their nation, by firing upon the multitude if the
circumstances became desperate. Nevertheless several of the French
soldiers were assassinated, and in spite of every effort the
baggage was landed, and the whole plundered; the excuse being that
church plate was to be found amongst it, an accusation easily made,
difficult to be disproved to the satisfaction of a violent mob, and
likely enough to be true.
This tumult gives scope for reflection upon the facility with which
men adapt themselves to circumstances, and regulate their most
furious passions, by the scale of self-interest. In Oporto, the
suffering, in consequence of the invasion, was trifling compared
to the misery endured in Lisbon; yet the inhabitants of the former
were much more outrageous in their anger. In Lisbon, the very
persons who had inflicted the worst evils upon the people were
daily exposed, more or less, to violence, yet suffered none; while
in Oporto it was with extreme difficulty that men, until that
moment unseen of the multitude, were rescued from their frantic
revenge. In both cases fear regulated the degree of hatred shown,
and we may conclude from hence, that national insurrections however
spontaneous and vehement, if the result of hatred only, will never
successfully resist an organized force, unless the mechanical
courage of discipline be grafted upon the first enthusiasm.
While the vexatious correspondence with Galluzzo was going on, sir
Hew Dalrymple renewed his intercourse with Castaños, and prepared
to prosecute the war in Spain. The Spanish prisoners, about four
thousand in number, were sent to Catalonia; and the British
army was cantoned principally in the Alemtejo along the road to
Badajos, but some officers were despatched to examine the roads
through Beira with a view to a movement on that line; and general
Anstruther was directed to repair to the fortress of Almeida, for
the purpose of regulating every thing which might concern the
passage of the army, if it should be found necessary to enter Spain
by that route. Lord William Bentinck was also despatched to Madrid,
having instructions to communicate with the Spanish generals and
with the central junta, and to arrange with them the best line of
march, the mode of providing magazines, and the plan of campaign.
But in the midst of these affairs, and before the garrison of Elvas
arrived at Lisbon, sir Hew Dalrymple was called home to answer for
his conduct relative to the convention. The command then devolved
upon sir Harry Burrard, but after holding it for a few days he
also returned to England, there to abide the fury of the most
outrageous and disgraceful public clamour that was ever excited by
the falsehoods of base and venal political writers.
The editors of the daily press adopting all the misrepresentations
of the Portuguese minister, and concluding that the silence of
government was the consequence of its dissatisfaction at the
convention, broke forth with such a torrent of rabid malevolence,
that all feelings of right and justice were overborne, and the
voice of truth stifled by their obstreperous cry. Many of the
public papers were printed with mourning lines around the text
which related to Portuguese affairs; all called for punishment, and
some even talked of death to the guilty, before it was possible to
know if any crime had been committed; the infamy of the convention
was the universal subject of conversation, a general madness seemed
to have seized all classes, and, like the Athenians after the sea
fight of Arginusæ, the English people if their laws would have
permitted the exploit, were ready to condemn their generals to
death for having gained a victory!
A court of inquiry was assembled at Chelsea to inquire into the
transactions relating to the armistice and the definite convention.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, sir Harry Burrard, sir Hew Dalrymple, and
the principal generals engaged at Vimiero, were called before it.
A minute investigation of all the circumstances took place, and
a detailed report was made by the board; at the end of which, it
was stated that no further judicial measures seemed to be called
for. This report was not satisfactory to the government, and the
members of the court were required to state individually whether
they approved or disapproved of the armistice and convention.
It then appeared that four approved, and three disapproved, of
the convention. Among the latter the earl of Moira distinguished
himself by a laboured criticism, which, however, left the pith of
the question entirely untouched. The proceedings of the board were
dispassionate and impartial but the report was not luminous; a
circumstance to be regretted, because the rank and reputation of
the members were sufficiently great to secure them from the revenge
of party, and no set of men were ever more favourably placed for
giving a severe and just rebuke to popular injustice.
Thus ended the last act of the celebrated convention of Cintra, the
very name of which will always be a signal record of the ignorant
and ridiculous vehemence of the public feeling; for the armistice,
the negotiations, the convention itself, and the execution of its
provisions, were all commenced, conducted, and concluded, at the
distance of thirty miles from Cintra, with which place they had
not the slightest connexion, political, military, or local[14]!
OBSERVATIONS.
RORIÇA.
1º. General Thiebault says, that the scattered state of the French
army, in the beginning of August, rendered its situation desperate;
but that the slowness of sir Arthur Wellesley saved it. Others
again have accused the latter of rashness and temerity. Neither of
these censures appear to be well founded. It is true that Junot’s
army was disseminated; but to beat an army in detail, a general
must be perfectly acquainted with the country he is to act in, well
informed of his adversary’s movements, and rapid in his own. Now
rapidity in war depends as much upon the experience of the troops
as upon the energy of the chief; and the English army was raw, the
staff and commissariat mere novices, the artillery scantily and
badly horsed, few baggage or draft animals were to be obtained
in the country, and there were only a hundred and eighty cavalry
mounted. Such impediments are not to be removed in a moment, and
therein lies the difference betwixt theory and practice, between
criticism and execution.
2º. To disembark the army without waiting for the reinforcements
was a bold but not a rash measure. Sir Arthur Wellesley knew that
the French troops were very much scattered, although he was not
aware of the exact situation of each division, and from the bishop
of Oporto’s promises, he had reason to expect good assistance from
the Portuguese, who would have been discouraged if he had not
landed at once. Weighing these circumstances he was justified
in disembarking his troops, and the event proved that he was
right, for he had full time to prepare his army, his marches were
methodical, and he was superior in numbers to his enemy in each
battle. His plans were characterized by a due mixture of enterprise
and caution well adapted to his own force, and yet capable of being
enlarged without inconvenience when the reinforcement should arrive.
3º. In the action of Roriça there was a great deal to admire, and
some grounds for animadversion. The movement against Laborde’s
first position was well conceived and executed; but the subsequent
attack against the heights of Zambugeira was undoubtedly faulty.
The march of Ferguson’s and Trant’s divisions would have dislodged
Laborde from that strong ridge without any attack on the front. It
is said that such was sir Arthur’s project; but that some mistake
in the orders caused general Ferguson to alter the direction of
his march from the flank to the centre; this if true, does not
excuse the error; because the commander-in-chief being present at
the attack in front, might have restrained it until Ferguson had
recovered the right direction. It is more probable that sir Arthur
did not expect any very vigorous resistance, and wishing to press
the French in their retreat pushed on the action too fast, and
Laborde, who was unquestionably no ordinary general, made the most
of both time and circumstances.
4º. Towards the close of the day when the French had decidedly
taken to the mountains, the line of Loison’s march was in the power
of the English general. If he had sent two thousand men in pursuit
of Laborde, left one thousand to protect the field of battle, and
with the remaining ten thousand marched against Loison, whose
advanced guard could not have been far off; it is probable that the
latter would have been surprised and totally defeated, and at all
events he could only have saved himself by a hasty retreat, which
would have broken Junot’s combinations and scattered his army in
all directions.
5º. Sir Arthur Wellesley marched to Lourinham to cover the
immediate disembarkation of his reinforcements and stores, and
this was prudent, because a south-west wind would in one night
have sent half the fleet on shore in a surf unequalled for fury;
and such was the difficulty of a disembarkation, that a detachment
from the garrison of Peniché would have sufficed to frustrate it.
The existence of a French reserve estimated by report at four
thousand men, was known; but its situation was unknown, and it
might have been on the coast line; hence great danger to Anstruther
if he attempted a landing without being covered, greater still if
he remained at sea. The reasons then for the march to Lourinham
were cogent, and perhaps outweighed the advantages of attacking
Loison; but it seems to have been an error not to have occupied
Torres Vedras on the 18th; as the disembarkation of Anstruther’s
force would have been equally secured, while the junction of the
French army, and the consequent battle of Vimiero would have been
prevented.
6º. It is an agreeable task to render a just tribute of applause to
the conduct of a gallant although unsuccessful enemy; and there is
no danger of incurring the imputation of ostentatious liberality in
asserting that Laborde’s operations were exquisite specimens of the
art of war. The free and confident manner in which he felt for his
enemy, the occupation of Brilos, Obidos, and Roriça in succession,
by which he delayed the final moment of battle, and gained time
for Loison; the judgment and nice calculation with which he
maintained the position of Roriça, and the obstinacy with which he
defended the heights of Zambugeira, were all proofs of a consummate
knowledge of war and a facility of command rarely attained.
[Sidenote: Sir A. Wellesley’s evidence. Court of Inquiry.]
7º. Sir Arthur Wellesley estimated Laborde’s numbers at six
thousand men, and his estimation was corroborated by the
information gained from a wounded French officer during the action.
It is possible that at Alcobaça they might have been so many, but
I have thought it safer to rate them at five thousand, for the
following reasons: first, it is at all times very difficult to
judge of an enemy’s force by the eye, and it is nearly impossible
to do so correctly when he is skilfully posted, and as in the
present case, desirous of appearing stronger than he really was;
secondly, the six hundred men sent on the 14th to Peniché, and
three companies employed on the 16th and 17th to keep open the
communication with Loison by Bombaral, Cadaval, and Segura must
be deducted; thirdly, Laborde himself after the convention,
positively denied that he had so many as six thousand. General
Thiebault indeed says, that only one thousand nine hundred were
present under arms; but this assertion is certainly inaccurate, and
very injurious to the credit of general Laborde, because it casts
ridicule upon a really glorious deed of arms. It is surprising that
a well-informed and able writer should disfigure an excellent work
by such trifling.
VIMIERO.
1º. The battle of Vimiero was merely a short combat, but it led
to important results because Junot was unable to comprehend the
advantages of his situation. Profitable lessons may however be
drawn from every occurrence in war, and Vimiero is not deficient in
good subjects for military speculation.
2º. To many officers the position of the British appeared weak from
its extent, and dangerous from its proximity to the sea, into which
the army must have been driven if defeated. The last objection is
well founded, and suggests the reflection that it is unsafe to
neglect the principles of the art even for a moment. The ground
having been occupied merely as a temporary post, without any view
to fighting a battle, the line of retreat by Lourinham was for
the sake of a trifling convenience left uncovered a few hours.
The accidental arrival of sir Harry Burrard arrested the advanced
movement projected by sir Arthur Wellesley for the 21st, and in the
mean time Junot took the lead, and had he been successful upon the
left, there would have been no retreat for the British army.
3º. The extent of the position at Vimiero, although considerable
to a small army, was no cause of weakness, because the line of
communication from the right to the left was much shorter and much
easier for the British defence than it was for the French attack,
and the centre was very strong and perfectly covered the movement
of the right wing. Sir Arthur, when he placed the bulk of the
combatants in that quarter, did all that was possible to remedy the
only real defect in his position, that of having no line of retreat.
4º. The project of seizing Torres Vedras and Mafra at the close
of the battle, was one of those prompt daring conceptions that
distinguish great generals, and it is absurd to blame sir Harry
Burrard for not adopting it. Men are not gifted alike, and even
if the latter had not been confirmed in his view of the matter
by the advice of his staff, there was in the actual situation
of affairs ample scope for doubt; the facility of executing sir
Arthur’s plan was not so apparent on the field of battle as it
may be in the closet. The French cavalry was numerous, unharmed,
and full of spirit. Upon the distant heights behind Junot’s army,
a fresh body of infantry had been discovered by general Spencer,
and the nature of the country prevented any accurate judgment of
its strength being formed. The gun carriages of the British army
were very much shaken, and they were so badly and so scantily
horsed, that doubts were entertained if they could keep up with the
infantry in a long march. The commissariat was in great confusion,
and the natives, as we have seen, were flying with the country
transport. The Portuguese troops gave no promise of utility, and
the English cavalry was destroyed. To overcome obstacles in the
pursuit of a great object is the proof of a lofty genius; but
the single fact that a man of sir George Murray’s acknowledged
abilities was opposed to the attempt, at once exonerates sir Harry
Burrard’s conduct from censure, and places the vigour of sir Arthur
Wellesley’s in the strongest light. It was doubtless ill-judged
of the former (aware as he was of the ephemeral nature of his
command) to interfere at all with the dispositions of a general who
was in the full career of victory, and whose superior talents and
experience were well known; but it excites indignation to find a
brave and honourable veteran borne to the earth as a criminal, and
assailed by the most puerile shallow writers, merely because his
mind was not of the highest class. Sir Arthur Wellesley himself was
the first to declare before the court of inquiry that sir Harry
Burrard had decided upon fair military reasons.
GENERAL PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.
1º. Although double lines of operation are generally
disadvantageous and opposed to sound principles, the expediency
of landing sir John Moore’s troops at the mouth of the Mondego,
and pushing them forward to Santarem, was unquestionable, and
unless the probable consequences of such a movement are taken into
consideration, sir Arthur Wellesley’s foresight cannot be justly
appreciated.
Lisbon, situated near the end of the tongue of land lying between
the sea-coast and the Tagus, is defended to the northward by vast
mountains, that rising in successive and nearly parallel ranges,
end abruptly in a line extending from Torres Vedras to Alhandra on
the Tagus. As these ridges can only be passed at certain points
by an army, the intersections of the different roads form so many
strong positions.
The great mass of the Monte Junto appears to lead perpendicularly
on to the centre of the first ridge; but stopping short at a
few miles distance, sends a rugged shoot called the Sierra de
Barragueda in a slanting direction towards Torres Vedras, from
which it is only divided by a deep defile.
From this conformation it results, that an army marching from the
Mondego to Lisbon, must either pass behind the Monte Junto, and
follow the line of the Tagus, or keeping the western side of that
mountain, come upon the position of Torres Vedras.
If sir Arthur Wellesley had adopted the first line of operations,
his subsistence must have been drawn by convoys from the Mondego,
the enemy’s numerous cavalry would have cut his communications,
and in that state he would have had to retreat, or to force the
positions of Alhandra, Alverca, and finally the heights of Bellas,
a strong position the right flank of which was covered by the
creek of Saccavem, and the left flank by the impassable Sierra
dos Infiernos. On the other line Torres Vedras was to be carried,
and then Mafra or Montechique, following the direction of Junot’s
retreat. If Mafra was forced (and neither it nor Montechique could
be turned), a line of march, by Cassim and Quelus, upon Lisbon
would have been opened to the victors; but that route, besides
being longer than the road through Montechique and Loures, would,
while it led the English army equally away from the fleet, have
entangled it among the fortresses of Ereceira, Sant Antonio,
Cascaes, St. Julians, and Belem. Again, supposing the position of
Montechique to be stormed, the heights of Bellas offered a third
line of defence, and lastly, the citadel and forts of Lisbon itself
would have sufficed to cover the passage of the river, and a
retreat upon Elvas would have been secure.
Thus it is certain, that difficulties of the most serious nature
awaited the English army while acting on a single line of
operations; and the double line proposed by sir Arthur was strictly
scientific. For if sir John Moore, disembarking at the Mondego,
had marched first to Santarem and then to Saccavem, he would have
turned the positions of Torres Vedras and Montechique, and then sir
Arthur on the other side would have turned the heights of Bellas
by the road of Quelus. Junot’s central situation could not in this
case have availed him, because the distance between the British
corps would be more than a day’s march, and their near approach
to Lisbon would have caused an insurrection of the populace. The
duke of Abrantes must either have abandoned that capital and fallen
vigorously upon sir John Moore, with a view to overwhelm him and
gain Almeida or Elvas, or he must have concentrated his forces,
and been prepared to cross the Tagus if he lost a battle in front
of Lisbon. In the first case, the strength of the country afforded
Moore every facility for a successful resistance, and sir Arthur’s
corps would have quickly arrived upon the rear of the French. In
the second case, Junot would have had to fight superior numbers,
with an inveterate populace in his rear, and if, fearing the result
of such an encounter he had crossed the Tagus, and pushed for
Elvas, sir John Moore’s division could likewise have crossed the
river, and harassed the French in their retreat.
[Sidenote: Captain Poulteney Malcolm’s Evidence. Court of Inquiry.]
2º. The above reasoning being correct, it follows, that to
re-embark sir John Moore’s army after it had landed at the Mondego,
and to bring it down to Maceira bay, was an error which (no
convention intervening) might have proved fatal to the success
of the campaign. This error was rendered more important by the
danger incurred from the passage; for, as the transports were not
sea-worthy, the greatest part would have perished had a gale of
wind come on from the south-west.
[Illustration: _Explanatory Sketch_ of the CAMPAIGN IN PORTUGAL in
August 1808.
_London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._]
3º. Sir Arthur Wellesley’s project of seizing Mafra by a rapid
march on the morning of the 21st, was exceedingly bold; its
successful execution would have obliged Junot to make a hurried
retreat by Enxara dos Cavalleiros to Montechique, at the risk of
being attacked in flank during his march; or if he had moved by
the longer route of Ruña and Sobral, it is scarcely to be doubted
that the British army would have reached Lisbon before the French.
But was it possible so to deceive an enemy inured to warfare,
as to gain ten miles in a march of sixteen? was it possible to
evade the vigilance of an experienced general, who, being posted
only nine miles off, possessed a formidable cavalry, the efforts of
which could neither be checked nor interrupted by the small escort
of horse in the British camp? was it in fine possible, to avoid a
defeat during a flank march along a road crossed and interrupted
by a river and several deep gullies, which formed the beds of
mountain torrents? These are questions which naturally occur to
every military man. The sticklers for a rigid adherence to system
would probably decide in the negative. Sir Arthur Wellesley was
however, not only prepared to try at the time, but he afterwards
deliberately affirmed that, under certain circumstances of ground
an operation of that kind would succeed; and to investigate such
questions is the best study for an officer.
4º. A night march is the most obvious mode of effecting such
an enterprise, but not always the best in circumstances where
expedition is required; and great generals have usually preferred
the day-time, trusting to their own skill in deceiving the enemy
while their army made a forced march to gain the object in view.
Thus, Turenne at Landsberg was successful against the archduke
Leopold in broad daylight, and Cæsar in a more remarkable manner
overreached Afranius and Petrieus near Lerida. Nor were the
circumstances at Vimiero unfavourable to sir Arthur Wellesley. He
might have pushed a select corps of light troops, his cavalry, the
marines of the fleet, the Portuguese auxiliaries, and a few field
pieces, to the entrance of the defile of Torres Vedras before
daybreak, with orders to engage the French outposts briskly, and
to make demonstrations as for a general attack. There is no doubt
that such a movement if skilfully conducted, would have completely
occupied the enemy’s attention, while the main body of the army
marching in great coats, and hiding the glitter of their arms,
might have profited from the woods and hollows through which the
by-road to Mafra led, and gained such a start as would have insured
the success of the enterprise.
Let us, however, take a view of the other side; let us suppose
that Junot, instructed by his spies and patroles, or divining the
intention of the British general, held the masking division in
check with a small force, and carrying the remainder of his army
by the Puente de Roll, or some other cross road (and there were
several) against the flank of the English, had fallen upon the
latter while in march, hemmed in as they would be between the sea
and the mountains, and entangled among hollows and torrents. What
then would have been the result? History answers, by pointing to
Condé and the battle of Senef. It must however be confessed, that
it could be no ordinary general that conceived such a project, and,
notwithstanding the small numbers of the opposing armies, success
would have ranked sir Arthur high among the eminent commanders
of the world, if he had never performed any other exploit. “The
statue of Hercules, cast by Lysippus, although only a foot high,
expressed,” says Pliny, “the muscles and bones of the hero more
grandly than the colossal figures of other artists.”
5º. So many circumstances combine to sway the judgment of an
officer in the field which do not afterwards appear of weight, that
caution should always be the motto of those who censure the conduct
of an unfortunate commander; nevertheless, the duke of Abrantes’
faults, during this campaign, were too glaring to be mistaken.
He lingered too long at Lisbon; he was undecided in his plans;
he divided his army unnecessarily; and he discovered no skill on
the field of battle. The English army having landed affairs were
brought to a crisis, and Junot had only two points to consider.
Could the French forces under his command defend Portugal without
assistance? and if not, how were its operations to be made most
available for furthering Napoleon’s general plans against the
Peninsula? The first point could not be ascertained until a battle
with sir Arthur had been tried. The second evidently required that
Junot should keep his army concentrated, preserve the power of
retreating into Spain, and endeavour to engage the British troops
in the sieges of Elvas and Almeida. If the two plans had been
incompatible, the last was certainly preferable to the chance of
battle in a country universally hostile. But the two plans were not
incompatible.
6º. The pivot of Junot’s movements was Lisbon; he had therefore
to consider how he might best fall upon and overthrow the English
army, without resigning the capital to the Portuguese insurgents
during the operation. He could not hope to accomplish the first
effectually without using the great mass of his forces, nor to
avoid the last except by skilful management, and the utmost
rapidity. Now the citadel and forts about Lisbon were sufficiently
strong to enable a small part of the French army to control the
populace, and to resist the insurgents of the Alemtejo for a few
days. The Russian admiral, although not hostile to the Portuguese,
or favourable to the French, was forced by his fear of the
English, to preserve a guarded attitude, and in point of fact, did
materially contribute to awe the multitude, who could not but look
upon him as an enemy. The Portuguese ships of war which had been
fitted out by Junot, were floating fortresses requiring scarcely
any garrisons, and yet efficient instruments to control the city,
without ceasing to be receptacles for the Spanish prisoners, and
safe depôts for powder and arms which might otherwise have fallen
into the power of the populace. Wherefore, instead of delaying
so long in the capital, instead of troubling himself about the
assemblage of Alcacer do Sal, instead of detaching Laborde with a
weak division to cover the march of Loison; Junot should have taken
the most vigorous resolutions in respect to Lisbon the moment he
heard of the English descent. He should have abandoned the left
bank of the Tagus, with the exception of Palmela and the Bugio,
which were necessary to the safety of his shipping; he should have
seized upon the principal families of the capital as hostages for
the good behaviour of the rest; and he should have threatened and
been prepared to bombard the city if refractory; then leaving
nothing more than the mere garrisons of the citadel, forts, and
ships behind him, have proceeded, not to Leria, which was too near
the enemy to be a secure point of junction with Loison, but to
Santarem, where both corps might have been united without danger
and without fatigue. General Thomieres, in the mean time, putting
a small garrison in Peniché, could have watched the movement of
the British general, and thus from eighteen to twenty thousand men
would have been assembled at Santarem by the 13th at farthest, and
from thence one march would have brought the whole to Batalha,
near which place the lot of battle might have been drawn without
trembling.
7º. If it proved unfavourable to the French, the ulterior object of
renewing the campaign on the frontier was in no manner compromised.
The number of large boats that Lisbon can always furnish, would
have sufficed to transport the beaten army over the Tagus from
Santarem in a few hours, especially if the stores had been embarked
before Junot moved towards Batalha, and the French army, once in
the Alemtejo with a good garrison in Abrantes, could not have been
followed until the forts at the mouth of the Tagus were reduced,
and the fleet sheltered in the river. Thus, long before the British
could have appeared in force in the Alemtejo, the fortress of Elvas
would have been provisioned from the magazines collected by Loison
after the battle of Evora, and the campaign could have been easily
prolonged until the great French army, coming from Germany crushed
all opposition.
The above is not a theory broached after the event. That Junot
would attempt something of the kind, was the data upon which the
English general formed his plans; the intercepted memoir of colonel
Bory de St. Vincent, treated such an operation as a matter of
course, and Junot’s threats during the negotiation prove that he
was not ignorant of his own resources; but his mind was depressed,
and his desponding mood was palpable to those around him. It is a
curious fact, that Sattaro, the Portuguese agent, who, for some
purpose or other was in the British camp, told sir Arthur Wellesley
before the battle of Vimiero, that Junot would willingly evacuate
Portugal upon terms.
[Sidenote: Thiebault.]
8º. When the French, being fourteen thousand in number, occupied
Torres Vedras, that position was nearly impregnable. Seventeen
thousand British could scarcely have carried it by force; but they
might have turned it in a single march by the coast road; yet
Junot neither placed a detachment on that side nor kept a vigilant
watch by his patroles. Now, if sir Arthur Wellesley’s intended
movement had not been arrested by orders from Burrard, it must have
succeeded, because Junot was entangled in the defiles of Torres
Vedras from six o’clock in the evening of the 20th, until late in
the morning of the 21st. The two armies would thus have changed
camps in the space of a few hours without firing a shot: Junot
would have lost Lisbon, and have been placed in the most ridiculous
situation.
9º. In the battle, the duke of Abrantes showed great courage, but
no talent. His army was inferior in numbers, yet he formed two
separate attacks, an evident error that enabled sir Arthur to beat
him in detail without difficulty. And it was the less excusable,
because the comparatively easy nature of the ground over which the
road from Torres Vedras to Lourinham led, and the manner in which
the English army was heaped to the right when the position first
opened to the view of the French general, plainly indicated the
true line of attack. Junot should, with all his forces concentrated
for one effort, have fallen in upon the left of his opponent’s
position; if victorious, the sea would have swallowed those who
escaped his sword. If repulsed, his retreat was open, and his loss
could not have been so great in a well-conducted single effort, as
it was in the ill-digested, unconnected attacks that took place.
10º. The rapidity with which the French soldiers rallied, and
recovered their order after such a severe check, was admirable, but
their habitual method of attacking in column cannot be praised.
Against the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, it may have been
successful, but against the British it must always fail, because
the English infantry is sufficiently firm, intelligent, and well
disciplined, to wait calmly in lines for the adverse masses, and
sufficiently bold to close upon them with the bayonet.
11º. The column is undoubtedly excellent for all movements short
of the actual charge, but as the Macedonian phalanx was unable to
resist the open formation of the Roman legion, so will the close
column be unequal to sustain the fire and charge of a good line
aided by artillery. The natural repugnance of men to trample on
their own dead and wounded, the cries and groans of the latter,
and the whistling of the cannon-shots as they tear open the
ranks, produce the greatest disorder, especially in the centre of
attacking columns, which, blinded by smoke, unstedfast of footing,
and bewildered by words of command coming from a multitude of
officers crowded together, can neither see what is taking place,
nor make any effort to advance or retreat without increasing the
confusion: no example of courage can be useful, no moral effect
can be produced by the spirit of individuals, except upon the
head, which is often firm, and even victorious at the moment when
the rear is flying in terror. Nevertheless, well managed columns
are the very soul of military operations; in them is the victory,
and in them also is safety to be found after a defeat. The secret
consists in knowing when and where to extend the front.
ARMISTICE. CONVENTION.
1º. It is surprising, that Junot having regained Torres Vedras,
occupied Mafra, and obtained an armistice, did not profit by
the terms of the latter to prepare for crossing the Tagus and
establishing the war on the frontiers. Kellerman ascertained
during his negotiation, that sir John Moore was not arrived; and
it was clear, that until he did arrive the position of Montechique
could neither be attacked nor turned. There was nothing in the
armistice itself, nor the way in which it had been agreed to, which
rendered it dishonourable to take such an advantage. The opening
thus left for Junot to gain time, was sir Arthur Wellesley’s
principal objection to the preliminary treaty.
2º. With regard to the convention, although some of its provisions
were objectionable in point of form, and others imprudently worded,
yet taken as a whole, it was a transaction fraught with prudence
and wisdom. Let it be examined upon fair military and political
grounds; let it even be supposed for the sake of argument, that sir
Arthur unimpeded by sir Harry Burrard, had pursued his own plan,
and that Junot, cut off from Lisbon and the half of his forces
had been driven upon the Tagus, he was still master of flying to
Almeida or Elvas: the thousand men left in Santarem would have
joined him in the Alemtejo, or fallen down to the capital; and
what then would have been the advantages that could render the
convention undesirable?
[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Board of Inquiry.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 22.]
The British army, exclusive of sir John Moore’s division, had
only provisions, or transport for provisions, sufficient to last
for ten or twelve days, and the fleet was the only resource when
that supply should be exhausted. But a gale from any point between
the southward and north-west, would have driven the ships away or
have cast them on a lee-shore. Hence an indispensable preliminary
measure would have been to open the mouth of the Tagus as a
security for the fleet; but without occupying Cascaes, Bugio, and
St. Julians, that was impossible. To take the last-named fort would
have required ten days’ open trenches at the least, and the heavy
artillery must have been landed in some of the small creeks, and
dragged by force of men over the mountains, because the artillery
horses were scarcely able to draw the field guns, and the country
was incapable of supplying assistance of that kind. In the mean
time, the French troops in Lisbon, and those upon the heights of
Almada and in the men-of-war, retiring tranquilly through the
Alemtejo, would have united with Junot; or if he had fallen back
upon Almeida, they could have retired upon Elvas and La-Lyppe. In
this argument the Russians have not been considered, but whatever
his secret wishes might have been, Siniavin must have joined the
French or surrendered his squadron in a disgraceful manner. This
would have increased Junot’s force by six thousand men; and it may
here be observed, that even after the arrival of sir John Moore,
only twenty-five thousand British infantry were fit for duty.
Let it be supposed that the forts were taken, the English fleet in
the river, the resources of Lisbon organized, and the battering
guns and ammunition necessary for the siege of Elvas transported
to Abrantes by water. Seventy miles of land remained to traverse,
and then three months of arduous operations in the sickly season,
and in the most pestilent of situations, would have been the
certain consequences of any attempt to reduce that fortress. Did
the difficulty end there? No! Almeida remained, and in the then
state of the roads of Portugal, and taking into consideration only
the certain and foreseen obstacles, it is not too much to say,
that six months more would have been wasted before the country
could be entirely freed from the invaders. But long before that
period Napoleon’s eagles would have soared over Lisbon again. The
conclusion is inevitable; the convention was a great and solid
advantage for the allies, a blunder on the part of the French.
With the momentary exception of Junot’s threat to burn Lisbon if
his terms were not complied with, we look in vain for any traces of
that vigour which urged the march from Alcantara; we are astonished
to perceive the man, who, in the teeth of an English fleet, in
contempt of fourteen thousand Portuguese troops, and regardless of
a population of three hundred thousand souls, dared, with a few
hundred tired grenadiers, to seize upon Lisbon, so changed in half
a year, so sunk in energy, that, with twenty-five thousand good
soldiers, he declined a manly effort, and resorted to a convention
to save an army which was really in very little danger. But such
and so variable is the human mind, the momentary slave of every
attraction, yet ultimately true to self-interest. When Junot
entered Portugal, power, honours, fame, emolument, nay, even a
throne, was within his reach, and toil and danger were overlooked
in such gorgeous society; but when he proposed the convention he
was only with the latter companions; fame flitted at a distance,
and he easily persuaded himself that prudence and vigour could
not be yoked together. A saying attributed to Napoleon perfectly
describes the convention in a few words. “I was going to send Junot
before a council of war, but, fortunately, the English tried their
generals, and saved me the pain of punishing an old friend!”
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
The convention of Cintra being followed by the establishment of a
regency at Lisbon, the plans of the bishop and junta of Oporto were
disconcerted, and Portugal was restored to a state of comparative
tranquillity; for the Portuguese people being of a simple
character, when they found their country relieved from the presence
of a French army, readily acknowledged the benefit derived from the
convention, and refused to listen to the pernicious counsels of the
factious prelate and his mischievous coadjutors.
Thus terminated what may be called the convulsive struggle of
the Peninsular war. Up to that period a remarkable similarity
of feeling and mode of acting betrayed the common origin of the
Spanish and Portuguese people. A wild impatience of foreign
aggression, extravagant pride, vain boasting, and a passionate
reckless resentment, were common to both nations; but there the
likeness ceased, and the finer marks of national character which
had been impressed upon them by their different positions in the
political world, became distinctly visible.
Spain, holding from time immemorial a high rank among the great
powers, and more often an oppressor than oppressed, haughtily
rejected all advice. Unconscious of her actual weakness and
ignorance, and remembering only her former dignity, she
ridiculously assumed an attitude which would scarcely have suited
her in the days of Charles V.; while Portugal, always fearing the
ambition of a powerful neighbour, and relying for safety as much
upon her alliances as upon her own intrinsic strength, was from
habit inclined to prudent calculation, and readily submitted to the
direction of England. The turbulence of the first led to defeat and
disaster; the docility and patience of the second were productive
of the most beneficial results.
The difference between these nations was, however, not immediately
perceptible, and at the period of the convention the Portuguese
were despised, while a splendid triumph was anticipated for the
Spaniards. It was affirmed and believed, that from every quarter
enthusiastic multitudes of the latter were pressing forward to
complete the destruction of a baffled and dispirited enemy; the
vigour, the courage, the unmatched spring of Spanish patriotism,
was in every man’s mouth, and Napoleon’s power and energy seemed
weak in opposition. Few persons doubted the truth of such tales,
and yet nothing could be more unsound, more eminently fallacious,
than the generally-entertained opinion of French weakness and of
Spanish strength. The resources of the former were unbounded,
almost untouched; those of the latter were too slender even to
support the weight of victory. In Spain the whole structure of
society was shaken to pieces by the violence of an effort which
merely awakened the slumbering strength of France: foresight,
promptitude, arrangement, marked the proceedings of Napoleon;
but with the Spaniards the counsels of prudence were punished as
treason; and personal interests, every where springing up with
incredible force, wrestled against the public good. At a distance,
the insurrection appeared of towering proportions and mighty
strength; but in truth it was a fantastic object, stained with
blood, and tottering from weakness, and the helping hand of England
alone was stretched forth for its support; all other assistance
was denied, for the continental powers, although nourishing secret
hopes of profit from the struggle, with calculating policy, turned
coldly from the patriots’ cause. The English cabinet was indeed
sanguine, and resolute to act; but the ministers while anticipating
success in a preposterous manner, displayed little industry and
less judgment in their preparations for the struggle; nor does it
appear that the real freedom of the Peninsula was much considered
in their councils. They contemplated this astonishing insurrection,
as a mere military opening through which Napoleon might be
assailed, and they neglected, or rather feared, to look towards the
great moral consequences of such a stupendous event, consequences
which were in truth above their reach of policy. They were neither
able nor willing to seize such a singularly propitious occasion for
conferring a benefit upon mankind.
It is however certain, that this opportunity for restoring the
civil strength of a long degraded people, by a direct recurrence
to first principles, was such as had seldom been granted to a
sinking nation. Enthusiasm was aroused without the withering
curse of faction; and the multitude were ready to follow whoever
chose to lead. The weight of ancient authority was, by a violent
external shock, thrown off. The ruling power fell from the hands
of the few, and was caught by the many, without the latter having
thereby incurred the odium of rebellion, or excited the malice
of mortified grandeur. There was nothing to deter the cautious,
for there was nothing to pull down. The foundation of the social
structure was laid bare, and all the materials were at hand for
building a rare and noble monument of human genius and virtue. The
architect alone was wanting. No anxiety to ameliorate the moral
or physical condition of the people in the Peninsula was evinced
by the ruling men of England, and if any existed amongst those of
Spain, it evaporated in puerile abstract speculations. Napoleon
indeed offered the blessing of regeneration in exchange for
submission, but in that revolting form accompanied by the evils of
war, it was rejected; and amidst the clamorous pursuit of national
independence, the independence of man was trampled under foot. The
mass of the Spanish nation, blinded by personal hatred, thought
only of revenge. The leaders, arrogant and incapable, neither
sought nor wished for any higher motive of action: without unity of
design, devoid of arrangement, their policy was mean and personal,
their military efforts were abortive, and a rude unscientific
warfare disclosed at once the barbarous violence of Spanish
character, and the utter decay of Spanish institutions.
After Joseph’s retreat from Madrid, the insurrection of Spain may
be said to have ceased; from that period it became a war between
France and the Peninsula; the fate of the latter was intrusted to
organised bodies of men, and as the first excitement subsided,
and danger seemed to recede, all the meaner passions resumed
their empire; but the transactions of that memorable period
which intervened between the battles of Baylen and Coruña were
exceedingly confused, and the history of them must necessarily
partake somewhat of that confusion.
The establishment of a central supreme junta, the caprices of
the Spanish generals, and their interminable disputes, the
proceedings of the French army before the arrival of the emperor,
the operations of the grand army after his arrival, and the
campaign of the British auxiliary force, form so many distinct
actions, connected it is true by one great catastrophe, yet each
attended by a number of minor circumstances of no great historical
importance taken separately, but when combined, showing the extent
and complicated nature of the disease which destroyed the energy of
Spain.
For the advantage of clearness therefore, it will be necessary to
sacrifice chronological order; and as frequent reference must be
made to the proceedings of a class of men whose interference had
a decided, and in many cases a very disastrous influence upon the
affairs of that period, I shall first give a brief account of the
English agents, under which denomination both civil and military
men were employed, but the distinction was rather nominal than
real; for, generally speaking, each person assumed the right of
acting in both capacities.
The envoy, Mr. Charles Stuart, was the chief of the civil agents;
the persons subordinate to him were, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Duff, and
others, consuls and vice-consuls.
Mr. Stuart sailed with sir A. Wellesley, and was left at Coruña
when that officer touched there, previous to the operations in
Portugal.
Mr. Hunter was stationed at Gihon in the Asturias.
Mr. Duff proceeded to Cadiz, and the others in like manner were
employed at different ports. They were all empowered to distribute
money, arms, and succours of clothing and ammunition: but the want
of system and forethought in the cabinet was palpable from the
injudicious zeal of the inferior agents, each of whom conceived
himself competent to direct the whole of the political and
military transactions. Mr. Stuart was even put to some trouble in
establishing his right to control their proceedings.
The military agents were of two classes: those sent from England by
the government, and those employed by the generals abroad.
Sir Thomas Dyer, assisted by major Roche and captain Patrick,
proceeded to the Asturias. The last officer remained at Oviedo,
near the junta of that province. Major Roche was sent to the
head-quarters of Cuesta, and sir Thomas Dyer after collecting some
information, returned to England.
Colonel Charles Doyle having organized the Spanish prisoners at
Portsmouth, sailed with them to Coruña. He was accompanied by
captain Carrol and captain Kennedy. During the passage a singular
instance of turbulent impatience occurred: the prisoners, who had
been released, armed, and clothed by England, and who had been
as enthusiastic in their expressions of patriotism as the most
sanguine could desire, mutinied, seized the transports, carried
them into different ports in the Peninsula, disembarked, and
proceeded each to his own home.
Colonel Browne was despatched to Oporto, and a major Green to
Catalonia.
Those employed by the generals commanding armies were captain
Whittingham, who was placed by sir Hew Dalrymple, near general
Castaños, on the first appearance of the insurrection. He
accompanied the head-quarters of the Andalusian army until the
battle of Tudela put an end to his functions. Major Cox (appointed
also by sir Hew Dalrymple) remained near the junta of Seville. The
talents and prudent conduct of this officer were of great service.
It would have been fortunate if all the persons employed as agents
had acted with as much judgment and discretion. All the above named
gentlemen were in full activity previous to the commencement of the
campaign in Portugal.
When the convention of Cintra opened a way for operations in Spain,
sir Hew Dalrymple sent lord William Bentinck to Madrid, that he
might arrange a plan of co-operation with the Spanish generals, and
transmit exact intelligence of the state of affairs. Such a mission
was become indispensable. Up to the period of lord William’s
arrival in Madrid, the military intelligence received was very
unsatisfactory. The letters from the armies contained abundance of
commonplace expressions relative to the enthusiasm and patriotism
visible in Spain. Vast plans were said to be under consideration,
some in progress of execution, and complete success was confidently
predicted; but, by some fatality, every project proved abortive or
disastrous, without lowering the confidence of the prognosticators,
or checking the mania for grand operations, which seemed to be the
disease of the moment.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Papers. MS.]
The English minister confirmed the appointment of lord William
Bentinck, and at the same time re-organized the system of the
military agents; by marking out certain districts and appointing a
general officer to superintend each. Thus, major-general Broderick
was sent to Gallicia. Major-general Leith, with a large staff,
proceeded to the Asturias. Major-general Sontag went to Portugal.
The scope of general Leith’s mission was wide; Biscay, Castille,
Leon, and even Catalonia were placed under his superintendence, and
he appears to have had instructions to prepare the way for the
disembarkation of an English army on the coast of Biscay. At the
same time sir Robert Wilson was furnished with arms, ammunition,
and clothing for organizing three or four thousand men levied by
the bishop of Oporto. He took with him a large regimental staff,
and a number of Portuguese refugees, and succeeded in forming a
partizan corps, afterwards known by the title of the Lusitanian
legion.
Brigadier-general Decken, a German, having been first destined for
Spain, was countermanded at sea, and directed to Oporto, where
he arrived on the 17th of August, and immediately commenced that
curious intrigue which has been already mentioned in the campaign
of Vimiero.
When sir John Moore assumed the command of the army, he sent
colonel Graham to reside at the Spanish head-quarters on the Ebro,
and directed lord William Bentinck to remain at Madrid to forward
the arrangements for commencing the campaign. Lord William found
in Mr. Stuart an able coadjutor, and in the letters of these two
gentlemen, and the correspondence of major Coxe, then at Seville,
is to be found the history of the evils which at this period
afflicted unhappy Spain, and ruined her noble cause.
The power of distributing supplies, and the independent nature
of their appointments, gave to those military agents immediately
employed by the minister an extraordinary influence, and it was
very injudiciously exercised. They forgot the real objects of their
mission, and in many cases took a leading part in affairs with
which it was not politic in them to have meddled at all.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Correspondence. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Letters. MS.]
Colonel Doyle having left captain Kennedy at Coruña, and placed
captain Carrol at the head-quarters of Blake’s army, repaired in
person to Madrid, where he was received with marked attention,
and obtained the rank of a general officer in the Spanish service
for himself, and that of lieutenant-colonel for captains Carrol
and Kennedy. From colonel Doyle’s letters it appears that he had
a large share in conducting many important measures, such as the
arrangement of a general plan of operations, and the formation of a
central and supreme government. He seems to have attached himself
principally to the duke of Infantado, a young man of moderate
capacity, but with a strong predilection for those petty intrigues
which constituted the policy of the Spanish court. Captain
Whittingham gained the confidence of general Castaños to such a
degree that he was employed by him to inspect the different Spanish
corps on the Ebro early in September, and to report upon their
state of efficiency previous to entering upon the execution of the
plan laid down for the campaign. Notwithstanding the favourable
position in which these officers stood, it does not appear that
either of them obtained any clear idea of the relative strength
of the contending forces, and their opinions, invariably and even
extravagantly sanguine, were never borne out by the result.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters. MS. Lord W. Bentinck’s Letters.
MS.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13. section 6.]
The Spaniards were not slow to perceive the advantages of
encouraging the vanity of inexperienced men who had the control
of enormous supplies; but while all outward demonstrations of
respect and confidence were by them lavished upon subordinate
functionaries, and especially upon those who had accepted of rank
in their service, the most strenuous exertions of lord William
Bentinck and Mr. Stuart were insufficient to procure the adoption
of a single beneficial measure, or even to establish the ordinary
intercourse of official business.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Correspondence. MS.]
The leading Spaniards wished to obtain a medium through which to
create a false impression of the state of affairs, and thus to
secure supplies and succours from England without being fettered
in the application of them. The subordinate agents answered this
purpose, and satisfied with their docility, the generals were far
from encouraging the residence of more than one British agent
at their head-quarters. Captain Birch, an intelligent engineer
officer, writing from Blake’s camp, says, “General Broderick is
expected here; but I have understood that the appearance of a
British general at these head-quarters to accompany the army might
give jealousy. General Blake is not communicative, but captain
Carrol appears to be on the best footing with him and his officers,
and captain Carrol tells me that he informs him of more than he
does any of his generals.”
The object was perfectly accomplished; nothing could be more
widely different than Spanish affairs, judged of by the tenor of
the military agent’s reports, and Spanish affairs when brought
to the test of battle. The fault did not attach so much to the
agents as to the ministers who selected them. It was difficult for
inexperienced men to avoid the snare. Living with the chiefs of
armies actually in the field, being in habits of daily intercourse
with them, holding rank in the same service, and dependent upon
their politeness for every convenience, the agent was in a manner
forced to see as the general saw, and to report as he wished. A
simple spy would have been far more efficacious!
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers. MSS.]
Sir John Moore, perceiving the evil tendency of such a system,
recalled all those officers who were under his immediate control,
and strongly recommended to ministers that only one channel of
communication should exist between the Spanish authorities and the
British army. He was convinced of the necessity of this measure,
by observing, that each of the military agents considered the
events passing under his own peculiar cognizance as the only
occurrences of importance. Some of those officers even treated sir
Hew Dalrymple and himself as persons commanding auxiliary bodies of
men which might be moved, divided, and applied at the requisition
of every inferior agent, and the forces of the British empire, a
mere accessory aid, placed at their own disposal. Thus general
Leith says: “Whatever may be the plan of operations, and whatever
the result, I beg leave, in the strongest manner, to recommend
to your consideration the great advantage of ordering all the
disposable force of horse or car artillery, and light infantry,
mounted on horses or mules of the country, without a moment’s delay
to move on Palencia, where the column or columns will receive
such intelligence as may enable them to give the most effectual
co-operation.”
Captain Whittingham, at the same period, after mentioning the wish
of general Castaños that some British cavalry should join him,
says, “I cannot quit this subject without once more repeating, that
the efforts of the cavalry will decide the fate of the campaign.”
And again: “Should it be possible for your excellency to send one
thousand or fifteen hundred horse, the advantages that would result
are incalculable.” While one of these pressing recommendations came
from Oviedo, the other from Tudela, colonel Doyle, writing from
Madrid, thus expresses himself: “Certain it is, that if your army
were here, the French would evacuate Spain before you got within
a week’s march of them; indeed, even the light cavalry and two
thousand light troops sent on cars, to keep up with the cavalry, to
show our friends the nature of outpost duty, would, I think, decide
the question.”--“A respectable corps of British troops, landed
in Catalonia, would so impose, that I have no doubt of the good
effects.”
This last proposition relative to Catalonia was a favourite plan of
all the leading men at Madrid; so certain were they of success on
the Ebro, that finding no British force was likely to be granted
for that purpose, they withdrew eight or nine thousand men from the
army near Tudela, and directed them upon Lerida.
Thus much I have thought it necessary to relate about the agents,
and now quitting that subject, I shall narrate
THE OPERATIONS OF THE SPANISH ARMIES IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE BATTLE
OF BAYLEN.
When that victory caused Joseph to abandon Madrid, the patriotic
troops, guided by the caprice of the generals, moved in a variety
of directions, without any fixed object in view, and without the
slightest concert. Indeed all persons seemed to imagine that the
war was at an end, and that rejoicing and triumph alone ought to
occupy the minds of good Spaniards.
[Sidenote: Cavallero.]
The Murcian and Valencian army separated. General Llamas, with
twelve thousand infantry, and a few cavalry, took the road to
Madrid, and arrived there before any of the other generals. General
St. Marc, a Fleming by birth, with greater propriety, carried the
Valencians to the relief of Zaragoza. On the road he joined his
forces with those of the baron de Versage, and the united troops,
amounting to sixteen thousand, entered Zaragoza on the 15th, one
day after Verdier and Lefebre had broken up the siege and retired
to Tudela. The French left their heavy guns and many stores behind
them. The Valencians and Arragonese pursued, and on the 19th their
advanced guard overtook the retiring force, but were beaten by the
French cavalry. On the 20th Lefebre abandoned Tudela and took a
position at Milagro. On the 21st, St. Marc and Versage occupied
Tudela. The peasantry of the valleys, encouraged by the approach
of a regular army, and by the successful defence of Zaragoza,
assembled on the left flank of the French, and threatened their
communications. Meanwhile Palafox gave himself up to festivity
and rejoicing, and did not even begin to repair the defences of
Zaragoza until the end of the month. He assumed supreme authority,
and in various ways discovered the most inordinate and foolish
presumption; and among other acts he decreed that no Arragonese
should henceforward be liable to the punishment of death for any
crime.
[Sidenote: Cox’s Correspondence. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence. MSS.]
The army of Andalusia was the most efficient body of men in arms
throughout Spain: it contained thirty thousand regular troops,
provided with a good train of artillery, and flushed with recent
victory; but they were constrained to remain idle by the junta of
Seville, who detained them to aid in asserting its own supremacy
over the other juntas of Andalusia, and even brought back a part to
Seville to assist in an ostentatious triumph. It was not until a
full month after the capitulation of Dupont, that Castaños made his
entry into the capital, at the head of a single division of seven
thousand men, another of the same force being left at Toledo, and
the rest of his army quartered at Puerto del Rey, St. Helena, and
Carolina, in the Sierra Morena.
The infantry of the Estremaduran army was at first composed of
new levies; but it was afterwards strengthened by the Walloon and
royal guards, and sir Hew Dalrymple supplied general Galluzzo
with every needful equipment. According to the stipulations of
a treaty between the juntas of Seville and Badajos, the cavalry
was to be placed under the command of Castaños; it was in number
about four thousand, and with the exception of Cuesta, no other
Spanish general possessed any efficient body of horsemen. Orders
and entreaties, and even the intervention of sir Hew Dalrymple,
were resorted to by the council of Castille, the generals and
the military agents, to induce Galluzzo to send this body of
cavalry forward to the capital; but he remained deaf to their
representations, and occupied himself, as we have seen, in
thwarting the execution of the convention of Cintra by a pretended
siege of fort La Lippe.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s papers. MS.]
The Spanish captives, released by that treaty, were clothed, armed,
and sent to Catalonia in British transports; and sir Hew Dalrymple,
at the same time, forwarded ten thousand musquets, and ammunition
in proportion, for the service of the Catalans.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Doyle’s letters.]
It has been before stated that one thousand five hundred
Spaniards, commanded by the marquis of Valladeras, co-operated
with the Portuguese during the campaign of Vimiero. But they never
penetrated beyond Guarda, and being destitute of money, were
reduced to great distress; they could not subsist where they were,
nor yet march away. From this dilemma, sir Hew, by a timely advance
of ten thousand dollars, relieved them, and Valladeras joined
Blake. That general, after the defeat of Rio Seco, separated the
Gallician army from the army commanded by Cuesta, and sheltered
himself from the pursuit of Bessieres in the mountains behind
Astorga. His reserve division had not been engaged in the battle,
and the resources of the province, aided by the succours from
England, were sufficient, to place him again at the head of thirty
thousand infantry.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
When Bessieres retreated after the defeat of Baylen, Blake occupied
Leon, Astorga, and the pass of Mansanal: farther into the plains
he durst not venture without cavalry. At this time Cuesta, with
one thousand five hundred dragoons, was at Arevalo, and the
junta of Castille and Leon, having taken refuge at Ponteferrada,
commanded him to transfer his horsemen to Blake’s army; but Cuesta,
an arbitrary old man, exasperated by his defeat, and his mind
rankling from his quarrel with Blake, instead of obeying retired to
Salamanca, collected eight or ten thousand peasants, armed them,
and then annulled the proceedings of the junta, and threatened
the members with punishment for resisting his authority as
captain-general. On the other hand Blake protected them, and while
the generals disputed, three thousand French cavalry descending the
Douero, scoured the plains, and raised contributions in the face of
both their armies.
[Sidenote: Capt. Carrol’s letters.]
Blake finding that the obstinacy of Cuesta was invincible, quitted
his cantonments early in September, and skirting the plains on the
north-east, carried his army by forced marches to the Montagna St.
Ander, a small rugged district, dividing Biscay from the Asturias.
The junta of the latter province had received enormous and very
timely succours from England, but made no exertions answerable
to the amount of the assistance granted, or to the strength and
importance of the district. Eighteen thousand men were said to be
in arms, but only ten thousand were promised to Blake, and but
eight thousand joined his army.
In Catalonia the war was conducted by both sides without much
connexion, or dependance on the movements of the main armies; and
at this period it had little influence on the general plan of
campaign.
Thus, it appears, that one month after the capitulation of Dupont,
only nineteen thousand infantry without cavalry, and those under
the command of more than one general, were collected at Madrid;
that only sixteen thousand men were in line upon the Ebro, and
that the remainder of the Spanish armies, (exclusive of that in
Catalonia computed at eleven thousand men,) were many days’ march
from the enemy, and from one another. The chiefs at discord with
their respective juntas, and at variance among themselves, were
inactive, or as in the case of Galluzzo, doing mischief.
The feeble and dilatory operations of the armies, were partly
owing to the ineptitude of the generals; but the principal causes
were the unbounded vanity, arrogance, and selfishness of the local
governments, among whom the juntas of Gallicia and Seville were
remarkable for their ambition. The time which should have been
passed in concerting measures for pushing the victory of Baylen was
spent by them in devising schemes to ensure the permanency of their
own power, and the money and resources, both of England and Spain,
were applied to further this pernicious object. In every part of
the country a spirit of interested violence prevailed; the ardour
of patriotism was chilled, and the exertions of sensible men were
rendered nugatory, or served as a signal for their own destruction.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 4.]
The argument to be drawn from this state of affairs is conclusive
against the policy of Joseph’s retreat. Without drafting a man
from the garrisons of Pampeluna, Tortosa, and St. Sebastian;
without interfering with the moveable columns employed on
the communications of Biscay and Navarre; that monarch drew
together about fifty thousand good troops, in twenty days after
he had abandoned his capital. At the head of such a force, or
even of two-thirds of it, he might have bid defiance to the
inactive, half-organized, and scattered Spanish armies. It was
so necessary to have maintained himself in Madrid, that scarcely
any disproportion of numbers should have induced him to abandon
it without an effort; but the disaster of Dupont had created
in Joseph’s mind a respect for Spanish prowess, while from his
sagacious brother it drew the following observation: “_The whole of
the Spanish forces are not capable of beating twenty-five thousand
French in a reasonable position._” The error of abandoning the
capital would, if the Spaniards had been capable of pursuing any
general plan of action, been fatal; but as if the stone of Cadmus
had been cast among them, the juntas turned upon one another in
hate, and forgot the common enemy.
Ferdinand was again proclaimed king of Spain, and the pomp and
rejoicing attendant on this event put an end to all business,
except that of intrigue. Castaños assumed the title of
captain-general of Madrid. This step seems to have been taken
by him, partly to forward his being appointed generalissimo,
and partly with a view to emancipate himself from the injurious
control of the Seville junta; for, although the authority of the
captains-general had been superseded in most of the provinces by
the juntas, it was not universally the case. Castaños expected,
and with reason, to be appointed generalissimo of the Spanish
armies; but he was of an indolent disposition, and it soon
became manifest that until a central and supreme government was
established, such a salutary measure would not be adopted. In the
mean time the council of Castille, although not generally popular
with the people, and hated by the juntas, was accepted as the
provisional head of the state in the capital; but its authority
was merely nominal, and the necessity of showing some front to the
enemy seems to have been the only link of connexion between the
Spanish armies.
The evil consequences flowing from this want of unity were soon
felt. Scarcely had the French quitted Madrid, when the people of
Biscay prepared to rise. Such an event, if prudently conducted and
well supported, would have been of incalculable advantage; but the
nicest arrangement, and the utmost prudence, were necessary to
insure success, for the Biscayans had neither arms nor ammunition,
the French were close to them, and the nearest Spanish force was
the feeble Asturian levy. A previous junction of Blake’s army
with the latter was indispensable; that once effected, and due
preparation made, the insurrection of Biscay, protected by forty
thousand regular troops, and supplied from the sea-board with money
and stores, would have forced the French to abandon the Ebro or to
fight a battle, which Blake might have risked with little danger,
provided that the Andalusian, Murcian, Valencian, and Arragonese
troops assembling about Tudela, were prepared to move at the same
time against the left flank of the enemy. But in every point of
view it was an event pregnant with important consequences, and the
impatience of the Biscayans should have been restrained rather
than encouraged; yet the duke of Infantado, colonel Doyle, and
others, at Madrid, made strenuous efforts to hasten the explosion.
The crude manner in which they conducted this serious affair is
exposed in the following extracts from colonel Doyle’s despatches:
“I proposed to general Blake that he should send officers to Biscay
to stir up the people there, and into the Asturias to beg that of
their 15,000 men, 8,000 might be pushed into Biscay to Bilbao, to
assist the people, who were all ready, and only waited for arms
and ammunition, for both of which I wrote to Mr. Hunter at Gihon,
and learned from him that he had sent a large supply of both,
and some money to Bilbao, where already 14,000 men had enrolled
themselves. The remainder of the Asturians I begged might instantly
occupy the passes from Castille into the Asturias and Biscay, that
is to say, from Reynosa in the direction of Bilbao.” Some days
after he says,--“My measures in Biscay and Asturias have perfectly
succeeded; the reinforcements of arms, ammunition, and men (5,000
stand of arms, and ammunition in proportion) have reached Bilbao
in safety, and the Asturians have taken possession of the passes I
pointed out, so that we are all safe in that part of the world.”
In this fancied state of security affairs remained until the
16th of August; general Blake was still in the mountains of
Gallicia, the English succours arrived in the port of Bilbao, and
the explosion took place. General Merlin, with three thousand
grenadiers, immediately came down on the unfortunate Biscayans;
Bilbao was taken, and to use the emphatic expression of king
Joseph, “the fire of insurrection was quenched with the blood
of twelve hundred men.” Fortunately, the stores were not landed,
and the vessels escaped from the river. Thus, at a blow, one of
the principal resources which Blake had a right to calculate upon
in his future operations was destroyed; and although the number
admitted by the Spaniards to have fallen was less than the above
quotation implies, the spirit of resistance was severely checked,
and the evil was unmixed and deplorable.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Letters. MSS.]
This unfortunate event, however, created little or no sensation
beyond the immediate scene of the catastrophe. Triumphs and
rejoicings occupied the people of Madrid and Zaragoza, and it is
difficult to say how long the war would have been neglected, if
Palafox had not been roused by the re-appearance of a French corps,
which re-took Tudela, and pushed on to the vicinity of Zaragoza
itself. This movement took place immediately after the expedition
against Bilbao, and was intended to suppress the insurrection
of the valleys, and to clear the left flank of the French army.
Palafox thus roughly aroused, wrote intemperately to the council
of Castille, commanding that all the troops in the capital should
be forwarded to the Ebro, and menacing the members personally for
the delay which had already occurred. Being a young man without
any weight of character, and his remonstrances being founded only
upon his own danger, and not supported by any general plan or clear
view of affairs, the presumptuous tone of his letters gave general
offence; they were chiefly aimed at Castaños, who was not under his
command; and moreover, the junta of Seville refused to pay or to
subsist the Andalusian army if it moved beyond the capital before
a central government should be established; at the same time
resorting to every kind of intrigue, to retard, if not entirely to
prevent, the execution of the latter measure.
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Letters. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters. Parliamentary Papers.]
It was, however, necessary to do something, and a council of all
the generals commanding armies was held at Madrid on the 5th of
September. Castaños, Llamas, Cuesta, the duke of Infantado, and
some others assembled; Blake gave his proxy to the duke, and
Palafox was represented by a colonel of his own staff. Cuesta
proposed that a commander-in-chief should be appointed: the others
were too jealous to adopt this proposal, but they agreed to pursue
the following plan of operations.
Llamas, with the Murcians, to occupy Tarascona, Agreda, and
Borja. La-Peña, with the two divisions of Andalusia already in
the capital, to march by Soria, and take possession of Logroña
and Najera. The other divisions of that army to follow in due
time. When La-Peña should be established in Logroña, Llamas was to
advance to Cascante, Corella, and Calahorra.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Corresp^{ce}. Doyle’s Letters. Cox’s
D^o.]
When this united force (to be called the army of the centre) was
once securely fixed in its positions, Palafox, under whose command
St. Marc’s division acted, was to push forward to Sanguessa by the
left bank of the Ebro, and to turn the enemy on the Aragon river.
In the mean time it was hoped that Blake would arrive at Palencia,
and form his junction with the Asturians. Cuesta promised to
march upon Burgo del Osma, and to fill up the space between Blake
and the army of the centre. The head of La-Peña’s column was to
be at Soria on the 17th of September, and the junta confidently
expected that this vicious plan, in which every sound military
principle was violated, and the enemy’s troops, considered with
regard to position, as a fixed immoveable mass, would cause the
total destruction of the French army. The only fear entertained
was, that a hasty flight into France would save it from Spanish
vengeance! Thus captain Whittingham, echoing the sentiments of the
Spanish generals with reference to this plan, writes, “As far as my
poor judgment leads me, I am satisfied that if the French persist
in maintaining their present position, we shall, in less than six
weeks, have a second edition of the battle of Baylen!” But to
enable La-Peña and Llamas to march, pecuniary aid was requisite.
There was a difficulty in raising money at Madrid, and the maritime
provinces intercepted all the English supplies. In this dilemma,
colonel Doyle drew bills upon the English treasury, and upon
the government at Seville, making the latter payable out of two
millions of dollars, just transmitted to the junta through Mr. Duff.
It is probable that such an unprincipled body would not have
hesitated to dishonour the bills, but major Coxe, before they
were received, made energetic remonstrances upon the subject
of the wants of the army; at first he received a haughty and
evasive answer, but his representations were strongly seconded by
a discovery made by the junta, that a plot against their lives,
supposed to have been concocted at Madrid, was on the eve of
execution. In fact, they had become hateful from their domineering
insolence and selfishness, and the public feeling was strongly
against them. Alarmed for the consequences, they sent off 200,000
dollars to Madrid, and published a manifesto, in which they
inserted a letter, purporting to be from themselves to Castaños,
dated on the 8th, and giving him full powers to act as he judged
fitting for the public good. Their objects were to pacify the
people, and to save their own dignity, by appearing to have acted
voluntarily; but Castaños published the letter in Madrid with its
true date of the 11th, and then it became manifest, that to major
Coxe’s remonstrance, and not to any sense of duty, this change of
conduct was due.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers, 1810.]
Doyle’s bills having been negotiated, the troops were put in
motion, and 40,000 fresh levies were enrolled, but the foresight
and activity of Napoleon in disarming the country had been so
effectual, that only 3,200 firelocks could be procured. A curious
expedient then presented itself to the imagination of the duke of
Infantado, and other leading persons in Madrid: colonel Doyle, at
their desire, wrote to sir Hew Dalrymple in the name of the supreme
council, to request that _the firelocks of Junot’s army, and the
arms of the Portuguese people_, might be forwarded to the frontier,
and from thence carried by post to Madrid; a novel proposition,
and made at a time when England had already transmitted to Spain
160,000 muskets; a supply considerably exceeding the whole number
of men organized throughout the country; 50,000 of these arms had
been sent to Seville, but the junta shut them up in the arsenals,
and left the armies defenceless; for to neglect or misuse real
resources, and to fasten with avidity upon the most extravagant
projects, is peculiarly Spanish. No other people could have thought
of asking for a neighbouring nation’s arms at such a conjuncture;
no other than Spanish rulers could have imagined the absurdity of
supplying their levies (momentarily required to fight upon the
Ebro) with the arms of a French army still unconquered in Portugal.
But this project was only one among many proofs afforded at the
time, that Cervantes was as profound an observer as he was a witty
reprover of the extravagance of his countrymen.
CHAPTER II.
INTERNAL POLITICAL TRANSACTIONS.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters. Parliamentary Papers.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Letters. MS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
With the military affairs thus mismanaged, the civil and political
transactions proceeded step by step, and in the same crooked path.
Short as the period was between the first breaking forth of the
insurrection, and the arrival of Mr. Stuart at Coruña, it was
sufficient to create disunion of the worst kind. The juntas of
Leon, of the Asturias, and of Gallicia, were at open discord, and
those provinces were again split into parties, hating each other
with as much virulence as if they had been of a hundred years
growth. The money and other supplies sent by the English ministers
were considered, by the authorities into whose hands they fell, as
a peculiar donation to themselves, and appropriated accordingly.
The junta of one province would not assist another with arms when
there was a surplus, nor permit their troops to march against the
enemy beyond the precincts of the particular province in which they
were first organized. The ruling power was in the hands of the
provincial nobility and gentry, men of narrow contracted views,
unused to business, proud, arrogant--as extreme ignorance suddenly
clothed with authority will always be--and generally disposed to
employ their newly-acquired power in providing for their relations
and dependants at the expense of the common cause, which with
them was quite subordinate to the local interests of their own
particular province. Hence a jealousy of their neighbours regulated
the proceedings of all the juntas, and the means they resorted
to for increasing their own, or depressing a rival government’s
influence, were equally characterised by absurdity and want of
principle. The junta of Gallicia did their utmost to isolate that
province, as if with a view to a final separation from Spain and
a connexion with Portugal. They complained, as of an injury, that
the army of Estremadura had obeyed the orders of the junta of
Seville; they at once struck up an independent alliance with the
junta and bishop of Oporto, and sent troops, as we have seen,
under Valladeras, to aid the war in Portugal, but, at the same
time, refused to unite in any common measure of defence with the
provinces of Castille, until a formal treaty of alliance between
them was negotiated, signed, and ratified. In the mean time their
selfishness and incapacity created so much disgust in their own
district, that plots were formed to overthrow their authority. The
bishops of Orense and St. Jago became their decided enemies; and
the last-named prelate, an intriguing man, secretly endeavoured to
draw Blake, with the army, into his views, and even wrote to him,
to desire that he would lead the forces against the government of
Coruña; but the junta having intercepted the letters, arrested the
bishop. Their own stability and personal safety were however still
so insecure, that many persons applied to Mr. Stuart to aid in
changing the form of government by force. The Asturians were even
worse, they refused to assist Blake when his army was suffering,
although the stores required by him, and supplied by England, were
rotting in the harbours where they were first landed. Money also
that was sent out in the Pluto frigate for the use of Leon was
detained at Gihon, and Leon itself never raised a single soldier
for the cause: and thus, only two months after the first burst of
the insurrection, corruption, intrigue, and faction even to the
verge of civil war, were raging in the northern parts of Spain.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 5.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Pap^{rs}. Coxe’s Correspond^{ce}.]
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Papers. Coxe’s Correspondence.
Appendix, No. 13, section 5.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The same passions were at work in the south, and the same
consequences followed. The junta of Seville, still less scrupulous
than that of Gallicia, made no secret of their ambitious views;
they stifled all local publications, and even suppressed the public
address of Florida Blanca, who, as president of the Murcian junta,
had recommended the formation of a supreme central government. They
wasted their time in vain and frivolous disputes, and neglecting
every concern of real importance, sacrificed the general welfare to
views of private advantage and interest. They made promotions in
the army without regard to public opinion or merit; they overlaid
all real patriotism; bestowed on their own creatures places of
emolument, to the patronage of which they had not a legal right;
and even usurped the royal prerogative of appointing canons in
the church, for their cupidity equalled their ambition. They
intercepted, as I have already related, the pecuniary supplies
necessary to enable the army to act; they complained that La
Mancha and Madrid, in whose defence they said “_their_ troops
were sacrificing themselves,” did not subsist and supply the
force under Castaños; under the pretence of forming a nucleus for
disciplining thirty thousand levies as a reserve, they retained
five battalions at Seville, and, having by this draft weakened the
army in the field, they neglected the rest, and never raised a
man. The canonries filled up by them had been vacant for several
years, and the salaries attached to those offices were appropriated
to the public service. The junta now applied the money to their
own and their creatures’ emolument; and at one period they appear
to have contemplated an open partition of the funds received
from England among themselves. Against this flagitious junta also
the public indignation was rife; a plot was formed to assassinate
the members; the municipal authorities remonstrated with them,
the archbishop of Toledo protested against their conduct, and the
junta of Grenada refused to acknowledge their supremacy; but so
great was their arrogance, so unprincipled their ambition, that the
decided and resolute opposition of Castaños alone prevented them
from commencing a civil war, and marching the victorious army of
Baylen against the refractory Granadans. Such was the real state of
Spain, and such the patriotism of the juntas, who were at this time
filling Europe with the sound of their own praise.
[Sidenote: Stuart’s Correspondence. Parliamentary Papers.]
In the northern parts Mr. Stuart endeavoured to reduce this chaos
of folly and wickedness to some degree of order, and to produce
that unity of design and action without which it was impossible to
resist the mighty adversary that threatened the independence of
the Peninsula. He judged that to reduce the conflicting passions
of the moment, a supreme authority, upon which the influence
of Great Britain could be brought to bear with full force, was
indispensable. To convoke the ancient cortez of the realm appeared
to him the most certain and natural method of drawing the strength
and energy of the nation into one compact mass; but there the
foresight of Napoleon interfered; by an able distribution of the
French forces, all direct communication between the northern and
southern provinces was intercepted. Bessieres, Dupont and Moncey at
that time occupied a circle round Madrid, and would have prevented
the local governments of the north from uniting with those of
the southern, if they had been inclined to do so. An union of the
nearest provinces, to be called the northern cortez, then suggested
itself to Mr. Stuart as a preliminary step, which would ensure the
convocation of a general assembly when such a measure should become
practicable. Accordingly he strenuously urged its adoption, but his
efforts, at first, produced no good results. It was in vain that
he represented the danger of remaining in a state of anarchy when
so many violent passions were excited, and such an enemy was in
the heart of the country. It was in vain that he pointed out the
difficulties, that the want of a supreme authority fastened on the
intercourse with the British cabinet, which could not enter into
separate relations with every provincial junta. The Spaniards,
finding that the supplies were not withheld, that their reputation
for patriotism was not lowered in England by actions which little
merited praise, finding, in short, that the English cabinet was
weak enough to gorge their cupidity, flatter their vanity, and
respect their folly, they assented to all Mr. Stuart’s reasoning,
but forwarded none of his propositions, and continued to nourish
the disorders that, cancer-like, were destroying the common cause.
The jarring interests which agitated the northern provinces were
not even subdued by the near approach of danger. The result of
the battle of Rio Seco rather inflamed than allayed the violence
of party feeling. If Bessieres had not been checked in his
operations by the disaster of Dupont, he would have encountered
few obstacles in establishing Joseph’s authority in Gallicia and
Old Castile. The enthusiasm of those provinces never rose to a
great pitch; Bessieres was prepared to use address as well as
force, and among the factions he must doubtless have found support.
The reinforcements continually arriving from France would have
enabled him to maintain his acquisition, and then the ability of
the emperor’s dispositions would have become apparent; for while
Bessieres held Gallicia, and Dupont hung on the southern frontier
of Portugal with twenty-five thousand men, Junot could have
securely concentrated his army in the neighbourhood of Lisbon,
and have rendered an English disembarkation on the coast nearly
impracticable.
[Sidenote: Azanza and O’Farril, Mem.]
The whole of the French monarch’s combinations were overturned by
the disgraceful capitulation of Baylen, and when Joseph evacuated
Madrid a fresh impulse was given to the spirit of the people;
but, unfortunately for Spain, as a wider scope for ambition was
obtained, the workings of self-interest increased, fresh parties
sprung up, and new follies and greater absurdities stifled the
virtue of the country, and produced irremediable confusion, ending
in ruin. The fact of Dupont’s capitulation was made known to the
council of Castile before king Joseph was informed of it, and
the council, foreseeing all the consequences of such an event,
immediately refused, as I have already related, to promulgate
officially his accession to the throne. Joseph permitted this act
of obedience to pass without much notice. He was naturally averse
to violence, and neither he, nor his brother Napoleon, did at any
period of the contest for Spain constrain a Spaniard to accept or
retain office under the intrusive government. Joseph went further;
before he abandoned Madrid, he released his ministers from their
voluntary oath of allegiance to himself, and left them free to
choose their party once more. Don Pedro Cevallos and the marquis
of Pinuelo changed with, what appeared to them, changing fortune;
but five others remained steadfast, preferring an ameliorated
government under a foreign prince to what they believed to be
a hopeless struggle, but which, if successful, they knew must
end in a degrading native despotism; perhaps, also, a little
swayed by their dislike to England, and by the impossibility of
obtaining that influence among their countrymen which, under other
circumstances, their talents and character would have ensured.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Papers. Coxe’s Correspondence.]
The boldness of the council of Castille was not publicly chastised
by the intruding monarch, but secretly he punished the members by
a dexterous stroke of policy. General Grouchy wrote to Castaños,
saying, that circumstances had arisen which required the presence
of the French troops in another quarter, and he invited the Spanish
general to take immediate possession of Madrid for the preservation
of public tranquillity. This communication gave rise to an opinion
that the French were going to evacuate Spain; a report so congenial
to the vanity and indolence of the Spaniards was greedily received,
and contributed among other causes to the subsequent supineness
of the nation in preparing for its defence; thus by appealing to
Castaños, and affecting to treat the council of Castille as a
body who had lost their influence with the nation, Joseph gave a
handle to their enemies which the latter failed not to lay hold
of. The juntas dreaded that the influence of such a body would
destroy their own; that of Gallicia would not communicate with
them, affirming that, individually, the members were attached to
the French, and that, collectively, they had been the most active
instrument of the usurper’s government. The junta of Seville
endeavoured not only to destroy the authority of the existing
members, but to annul that of the council, as an acknowledged
tribunal of the state. The council, however, was not wanting to
itself, the individuals composing it did not hesitate to seize the
reins of government the moment the French had departed; and the
prudence with which they preserved tranquillity in the capital, and
prevented all re-action, proves that they were not without merit;
and forms a striking contrast to the conduct of the provincial
juntas, under whose savage sway every kind of excess was committed,
and even encouraged.
Aware of the hostility they had to encounter, the members of the
council lost no time in forming a party to support themselves. Don
Arias Mon y Velarde, dean or president for the time being, wrote
a circular letter to the local juntas, pointing out the necessity
of establishing a central and supreme power, and proposing that
deputies from each province, or nation, as they were sometimes
called, should repair to Madrid, and there concert with the council
the best mode of carrying such a measure into effect. If this
proposal had been adopted, all power would inevitably have fallen
into the hands of the proposers. Confessedly the first public body
in the state, and well acquainted with the forms of business; the
council must necessarily have had a preponderating influence in
the assembly of delegates, and it appeared so reasonable that it
should take the lead, when an efficient authority was required to
direct the violence of the people in a useful channel, before the
moment of safety was passed; that all the juntas trembled at the
prospect of losing their misused power. The minor ones submitted,
and agreed to send deputies. The stronger and more ambitious felt
that subtlety would avail more than open opposition to the project.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Cox’s Correspon^{ce}. Appendix, No. 13, section 5.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
The council followed up this blow by the publication of a
manifesto, containing an accurate detail of the events of the
revolution, defending the part taken by its members, and claiming a
renewal of the confidence formerly reposed in them by the nation.
This important state paper was so ably written, that a large
party, especially at Valladolid, was immediately formed in favour
of its authors; and the junta of Seville were so sensible of the
increasing influence of the council, that they intercepted a copy
of this manifesto, addressed to sir Hew Dalrymple, and strictly
suppressed all writings favourable to the formation of a supreme
central authority. Nothing they dreaded more; but it was no longer
possible to resist the current, which had set strongly in favour of
such a measure. The juntas, however they might oppose its progress,
could not openly deny the propriety of it, and in every province,
individuals of talent and consideration called for a change in the
Hydra polity, which oppressed the country, and was inefficient
against the enemy. Every British functionary, civil or military,
in communication with the Spaniards, also urged the necessity of
concentrating the executive power.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The provincial juntas were become universally odious. Some of the
generals alone, who had suddenly risen to command under their
rule, were favourable to them; but Palafox was independent,
as a captain-general, whose power was confirmed by success;
Castaños openly declared that he would no longer serve under
their control, and Cuesta was prepared to put them down by
force, and to re-establish the royal audienzas and the authority
of the captains-general according to the old practice. In this
state of affairs, the retreat of Bessieres’ army freed the
communication with the southern parts, and removed all excuse for
procrastination. The juntas of Gallicia, Castille, Leon, and the
Asturias, gave way to the unceasing remonstrances of Mr. Stuart,
and at his instance agreed to meet in cortez, at Lugo; Gallicia,
however, first insisted upon a formal ratification of the treaty
with Castille already mentioned.
When the moment of assembling arrived, the Asturians, without
assigning any reason, refused to fulfil the engagement they had
entered into, and the three remaining juntas held the session
without them. The bishop of Orense, and the junta of Gallicia, were
prepared to assert the supremacy of that province over the others,
but the Baily Valdez of Castille, an able and disinterested man,
being chosen president of the convocation, proposed, on the first
day of assembly, that deputies should be appointed to represent
the three provinces in a supreme junta, to be assembled in some
central place, for the purpose of convoking the ancient cortez of
the whole kingdom according to the old forms, and of settling the
administration of the interior, and the future succession to the
throne. This proposition was immediately carried by the superior
number of the Castillians and Leonese; but the bishop of Orense
protested against it, and the Gallician members strongly opposed
an arrangement, by which their province was placed on the same
footing as others, a glaring injustice (in their opinion) when the
numbers of the Gallician army were taken into consideration; for
the local feeling of ambition was uppermost, and the general cause
disregarded. The other party answered, with great force, that the
Gallician army was paid, armed, and clothed, by England, and fed by
Castille and Leon.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
Meanwhile the influence of the council of Castille greatly
increased, and the junta of Seville, quickened by fear, took the
lead in directing what they could not prevent. The convocation
of the cortez they knew would be fatal to their own existence;
wherefore, in a public letter, addressed to the junta of Gallicia,
dated one day previous to the circular of don Arias Mon, but
evidently written after the receipt of the latter, they opposed the
assembling of the cortez on the ground that it was “the prerogative
of the king to convoke that body, and if it was called together by
any other authority, the provinces would not obey.” “There would
be no unanimity.” The futility of this argument is apparent. The
question was not one of form, but of expediency. If the nation was
in favour of such a step, (and after facts proved that the people
were not opposed to it) the same necessity which constituted the
right of the junta to declare war against the French, (another
prerogative of the monarch) would have sufficed to legalize the
convocation of the national assembly. But their sole object was
to preserve their own power. They maintained that the juntas,
being chosen by the nation, were the only legitimate depositaries
of authority, and that to members of their own bodies only could
any of that authority be delegated; and adopting thereupon the
suggestion contained in the letter of Arias Mon, they proposed that
two deputies from each supreme junta should repair, not to Madrid,
but to Ciudad Real, or Almagro, and at the moment of meeting should
be in fact constituted governors-general of the kingdom, and as
such obeyed. Nevertheless, the local governments were, with due
subordination to the central junta, to retain and exercise in
their own provinces all the authority with which they had already
invested themselves. Thus they had only to choose subservient
deputies, and their power would be more firmly fixed than before.
This arrangement would, doubtless, have been readily adopted by
the junta of Gallicia; but the rapidity with which Valdez carried
his proposition, prevented that cause of discord from being added
to the numerous disputes which already distracted the northern
provinces. Mr. Stuart, impelled by the political tide, proceeded
onward to Madrid, observing, wherever he passed, the same violence
of local party feeling, and the general disgust occasioned by the
conduct of the oligarchical provincial governments. Pride, vanity,
corruption, and improvidence, were every where obtrusively visible.
[Sidenote: Stuart’s Correspondence.]
The dispute between Blake and Cuesta, which was raging at the
period of the battle of Rio Seco, a period when division was
most hurtful to the military operations, was now allayed between
the generals; but their political partizans waged war with more
bitterness than ever, as if with the intent to do the greatest
possible mischief, by continuing the feud among the civil branches
of the government, when union was most desirable in that quarter.
The seeds of division had taken deep root. The Baily Valdez chosen,
as I have said, a deputy to the supreme junta, was obnoxious to
general Cuesta, a man not to be offended with impunity when he had
power to punish.
Don Gregorio Cuesta was haughty and incredibly obstinate. He
had been president of the council of Castille, and he was
captain-general of Castille and Leon when the insurrection first
broke out. Disliking all revolutionary movements, although as
inimical to a foreign domination as any of his countrymen, he
endeavoured to repress the public effervescence, and to maintain
the tranquillity of the country at the risk of losing his life
as a traitor. He was an honest man, insomuch as the Spanish and
French interests being put in competition, he would aid the former,
but, between his country’s cause and his own passions, he was
not honest. He disliked, and with reason, the sway of the local
juntas, and with consistency of opinion, he wished to preserve the
authority of the captains-general and the royal audienzas, both
of which had been overturned by the establishment of those petty
governments; but, sullen and ferocious in his temper, he supported
his opinion with an authority and severity which had no guide but
his own will, and he was prepared, if an opportunity offered, to
exercise military influence over the supreme, as well as over the
subordinate juntas. He had himself appointed one for Leon and
Castille as a sort of council, subordinate to the authority of
captain-general; but, after the battle of Rio Seco, the members
fled to Ponteferrada, assumed the supreme authority, and putting
themselves under the protection of his enemy Blake, disregarded
Cuesta’s orders, and presumed to command him, their superior, to
deliver up his cavalry to the former general; wherefore he annulled
all their proceedings at Ponteferrada, and now asserting that the
election of Valdez and his colleagues was void, as being contrary
to the existing laws, he directed new juntas to be assembled in a
manner more conformable to existing usages, and a fresh election to
be made.
His mandates were disregarded; Valdez and the other deputies
proceeded in defiance of them towards the place appointed for
the assembly of the central and supreme government, and Cuesta,
in return, without hesitation, abandoned the operations of the
campaign, which, in the council of war held at Madrid, he had
promised to aid, and falling back to Segovia with twelve thousand
men, seized the deputies, and shut up Valdez a close prisoner in
the tower of that place, declaring his intention to try him by
a military tribunal for disobedience; and such was the disorder
of the times, that Cuesta was not without plausible arguments to
justify this act of stubborn violence; for the original election of
members to form the junta of Castille and Leon had been any thing
but legal; several districts had been omitted altogether in the
representation of those kingdoms, many deputies had been chosen by
the city of Leon alone, and Valdez was named president, although
neither a native nor a proprietor, and for those reasons ineligible
to be a deputy at all. The kingdom of Leon also had appointed
representatives for those districts in Castille which were under
the domination of the French, and when the enemy retired, the
Castillians in vain demanded a more equitable arrangement.
However, amidst all this confusion and violence, the plan of
uniting to form a central government gained ground all over the
kingdom. Seville, Catalonia, Arragon, Murcia, Valencia, and
Asturias, appointed their deputies. Fresh disputes relative to the
place of assembly now arose, but after some time it was agreed to
meet at Aranjuez. This royal residence was chosen contrary to the
wishes of many, and notably against the opinion of Jovellanos,
an eloquent person, and of great reputation for integrity, but
of a pertinacious temper, unsuitable to the times. He urged that
the capital was the meetest spot; but he was answered, that the
turbulent disposition of the inhabitants of Madrid would impede the
formation of a government, and that the same objection would exist
against the choice of any other large town. It is extraordinary
that such an argument should be held in Spain at a moment when the
people were, in all the official and public papers, represented as
perfectly enthusiastic, and united in one common sacred pursuit,
and in the British parliament were denominated the “universal
Spanish nation!”
[Sidenote: Cox’s Correspondence.]
To seek thus for protection in a corner, instead of manfully and
confidently identifying themselves with the people, and courting
publicity, augured ill for the intentions of the deputies, nor
was the augury belied by the event. The junta of Seville, who had
so bitterly reviled the council of Castille, for having partially
submitted to the usurper, had, notwithstanding, chosen for their
own deputies, don Vincente Hore, a known creature of the prince of
peace, and the count de Tilly Gusman, who was under the stigma of
a judicial sentence for robbery. Hore declined the appointment;
but Tilly, braving the public disgust, repaired to Aranjuez, and
his place as resident with the head-quarters of the Andalusian
army was filled up by Miñiano, another member of the junta, who
received an enormous salary for performing the mischievous duties
of that office. The instructions given by the different provinces
to the deputies were to confine their deliberations and votes to
such subjects as they should, from time to time, receive directions
from their constituents to treat of. Seville again took the lead
in this fraudulent policy, and when public indignation and the
remonstrances of some right-minded persons, obliged the juntas
of that town and of Valencia to rescind these instructions, both
substituted secret orders of the same tenor; in short the greater
part of the deputies were the mere tools of the juntas; agents,
watching over the interests of their employers, and (conscious of
demerit) anxious to hide themselves from the just indignation of
the public until they had consolidated their power; hence the
dislike to large towns and the intrigues for fixing the government
at Aranjuez.
Count Florida Blanca, a man in the last stage of decrepitude, was
chosen first president in rotation for three months, and all idea
of choosing an independent executive was abandoned; Jovellanos
proposed to establish a regency selected from their own body; but
his plan was rejected on the ground that the members were not
authorised to delegate their powers even to one another. It was
palpable that the juntas had merely appeared to comply with the
public wish for a central government, but were determined not to
part with one iota of their own real power.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. Col. Graham’s ditto.]
The first act of authority executed by the assembly was, however,
a necessary assertion of its own dignity, which had been violated
in the case of Valdez. Cuesta, who was personally unpopular,
and feared by the central, as well as by the provincial juntas,
was summoned to release his captive, and to repair to Aranjuez,
that cognizance might be taken of his proceedings; he was at
the same time denounced by the juntas of Castille and Leon as a
traitor, and exposed to great danger of popular commotion. At
first Cuesta haughtily repelled the interference of Castaños and
Florida Blanca, but finally he was forced to bend, and after a
sharp correspondence with Mr. Stuart, whose influence was usefully
employed to strengthen the central government, he released his
prisoner, and quitting the command of the army, appeared at
Aranjuez. No formal proceedings were had upon the case; but after
much mutual recrimination, Valdez was admitted to the exercise
of his functions, and the old general was detained at the seat
of government, a kind of state prisoner at large, until, for the
misfortune of his country, he was, by subsequent events, once more
placed at the head of an army.
About this time lord William Bentinck joined Mr. Stuart at Madrid.
Perfectly coinciding in opinions, they laboured earnestly to give
a favourable turn to affairs, by directing the attention of the
central junta, to the necessity of military preparations, and
active exertion for defence; but the picture of discord, folly,
and improvidence exhibited in the provinces, was here displayed
in more glaring colours. The lesser tribunals being called upon
to acknowledge the authority of the assembled deputies, readily
obeyed; but the council of Castille, reluctant to submit, and
too weak to resist, endeavoured to make terms; they were forced,
however, to an unconditional submission.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
A good management of the revenue, a single chief for the army, and,
above all, the total suppression of the provincial juntas, were
the three objects of public anxiety. With respect to the army, no
doubt was at first entertained that Castaños would be appointed
commander-in-chief; his services entitled him to the office, and
his general moderation and conciliating manners fitted him for
it at a time when so much jealousy was to be soothed and so many
interests to be reconciled. The past expenditure of the money
received from England was also a subject of great importance, and
it was loudly required that an account of its disbursement should
be demanded of the local juntas, and a surrender of the residue
instantly enforced. These just expectations lasted but a short
time; scarcely were the deputies assembled, when every prospect of
a vigorous administration was blasted. Dividing themselves into
sections, answering in number to the departments of state under the
old king, they appointed a secretary not chosen from their own
body, to each, and declared all and every one of these sections,
supreme and independent, having equal authority.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers.]
Florida Blanca informed Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck that
Castaños would be named generalissimo, and the latter was even
appointed to confer with him upon the plan of campaign for the
British troops, then marching from Portugal to the assistance of
the Spaniards. The necessity of having a single chief at the head
of the armies was imperious, and acknowledged by every individual,
military or civil; yet such was the force of jealousy, and so
stubborn were the tools of the different juntas, that all the
exertions of Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck, and all the
influence of the British cabinet, failed to get one appointed.
The generals were all confirmed in their separate and independent
commands, the old and miserable system of the Dutch deputies in
Marlborough’s time, and of the commissaries of the convention,
during the French revolution, was partially revived, and the
expressed wishes of the English government were totally disregarded
at a time when it had supplied Spain with two hundred thousand
musquets, clothing, ammunition of all kinds in proportion, and
ten millions of dollars. Such ample succours, if rightly managed,
ought to have secured to the English cabinet unlimited influence;
but as the benefits came through one set of persons, and the
demands through another, the first were taken as of right, the
last unheeded, and the resources of Great Britain were wasted
without materially improving the condition of Spain; the armies
were destitute, the central government was without credit, and
notwithstanding the ample subsidies, contracted a large debt.
[Sidenote: Stuart’s Corresp^{ce}. Lord W. Bentinck’s Ditto.]
[Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s Corresp^{ce}. Appendix, No. 13,
section 6.]
The provincial juntas were still permitted to retain their power
within their own districts, and the greatest timidity marked all
the proceedings of the central government in relation to those
obnoxious bodies. Attentive, however, to their own interests, the
members of the supreme junta decreed, 1st. that their persons
should be inviolable; 2d. that the president should have the title
of highness, with a salary of 25,000 crowns a year; 3d. that each
of the deputies, taking the title of excellency, should have a
yearly salary of 5,000 crowns; and lastly, that the collective
body should be addressed by the title of majesty. Thinking that
they were now sufficiently confirmed in power to venture upon a
public entry into Madrid, the junta made preparations to ensure a
favourable reception from the populace. They resolved to declare a
general amnesty, to lower the duties on tobacco, and to fling large
sums among the people during the procession; but, in the midst of
all this pomp and vanity, the presence of the enemy on the soil
was scarcely remembered, and the details of business were totally
neglected, a prominent evil that extended to the lowest branches
of administration. Self-interest, indeed, produced abundance of
activity, but every department, almost every man, seemed struck
with torpor when the public welfare was at stake; and withal, an
astonishing presumption was common to the highest and the lowest.
[Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s Corresp^{ce}.]
To supply the place of a generalissimo, a council or board of
general officers was projected, on whose reports the junta proposed
to regulate the military operations. Castaños was destined to be
president; but some difficulty arising relative to the appointment
of the other members, the execution of the plan was deferred, with
the characteristic remark “that when the enemy was driven across
the frontier, Castaños would have leisure to take his seat.” The
idea of a defeat, the possibility of failure, never entered their
minds; the government evincing neither apprehension, nor activity,
nor foresight, were contented if the people believed the daily
falsehoods they promulgated relative to the enemy; and the people,
equally presumptuous, were content to be so deceived; in fine, all
the symptoms of a ruined cause were already visible to discerning
eyes. The armies neglected even to nakedness, and the soldier’s
constancy under privations cruelly abused; disunion, cupidity,
incapacity, in the higher orders; the patriotic ardour visibly
abating among the lower classes; the rulers grasping, improvident,
and boasting; the enemy powerful; the people insubordinate, and
the fighting men without arms or bread; as a whole, and in all
its parts, the government unfitted for its task; cumbrous and
ostentatious, its system, to use the comprehensive words of Mr.
Stuart, “was neither calculated to inspire courage nor to increase
enthusiasm.”
The truth of this picture will be recognized by men who are yet
living, and whose exertions were as incessant as unavailing to
remedy those evils at the time. It will be recognized by the
friends of a great man, who fell a victim to the folly and base
intrigues of the day; and finally, it will be recognized by that
general and army, who, afterwards winning their own unaided way
through Spain, found that to trust Spaniards in war was to lean
against a broken reed. To others it may appear exaggerated; for
without having seen it is difficult to believe the extent of a
disorder that paralized the enthusiasm of a whole people.
EXTERNAL POLITICAL RELATIONS OF SPAIN.
At first these were of necessity confined to a few foreign courts;
England, Sicily, and Portugal; the rest of the Old World was either
subject to Buonaparte or directly under his influence; but in the
New World it was different: the Brazils, after the emigration of
the royal family of Braganza, became important under every point
of view, and relations were established between the junta and
that court, that afterwards under the cortez created considerable
interest, and threatened serious embarrassments to the operations
of the duke of Wellington.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Corresp^{ce}. MS. Sir Hew Dalrymple.]
The ultra-marine possessions of Spain were, of course, a matter
of great anxiety to both sides; Napoleon’s activity balanced the
natural preponderance of the mother country. The slowness of the
local juntas, or rather their want of capacity to conduct such an
affair, gave the enemy a great advantage. It was only owing to the
exertions of Mr. Stuart in the north, and of sir Hew Dalrymple
and lord Collingwood in the south, that, after the insurrection
broke out, vessels were despatched to South America to confirm
the colonists in their adherence to Spain, and to arrange the
mode of securing the resources of those great possessions for the
parent state. The hold which Spain retained over her colonies was,
however, very slight; her harsh restrictive system had long before
weakened the attachment of the South Americans; the expedition of
Miranda, although unsuccessful, had kindled a fire which could
not be extinguished; and it was apparent to all able statesmen,
that Spain must relinquish her arbitrary mode of governing, or
relinquish the colonies altogether; the insurrection at home only
rendered this more certain; every argument, every public manifesto
put forth in Europe, to animate the Spaniards against foreign
aggression, told against them in America. Yet for a time the latter
transmitted the produce of the mines, and many of the natives
served in the Spanish armies.
Napoleon, notwithstanding his activity, and the offers which he
made of the vice-royalty of Mexico to Cuesta, Castaños, Blake,
and probably to others residing in that country, failed to
create a French party of any consequence. The Americans were
unwilling to plunge into civil strife for a less object than
their own independence: the arrogance and injustice of Old Spain,
however, increased, rather than diminished, under the sway of the
insurrectional government, and at last, as it is well known, a
general rebellion of the South American states established the
independence of the fairest portion of the globe, and proved, how
little the abstract love of freedom influenced the resistance of
the old country to Napoleon.
The intercourse with the English court, which had been hitherto
carried on through the medium of the deputies, who first arrived in
London to claim assistance, was now placed upon a regular footing.
The deputies, at the desire of Mr. Canning, were recalled, and
admiral Apodaca was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary at St. James’s, and Mr. John Hookham Frere was
accredited, with the same diplomatic rank, near the central junta.
Mr. Stuart, whose knowledge of the state of the country, whose
acquaintance with the character of the leading persons, and
whose able and energetic exertions had so much contributed to
the formation of a central government, was superseded by this
injudicious appointment, and thus a great political machine,
with every wheel in violent action, was, at the critical moment,
left without any controlling power or guiding influence; for Mr.
Stuart, who, on his own responsibility, had quitted Coruña, and
repaired to Madrid, and had remitted the most exact and important
information of what was passing, remained for three months without
receiving a single line from Mr. Canning, approving or disapproving
of his proceedings, or giving him instructions how to act at this
important crisis: a strange remissness, indicating the bewildered
state of the ministers, who slowly and with difficulty followed,
when they should have been prepared to lead. Their tardy abortive
measures demonstrated, how wide the space between a sophist and a
statesman, and how dangerous to a nation is that public feeling
which, insatiable of words, disregards the actions of men,
esteeming more the interested eloquence and wit of an orator like
Demades, than the simple integrity, sound judgment, and great
exploits, of a general like Phocion.
Such were the preparations made by Spain in September and October,
to meet the exigencies of a period replete with danger and
difficulty. It would be instructive to contrast the exertions of
the “enthusiastic Spaniards” during these three months of their
insurrection, with the efforts of “discontented France,” in the
hundred days of Napoleon’s second reign. The junta were, however,
not devoid of ambition, for even before the battle of Baylen, that
of Seville was occupied with a project of annexing the Algarves
to Spain, and the treaty of Fontainebleau was far from being
considered as a dead letter.
CHAPTER III.
[Sidenote: Letter to Murat. Las Casas.]
The French emperor, although surprised and chagrined at the
disgrace which, for the first time, his armies had sustained, was
nothing dismayed by a resistance which he had early contemplated
as not improbable. With a piercing glance he had observed the
efforts of Spain, and calculated the power of foreign influence
in keeping alive the spirit of resistance. Assigning a just value
to the succours which England could afford, he foresaw the danger
which might accrue, if he suffered an insurrection of peasants,
that had already dishonoured the glory of his arms, to attain the
consistency of regular government, to league with powerful nations,
and to become disciplined troops.
To defeat the raw levies which the Spaniards had hitherto opposed
to his soldiers, was an easy matter, but it was necessary to crush
them to atoms, that a dread of his invincible power might still
pervade the world, and the secret influence of his genius remain
unabated. The constitution of Bayonne would, he was aware, weigh
heavy in the scale against those chaotic governments, neither
monarchical, nor popular, nor aristocratic, nor federal, which the
Spanish revolution was throwing up; but before the benefit of that
could be felt by the many, before he could draw any advantages from
his moral resources, it was necessary to develop all his military
strength. The moment was critical and dangerous. He was surrounded
by enemies whose pride he had wounded, but whose means of offence
he had not destroyed. If he bent his forces against the Peninsula,
England might again excite the continent to arms, and Russia and
Austria once more banding together, might raise Prussia and renew
the eternal coalitions. The designs of Austria, although covered by
the usual artifices of that cunning rapacious court, were not so
hidden but that, earlier or later, a war from that quarter was to
be expected as a certain event.
[Sidenote: Baron Fain’s Campaign. 1813.]
The inhabitants of Prussia, subdued and oppressed, could not be
supposed tranquil: the secret societies, that, under the name of
Tugenbunde, Gymnasiasts, and other denominations, have since been
persecuted by those who were then glad to avail themselves of
such assistance, were just beginning to disclose their force and
plans. A baron de Nostiz, Stein, the Prussian counsellor of state,
generals Sharnhost and Gneizenau, and colonel Schill, appear to
have been the principal contrivers and patrons of these societies,
so characteristic of Germans, who, regular and plodding, even to a
proverb in their actions, possess the most extravagant imaginations
of any people on the face of the earth. Whatever the ulterior
views of these associations may have been, at this period they
were universally inimical to the French, their intent was to drive
the latter over the Rhine, and they were a source of peril to the
emperor, the more to be feared, as the extent of their influence
could not be immediately ascertained.
Russia also, little injured by her losses, was more powerful
perhaps from her defeats, because more enlightened as to the cause
of them: Napoleon felt, that the hostility of such a great empire
would require all his means to repel, and that, consequently, his
Spanish operations must be confined in a manner unsuitable to
the fame of his arms. Of a long-sighted policy he had, however,
prepared the means of obviating this danger, by drawing the emperor
of Russia into a conference at Erfurth, whither the French monarch
repaired, confident in the resources of his genius for securing the
friendship of the czar.
At this period, it may be truly said, that Napoleon supported the
weight of the world; every movement of his produced a political
convulsion; yet so sure, so confident was he, of his intellectual
superiority, that he sought but to gain one step, and doubted not
to overcome all resistance, and preserve his ascendancy. Time was
to him victory; if he gained the one, the other followed. Sudden
and prompt in execution, he prepared for one of those gigantic
efforts which have stamped this age with the greatness of antiquity.
His armies were scattered over Europe. In Italy, in Dalmatia, on
the Rhine, the Danube, the Elbe; in Prussia, Denmark, Poland, his
legions were to be found. Over that vast extent, above five hundred
thousand disciplined men maintained the supremacy of France. From
those bands he drew the imperial guards, the select soldiers of the
warlike nation he governed, and the terror of the other continental
troops. The veterans of Jena, of Austerlitz, of Friedland, reduced
in number, but of confirmed hardihood, were collected into one
corps, and marched towards Spain. A host of cavalry, unequalled for
enterprise and knowledge of war, were also directed against that
devoted land, and a long train of gallant soldiers followed, until
two hundred thousand men, accustomed to battle, had penetrated
the gloomy fastnesses of the western Pyrenees. Forty thousand
men of inferior reputation, drawn from the interior of France,
from Naples, from Tuscany, and from Piedmont, were assembled at
Perpignan.
The march of this multitude was incessant, and as they passed the
capital, Napoleon, neglectful of nothing which could excite their
courage and swell their military pride, addressed to them one of
those nervous orations that shoot like fire to the heart of a real
soldier. In the tranquillity of peace it may seem inflated, but on
the eve of battle it is thus a general should speak.
“Soldiers! after triumphing on the banks of the Vistula and the
Danube, with rapid steps you have passed through Germany. This
day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France.
Soldiers! I have need of you! The hideous presence of the leopard
contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must
fly before you. Let us bear our triumphal eagles to the pillars of
Hercules, there also we have injuries to avenge! Soldiers! you have
surpassed the renown of modern armies, but have you yet equalled
the glory of those Romans who, in one and the same campaign, were
victorious upon the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and upon
the Tagus! A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward
of your labours. A real Frenchman could not, ought not, to rest
until the seas are free and open to all. Soldiers! all that you
have done, all that you will do, for the happiness of the French
people and for my glory, shall be eternal in my heart!”
Thus saying, he caused his troops to proceed towards the frontiers
of Spain, and himself hastened to meet the emperor Alexander at
Erfurth. Their conference, conducted upon the footing of intimate
friendship, produced a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive,
and the fate of Spain was, by the one, with calm indifference,
abandoned to the injustice of the other.
The accession of strength which this treaty, and the manifest
personal partiality of Alexander, gave to the French emperor,
inspired him perhaps with the idea, that the English cabinet would,
if a fair occasion offered, gladly enter into negotiations for a
general peace. The two emperors wrote a joint letter to the king
of England. “The circumstances of Europe had,” they said, “brought
them together; their first thought was to yield to the wish and
the wants of every people, and to seek, in a speedy pacification,
the most efficacious remedy for the miseries which oppressed all
nations. The long and bloody war which had torn the continent was
at an end, without the possibility of being renewed. Many changes
had taken place in Europe, many states had been overthrown; the
cause was to be found in the state of agitation and misery in
which the stagnation of maritime commerce had placed the greatest
nations: still greater changes might yet take place, and all of
them contrary to the policy of the English nation. Peace, then,
was, at once, the interest of the people of the continent, as it
was the interest of the people of Great Britain. We entreat your
majesty,” they concluded, “we unite to entreat your majesty to
listen to the voice of humanity, to silence that of the passions;
to seek, with the intention of arriving at that object, to
conciliate all interests, and thus preserve all powers which exist,
ensure the happiness of Europe and of this generation, at the head
of which Providence has placed us.”
To this joint letter Mr. Canning replied by two letters to the
French and Russian ministers, accompanied by an official note.
In that addressed to the Russian, he observed, that “however
desirous the king might be to reply personally to the emperor,
he was prevented, by the unusual mode of communication adopted,
which had deprived it of a private and personal character. It was
impossible to pay that mark of respect to the emperor, without at
the same time acknowledging titles which he had never acknowledged.
The proposition for peace would be communicated to Sweden, and to
the existing government of Spain. It was necessary that his majesty
should receive an immediate assurance, that France acknowledged
the government of Spain as a party to the negotiation. That such
was the intention of the emperor could not be doubted, when the
lively interest manifested by his imperial majesty for the welfare
and dignity of the Spanish monarchy was recollected. No other
assurance was wanted, that the emperor could not have been induced
to sanction by his concurrence or approbation, usurpations, the
principles of which were not less unjust than their example was
dangerous to all legitimate sovereigns.”
The letter addressed to Mons. de Champagny, duke of Cadore, merely
reiterated the claim for Sweden and Spain being admitted as parties
to the negotiation. The official note commenced by stating the
king’s desire for peace, on terms consistent with his honour, his
fidelity to his engagements, and the permanent repose of Europe.
The miserable condition of the continent, the convulsions it had
experienced, and those with which it was threatened, were not
imputable to his majesty. If the cause of so much misery was to be
found in the stagnation of commercial intercourse, although his
majesty could _not be expected to hear with unqualified regret_,
that the system devised for the destruction of the commerce of
his subjects had recoiled upon its authors or its instruments;
yet, as it was neither the disposition of his majesty, nor in the
character of the people over whom he reigned to rejoice in the
privations and unhappiness even of the nations which were combined
against him, he anxiously desired the termination of the sufferings
of the continent. The note, after stating that the progress of the
war had imposed new obligations upon Great Britain, claimed for
Sicily, for Portugal, for Sweden, and for Spain, a participation
in the negotiations. Treaties, it stated, existed with the three
first, which bound them and England in peace and war. With Spain
indeed no formal instrument had yet been executed, but the ties
of honour were, to the king of England, as strong as the most
solemn treaties; wherefore it was assumed, that the central junta,
or government of Spain, was understood to be a party to any
negotiation, in which his majesty was invited to engage.
The reply of Russia was peremptory. The claims of the sovereigns,
allies of Great Britain, she would readily admit. But the
insurgents of Spain, Russia would not acknowledge as an independent
power. The Russians (and England, it was said, could recollect
one particular instance) had always been true to this principle;
moreover, the emperor had acknowledged Joseph Buonaparte as king
of Spain, and was united to the French emperor for peace and for
war; he was resolved not to separate his interests from those of
Napoleon. After some further arguments touching the question, the
reply concluded by offering to treat upon the basis of the “uti
possidetis,” and the respective power of the belligerent parties,
or upon _any basis_; for the conclusion of an honourable, just, and
equal peace.
The insulting tone of Mr. Canning’s communication produced an
insulting reply from monsieur de Champagny, which also finished
by proposing the “uti possidetis” as a basis for a treaty, and
expressing a hope, that without losing sight of the inevitable
results of the force of states, it would be remembered, that
between great powers there could be no solid peace but that which
was equal and honourable for both parties. Upon the receipt of
these replies, the English minister broke off the negotiations, and
all chance of peace vanished; but previous to the conclusion of
this remarkable correspondence, Napoleon had returned to Paris.
[Sidenote: O’Meara. Voice from St. Helena. Vol. 2.]
What his real views in proposing to treat were, it is difficult
to determine; he could not have expected that Great Britain
would relinquish the cause of Spain, he must therefore have been
prepared to make some arrangement upon that head, unless the whole
proceeding was an artifice to sow distrust among his enemies.
The English ministers asserted that it was so; but what enemies
were they among whom he could create this uneasy feeling? Sweden,
Sicily, Portugal! the notion as applied to them was absurd; it is
more probable that he was sincere. He said so at Saint Helena, and
the peculiar circumstances of the period at which the conferences
of Erfurth took place, warrant a belief in that assertion. The
menacing aspect of Austria, the recent loss of Portugal, the
hitherto successful insurrection of Spain, the secret societies
of Germany, the desire of consolidating the Polish dominions, and
placing, while he might, a barrier to the power of Russia on that
side, the breach which the events of the Peninsula made in his
continental system of excluding British goods, and the commercial
distresses of Europe, were cogent reasons for a peace, they
might well cause him to be suspicious of the future, and render
him anxious for an excuse to abandon an unjust contest, in which
he could not fail to suffer much, and to risk more than he could
gain. In securing the alliance of Russia, he only disentangled a
part of the Gordian knot of politics; to cut the remainder with his
sword was at this conjuncture a task which even he might have been
doubtful of. The fact that his armies were marching upon Spain,
proves nothing to the contrary of this supposition. Time was to him
of the utmost consequence. His negotiations proving abortive, it
would have been too late to have reinforced his troops on the Ebro;
and the event evinced the prudence of his measures in that respect.
The refusal to admit the Spaniards as a party to the conferences
for peace is scarcely more conclusive; to have done that would have
been to resign the weapon in his hands before he entered the lists.
That England could not abandon the Spaniards is unquestionable;
but that was not a necessary consequence of continuing the
negotiations. There was a bar put to the admission of a Spanish
diplomatist, but no bar was thereby put to the discussion of
Spanish interests; the correspondence of the English minister would
not of necessity have compromised Spanish independence, it need not
have relaxed in the slightest degree the measures of hostility,
nor retarded the succours preparing for the patriots; and when
we consider the great power of Napoleon’s arms, the subtlety and
force of his genius, the good fortune which had hitherto attended
his progress in war, and the vast additional strength which the
alliance of Russia conferred at the moment, and when, to oppose
all this, we contrast the scanty means of Spain, and the confusion
into which she was plunged, it does appear as if her welfare would
have been better consulted by an appeal to negotiation rather
than to battle. It is true that Austria was arming; but Austria
had been so often conquered, was so sure to abandon the cause of
the patriots, and every other cause when pressed, so certain to
sacrifice every consideration of honour or faith to the suggestions
of self-interest, that the independence of Spain through the medium
of war could only be regarded as the object of uncertain hope, a
prize to be gained, if gained at all, by wading through torrents
of blood, and sustaining every misery that famine, and the fury
of devastating armies could inflict. To avoid, if possible, such
dreadful evils by negotiating was surely worth trial, and the
force of justice, when urged by the minister of a great nation,
would have been difficult to withstand; no power, no ambition can
resist it and be safe. But such an enlarged mode of proceeding was
not in accord with the shifts and subterfuges that characterized
the policy of the day[15], when it was thought wise to degrade
the dignity of such a correspondence by a ridiculous denial of
Napoleon’s titles; and praiseworthy to render a state paper, in
which such serious interests were discussed, offensive and mean
by miserable sarcasms, evincing the pride of an author more than
the gravity of a statesman. Mr. Whitbread declared in the House of
Commons that he saw no reason for refusing to treat with France at
that period; and although public clamour afterwards induced him to
explain away this expression, he had no reason to be ashamed of it;
for if the opinion of Cicero, that an unfair peace is preferable to
the justest war, was ever worthy of attention, it was so at this
period, when the success of Spain was doubtful, her misery certain,
her salvation only to be obtained through the baptism of blood!
[Sidenote: Imperial Decree, 11th Sept. 1808.]
Upon the 18th of October Napoleon returned to Paris, secure of the
present friendship and alliance of Russia, but uncertain of the
moment when the stimulus of English subsidies would quicken the
hostility of Austria into life; but if his peril was great, his
preparations to meet it were likewise enormous. First he called out
two conscriptions, of which the one taken from the classes of 1806,
7, 8, and 9, afforded eighty thousand men arrived at maturity;
these were destined to replace the veterans directed against Spain.
The second conscription, taken from the class of 1810, also
produced eighty thousand, which were disposed of as reserves in the
dépôts of France.
The force in Germany was concentrated on the side of Austria.
Denmark was evacuated, and one hundred thousand soldiers were
withdrawn from the Prussian states.
The army of Italy was powerfully reinforced, and placed under the
command of prince Eugene, who was assisted by marshal Massena.
Murat also, who had succeeded Joseph in the kingdom of Naples, was
directed to assemble a Neapolitan army on the shores of Calabria,
and to threaten Sicily. In short, no measures that prudence could
suggest were neglected by this wonderful man, to whom the time
required by Austria for the mere preparation of a campaign seemed
sufficient for the subjection of the whole Peninsula.
[Sidenote: Exposé de l’Empire, 1808.]
The session of the legislative body was opened on the 24th of
October; the emperor, in his speech from the throne, after giving a
concise sketch of the political situation of Europe, touched upon
Spain. “In a few days I go,” said he, “to put myself at the head of
my armies, and, with the aid of God, to crown the king of Spain in
Madrid, and to plant my eagles on the towers of Lisbon,” and then
departing from Paris he repaired to Bayonne; but the labours of his
ministers continued; their speeches and reports, more elaborately
explicit than usual, exposed the vast resources of France, and
were well calculated to impress upon the minds of men the danger
of provoking the enmity of such a powerful nation. From those
documents it appeared that the expenses of the year, (including
the interest of the national debt), being between twenty-nine and
thirty millions sterling, were completely covered by the existing
taxes, drawn from a metallic currency, and that no fresh burthens
would be laid upon the nation. Numerous public works were in
progress, internal trade, and that commerce which was carried on by
land, were flourishing, and nearly one million of men were in arms!
The readiness with which Mr. Canning broke off the negotiation
of Erfurth, and defied this stupendous power, would lead to the
supposition that on the side of Spain at least he was prepared to
encounter it with some chance of success; but no trace of a matured
plan is to be found in the instructions to the generals commanding
in Portugal previous to the 25th of September, nor was the project
then adopted one which discovered any adequate knowledge of the
force of the enemy, or of the state of affairs. Indeed the conduct
of the cabinet relative to the Peninsula was scarcely superior to
that of the central junta itself. Several vague projects, or rather
speculations, were communicated to the generals in Portugal, but
in none of them was the strength of the enemy alluded to, in none
was there a settled plan of operations visible. It was evident
that the prodigious activity of the emperor was not taken into
consideration, and that a strange delusion relative to his power,
or to his intentions existed among the English ministers.
[Sidenote: L^d. Castle^s. Despatch. Par^y. Pap^s.]
It was the 6th of October before a despatch, containing the first
determinate plan of campaign, arrived at Lisbon. Thirty thousand
infantry and five thousand cavalry were to be employed in the north
of Spain; of these numbers ten thousand were to be embarked at the
English ports, and the remainder were to be composed of regiments,
drafted from the army then in Portugal. Lieutenant-general sir John
Moore was appointed to command the whole, and he was authorised
(at his own discretion) to effect a junction by a voyage round the
coast, or by a march through the interior. He chose the latter, 1º.
because a voyage at that season of the year would have been tedious
and precarious; 2º. because the intention of sir Hew Dalrymple had
been to enter Spain by Almeida, and the few arrangements which that
general had power to make were made with a view to such a march;
and 3º. because he was informed that the province of Gallicia was
scarcely able to equip the force coming from England, under the
command of lieutenant-general sir David Baird. Sir John Moore was
directed to take the field with the troops under his own immediate
command without delay; and he was to fix upon some place either
in Gallicia or on the borders of Leon for concentrating the
whole army. The specific plan of operations was to be concerted
afterwards with the Spanish generals.
This was a light and idle proceeding, promising no good result,
for the Ebro was to be the theatre of war. The head of the great
French host coming from Germany was already in the passes of the
Pyrenees, and the local difficulties impeding the English general’s
progress were abundant, and of a nature to render that which was
ill begun, end worse, and that which was well arranged, fail. To be
first in the field is a great and decided advantage; but here the
plan of operations was not even arranged, when the enemy’s first
blows were descending.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, sections 1st and 3d.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 1st.]
Sir John Moore had, indeed, much to execute, and with little
help. First, he was to organize an army of raw soldiers; then,
in a poor and unsettled country, just relieved from the pressure
of a harsh and griping enemy, he was to procure the transport
necessary for his stores, ammunition, and even for the conveyance
of the officers’ baggage. Assisted by an experienced staff, such
obstacles do not very much impede a good general; but here, few,
if any, of the officers, except the commander-in-chief, had served
a campaign; and every branch of the administration, civil and
military, was composed of new men, very zealous and willing, but
ignorant of a service, where no energy can prevent the effects of
inexperience from being severely felt. The roads through Portugal
were very bad; the rainy season, so baleful to an army, was upon
the point of setting in; time pressed sorely, it was essential to
be quick, but gold, that turns the wheels of war, was wanting; and
this, at all times a great evil, was the more grievously felt at
the moment, inasmuch as the Portuguese, accustomed to fraud on the
part of their own government, and to forced contributions by the
French, could not readily be persuaded that an army of foreigners,
paying with promises alone, might be trusted; nor was this natural
suspicion allayed by observing, that while the general and his
troops were thus kept without money, all the subordinate agents
dispersed throughout the country were amply supplied. Sir David
Baird, who, with his portion of troops, was to land at Coruña,
and to equip in a country already exhausted by Blake’s army, was
likewise encompassed with difficulties. From Coruña to the nearest
point where he could effect a junction with the forces marching
from Lisbon was two hundred miles, and he also was without money.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 4th.]
No general-in-chief was appointed to command the Spanish armies;
nor was sir John Moore referred by the English ministers to any
person with whom he could communicate at all, much less concert
a plan of operations for the allied forces. He was unacquainted
with the views of the Spanish government, he was uninformed of
the numbers, composition, or situation of the troops with which
he was to act, as well as those with whom he was to contend, and
25,000_l._ in his military chest, and his own genius, constituted
his resources for a campaign, which would probably lead the army
far from the coast, and from all its means of supply. He was first
to unite the scattered portions of his forces by a winter march of
three hundred miles; another three hundred were to be passed before
he reached the Ebro; then he was to concert a plan of operations
with generals acting each independent of the other; their corps
reaching from the northern sea-coast to Zaragoza; themselves
jealous and quarrelsome, their men insubordinate, differing in
customs, discipline, language, and religion from the English,
and despising all foreigners; and this was to be accomplished in
time to defeat an enemy who was already in the field, accustomed
to great movements, and conducted by the most rapid and decided
of men. It must be acknowledged that the ministers’ views were
equally vast and inconsiderate, and their miscalculations are the
more remarkable, as there was not wanting a man in the highest
military situation to condemn their plan at the time, and to
propose a better.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 24.]
The duke of York, in a formal minute drawn up for the information
of the government, observed, that the Spanish armies being
unconnected, and occupying a great extent of ground, were weak.
That the French being concentrated, and certain of reinforcements,
were strong. That there could be no question of the relative value
of Spanish and French troops, and that, consequently, the allies
might be beaten before the British could arrive at the scene of
action; the latter would then unaided have to meet the French army;
hence it was essential to provide a sufficient number of troops to
meet such an emergency; that number he judged should not be less
than sixty thousand men, and by a detailed statement, he proved
that such a number could have been furnished without detriment to
any other service.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s letters. MS.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 6th.]
At this period, also, the effects of that incredible folly and
weakness which marked all the proceedings of the central junta,
were felt throughout Spain. In any other country the conduct of the
government would have been attributed to insanity. So apathetic
with respect to the enemy as to be contemptible; so active in
pursuit of self-interest as to become hateful. The junta was
occupied in devising how to render itself at once despotic and
popular; how to excite enthusiasm and check freedom of expression;
how to enjoy the luxury of power without its labour; how to acquire
great reputation without trouble; how to be indolent and victorious
at the same moment. Fear prevented it from removing to Madrid
after every preparation had been made for a public entrance into
that capital. The members passed decrees, repressing the liberty
of the press on the ground of the deceptions practised upon the
public; but themselves never hesitated to deceive the British
agents, the generals, the government, and their own countrymen,
by the most flagitious falsehoods upon every subject, whether
of greater or less importance. They hedged their own dignity
round, with ridiculous and misplaced forms opposed to the vital
principle of an insurrectional government; they devoted their
attention to abstract speculations, recalled the exiled Jesuits,
and inundated the country with long and laboured state papers,
but left the pressing business of the moment to shift for itself.
Every application on the part of lord William Bentinck and Mr.
Stuart, even for an order to expedite a common courier, was met by
difficulties and delays, and it was necessary to have recourse to
the most painful solicitations to obtain the slightest attention;
nor did that mode always succeed.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 3.]
Sir John Moore strenuously grappled with the difficulties besetting
him: well knowing the value of time in military transactions, he
urged forward the preparations with all possible activity. He
was very desirous, that troops who had a journey of six hundred
miles to make previous to meeting the enemy, should not, at the
commencement, be overwhelmed by the torrents of rain which in
Portugal descend at this period with such violence as to destroy
the shoes, ammunition, and accoutrements of a soldier, and render
him almost unfit for service. The Spanish generals recommended
that the line of march should be conducted by Almeida, Ciudad
Rodrigo, Salamanca, Valladolid, and Burgos, and that the magazines
for the campaign should be formed at one of the latter towns;
and as this coincided with the previous preparations, the army
was organized in three columns, two of which were directed upon
Almeida, by the routes of Coimbra and Guarda, and the third,
comprising the artillery, the cavalry, and the regiments quartered
in the Alemtejo, was destined to move by Alcantara, upon Ciudad
Rodrigo. Almeida itself was chosen for a place of arms, and all the
reserve-stores and provisions were forwarded there, as time and
circumstances would permit; but the want of money, the unsettled
state of the country, and the inexperience of the commissariat,
rendered it difficult to procure the means of transport even for
the light baggage of the regiments, although the quantity of the
latter was reduced so much as to create discontent. One Sattaro
(the same person who has been already mentioned as an agent of
Junot’s in the negotiation with sir Charles Cotton) engaged to
supply the army, but dishonestly failing in his contract, so
embarrassed the operations, that the general resigned all hope of
being able to move with more than the light baggage, the ammunition
necessary for immediate use, and a scanty supply of medicines.
The formation of the magazines at Almeida was also retarded, and
the future subsistence of the troops was thus thrown upon a raw
commissariat, unprovided with money. The general, however, relying
upon its increasing experience, and upon the activity of lord
William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart, did not delay his march, but
sent agents to Madrid and other places to make contracts, and to
endeavour to raise money, for such was the policy of the ministers,
that they supplied the Spaniards with gold, and left the English
army to get it back in loans.
Many of the regiments were actually in movement when an
unexpected difficulty forced the commander-in-chief to make a
fresh disposition of the troops. The state of the Portuguese roads
north of the Tagus was unknown; the native officers and the people
declared that they were impracticable for artillery. The opinion
of colonel Lopez, a military commissary, sent by the Spanish
government to facilitate the march of the British, coincided with
this information, and the reports of one of the most intelligent
and enterprising of the officers of the quarter-master-general’s
department, who were employed to examine the lines of route,
corroborated the general opinion[16]. Junot, indeed, with infinite
pains, had carried his guns along these roads, but his carriages
had been broken, and the batteries rendered unserviceable by the
operation. In this dilemma, sir John Moore reluctantly determined
to send his artillery and cavalry by the south bank of the Tagus,
to Talavera de la Reyna, from whence they might gain Naval
Carneiro, the Escurial, the pass of the Guadarama mountains,
Espiñar, Arevalo, and Salamanca. He would have marched the
whole army by the same route, if this disagreeable intelligence
respecting the northern roads had been obtained earlier; but when
the arrangements were all made for the supplies to go to Almeida,
and when most of the regiments were actually in movement towards
that town, it was too late to alter their destination.
This separation of the artillery violated a great military
principle, which prescribes that the point of concentration
for an army should be beyond the reach of the enemy. But it
was a matter of apparent necessity, and, moreover, no danger
was apprehended from the offensive operations of an adversary
represented to be incapable of maintaining his own line of defence.
Valladolid and Burgos were considered by the Spaniards as safe
places for the English magazines, and sir John Moore shared so
much of the universal confidence in the Spanish enthusiasm and
courage, as to suppose that Salamanca would not be an insecure
point of concentration for his columns, under the protection of
such numerous patriotic armies as were said to be on the Ebro.
One brigade of six-pounders he retained with the head-quarters,
the remainder of his artillery, twenty-four pieces; the cavalry,
amounting to a thousand troopers; the great parc of the army,
containing many hundred carriages, and escorted by three thousand
infantry, he sent by the road of Talavera, under the command of sir
John Hope, an officer qualified by his talents, firmness, and zeal,
to conduct the most important enterprises.
The rest of the army marched in three columns, the first by
Alcantara, the second by Abrantes, the third by Coimbra, in the
direction of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo; and with such energy did
the general overcome all obstacles, that the whole of the troops
were in movement, and head-quarters quitted Lisbon by the 26th
of October, just twenty days after the receipt of the despatch
which appointed him to the chief command; a surprising diligence,
but rendered necessary by the pressure of circumstances. “The
army,” to use his own words, “run the risk of finding itself in
front of the enemy with no more ammunition than the men carried in
their pouches:” “but had I waited,” he adds, “until every thing
was forwarded, the troops would not have been in Spain until the
spring, and I trust that the enemy will not find out our wants as
soon as they will feel the effects of what we have.”
The Spaniards, however, who expected “every body to fly except
themselves,” thought him slow, and were impatient, and from
every quarter indeed letters arrived, pressing him to advance.
Lord William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart, witnesses of the sluggish
incapacity of the Spanish government, judged that such a support
was absolutely necessary to sustain the reeling strength of Spain.
The supreme government were even awakened for a moment. Hitherto,
as a mask for its ignorance, it had treated the French power
with contempt, and the Spanish generals and the people echoed
the sentiments of the government: but now, a letter addressed by
the governor of Bayonne to general Jourdan, stating, that sixty
thousand infantry, and seven thousand cavalry, would reinforce the
French armies between the 16th of October and the 16th of November,
was intercepted, and made the junta feel that a crisis for which it
was unprepared was approaching. With the folly usually attendant on
improvidence, these men, who had been so slow themselves, required
that others should be supernaturally quick when danger pressed.
[Sidenote: Capt. Kennedy’s Letter. Par^y. Pap^s.]
In the mean time sir David Baird’s forces arrived at Coruña. Lord
William Bentinck had given intimation of their approach, and the
central junta had repeatedly assured him, that every necessary
order was given, and that every facility would be afforded, for
the disembarkation and supply of the troops. This was untrue;
no measures of any kind had been taken, no instructions issued,
and no preparations were made. The junta of Coruña disliked the
personal trouble of a disembarkation in that port, and in the hope
that Baird would be driven to another, refused him permission to
land, until a communication was had with Aranjuez; but fifteen
days elapsed before an answer could be obtained from a government,
who were daily pestering sir John Moore with complaints of the
tardiness of his march.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 1.
Sir J. Moore to lord Castlereagh, 27th Oct.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 5 and 6.]
Sir David Baird came without money, sir John could only give him
8000_l._, a sum which might have been mistaken for a private
loan, if the fact of its being public property were not expressly
mentioned. But at this time Mr. Frere, the plenipotentiary, arrived
at Coruña, with two millions of dollars, intended for the use of
the Spaniards; and while such large sums, contrary to the earnest
recommendations of Mr. Stuart and major Cox, were lavished in that
quarter, the penury of the English general obliged him to borrow
from the funds in Mr. Frere’s hands. Thus assisted, the troops were
put in motion; but, wanting all the equipments essential to an
army, they were forced to march by half battalions, conveying their
scanty stores on country cars, hired from day to day, nor was that
meagre assistance obtained but at great expense, and by compliance
with a vulgar mercenary spirit predominant among the authorities of
Gallicia. The junta frequently promised to procure the carriages,
but did not; the commissaries pushed to the wall by the delay,
offered an exorbitant remuneration: the cars were then forthcoming,
and the procrastination of the government proved to be a concerted
plan, to defraud the military chest. In fine, the local rulers were
unfriendly, crafty, fraudulent, the peasantry suspicious, fearful,
rude, disinclined towards strangers, and indifferent to public
affairs. A few shots only were required to render theirs a hostile
instead of a friendly greeting.
[Sidenote: Sir H. Dalrymple’s Correspondence.]
With Mr. Frere came a fleet, conveying a Spanish force, under the
marquis of Romana. When the insurrection first broke forth, that
nobleman commanded fourteen or fifteen thousand troops, who were
serving with the French armies. How to recover this disciplined
body of men from the enemy was a subject of early anxiety with
the junta of Seville; and Castaños, in his first intercourse with
sir Hew Dalrymple, signified his wish that the British government
should adopt some mode of apprising Romana, that Spain was in
arms, and should endeavour to extricate him and his army from the
toils of the enemy. A gentleman named M’Kenzie was employed by the
English ministers to conduct the enterprise; the Spanish troops
were quartered in Holstein, Sleswig, Jutland, and the islands of
Funen, Zealand, and Langeland; Mr. M’Kenzie, through the medium
of one Robertson, a catholic priest, opened a communication with
Romana. Neither the general, nor the soldiers he commanded,
hesitated, and a judicious plan being concerted, sir Richard
Keats, with a squadron detached from the Baltic fleet, suddenly
appeared off Nyborg, in the island of Funen. A majority of the
Spanish regiments quartered in Sleswig immediately seized all the
Danish craft in the different harbours of that coast, and pushed
across the channel to Funen, where Romana, with the assistance of
Keats, had already seized the port and castle of Nyborg without
opposition, save from a small ship of war that was moored across
the mouth of the harbour. From Nyborg Romana passed to Langeland,
and there awaited the arrival of sir James Saumarez with the
English fleet, on board of which he embarked with about nine
thousand five hundred men. Of the remainder, some were disarmed, or
overawed by the Danish troops in Zealand, and some did not escape
from Sleswig. This enterprise was conducted with prudent activity,
and the unhesitating patriotism of the Spanish soldiers was very
honourable, but the danger was trifling; Mr. Robertson incurred
the most. Romana, after touching at England, repaired to Coruña;
his troops did not, however, land at that port, but after a while
coasted to St. Andero, and being there disembarked, and equipped
from the English stores, proceeded by divisions to join Blake’s
army in Biscay.
Among the various subjects calling for sir John Moore’s attention,
there was none of greater interest than the appointment of a
generalissimo to the Spanish armies. Impressed with the imminent
danger of procrastination, or uncertainty in such a matter, he
desired lord William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart to urge the central
government with all their force upon that head; to lord Castlereagh
he represented the injury that must accrue to the cause, if the
measure was delayed, and he proposed to go himself to Madrid,
with a view of adding weight to his representations. Subsequent
events, which left him no time for the journey, frustrated this
intention, and there seems no reason to imagine, that his personal
remonstrances would have weighed with a government, described
by Mr. Stuart, after a thorough experience of their qualities,
as, “never having made a single exertion for the public good,
neither rewarding merit nor punishing guilt,” and being for all
useful purposes “absolutely null.” The junta’s dislike to a single
military chief was not an error of the head, and reason is of
little avail against the suggestions of self-interest.
The march of the British troops was as rapid as the previous
preparations had been. Head-quarters reached Almeida on the 8th of
November. The infantry were already assembled at that town. The
condition of the men was superb, and their discipline exemplary;
on that side all was well, but from the obstacles encountered by
sir David Baird, and the change of direction in the artillery,
it was evident, that no considerable force could be brought into
action before the end of the month. Meanwhile, the Spaniards were
hastening events. Despatches from lord William Bentinck announced
that the enemy remained stationary on the Ebro, although reinforced
by ten thousand men; that Castaños was about to cross that river
at Tudela; and that the army of Aragon was moving by Sor upon
Roncevalles, with a view to gain the rear of the French, while
Castaños assailed their left flank. The general, judging that such
movements would bring on a battle, the success of which must be
very doubtful, became uneasy for his own artillery: his concern
was increased by observing, that the guns might have kept with the
other columns; “and if any thing adverse happens, I have not,” he
wrote to general Hope, “necessity to plead; the road we are now
travelling, that by Villa Velha and Guarda, is practicable for
artillery. The brigade under Wilmot has already reached Guarda, and
as far as I have already seen, the road presents few obstacles, and
those easily surmounted; this knowledge was, however, only acquired
by our own officers; when the brigade was at Castello Branco,
it was not certain if it could proceed.” Wherefore, he desired
Hope no longer to trust any reports, but seek a shorter line, by
Placentia, across the mountains to Salamanca.
Up to this period, all reports from the agents, all information
from the government at home, all communications public and private,
coincided upon one subject. _The Spaniards were an enthusiastic,
a heroic people, a nation of unparalleled energy! their armies
were brave; they were numerous; they were confident! one hundred
and eighty thousand men were actually in line of battle, extending
from the sea-coast of Biscay to Zaragoza; the French, reduced to
a fourth of this number, cooped up in a corner, shrunk from an
encounter; they were deserted by the emperor; they were trembling;
they were spiritless!_ Nevertheless, the general was somewhat
distrustful; he perceived the elements of disaster in the divided
commands, and the lengthened lines of the Spaniards; and early in
October he had predicted the mischief that such a system would
produce. “As long as the French remain upon the defensive,” he
observed, “it will not be so much felt; but the moment an attack
is made, some great calamity must ensue.” However, he was not
without faith in the multitude and energy of the patriots, when he
considered the greatness of their cause.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 7.]
Castaños was at this time pointed out by the central junta as
the person with whom to concert a plan of campaign, and sir John
Moore, concluding that it was a preliminary step towards making
that officer generalissimo, wrote to him in a conciliatory style,
well calculated to ensure a cordial co-operation. This was an
encouraging event; the English general believed it to be the
commencement of a better system, and looked forward with more hope
to the opening of the war; but this favourable state soon changed.
Far from being created chief of all, Castaños was superseded in the
command he already held, the whole folly of the Spanish character
broke forth, and confusion and distress followed. But even at
that moment clouds were arising in a quarter, which had hitherto
been all sunshine. The military agents, as the crisis approached,
lowered their tone of confidence, they no longer dwelt upon the
enthusiasm of the armies; they admitted, that the confidence of the
troops was sinking, and that even in numbers they were inferior to
the French. In truth, it was full time to change their note, for
the real state of affairs could no longer be concealed, and a great
catastrophe was at hand; but what of wildness in their projects, or
of skill in the enemy’s; what of ignorance, vanity, and presumption
in their generals; what of fear among their soldiers; and what
of fortune in the events; combined to hasten the ruin of the
Spaniards, and how that ruin was effected, I, quitting the English
army for a time, will now relate.
CHAPTER IV.
In the preceding chapters I have exposed the weakness, the
folly, the improvidence of Spain, and shown how the bad passions
and sordid views of her leaders were encouraged by the unwise
prodigality of England. I have dissected the full boast and meagre
preparations of the governments in both countries; laying bare the
bones and sinews of the insurrection; and by comparing their loose
and feeble structure with the strongly knitted frame and large
proportions of the enemy, prepared the reader for the inevitable
issue of a conflict between such ill-matched champions. In the
present book, I shall recount the sudden and terrible manner in
which the Spanish armies were overthrown, and the tempestuous
progress of the French emperor.
But previous to relating these disasters I must revert to the
period immediately following the retreat of king Joseph, and trace
those early operations of the French and Spanish forces which, like
a jesting prologue to a deep tragedy, unworthily ushered in the
great catastrophe.
CAMPAIGN OF THE FRENCH AND SPANISH ARMIES BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF THE
EMPEROR.
After general Cuesta was removed from the command, and that the
junta of Seville was, by major Cox, forced to disgorge so much of
the English subsidy as sufficed for the immediate relief of the
troops in Madrid, all the Spanish armies closed upon the Ebro.
[Sidenote: General Broderick’s Correspondence.]
General Blake, reinforced by eight thousand Asturians, established
his base of operations at Reynosa, opened a communication with the
English vessels off the port of St. Andero, and directed his views
towards Biscay.
The Castillian army, conducted by general Pignatelli, resumed its
march upon Burgo del Osma and Logroña.
[Sidenote: Capt. Whittingham’s.]
The two divisions of the Andalusian troops under Lapeña, and the
Murcian division of general Llamas, advanced to Taranzona and
Tudela.
[Sidenote: Colonel Doyle’s.]
Palafox, with the Aragonese and Valencian divisions of St. Marc,
operated from the side of Zaragoza.
[Sidenote: Castaños’s Vindication.]
Fourteen or fifteen thousand of the Estremaduran troops were
drafted, and placed under the conduct of the conde de Belvedere, a
weak youth, not twenty years of age. They were at first directed
upon Logroña, as forming part of Castaños’s command, but finally,
as we shall find, received another destination.
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence.]
Between these armies there was neither concert nor connexion;
their movements were regulated by some partial view of affairs, or
by the silly caprices of the generals, who were ignorant of each
other’s plans, and little solicitous to combine operations. The
weak characters of many of the chiefs, the inexperience of all,
and the total want of system, opened a field for intriguing men,
and invited unqualified persons to interfere in the direction of
affairs. Thus we find colonel Doyle making a journey to Zaragoza,
and priding himself upon having prevailed with Palafox to detach
seven thousand men to Sanguessa; and captain Whittingham, without
any knowledge of Doyle’s interference, earnestly dissuading the
Spaniards from such an enterprise. The first affirmed, that the
movement would “turn the enemy’s left flank, threaten his rear,
and have the appearance of cutting off his retreat.” The second
argued, that Sanguessa, being seventy miles from Zaragoza, and
only a few leagues from Pampeluna, the detachment would itself be
cut off. Doyle judged that it would draw the French from Caparosa
and Milagro, and expose those points to Llamas and La-Peña; that
it would force the enemy to recall the reinforcements said to be
marching against Blake, and enable that general to form a junction
with the Asturians, when he might, with forty thousand men, possess
himself of the Pyrenees; and if the French army, estimated at
thirty-five thousand men, did not fly, cut it off from France, or
by moving on Miranda, sweep clear Biscay and Castille. Palafox,
pleased with this plan, sent Whittingham to inform Llamas and
La-Peña, that O’Neil would, with six thousand men, march on the
15th of September to Sanguessa. Those generals disapproved of the
movement as dangerous, premature, and at variance with the plan
arranged in the council of war held at Madrid. Palafox, regardless
of their opinion, persisted. O’Neil occupied Sanguessa, drew the
attention of the enemy, and was immediately driven across the
Alagon river.
[Sidenote: Ld. W. Bentinck’s Correspond^{ce}. MS.]
[Sidenote: Doyle’s Correspondence. MS.]
In this manner all their projects, characterized by a profound
ignorance of war, were lightly adopted and as lightly abandoned, or
ended in disasters; yet victory was more confidently anticipated,
than if consummate skill had presided over the arrangements; and
this vain-glorious feeling, extending to the military agents, was
by them propagated in England, where the fore-boasting was nearly
as loud, and as absurd, as in the Peninsula. The delusion was
universal; even lord William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart, deceived by
the curious consistency of the Spanish falsehoods, doubted if
the French army was able to maintain its position, and believed
that the Spaniards had obtained a moral ascendancy in the field.
Drunk with vanity and folly, the leading Spaniards in the capital,
feeling certain that the “remnants,” as they were called, of the
French army on the Ebro, estimated at from thirty-five to forty
thousand men, would be immediately destroyed, proposed that the
British army should be directed upon Catalonia, and when they found
that this proposal was not acceded to, they withdrew ten thousand
men from the Murcian division, and sent them to the neighbourhood
of Lerida.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.]
The natural pride and arrogance of the Spaniards were greatly aided
by the timid and false operations of king Joseph. Twenty days after
the evacuation of Madrid, that monarch was at the head of above
fifty thousand fighting men, exclusive of eight thousand employed
to maintain the communications, and to furnish the garrisons of
Pampeluna, Tolosa, Irun, St. Sebastian, and Bilbao.
The French army of Catalonia, seventeen thousand in number, was,
as we have seen, distinct from the king’s command; but a strong
reserve, assembled at Bayonne, under general Drouet, supplied him
with reinforcements, and was itself supported by drafts from the
depôts in the interior of France.
Six thousand men, divided into several moveable columns, watched
the openings of the Pyrenees, from St. Jean Pied de Port to
Rousillon, and guarded the frontier from Spanish incursions; and a
second reserve, composed of Neapolitans, Tuscans, and Piedmontese,
was commenced at Belgarde, with a view of supporting Duhesme in
Catalonia.
How the king quelled the nascent insurrection at Bilbao, and
how he dispersed the insurgents of the valleys in Aragon, I have
already related. After those operations the French army was
re-organized and divided into three grand divisions and a reserve.
Marshal Bessieres retained the command of the right wing; marshal
Moncey assumed that of the left; and marshal Ney arriving at this
period from Paris, took charge of the centre; while the reserve,
chiefly composed of detachments from the imperial guard, remained
near the person of the king. The old republican general, Jourdan,
a man whose day of glory belonged to another era, re-appeared upon
the military stage, and filled the office of major-general to the
army.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s notes. Appendix, Nos. 4 and 5.]
[Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations. MS.]
With such a force, and so assisted, there was nothing in Spain,
turn which way he would, capable of opposing king Joseph’s march;
but the incongruity of a camp with a court is always productive of
indecision and of error; the truncheon does not fit every hand, and
the French army soon felt the inconvenience of having at its head
a monarch who was not a warrior. Joseph remained on the defensive;
but he did not understand the force of the maxim, “_that offensive
movements are the foundation of a good defence_.” He held Bilbao,
but he abandoned Tudela contrary to the advice of the generals
who had conducted the operations on that side, and in its place
Milagro, a small town, situated upon the rivers Arga and Aragon,
just above their confluence with the Ebro, was by him chosen as
the position of battle for the left wing. As long as Bessieres
held Burgos in force, his cavalry commanded the valley of the
Douero, menaced Palencia and Valladolid, and scouring the plains,
kept Blake and Cuesta in check. Instead of reinforcing a post so
advantageous, the king relinquished Burgos as a point beyond his
line of defence, and Bessieres’ troops were posted in successive
divisions behind it, as far as Puente Lara on the Ebro. Ney’s force
lined that river down to Logroña; the reserve was quartered behind
Miranda; and Trevino, a small obscure place, was chosen as the
point of battle, for the right and centre. In this disadvantageous
situation the army, with some trifling changes, remained from the
middle of August until late in September. During that time the
artillery and carriages of transport were repaired, magazines were
collected, the cavalry remounted, and the preparations made for an
active campaign when the reinforcements should arrive from Germany.
The line of resistance thus offered to the Spaniards, evinced
a degree of timidity which the relative strength of the armies
by no means justified; the left of the French evidently leaned
towards the great communication with France, and seemed to
refuse the support of Pampeluna. Tudela was abandoned, and
Burgos resigned to the enterprise of the Spaniards. All this
indicated fear, a disposition to retreat if the enemy advanced.
The king complained with what extreme difficulty he obtained
intelligence; yet he neglected by forward movements to feel for his
adversaries. Wandering as it were in the dark, he gave a loose to
his imagination, and conjuring up a phantom of Spanish strength,
which had no real existence, anxiously waited for the development
of their power, while they were exposing their weakness by a
succession of the most egregious blunders.
Joseph’s errors did not escape the animadversion of his brother,
whose sagacity enabled him, although at a distance, to detect,
through the glare of the insurrection, all the inefficiency of the
Spaniards; but, despising them as soldiers, he dreaded the moral
effect produced by their momentary success, and he was preparing
to crush the rising hopes of his enemies. Joseph’s retreat, and
subsequent position, therefore, displeased him; and he desired his
brother to check the exultation of the patriots, by acting upon a
bold and well-considered plan, of which he sent him the outline.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 5.]
His notes, dictated upon the occasion, are replete with genius,
and evince his absolute mastery of the art of war. “It was too
late,” he said, “to discuss the question, whether Madrid should
have been retained or abandoned? Idle to consider, if a position,
covering the siege of Zaragoza, might not have been formed; useless
to examine, if the line of the Douro was not better than that of
the Ebro for the French army. The line of the Ebro was actually
taken, and it must be kept; to advance from that river without a
fixed object would create indecision; this would bring the troops
back again, and produce an injurious moral effect; but why abandon
Tudela? Why relinquish Burgos? Those towns were of note, and of
reputation; the possession of them gave a moral influence, and
moral force constituted two-thirds of the strength of armies.
Tudela and Burgos had also a relative importance; the first
possessing a stone bridge, was on the communication of Pampeluna
and Madrid. It commanded the canal of Zaragoza. It was the capital
of a province. When the army resumed offensive operations, their
first enterprise would be the siege of Zaragoza; from that town to
Tudela, the land carriage was three days, but the water carriage
was only fourteen hours; wherefore to have the besieging artillery
and stores at Tudela was the same as to have them at Zaragoza. If
the Spaniards got possession of the former, all Navarre would be
in a state of insurrection, and Pampeluna exposed. Tudela then was
of vast importance; but Milagro was of none. It was an obscure
place, without a bridge, and commanding no communication; in
short, it was without interest, defended nothing! led to nothing!
A river,” said this great commander, “though it should be as
large as the Vistula, and as rapid as the Danube at its mouth,
is nothing, unless there are good points of passage, and a head
quick to take the offensive. The Ebro as a defence was less than
nothing, a mere line of demarcation! and Milagro was useless. The
enemy might neglect it, be at Estella, and from thence gain Tolosa,
before any preparation could be made to receive him; he might
come from Soria, from Logroña, or from Zaragoza. Again, Burgos
was the capital of a province, the centre of many communications,
a town of great fame, and of relative value to the French army.
To occupy it in force, and offensively, would threaten Palencia,
Valladolid, Aranda, and even Madrid. It is necessary,” observed
the emperor, “to have made war a long time to conceive this. It is
necessary to have made a number of offensive enterprises to know
how much the smallest event, or even indication, encourages or
discourages, and decides the adoption of one enterprise instead of
another.” “In short, if the enemy occupies Burgos, Logroña, and
Tudela, the French army will be in a pitiful position. It is not
known if he has left Madrid; you are ignorant of what has become
of the Gallician army, and we have reason to suspect that it may
have been directed upon Portugal; in such a state to take up,
instead of a bold, menacing, and honourable position like Burgos,
a confined shameful one like Trevino, is to say to the enemy, you
have nothing to fear, go elsewhere, we have made our dispositions
to go farther, or we have chosen our ground to fight; come there,
without fear of being disturbed. But what will the French general
do if the enemy marches the next day upon Burgos? Will he let the
citadel of that town be taken by six thousand insurgents? or if the
French have left a garrison in the castle, how can four or five
hundred men retire in such a vast plain? and, from that time, all
is gone; the enemy master of the citadel, it cannot be retaken; if,
on the contrary, we should guard the citadel, we must give battle
to the enemy, because it cannot hold out more than three days, and
if we wish to fight a battle, why should Bessieres abandon the
ground where we wish to fight? These dispositions appear badly
considered, and when the enemy shall march, our troops will meet
with such an insult as will demoralize them if there are only
insurgents or light troops advancing against them. If fifteen
thousand insurgents enter into Burgos, retrench themselves in the
town, and occupy the castle, it will be necessary to calculate a
march of several days to enable us to post ourselves there, and to
retake the town, which cannot be done without some inconvenience.
If, during the time, the real attack is upon Logroña or Pampeluna,
we shall have made countermarches without use, which will have
fatigued the army. If we hold it with cavalry only, is it not to
say we do not intend stopping, and to invite the enemy to come
there? It was the first time,” he said, “that an army had quitted
all its offensive positions to take up a bad defensive line, and
to affect to choose its field of battle, when the thousand and
one combinations which might take place, and the distance of the
enemy, did not leave a probability of being able to foresee if the
battle would take place at Tudela, between Tudela and Pampeluna,
between Soria and the Ebro, or between Burgos and Miranda;” and
then followed an observation which may be studied with advantage
by those authors who, unacquainted with the simplest rudiments
of military science, censure the conduct of a general, and are
pleased, from some obscure nook, to point out his errors to the
world; authors who, profoundly ignorant of the numbers, situation,
and resources of the opposing armies, pretend, nevertheless, to
detail with great accuracy the right method of executing the most
difficult and delicate operations of war. As the rebuke of Turenne,
who frankly acknowledged to Louvois that he could pass the Rhine at
a particular spot if the latter’s finger were a bridge, has been
lost upon such men, perhaps the more recent opinion of Napoleon may
be disregarded. “But it is not permitted,” says that consummate
general, “_it is not permitted, at the distance of three hundred
leagues, and without even a state of the situation of the army, to
direct what should be done_!”
After having thus protected himself from the charge of presumption,
the emperor proceeded to recommend certain dispositions for the
defence of the Ebro. The Spaniards, he said, were not to be feared
in the field; twenty-five thousand French in a good position would
suffice to beat all their armies united, and this opinion he
deduced from the events of Dupont’s campaign, of which he gave a
short analysis. Let Tudela, he said, be retrenched if possible, at
all events it should be occupied in force, and offensively towards
Zaragoza. Let the general commanding there collect provisions on
all sides; secure the boats, with a view to future operations when
the reinforcements should arrive, and maintain his communication
with Logroña by the right bank if he can, but certainly by the
left. Let his corps be considered as one of observation; if a
body of insurgents only approach, he may fight them, or keep them
constantly on the defensive by his movements against their line or
against Zaragoza. If regular troops attack him, and he is forced
across the Ebro, let him then manœuvre about Pampeluna until the
general-in-chief has made his dispositions for the main body. In
this manner no prompt movement upon Estella and Tolosa can take
place, and the corps of observation will have amply fulfilled
its task. Let marshal Bessieres, with all his corps united, and
reinforced by the light cavalry of the army, encamp in the wood
near Burgos; let the citadel be well occupied, the hospital, the
dépôts, and all encumbrances sent over the Ebro; let him keep in
a condition to manœuvre, be under arms every day at three o’clock
in the morning, and remain until the return of his patroles. He
should send parties to a great extent, as far as two days’ march.
Let the corps of the centre be placed at Miranda and Briviesca,
and all the encumbrances be likewise sent across the Ebro behind
Vittoria. This corps should be under arms every morning, and send
patroles by the road of Soria, and wherever the enemy may be
expected. It must not be lost sight of, that these two corps, being
to be united, they should be connected as little as possible with
Logroña, and consider the left wing as a corps detached, having
a line of operations upon Pampeluna, and a separate part to act.
Tudela is preserved as a post contiguous to the line. Be well on
the defensive, he continues, in short, make war, that is to say,
get information from the alcaldes, the curates, the posts, the
chiefs of convents, and the principal proprietors, you will then be
perfectly informed; the patroles should always be directed upon
the side of Soria, and of Burgos, upon Palencia, and upon the side
of Aranda. They could thus form three posts of interception, and
send three reports of men arrested; these men should be treated
well, and dismissed, after they had given the information desired
of them. Let the enemy then come, and we can unite all our forces;
hide our marches from him, and fall upon his flank at the moment he
is meditating an offensive movement.
With regard to the minor details, the emperor thus expressed
himself: “Soria is not, I believe, more than two short marches from
the actual position of the army; that town has constantly acted
against us; an expedition sent there to disarm it, to take thirty
of the principal people as hostages, and to obtain provisions,
would have a good effect. It would be useful to occupy St. Ander.
It will be of advantage to move by the direct road of Bilbao to
St. Ander. It will be necessary to occupy and disarm Biscay and
Navarre. Every Spaniard taken in arms there should be shot[17].
The manufactories of arms at Palencia should be watched, to hinder
them from working for the rebels. The port of Pancorbo should be
armed and fortified with great activity; ovens, and magazines of
provisions and ammunition, should be placed there. Situated nearly
half way between Madrid and Bayonne, it is an intermediate post
for the army, and a point of support for troops operating towards
Gallicia. The interest of the enemy,” he resumes, “is to mask his
forces. By hiding the true point of attack, he operates in such
a manner, that the blow he means to strike is never indicated in
a positive way, and the opposing general can only guess it by a
well-matured knowledge of his own position, and of the mode in
which he makes his offensive system act, to protect his defensive
system. We have no accounts of what the enemy is about; it is said
that no news can be obtained, as if this case was extraordinary in
an army, as if spies were common: they must do in Spain, as they do
in other places. Send parties out. Let them carry off, sometimes
the priest, sometimes the alcalde, the chief of a convent, the
master of the post or his deputy, and, above all, the letters. Put
them under arrest until they speak. Question them twice each day,
or keep them as hostages. Charge them to send foot messengers,
and to get news. When we know how to take measures of vigour and
force, it is easy to get news. All the posts, all the letters, must
be intercepted. The single motive of procuring intelligence will
be sufficient to authorise a detachment of four or five thousand
men, who will go into a great town, will take the letters from
the post, will seize the richest citizens, their letters, papers,
gazettes, &c. It is beyond doubt, that even in the French lines,
the inhabitants are all informed of what passes; of course, out
of that line, they know more; what, then, should prevent you from
seizing the principal men? Let them be sent back again without
being ill treated. It is a fact, that when we are not in a desert,
but in a peopled country, if the general is not well instructed,
it is because he is ignorant of his trade. The services which the
inhabitants render to an enemy’s general, are never given from
affection, nor even to get money. The truest method to obtain them
is by safeguards and protections to preserve their lives, their
goods, their towns, or their monasteries!”
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6.]
Joseph, although by no means a dull man, seems to have had no
portion of his brother’s martial genius, and the operations
recommended by the latter did not appear to the king to be
applicable to the state of affairs. He did not adopt them, but
proposed others; in discussing which, he thus defended the policy
of his retreat from Madrid.
“When the _defection_ of twenty-two thousand men (Dupont’s) caused
the king to quit the capital, the disposable troops remaining were
divided in three corps: that immediately about his person; that
of marshal Bessieres; and that of general Verdier, then besieging
Zaragoza: but these bodies were spread over a hundred leagues of
ground, and with the last the king had little or no connexion.
His first movement was to unite the two former at Burgos, and
afterwards to enter into communication with the third. The line of
defence on the Ebro was adopted.” This operation Joseph affirmed
to have been dictated by sound reason.--Because “when the events
of Andalusia foreboded a regular and serious war, prudence did
not permit three corps, the strongest of which was only eighteen
thousand men, to separate to a greater distance than six days’
march, in the midst of eleven millions of people in a state of
hostility. But fifty thousand French could defend with success a
line of sixty leagues, guarding the two grand communications of
Burgos and Tudela, against enemies who had not, up to that period,
been able to carry to either point above twenty-five thousand men;
because fifteen thousand French could be united upon either.”
Joseph was dissatisfied with Napoleon’s plans, and preferred his
own. The disposable troops at his command, exclusive of those in
Bilbao, were fifty thousand; these he distributed as follows.
The right wing occupied Burgos, Pancorbo, and Puente Lara. The
centre was posted between Haro and Logroña; the left extended from
Logroña to Tudela; the latter town was not occupied. He contended
that this arrangement, at once offensive and defensive, might be
advantageously continued, if the great army directed upon Spain
arrived in September, since it tended to refit the army already
there, and menaced the enemy; but that it could not be prolonged
until November, because in three months the Spaniards must make
a great progress, and would very soon be in a state to take the
offensive with grand organized corps, obedient to a central
administration, which would have time to form in Madrid. Every
thing announced, he said, that the month of October was one of
those decisive epochs which gave to the party who knew how to
profit from it, the priority of movements and success, the progress
of which it was difficult to calculate.
In this view of affairs, the merits of six projects were discussed
by the king.
First. To remain in the actual position. This was declared to
be unsustainable, because the enemy could attack the left with
forty thousand, the centre with forty thousand, the right with as
many. Tudela and Navarre, as far as Logroña, required twenty-five
thousand men to defend them. Burgos could not be defended but by an
army in a state to resist the united forces of Blake and Cuesta,
which would amount to eighty thousand men, and it was doubtful
if the twenty thousand bayonets which could be opposed, could
completely beat them; if they did not, the French would be harassed
by the insurgents of the three provinces (Biscay, Navarre, and
Guipuscoa), who would interpose between the left wing and France.
Second project. To carry the centre and reserve by Tudela, towards
Zaragoza or Almazan; united with the left, they would amount to
thirty thousand men, who might seek for, and, doubtless, would
defeat the enemy, if he was met with on that side. In the meantime,
the right wing, leaving garrisons in the citadel of Burgos and the
fort of Pancorbo, could occupy the enemy, and watch any movements
in the Montagna St. Ander, or disembarkations that might take place
at the ports; but this task was considered difficult, because
Pancorbo was not the only defile accessible to artillery. Three
leagues from thence, another road led upon Miranda, and there was a
third passage over the point of the chain which stretched between
Haro and Miranda.
Third project. To leave the defence of Navarre to the left wing.
To carry the centre, the reserve, and the right wing, to Burgos,
and to beat the enemy before he could unite; an easy task, as the
French would be thirty thousand strong. Meanwhile, Moncey could
keep the Spaniards in check on the side of Tudela, or if unable to
do that, he was to march up the Ebro, by Logroña and Briviesca,
and join the main body. The communication with France would be
thus lost, but the army might maintain itself until the arrival of
the emperor. A modification of this project proposed that Moncey,
retiring to the entrenched camp of Pampeluna, should there await
either the arrival of the emperor, or the result of the operations
towards Burgos.
Fourth project. To pass the Ebro in retreat, and to endeavour
to tempt the enemy to fight in the plain between that river and
Vittoria.
Fifth project. To retire, supporting the left upon Pampeluna, the
right upon Montdragon.
Sixth project. To leave garrisons, with the means of a six weeks’
defence, in Pampeluna, St. Sebastian, Pancorbo, and Burgos. To
unite the rest of the army march against the enemy, attack him
wherever he was found, and then wait either near Madrid or in that
country, into which the pursuit of the Spaniards, or the facility
of living, should draw the army. This plan relinquished the
communications with France entirely, but it was said that the grand
army could easily open them again, and the troops already in Spain
would be sufficiently strong to defy all the efforts of the enemy,
to disconcert all his projects, and to wait in a noble attitude the
general impulse which would be given by the arrival of the emperor.
Of all these projects the last was the favourite with the king, who
strongly recommended it, and asserted, that if it was followed,
affairs would be more prosperous when the emperor arrived than
could be expected from any other plan. Marshal Ney and general
Jourdan approved of it; but it would appear that Napoleon had
other views, and too little confidence in his brother’s military
judgment, to intrust so great a matter to his guidance.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. It is undoubted, that there must always be some sympathy
of genius in the man who is to execute another’s conception in
military affairs. Without that species of harmony between their
minds, the thousand accidental occurrences and minor combinations
which must happen contrary to expectation, will inevitably
embarrass the executor to such a degree, that he will be unable
to see the most obvious advantages, and in striving to unite the
plan he has received with his own views, he will adopt neither, but
steer an unsteady reeling course between both, and fail of success.
The reason of this appears to be, that a strong, and, if the term
may be used, inveterate attention must be fixed upon certain great
principles of action in war, to enable a general to disregard the
minor events and inconveniences which cross his purpose; minor they
are to the great object, but in themselves sufficient to break down
the firmness and self-possession of any but extraordinary men.
2º. The original memoir from which Joseph’s projects have been
extracted is so blotted and interlined, that it would be unfair
to consider it as a matured production. The great error which
pervades it, is the conjectural data upon which he founds his
plans, and the little real information which he appears to have had
relative to the Spanish forces, views, or interior policy. Thus he
was prepared to act upon the idea, that the central junta would
be able and provident; the parties united, and the armies strong
and well administered; none of which things really took place.
Again, he estimated Cuesta and Blake’s armies at eighty thousand,
and considered them as one body; but they were never united at
all, and if they had, they would scarcely have amounted to sixty
thousand. The bold idea of throwing himself into the interior came
too late; he should have thought of that before he quitted Madrid,
or at least before the central government was established at that
capital. His operations might have been successful against the
miserable armies opposed to him; against good and moveable troops
they would not, as the emperor’s admirable notes prove.
The first project, wanting those offensive combinations discussed
by Napoleon, was open to all his objections, as being timid and
incomplete. The second was crude and ill-considered, for, according
to the king’s estimate of the Spanish force, thirty thousand men on
each wing might oppose the heads of his columns, sixty thousand
could still have been united at Logroña, pass the Ebro, excite an
insurrection in Navarre, Guipuscoa, and Biscay, seize Tolosa and
Miranda, and fall upon the rear of the French army, which thus
cut in two, and its communications intercepted, would have been
extremely embarrassed. The third was not better judged. Burgos
as an offensive post, protecting the line of defence, was very
valuable, and to unite a large force there was so far prudent; but
if the Spaniards retired, and refused battle with their left, while
the centre and right operated by Logroña and Sanguessa, what would
have been the result? the French right must without any definite
object either have continued to advance, or remained stationary
without communication, or returned to fight a battle for those
very positions which they had just quitted. The fourth depended
entirely upon accident, and is not worth argument. The fifth was
an undisguised retreat. The sixth was not applicable to the actual
situation of affairs. The king’s force was no longer an independent
body, it was become the advanced guard of the great army, marching
under Napoleon. It was absurd, therefore, to contemplate a decisive
movement, without having first matured a plan suitable to the whole
mass that was to be engaged in the execution. In short, to permit
an advanced guard to determine the operations of the main body, was
to reverse the order of military affairs, and to trust to accident
instead of design. It is curious, that while Joseph was proposing
this irruption into Spain, the Spaniards and the military agents of
Great Britain were trembling lest he should escape their power by a
precipitate flight. “_War is not a conjectural art!_”
CHAPTER V.
The emperor overruled the offensive projects of the king, and the
latter was forced to distribute the centre and right wing in a
manner more consonant to the spirit of Napoleon’s instructions; but
he still neglected to occupy Tudela, and covered his left wing by
the Aragon river.
[Sidenote: Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 28.]
The 18th of September the French army was posted in the following
manner:
Right wing. Marshal } Three divisions of infantry in front of
Bessieres. 15,595 } Pancorbo, at Briviesca, Santa Maria,
under arms. } and Cuba; light cavalry behind Burgos.
Centre. Marshal Ney. }
13,756 under arms. } Logroña, Nalda, and Najera.
Left wing. Marshal } Milagro, Lodosa, Caparosa, and Alfaro.
Moncey. 16,636 } The garrison of Pampeluna was also
under arms. } under Moncey’s command.
Reserve of the king. }
Gen. Saligny. 5,413. }
}
Imperial guard. }
Gen. Dorsenne. 2,423. } Miranda, Haro, and Puente Lara.
------ }
Total 7,833.
Garrisons. 6,004. Pampeluna.
Gen. Monthion. 1,500. Bilbao.
{ Composed of small garrisons and moveable
Gen. La Grange. 6,979. { columns, guarding the communications
{ of Biscay, Alava, and Guipuscoa.
Grand reserve.
Moveable cols. 1,984. }
Stationary. 20,005. } Bayonne, and watching the valleys of
------ } the Pyrenees opening into Navarre.
Total, comm. by }
Gen. Drouet, 21,989. }
Total 90,289 present under arms, exclusive of the troops in
Catalonia. Hence the communication being secured, the fortresses
garrisoned, and the fort of Pancorbo armed, there remained above
fifty thousand sabres and bayonets disposable on a line of battle
extending from Bilbao to Alfaro.
To oppose this formidable force the Spanish troops were divided
into three principal masses, denominated the armies of the right,
centre, and left.
Infantry. Cavalry. Guns. 1st Line.
The first, composed of the
divisions of St. Marc and }
O’Neil, numbered about 17,500 500 24 }
The second, composed of the } Men. Guns.
divisions of La Pena, Llamas, }
and Caro 26,000 1,300 36 } 75,400 86
The third, consisting entirely }
of Gallicians, about 30,000 100 26 }
2d Line.
In the second line the Castillians were }
at Segovia 12,000 }
The Estremadurans at Talavera 13,000 }
Two Andalusian divisions were in } 57,000
La Mancha 14,000 }
And the Asturians (posted at Llanes) were }
called 18,000 }
This estimate, founded upon a number of contemporary returns and
other documents, proves the monstrous exaggerations put forth at
this time to deceive the Spanish people and the English government.
The Spaniards pretended that above one hundred and forty thousand
men in arms were threatening the French positions on the Ebro,
whereas less than seventy-six thousand were in line of battle, and
those exceedingly ill-armed and provided. The right, under Palafox,
held the country between Zaragoza and Sanguessa, on the Aragon
river; the centre, under Castaños, occupied Borja, Taranzona, and
Agreda; the left, under Blake, was posted at Reynosa, near the
sources of the Ebro.
The relative position of the French and Spanish armies was very
disadvantageous for the latter. From the right to the left of their
line, that is, from Reynosa to Zaragoza, was twice the distance
between Bayonne and Vittoria, and the roads more difficult;
the reserve under Drouet was consequently in closer military
communication with king Joseph’s army, than the Spanish wings were
with another. The patriots were acting without concert upon double
external lines of operation, and against an enemy far superior in
quickness, knowledge, and organization, and even in numbers. The
French were superior in cavalry, and the base of their operations
rested on three great fortresses, Bayonne, St. Sebastian, and
Pampeluna; and they could in three days carry the centre and the
reserve to either flank, and unite thirty thousand combatants
without drawing a man from their garrisons. The Spaniards held
but one fortress (Zaragoza), and being disseminated in corps
under different generals of equal authority, they could execute
no combined movement with rapidity or precision, nor under any
circumstances could they unite more than 40,000 men at any given
point.
[Sidenote: Corresp^{ce}. of Captain Carrol.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: General Broderick.]
In this situation of affairs, general Blake, his army organized
in six divisions (each five thousand strong), of which four were
numbered, and the other two called the advanced guard, and the
reserve, broke up from Reynosa on the 17th of September. One
division advanced on the side of Burgos, to cover the march of the
main body, which, threading the valley of Villarcayo, turned the
right of marshal Bessieres, and reached the Ebro. Two divisions
occupied Traspaderna and Frias, and established a post at Oña, on
the right bank of that river; a third division took a position at
Medina, and a fourth held the town of Erran and the Sierra of that
name. A fifth halted in the town of Villarcayo, to preserve the
communication with Reynosa, and at the same time, 8,000 Asturians
under general Acevedo, quitted the camp at Llanes, and advanced
to St. Ander. General Broderick now arrived in the Spanish camp;
Blake importuned him for money, and obtained it, but treated
him otherwise with great coldness, and withheld all information
relative to the movements of the army.
[Sidenote: Corresp^{ce}. of general Leith.]
[Sidenote: Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
English vessels hovering on the coast were prepared to supply the
Biscayans with arms and ammunition, and general Blake thought
himself in a situation to revive the insurrection in that province,
and to extend it to Guipuscoa. With this view he detached his
4th division, and five guns, under the command of the marquis of
Portazgo, to attack general Monthion at Bilbao. The king getting
knowledge of the march of this division, ordered a brigade from his
right wing to fall on its flank by the valley of Orduña, and caused
general Merlin to reinforce Monthion by the valley of Durango.
Bessieres aided these dispositions by a demonstration on the side
of Frias, but the combination was made too late. Portazgo was
already master of Bilbao. Monthion retired on the 20th to Durango,
and Bessieres fell back with his corps to Miranda, Haro, and Puente
Lara, having first injured the defences of Burgos.
[Sidenote: Correspondence of gen. Leith.]
The king took post with the reserve at Vittoria. Marshal Ney
immediately abandoned his position on the Ebro, and carried his
whole force by a rapid march to Bilbao, where he arrived on the
evening of the 26th. At the same time, general Merle’s division
executed a combined movement from Miranda upon Osma and Barbaceña.
Portazgo being overmatched, occupied the heights above Bilbao,
until nightfall, and then retreated to Valmaceda, where he found
the third division, for Blake had changed his position, and now
occupied Frias with his right, Quincoes with his centre, and
Valmaceda with his left. In this situation, holding the passes of
the mountain, he awaited the arrival of the Asturians, who were
marching by the valley of Villarcayo. All the Spanish artillery
remained in the town of that name, being guarded by a division of
infantry. Thus the second effort to raise Biscay failed of success.
[Sidenote: Journal of the king’s operations. MS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
In the mean time, O’Neil, following colonel Doyle’s plan before
mentioned, entered Sanguessa, and was beaten out of it again, with
the loss of two guns. However, the Castillian army approached
the Ebro by the road of Soria. General La-Peña occupied Logroña,
Nalda, and Najera. Llamas and Caro occupied Corella, Cascante,
and Calahorra, and O’Neil took post in the mountains, on the left
bank of the Aragon facing Sanguessa. The peasantry of the valleys
assembled in considerable numbers, and the country between Zaragoza
and the Aragon river appeared to be filled with troops. Marshal
Moncey withdrew from the Ebro, and took a position, with his left
flank at the pass of Sanguessa, his centre at Falces, and his right
at Estella. Ney, leaving Merlin with three thousand men at Bilbao,
returned to the Ebro; but finding that Logroña was occupied in
force by the Spaniards, halted at Guardia on the 5th of October,
and remained in observation.
[Sidenote: Journal of the king’s operations. MS.]
On the 4th the king and Bessieres, at the head of Mouton’s and
Merle’s divisions, quitted Miranda, and advanced along the road
of Osma, with the intention of feeling for Blake on the side of
Frias and Medina, but the Spaniards were in force at Valmaceda.
Joseph, deceived by false information, imagined that they were
again in march towards Bilbao, and pushed on to Lodio, with
the intention of attacking Blake during his movement. At Lodio
the king ascertained the truth and halted. He was uneasy about
Moncey, and therefore returned to Murquia on the 7th. In that
town he left Merle to protect the rear of the troops at Bilbao,
and proceeded to Miranda with the division of Mouton. On the
12th, Blake, still intent upon the insurrection of Biscay, placed
a division at Orduña, and attacked Bilbao with fifteen thousand
men. Merlin retired fighting up the valley of Durango as far as
Zornosa, but being joined there by general Verdier, at the head
of six battalions, he turned and checked the pursuit. At this
time the leading columns of the great French army were passing
the Spanish frontier, and Laval’s division advanced to Durango.
Sebastiani, with six thousand men, relieved Merle at Murquia; the
latter repaired to Miranda, and Verdier returned to Vittoria.
Marshal Lefebre, duke of Dantzic, assumed the command of the three
divisions posted at Durango.
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Papers.]
[Sidenote: Vindication of Castaños.]
On the Spanish side, the marquis of Romana’s division disembarked
on the 9th at St. Ander, and being completely equipped and provided
from the English stores, the infantry, eight thousand in number,
proceeded by slow marches to join Blake. The Asturians halted
at Villarcayo; but the Estremaduran army, under the conde de
Belvedere, was put in motion, and the Castillian forces arrived
upon the Ebro. The first and third divisions of the Andalusian army
were on the march from La Mancha, and Castaños, quitting Madrid,
proceeded towards Tudela. All things announced the approach of a
great crisis. Yet such was the apathy of the supreme junta, that
the best friends of Spain hoped for a defeat, as the only mode of
exciting sufficient energy in the government to save the state,
and by some it was thought, that even that sharp remedy would be
insufficient. A momentary excitement was, however, caused by the
intercepted letter to Jourdan before spoken of. The troops in the
second line were ordered to proceed to the Ebro by forced marches,
letters were written pressing for the advance of the British army,
and Castaños was enjoined to drive the enemy, without delay, beyond
the frontier; but this sudden fury of action ended with those
orders. Sir David Baird’s corps was detained in the transports at
Coruña, waiting for permission to land; no assistance was afforded
to sir John Moore, and although the subsidies already paid by
England amounted to ten millions of dollars, and that Madrid was
rich, and willing to contribute to the exigencies of the moment,
the central junta, although complaining of the want of money, would
not be at the trouble of collecting patriotic gifts, and left the
armies “to all the horrors of famine, nakedness, and misery.” The
natural consequence of such folly and wickedness ensued; the people
ceased to be enthusiastic, and the soldiers deserted in crowds.
[Sidenote: General Broderick’s Letter. Par^y. Pap^s.]
[Sidenote: Birch’s Letters to Leith. MS.]
The conduct of the generals was scarcely less extraordinary.
Blake had voluntarily commenced the campaign without magazines,
and without any plan, except that of raising the provinces of
Biscay and Guipuscoa. With the usual blind confidence of a
Spaniard, he pressed forward, ignorant of the force or situation
of his adversaries, never dreaming of a defeat, and so little
experienced in the detail of command, that he calculated upon the
ordinary quantity of provision contained in an English frigate,
which cruised off the coast, as a resource for his army, if the
country should fail to supply him with subsistence. His artillery
had only seventy rounds for each gun, his men were without great
coats, many without shoes, and the snow was beginning to fall
in the mountains. That he was able to make any impression is a
proof that king Joseph possessed little military talent: the
French marshals, from the habitude of war, were able to baffle
Blake without difficulty, but the stratagetical importance of the
valley of Orduña they did not appreciate, or he would have been
destroyed. The lesson given by Napoleon, when he defeated Wurmser
in the valley of the Brenta, might have been repeated, under more
favourable circumstances, at Orduña and Durango; but if genius was
asleep with the French, it was dead with the Spaniards.
As long as Blake remained between Frias and Valmaceda his position
was tolerably secure from an attack, because the Montagna St.
Ander is exceedingly rugged, and the line of retreat by Villacayo
was open; but he was cooped up in a corner, and ill-placed for
offensive movements, which were the only operations he thought
of. Instead of occupying Burgos, and repairing the citadel, he
descended on Bilbao with the bulk of his army, thereby discovering
his total ignorance of war; for several great valleys, the upper
parts of which were possessed by the French, met near that town,
and it was untenable. The flank of his army was exposed to an
attack from the side of Orduña, and his line of retreat was always
in the power of Bessieres. To protect his flank and rear, Blake
detached largely, but that weakened the main body without obviating
the danger, nor did he make amends for his bad dispositions by
diligence, for his movements were slow, his attacks without vigour,
and his whole conduct displayed temerity without decision, and
rashness without enterprise.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 27.]
The armies of the centre and right were not better conducted.
Castaños, having quitted Madrid on the 8th of October, arrived at
Tudela on the 17th, and on the 20th held a conference with Palafox
at Zaragoza. The aggregate of their forces did not much exceed
forty-five thousand men, of which from two to three thousand were
cavalry. Sixty pieces of artillery followed the divisions, and the
whole was posted in the following manner:
ARMY OF THE CENTRE, 27,000.
General Pignatelli, with ten thousand Castillian infantry, one
thousand five hundred cavalry, and fourteen guns, at Logroña.
General Grimarest, with the second division of Andalusia, five
thousand men, at Lodosa.
General La-Peña, with the fourth division, five thousand infantry,
at Calahorra.
The parc of artillery, and a division of infantry, four thousand,
at Centruenigo.
The remainder at Tudela and the neighbouring villages.
ARMY OF ARAGON, 18,000.
O’Neil, with seven thousand five hundred men, held Sos, Lumbar, and
Sanguessa.
Thirty miles in the rear, St. Marc occupied Exca, with five
thousand five hundred men.
Palafox, with five thousand men, remained in Zaragoza.
The Ebro rolled between these two corps. Taken as one army, their
front lines occupied two sides of an irregular triangle, of which
Tudela was the apex, and Sanguessa and Logroña the extremities of
the base. Those points being taken as the chord, the rivers Ebro
and Aragon meeting at Milagro, describe, in their double course, an
arc, the convex of which was opposed to the Spaniards. The streams
of the Ega, the Arga, and the Zidasco rivers, descending from the
Pyrenees in parallel courses, cut the chord of this arc at nearly
equal distances, and fall, the two first into the Ebro, and the
last into the Aragon. All the roads leading from Pampeluna to the
Ebro follow the course of those torrents.
Marshal Moncey’s right was at Estella on the Ega, his centre held
Falces and Tafalla on the Arga and the Zidasco, his left was in
front of Sanguessa on the Aragon. The bridges of Olite and Peralta
were secured by advanced parties, and Caparosa, where there was
another bridge, he occupied in force. In this situation he could
operate freely between the torrents, which intersected his line;
he commanded all the roads leading to the Ebro, and he could, from
Caparosa, at any moment, issue forth against the centre of the
Spanish armies. Now from Tudela to Sanguessa is fifty miles, from
Tudela to Logroña is sixty miles, but from Tudela to Caparosa is
only twelve miles of good road; wherefore, the extremities of the
Spanish line were above one hundred miles, or six days’ march from
each other, while a single day would have sufficed to unite the
French within two hours’ march of the centre.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Graham’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Col. Doyle’s Correspondence.]
The weakness of the Spaniards’ position is apparent. If Palafox,
crossing the Aragon at Sanguessa, advanced towards Pampeluna,
Moncey would be on his left flank and rear; if he turned against
Moncey, the garrison of Pampeluna would fall upon his right. If
Castaños, to favour the attack of Palafox, crossed the Ebro at
Logroña, Ney, being posted at Guardia, was ready to take him in
flank; if the two wings endeavoured to unite, their line of march
was liable to be intercepted at Tudela by Moncey, and the rear of
Castaños attacked by Ney, who could pass the Ebro at Logroña or
Lodosa. If they remained stationary, they might easily be beaten
in detail. Any other than Spanish generals would have been filled
with apprehension on such an occasion. But Palafox and Castaños,
heedless of their own danger, tranquilly proceeded to arrange a
plan of offensive operations singularly absurd. They agreed that
the army of the centre, leaving a division at Lodosa and another
at Calahorra, should make a flank march to the right, and take a
position along the Aragon, the left to be at Tudela, the right at
Sanguessa; that is, with less than twenty thousand men to occupy
fifty miles of country close to a powerful enemy. In the meantime,
Palafox, with the Aragonese, crossing the river at Sanguessa, was
to extend in an oblique line to Roncesvalles, covering the valleys
of Talay, Escay, and Roncal, with his centre, and reinforcing his
army by the armed inhabitants, who were ready to flock to his
standard. Blake was invited to operate, in combination with them,
by Guipuscoa, and to pass in the rear of the whole French army, so
as to unite with Palafox, and thus cut off the enemy’s retreat into
France, and intercept his reinforcements at the same time.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
Castaños returned to Tudela on the 23d, and proceeded to Logroña
on the 25th; the grand movement being to commence on the 27th.
But on the 21st, Grimarest had pushed forward strong detachments
across the Ebro to Mendavia, Andosilla, Sesma, and Carcur, and
one over the Ega to Lerim. The Castillian outposts also occupied
Viana on the left bank of the Ebro. The Aragonese divisions were
already closing upon Sanguessa, and a multitude of peasants crowded
to the same place in the hope of obtaining arms and ammunition.
Moncey, deceived by this concourse of persons, estimated the force
in Sanguessa at twenty thousand, when, in fact, it was only eight
thousand regular troops. His report, and the simultaneous movements
of the Spaniards on both extremities, made the king to apprehend a
triple attack from Logroña, Lodosa, and Sanguessa. He immediately
reinforced Ney with a division (Merlin’s) of Bessieres’ corps, and
directed him to clear the left bank of the Ebro, while a second
division (Bonnet’s) of Bessieres descended the right bank from Haro
to Briones. A division of Moncey’s corps, stationed at Estella,
received orders to follow the course of the Ega, and second Ney’s
operations; and a part of the garrison of Pampeluna, posted at
Montreal and Salinas, was commanded to advance upon Nardues, and
make a demonstration against Sanguessa.
[Illustration: _Explanatory Sketch_ of the FRENCH & SPANISH
POSITIONS _the 26^{th} Oct^r. 1808_.
_London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence. MS.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Graham’s Correspondence. MS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
When Castaños arrived at Logroña these operations were in full
activity. Ney had advanced on the 24th, driven back the Castillian
outposts, crowned the height opposite that town on the 25th, and
was cannonading the Spaniards’ position. On the 26th, he renewed
his fire briskly until twelve o’clock, at which time Castaños,
after giving Pignatelli strict orders to defend his post unless
he was turned by a force descending the right bank of the Ebro,
proceeded himself to Lodosa and Calahorra. As the road winded by
the river, the Spanish general was exposed to the fire of light
troops posted in a wood on the opposite side, but escaped without
injury. Meanwhile the French from Estella falling down the Ega,
drove the Spanish parties out of Mendavia, Andosilla, Carcur, and
Sesma; and Grimarest retired from Lodosa to La Torre with such
precipitation, that he left colonel Cruz, a valuable officer,
with a light battalion, and some volunteers, at Lerim. A
squadron of cavalry escaped, but Cruz, with the infantry, being
surrounded in a convent, was, after a creditable resistance, taken.
Pignatelli, regardless of Castaños’ orders, retired from Logroña,
and abandoned all his guns at the foot of the Sierra de Nalda, only
a few miles from the enemy, then crossing the mountains gained
Centruenigo in such disorder, that his men continued to arrive for
twenty-four hours consecutively. On the right, O’Neil skirmished
with the garrison of Pampeluna, and lost six men killed, and eight
wounded; but, in the Spanish fashion, announced, that, after a
hard action of many hours, the enemy was completely overthrown.
On the 27th, Merlin’s division rejoined Bessieres at Miranda, and
Bonnet, retiring from Briones, took post in front of Pancorbo.
Castaños, incensed at the ill conduct of the Castillians, dismissed
Pignatelli, and incorporated his troops with the Andalusian
divisions. Fifteen hundred men of the latter, commanded by the
Conde de Cartoajal, being sent back to Nalda, recovered the lost
guns, and brought them safe to Centruenigo.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Graham’s Correspondence. MS.]
[Sidenote: Whittingham’s Correspondence. MS.]
Internal dissensions succeeded to external troubles. Palafox
arrogantly censured Castaños, and a cabal, of which general
Coupigny appears to have been the principal mover, was formed
against the latter. The junta, exasperated that Castaños had not
already driven the enemy beyond the frontier, encouraged his
traducers, and circulated slanderous accusations themselves, as
if his inaction alone enabled the French to remain in Spain. Don
Francisco Palafox, brother of the captain-general, and a member
of the supreme junta, was sent to head-quarters avowedly to
facilitate, but really to interfere with, and control the military
operations. He arrived at Alfaro on the 29th, accompanied by
Coupigny and the conde de Montijo, a turbulent, factious man,
shallow and vain, but designing and unprincipled. Castaños waited
upon the representative of the government, and laid before him the
denuded state of the army, and the captain-general, Palafox, coming
up from Zaragoza, a council of war was held at Tudela on the 5th of
November. The rough manner in which the troops were driven from the
left bank of the Ebro was not sufficient to divert the attention
of the Spanish generals from the grand project of gaining the rear
of the French army. The council agreed to persevere, although
certain advice was received that the enemy were strengthened by
thirty thousand fresh men. Deeming it, however, fitting, that Blake
should act the first, it was resolved to await his time, but, as an
intermediate operation, it was agreed that the army of the centre,
leaving six thousand men at Calahorra, and a garrison at Tudela,
should cross the Ebro and attack Caparosa. French parties were,
however, pushed as far as Voltierra, and in the skirmishes which
ensued, the conduct of the Castillian battalions was discreditable.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Joseph Palafox returned to Zaragoza, and the deputy separated
himself from Castaños. The loss sustained by desertion and the
previous combats was considerable, but some Murcian levies, and a
part of the first and third Andalusian divisions joined the army
of the centre, which now mustered twenty-six thousand infantry,
and nearly three thousand cavalry under arms, with fifty or sixty
pieces of artillery. The positions of the army extended from
Calahorra, by Haro, to Tudela. La-Peña held the first town with
five thousand men; Grimarest and Caro commanded eight thousand
at the second; and head-quarters, with thirteen thousand five
hundred men, were fixed in the last. Cartoajal remained with eleven
hundred in the Sierra de Nalda, and eight hundred were posted at
Ansejo.
[Sidenote: Graham’s Correspondence. MS.]
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication].
[Sidenote: Graham’s Correspondence. MS.]
In pursuance of the plan arranged, the troops were in movement to
cross the Ebro, when despatches from Blake announced that he had
met with some disaster on the 31st, the extent of which he did not
communicate. This news arrested the attack; and the preposterous
transactions that ensued, resembled the freaks of Caligula rather
than the operations of real war. First, it was arranged that the
army should abandon Tudela, and take a position in two lines,
the extremities of the one to rest on Calahorra and Amedo, the
second to extend from Alfaro to Fitero. The deputy ordered O’Neil,
with the army of Aragon, to occupy the latter of these lines
forthwith, but O’Neil refused to stir without instructions from
the captain-general. This was on the 9th, on the 10th the plan was
changed. Castaños fixed his head-quarters at Centruenigo, and the
deputy proposed that O’Neil should descend the right bank of the
Aragon river, and attack Caparosa in the rear; that the troops in
Tudela should attack it in front; and that a division should make
a demonstration of passing the Ebro in boats, opposite to Milagro,
in order to favour this attack. Castaños assented. On the 12th a
division assembled opposite Milagro, and La-Peña with two divisions
marched against Caparosa. Suddenly, the whimsical deputy sent
them orders to repair to Lodosa, forty miles higher up the Ebro,
and attack the bridge at that place, while Grimarest crossing in
the boats at Calahorra, should ascend the left bank of the Ebro,
and take it in rear. La-Peña and Villarcayo, confounded by this
change, wrote to Castaños for an explanation. This was the first
intimation that the latter, who was lying sick at Centruenigo,
received of the altered dispositions. He directed his lieutenants
to obey; but being provoked beyond endurance, wrote sharply to the
junta, demanding to know who was to command the army; and after
all this insolence and vapouring on the part of Francisco Palafox,
no operation took place at all. He declared, that his intention
was merely to make a demonstration, ordered the troops to their
quarters, and then, without assigning any reason, deprived La-Peña
of his command, and appointed Cartoajal in his place.
[Sidenote: Vindication of Castaños.]
It was at this time that sir John Moore’s letter arrived; but
Castaños, no longer master of his own operations, could ill concert
a plan of campaign with the general of another army. He could not
even tell what troops were to be at his nominal disposal; for the
Estremaduran force, originally destined for his command, was now
directed by the junta upon Burgos, and the remainder of his own
first and third division was detained in Madrid. His enemies,
especially Montijo, were active in spreading reports to his
disadvantage; the deserters scattered over the country declared
that all the generals were traitors, and the people of the towns
and villages, deceived by the central junta, and excited by false
rumours, respected neither justice nor government, and committed
the most scandalous excesses.
Blake’s situation was not more prosperous.
The road from Bayonne to Vittoria was encumbered with the advancing
columns of the great French army. An imperial decree, issued early
in September, commanded that the troops already in Spain should
be incorporated with the grand army then marching from Germany.
The united forces were to compose eight divisions, called “Corps
d’Armée,” an institution analogous to the Roman legion, because
each “Corps d’Armée,” although adapted to act with facility as
a component part of a large army, was also provided with light
cavalry, a parc, and train of artillery, engineers, sappers, and
miners, and a complete civil administration, to enable it to take
the field as an independent force. The imperial guards and the
heavy cavalry of the army were not included in this arrangement;
the first had a constitution of their own, and at this time all the
heavy cavalry, and all the artillery, not attached to the “Corps
d’Armée,” were formed into a large reserve. As the columns arrived
in Spain, they were united to the troops already there, and the
whole was disposed conformably to the new organization.
Marshal Victor, duke of Belluno, commanded the first corps.
Marshal Bessieres, duke of Istria second corps.
Marshal Moncey, duke of Cornegliano third corps.
Marshal Lefebre, duke of Dantzic fourth corps.
Marshal Mortier, duke of Treviso fifth corps.
Marshal Ney, duke of Elchingen sixth corps.
General St. Cyr seventh corps.
General Junot, duke of Abrantes eighth corps.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
The seventh corps was appropriated to Catalonia; the remainder were
in the latter end of October assembled or assembling in Navarre and
Biscay. General Merlin, with a division, held Zornosa, and observed
Blake, who remained tranquilly at Bilbao. Two divisions of the
fourth corps occupied Durango and the neighbouring villages. One
division and the light cavalry of the first corps was at Vittoria,
a second division of the same corps guarded the bridge of Murguia
on the river Bayas, and commanded the entrance to the valley of
Orduña. Haro, Puente Lara, Miranda, and Pancorbo were maintained
by the infantry of the king’s body guard and the second corps, and
the light cavalry of the latter covered the plains close up to
Briviesca.
The reinforcements were daily crowding up to Vittoria, and the
king, restrained by the emperor’s orders to a rigorous system
of defence, occupied himself with the arrangements attendant on
such an immense accumulation of force, and left Blake in quiet
possession of Bilbao. The latter mistook this apparent inactivity
for timidity; he was aware that reinforcements, in number equal
to his whole army, had joined the enemy; but, with wonderful
rashness, he resolved to press forward, and readily agreed to
attempt a junction with Palafox, in the rear of the French
position. At this time Romana’s infantry were approaching Bilbao,
and the Estremadurans were in march for Burgos; but the country
was nearly exhausted of provisions; both armies felt the scarcity,
and desertion prevailed among the Spaniards. The Biscayans, twice
abandoned, were fearful of a third insurrection. Prudence dictated
a retreat towards Burgos. Blake resolved to advance.
[Sidenote: Carrol’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Brodrick’s Correspondence.]
Having posted general Acevedo with the Asturians and the second
division at Orduña, he left a battalion at Miravelles, to preserve
the communication with Bilbao, and the 24th of October marched
himself at the head of seventeen thousand fighting men, divided in
three columns, to attack Zornosa. The right ascended the valley
of Durango by Galdacano, the centre by Larabezua, the left by
Rigoytia; at the same time general Acevedo penetrated through the
mountains of Gorbea by Ozoco and Villaro, with a view to seize
Manares and St. Antonia d’Urquitiola. It was intended by this
operation to cut the communication between Miranda on the Ebro,
and the town of Durango, and thus to intercept the retreat of
marshal Ney, and oblige him to surrender with sixteen thousand men;
for Blake was utterly ignorant of his adversary’s position, and
imagined that he had only two corps to deal with. He believed that
the king, with one, was in his front at Durango and Mont Dragon,
and that Ney, with the other, was at Miranda, when in fact, the
latter was at that moment attacking Pignatelli at Logroña. As the
Spanish army approached Zornosa, Merlin abandoned the town, and
drew up on some heights in the rear. Bad weather, and the want
of provisions, checked further operations until the 25th. On the
evening of that day, the Spanish division at Rigoytia attempted to
turn the right flank of the French. At the same time Blake marched
against the centre and left, and Merlin fell back to Durango.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
The duke of Dantzic, alarmed by these movements, concentrated his
whole force, consisting of two divisions of infantry (Sebastiani’s
and Laval’s), and a Dutch brigade at Durango; his third division
(Valence’s) being yet in France. The king reinforced him with a
division of the first corps (Villatte’s), and ordered Merlin’s
troops, which were composed of detachments, to join their
respective regiments. From the 25th to the 30th the armies
remained quiet; but at day-break on the 31st, the Spaniards were
formed in order of battle, five miles beyond Zornosa, and close
to the enemy’s position. The vanguard drew up across the road to
Durango; the reserve at some distance in the rear. The third and
fourth divisions occupied the intermediate space, so disposed as
to outflank the others, in a chequer shape. The first division
occupied a height on the left of the road, and behind the reserve.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Carrol’s Correspondence.]
The duke of Dantzic, apprised by the previous movements, that
he was going to be attacked, became impatient; the state of the
atmosphere prevented him from discovering the order of march, or
the real force of the Spaniards; he knew that Blake had the power
of uniting nearly fifty thousand men, and concluding that such a
force was in his front, he resolved to anticipate his adversaries
by a sudden and vigorous assault. In fact, the Spanish generals
were so little guided by the rules of war, that before their
incapacity was understood, their very errors being too gross for
belief contributed to their safety. Blake had commenced a great
offensive movement, intending to beat the troops in his front, and
to cut off and capture Ney’s corps of sixteen thousand men. In six
days, although unopposed, he advanced less than fifteen miles, and
so disposed his forces, that out of thirty-six thousand men, he
concentrated only seventeen thousand infantry, without artillery,
upon the field of battle!
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
[Sidenote: Leith’s Correspondence. MS.]
The duke of Dantzic, at the head of twenty-five thousand men,
formed in three columns of attack, descended the heights of
Durango. A thick fog covering the mountain sides, filled all the
valleys; and a few random shots alone indicated the presence of the
hostile armies. Suddenly Villatte’s division appeared close to the
Spanish vanguard; and with a brisk onset forced it back upon the
third division. Sebastiani’s and Leval’s followed in succession; a
fire of artillery, to which Blake could make no reply, opened along
the road: the day cleared, and the Spanish army, heaped in confused
masses, was, notwithstanding the example of personal courage given
by Blake, and the natural strength of the country, driven from one
position to another. At mid-day it was beyond Zornosa, and at three
o’clock in full flight for Bilbao, which place it gained in a state
of great confusion during the night. The next day Blake crossed
the Salcedon, and took a position at Nava. The duke of Dantzic
pursued as far as Guenes, and then leaving general Villatte, with
seven thousand men, to observe the enemy, returned to Bilboa.
Twelve vessels, laden with English stores, were in the river, but
contrived to escape.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
The king was displeased with the precipitancy of marshal Lefebre,
but endeavoured to profit from the result. The division of the
first corps, stationed at Murguia, was ordered to descend the
valley of Orduña, as far as Amurio, to aid the operations of the
fourth corps. At the same time, Mouton’s division was detached from
the second corps towards Barbareña, from whence it was, according
to circumstances, either to join the troops in the valley of
Orduña, or to watch Medina and Quincoes, and press Blake in his
retreat, if he retired by Villarcayo. The French were ignorant
of the situation of general Acevedo. On the day of the action at
Zornosa, that general was at Villaro, from whence he endeavoured
to rejoin Blake, by marching to Valmaceda. He reached Miravalles,
in the valley of Orduña, on the 3d, at the moment when the head
of the French troops coming from Murguia appeared in sight. After
a slight skirmish, the latter thinking they had to deal with the
whole of Blake’s army, retired to Orduña, and Acevedo immediately
pushed for the Salcedon river. Villatte first got notice of his
march, and dividing his own troops, posted one half at Orantia, on
the road leading from Miravalles to Nava, the other on the road to
Valmaceda, thus intercepting the line of retreat.
[Sidenote: Captain Carrol.]
Blake, who was informed of Acevedo’s danger, in the night of the
4th, with great decision and promptitude, instantly passed the
bridge of Nava, and at daybreak crowned the heights of Orantia
with three divisions, meaning to fall suddenly upon the French;
but they were aware of his intention, and sending a detachment
to occupy Gordujuela, a pass in the mountains, leading to Bilbao,
rejoined Villatte on the Valmaceda road. Five Spanish divisions and
some of Romania’s troops were now assembled at Orantia: Blake left
two in reserve, detached one against Gordujuela, and marched with
the other two against the French position. Villatte was overpowered
and driven across the Salcedon; but rallied on the left bank and
renewed the action. At this moment Acevedo appeared in sight; he
sent two battalions by a circuit to gain the rear of the French,
and with the remainder joined in the combat. Villatte retired
fighting, and encountering the two battalions in his retreat, broke
through them, and reached Guenes, but not without considerable
loss of men, and he also left one gun and part of his baggage in
the hands of the Spaniards. Thus ended a series of operations and
combats, which had lasted for eleven days.
[Illustration: _Explanatory Sketch_ of BLAKE’S POSITION _at the
Battle of Zornoza_.
_London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._]
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The duke of Dantzic’s attack at Zornosa was founded upon
false data; it was inconsistent with the general plan of the
campaign, hasty, ill-combined, and feebly followed up. It was an
unpardonable fault to leave Villatte without support, close to an
army that had met with no signal defeat, and that was five times
his strength. The march of Victor’s division was too easily checked
at Miravalles. For five days, general Acevedo, with at least eight
thousand men, was wandering unmolested in the midst of the French
columns, and finally escaped without any extraordinary effort.
2º. General Blake’s dispositions, with the exception of his
night-march from Nava to Orantia, will, if studied, afford
useful lessons in an inverse sense. From the 24th of October to
the 4th of November, he omitted no error that the circumstances
rendered it possible to commit; and then, as if ashamed of the
single judicious movement that occurred, he would not profit by
it. Romana’s infantry being partly arrived, and the remainder in
the vicinity of Nava, the whole Spanish army was, contrary to all
reasonable expectation, concentrated; Blake had then above thirty
thousand fighting men united in one mass, harassed, but not much
discouraged, and the conde de Belvedere, with twelve thousand
infantry, twelve hundred cavalry, and thirty pieces of artillery,
was close to Burgos.
If Blake had been at all acquainted with the principles of his
art, he would have taken advantage of Villatte’s retreat, to
march by Espinosa, and Villarcayo, to the upper Ebro; from thence
have gained Burgos; brought up the artillery from Reynosa; united
Belvedere’s troops to his own; opened a communication with the
English army; and in that position, with a plentiful country behind
him, his retreat open, and his army provided with cavalry, he might
have commenced a regular system of operations; but with incredible
obstinacy and want of judgment, he determined to attack Bilbao
again, and to renew the ridiculous attempt to surround the French
army and unite with Palafox at the foot of the Pyrenees.
[Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, Sect. 8.]
Such were the commanders, the armies, the rulers, upon whose
exertions the British cabinet relied for the security of sir John
Moore’s troops, during their double march from Lisbon and Coruña.
It was in such a state of affairs that the English ministers,
anticipating the speedy and complete destruction of the French
forces in Spain, were sounding the trumpet for an immediate
invasion of France! Of France, defended by a million of veteran
soldiers, and governed by the mightiest genius of two thousand
years! As if the vast military power of that warlike nation had
suddenly become extinct; as if Baylen were a second Zama, and
Hannibal flying to Adrumetum instead of passing the Iberus! But
Napoleon, with an execution more rapid than other men’s thoughts,
was already at Vittoria, and his hovering eagles cast a gloomy
shadow over Spain.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of the king’s operations, MS.]
After the opening of the legislative sessions, the emperor
quitted Paris, and repaired to Bayonne. He arrived there on the
3d of November. It was his intention that the presumption of the
Spanish generals should be encouraged by a strict defensive system
until the moment, when the blow he was prepared to strike, could
fall with the greatest effect. The precipitate attack at Zornosa
displeased him, and he was also dissatisfied with the subsequent
measures of the king. He thought that the safety of Mouton’s
division would be compromised between the armies of Blake and the
conde de Belvedere. To prevent any accident, he judged it necessary
that Bessieres should advance with the whole of the second corps to
Burgos; that marshal Victor should march by Amurio to Valmaceda;
and that marshal Le-Febre should immediately renew his attack on
that position, from the side of Bilbao. These dispositions were
executed, and thus at the very moment when Blake was leading his
harassed and starving troops back to Bilbao, two corps, amounting
to fifty thousand men, were in full march to meet him, and a third
had already turned his right flank, and was on his rear.
[Sidenote: Captain Carrol’s Corresp^{ce}.]
[Sidenote: General Leith’s Corresp^{ce}.]
The Spanish general advanced from Valmaceda on the 7th, and
thinking that only fifteen hundred men were in Guenes, prepared to
surround them. Two divisions making a circuit to the left, passed
through Abellana and Sopoerte, with a view to gain the bridge of
Sodupe, in the rear of Guenes, while two other divisions attacked
that position in front; the remainder of the army followed at
some distance. The advanced guard of the 4th corps was in Guenes,
and after an action of two hours, the Spaniards were thrown into
confusion; but the night saved them from a total rout. The same
day, one of their flanking divisions was encountered and beaten
near Sopoerte, and the retreat of the other being intercepted on
the side of Abellana, it was forced to make for Portagalete on
the sea-coast, and from thence to St. Andero. Blake’s eyes being
now opened a little to the peril of his situation, he resolved to
retreat to Espinosa de los Monteros, a strong mountain position,
two days’ march in the rear; intending to rest his troops there,
and to draw supplies from the magazines at Reynosa. Retreating
during the night to Valmaceda, he gained Nava on the 8th, and
finally reached Espinosa on the 9th. The remainder of Romana’s
infantry came up during this retreat, and the whole army was, with
the exception of the division cut off at Abellana, concentrated in
a strong position, which covered the intersection of the roads from
St. Andero, Villarcayo, and Reynosa.
Napoleon, accompanied by the dukes of Dalmatia and Montebello,
quitted Bayonne the morning of the 8th, and reached Vittoria in
the evening. He was met by the civil and military chiefs at the
gates of the town; but refusing to go to the house prepared for his
reception, he jumped off his horse, entered the first small inn
that he observed, and calling for his maps, and a report of the
situation of the armies on both sides, proceeded to study the plan
of his campaign.
The first and fourth corps, after uniting at Valmaceda, had
separated again at Nava on the 9th, Victor pursuing the track of
Blake, and Lefebre marching upon Villarcayo by Medina. The second
corps was concentrating at Briviesca, the third corps occupied
Tafalla, Peraltes, Caparosa, and Estrella. The sixth corps, the
guards, and the reserve, were distributed from Vittoria to Miranda,
and a division, under the command of general La Grange, was at
Guardia, connecting the positions of the third and sixth corps. The
fifth corps was still behind the frontier, and the eighth composed
of the troops, removed from Portugal by the convention of Cintra,
was marching from the French sea-ports, where it had disembarked.
On the Spanish side, the conde de Belvedere was at Burgos, Castaños
and Palafox, unknowing of their danger, were planning to cut off
the French army, and Blake was flying to Espinosa. The English army
were scattered from Coruña to Talavera de la Reyna.
[Sidenote: S. Marshal Soult’s Operations, MSS.]
In two hours the emperor had arranged his plans. Moncey was
directed to leave a division in front of Pampeluna, to observe
the Spaniards on the Aragon, to concentrate the remainder of the
third corps at Lodosa, and to remain on the defensive until further
orders. Lagrange was reinforced by Colbert’s brigade of light
cavalry from the sixth corps, and directed upon Logroña. The first
and fourth corps were to press Blake without intermission. The
sixth to march towards Aranda de Douero. The duke of Dalmatia was
appointed to command the 2d corps, and ordered to fall headlong
upon the conde de Belvedere. The emperor, with the imperial guards
and the reserve, followed the movement of the second corps.
These instructions being issued, the enormous mass of the French
army was put in motion with a celerity that marked the vigour of
Napoleon’s command. Marshal Soult having departed on the instant
for Briviesca, arrived there at day-break on the 9th, received
the second corps from the hands of Bessieres, and in a few hours,
the divisions composing it were in full march for the terrace of
Monasterio, which overlooks the plains of Burgos. Head-quarters
were established there, and, during the night, general Franceschi’s
brigade of light cavalry took the road of Zaldueño to Arlanzon,
having orders to cross the river of that name, and descending the
left bank, to cut the communication of the Spaniards with Madrid,
and to prevent them from rallying at the convent of the Chartreuse,
if defeated near Burgos.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
At four o’clock on the morning of the 10th, the French were in
march from Monasterio, and at six o’clock general Lassalle’s
cavalry reached Villa Fria. The conde de Belvedere, being informed
of their approach, posted the Spanish army at Gamonal, and taking
four thousand infantry, eight guns, and the whole of his cavalry,
fell upon Lassalle. The latter skirmished for a while, and then
following his orders, retired slowly to Rio Bena. At eight
o’clock, the French infantry, which had advanced by two roads, was
reunited at this town, and immediately pushed forward on Villa
Fria. Belvedere was soon driven back upon Gamonal, and the Spanish
army was discovered in line of battle. The right occupied a wood,
leaving a clear space of some extent between it and the river
Arlazon. The left was posted in the walled park of Vellimer. Thirty
pieces of artillery covered the front, and seven or eight thousand
armed peasants were arrayed on the heights, immediately behind
the regular troops. These latter amounted to eleven thousand one
hundred and fifty infantry, and eleven hundred and fifty cavalry,
following a field state of their numbers, found after the action.
This was the best army at that time in Spain; it was composed of
the Walloon and Spanish guards, the regiments of Mayorca, Zafra,
and Valencia de Alcantara; the hussars of Valencia, the royal
carbineers, and some volunteers of good families. It was completely
equipped, and armed principally from the English stores; but its
resistance was even more feeble than that made by the half-famished
peasants of Blake’s force.
BATTLE OF GAMONAL.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 15.]
General Lassalle, with the light cavalry, led down upon the Spanish
right, and filled the plain between the river and the wood. At
the same moment the Spanish artillery opened along the whole of
their line, and the French infantry formed in columns of regiments
arrived. Mouton’s division, composed of old soldiers, broke at once
into the wood at a charging pace. General Bonnet followed closely,
but so rapid and effectual was the assault of Mouton’s veterans,
that Bonnet’s troops never fired a shot. The Spaniards fled in
disorder, the left wing, although not attacked, followed the
example of the right, and the whole mass, victors and vanquished,
rushed into the town of Burgos with extraordinary violence and
uproar. At the same moment, Bessieres, who retained the command
of all the heavy cavalry, passed at full gallop toward the Madrid
road, where it crosses the Arlazon, sabring the fugitives, and
taking all the guns which had escaped Mouton’s vehement attack;
and on the other side of the river, Franceschi was seen to cut in
pieces some Catalonian light troops stationed there, and to bar
all hopes of flight. Never was a defeat more instantaneous, or
more complete. Two thousand five hundred Spaniards were killed;
twenty guns, thirty ammunition waggons, six pair of colours, and
nine hundred men, were taken on the field. Four thousand musquets
were found unbroken, and the fugitives were dispersed far and
wide. Belvedere himself escaped to Lerma, where he arrived in the
evening of the day on which the battle was fought. Meeting some
battalions, principally composed of volunteers, on their march to
join his army, he retired with them to Aranda de Douero during
the night; but first, with true Spanish exaggeration, wrote a
despatch, in which he asserted, that the French were repulsed in
two desperate attacks; but that after thirteen hours hard fighting,
they succeeded in a third.
All the ammunition and stores of the Spanish army were captured in
Burgos; and the indefatigable marshal Soult, who was still upon
the post-horse, which he mounted at Briviesca; not content with
travelling from Bayonne to Burgos, taking the latter town, and
gaining a decisive victory within the space of fifty hours; now
rallied his corps, and detaching one column in pursuit on the side
of Lerma, and another towards Valencia and Valladolid, marched
himself with a third, on the very day of the battle, towards
Reynosa, where he hoped to intercept Blake’s line of retreat to the
plains of Leon.
[Sidenote: Carrol’s Corresp^{ce}.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
This last-mentioned general reached Espinosa, as we have seen, on
the evening of the 9th, with six divisions, including Romana’s
infantry, who also dragged with them six guns of a small calibre.
The separation of the fourth division at Abellana, the deserters,
and the losses sustained in battle, had reduced the army below
twenty-five thousand fighting men. The parc of ammunition and the
artillery, guarded by two thousand infantry, were behind Reynosa,
at Aquilar del Campo, on the road to Leon. Blake’s position was
strong, and he hoped to remain in it for some days unmolested.
His left wing, composed of the Asturians, and the first division,
occupied some heights which covered the road of St. Andero. The
centre, consisting of the third division and the reserve, formed
a line across the road of Reynosa, which led through Espinosa
directly to the rear. The second division was established on a
commanding height, a little on the right hand of the town; Romana’s
infantry were posted in a wood, two miles in advance of the right;
and the vanguard, with six guns, formed a reserve behind the centre
of the position.
BATTLE OF ESPINOSA.
At two o’clock in the afternoon of the 10th, the head of marshal
Victor’s columns drove back Romana’s infantry[18], and seized
the wood; but the Spaniards, reinforced by the third division,
renewed the combat. A second French column, however, opened its
fire upon the Spanish centre, thus weakened by the advance of the
third division; and at the same time some light troops ascending
the heights on the left, menaced that wing of Blake’s army. The
contest on the right was maintained with vigour, and the Spaniards,
supported by the fire of the six guns in their centre, appeared
to be gaining ground, when the night closed and put an end to
the action, leaving the French in possession of the wood, and of
a ridge of hills, which, at the distance of a cannon-shot, run
parallel to the centre of the position. Generals St. Roman and
Riquielmé were mortally wounded this day on the Spanish side.
At daylight the next morning, Victor, who had relieved his left
with fresh troops during the night, renewed the attack. General
Maison throwing out a cloud of skirmishers along the front of the
Spanish centre and left wing, under cover of their fire, passed
rapidly to his own right, and fell upon the Asturians and the first
division. Blake, observing this movement, detached a column of
grenadiers to reinforce the latter, and advanced in person with
three regiments from the centre to take Maison in flank during
his march. It was too late. Three Asturian generals fell at the
first fire, and the troops of that kingdom fled without waiting
for the enemy. They were soon followed by the first division, and
Maison, continuing his course without a check, intercepted the line
of retreat by St. Andero, and also that by the town of Espinosa.
In the mean time, the French troops posted on the parallel ridge
before spoken of, attacked the centre, and the division in the wood
advancing against the right of the Spaniards, their whole army gave
way in terrible confusion and distress, and crowded towards the
river Trueba, which encircled the rear of the position. Some tried
the fords, some rushed to the town, others fled to the right and
left; but the weather was bad, the roads deep, the country rugged
and difficult, and the overthrow was fatal. Those who escaped went
to their own provinces, carrying dismay into the remotest parts
of Gallicia, Asturias, Leon, and Castille. The guns, the baggage,
and ammunition, fell into the hands of the French. Blake himself
reached Reynosa on the 12th, and there rallied about seven thousand
fugitives, but without arms, without spirit, and without hope.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
The line of retreat by Aguilar del Campo, where his artillery
remained, was still open to him; and he proposed to remain at
Reynosa as long as the enemy would permit him; to restore order,
and then to retire through Leon upon sir David Baird’s division,
the head of which was now near Astorga. But his total ignorance
of the French operations and strength again misled him. He looked
only to the side of Espinosa, and already Soult’s cavalry was upon
his line of retreat, and the duke of Dantzic was hastening by
the valley of Villarcayo towards Reynosa. Upon the 13th, he was
attacked by the advanced guard of the second corps, and being now
utterly confounded, he fled with four or five thousand men through
the valley of Cabuerniga, and took refuge at Arnedo, in the heart
of the Asturian mountains. There the marquis of Romana joined him,
and assumed the command of all that remained of the unfortunate
army of the left.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
Blake being thus disposed of, the fourth French corps, after a
halt of a few days to refresh the troops, took the road of Carrion
and Valladolid; but Soult recalling his detachments, concentrated
the second corps at Reynosa, seized St. Ander, and captured a
quantity of English stores; leaving a division there under general
Bonnet, he then spread his columns over the whole of the Montagna,
pursuing, attacking, and dispersing every body of Spaniards that
yet held together, capturing their baggage, and filling all places
with alarm. After some partial actions with unconnected parties,
every thing military belonging to the patriots was driven over
the snowy barrier of the Asturian hills; and Soult having left a
detachment at St. Vincent de Barqueira, scoured the banks of the
Deba, took the town of Potes, and overrun Leon with his cavalry as
far as Sahagun and Saldaña. Meanwhile the duke of Belluno quitting
Espinosa, joined the emperor, whose head-quarters were fixed at
Burgos, after the defeat of Belvedere.
The battles of Espinosa and Gamonal, and the subsequent operations
of marshal Soult, laid the north of Spain prostrate, and secured
the whole coast from St. Sebastian to the frontier of the Asturias.
By a judicious arrangement of small garrisons, and moveable
columns, the provinces of Guipuscoa, Navarre, Biscay, and the
Baston de Laredo were fettered; the communication of the army
with France could no longer be endangered by insurrections in the
rear; and the wide and fertile plains of Old Castille and Leon
were thrown open to the French, and forbidden to the separated
divisions of the British army. These great advantages, the result
of Napoleon’s admirable combinations, the fruits of ten days of
active exertion, obtained so easily, and yet so decisive of the
fate of the campaign, prove the weakness of the system upon which
the Spanish and British governments were at this time acting; if
that can be called a system where no one general knew what another
had done--was doing--or intended to do.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
Burgos, instead of Vittoria, was now become the pivot of
operations, and the right of his army being secured, the emperor
prepared to change his front, and bear down against the armies
of Castaños and Palafox, with a similar impetuosity; but it was
first necessary to ascertain the exact situation of the British
force. Napoleon believed that it was concentrated at Valladolid,
and he detached three divisions of cavalry and twenty-four
pieces of artillery, by Lerma and Palencia, with orders to cross
the Douero, to turn the flank of the English, threaten their
communications with Portugal, and thus force them to retire. It was
soon discovered that the heads of their columns had not penetrated
beyond Salamanca and Astorga, and that many days must elapse before
they could be concentrated, and in a condition to act offensively.
Certain of this fact, the emperor let loose his three divisions
of cavalry, and eight thousand horsemen sweeping over the plains,
vexed all Leon and Castille. The authorities showed no firmness;
the captain-general, Pignatelli, fled in consternation; the people
submissive and fearful, displayed no enthusiasm, and disconcerted
by the rapid movements of the French, spread a thousand confused
and contradictory reports. The incursions of the cavalry extended
to the neighbourhood of Astorga, to Benevente, Zamora, Toro,
Tordesillas, and even to the vicinity of Salamanca. Such was the
fear, or the apathy of the inhabitants, that thirty dragoons were
sufficient to raise contributions at the gates of the largest
towns; and after the overthrow of Espinosa was known, ten troopers
could safely traverse the country in any direction.
The front of the French army being now changed, the second
corps, hitherto the leading column of attack, became a corps of
observation, covering the right flank, and protecting the important
point of Burgos, where large magazines were establishing, and upon
which the reinforcements continually arriving from France were
directed. The exact situation of the other corps was as follows:
The first corps, the guards, and a part of the reserve, were
at Burgos; and Ney, with the sixth, occupied Aranda de Douero;
the march of his force from the Ebro had been made with a view
to intercept the army of Estremadura on the side of Madrid; but
the sudden destruction of that body of troops having rendered
this precaution useless, Ney was equally well placed to cut the
communication of Castaños with the capital. General Lagrange
occupied Logroña, and Moncey, with three divisions of infantry
and his light cavalry, was at Lodosa. The Spanish army of the
centre was consequently turned and cut off from Madrid even before
Castaños was aware that the campaign had commenced.
[Sidenote: Baron Larrey’s Surgical Campaigns.]
In passing the mountains near Tolosa, marshal Lasnes, duke of
Montebello, fell from his horse, and was left at Vittoria; his
hurts were dangerous, but a rapid and interesting cure being
effected by wrapping him in the skin of a sheep newly slain, the
emperor directed him to assume the command of Lagrange’s division
and Colbert’s light cavalry, to unite them with the third corps
at Lodosa, and to fall upon Castaños in front. At the same time
he ordered Ney to ascend the course of the Douero with the light
cavalry and two divisions of the sixth corps, to connect his left
with the right of Lasnes, and to gain Agreda by the road of Osma
and Soria, from whence he could intercept the retreat of Castaños,
and place himself on the rear of the Spanish army. To support this
operation, the first corps, and Latour Maubourg’s division of
heavy cavalry being drawn from the reserve, proceeded by Lerma and
Aranda, and from thence slowly followed the direction of Ney’s
march. The emperor, with the guards, and the remainder of the
reserve, continued at Burgos, the citadel was repaired and armed,
magazines were formed, and arrangements made to render it the great
dépôt of the army. All the reinforcements coming from France were
directed upon this town, and proclamations were issued assuring the
country people of protection if they would be tranquil and remain
in their houses.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart. Lord W. Bentinck. MSS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Ten days had now elapsed since Napoleon, breaking forth from
Vittoria, had deluged the country with his troops, and each day
was marked by some advantage gained over the Spaniards; but these
misfortunes were still unknown at Tudela and disregarded at the
capital. The remnants of Belvedere’s army having rallied in the
pass of the Somosierra and on the side of Segovia, the troops
belonging to the army of the centre, which had been detained in
Madrid, were forwarded to the former place, and those left behind
from Cuesta’s levies were ordered to the latter. General St. Juan,
an officer of high reputation, took the command at the Somosierra,
general Heredia repaired to Segovia, and an intermediate camp of
detachments being formed at Sepulveda, the men thus collected were,
by the junta, magnified into a great army sufficient to protect
Madrid.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
That the left wing of the French army was still upon the Ebro,
the central junta attributed, not to the enemy’s strength, but to
the dilatory proceedings of Castaños, and depriving him of the
command, they gave it to Romana, precisely at the moment when it
was impossible for the latter to reach the army he was to lead. The
junta wanted a battle, and, uncorrected by Blake’s destruction,
doubted not of victory.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Graham’s Corresp^{ce}. MSS.]
The proceedings at Tudela were also worthy of the times; there the
madness of the generals, and the folly of the deputy, increased
rather than abated. The freaks of Francisco Palafox, and their
ridiculous termination on the 12th of November, I have already
related. A few days sufficed to give birth to new plans equally
absurd, but more dangerous, as the crisis approached nearer.
This time Castaños took the lead. He knew upon the 10th that the
Estremaduran army was at Burgos, and that the French were marching
on that town; from that moment, despairing of the junction of the
British army, and likewise of his own first and third divisions,
which were in Madrid, he sent orders to Belvedere to unite himself
with Blake; but his letters never reached that officer, who was
defeated before they were written, and Castaños, feeling that
he himself was in a dangerous position, and that some decided
measure was required, conceived so extraordinary a plan, that it
would be difficult to credit it upon any authority but his own.
He proposed to carry the army of the centre, reduced in numbers
and ill-disciplined as it was, by the Concha de Haro and Soria,
towards Burgos, and to fall upon the emperor’s rear guard; and,
as a preliminary step, he determined to beat the army in his
front; but Palafox had also a plan, of attacking Moncey on the
side of Sanguessa, and the first measure necessary was to combine
these double operations. It was agreed that Caparosa should be
garrisoned by four thousand infantry, that the bridge head at that
place should be fortified, and that O’Neil should be reinforced at
Sanguessa by detachments from the centre until his force amounted
to nineteen thousand infantry and twelve hundred cavalry. He was
then to break down the bridge, place guards at all the passages
on the Aragon, and by a flank march gain Caparosa, cross the
river, and threaten Peraltes and Olite on the 17th; but on the
18th turning suddenly to the left to get in rear of Lodosa, while
general La-Peña and Coupigny, marching from Centruenigo, should
attack Moncey in front.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
This great movement was openly talked of at the head-quarters
of the Spanish generals for several days before its execution,
and these extraordinary commanders, who were ignorant of Blake’s
disasters, announced their intention of afterwards marching towards
Vittoria to lighten the pressure on that officer if he should be in
difficulty, or if (as his despatches of the 5th had assured them)
he was successful, then to join in a general pursuit. Castaños,
however, concealed his real project, which was to move by the
Concha de Haro towards Burgos.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication.]
It was found impossible to procure a sufficient number of boats
to lay a bridge over the Ebro at Alfaro: thus the reinforcements
intended for O’Neil were forced to make a circuit by Tudela, and
lost three or four days. On the 14th O’Neil arrived at Caparosa,
after breaking the bridge of Sanguessa; the 15th the reinforcements
joined him. On the 17th, the day appointed for the execution of
the plan, Castaños received notice of his own dismissal from the
command, but he persevered in his project; La-Peña and Coupigny
were put in motion to pass the bridges of Logroña and Lodosa,
and the fords between them; but general O’Neil, instead of
executing his part, first refused to stir without an order from
Joseph Palafox who was at Zaragoza, and then changing his ground,
complained that he was without bread. Castaños besought him to move
upon the 18th, urging the necessity of the measure, and the danger
of delay. But the deputy, Palafox, who had hitherto approved
of the project, suddenly quitted the head-quarters, and went to
Caparosa, from whence, in concert with O’Neil, he wrote to demand a
farther reinforcement from the centre, of six thousand infantry and
some more cavalry, without which, they affirmed, that it would be
dangerous to pass the Aragon river. Castaños preserved his temper,
invited the deputy to return to the right bank of the Ebro, and
opposed the demand for more troops on the ground of the delay it
would cause; but now the captain-general Palafox, agreeing with
neither side, proposed a new plan. It is difficult to say how long
these strange disputes would have continued if an umpire had not
interposed, whose award was too strongly enforced to be disregarded.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication.]
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Account of the Battle of Tudela.]
Castaños was with the divisions of Coupigny and La-Peña at
Calahorra on the 19th, when he received information that a French
corps was advancing upon Logroña. It was Lasnes’, with Lagrange’s
and Colbert’s troops, but the Spaniard concluded it to be Ney, for
he was ignorant of the changes which had taken place since the 8th
of the month. It was likewise reported, that Moncey, whose force
he estimated at twelve thousand, when it really was above twenty
thousand, had concentrated at Lodosa, and, at the same time, the
bishop of Osma announced that twelve thousand men, under Dessolles,
were marching from the side of Aranda de Douero. On the 21st, the
intelligence that Dessolles had passed Almazan, and that Moncey
was in motion, was confirmed. Then Castaños, relinquishing his
offensive projects, prepared to retire, and it was full time. For
marshal Ney, who left Aranda on the 19th, had passed Almazan on
the 20th, dispersed several small bands of insurgents, and entered
Soria on the 21st, so that when Castaños determined to fall back
on the 21st, his flank was already turned, and his retreat upon
Madrid in the enemy’s power. His artillery was at Centruenigo, and
a large detachment of his army was with O’Neil at Caparosa.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Official Account of the Battle of Tudela.]
During the night of the 21st and 22d he retired to the heights
which extend from Tudela by Cascante, Novellas, Taranzona, and
Monteguda. The advanced guard of Lasnes was in sight of the
Spanish rear-guard at Calahorra on the morning of the 22d. At
this moment the only supply of money which the central junta had
yet transmitted for the use of the army arrived at Tudela, and,
to complete the picture of distracted councils, O’Neil refused to
fall back from Caparosa without the orders of the captain-general.
The latter, however, fortunately arrived at Tudela in person, and
a conference taking place between him and Castaños the same day,
they agreed that the Aragonese army should cross the Ebro, and
occupy the heights over Tudela, while the rest of the troops should
stretch away in line as far as Taranzona; but in defiance of all
orders, entreaties, or reasoning, the obstinate O’Neil remained in
an olive wood on the right bank of the river during the night of
the 22d, leaving the key of the position open to the enemy.
[Sidenote: Ibid, and his Vindication.]
A council of war was held, but the discussion was turbulent, and
the opinions were discordant. Palafox insisted on the defence of
Aragon, as the principal, or rather the only object to be attended
to, and he wished the whole army to pass to the left bank of the
Ebro, and confine its operations to the protection of Zaragoza on
that side, a proposal which alone was sufficient to demonstrate his
total incapacity for military affairs. Castaños reasoned justly
against this absurdity, but the important moments passed in
useless disputation, and the generals came to no conclusion.
In the meantime, marshal Lasnes, bringing with him a division of
the sixth corps (Maurice Mathieu’s), which had just arrived from
France, concentrated above thirty thousand infantry, four or five
thousand cavalry, and sixty pieces of artillery, at Lodosa on the
22d, and marching by Alfaro, appeared, at eight o’clock in the
morning of the 23d, in front of the Spanish outposts, close to
Tudela, just at the moment when the Aragonese were passing the
bridge and ascending their position. From forty to fifty guns were
distributed along the front of the Spanish army, which, numbering
about forty-five thousand fighting men, was extended on a range
of easy hills from Tudela to Taranzona, a distance of more than
ten miles. Two divisions of the army of the centre connected the
Aragonese with the fourth division, which occupied Cascante. Three
divisions were in Taranzona, and there were no intermediate posts
between these scattered bodies. The weakness attendant on such an
arrangement being visible to the enemy at the first glance, Lasnes
hastened to make his dispositions, and at nine o’clock commenced
THE BATTLE OF TUDELA.
General Morlot, with one division, attacked the heights above
the town. Maurice Mathieu, supported by the cavalry, of Lefebre
Desnouettes, assailed the centre, and general Lagrange advanced
against Cascante. The whole of the artillery followed the columns
of attack. The Aragonese resisted Morlot with vigour, and even
pressed him in the plain at the foot of the hills, but Maurice
Mathieu having gained possession of an olive wood, and a small
ridge which was connected with the centre of the Spanish position,
after some sharp fighting pierced the line, and Lefebre, breaking
through the opening with his cavalry, wheeled up to his left, and
threw the right wing into hopeless confusion. The defeated soldiers
fled towards the bridge of Tudela, pursued by the victorious
horsemen. In the meantime La-Peña, descending from Cascante with
the fourth division, drove in Lagrange’s advanced guard of cavalry,
and pressed forward briskly; but being met at a charging pace by
the infantry, was beaten, and fell back to Taranzona, where three
divisions remained during the whole of the action, which, strictly
speaking, was confined to the heights above Tudela. Palafox, with
the right wing and the centre, fled to Zaragoza with such speed
that some of the fugitives are said to have arrived there the same
evening.
When La-Peña was driven back upon Taranzona, the four divisions
of the left wing commenced an orderly retreat towards Borja, but
some cavalry, detached by Ney from the side of Soria, coming in
sight, the Spaniards got into confusion; a magazine blew up, and
in the midst of the disorder cries of treason were heard, the
columns dissolved in a few moments, the road to Borja was covered
with a disorganised multitude; and so ended the celebrated battle
of Tudela, in which forty thousand men were beaten and dispersed
by an effort that, being in itself neither very vigorous nor
well sustained, was nevertheless sufficient for its purpose, and
demonstrative of the incapacity of Spanish generals, and the want
of steadiness in Spanish soldiers.
[Sidenote: Eleventh Bulletin. Victoires et Conquêtes.]
Several thousand prisoners, thirty pieces of artillery, and all
the ammunition and baggage, fell into the hands of the French,
who rated the killed and wounded very high. The total loss may
be estimated at eight or nine thousand men. Fifteen thousand
escaped to Zaragoza; a detachment of two thousand, under the Conde
de Cartoajal and general Lille, left in the mountains of Nalda,
were cut off by the result of the action, and two divisions, whose
numbers were increased by fugitives from the others, were rallied
at Calatayud on the 25th, but they were half starved and mutinous.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Account of the Battle of Tudela, and
Vindication.]
At Calatayud, Castaños received two despatches from the central
junta, virtually restoring him to the command. For the first
empowered him to unite the Aragonese army with his own; and the
second, informing him that St. Juan was at the Somosierra, required
his co-operation with that general to protect the capital. The
battle of Tudela disposed of the first despatch, the second induced
Castaños to march by Siguenza upon Madrid.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
[Sidenote: Eleventh Bulletin.]
In the meantime, Napoleon, recalling the greatest part of his
cavalry from the open country of Castille, left seven or eight
thousand men in Burgos, and fixed his head-quarters at Aranda de
Douero on the 23d. From the difficulty of transmitting despatches
through a country in a state of insurrection, intelligence of the
victory at Tudela only reached him on the 26th. He was exceedingly
discontented that Castaños should have escaped the hands of Ney.
That marshal had been instructed to reach Soria by the 21st, to
remain there until Lasnes should be in front of the Spaniards, and
then to pass by Agreda, and intercept the retreat of the latter.
On the evening of the 21st, general Jomini and colonel D’Esmenard,
staff officers of the sixth corps, arrived at Soria with an escort
of eighty cavalry. That town is situated upon a rocky height, with
a suburb below, and the conde de Cartoajal, who was retiring from
the mountain of Nalda, happening to be in the upper part, the
magistrates endeavoured to entrap the French officers. The latter
were met at dusk by the municipality, and invited to enter the town
with great appearance of cordiality; but their suspicions were
excited, and the plan failed. Cartoajal marched during the night,
and the next day the sixth corps occupied the place.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
General Jomini, whose profound knowledge of the theory of war
enabled him to judge accurately of the events which were likely to
occur, urged Ney to continue his march upon Calatayud, without any
rest; but the marshal, either offended with the heat of Jomini’s
manner, or from some other cause, resolved to follow the letter of
his instructions, and remained at Soria the 23d and 24th, merely
sending out some light cavalry on the side of Medina Celi and
Agreda. On the 25th he marched to the latter town; the 26th he
crossed the field of battle, passing through Cascante. The 27th,
he arrived, with one division, at Mallen, a town situated between
Tudela and Zaragoza, his advanced guard being at Arlazon on the
Zilo.
To the erroneous direction and dilatory nature of these movements,
Castaños owed the safety of the troops, which were reassembled
at Calatayud. Ney must have been acquainted with the result of
the battle on the 25th, and it is remarkable that he should have
continued on the road towards Agreda, when a single march by Medina
Celi would have brought him upon the line of retreat from Calatayud
to Siguenza. By some writers these errors have been attributed to
Ney’s jealousy of marshal Lasnes; by others it has been asserted
that the plunder of Soria detained him. The falsehood of the latter
charge is evident from the fact, that, with the exception of a
requisition for some shoes and great coats, no contribution was
exacted from Soria, and no pillage took place at all; and with
respect to the former accusation, a better explanation may be found
in the peculiar disposition of this extraordinary man, who was
notoriously indolent, and unlearned in the abstract science of war.
It was necessary for him to see, in order to act; his character
seemed to be asleep until some eminent danger aroused all the
marvellous energy and fortitude with which nature had endowed him.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
The success at Tudela fell short of what Napoleon had a right to
expect from his previous dispositions, but it sufficed to break
the Spanish strength on that side, and to lay the kingdoms of
Aragon and Navarre, and the province of New Castille, as bare as
the northern part of Spain was laid by the victory of Espinosa.
From the frontiers of France to those of Portugal, from the
sea-coast to the Tagus, the country was now overwhelmed. Madrid,
Zaragoza, and the British army, indeed, lifted their heads a little
way above the rising waters, but the eye looked in vain for an
efficient barrier against the flood, which still poured on with
unabated fury. The divided, weak state of the English troops led
the emperor to conclude that sir John Moore would instantly retire
into Portugal. Lasnes he commanded to pursue Palafox, to seize
the important position of Monte Toreño, to summon Zaragoza, and
to offer a complete amnesty to all persons in the town, without
reservation, thus bearing testimony to the gallantry of the first
defence. His own attention was fixed on Madrid. That capital was
the rallying point of all the broken Spanish, and of all his own
pursuing divisions, and it was the centre of all interests, a
commanding height from whence a beneficial stream of political
benefits might descend to allay, or a driving storm of war pour
down to extinguish, the fire of insurrection.
CHAPTER II.
The French patroles sent towards the Somosierra ascertained, on the
21st, that above six thousand men were entrenching themselves in
the gorge of the mountains; that a small camp at Sepulveda blocked
the roads leading upon Segovia; and that general Heredia was
preparing to secure the passes of the Guadarama. Napoleon, however,
having resolved to force the Somosierra, and reach the capital
before Castaños could arrive there, ordered Ney to pursue the army
of the centre without intermission, and directed the fourth corps
to continue its march from Carion by Palencia, Valladolid, Olmedo,
and Segovia.
The movement of this corps is worthy of the attention of military
men. We shall find it confusing the spies and country people;
overawing the flat country of Leon and Castile; protecting the
right flank of the army; menacing Gallicia and Salamanca; keeping
the heads of Moore’s and Baird’s columns from advancing, and
rendering it dangerous for them to attempt a junction; threatening
the line of Hope’s march from the Tagus to the Guadarama;
dispersing Heredia’s corps, and finally turning the pass of
Somosierra, without ever ceasing to belong to the concentric
movement of the great army upon Madrid.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
The time lost in transmitting the intelligence of the victory
at Tudela was productive of serious consequences. The officer
despatched with these fresh instructions, found Ney and Moncey
(Lasnes remained sick at Tudela), each advanced two days’ march in
the wrong direction.
The first, as we have seen, was at Mallen, preparing to attack
Zaragoza; the second was at Almunio, near Calatayud, pursuing
Castaños. They were consequently obliged to countermarch, and
during the time thus lost, the people of Zaragoza recovering from
the consternation into which they were at first thrown by the
appearance of the flying troops, made arrangements for a vigorous
defence. Castaños also escaped to Siguenza, without any further
loss than what was inflicted in a slight action at Burvieca, where
general Maurice Mathieu’s division came up with his rear-guard.
The emperor quitted Aranda on the 28th with the guards, the
first corps, and the reserve, and marched towards Somosierra.
Head-quarters were at Boucequillas on the 29th. A detachment sent
to attack the camp at Sepulveda failed, with a loss of fifty or
sixty men; but the Spaniards, struck with a panic after the action,
quitted their post, which was very strong, and fled in disorder
towards Segovia. The 30th, the French advanced guard reached
the foot of the Somosierra. General St. Juan, whose force now
amounted to ten or twelve thousand men, was judiciously posted;
sixteen pieces of artillery, planted in the neck of the pass,
swept the road along the whole ascent, which was exceedingly steep
and favourable for the defence. The infantry were advantageously
placed on the right and left, in lines, one above another, and some
entrenchments made in the more open parts strengthened the whole
position.
PASSAGE OF THE SOMOSIERRA.
At day-break, three French battalions attacked St. Juan’s right,
three more assailed his left, and as many marched along the
causeway in the centre, six guns supported the last column. The
French wings soon spread over the mountain side, and commenced a
warm skirmishing fire. At this moment Napoleon arrived. He rode
into the mouth of the pass, and attentively examined the scene
before him. The infantry were making no progress; a thick fog mixed
with smoke hung upon the ascent; suddenly, as if by inspiration, he
ordered the Polish lancers of his guard to charge up the causeway,
and seize the Spanish battery. The first squadron was thrown into
confusion, by a fire which levelled the foremost ranks. General
Krazinski rallied them in a moment, and under cover of the smoke,
and the thick vapours of the morning, the regiment, with a fresh
impetus, proceeded briskly up the mountain, sword in hand. As those
gallant horsemen passed, all the Spanish infantry fired, and fled
from the entrenchments on each side, towards the summit of the
causeway; so that, when the Poles fell in among the gunners, and
took the battery, the whole Spanish army was in flight, abandoning
arms, ammunition, baggage, and a number of prisoners.
This surprising exploit, in the glory it conferred upon one party,
and the disgrace it heaped upon the other, can hardly be paralleled
in the annals of war. It is indeed almost incredible, even to
those who are acquainted with Spanish armies, that a position, in
itself nearly impregnable, and defended by twelve thousand men,
should, without any panic, but merely from a deliberate sense of
danger, be abandoned, at the wild charge of a few squadrons, which
two companies of good infantry would have effectually stopped. Yet
some of the Spanish regiments so shamefully beaten here, had been
victorious at Baylen a few months before; and general St. Juan’s
dispositions at Somosierra were far better than Reding’s at the
former battle; but thus absolutely does Fortune govern in war!
The charge of the Poles, viewed as a simple military operation,
was extravagantly foolish, but taken as the result of Napoleon’s
sagacious estimate of the real value of Spanish troops, and his
promptitude in seizing the advantage, offered by the smoke and fog
that clung to the side of the mountain, it was a felicitous example
of intuitive genius.
[Sidenote: Col. Graham’s Correspond^{ce}.]
The routed troops were pursued towards Buitrago by the French
cavalry. St. Juan himself broke through the French on the side
of Sepulveda, and gained the camp of Heredia at Segovia; but the
cavalry of the fourth corps approached, and the two generals
crossing the Guadarama, united some of the fugitives from
Somosierra, on the Madrid side of the mountains, and endeavoured to
enter that capital. The appearance of a French patrole terrified
the vile cowards that followed them; the multitude once more fled
to Talavera de la Reyna, and there consummated their intolerable
villany by murdering their unfortunate general, and fixing his
mangled body to a tree; after which, dispersing, they carried
dishonour and fear into their respective provinces.
The Somosierra being forced, the imperial army came down from the
mountains; the sixth corps hastened up from the side of Alcala and
Guadalaxara; the central junta fled from Aranjuez; and the remnant
of the forces under Castaños, being intercepted on the side of
Madrid, and pressed by Ney in the rear, turned towards the Tagus.
The junta, while flying with indecent haste, spread a thousand
false reports, and with more than ordinary pertinacity, endeavoured
to deceive the people and the English general; a task, in which
they were strongly aided by the weak credulity of Mr. Frere, the
British plenipotentiary, who accompanied them in their flight to
Badajos. Mr. Stuart, with greater discretion and firmness, remained
at Madrid until the enemy had actually commenced the investment of
that town.
[Sidenote: Castaños’ Vindication.]
The army of the centre, after the combat of Burvieca, had continued
its retreat unmolested by Ney. The time lost, in the false movement
upon Mallen, was never recovered. The Spaniards escaped the sword,
but their numbers daily diminished; their sufferings increased, and
their insubordination kept pace with their privations. At Alcazar
del Rey, Castaños resigned the command to general La-Peña, and
proceeded to Truxillo himself, with an escort of thirty infantry
and fifteen dragoons, a number scarcely sufficient to protect his
life from the ferocity of the peasants, who were stirred up and
prepared, by the falsehoods of the central junta, and the villany
of the deserters, to murder him.
Madrid was in a state of anarchy seldom equalled. A local and
military junta were formed, to conduct the defence; the inhabitants
took arms, a multitude of peasants from the neighbourhood entered
the place, and the regular forces, commanded by the marquis of
Castellar, amounted to six thousand men, with a train of sixteen
guns. The pavement was taken up, the streets were barricadoed, the
houses were pierced, and the Retiro, a weak irregular work, which
commanded the city, was occupied in strength. Don Thomas Morla, and
the prince of Castelfranco, were the chief men in authority. The
people demanded ammunition, and when they received it, discovered,
or said, that it was mixed with sand. Some person accused the
marquis of Perales, a respectable old general, of the deed; a mob
rushed to his house, murdered him, and dragged his body about the
streets. Many others of inferior note fell victims to this fury,
for no man was safe, none durst assume authority to control, none
durst give honest advice; the houses were thrown open, the bells of
the convents and churches rung incessantly, and a band of ferocious
armed men traversed the streets in all the madness of popular
insurrection.
Eight days had now elapsed since the first preparations for
defence were made; each day the public effervescence increased,
the dominion of the mob became more decisive, their violence more
uncontrollable, and the uproar was extreme, when, on the morning
of the 2d of December, three heavy divisions of French cavalry
suddenly appeared on the high ground to the north-west, and like a
dark cloud overhung the troubled city.
[Sidenote: Fourteenth Bulletin.]
At twelve o’clock the emperor himself arrived, and the duke of
Istria, by his command, summoned the town. The officer employed
was upon the point of being massacred by the irregulars, when
the Spanish soldiers, ashamed of such conduct, rescued him. This
determination to resist was, notwithstanding the fierceness
displayed at the gates, very unpalatable to many of the
householders, numbers of whom escaped from different quarters;
deserters also came over to the French, and Napoleon, while waiting
for his infantry, examined all the weak points of the city.
Madrid was for many reasons incapable of defence. First, there
were no bulwarks; secondly, the houses, although strong and well
built, were not like many Spanish towns, fire proof; thirdly, there
were no outworks, and the heights on which the French cavalry were
posted, the palace, and the Retiro, completely commanded the city;
fourthly, the perfectly open country around would have enabled
the French cavalry to discover and cut off all convoys, and no
precaution had been taken to provide subsistence for the hundred
and fifty thousand people contained within the circuit of the place.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 3.]
The desire of the central junta, that this metropolis should risk
the horrors of a storm, was equally silly and barbarous. Their own
criminal apathy had deprived Madrid of the power of procrastinating
its defence until relieved from without, and there was no sort
of analogy between the situation of Zaragoza and this capital.
Napoleon knew this well; he was not a man to plunge headlong into
the streets of a great city, among an armed and excited population;
he knew that address in negotiation, a little patience, and a
judicious employment of artillery, would soon reduce the most
outrageous to submission, and he had no wish to destroy the capital
of his brother’s kingdom.
[Sidenote: Fourteenth Bulletin.]
In the evening the infantry and artillery arrived; they were posted
at the most favourable points; the night was clear and bright, the
French camp was silent and watchful; but the noise of tumult was
heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was
struggling and howling in the toils.
At midnight a second summons was sent through the medium of a
prisoner. The captain-general Castellar attempted to gain time by
an equivocal reply, but he failed in his object. The French light
troops then stormed some houses, and one battery of thirty guns
opened against the Retiro, while another threw shells from the
opposite quarter, to distract the attention of the inhabitants.
The Retiro, situated on a rising ground, was connected with a range
of buildings erected on the same side of the Prado, a public walk
which nearly encircled the town. Some of the principal streets
opened into the Prado nearly opposite to those buildings. In the
morning a practicable breach being made in the Retiro wall, the
difference between military courage and ferocity became apparent,
for Villatte’s division breaking in easily, routed the garrison,
and pursuing its success, seized the public buildings above spoken
of, crossed the Prado, gained the barriers erected at the entrance
of the streets, and took possession of the immense palace of the
duke of Medina Celi, which was in itself the key to the city on
that side. This vigorous commencement created great terror, and the
town was summoned for the third time.
In the afternoon, Morla and another officer came out to demand
a suspension of arms, necessary, they said, to persuade the
people to surrender. Being admitted to the emperor’s presence, he
addressed Morla in terms of great severity; he reproached him for
his scandalous conduct towards Dupont’s army. “Injustice and bad
faith,” he exclaimed, “always recoil upon those who are guilty
of either.” This saying was well applied to that Spaniard, and
Napoleon himself confirmed its philosophic truth in after times.
“The Spanish ulcer destroyed me,” was an expression of deep anguish
which escaped from him in his own hour of misfortune.
Morla returned to the town: his story was soon told: before six
o’clock the next morning Madrid must surrender or perish. A
division of opinion arose; the violent excitement of the populace
was considerably abated, but the armed peasantry from the country,
and the poorest inhabitants, still demanded to be led against
the enemy. A constant fire was kept up from the houses in the
neighbourhood of the Prado; the French general Maison was wounded,
and general Bruyeres was killed; but the disposition to fight
became each moment weaker, and Morla and Castelfranco prepared a
capitulation. The captain-general Castellar refused to sign it, and
as the town was only invested on one side, he effected his escape
with the regular troops during the night, carrying with him sixteen
guns. The people now sunk into a quiescent state, and at eight
o’clock in the morning of the 4th, Madrid surrendered.
That Morla was a traitor there is no doubt, and his personal
cowardice was excessive; but Castelfranco appears to have been
rather weak and ignorant than treacherous, and certainly the
surrender of Madrid was no proof of his guilt; that event was
inevitable. The boasting uproar of the multitude when they are
permitted to domineer for a few days is not enthusiasm. The retreat
of Castellar with the troops of the line during the progress of
the negotiation was the wisest course to pursue, and proves that
he acquiesced in the propriety of surrendering. That the people
neither could nor would defend the city is quite evident, for it
is incredible that Morla and Castelfranco should have been able to
carry through a capitulation in so short a period, if the generals,
the regular troops, the armed peasantry, and the inhabitants, had
been all, or even a part of them, determined to resist.
The emperor, cautious of giving offence to a population so lately
and so violently excited, carefully provided against any sudden
reaction, and preserved the strictest discipline. A soldier of
the imperial guard was shot in one of the squares for having a
plundered watch in his possession. The infantry were placed in
barracks and convents, and the cavalry were kept ready to scour
the streets at the first alarm. The Spaniards were disarmed, and
Napoleon fixed his own quarters at Chamartin, a country house four
miles from Madrid. In a few days every thing presented the most
tranquil appearance; the shops were opened, the public amusements
recommenced, and the theatres were frequented. The inhabitants of
capital cities are easily moved, and easily calmed; self-interest
and the pursuit of pleasure unfit them for noble and sustained
efforts; they can be violent, ferocious, cruel, but are seldom
constant and firm.
It was during this operation that La-Peña, after escaping from
the sixth corps, arrived at Guadalaxara with about five thousand
men. On the 2d, the dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque having
left Madrid, joined him, and on the 4th, Venegas came up with
two thousand men. While the generals were hesitating what course
to pursue, Napoleon being apprized of their vicinity, directed
Bessieres with sixteen squadrons upon Guadalaxara, supporting him
by Ruffin’s division of the first corps. At the approach of the
cavalry, the main body retired through the hills by Sanctorcaz
towards Aranjuez, and the artillery crossed the Tagus at Sacedon.
Ruffin’s division immediately changed its direction, and cut the
Spaniards off from La Mancha by the line of Ocaña. A mutiny among
the Spanish troops having forced La-Peña to resign his command, the
duke of Infantado was chosen in his place, the army crossed the
Tagus at several points, and after some slight actions with the
advanced cavalry of the French, this miserable body of men finally
saved themselves at Cuenca. Many deserters and fugitives, and the
brigades of Cartoajal and Lilli, which had escaped the different
French columns, also arrived there, and the duke proceeded to
organize another army.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
In the mean time the fourth French corps reached Segovia, passed
the Guadarama, dispersed some armed peasants assembled at the
Escurial, and then marched toward Almaraz, to attack general
Galluzzo, who, having assembled five or six thousand men to defend
the left bank of the Tagus, was, with the usual skill of a Spanish
general, occupying a line of forty miles. The first corps entered
La Mancha; Toledo immediately shut its gates, and the junta of that
town publicly proclaimed their resolution to bury themselves under
the ruins of the city; but at the approach of a French division,
betrayed the most contemptible cowardice.
Thus, six weeks had sufficed to dissipate the Spanish armies;
the glittering bubble bursted, and a terrible reality remained.
From St. Sebastian to the Asturias, from the Asturias to Talavera
de la Reina, from Talavera to the gates of the noble city of
Zaragoza, all was submission, and beyond that boundary all was
apathy or dread. Ten thousand French soldiers could safely (as far
as regarded the Spaniards) have marched from one extremity of the
Peninsula to the other.
After the fall of Madrid, king Joseph remained at Burgos, issuing
proclamations, and carrying on a sort of underplot, through the
medium of his native ministers. The views of the latter being
naturally turned towards the Spanish interests as distinct from the
French, a source of infinite mischief to Joseph’s cause was opened;
for that monarch, anxious to please and conciliate his subjects,
ceased to be a Frenchman without becoming a Spaniard. At this time
Napoleon assumed and exercised all the rights of conquest; and
it is evident, from the tenor of his speeches, proclamations, and
decrees, that some ulterior project, in which the king’s personal
interests were not concerned, was contemplated by him. It appeared
as if he wished the Spaniards to offer the crown to himself a
second time, that he might obtain a plausible excuse for adopting a
new line of policy by which to attract the people, or at least to
soften their pride, which was now the main obstacle to his success.
[Sidenote: Moniteur.]
An assemblage of the nobles, the clergy, the corporations, and the
tribunals of Madrid, waited upon him at Chamartin, and presented an
address, in which they expressed their desire to have Joseph among
them again. The emperor’s reply was an exposition of the principles
upon which Spain was to be governed, and offers a fine field for
reflection upon the violence of those passions which induce men
to resist positive good, and eagerly seek for danger, misery, and
death, rather than resign their prejudices.
“I accept,” said he, “the sentiments of the town of Madrid. I
regret the misfortunes that have befallen it, and I hold it as a
particular good fortune that I am enabled, under the circumstances
of the moment, to spare that city, and to save it from yet greater
misfortunes.
“I have hastened to take measures fit to tranquillize all classes
of citizens, knowing well that to all people, and to all men,
uncertainty is intolerable.
“I have preserved the religious orders; but I have restrained
the number of monks. No sane person can doubt that they are too
numerous. Those who are truly called to this vocation by the grace
of God will remain in their convents; those who have lightly
adopted their vocation, or from worldly motives, will have their
existence secured among the secular ecclesiastics, from the
surplus of the convents. I have provided for the wants of the most
interesting and useful of the clergy, the parish priests.
“I have abolished that tribunal against which Europe and the age
alike exclaimed. Priests ought to guide consciences; but they
should not exercise any exterior and corporal jurisdiction over men.
“I have taken the satisfaction which was due to myself and to my
nation, and the part of vengeance is completed. Ten[19] of the
principal criminals bend their heads before her; but for all others
there is absolute and entire pardon.
“I have suppressed the rights usurped by the nobles during civil
wars, when the kings have been too often obliged to abandon their
own rights to purchase tranquillity and the repose of their people.
“I have suppressed the feudal rights; and every person can now
establish inns, mills, ovens, weirs, and fisheries, and give free
play to their industry; only observing the laws and customs of the
place. The self-love, the riches, and the prosperity of a small
number of men, was more hurtful to your agriculture than the heats
of the dog days.
“As there is but one God, there should be in one estate but
one justice; wherefore all the particular jurisdictions having
been usurped, and being contrary to the national rights, I have
destroyed them. I have also made known to all persons that which
each can have to fear, and that which they may hope for.
“The English armies I will drive from the Peninsula. Zaragoza,
Valencia, Seville, shall be reduced either by persuasion or by the
force of arms.
“There is no obstacle capable of retarding for any length of time
the execution of my will. But that which is above my power, is to
constitute the Spaniards a nation, under the orders of the king,
if they continue to be imbued with the principle of division,
and of hatred towards France, such as the English partizans and
the enemies of the continent have instilled into them. I cannot
establish a nation, a king, and the Spanish independence, if that
king is not sure of the affection and fidelity of his subjects.
“The Bourbons can never again reign in Europe. The divisions in the
royal family were concerted by the English. It was not either king
Charles or his favorite, but the duke of Infantado, the instrument
of England, that was upon the point of overturning the throne.
The papers recently found in his house prove this; it was the
preponderance of England that they wished to establish in Spain.
Insensate project! which would have produced a land war without
end, and caused torrents of blood to be shed.
“No power influenced by England can exist upon the continent. If
any desire it, their desire is folly, and sooner or later will
ruin them. I shall be obliged to govern Spain, and it will be
easy for me to do it by establishing a viceroy in each province.
However, I will not refuse to concede my rights of conquest to the
king, and to establish him in Madrid, when the thirty thousand
citizens assemble in the churches, and on the holy sacrament
take an oath, not with the mouth alone, but with the heart, and
without any jesuitical restriction, ‘to be true to the king, to
love and to support him.’ Let the priests from the pulpit and in
the confessional, the tradesmen in their correspondence and their
discourses, inculcate these sentiments in the people; then I will
relinquish my rights of conquest, then I will place the king
upon the throne, and I will take a pleasure in showing myself the
faithful friend of the Spaniards.
“The present generation may differ in opinions; too many passions
have been excited; but your descendants will bless me as the
regenerator of the nation: they will mark my sojourn among you as
memorable days, and from those days they will date the prosperity
of Spain. These are my sentiments: go, consult your fellow
citizens, choose your part, but do it frankly, and exhibit only
true colours.”
The dispositions now made by Napoleon indicated a vast plan of
operations. It would appear that he intended to invade Gallicia,
Andalusia, and Valencia, by his lieutenants, and to carry his arms
to Lisbon in person. Upon the 20th December the sixth corps, the
guards, and the reserve, were assembled under his own immediate
control. The first corps was stationed at Toledo, but the light
cavalry attached to it scoured the roads leading to Andalusia, up
to the foot of the Sierra Morena. The fourth corps was at Talavera,
on the march towards the frontier of Portugal. The second corps
was on the Carrion river, preparing to advance against Gallicia.
The eighth corps was broken up; the divisions composing it ordered
to join the second, and Junot, who commanded it, repaired to the
third corps, to supply the place of marshal Moncey, who was called
to Madrid for a particular service; doubtless an expedition against
Valencia. The fifth corps, which had arrived at Vittoria, was
directed to reinforce the third, then employed against Zaragoza.
The seventh was always in Catalonia.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 28.]
Vast as this plan of campaign appears, it was not beyond the
emperor’s means; for without taking into consideration his own
genius, activity, and vigour, he counted on his muster-rolls, above
three hundred and thirty thousand men, and above sixty thousand
horses; above two hundred pieces of field artillery followed
the corps to battle, and as many more remained in reserve. Of
this monstrous army, two hundred and fifty-five thousand men,
and fifty thousand horses, were actually under arms, with their
different regiments; thirty-two thousand were detached or in
garrisons, preserving tranquillity in the rear, and guarding the
communications of the active force. The remainder were in hospital,
and so slight had been the resistance of the Spanish armies, that
only nineteen hundred prisoners were to be deducted from this
multitude. Of the whole host, two hundred and thirteen thousand
were native Frenchmen, the residue were Poles, Germans, and
Italians.
Of the disposable troops, thirty-five thousand men and five
thousand horses were appropriated to Catalonia, and about the same
number to the siege of Zaragoza. Above one hundred and eighty
thousand men, and forty thousand horses, were therefore available
for any enterprise, without taking a single man from the service of
the lines of communication.
What was there to oppose this fearful array? What consistency or
vigour in the councils? What numbers? What discipline and spirit
in the armies of Spain? What enthusiasm among the people? What was
the disposition, the means? What the activity of the allies of
that country? The answers to these questions demonstrate, that the
fate of the Peninsula hung at this moment upon a thread, and that
the deliverance of that country was due to other causes than the
courage, the patriotism, or the constancy of the Spaniards.
[Sidenote: Infantado’s Letters. Narrative of Moore’s Campaign.]
First, with regard to their armies. The duke of Infantado resided
among, rather than commanded, a few thousand wretched fugitives at
Cuenca, destitute, mutinous, and cowed in spirit. At Valencia there
was no army, for that which belonged to the province was shut up in
Zaragoza, and dissensions had arisen between Palafox and the local
junta in consequence.
[Sidenote: Stuart’s and Frere’s Letters.]
[Sidenote: Sir J. Moore’s Papers.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, Section 5.]
The passes of the Sierra Morena were occupied by five thousand raw
levies, hastily made by the junta of Seville, after the defeat of
St. Juan. Galluzzo, who had undertaken to defend the Tagus, with
six thousand timid and ill-armed soldiers, was at this time in
flight, having been suddenly attacked and defeated at Almaraz by a
detachment of the fourth corps. Romana was near Leon, at the head
of eighteen or twenty thousand runaways, collected by him after the
dispersion at Reynosa; but of this number only five thousand were
armed, and none were subordinate or capable of being disciplined;
for when checked for misconduct, the marquis complained that they
deserted. In Gallicia there was no army; in the Asturias, the local
government were so corrupt, so faithless, and so oppressive, that
the spirit of the people was crushed, and patriotism reduced to a
name.
[Sidenote: Stuart.]
The central junta, having first repaired to Badajos, were
terrified, and fled from thence to Seville, and their inactivity
was more conspicuous in this season of adversity than before,
and contrasted strangely with the pompous and inflated language
of their public papers. Their promises were fallacious, their
incapacity glaring, their exertions ridiculous and abortive; and
the junta of Seville, still actuated by their own ambitious views,
had now openly reassumed all their former authority.
In short, the strength and spirit of Spain was broken, the
enthusiasm was null, except in a few places, and the emperor was,
with respect to the Spaniards, perfectly master of his operations.
He was in the centre of the country; he held the capital; the
fortresses; the command of the great lines of communication between
the provinces; and on the wide military horizon, no dark cloud
intercepted his view, save the heroic city of Zaragoza on the one
side, and a feeble British army on the other. Sooner or later, he
observed, and with truth, that the former must fall; it was an
affair of artillery calculation. The latter, he naturally supposed
to be in full retreat for Portugal; but the fourth corps were
nearer to Lisbon than the British general; a hurried retreat alone
could bring the latter in time to that capital, and consequently
no preparations for defence could be made sufficient to arrest the
sixty thousand Frenchmen which the emperor could carry there at the
same moment. The subjugation of Spain appeared inevitable, when
the genius and vigour of one man frustrated Napoleon’s plans at
the very moment of execution; and the Austrian war breaking out at
the instant, drew the master-spirit from the scene of contention.
England then put forth all her vast resources; fortunately
those resources were wielded by a general equal to the task of
delivering the Peninsula, and it was delivered. But through what
changes of fortune; by what unexpected helps; by what unlooked-for
and extraordinary events; under what difficulties; and by whose
perseverance, and in despite of whose errors, let posterity judge;
for in that judgment only will impartiality and justice be found.
CHAPTER III.
The 20th of December, Napoleon became aware that sir John Moore
(having relinquished his communication with Lisbon, and adopted a
new one upon Coruña) was menacing the French line of operations on
the side of Burgos. This intelligence obliged him to suspend all
his designs against the south of Spain and Portugal, and to fix his
whole attention upon
THE OPERATIONS OF THE BRITISH ARMY.
The reasons which induced the English general to divide his army,
and to send general Hope with one column by the Tagus, while the
other marched under his own personal command, by Almeida and Ciudad
Rodrigo, have been already related; as likewise the arrangements
which brought sir David Baird to Coruña, without having permission
to land his troops, and without money to equip them, when they were
at last suffered to disembark.
The 8th of November, sir John Moore being at Almeida, on the
frontier of Portugal, his artillery was at Truxillo, in Spanish
Estremadura, and sir David Baird’s division was at Coruña.
General Blake, pursued by fifty thousand enemies, was that day
flying from Nava to Espinosa, and Castaños and Palafox were
quarrelling at Tudela.
The conde de Belvedere was at Burgos, with thirteen thousand bad
troops.
Napoleon was at Vittoria with a hundred and seventy thousand good
troops.
At this time the letters of lord William Bentinck and colonel
Graham, exposing all the imprudence of the Spanish generals, being
received, created uneasiness in the mind of sir John Moore; he
already foresaw that his junction with the other divisions of
his army might be impeded by the result of an action, which the
Spaniards appeared to be courting, contrary to all sound policy;
but as no misfortune had yet befallen them, he continued his march,
hoping, “that all the bad which might happen, would not happen.”
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Journal, MSS.]
The 11th he crossed the frontier of Spain, and marched to Ciudad
Rodrigo; on that day Blake was completely discomfited at Espinosa,
and the Estremaduran army beaten the day before at Gamonal, was
utterly ruined and dispersed.
The 13th, the head of the British columns entered Salamanca, at
the moment when Blake’s fugitive force was finally disorganized
at Reynosa, leaving the first, second, and fourth French corps,
amounting to near seventy thousand men, free to act against any
quarter.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]
Sir John Moore participated at first in the universal belief,
that the nation was enthusiastic, and fixed in a determination to
dispute every step with the invaders; even after he had detected
the exaggerations of the military agents, and perceived the want
of capacity in the Spanish generals and rulers, he trusted that
the spirit of the people would compensate for their deficiency
of skill, and his mind was bent upon succouring them with all
his power; what then was his surprise to find, that the defeat
of the conde de Belvedere, an event which laid Castille open to
the incursions of the enemy, which uncovered the march of the
British, and compromised their safety, had created no sensation
among the people; that the authorities had spread no alarm, taken
no precautions, delivered out no arms, although many thousands
were stored in the principal towns, and neither encouraged the
inhabitants by proclamations, nor enrolled any of them for defence?
He himself was informed of this important occurrence a full week
after it had happened, and then through a single official channel.
Valladolid was but three marches from Salamanca, and only four
thousand British troops had arrived in the latter town; if the
enemy had advanced in force, a retreat upon Ciudad Rodrigo would
have become inevitable. The general, therefore, assembled the
local authorities, explained to them the danger of his position,
and endeavoured to excite their ardour; his exhortations produced
no effect, either upon the junta or the people; the latter loudly
declared their detestation of the invaders, but remained tranquil;
the former were timid and stupid. The first feeling of indignation
against the French was exhausted, and there was nothing to supply
its place; the fugitives from the armies passed daily, without
shame, and without reproach from their countrymen. Notwithstanding
this unfavourable appearance, sir John Moore resolved not to retire
until forced to do so; but hastening the arrival of his own rear
divisions, he sent orders to sir David Baird and to sir John Hope
to concentrate their troops, yet to be prepared for a retreat if
the enemy advanced.
[Sidenote: Mr. Frere’s Letter to the Junta.]
In this state he remained until the 18th, his army was closing
up, and the French cavalry withdrew from Valladolid to Placentia.
But the news of Blake’s defeat now reached Salamanca, not by
rumour, or by any direct communication from the Montagna St.
Ander, but through Mr. Stuart, eight days subsequent to the date
of the action; the central junta did not even inform the minister
plenipotentiary until thirty hours after having received official
intelligence of it themselves.
The want of transport and supplies obliged the British to march
in small and successive divisions. It was, therefore, the 23d of
November before the centre, consisting of twelve thousand infantry,
and a battery of six guns, were concentrated at Salamanca. On that
day Castaños and Palafox were defeated at Tudela, their armies
scattered without a chance of rallying again in the field, and the
third and sixth French corps became disposable.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
The emperor, victorious on both flanks, and with a fresh base of
operations fixed at Burgos, was free to move, with the guards
and the reserve, either against Madrid or in the direction of
Salamanca; and detachments of his army were already in possession
of Valladolid; the very town which, a few days before, the
Spanish government had indicated for the base of sir John Moore’s
operations, and the formation of his magazines.
The 26th the head of sir David Baird’s column was in Astorga, but
the rear extended beyond Lugo. The head of general Hope’s division
was at the Escurial, the rear at Talavera. The second French corps
was on the Deba, threatening Leon and the Asturias; the cavalry
covered the plains; the fourth corps was descending by Carrion and
Valladolid, to seize the pass of the Guadarama; and the emperor
himself was preparing to force the Somosierra.
From this summary of contemporary events, it is evident, that
notwithstanding sir John Moore had organised, equipped, supplied,
and carried his troops four hundred miles in the space of six
weeks, he was too late in the field. The campaign was decided
against the Spaniards before the British had, strictly speaking,
entered Spain as an army; it is also certain, that if, instead of
being at Salamanca, Escurial, and Astorga, on the 23d, the troops
had been united at Burgos on the 8th, such was the weakness of
the Spanish forces, the strength of the enemy, and such the skill
with which Napoleon directed his movements, that a difficult and
precarious retreat was the utmost favour that could be expected
from Fortune by the English general.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, sect. 1 and 4.]
The situation in which he was placed on his arrival at Salamanca,
gave rise to serious reflections in the mind of sir John Moore. He
had been sent forward without a plan of operations, or any data
upon which to found one. By his instructions he was merely directed
to open communication with the Spanish authorities, for the purpose
of “framing the plan of campaign;” but general Castaños, with
whom he was desired to correspond, was superseded immediately
afterwards, and the marquis of Romana, his successor, was engaged
in rallying the remains of Blake’s force in the Asturias, at a
distance of two hundred miles from the only army with which any
plan of co-operation could be formed, and of whose proceedings
he was as ignorant as sir John Moore. No channel of intelligence
had been pointed out to the latter, and as yet a stranger in the
country, and without money, he could not establish any certain
one for himself. It was the will of the people of England, and
the orders of the government, that he should push forward to the
assistance of the Spaniards; and he had done so, without magazines,
and without money to form them; trusting to the official assurance
of the minister, that above a hundred thousand Spanish soldiers
covered his march, and that the people were enthusiastic and
prepared for any exertion to secure their deliverance; but he found
them supine and unprepared; the French cavalry, in parties as weak
as twelve men, traversed the country, and raised contributions,
without difficulty or opposition. This was the state of Castille.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, sect. 5 and 6.]
The letters of Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck amply exposed
the incapacity, selfishness, and apathy of the supreme government
at Aranjuez.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The correspondence of colonel Graham painted in the strongest
colours the confusion of affairs on the Ebro, the jealousy, the
discord of the generals, the worse than childish folly of the
deputy, Palafox, and his creatures.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
Sir David Baird’s experience proved, that in Gallicia the people
were as inert as in Castille and Leon, and the authorities more
absurd and more interested. General Hope expressed a like opinion
as to the ineptitude of the central junta; and even the military
agents, hitherto so sanguine, had lowered their tone of exultation
in a remarkable manner.
The real force of the enemy was unknown to sir John Moore, but he
knew that it could not be less than eighty thousand fighting men,
and that thirty thousand more were momentarily expected, and might
have arrived; he knew that Blake and the conde de Belvedere were
totally defeated, and that Castaños must inevitably be so if he
hesitated to retreat.
The only conclusion to be drawn from these facts was, that the
Spaniards were unable, or unwilling, to resist the enemy, and
that the British would have to support the contest alone, unless
they could form a junction with Castaños, before the latter was
entirely discomfited and destroyed; but there was no time for such
an operation, and the first object was, to unite the parcelled
divisions of the English army. From Astorga to Salamanca was four
marches, from Salamanca to the Escurial was six marches; but it
would have required five days to close up the rear upon Salamanca,
six days to enable Hope to concentrate at the Escurial, and sixteen
to enable Baird to assemble at Astorga. Under twenty days it would
have been impossible for the English army to unite and act in a
body; and to have advanced in their divided state would have been
equally contrary to military principle and to common sense.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]
A retreat, although it was prescribed by the rules of scientific
war, and in unison with the instructions of the government, which
forbad the general to commit his troops in any serious affair,
before the whole were united, would have been (while the Spanish
army of the centre still held the field) ungenerous, and the idea
was repugnant to the bold and daring spirit of Moore. Rather than
resort to such a remedy for the false position his government had
placed him in, he contemplated a hardy and dangerous enterprise,
such as none but great minds are capable of. He proposed, if he
could draw the extended wings of his army together in good time, to
abandon all communication with Portugal, and throwing himself into
the heart of Spain, to rally Castaños’ army (if it yet existed)
upon his own, to defend the southern provinces, and trust to the
effect which such an appeal to the patriotism and courage of the
Spaniards would produce. But he considered that the question was
not purely military; the Spanish cause was not one which could be
decided by the marches of a few auxiliary troops; its fate rested
on the vigour of the rulers, the concert of the generals, the
unity of the exertions, and the fixed resolution of the people to
suffer all privations, and die rather than submit. To sir John
Moore it appeared doubtful that such a spirit, or the means of
creating it, existed, and more doubtful that there was capacity in
the government to excite or to direct it when aroused. No men of
talent had yet appeared, and good-will was in itself nothing if
improperly treated.
With the English plenipotentiary, who had just superseded Mr.
Stuart near the central junta, the general had been directed by the
ministers to communicate upon all important points, and to receive
with deference his opinion and advice. The present was an occasion
to which those instructions were peculiarly applicable. Mr. Frere
had come fresh from the English government, he was acquainted with
its views, and he was in the most suitable position to ascertain
what degree of elasticity the Spanish cause really possessed. The
decision of the question belonged as much to him as to the general;
it involved the whole policy of the English cabinet with respect
to Spain. As a simple operation of war the proposed movement was
rash; all the military and many political reasons called for a
retreat upon Portugal, which would take the army back upon its own
resources, ensure its concentration, increase its strength, protect
British interests, and leave it free either to return to Spain
if a favourable opportunity should occur, or to pass by sea to
Andalusia, and commence the campaign in the south.
Such were the reflections that induced sir John Moore to solicit
Mr. Frere’s opinion upon the general policy of the proposed
operation, but in so doing he never had the least intention of
consulting him upon the mode of executing the military part, of
which he conceived himself to be the best judge.
While awaiting the reply, he directed sir David Baird, if the
enemy showed no disposition to molest him, to push the troops on
to Salamanca as fast as they should arrive at Astorga. Sir David
was proceeding to do so, when Blake advised him that a considerable
French force was collecting at Rio Seco and Ampudia with a view
of interrupting the march. This arrested the movement, and Baird,
after destroying some of his stores at Astorga, fell back to Villa
Franca. As sir John Moore’s information led him to believe that
Blake’s report was false, he recalled Baird; but valuable time was
thus lost. It was the march of the fourth corps, then traversing
the line from Carrion to the Guadarama, that gave rise to the
contradictory intelligence.
At this time, the various changes in the French positions, and the
continual circulation of their light cavalry through the plains,
bewildered the spies and the peasants. The force of the enemy on
different points also confused the higher agents, who, believing
the greatest amount of the invading army to be from a hundred
to a hundred and twenty thousand men, could never reconcile the
reports with this standard, and therefore concluded that Napoleon
exaggerated his real numbers to create terror.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]
Sir John Moore wrote to Mr. Frere on the 27th of November, and the
arrangements for the execution of his project were all prepared.
Baird was to march by Benevente on the 1st, Hope was to move on
Tordesillas, and the force at Salamanca was to advance to Zamora
and Toro; but in the night of the 28th, a despatch from Mr. Stuart
made known the disaster at Tudela. This changed the aspect of
affairs; the question proposed to Mr. Frere was no longer doubtful;
the projected movement had been founded upon _the chance of
rallying the Spanish armies behind the Tagus_; a hazardous and
daring experiment when first conceived; but now that Castaños had
no longer an army, now that the strength of Spain was utterly
broken, to have persisted in it would have been insanity. The
French could be over the Tagus before the British, and there were
no Spanish armies to rally. The defeat at Tudela took place the
23d of November; Baird’s brigades could not be united at Astorga
before the 5th of December, and to concentrate the whole of the
army at Salamanca required a flank march of several days over an
open plain; an operation not to be thought of, within a few marches
of a skilful enemy who possessed such an overwhelming force of
artillery and cavalry. As long as Castaños and Palafox kept the
field there was reason to believe that the French stationed at
Burgos would not make any serious attempt on the side of Astorga,
but that check being now removed, an unmilitary flank march would
naturally draw their attention, and bring them down upon the
parcelled divisions of the English troops. The object of succouring
the Spaniards called for great but not for useless sacrifices.
The English general was prepared to confront any danger and to
execute any enterprise which held out a chance of utility, but he
also remembered that the best blood of England was committed to
his charge, that not an English army, but the very heart, the pith
of the military power of his country was in his keeping, it was
entrusted to his prudence, and his patriotism spurned the idea of
seeking personal renown by betraying that sacred trust.
The political reasons in favour of marching towards Madrid,
scarcely balanced the military objections before the battle of
Tudela; but after that event, the latter acquiring double force,
left no room for hesitation in the mind of any man capable of
reasoning at all; and sir John Moore resolved to fall back into
Portugal. He ordered sir David Baird to regain Coruña or Vigo, and
to carry his troops by sea to Lisbon; but wishing, if possible,
to unite with Hope before the retrograde movement commenced, he
directed Baird to show a bold front for a few days in order to
attract the enemy’s attention.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 5.]
The negligence, the false intelligence, the frauds, the opposition
approaching to hostility, experienced by sir David Baird during
his march from Coruña, had so reduced that general’s hopes, that
he prepared to retreat without reluctance. He was in direct
communication with Romana, but the intercourse between them had
rather confirmed than weakened the impression on sir David’s
mind, that it was impossible to depend upon the promises, the
information, or the judgment of any Spanish general.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers. Hope’s Letters.]
In the meantime, Napoleon forced the Somosierra, and summoned
Madrid. The supreme junta fled to Badajos. St. Juan was murdered
at Talavera. The remnant of Castaños’s army was driven towards
the Tagus; and as the fourth corps approached Segovia, sir John
Hope’s situation became very critical. His column, consisting of
three thousand infantry, nine hundred cavalry, the artillery, and
the great parc of ammunition had been obliged, from the want of
money and supplies, to move in six divisions, each being a day’s
march behind the other. At Almaraz, Hope endeavoured to discover
a way across the mountains to Ciudad Rodrigo; a road did exist,
but the peasants and muleteers declared it to be impracticable
for carriages, and consequently unfit for the convoy. The truth of
their assertions was much doubted; but sir John was daily losing
horses from the glanders, and, with a number but just sufficient to
drag his guns and convoy along a good road, he feared to explore a
difficult passage over the Sierras.
[Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s Letters.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 6.]
When his leading division had reached Talavera, don Thomas Morla,
then secretary at war, anxious to have the troops more minutely
divided, proposed that the regiments should march through Madrid in
ten divisions on as many successive days, the first to reach the
capital on the 22d of November, which would exactly have brought
the convoy into the jaws of the French army. Hope immediately
repaired in person to Madrid, held a conference with Morla, and
quickly satisfied himself that every thing was in confusion, and
that the Spanish government had neither arranged a general plan,
nor was capable of conducting one. Convinced of this unfortunate
truth, he paid no attention to Morla’s proposition, but carried his
troops at once to the Escurial by the road of Naval Carnero. At the
Escurial he halted to close up the rear, and to obtain bullocks to
assist in dragging the parc over the Guadarama. The 28th he crossed
the mountain, and entered the open flat country. The 28th and 29th
the infantry and guns were at Villa Castin and St. Antonia, the
parc being at Espinar, and the cavalry advanced on the road to
Arevalo. General Heredia was still at Segovia. The duke of Dantzic
was at Valladolid and Placentia, and his patroles were heard of at
Coca, only a few miles from Arevalo.
[Sidenote: General Hope’s Reports. MS.]
In the course of the day a despatch from Mr. Stuart announced the
catastrophe at Tudela, and the flight from the camp of Sepulveda.
At the same time the outposts of cavalry in the front reported
that four hundred French horse were at Olmedo, only twelve
miles from Arevalo, and that four thousand others were in the
neighbourhood. The scouts at St. Garcia, on the right, also tracked
the French again at Añaya, near Segovia. The general’s situation
was now truly embarrassing. If he fell back to the Guadarama, the
army at Salamanca would be without ammunition or artillery. If he
advanced, it must be by a flank march of three days, with a heavy
convoy, over a flat country, and within a few hours march of a
very superior cavalry. If he delayed where he was even for a few
hours, the French on the side of Segovia might get between him and
the pass of Guadarama, and then, attacked in front, flank, and
rear, he would be reduced to the shameful necessity of abandoning
his convoy and guns to save his men in the mountains of Avila. A
man of less intrepidity and calmness would have been ruined; but
Hope, as enterprising as he was prudent, without any hesitation
ordered the cavalry to throw out parties cautiously towards the
French, and to maintain a confident front if the latter approached;
then moving the infantry and guns from Villacastin, and the convoy
from Espinosa by cross roads to Avila, he continued his march
day and night until they reached Peneranda: the cavalry covering
this movement closed gradually to the left, and finally occupied
Fontiveros on the 2d of December.
The infantry and the draft animals were greatly fatigued, but the
danger was not over; the patroles reported, that the enemy, to the
number of ten thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, and forty
guns, were still in Olmedo. This was the eternal fourth corps,
which thus traversing the country, continually crossed the heads
of the English columns, and seemed to multiply the forces of the
French at all points. Hope now drew his infantry and cavalry up
in position, but obliged the artillery and the convoy to proceed
without rest to Alba de Tormes, where a detachment from Salamanca
met them, and covered their march to that town. This vigorous and
skilful operation concluded, the division remained at Peneranda,
collected its stragglers, and pushed outposts to Medina del Campo,
Madrigal, and Torecilla, while the fourth corps unwittingly pursued
its march to the Guadarama.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Narrative of Moore’s Campaign.]
Sir John Moore’s resolution to retreat upon Portugal created a
great sensation at Madrid and at Aranjuez. The junta feared, and
with reason, that such a palpable proof of the state to which their
negligence and incapacity had reduced the country would endanger
their authority, and perhaps their lives; and although they were
on the point of flying to Badajos themselves, they were anxious
that others should rush headlong into danger. Morla, and those who,
like him, were prepared to abandon the cause of their country,
felt mortified at losing an opportunity of commemorating their
defection by a signal act of perfidy. The English plenipotentiary
was surprised and indignant that a general of experience and
reputation should think for himself, and decide upon a military
operation without a reference to his opinion. Mr. Frere, although
a person of some scholastic attainments, greatly overrated his own
talent for public affairs. He was ill qualified for the duties of
his situation, which at this moment required temper, sagacity, and
judgment. He had come out to Spain impressed with false notions of
what was passing in that country, and clinging tenaciously to the
pictures of his imagination, he resented the intrusion of reason,
and petulantly spurned at facts. The defeat of the conde de
Belvedere at Gamonal, a defeat that broke the centre of the Spanish
line, uncovered the flank and rear of Castaños’s army, opened a way
to Madrid, and rendered the concentration of the British divisions
unsafe, if not impossible; he curiously called the “unlucky affair
of the 10th at Burgos.” After the battle of Tudela he estimated the
whole French army on the side of Burgos and Valladolid at eleven
thousand men, when they were above one hundred thousand; and yet,
with information so absurdly defective, he was prompt to interfere
with, and eager to control, the military combinations of the
general, although they were founded upon the true and acknowledged
principles of the art of war.
[Sidenote: Moore’s Papers. Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.]
[Sidenote: Moore’s Papers. Frere’s Correspondence.]
While sir John Moore was anxiously watching the dangerous
progress of sir John Hope, he was suddenly assailed by the
representations and remonstrances of all these offended, mortified,
and disappointed persons. The question of retiring was, by the
defeat of Tudela, rendered so purely military, and the necessity
of it was so palpable, that the general, although anticipating
some expressions of discontent from the Spanish government, was
totally unprepared for the torrent of puerile impertinencies with
which he was overwhelmed. Morla, a subtle man, endeavoured first
to deceive Mr. Stuart; by treating the defeat of Castaños lightly,
and stating officially that he had saved the greatest part of his
army at Siguenza, and was on the march to join St. Juan at the
Somosierra; to this he added, that there were only small bodies of
French cavalry in the flat country of Castille and Leon, and no
force on that side capable of preventing the junction of sir John
Moore’s division. This was on the evening of the 30th. The emperor
had forced the pass of the Somosierra on that morning, and the
duke of Dantzic was at Valladolid. The same day Mr. Frere, writing
from Aranjuez, (in answer to the general’s former communication,
and before he was acquainted with his intention to fall back),
deprecated a retreat upon Portugal, and asserted, that the
enthusiasm of the Spaniards was unbounded, except in Castille and
Leon, where he admitted they were more passive than they should be.
He even stated, that twenty thousand men were actually assembled
in the vicinity of the capital, and that Castaños was falling
back upon them; that reinforcements were arriving daily from the
southern provinces, and that the addition of the British army would
form a force greatly superior to any the French could bring against
that quarter, in sufficient time. It was certain, he said, that
the latter were very weak, and would be afraid to advance, while
the whole country, from the Pyrenees to the capital, was in arms
upon their left flank. Rumours also were rife that the conscription
had been resisted, and this was the more probable, because every
great effort made by France was accompanied by weakness and
internal disturbance; and a pastoral letter of the bishop of
Carcassonne seemed to imply that it was so at that time. “Good
policy, therefore, required, that the French should be attacked
before their reinforcements joined them, as any success obtained
at that moment would render a conscription for a third attempt
infinitely difficult, if not impracticable; but if, on the other
hand,” said this inconsiderate person, “the French are allowed,
with their present forces, to retain their present advantages, and
to wait the completion of their conscription, they would pour into
Spain, with a number of troops which would give them immediate
possession of the capital and the central provinces.” Two days
after the date of this letter, the emperor was actually at the
capital; and Mr. Frere, notwithstanding the superior Spanish force
which his imagination had conjured up, was, with the junta, flying
in all haste from those very central provinces: France remaining,
meanwhile, strong, and free from internal dissension. This rambling
letter was not despatched when the general’s intention to fall back
upon Portugal was made known to Mr. Frere; but the latter thought
it so admirably calculated to prevent a retreat, that he forwarded
it, accompanied by a short explanatory note, which was offensive in
style, and indicative of a petulant disposition.
[Sidenote: Moore’s Papers.]
At this time, don Augustin Bueno and don Ventura Escalente arrived
at head-quarters. These two generals were deputed by the junta
to remonstrate against sir John Moore’s intended retreat; and
they justified the choice of their employers, being in folly and
presumptuous ignorance the very types of the government they
represented. They began by asserting, that St. Juan, with twenty
thousand men under his command, had so fortified the pass of the
Somosierra, that it could not be forced by any number of enemies,
and then affirming that reinforcements were daily joining him,
they were proceeding to create immense Spanish armies, when the
general stopped their garrulity by introducing colonel Graham,
who had been a witness of the dispersion of Castaños’s army, and
had just left the unfortunate St. Juan at Talavera, surrounded
by the villanous runagates, who murdered him the next day. It
may be easily supposed, that such representations and from such
men could have no weight with the commander of an army; in fact,
the necessity of retreating was rendered more imperious by these
glaring proofs that the junta and the English plenipotentiary were
totally ignorant of what was passing around them. But Napoleon was
now in full career; he had raised a hurricane of war, and directing
its fury as he pleased, his adversaries were obliged to conform
their movements to his, and as the circumstances varied from hour
to hour, the determination of one moment was rendered useless in
the next.
The appearance of the French cavalry in the plains of Madrid
sent the junta and Mr. Frere headlong to Badajos; but the people
of Madrid, as we have seen, shut their gates, and displayed the
outward signs of a resolution to imitate Zaragoza. The neighbouring
peasants flocked in to aid the citizens, and a military junta
(composed of the duke of Infantado, the prince of Castel Franco,
the marquis of Castellar, and don Thomas Morla) was appointed to
manage the defence. Morla now resolved to make a final effort to
involve the British army in the destruction of his own country, and
as the duke of Infantado was easily persuaded to quit Madrid on a
mission to the army of the centre, the traitor was left sole master
of the town, because the duke and himself only had any influence
with that armed mob, which had murdered the marquis of Perales, and
filled the city with tumult.
When the French emperor summoned the junta to surrender, Morla, in
concert with the prince of Castel Franco, addressed a paper to sir
John Moore, in which it was stated that twenty-five thousand men
under Castaños, and ten thousand from the Somosierra, were marching
in all haste to the capital, where forty thousand others were in
arms; but that, apprehending an increase of force on the enemy’s
side, the junta hoped that the English army would either march to
the assistance of the capital, or take a direction to fall upon the
rear of the French, and not doubting that the English general had
already formed a junction with Blake’s army, they hoped he would
be quick in his operations. This paper was sent by a government
messenger to Salamanca; but ere he could reach that place, Morla,
who had commenced negotiations, before the despatch was written,
capitulated, and Napoleon was in Madrid. This communication
alone would not have been sufficient to arrest sir John Moore’s
retrograde movement. He was become too well acquainted with what
facility Spanish armies were created on paper, to rely on any
statement of their numbers; but Mr. Stuart also expressed a belief
that Madrid would make a vigorous resistance, and the tide of false
information having set in with a strong current, every moment
brought fresh assurances that a great spirit had arisen.
On the day that Morla’s communication arrived, there also appeared
at head-quarters one Charmilly, a French adventurer. This man, who
has been since denounced in the British parliament as an organizer
of assassination in St. Domingo, and a fraudulent bankrupt in
London, came as the confidential agent of Mr. Frere. He had been
in Madrid during the night of the 1st, and left it (immediately
after having held a conference with Morla), on the morning of the
2d. Taking the road to Talavera, he met with the plenipotentiary,
to whom he spoke with enthusiasm of the spirit and preparations
of the inhabitants in the capital. Mr. Frere readily confided in
him, and imparting his own views, not only intrusted this stranger
with letters to the British general, but charged him with a mission
to obstruct the retreat into Portugal. Thus instructed, Charmilly
hastened to Salamanca, and presented Mr. Frere’s first missive, in
which that gentleman, after alluding to former representations,
and to the information of which colonel Charmilly was the bearer,
viz. the enthusiasm in the capital, made a formal remonstrance, to
the effect that propriety and policy demanded an immediate advance
of the British to support this generous effort. Charmilly also
demanded a personal interview, which was granted; but sir John
Moore having some suspicion of the man, whom he had seen before,
listened to his tale of the enthusiasm and vigorous character
displayed at Madrid, with an appearance of coldness that baffled
the penetration of the adventurer, who retired under the impression
that a retreat was certain.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 7.]
For many years so much ridicule had been attached to the name of
an English expedition, that weak-headed men claimed a sort of
prescriptive right to censure without regard to subordination, the
conduct of their general. It had been so in Egypt, where a cabal
was formed to deprive lord Hutchinson of the command; it had been
so at Buenos Ayres, at Ferrol, and in Portugal. It was so at this
time in sir John Moore’s army; and it will be found in the course
of this work, that the superlative talents, vigour, and success
of the duke of Wellington, could not even at a late period of the
war secure him from such vexatious folly. The three generals who
commanded the separate divisions of the army, and who were in
consequence acquainted with all the circumstances of the moment,
were perfectly agreed as to the propriety of a retreat; but in
other quarters indecent murmurs were so prevalent among officers
of rank as to call for rebuke. Charmilly, ignorant of the decided
character of the general-in-chief, concluded that this temper was
favourable to the object of his mission, and presented a second
letter, which Mr. Frere had charged him to deliver, should the
first fail of effect. The purport of it was to desire that if
sir John Moore still persisted in his intention of retreating,
“_the bearer might be previously examined before a council of
war_,” in other words, that Mr. Frere, convinced of sir John
Moore’s incapacity and want of zeal, was determined to control
his proceedings even by force. And this to a British general of
long experience and confirmed reputation, and by the hands of a
foreign adventurer!! The indignation of a high spirit at such a
foolish, wanton insult, may be easily imagined. He tore the letter
in pieces, and ordered Charmilly to quit the cantonments of the
British army without delay. His anger, however, soon subsided.
Quarrels among the servants of the public could only prove
detrimental to his country, and he put his personal feelings on
one side. The information brought by Charmilly, separated from the
indecorum of his mission, was in itself important. It confirmed
the essential fact, that Madrid was actually resisting, and that
the spirit and energy of the country was awaking. Hitherto his own
observation had led sir John Moore to doubt, if the people took
sufficient interest in the cause to make any effectual effort; all
around himself was apathetic and incapable, and his correspondents,
with the exception of Mr. Frere, nay, even the intercepted letters
of French officers, had agreed in describing the general feeling of
the country as subsiding into indifference. To use his own words,
“_Spain was without armies, generals, or a government_.” But now
the fire essential to the salvation of the nation appeared to be
kindling, and Moore feeling conscious of ability to lead a British
army, hailed the appearance of an enthusiasm which promised success
to a just cause, and a brilliant career of glory to himself.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]
That the metropolis should thus abide the fury of the conqueror
was surprising. It was a great event and full of promise. The
situation of the army was likewise improved; general Hope’s
junction was accomplished, and as the attention of the French was
turned toward Madrid, there was no reason to doubt that Baird’s
junction could likewise be effected. On the other hand, there
was no certainty, that the capital would remain firm when danger
pressed, none that it would be able to resist, none that the
example would spread; yet without it did so, nothing was gained,
because it was only by an union of heart and hand throughout
the whole country, that the great power of the French could be
successfully resisted.
In a matter so balanced, sir John Moore, as might be expected from
an enterprising general, adopted the boldest and most generous
side. He ordered sir David Baird to concentrate his troops at
Astorga, and he himself prepared for an advance; but as he remained
without any further information of the fate of Madrid, he sent
colonel Graham to obtain intelligence of what was passing, and to
carry his answer to Morla. This resolution being taken, he wrote
to Mr. Frere, calmly explaining the reasons for his past conduct,
and those which actuated him in forming a fresh plan of operation.
“I wish anxiously,” said this noble-minded man in conclusion,
“I wish anxiously, as the king’s minister, to continue upon the
most confidential footing with you, and I hope as we have but one
interest, the public welfare, though we occasionally see it in
different aspects, that this will not disturb the harmony which
should subsist between us. Fully impressed as I am with these
sentiments, I shall abstain from any remarks upon the two letters
from you delivered to me last night and this morning by colonel
Charmilly, or on the message which accompanied them. I certainly
at first did feel and expressed much indignation at a person like
him being made the channel of a communication of that sort from you
to me. Those feelings are at an end, and I dare say they never will
be created towards you again.”
The plan of operations now occupied his mind. The Somosierra and
the Guadarama were both in possession of the enemy, no direct
movement could therefore be made towards Madrid; besides, the rear
of Baird’s troops was still several marches behind Astorga, and
a general movement on the side of the capital could not commence
before the 12th of the month. Zaragoza, the general knew, was
determined to stand a second siege, and he had the guarantee of the
first that it would be an obstinate stand. He had received from
the junta of Toledo a formal assurance of their resolution to bury
themselves under the ruins of the town sooner than submit; and he
was informed from several quarters that the southern provinces were
forwarding crowds of fresh levies. Romana at this time also was
in correspondence with him, and with the usual exaggeration of a
Spaniard, declared his ability to aid him with an army of twenty
thousand men. Upon this data sir John Moore formed a plan, bearing
the stamp of genuine talent and enterprise, whether it be examined
as a political or a military measure.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 14.]
He supposed the French emperor to be more anxious to strike a
heavy blow against the English, and to shut them out of Spain,
than to overrun any particular province, or get possession of any
town in the Peninsula. He resolved, therefore, to throw himself
upon the communications of the French army, hoping, if fortune
was favourable, to inflict a severe loss upon the troops which
guarded them before aid could arrive. If Napoleon, suspending
his operations against the south, should detach largely, Madrid
would thereby be succoured; if he did not detach largely, the
British could hold their ground. Sir John Moore knew well that
a great commander would in such a case be more likely to unite
his whole army, and fall upon the troops which thus ventured to
place themselves on his line of operations. But, to relieve the
Spaniards at a critical moment, and to give time for the southern
provinces to organise their defence and recover courage, he was
willing thus to draw the whole of the enemy upon himself. He felt
that in doing so, he compromised the safety of his own army, that
he must glide along the edge of a precipice, that he must cross a
gulf on a rotten plank; but he also knew the martial qualities of
his soldiers, he had confidence in his own genius; and the occasion
being worthy of a great deed, he dared essay it even against
Napoleon.
Colonel Graham returned on the 9th, bringing the first intimation
of the capitulation of the capital. He had been able to proceed
no further than Talavera, where he encountered two members of the
supreme junta. By them he was told that the French, being from
twenty to thirty thousand strong, possessed the Retiro, but that
the people retained their arms, and that La-Peña, with thirty
thousand men of the army of the centre, was at Guadalaxara; that
fourteen thousand of St. Juan’s and Heredia’s forces were assembled
at Almaraz, and that Romana, with whom they anxiously desired that
sir John Moore would unite, had likewise an army of thirty thousand
fighting men. Finally, they assured colonel Graham that the most
energetic measures were in activity wherever the enemy’s presence
did not control the patriots.
Mortifying as it was to find that Madrid, after so much boasting,
should have held out but one day, the event itself did not destroy
the ground of sir John Moore’s resolution to advance. Undoubtedly
it was so much lost; it diminished the hope of arousing the nation,
and it increased the danger of the British army by letting loose a
greater number of the enemy’s troops; but as a diversion for the
south it might still succeed; and as long as there was any hope,
the resolution of the English general was fixed, to prove that he
would not abandon the cause even when the Spaniards were abandoning
it themselves.
CHAPTER IV.
The forward movement of the British army commenced on the 11th
of December. Sir John Moore’s first intention was to march with
his own and Hope’s division to Valladolid, with a view to cover
the advance of his stores and to protect the junction of sir
David Baird’s troops, the rear of which was still several marches
behind Astorga. The preparations for a retreat upon Portugal were,
however, continued, and sir David was ordered to form magazines
at Benevente, Astorga, Villa Franca, and Lugo. This arrangement
secured two lines of operation, and permitted a greater freedom of
action.
The 13th, head-quarters were at Alaejos. Two brigades, and the
cavalry under lord Paget at Toro. General Hope was at Torrecilla.
The cavalry under brigadier-general Charles Stewart, was at Rueda;
having the night before surprised a French post of fifty infantry
and thirty dragoons, killing or taking almost the whole number. The
prisoners declared that in the French army it was believed that the
English were retreating to Portugal.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 4.]
At Alaejos an intercepted despatch of the prince of Neufchatel was
brought to head-quarters; the contents were important enough to
change the direction of the march. It was addressed to the duke
of Dalmatia. Madrid was said to be perfectly tranquil, the shops
opened, and the public amusements going forward as in a time of
profound peace. The fourth corps of the army was at Talavera, on
its way towards Badajos; this movement, it was observed, would
force the English to retire to Portugal, if, contrary to the
emperor’s belief, they had not already done so. The fifth corps
were on the march to Zaragoza, and the eighth to Burgos. The duke
was directed to drive the Spaniards into Gallicia, to occupy Leon,
Benevente, and Zamora, and to keep the flat country in subjection,
for which purpose his two divisions of infantry, and the cavalry
brigades of Franceschi and Debelle, were considered sufficient.
It is remarkable that the first correct information of the
capitulation of Madrid should have been acquired by the perusal of
this document, ten days after the event had taken place; nor is it
less curious, that while Mr. Frere’s letters were filled with vivid
descriptions of Spanish enthusiasm, Napoleon should have been so
convinced of their passiveness as to send this important despatch
by an officer, who rode post, without an escort and in safety,
until his abusive language to the postmaster at Valdestillos
created a tumult, by which he lost his life. Captain Waters, an
English officer sent to obtain intelligence, happening to arrive
in that place, heard of the murder, and immediately purchased
the despatch for twenty dollars. The accidental information thus
obtained was the more valuable, that neither money nor patriotism
had induced the Spaniards to bring any intelligence of the enemy’s
situation, and each step the army had hitherto made was in the dark.
It was now certain that Burgos was or would be strongly protected,
and that Baird’s line of march was unsafe if Soult, following these
instructions, advanced. On the other hand, as the French appeared
to be ignorant of the British movements, there was some chance of
surprising and beating the second corps before Napoleon could come
to its succour. Hope immediately passed the Douero at Tordesillas,
and directed his march upon Villepando; head-quarters were removed
to Toro, and Valderas was given as the point of junction to Baird’s
division, the head of which was now at Benevente.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers. MSS.]
The 16th, Mr. Stuart arrived at Toro, accompanied by don F^e. X^r.
Caro, a member of the Spanish government, who brought two letters,
the one from the junta, the other from Mr. Frere. That from the
junta complained, that when Romana proposed to unite fourteen
thousand picked men to the British army, with a view to make a
forward movement, his offer had been disregarded, and a retreat
determined upon, in despite of his earnest remonstrances; this
retreat they declared to be uncalled for, and highly impolitic,
“as the enemy was never so near his ruin as in that moment.” If
the Spanish and British armies should unite, they said, it would
give “liberty to the Peninsula,” that “Romana, with his fourteen
thousand select men,” was still ready to join sir John Moore, and
that “thirty thousand fresh levies would in a month be added to the
ranks of the allied force.”
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
This tissue of falsehoods, for Romana had approved of the intention
to retreat, and never had above six thousand men armed, was
addressed to Mr. Frere, and by him transmitted to the general,
together with one from himself, which, in allusion to the retreat
upon Portugal, contained the following extraordinary passages: “I
mean the immense responsibility with which you charge yourself by
adopting, upon a supposed military necessity, a measure which must
be followed by immediate, if not final, ruin to our ally, and by
indelible disgrace to the country with whose resources you are
entrusted.” “I am unwilling to enlarge upon a subject in which
my feelings must be stifled, or expressed at the risk of offence,
which, with such an interest at stake, I should feel unwilling to
excite, but this much I must say, that if the British army had been
sent abroad for the express purpose of doing the utmost possible
mischief to the Spanish cause, with the single exception of not
firing a shot against their troops, they would, according to the
measures now announced as about to be pursued, have completely
fulfilled their purpose.”
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 7.]
These letters were dated at Truxillo; for the junta, not thinking
themselves safe at Badajos, had proceeded so far on their way to
Seville. On that side the French had continued to advance, the
remnants of the Spanish armies to fly, and every thing bore the
most gloomy appearance. Mr. Frere knew this. In a subsequent letter
he acknowledged that the enthusiasm was extinguished, and a general
panic commencing, at the moment when he was penning these offensive
passages. He was utterly ignorant of the numbers, the situation,
and the resources of the enemy, but he formed hypotheses, and upon
the strength of them insulted sir John Moore, and compromised the
interests of his country; and in this manner the British general,
while struggling with unavoidable difficulties, had his mind
harassed by a repetition of remonstrances and representations in
which common sense, truth, and decency were alike disregarded. On
this occasion he furnished a remarkable instance of the control he
exercised over his personal feelings, when the public welfare was
at stake. As Mr. Frere had acknowledged the receipt of a letter of
the 10th, it was probable that he had also received the general’s
answer (written before the 10th) to the communication made through
Charmilly; but as he did not say so, Sir John Moore took advantage
of the omission, and with singular propriety and dignity thus
replied to him: “With respect to your letter delivered to me at
Toro by Mr. Stuart, I shall not remark upon it. It is in the style
of the two which were brought to me by colonel Charmilly, and
consequently was answered by my letter of the 6th, of which I send
you a duplicate; that subject is I hope at rest!”
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers. Col Symes’ Corresp^{ce}.]
[Sidenote: Gen. Leith.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 5.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, Section 7.]
At Toro sir John Moore ascertained that Romana, although aware
of the advance of the British, and engaged to support them, was
retiring into Gallicia. That nobleman, nominally commander-in-chief
of the Spanish armies, was at the head of a few thousand miserable
soldiers; for the Spaniards, with great ingenuity, contrived to
have no general when they had an army, and no army when they had
a general. After the dispersion of Blake’s people at Reynosa,
Romana rallied about five thousand men at Renedo, in the valley
of Cabernigo, and endeavoured to make a stand on the borders of
the Asturias, but without any success, for the vile conduct of
the Asturian junta, joined to the terror created by the French
victories, had completely subdued the spirit of the peasantry, and
ruined the resources of that province. Romana complained that,
when checked for misconduct, his soldiers quitted their standards;
indeed that any should have been found to join their colours is
to be admired; for among the sores of Spain there were none more
cankered, more disgusting, than the venality, the injustice, the
profligate corruption of the Asturian authorities, who, without a
blush, openly divided the English subsidies, and defrauded, not
only the soldiers of their pay and equipments, but the miserable
peasants of their hire, doubling the wretchedness of poverty, and
deriding the misery they occasioned by pompous declarations of
their own virtue. From the Asturias the marquis led the remnants
of Blake’s force to Leon about the period of sir John Moore’s
arrival at Salamanca; like others, he had been deceived as to the
real state of the country, and at this time repented that he had
returned to Spain.
Romana was a person of talent, quickness, and information, but
disqualified by nature for military command; a lively principle of
error pervaded all his notions of war; no man ever bore the title
of a general who was less capable of directing an army, neither
was he exempt from the prevailing weakness of his countrymen. At
this moment, when he had not the strength to stand upright, his
letters were teeming with gigantic offensive projects, and although
he had before approved of the intention to retreat, he was now as
ready to urge a forward movement, promising to co-operate with
twenty thousand soldiers when he could scarcely muster a third
of that number of men, who, half armed, were hardly capable of
distinguishing their own standards; and at the very time he made
the promise, he was retiring into Gallicia; not that he meant to
deceive, for he was as ready to advance as to retreat, but this
species of boasting is inherent in his nation, and Romana was a
true Spaniard.
It has been asserted that Caro offered the chief command of the
Spanish armies to sir John Moore, and that the latter refused it;
this is not true: Caro had no power to do so, and if he had, there
were no armies to command; but that gentleman in his interview
either was, or affected to be, satisfied of the soundness of the
English general’s views, and ashamed of the folly of the junta.
The 18th, head-quarters were at Castro Nuevo; from that place
sir John Moore wrote to Romana, informing him of his intention
to fall upon Soult, desiring his co-operation, and requesting
that the Marquis would, according to his own plan given to the
British minister in London, reserve the Asturias for his line of
communication, and leave the Gallicias open to the British.
The army was now in full march, Baird was at Benevente, Hope
at Villapando; the cavalry scoured the country on the side of
Valladolid, and in several successful skirmishes took a number of
prisoners. The French could be no longer ignorant of the march, and
the English general brought forward his columns rapidly. On the
20th the whole of the forces were united; the cavalry at Melgar
Abaxo, and the infantry at Mayorga, and as much concentrated as
the necessity of obtaining cover in a country devoid of fuel, and
deep with snow, would permit. The weather was exceedingly severe,
and the marches long, but a more robust set of men never took
the field: their discipline was admirable, and there were very
few stragglers; the experience of one or two campaigns alone was
wanting to make a perfect army.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 25.]
The number was however small; nominally it was nearly thirty-five
thousand, but four regiments were still in Portugal, and three more
were left by sir David Baird at Lugo and Astorga. One thousand six
hundred and eighty-seven men were detached, and four thousand and
five were in hospital. The actual number present under arms on
the 19th of December was only nineteen thousand and fifty-three
infantry, two thousand two hundred and seventy-eight cavalry, and
one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight gunners, forming a total
of twenty-three thousand five hundred and eighty-three men, with
sixty pieces of artillery: the whole being organized in three
divisions, a reserve, and two light brigades of infantry, and one
division of cavalry. Of the artillery four batteries were attached
to the infantry, and two to the cavalry; one was kept in reserve.
Romana, who had been able to bring forward very few men, promised
to march in two columns by Almanzer and Guarda, and sent some
information of the enemy’s position; but sir John Moore depended
little upon his intelligence, when he found him, even so late
as the 19th of December (upon the faith of information from the
junta), representing Madrid as still holding out; and when the
advanced posts were already engaged at Sahagun, proposing an
interview at Benevente to arrange the plan of operations.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations. MS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
On the French side, Soult’s corps was concentrating on the
Carrion. After the rapid and brilliant success of this marshal
at the opening of the campaign, his corps was ordered to remain
on the defensive until the movements against Tudela and Madrid
were completed; the despatches commanding him to recommence his
offensive operations were, as we have seen, intercepted on the
12th, but on the 16th he became acquainted with the advance of the
English army. At that period general Bonnet’s division occupied
Barquera de San Vincente and Potes, on the Deba; and watched some
thousand Asturians that Ballasteros had collected near Llanes.
Merle’s and Mermet’s divisions were on the Carrion; Franceschi’s
dragoons at Valladolid; and general Debelle’s at Sahagun. The
whole formed a total of sixteen or seventeen thousand infantry,
and twelve hundred cavalry, present under arms, of which only
eleven thousand infantry and twelve hundred cavalry could, without
uncovering the important post of St. Andero, be opposed to the
advance of the British. Soult, alarmed at this disparity of force,
required general Mathieu Dumas, commandant at Burgos, to direct all
the divisions and detachments passing through that town, (whatever
might be their original destination) upon the Carrion; and this
decisive conduct was approved of by the emperor. The 21st, Bonnet’s
division remaining on the Deba, Mermet’s occupied the town of
Carrion; Merle’s was at Saldaña; and Franceschi’s cavalry retired
from Valladolid to Riberos de la Cuesca. Debelle’s continued at
Sahagun, and thirteen hundred dragoons, under general Lorge,
arrived at Palencia from Burgos.
Meanwhile, the fifteenth and tenth British hussars quitting Melgar
Abaxo during the night, arrived close to Sahagun before daylight
on the 21st; the tenth marched straight to the town, the fifteenth
turned it by the right, and endeavoured to cut off the enemy, but
meeting with a patrole, the alarm was given, and when lord Paget,
with four hundred of the fifteenth, arrived at the rear of the
village, he was opposed by a line of six hundred French dragoons.
The tenth not being in sight, the fifteenth, after a few movements,
charged, broke the enemy’s line, and pursued them for some
distance. Fifteen to twenty killed, two lieutenant-colonels, and
eleven other officers, with a hundred and fifty-four men prisoners,
were the result of this affair, which lasted about twenty minutes.
Debelle then retired to Santerbas.
The English infantry occupied Sahagun, and head-quarters were
established there. Romana remained at Mancilla, and it was evident
that no assistance could be expected from him; the truth was,
that ashamed of exposing the weakness and misery of his troops,
he kept away, for, after all his promises, he could not produce
six thousand fighting men; his letters, however, were, as usual,
extremely encouraging. _The French force in Spain was exceedingly
weak, Palafox had not been defeated at Tudela, Soult, including
Sonnet’s division, had scarcely nine thousand men of all arms.
It was an object to surround and destroy him before he could be
succoured_--and other follies of this nature.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
The English troops having outmarched their supplies, halted the
22d and 23d. Soult, whose intention was to act on the defensive,
hastened the march of the reinforcements from the side of Burgos,
and being fearful for his communication with Placentia, abandoned
Saldaña on the 23d, and concentrated his infantry at Carrion.
Debelle’s cavalry again advanced to Villatilla and Villacuenda,
Franceschi remained at Riberos, the dragoons of general Lorge
occupied Paredes, and general Dumas pushed on the divisions of the
eighth corps, of which, Laborde’s was already arrived at Palencia,
and Loison’s and Heudelet’s followed at the distance of two days’
march; but these last were very weak.
Sir John Moore’s plan was to move during the night of the 23d,
so as to arrive at Carrion by daylight on the 24th, to force the
bridge, and afterwards ascending the river, fall upon the main body
of the enemy, which his information led him to believe was still
at Saldaña. This attack was however but a secondary object, his
attention was constantly directed towards Madrid. He might beat
the corps in his front, but the victory could be of little use
beyond the honour of the day, for the eighth and third corps were
too near to admit of farther success. The whole operation, was one
of time, a political bait to tempt the emperor, whose march from
Madrid must be the signal for a retreat that sooner or later was
inevitable. To draw Napoleon from the south was the great object,
but it behoved the man to be alert that interposed between the lion
and his prey.
The 23d, Romana gave notice that the French were in motion on the
side of Madrid. The night of the 23d the troops were in march
towards Carrion, when Romana’s intelligence was confirmed by the
general’s spies; all their reports agreed that the whole French
army was in movement to crush the English. The fourth corps had
been halted at Talavera, the third at Vittoria, the eighth was
closing up to reinforce the second, and the emperor in person was
marching towards the Guadarama; the principal objects of sir John
Moore’s advance were thus attained. The siege of Zaragoza was
delayed, the southern provinces were allowed to breathe, and it now
remained for him to prove, by a timely retreat, that this offensive
operation, although hazardous, was not the result of improvident
rashness, nor weakness of mind, but the hardy enterprise of a
great commander acting under peculiar circumstances: as a military
measure, his judgment condemned it; as a political one, he thought
it of doubtful advantage, because Spain was really passive, but
he was willing to give the Spaniards an opportunity of making
one more struggle for independence. That was done. If they could
not, or would not profit of the occasion, if their hearts were
faint or their hands feeble, the shame and the loss were their
own; the British general had done enough, enough for honour,
enough for utility, more than enough for prudence; but the madness
of the times required it. His army was already on the verge of
destruction, the enemy’s force was hourly increasing in his front;
the first symptoms of a retreat would bring it headlong on; and
in the meantime the emperor threatened the line of communications
with Gallicia, and by the rapidity of his march left no time for
consideration.
After the first burst, by which he swept the northern provinces,
and planted his standards on the banks of the Tagus, that monarch
had put all the resources of his subtle genius into activity,
endeavouring to soften the public mind, and by engrafting benefits
on the terror his victories had created, to gain over the people;
but, at the same time, he was gathering in his extended wings, and
preparing for a new flight, which would have carried him over the
southern kingdoms of the Peninsula, and given him the rocks of
Lisbon as a resting-place for his eagles.
Madrid was tranquil; Toledo, notwithstanding her heroic promises,
never shut her gates; one division of the first corps occupied that
town, another was in Ocaña, and the light cavalry scoured the whole
of La Mancha, even to the borders of Andalusia. The fourth corps,
and Milhaud’s and Lasalle’s horsemen, were at Talavera preparing
to march to Badajos, and sixty thousand men, with one hundred and
fifty guns and fifteen days’ provisions in carts, were reviewed at
the gates of Madrid upon the 19th. Three days afterwards they were
in full march to intercept the line of sir John Moore’s retreat.
The emperor was informed of that general’s advance on the 21st;
in an instant the Spaniards, their juntas, and their armies were
dismissed from his thoughts; the different corps were arrested in
their movements, ten thousand men were left to control the capital,
and on the evening of the 22d, fifty thousand men were at the foot
of the Guadarama. A deep snow choked the passes of the Sierra, and,
after twelve hours of ineffectual toil, the advanced guards were
still on the wrong side; the general commanding reported that the
road was impracticable, but Napoleon, rebuking him fiercely, urged
the columns to another attempt, and the passage of the mountain was
effected amidst storms of hail and drifting sleet. The cold and
fatigue being so intense that many soldiers and draft animals died
during the two days that the operation lasted.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
Personally urging on the troops with unceasing vehemence the
emperor arrived at Villacastin, fifty miles from Madrid, on the
24th, and the 26th he was at Tordesillas with the guards and the
divisions of La-Pisse and Dessolles. The dragoons of La Houssaye
were at Valladolid on the same day, and marshal Ney, with the sixth
corps, was at Rio Seco. From Tordesillas Napoleon communicated with
Soult, informed him of these movements, and concluded his despatch
thus: “_Our cavalry scouts are already at Benevente. If the English
pass to-day in their position, they are lost; if on the contrary,
they attack you with all their force, retire one day’s march: the
farther they proceed the better for us. If they retreat, pursue
them closely_;” and then, full of hope, he hastened to Valderas,
but had the mortification to learn that, notwithstanding his rapid
march, having scarcely rested night or day, he was twelve hours too
late. The British were across the Esla!
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
In fact Soult was in full pursuit when this letter was written,
for sir John Moore, who was well aware of his real situation, had
given orders to retreat the moment the intelligence of Napoleon’s
march from Madrid reached him. The heavy baggage and stores had
been immediately moved to the rear; but the reserve, the light
brigades, and the cavalry remained at Sahagun, the latter pushing
their patroles up to the enemy’s lines and skirmishing, with a view
to hide the retrograde march. The 24th, general Hope, with two
divisions, fell back by the road of Mayorga, and general Baird,
with another, by that of Valencia de San Juan, where there was a
ferry-boat to cross the Esla river. The marquis of Romana undertook
to guard the bridge of Mansilla. The enemy’s dragoons, under Lorge,
arrived the same day at Frechilla, and the division of Laborde at
Paredes. The 25th the general-in-chief, with the reserve and light
brigades, followed the route of Hope’s column to Valderas; the 26th
Baird passed the Esla at Valencia, and took post on the other side,
but with some difficulty, for the boat was small, the fords deep,
and the river rising. The troops, under the commander-in-chief,
approached the bridge of Castro Gonzalo early in the morning of the
26th. The stores and baggage were a long time passing, a dense fog
intercepted the view, and so nicely timed was the march that the
scouts of the imperial horsemen were already infesting the flank
of the column, and even carried off some of the baggage. The left
bank of the river being high, and completely commanding the bridge,
the second light brigade, under general Robert Crawfurd, and two
guns, were posted on that side to protect the passage, for the
cavalry were still on the march from Sahagun, and Soult, aware of
the retreat, was pressing forward vigorously. When lord Paget had
passed Mayorga he discovered a strong body of horse, appertaining
to Ney’s corps, embattled on a swelling mound close to the road.
The soil was deep, and soaked with snow and rain. Two squadrons of
the tenth riding stiffly against the enemy, mounted the hill, and,
notwithstanding the superiority of numbers and position, overthrew
him, killed twenty men, and took a hundred prisoners. This was a
bold and hardy action; but the English cavalry had been engaged
more or less for twelve successive days, and with such fortune and
bravery that above five hundred prisoners had already fallen into
their hands, and their leaders being excellent, their confidence
was unbounded. From Mayorga lord Paget proceeded to Benevente,
but the duke of Dalmatia, with great judgment, directed his march
towards Astorga by the road of Mancilla; and Romana, leaving three
thousand men and two guns to defend the bridge at that place, fell
back to Leon.
Thus by a critical march, sir John Moore had recovered his
communications with Astorga and so far baffled the emperor; but
his position was by no means safe, or even tenable. The town of
Benevente, a rich open place, remarkable for a small but curious
Moorish palace or castle containing a fine collection of ancient
armour, is situated in a plain that, extending from the Gallician
mountains to the neighbourhood of Burgos, appeared to be boundless.
On the left it was skirted by the hills near the town of Leon,
which was enclosed with walls, and capable of resisting a sudden
assault. The river Esla winded through the plain about four miles
in front of Benevente, and the bridge of Castro Gonzalos was the
key to the town, but the right bank of the Esla, as I have before
observed, was completely commanded from the further side, and there
were many fords. Eighteen miles higher up, at Valencia de San Juan,
a shorter road from Mayorga to Astorga, crossed the river by the
ferry-boat, and at Mancilla, the passage being only defended by
Spaniards, was, in a manner, open to Soult, for Romana had not
destroyed the arches of the bridge. In this exposed situation
sir John Moore resolved to remain no longer than was necessary to
clear out his magazines at Benevente, and to cover the march of his
stores; but the road to Astorga by Leon being much shorter than
that through Benevente, he wrote to Romana to request that he would
maintain himself at Leon as long as he could; hearing also that the
marquis intended to retreat into Gallicia, sir John repeated his
desire to have that road left open for the English army. Romana,
who assented to both these requests, had a great rabble with him,
and as Leon was a walled place, and that a number of citizens and
volunteers were willing, and even eager, to fight, the town might
have made a formidable resistance. Sir John Moore hoped that it
would do so, and gave orders to break down the bridge at Castro
Gonzalo in his own front, the moment the stragglers and baggage
should have passed.
At this time the bad example of murmuring given by officers of
high rank had descended lower; many regimental officers neglected
their duty, and what with the dislike to a retreat, the severity of
the weather, and the inexperience of the army, the previous fine
discipline of the troops was broken down. Very disgraceful excesses
had been committed at Valderas, and the general issued severe
orders, justly reproaching the soldiers for their evil deeds, and
appealing to the spirit of the men and of the officers, to amend
them.
On the night of the 26th, the chasseurs of the imperial guard rode
close up to the bridge of Castro Gonzalo, and captured some women
and baggage[20]. The 27th, the cavalry and the stragglers being
all over the river, general Crawfurd commenced the destruction of
the bridge; torrents of rain and snow were descending; and half the
troops worked while the other half kept the enemy at bay from the
heights on the left bank, for the cavalry scouts of the imperial
guard were spread over the plain. At ten o’clock at night a large
party following some waggons endeavoured to pass the piquets
and gallop down to the bridge; that failing, a few dismounted,
and extending to the right and left, commenced a skirmishing
fire, while others remained ready to charge, if the position of
the troops, which they expected to ascertain by this scheme,
should offer an opportunity; but the event did not answer their
expectations. This anxiety to interrupt the work induced general
Crawfurd to destroy two arches of the bridge, and to blow up the
connecting buttress; but the masonry was so solid and difficult
to pierce, that it was not until twelve o’clock in the night of
the 28th that all the preparations were completed. The troops
then descended the heights on the left bank, and passing with the
greatest silence by single files over planks laid across the broken
arches, gained the other side without loss; an instance of singular
good fortune, for the night was dark and tempestuous; the river
rising rapidly with a roaring noise, was threatening to burst over
the planks, and the enemy was close at hand. To have resisted an
attack in such an awkward situation would have been impossible, but
happily the retreat of the troops was undiscovered, and the mine
being sprung with good effect, Crawfurd marched to Benevente, where
the cavalry and the reserve still remained[21].
The army gained two days rest at Benevente, but as very little
could be done to remove the stores, the greater part of them were
destroyed. The troops were, and had been from the first, without
sufficient transport, the general was without money to procure
it, and the ill-will of the Spaniards, and the shuffling conduct
of the juntas, added infinitely to these difficulties. The 28th,
Hope’s and Fraser’s divisions marched to Labaneza; and the 29th,
to Astorga, where Baird’s division joined them from Valencia San
Juan. On the same day the reserve and Crawfurd’s brigade quitted
Benevente, but the cavalry remained in the town, leaving parties to
watch the fords of the Esla. Soon after daybreak, general Lefebre
Desnouettes, seeing only a few cavalry posts on the great plain,
rather hastily concluded that there was nothing to support them,
and crossing the river at a ford a little way above the bridge with
six hundred horsemen of the imperial guards, he advanced into the
plain. The piquets at first retired fighting, but being joined
by a part of the third German hussars, they charged the leading
French squadrons with some effect. General C. Stewart then took the
command, and the ground was obstinately disputed. At this moment
the plain was covered with stragglers, and baggage-mules, and
followers of the army; the town was filled with tumult; the distant
piquets and vedettes were seen galloping in from the right and
left; the French were pressing forward boldly, and every appearance
indicated that the enemy’s whole army was come up and passing the
river. Lord Paget ordered the tenth hussars to mount and form
under the cover of some houses at the edge of the town; he desired
to draw the enemy, whose real situation he had detected at once,
well into the plain before he attacked. In half an hour, every
thing being ready, he gave the signal: the tenth hussars galloped
forward, the piquets, that were already engaged, closed together,
and the whole charged. In an instant the scene changed: the enemy
were seen flying at full speed towards the river, and the British
close at their heels; the French squadrons, without breaking their
ranks, plunged into the stream, and gained the opposite heights,
where, like experienced soldiers, they wheeled instantly, and
seemed inclined to come forward a second time; but a battery of
two guns being opened upon them, after a few rounds they retired.
During the pursuit in the plain, an officer was observed separating
from the main body, and making towards another part of the river;
being followed, and refusing to stop when overtaken, he was cut
across the head and brought in a prisoner. He proved to be general
Lefebre.
[Sidenote: Surgical Campaigns.]
Although the imperial guards were outnumbered in the end, they
were very superior at the commencement of this fight, which was
handsomely contested on both sides. The British lost fifty men
killed and wounded; the French left fifty-five killed and wounded
on the field, and seventy prisoners, besides the general and
other officers. According to baron Larrey, seventy other wounded
men escaped, making a total loss of above two hundred excellent
soldiers. Lord Paget maintained his posts on the Esla under an
occasional cannonade until the evening, and then withdrew to La
Baneza.
[Sidenote: Bulletin.]
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations. MS.]
While these things were passing, Napoleon arrived at Valderas,
Ney at Villaton, and Lapisse at Toro; the French troops were worn
down with fatigue, yet the emperor still urged them forward. The
duke of Dalmatia, he said, would intercept the retreat of the
English at Astorga, and their labours would be finally rewarded;
but the destruction of the bridge of Castro Gonzalo was so well
accomplished, that twenty-four hours were required to repair it,
and the fords were now impassable. It was the 30th before Bessieres
could cross the Esla; but on that day he passed through Benevente
with nine thousand cavalry, and bent his course towards La Baneza.
The same day, Franceschi forced the bridge of Mansilla de las
Mulas by a single charge of his light horsemen, and captured the
artillery and one half of the division left by Romana to protect
it. The latter immediately abandoned Leon and many stores. The 31st
the duke of Dalmatia entered that town without firing a shot, and
the duke of Istria, with his cavalry, took possession of La Baneza;
the advanced posts were pushed forward to the Puente d’Orvigo on
one side, and the Puente de Valembre on the other.
The rear of the English army was still in Astorga, the
head-quarters having arrived there on the day before. In the
preceding month large stores had been gradually brought up to
that town by sir David Baird, and as there were no means of
transport to remove them, orders were given, after supplying the
immediate wants of the army, to destroy them; but Romana, who would
neither defend Leon nor Mansilla, had, contrary to his promises,
pre-occupied Astorga with his fugitive army; and when the English
divisions marched in, such a tumult and confusion arose, that no
orders could be executed with regularity, no distribution made,
nor the destruction of the stores be effected. The disorder thus
unexpectedly produced was very detrimental to the discipline of
the troops, which the unwearied efforts of the general had partly
restored. The resources which he had depended on for the support
of his soldiers became mischievous, and contributed to disorganise
instead of nourishing them, and he had the farther vexation to hear
Romana the principal cause of this misfortune, proposing, (with
an army unable to resist a thousand light infantry), to commence
offensive operations and plans, in comparison of which the visions
of don Quixote were wisdom.
The 31st, the light brigades separated from the army at Bonillas,
and bent their course by cross roads towards Orense and Vigo. This
detachment was made to lessen the pressure on the commissariat,
and to cover the flanks of the army. Fraser’s and Hope’s divisions
entered Villa Franca, Baird’s division was at Bembibre. The
reserve, with the head-quarters, halted at Cambarros, a village six
miles from Astorga, but the cavalry fell back in the night to the
same place, and then the reserve marched to Bembibre.
The marquis of Romana, after doing so much mischief by crossing the
line of march, left his infantry to wander as they pleased, and
retired with his cavalry and guns to the valley of the Mincio.
Upon the 1st of January the emperor took possession of Astorga.
On that day seventy thousand French infantry, ten thousand
cavalry, and two hundred pieces of artillery, after many days of
incessant marching, were there united. The congregation of this
mighty force, while it evinced the power and energy of the French
monarch, attested also the genius of the English general, who,
with a handful of men, had found the means to arrest the course
of the conqueror, and to draw him, with the flower of his army,
to this remote and unimportant part of the Peninsula, at the
moment when Portugal, and the fairest provinces of Spain, were
prostrate beneath the strength of his hand. That Spain, being in
her extremity, sir John Moore succoured her, and in the hour of
weakness intercepted the blow which was descending to crush her,
no man of candour and honesty can deny. For what troops, what
preparations, what courage, what capacity, was there in the south
to have resisted, even for an instant, the progress of a man, who,
in ten days, and in the depth of winter, crossing the snowy ridge
of the Carpentinos, had traversed two hundred miles of hostile
country, and transported fifty thousand men from Madrid to Astorga
in a shorter time than a Spanish diligence would have taken to
travel the same distance?
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations. MS.]
This stupendous march was rendered fruitless by the quickness of
his adversary; but Napoleon, though he had failed to destroy the
English army, resolved, nevertheless, to cast it forth of the
Peninsula, and being himself recalled to France by tidings that
the Austrian storm was ready to burst, he fixed upon the duke of
Dalmatia to continue the pursuit, adding for this purpose three
divisions of cavalry, and three of infantry to his former command;
but of these last, the two commanded by generals Loison and
Heudelet, were several marches in the rear, and general Bonnet’s
remained always in the Montagna de St. Ander; hence the whole
number bearing arms, which the duke led immediately to the pursuit,
was about twenty-five thousand men, of which four thousand two
hundred were cavalry[22]. The guns were fifty-four. Loison’s and
Heudelet’s divisions, however, followed him by forced marches, and
he was supported by marshal Ney with the sixth corps, wanting its
third division; but mustering above sixteen thousand men under
arms, (the flower of the French army), together with thirty-seven
pieces of artillery. Thus including Laborde, Heudelet, and Loison’s
division, nearly sixty thousand men and ninety-one guns were put on
the track of the English army.
The emperor returned to Valladolid, where he received the addresses
of the notables and deputies from Madrid and the great towns, and
strove, by promises and other means, to win the good opinion of the
public. Appointing Joseph to be his lieutenant-general, he allotted
separate provinces for each “_corps d’armée_,” and directing the
imperial guard to return to France; after three days he departed
himself with scarcely any escort, but with a speed that frustrated
the designs that (as some say) the Spaniards had formed against his
person.
CHAPTER V.
The duke of Dalmatia, a general, who, if the emperor be excepted,
was no wise inferior to any of his nation, commenced his pursuit
of the English army with a vigour that marked his eager desire to
finish the campaign in a manner suitable to the brilliant opening
at Gamonal.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations. MS.]
The main body of his troops followed the route of Foncevadon and
Ponteferrada, a second column took the road of Cambarros and
Bembibre, and general Franceschi, with the light cavalry, entering
the valley of the Syl, ascended the course of that river, and
turned the position of Villa Franca del Bierzo. Thus sir John
Moore, after having twice baffled the emperor’s combinations, was
still pressed in his retreat with a fury that seemed to increase
every moment. The separation of his light brigades, a measure
which he adopted, after the advice of his quarter-master-general,
weakened the army by three thousand men; but he still possessed
nineteen thousand of all arms, good soldiers to fight, and strong
to march, yet by the disorders at Valderas and Astorga, much shaken
in their discipline; for the general’s exertions to restore order
and regularity were by many officers slightly seconded, and by some
with scandalous levity disregarded.
There was no choice but to retreat. The astonishing rapidity with
which the emperor had brought up his overbearing numbers, and
thrust the English army into Gallicia, had rendered the natural
strength of the country unavailing. The resources were few, even
for an army in winter quarters, and for a campaign in that season,
there were none at all. All the draft cattle that could be procured
would scarcely have supplied the means to transport ammunition for
two battles, but the French, sweeping the rich plains of Castille
with their powerful cavalry, might have formed magazines at Astorga
and Leon, and from thence have been supplied in abundance, while
the English were starving.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, sections 2 and 8.]
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers. MSS.]
Before he advanced from Salamanca, sir John Moore, foreseeing
that his movement must sooner or later end in a retreat, had sent
officers to examine the roads of Gallicia and the harbours which
offered the greatest advantages for embarkation. By the reports of
those officers, which arrived from day to day, and by the state
of the magazines he had directed to be formed, his measures were
constantly regulated. The magazines of Astorga, Benevente, and
Labaneza, we have seen, were, by untoward circumstances, and the
deficiency of transport, rendered of no avail beyond the momentary
supply they afforded; and part of their contents falling into the
enemy’s hands, gave him some cause of triumph; but those at Villa
Franca and Lugo contained about fourteen days’ consumption; and
there were other small magazines formed on the line of Orenze and
Vigo; more than this could not have been accomplished.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 28.]
It was now only the fifteenth day since sir John Moore had left
Salamanca, and already the torrent of war, diverted from the south,
was foaming among the rocks of Gallicia. Nineteen thousand British
troops, posted in strong ground, might have offered battle to very
superior numbers; but where was the use of merely fighting an
enemy who had three hundred thousand men in Spain? Nothing could
be gained by such a display of courage; but the English general,
by a quick retreat, might reach his ships unmolested, embark, and
carrying his army from the narrow corner in which it was cooped, to
the southern provinces, establish there a good base of operations,
and renew the war under favourable circumstances. It was by this
combination of a fleet and army, that the greatest assistance
could be given to Spain, and the strength of England become most
formidable. A few days’ sailing would carry the troops to Cadiz;
but six weeks’ constant marching would not bring the French army
from Gallicia to that neighbourhood. The northern provinces were
broken, subdued in spirit, and possessed few resources. The
southern provinces had scarcely seen an enemy, were rich and
fertile, and there also was the seat of government. Sir John Moore
reasoned thus, and resolved to fall down to the coast and embark,
with as little loss or delay as might be. Vigo, Coruña, and Ferrol
were the principal harbours; and their relative advantages could
not be determined except by the reports of the engineers, none of
which were yet received, so rapidly had the crisis of affairs come
on; but as those reports could only be obtained from day to day,
the line of retreat became of necessity subject to daily change.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, section 2d, see colonel Carmichael
Smith’s report.]
When the duke of Dalmatia took the command of the pursuing army,
Hope’s and Fraser’s divisions were, as I have said, at Villa
Franca, sir David Baird’s at Bembibre, the reserve and cavalry
at Cambarros, six miles from Astorga. Behind Cambarros the
mountains of Gallicia rose abruptly, but there was no position,
because, after the first rise at the village of Rodrigatos, the
ground continually descended to Calcabellos, a small town, only
four miles from Villa Franca, and the old road of Foncevadon and
Ponteferrada, which turned the whole line, was choked with the
advancing columns of the enemy. The reserve and the cavalry marched
during the night to Bembibre: on their arrival Baird’s division
proceeded to Villa Franca, but the immense wine-vaults of Bembibre
had such temptations, that many hundred of his men remained behind
inebriated; the followers of the army crowded the houses, and a
number of Romana’s disbanded men were mixed with this heterogeneous
mass of marauders, drunkards, muleteers, women, and children; the
weather was dreadful, and, notwithstanding the utmost exertions of
the general-in-chief, when the reserve marched the next morning,
the number of those unfortunate wretches was not diminished.
Leaving a small guard to protect them, sir John Moore proceeded
to Calcabellos; but scarcely had the reserve marched out of the
village, when some French cavalry appeared. In a moment the road
was filled with the miserable stragglers, who came crowding after
the troops, some with loud shrieks of distress and wild gestures,
others with brutal exclamations; many, overcome with fear, threw
away their arms. Those who preserved theirs were too stupidly
intoxicated to fire; and kept reeling to and fro, alike insensible
to their danger and to their disgrace. The enemy’s horsemen
perceiving this confusion, bore down at a gallop, broke through the
disorderly mob, cutting to the right and left as they passed, and
riding so close to the columns, that the infantry were forced to
halt in order to check their audacity.
At Calcabellos the reserve took up a position, and the
general-in-chief went on to Villa Franca. In that town great
excesses had been committed by the preceding divisions; the
magazines were plundered, the bakers driven away from the ovens,
the wine stores forced, and the commissaries prevented from making
the regular distributions; the doors of the houses were broken,
and the scandalous insubordination of the soldiers proved that a
discreditable relaxation of discipline on the part of the officers
had taken place. The general immediately arrested this disorder,
caused one man taken in the act of plundering a magazine to be
shot in the market-place, and issued severe orders to prevent a
recurrence of such inexcusable conduct, after which he returned to
the reserve at Calcavellos.
The Guia, a small, but at this season of the year a deep stream,
run through that town, and was crossed by a stone bridge. On the
Villa Franca side, a lofty ridge, rough with vineyards and stone
walls, was occupied by two thousand five hundred infantry, with
a battery of six guns. Four hundred[23] riflemen and about the
same number of cavalry were posted on a hill two miles beyond the
river, to watch the two roads of Bembibre and Foncevadon. The 3d of
January, a little after noon, the French general Colbert approached
this hill with six or eight squadrons; but observing the ground
behind Calcabellos strongly occupied, he demanded reinforcements.
Marshal Soult, believing that the English did not mean to make a
stand, sent orders to Colbert to charge without delay; and the
latter, stung by the message, obeyed with precipitate fury. From
one of those errors so frequent in war, the British cavalry,
thinking a greater force was riding against them, retired at speed
to Calcabellos. The riflemen, who, following their orders, had
withdrawn when the French first came in sight, were just passing
the bridge, when a crowd of staff officers, the cavalry, and the
enemy, came in upon them in one mass; in the confusion thirty or
forty men were taken, and Colbert crossing the river, charged
on the spur up the road. The remainder of the riflemen threw
themselves into the vineyards, and permitting the enemy to approach
within a few yards, suddenly opened such a deadly fire, that the
greatest number of the French horsemen were killed on the spot,
and among the rest Colbert himself. His fine martial figure, his
voice, his gestures, and, above all, his daring valour had excited
the admiration of the British, and a general feeling of sorrow was
predominant when the gallant soldier fell. The French voltigeurs
now crossed the river; a few of the 52d regiment descended from
the upper part of the ridge to the assistance of the riflemen, and
a sharp skirmish commenced, in which two or three hundred men of
both sides were killed or wounded: towards evening Merle’s division
of infantry appeared on the hills in front of the town, and made
a demonstration of crossing the river opposite to the left of
the English position; but the battery of the latter checked this
movement, and night coming on the combat ceased.
From Villa Franca to Lugo the road led through a rugged country;
the cavalry were therefore sent on to the latter town at once.
During the night the French patroles broke in upon the rifle
piquets, and wounded some men, but were beaten back without being
able to discover that the English troops had abandoned the position.
The reserve reached Herrerias, a distance of eighteen miles, on the
morning of the 5th. Baird’s division was at Nogales, Hope’s and
Fraser’s near Lugo. At Herrerias, sir John Moore, who constantly
directed the movements of the rear-guard himself, received the
first reports of the engineers relative to the harbours. It
appeared that Vigo, besides its greater distance, offered no
position to cover the embarkation, but Coruña and Betanzos did.
This induced him to relinquish his first intention of going to
Vigo, and made him regret the absence of his light brigades. The
transports were now ordered round from Vigo to Coruña; and in the
mean time the general sent orders to the leading division to halt
at Lugo, his intention being to rally the army there, to restore
discipline, and to offer battle to the enemy if he was inclined to
accept it.
These orders were carried to sir David Baird by one of the
aides-de-camp of the commander-in-chief; but sir David forwarded
them by a private dragoon, who got drunk and lost the despatch.
This blameable irregularity was ruinous to general Fraser’s troops:
in lieu of resting two days at Lugo, that general unwittingly
pursued his toilsome journey towards St. Jago de Compostella, and
then returned without food or rest, losing by this pilgrimage
above four hundred stragglers. The 4th, the reserve reached
Nogales, having by a forced march of thirty-six miles gained
twelve hours’ start of the enemy. At the entrance of this village
they met a large convoy, consisting of English clothing, shoes,
and ammunition; intended for Romana’s army but moving towards the
enemy; a circumstance perfectly characteristic of the Spanish mode
of conducting public affairs. There was a bridge at Nogales which
the engineers failed to destroy; but this was a matter of little
consequence, as the river was fordable above and below; indeed
the general was unwilling, unless for some palpable advantage,
which seldom presented itself, to injure the communications of a
country that he was unable to serve. The bridges were commonly very
solidly constructed, and the arches having very little span, could
be rendered passable again in a shorter time than they could be
destroyed.
At this period of the retreat the road was crowded with stragglers
and baggage; the peasantry, although armed, did not molest the
French; but fearing both sides alike, drove their cattle and
carried off their effects into the mountains on each side of the
line of march; even there the villanous marauders contrived to
find them, and in some cases were by the Spaniards killed; a just
punishment for quitting their colours. Under the most favourable
circumstances, the tail of a retreating force exhibits terrible
scenes of distress; and on the road near Nogales, the followers
of the army were dying fast from cold and hunger. The soldiers,
barefooted, harassed, and weakened, by their excesses at Bembibre
and Villa Franca, were dropping to the rear by hundreds. Broken
carts, dead animals, and the piteous appearance of women with
children, struggling or falling exhausted in the snow, completed a
picture of war, which, like Janus, has a double face.
Towards evening the French recovered their lost ground, and passed
Nogales, galling the rear-guard with a continual skirmish; and
here it was that dollars to the amount of twenty-five thousand
pounds were abandoned. This small sum was kept near head-quarters
to answer sudden emergencies, and the bullocks that drew it being
tired, the general, who could not save the money without risking
an ill-timed action, had it rolled down the side of the mountain;
part of it was gathered by the enemy, part by the Gallician
peasants[24].
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
This day also, general Franceschi, who after turning Villa Franca
and scouring the valley of the Syl, had ascended the banks of the
Minho with his cavalry, fell into the line of march at Becerea, and
rejoined the French army. Towards evening the reserve approached
Constantino; the French were close upon the rear, and a hill within
pistol shot of the bridge offered them such an advantage, that
there was little hope to effect the passage without great loss.
The general caused the riflemen and artillery to take possession
of the hill, under cover of which the remainder of the reserve
hastily passed across the river without being perceived by the
enemy, who were unusually cautious, and not aware of the vicinity
of the bridge; the guns then descended at a trot, the riflemen
followed, and when the French, now undeceived, came up at a brisk
pace, the passage was effected, and a good line of battle formed
at the other side; a fight commenced, but notwithstanding that the
assailants were continually reinforced as their columns of march
arrived, general Paget maintained the post with two regiments until
nightfall, and then retired to Lugo, in front of which the whole
army was assembled. A few of the French cavalry showed themselves
on the 6th, but the infantry did not appear.
The 7th, sir John Moore, in a general order, gave a severe but just
rebuke to the officers and soldiers for their previous want of
discipline, and at the same time announced his intention to offer
battle. It has been well said, that a British army may be gleaned
in a retreat, but cannot be reaped. Whatever may be their misery,
the soldiers will always be found clean at review, and ready at a
fight. Scarcely was this order issued, when the line of battle, so
attenuated before, was filled with vigorous men, full of confidence
and valour. Fifteen hundred had fallen in action, or dropped to
the rear; but as three fresh battalions left by sir David Baird in
his advance to Astorga had joined the army between Villa Franca
and Lugo, nineteen thousand combatants were still under arms when
the French columns appeared in sight. The right of the English
position was in comparatively flat ground, and partially protected
by a bend of the Minho. The centre was amongst vineyards, with
low stone walls. The left, which was somewhat withdrawn, rested
on the mountains, being supported and covered by the cavalry. It
was the intention of the general to engage deeply with his right
and centre before he closed with his left wing, in which he had
posted the flower of his troops, hoping thus to bring on a decisive
battle, and trusting to the valour of the men to handle the enemy
in such sort as that he should be glad to let the army continue its
retreat unmolested. Other hope than this, to re-embark the troops
without loss, there was none, except by stratagem; for Soult, an
experienced general, commanding soldiers habituated to war, might
be tempted, but could never be forced to engage in a decisive
battle among those rugged mountains, where whole days would pass in
skirmishing, without any progress being made towards crippling an
adversary.
It was mid-day before the French marshal arrived in person at the
head of ten or twelve thousand men; the remainder of his power
followed in some disarray; for the marches had not been so easy
but that many even of the oldest soldiers had dropped behind. As
the French columns came up, they formed in order of battle along
a strong mountainous ridge fronting the English. The latter were
not distinctly seen, from the inequalities of the ground, and
Soult feeling doubtful if they were all before him, took four
guns, and some squadrons commanded by colonel Lallemande, advanced
towards the centre, and opened a fire, which was soon silenced by
a reply from fifteen pieces. The marshal being then satisfied that
something more than a rear guard was in his front, retired. About
an hour after he made a feint on the right, and at the same time
sent a column of infantry and five guns against the left. On that
side the three regiments which had lately joined were drawn up. The
French pushed the outposts hard, and were gaining the advantage;
when the English general-in-chief arriving, rallied the light
troops, and with a vigorous charge broke the adverse column, and
treated it very roughly in the pursuit. The estimated loss of the
French was between three and four hundred men.
[Sidenote: S. Journal of Operations, MS.]
As it was now evident that the British meant to give battle, the
duke of Dalmatia hastened the march of Laborde’s division, which
was still in the rear, and requested marshal Ney, who was then at
Villa Franca, to detach a division of the sixth corps by the Val
des Orres to Orense. Ney, however, merely sent some troops into the
valley of the Syl, and pushed his advanced posts in front as far as
Nogales, Poyo, and Dancos.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
At daybreak on the 8th the two armies were still embattled. On the
French side, seventeen thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry,
and fifty pieces of artillery were in line, but Soult deferred
the attack until the 9th. On the English part, sixteen thousand
infantry, eighteen hundred cavalry, and forty pieces of artillery,
impatiently awaited the assault, and blamed their adversary for
delaying a contest which they ardently desired; but darkness fell
without a shot having being fired, and with it fell the English
general’s hope to engage his enemy on equal terms.
What was to be done? assail the French position? remain another
day in expectation of a battle? or, in secrecy, gain a march,
get on board without being molested, or at least obtain time to
establish the army in a good situation to cover the embarkation?
The first operation was warranted neither by present nor by future
advantages, for how could an inferior army expect to cripple a
superior one, posted as the French were, on a strong mountain,
with an overbearing cavalry to protect their infantry should the
latter be beaten; and when twenty thousand fresh troops were at
the distance of two short marches in the rear. The British army
was not provided to fight above one battle. There were no draught
cattle, no means of transporting reserve ammunition, no magazines,
no hospitals, no second line, no provisions. A defeat would have
been ruin, a victory useless. A battle is always a serious affair;
but two battles under such circumstances, though both should be
victories, would have been destruction.
But why fight at all, after the army had been rallied, and the
disasters of the march from Astorga had been remedied? What, if
beating first Soult and then Ney, the British had arrived once more
above Astorga, with perhaps ten thousand infantry, and half as
many hundred cavalry? From the mountains of Gallicia their general
might have cast his eyes as far as the Sierra Morena, without
being cheered by the sight of a single Spanish army; none were
in existence to aid him, none to whom he might give aid. Even Mr.
Frere acknowledged that at this period six thousand ill-armed men
collected at Despeñas Peros formed the only barrier between the
French and Seville, and sir John Moore was sent out not to waste
English blood in fruitless battles, but to assist the universal
Spanish nation!
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Papers.]
The second proposition was decided by the state of the magazines;
there was not bread for another day’s consumption remaining in
the stores at Lugo. It was true that the army was in heart for
fighting, but distressed by fatigue and bad weather, and each
moment of delay increased privations that would soon have rendered
it inefficient for a campaign in the south, which was the only
point where its services could now be effectual. For two whole days
sir John Moore had offered battle; this was sufficient to rally
the troops, to restore order, and to preserve the reputation of
the army. Lugo was strong ground in itself, but it did not cover
Coruña. The road leading from Orense to St. Jago de Compostella
turned it; the French ought to have been on that line, and there
was no reason to suppose that they were not. Soult, we have seen,
pressed Ney to follow it. It was then impossible to remain at Lugo,
and useless if it had been possible.
The general adopted the third plan, and prepared to decamp in the
night; he ordered the fires to be kept bright, and exhorted the
troops to make a great exertion, which he trusted would be the last
required of them.
The country immediately in the rear of the position was intersected
by stone walls and a number of intricate lanes; precautions were
taken to mark the right tracks, by placing bundles of straw
at certain distances, and officers were appointed to guide the
columns. At ten o’clock the troops silently quitted their ground,
and retired in excellent order; but a moody fortune pursued sir
John Moore throughout this campaign, baffling his prudence, and
thwarting his views, as if resolved to prove the unyielding
firmness of his mind. A terrible storm of wind and rain, mixed
with sleet, commenced as the army broke up from the position; the
marks were destroyed, and the guides lost the true direction; only
one of the divisions happily gained the main road, the other two
were bewildered, and when daylight broke, the rear columns were
still near to Lugo. The fatigue, the depression of mind, occasioned
by this misfortune, and the want of shoes, broke the order of
the march, and the stragglers were, becoming numerous, when
unfortunately, one of the generals commanding a leading division,
thinking to relieve the men during a halt which took place in the
night, desired them to take refuge from the weather in some houses
a little way off the road. Complete disorganization followed this
imprudent act: from that moment it became impossible to make the
soldiers of the division keep their ranks; plunder succeeded, the
example was infectious, and what with real suffering, and evil
propensity encouraged by this error of inexperience, the main body
of the army, which had _bivouaced_ for six hours in the rain,
arrived at Betanzos on the evening of the 9th, in a state very
discreditable to its discipline.
[Sidenote: Mr. James Moore’s Narrative.]
The commander-in-chief, with the reserve and the cavalry, as
usual, covered the march; in the course of it he ordered several
bridges to be destroyed, but the engineers failed of success
in every attempt. Fortunately, the enemy did not come up with
the rear before the evening, and then only with their cavalry,
otherwise many prisoners must have fallen into their hands. The
number of stragglers uncovered by the passage of the reserve was
so numerous, that being pressed by the enemy’s horse, they united
in considerable bodies and repulsed them, a signal proof that the
disorder was occasioned as much by insubordination in the regiments
as by the fatigue of the march.
The reserve, commanded by general Edward Paget, an officer
distinguished during the retreat by his firmness, ability, and
ardent zeal, remained in position, during the night, a few miles
from Betanzos. The rest of the army was quartered in that town,
and as the enemy could not gather in strength on the 10th; the
commander-in-chief halted that day, and the cavalry passed from the
rear-guard to the head of the column.
The 11th, the French interrupted those employed to destroy the
bridge of Betanzos; the twenty-eighth regiment repulsed the
skirmishers, but the bridge, though constructed of wood, was only
partially destroyed.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 26.]
In the meantime sir John Moore assembled the army in one solid
mass. The loss of men in the march from Lugo to Betanzos had been
greater than that in all the former part of the retreat, added to
all the waste of the movement in advance and the loss sustained
in the different actions: nevertheless fourteen thousand infantry
were still in column, and by an orderly march to Coruña under the
personal direction of the commander-in-chief, demonstrated, that
inattention and the want of experience in the officers was the true
cause of those disorders which had afflicted the army far more
than the sword of the enemy or the rigour of the elements.
As the troops approached Coruña the general’s looks were directed
towards the harbour; an open expanse of water painfully convinced
him, that to Fortune at least he was no way beholden; contrary
winds detained the fleet at Vigo, and the last consuming exertion
made by the army was thus rendered fruitless! The men were now put
into quarters, and their leader awaited the progress of events.
Three divisions occupied the town and suburbs, the reserve was
posted with its left at the village of El Burgo, and its right
on the road of St. Jago de Compostella. For twelve days these
hardy soldiers had covered the retreat, during which time they
had traversed eighty miles of road in two marches, passed several
nights under arms in the snow of the mountains, were seven times
engaged with the enemy, and they now assembled at the outposts,
having fewer men missing from the ranks (including those who had
fallen in battle) than any other division in the army. An admirable
instance of the value of good discipline, and a manifest proof of
the malignant injustice with which sir John Moore has been accused
of precipitating his retreat beyond the measure of human strength.
The bridge of El Burgo was immediately destroyed, and an engineer
was sent to blow up that of Cambria, situated a few miles up the
Mero river; this officer was mortified at the former failures, and
so anxious to perform his duty in an effectual manner, that he
remained too near the mine, and was killed by the explosion; but
there was also a bridge at Celas, two leagues higher up, and at
that place Franceschi’s cavalry crossed on the 12th, intercepted
some stores coming from St. Jago, and made a few prisoners.
The town of Coruña, although sufficiently strong to oblige an
enemy to break ground before it, was weakly fortified, and to
the southward commanded by some heights close to the walls. Sir
John Moore caused the land front to be repaired and strengthened,
and also disarmed the sea face of the works, and occupied the
citadel. The inhabitants cheerfully and honourably joined in the
labour, although they were fully aware that the English intended
to embark, and that they compromised their own safety by aiding
the operation. Such flashes of light from the dark cloud which at
this moment covered Spain may startle the mind of the reader, and
make him doubt if the Spaniards could have been so insufficient to
their own defence as they have been represented in the course of
this history. I can only answer, that the facts were as I have told
them, and that it was such paradoxical indications of character
that deceived the world at this time, and induced men to believe
that the reckless daring defiance of the power of France so loudly
proclaimed by the patriots, would be strenuously supported. Of
proverbially vivid imagination and quick resentments, the Spaniards
feel and act individually rather than nationally; and during this
war, that which appeared to be in them constancy of purpose, was in
reality a repetition of momentary fury, a succession of electric
sparks generated by a constant collision with the French army, and
daily becoming fainter as custom reconciled them to those injuries
and insults which are commonly the attendants of war.
Procrastination and improvidence are the besetting sins of the
nation: at this moment a large magazine of arms and ammunition was
in Coruña; these stores had been sent in the early part of the
preceding year from England, and they were still unappropriated
and unregarded by a nation infested with three hundred thousand
enemies, and possessing a hundred thousand soldiers unclothed and
without weapons.
Three miles from the town, four thousand barrels of powder were
piled in a magazine built upon a hill; a smaller quantity,
collected in another storehouse, was at some distance from the
first: to prevent these magazines from falling a prey to the
enemy, they were both exploded on the 13th. The inferior one blew
up with a terrible noise and shook the houses in the town; but
when the train reached the great store, there ensued a crash like
the bursting forth of a volcano, the earth trembled for miles,
the rocks were torn from their bases, and the agitated waters
rolled the vessels as in a storm; a vast column of smoke and dust,
shooting out fiery sparks from its sides, arose perpendicularly
and slowly to a great height, and then a shower of stones, and
fragments of all kinds, bursting out of it with a roaring sound,
killed several persons who remained too near the spot. A stillness,
only interrupted by the lashing of the waves on the shore,
succeeded, and the business of the war went on.
The ground in front of Coruña is impracticable for cavalry, and
as the horses still left alive were generally foundered, and that
it was impossible to embark them all in the face of an enemy,
a great number were reluctantly ordered to be shot. These poor
animals, already worn down and feet broken, would otherwise have
been distributed among the French cavalry, or used as draft cattle,
until by procrastinated sufferings of the nature they had already
endured, they should be killed.
The enemy were now collecting in force on the Mero, and it
became necessary to choose a position of battle. A chain of rocky
elevations commencing on the sea-coast, north-west of the place,
and ending on the Mero just behind the village of El Burgo, offered
an advantageous line of defence; covered by a branch of the
Mero, which, washing a part of the base, would have obliged the
enemy to advance by the road of Compostella; but this ridge was
too extensive for the English army, and if not wholly occupied,
the French might have turned it by the right, and moved along a
succession of eminences to the very gates of Coruña. There was no
alternative but to take post on an inferior range, enclosed as
it were within the other, and completely commanded by it within
cannon-shot.
The French army had been so exhausted by continual toil, that it
was not completely assembled on the Mero before the 12th. The
infantry took post opposite El Burgo; the cavalry of La Houssaye
lined the river as far as the ocean, and Franceschi, as we have
seen, crossed at the bridge of Celas, seven miles higher up. The
14th, the bridges of El Burgo being rendered practicable for
artillery, two divisions of infantry, and one of cavalry, passed
the river. To cover this march some guns opened on the English
posts at El Burgo, but were soon silenced by a superior fire. The
same evening, the transports from Vigo hove in sight, and soon
after entered the harbour of Coruña, and the dismounted cavalry,
the sick, all the best horses, and fifty-two pieces of artillery,
were embarked during the night; eight British, and four Spanish
guns, were, however, retained on shore ready for action.
[Sidenote: Noble’s Expedition de Galice.]
The 15th, La Borde’s division arrived, and the French occupied the
great ridge enclosing the British position, placing their right on
the intersection of the roads leading from St. Jago and Betanzos,
and their left upon a rocky eminence which overlooked both lines.
Towards evening, their cavalry, supported by some light troops,
extended towards the left, and a slight skirmish took place in
the valley below. At the same time the English piquets opposite
the right of the French, got engaged, and being galled by the
fire of two guns, colonel M’Kenzie of the fifth, at the head of
some companies, endeavoured to seize the battery; but a line of
infantry, hitherto concealed by some stone walls, arose, and poured
in such a fire of musketry, that the colonel was killed, and his
men forced back with loss.
[Sidenote: Noble’s Expedition de Galice.]
In the course of the night, marshal Soult with great difficulty
established a battery of eleven guns, (eight and twelve-pounders,)
on the rocks which formed the left of his line of battle. Laborde’s
division was posted on the right; half of it occupied the high
ground, the other half was placed on the descent towards the river.
Merle’s division was in the centre. Mermet’s division formed
the left. The position was covered in front of the right by the
villages of Palavia Abaxo, and Portosa, and in front of the centre
by a wood; the left was strongly posted on the rugged heights where
the great battery was established. The distance from that battery
to the right of the English line was about twelve hundred yards,
and, midway, the little village of Elvina was held by the piquets
of the latter nation.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Letter to L^d. Castle^h.]
The late arrival of the transports, the increasing force of the
enemy, and the disadvantageous nature of the ground, augmented the
difficulty and danger of the embarkation so much, that several
general officers proposed to the commander-in-chief, that he should
negotiate for leave to retire to his ships upon terms. There was
little chance of such a proposal being agreed to by the enemy, and
there was no reason to try. The army had suffered, but not from
defeat; its situation was dangerous, but far from desperate; and
the general would not consent to remove the stamp of energy and
prudence which marked his retreat, by a negotiation that would have
given an appearance of timidity and indecision to his previous
operations, as opposite to their real character as light is to
darkness. His high spirit and clear judgment revolted at the idea,
and he rejected the degrading advice without hesitation.
All the encumbrances of the army were shipped in the night of the
15th and on the morning of the 16th, and every thing was prepared
to withdraw the fighting men as soon as the darkness would permit
them to move without being perceived. The precautions taken
would, without doubt, have insured the success of this difficult
operation, but a more glorious event was destined to give a
melancholy but graceful termination to the campaign. About two
o’clock in the afternoon a general movement along the French line
gave notice of the approaching
BATTLE OF CORUÑA.
[Sidenote: Vide Plan of the Battle.]
The British infantry, fourteen thousand five hundred strong,
occupied the inferior range of hills already spoken of. The right
was formed by Baird’s division, and, from the oblique direction of
the ridge, approached the enemy, while the centre and left were
of necessity withheld in such a manner that the French battery on
the rocks raked the whole of the line. General Hope’s division,
crossing the main road, prolonged the line of the right’s wing,
and occupied strong ground abutting on the muddy bank of the
Mero. A brigade from Baird’s division remained in column behind
the extremities of his line, and a brigade of Hope’s was posted on
different commanding points behind the left wing. The reserve was
drawn up near Airis, a small village situated in the rear of the
centre. This last point commanded the valley which separated the
right of Baird’s division from the hills occupied by the French
cavalry; the latter were kept in check by a regiment detached
from the reserve, and a chain of skirmishers extending across the
valley connected this regiment with the right of Baird’s line.
General Fraser’s division remaining on the heights immediately
before the gates of Coruña, was prepared to advance to any point,
and also watched the coast road. These dispositions were as able
as the unfavourable nature of the ground would admit of, but the
advantage was all on the enemy’s side. His light cavalry, under
Franceschi, reaching nearly to the village of St. Christopher, a
mile in the rear of Baird’s division, obliged sir John Moore to
weaken his front by keeping back Fraser’s division until Soult’s
plan of attack should be completely developed. There was, however,
one circumstance to compensate for these disadvantages. In the
Spanish stores were found many thousand English muskets; the troops
exchanged their old rusty and battered arms for these new ones;
their ammunition also was fresh, and their fire was therefore very
superior to their adversary’s in proportion to the numbers engaged.
General Laborde’s division being come up, the French force could
not be less than twenty thousand men; and the duke of Dalmatia
having made his arrangements, did not lose any time in idle
evolutions, but distributing his lighter guns along the front of
his position, opened a heavy fire from the battery on his left,
and instantly descended with three solid masses to the assault. A
cloud of skirmishers led the way, and the British piquets being
driven back in disorder, the village of Elvina was carried by the
first column, which afterwards dividing, one half pushed on against
Baird’s front, the other turned his right by the valley. The second
column made for the centre. The third engaged the left by the
village of Palavia Abaxo. The weight of the French guns overmatched
the English six-pounders, and their shot swept the position to the
centre.
Sir John Moore observing, that, according to his expectations, the
enemy did not show any body of infantry beyond that which, moving
up the valley, outflanked Baird’s right, ordered general Paget
to carry the reserve to where the detached regiment was posted,
and, as he had before arranged with him, to turn the left of the
French attack and menace the great battery. Then directing Fraser’s
division to support Paget, he threw back the fourth regiment,
which formed the right of Baird’s division, opened a heavy fire
upon the flank of the troops penetrating up the valley, and with
the fiftieth and forty-second regiments met those breaking through
Elvina.
[Sidenote: Moore’s Narrative.]
The ground about that village was intersected by stone walls and
hollow roads; a severe, scrambling fight ensued, but in half an
hour the French were borne back with great loss. The fiftieth
regiment entered the village with them, and after a second struggle
drove them for some distance beyond it. Meanwhile the general
bringing up a battalion of the brigade of guards to fill the space
in the line left vacant by those two regiments, the forty-second
mistook his intention, and retired, and at that moment the enemy,
being reinforced, renewed the fight beyond the village, the officer
commanding the fiftieth[25] was wounded and taken prisoner, and
Elvina became the scene of a second struggle; this being observed
by the commander-in-chief, who directed in person the operations
of Baird’s division, he addressed a few animating words to the
forty-second, and caused it to return to the attack. General Paget,
with the reserve, now descended into the valley, and the line of
skirmishers being thus supported, vigorously checked the advance
of the enemy’s troops in that quarter, while the fourth regiment
galled their flank. At the same time the centre and left of the
army also became engaged; sir David Baird was severely wounded, and
a furious action ensued along the line, in the valley, and on the
hills.
[Sidenote: Mr. James Moore’s Narrative. Hardinge’s Letter.]
Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the fight
about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a
cannon shot; the shock threw him from his horse with violence; he
rose again in a sitting posture; his countenance unchanged, and
his stedfast eye still fixed upon the regiments engaged in his
front; no sigh betrayed a sensation of pain; but in a few moments,
when he was satisfied that the troops were gaining ground, his
countenance brightened, and he suffered himself to be taken to the
rear. Then was seen the dreadful nature of his hurt; the shoulder
was shattered to pieces, the arm was hanging by a piece of skin,
the ribs over the heart broken, and bared of flesh, and the muscles
of the breast torn into long strips, which were interlaced by their
recoil from the dragging of the shot. As the soldiers placed him in
a blanket his sword got entangled, and the hilt entered the wound.
Captain Hardinge, a staff officer, who was near, attempted to take
it off, but the dying man stopped him, saying, “_It is as well as
it is. I had rather it should go out of the field with me._” And
in that manner, so becoming to a soldier, Moore was borne from the
fight.
During this time the army was rapidly gaining ground. The reserve,
overthrowing every thing in the valley, and obliging La Houssaye’s
dragoons (who had dismounted) to retire, turned the enemy’s left,
and even approached the eminence upon which the great battery
was posted. On the left, colonel Nicholls, at the head of some
companies of the fourteenth, carried Palavio Abaxo (which general
Foy defended but feebly), and in the centre, the obstinate dispute
for Elvina terminated in favour of the British; so that when the
night set in their line was considerably advanced beyond the
original position of the morning, and the French were falling back
in confusion.
If at this time general Fraser’s division had been brought into
action along with the reserve, the enemy could hardly have escaped
a signal overthrow; for the little ammunition Soult had been able
to bring up was nearly exhausted, the river Mero, with a full tide,
was behind him, and the difficult communication by the bridge of El
Burgo was alone open for a retreat. On the other hand, to continue
the action in the dark was to tempt fortune, for the French were
still the most numerous, and their ground was strong. The disorder
they were in offered such a favourable opportunity to get on
board the ships, that sir John Hope, upon whom the command of the
army had devolved, satisfied with having repulsed the attack,
judged it more prudent to pursue the original plan of embarking
during the night, and this operation was effected without delay;
the arrangements being so complete that neither confusion nor
difficulty occurred.
[Illustration: _SKETCH OF THE_ BATTLE OF CORUÑA 16^{th}. Jan^y.
1808.]
The piquets kindling a number of fires, covered the retreat of the
columns, and were themselves withdrawn at daybreak, and embarked,
under the protection of general Hill’s brigade, which was posted
near the ramparts of the town. When the morning dawned, the French,
observing that the British had abandoned their position, pushed
forward some battalions to the heights of St. Lucie, and about
mid-day succeeded in establishing a battery, which playing upon the
shipping in the harbour, caused a great deal of disorder among the
transports. Several masters cut their cables, and four vessels went
ashore; but the troops being immediately removed by the men of
war’s boats, the stranded vessels were burnt, and the whole fleet
at last got out of harbour. General Hill’s brigade then embarked
from the citadel; but general Beresford, with a rear guard, still
kept possession of that work until the 18th, when the wounded being
all put on board, his troops likewise embarked[26]. The inhabitants
faithfully maintained the town against the French, and the fleet
sailed for England.
Thus ended the retreat to Coruña; a transaction which, up to this
day, has called forth as much of falsehood and malignity as servile
and interested writers could offer to the unprincipled leaders of a
base faction, but which posterity will regard as a genuine example
of ability and patriotism.
[Sidenote: Captain’s Hardinge’s Letter.]
[Sidenote: Mr. James Moore’s Narrative.]
From the spot where he fell, the general who had conducted it
was carried to the town by a party of soldiers. The blood flowed
fast, and the torture of his wound increased; but such was the
unshaken firmness of his mind, that those about him judging
from the resolution of his countenance that his hurt was not
mortal, expressed a hope of his recovery. Hearing this, he looked
stedfastly at the injury for a moment, and then said, “_No, I feel
that to be impossible._” Several times he caused his attendants
to stop and turn him round, that he might behold the field of
battle, and when the firing indicated the advance of the British he
discovered his satisfaction, and permitted the bearers to proceed.
Being brought to his lodgings the surgeons examined his wound, but
there was no hope; the pain increased, and he spoke with great
difficulty. At intervals he asked if the French were beaten, and
addressing his old friend colonel Anderson, he said, “_You know
that I always wished to die this way._” Again he asked if the
enemy were defeated, and being told they were, observed, “_It is
a great satisfaction to me to know we have beaten the French._”
His countenance continued firm, and his thoughts clear; once only,
when he spoke of his mother, he became agitated. He inquired after
the safety of his friends, and the officers of his staff, and he
did not even in this moment forget to recommend those whose merit
had given them claims to promotion. His strength was failing fast,
and life was just extinct, when, with an unsubdued spirit, as
if anticipating the baseness of his posthumous calumniators, he
exclaimed, “_I hope the people of England will be satisfied! I hope
my country will do me justice!_” The battle was scarcely ended,
when his corpse, wrapped in a military cloak, was interred by the
officers of his staff in the citadel of Coruña. The guns of the
enemy paid his funeral honours, and Soult, with a noble feeling of
respect for his valour, raised a monument to his memory.
Thus ended the career of sir John Moore, a man whose uncommon
capacity was sustained by the purest virtue, and governed by a
disinterested patriotism more in keeping with the primitive than
the luxurious age of a great nation. His tall graceful person, his
dark searching eyes, strongly defined forehead, and singularly
expressive mouth, indicated a noble disposition and a refined
understanding. The lofty sentiments of honour habitual to his
mind, adorned by a subtle playful wit, gave him in conversation an
ascendancy that he could well preserve by the decisive vigour of
his actions. He maintained the right with a vehemence bordering
upon fierceness, and every important transaction in which he was
engaged increased his reputation for talent, and confirmed his
character as a stern enemy to vice, a stedfast friend to merit, a
just and faithful servant of his country. The honest loved him,
the dishonest feared him; for while he lived, he did not shun but
scorned and spurned the base, and, with characteristic propriety,
they spurned at him when he was dead.
A soldier from his earliest youth, he thirsted for the honours of
his profession, and feeling that he was worthy to lead a British
army, hailed the fortune that placed him at the head of the troops
destined for Spain. The stream of time passed rapidly, and the
inspiring hopes of triumph disappeared, but the austerer glory
of suffering remained; with a firm heart he accepted that gift
of a severe fate, and confiding in the strength of his genius,
disregarded the clamours of presumptuous ignorance; opposing sound
military views to the foolish projects so insolently thrust upon
him by the ambassador, he conducted a long and arduous retreat with
sagacity, intelligence, and fortitude. No insult could disturb, no
falsehood deceive him, no remonstrance shake his determination;
fortune frowned without subduing his constancy; death struck, and
the spirit of the man remained unbroken when his shattered body
scarcely afforded it a habitation. Having done all that was just
towards others, he remembered what was due to himself. Neither
the shock of the mortal blow, nor the lingering hours of acute
pain which preceded his dissolution, could quell the pride of his
gallant heart, or lower the dignified feeling with which (conscious
of merit) he asserted his right to the gratitude of the country he
had served so truly.
If glory be a distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller!
CHAPTER VI.
OBSERVATIONS.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CAMPAIGN.
Mr. Canning, in an official communication to the Spanish deputies
in London, observed, that “the conduct of the campaign in
Portugal was unsatisfactory, and inadequate to the brilliant
successes with which it opened.” In the relation of that campaign
it has been shown how little the activity and foresight of the
cabinet contributed to those successes, and the following short
analysis will prove that, with respect to the campaign in Spain,
the proceedings of the ministers were marked by tardiness and
incapacity.
Joseph abandoned Madrid the 3rd of August, and on the 11th of the
same month the French troops from the most distant parts of Europe
were in motion to remedy the disasters in the Peninsula.
The 1st of September a double conscription, furnishing one hundred
and sixty thousand men, was called out to replace the troops
withdrawn from Poland and Germany.
The 4th of September the emperor announced to the senate, that
“he was resolved to push the affairs of the Peninsula with the
greatest activity, and to destroy the armies which the English had
disembarked in that country.”
The 11th, the advanced guard of the army coming from Germany
reached Paris, and was there publicly harangued by the emperor.
The 8th of November he burst into Spain at the head of three
hundred thousand men, and the 5th of December not a vestige of the
Spanish armies remaining, he took possession of Madrid.
Now the Asturian deputies arrived in London the 6th of June.
The 20th of August (the battle of Vimiero being then unfought, and,
consequently, the fate of the campaign in Portugal uncertain,)
the English minister invited sir Hew Dalrymple to discuss three
plans of operations in Spain, each founded upon data utterly
false, and all objectionable in the detail. He also desired that
sir Arthur Wellesley should go to the Asturias to ascertain what
facilities that country offered for the disembarkation of an
English army; and the whole number of troops disposable for the
campaign (exclusive of those already in Portugal) he stated to be
twenty thousand, of which one half was in England and the other
in Sicily. He acknowledged that no information yet received had
enabled the cabinet to decide as to the application of the forces
at home, or the ulterior use to be made of those in Portugal,
yet, with singular rashness, the whole of the southern provinces,
containing the richest cities, finest harbours, and most numerous
armies, were discarded from consideration, and sir Hew Dalrymple,
who was well acquainted with that part of Spain, and in close and
friendly correspondence with the chiefs, was directed to confine
his attention to the northern provinces, of which he knew nothing.
The reduction of Junot’s army in Portugal, and the discomfiture
of Joseph’s on the Ebro, were regarded as certain events. The
observations of the minister were principally directed, not to the
best mode of attacking, but to the choice of a line of march that
would ensure the utter destruction or captivity of the whole French
army; nay, elated with extravagant hopes and strangely despising
Napoleon’s power, he instructed lord William Bentinck to urge the
central junta to an invasion of France, as soon as the army on the
Ebro should be annihilated.
Thus it appears that the English ministers were either profoundly
ignorant of the real state of affairs, or that with a force
scattered in England, Portugal, and Sicily, and not exceeding
forty-five thousand men, they expected in one campaign, first to
subdue twenty-six thousand French under Junot, and then destroying
eighty thousand under Joseph, to turn the tide of war, and to
invade France.
The battle of Vimiero took place, and sir Arthur Wellesley
naturally declined a mission more suitable to a staff captain than
a victorious commander; but before sir Hew’s answer, exposing the
false calculations of the minister’s plans, could be received in
England, a despatch, dated the 2d of September, announced the
resolution of the government to employ an army in the northern
provinces of Spain, and directed twenty thousand men to be held
in readiness to unite with other forces to be sent from England;
nevertheless, this project also was so immature, that no intimation
was given how the junction was to be effected, whether by sea or
land; nor had the ministers even ascertained that the Spaniards
would permit English troops to enter Spain at all; for three weeks
later, lord William Bentinck, writing from Madrid, says, “I had an
interview with Florida Blanca: he expressed his surprise that there
should be a doubt of the Spaniards wishing for the assistance of
the English army.” Such also was the confusion at home, that lord
Castlereagh repeatedly expressed his fears lest the embarkation of
Junot’s troops should have “absorbed all the means of transport”
in the Tagus, when a simple reference to the transport office in
London would have satisfied him, that although the English army
should also be embarked, there would still remain a surplus of
twelve thousand tons.
When the popular cry arose against the convention of Cintra, the
generals in chief were recalled in succession, as rapidly as they
had been appointed; the despatches addressed to one generally fell
into the hands of his successor; but the plans of the ministers
becoming at last mature, on the 6th of October sir John Moore was
finally appointed to lead the forces into Spain. At this period
the head of the grand French army was already in the passes of the
Pyrenees, and the hostile troops on the Ebro coming to blows. The
Spaniards were weak and divided, and the English were forty marches
from the scene of action; yet, said the minister to sir John
Moore, “there will be full time to concert your plan of operations
with the Spanish generals before the equipment of your army can
be completed.” Was this the way to oppose Napoleon! Could such
proceedings lead to ought but disaster! It has been said, that sir
Hew Dalrymple’s negligence was the cause of this delay; that he
should have had the troops in readiness: but that general could not
prudently incur the expense of equipping for a march, an army that
was likely to be embarked; he could not, in short, divine the plans
of the ministers before they were formed; and it is evident that
the error attaches entirely to the government.
The incapacity of the Spanish generals has been already
sufficiently exposed by occasional observations in the narrative;
their faults, glaring and fatal, call for no further remark; but
the exact combinations, the energy and rapidity of the French
emperor, merit the most careful examination; his operations were
not, as they have been generally considered, a pompous display of
power, to create an appearance of conquest that was unreal, not a
mere violent irruption with a multitude of men, but a series of
skilful and scientific movements, worthy of so great a general and
politician. It is true that his force was immense, and that the
Spaniards were but contemptible soldiers; but he never neglected
the lessons of experience, nor deviated from the strictest rules
of art. With astonishing activity, and when we consider the state
of his political relations on the continent, we may add, with
astonishing boldness, he first collected ample means to attain his
object, then deceiving his enemies with regard to his numbers,
position, and intentions, and choosing his time with admirable
judgment, he broke through the weak part of their line, and seized
Burgos, a central point, which enabled him to envelop and destroy
the left wing of the Spaniards before their right could hear of his
attack, the latter being itself turned by the same movement, and
exposed to a like fate. This position also enabled him to menace
the capital, to keep the English army in check, and to cover the
formation of those magazines and stores which were necessary to
render Burgos the base and pivot of further operations.
Napoleon’s forces were numerous enough to have attacked Castaños
and Palafox, while Blake was being pursued by the first and fourth
corps; but trusting nothing to chance, he waited for twelve days,
until the position of the English army was ascertained, the
strength of the northern provinces quite broken, and a secure
place of arms established. Then leaving the second corps to cover
his communications, and sending the fourth corps into the flat
country, to coast, as it were, the heads of the English columns
on his right, and to turn the passes of the Carpentino mountains,
he caused the Spanish right wing to be destroyed, and himself
approached the capital, at a moment when not a vestige of a
national army was left, when he had good reason to think that the
English were in full retreat, when the whole of his own corps were
close at hand, and consequently when the greatest moral effect
could be produced, and the greatest physical power concentrated
at the same time to take advantage of it. Napoleon’s dispositions
were indeed surprisingly skilful; for although marshal Lefebre’s
precipitation at Zornoza, by prolonging Blake’s agony, lost six
days of promise, it is certain that reverses in battle could
neither have checked the emperor, nor helped the Spaniards.
For if Soult had been beaten at Gamonal, Napoleon was close at hand
to support the second corps, and the sixth corps would have fallen
upon the flank and rear of the Spaniards.
If the first corps had been defeated at Espinosa, the second and
fourth corps, and the emperor’s troops, would have taken Blake in
flank and rear.
If Lasnes had been defeated at Tudela, he could have fallen back on
Pampeluna; the fifth and eighth corps were marching to support him,
and the sixth corps would have taken the Spaniards in flank.
If the emperor had been repulsed at the Somosierra, the sixth corps
would have turned that position by Guadalaxara, and the fourth
corps by Guadarama.
If sir John Moore had retreated on Portugal, the fourth corps was
nearer to Lisbon than he was.
If he had overthrown Soult, the fifth and eighth corps were ready
to sustain that marshal, and Napoleon, with fifty thousand men,
as we have seen, was prepared to cut the British line of retreat
into Gallicia. In short, no possible event could have divided the
emperor’s forces, and he constantly preserved a central position
that enabled him to unite his masses in sufficient time to repair
any momentary disaster. By a judicious mixture of force and
policy also, he obliged Madrid to surrender in two days, and thus
prevented the enthusiasm which would doubtless have arisen if the
capital had been defended for any time, and the heart burnings if
it had been stormed. The second sweep that he was preparing to make
when sir John Moore’s march called off his attention from the south
would undoubtedly have put him in possession of the remaining great
cities of the Peninsula. Then the civil benefits promised in his
decrees and speeches would have produced their full effect, and the
result may be judged of by the fact that in 1811 and 12, Andalusia
and Valencia were under the able administration of marshals Soult
and Suchet, as tranquil and submissive as any department of France,
and the former even raised numerous Spanish battalions, and
employed them not only to preserve the public peace, but to chase
and put down the guerillas of the neighbouring provinces.
Sir John Moore’s talents saved the Peninsula from this great
danger, and here perhaps a military error of Napoleon’s may be
detected. Forgetting that war is not a conjectural art, he took for
granted that the English army was falling back to Portugal, and
without ascertaining that it was so, acted upon the supposition.
This apparent negligence, so unlike his usual circumspection, leads
to the notion, that through Morla he might have become acquainted
with the peculiar opinions and rash temper of Mr. Frere, and
trusted that the treacherous arts of the Spaniard, in conjunction
with the presumptuous disposition of the plenipotentiary, would so
mislead the English general, as to induce him to carry his army to
Madrid, and thus deliver it up entire and bound. It was an error;
but Napoleon could be deceived or negligent only for a moment.
With what vigour he recovered himself, and hastened to remedy his
error! How instantaneously he relinquished his intentions against
the south, turned his face away from the glittering prize, and
bent his whole force against the only man among his adversaries
that had discovered talent and decision! Let those who have seen
the preparations necessary to enable a small army to act, even
on a pre-conceived plan, say what uncontrollable energy that man
possessed, who, suddenly interrupted in such great designs, could,
in the course of a few hours, put fifty thousand men in movement
on a totally new line of operations, and in the midst of winter
execute a march of two hundred miles with a rapidity hardly to be
equalled under the most favourable circumstances.
The indefatigable activity of the duke of Dalmatia greatly
contributed to the success of the whole campaign, and it is a
remarkable circumstance, that Soult and Napoleon, advancing from
different bases, should have so combined their movements, that
(after marching, the one above a hundred, and the other two hundred
miles, through a hostile country) they effected their junction
at a given point, and at a given hour, without failure; and it
is no less remarkable that such a decided and well-conducted
operation should have been baffled by a general at the head of an
inexperienced army.
OBSERVATIONS ON SIR JOHN MOORE’S RETREAT.
When Sylla, after all his victories, styled himself a happy,
rather than a great general, he discovered his profound knowledge
of the military art. Experience had taught him that the urgent
speed of one legion, the inactivity of another, the obstinacy,
the ignorance, or the treachery of a subordinate officer,
was sufficient to mar the best concerted plan, nay, that the
intervention of a shower of rain, an unexpected ditch, or any
apparently trivial accident, might determine the fate of a whole
army. It taught him that the vicissitudes of war are so many, that
disappointment will attend the wisest combinations; that a ruinous
defeat, the work of chance, often closes the career of the boldest
and most sagacious of generals; and that to judge of a commander’s
conduct by the event alone, is equally unjust and unphilosophical,
a refuge for vanity and ignorance.
These reflections seem to be peculiarly applicable to sir John
Moore’s campaign, which has by sundry writers been so unfairly
discussed. Many of the subsequent disasters of the French can now
be distinctly traced to the operations of the British army. It
can be demonstrated that the reputation of that excellent man was
basely sacrificed at the period of his death, and that the virulent
censures passed upon his conduct have been as inconsiderate as they
were unmerited and cruel.
[Sidenote: Sir John Moore’s Journal, MSS.]
The nature of the commands held by sir John Moore in the years
1807-8-9, forced him into a series of embarrassments from which few
men could have extricated themselves. After refusing the charge
of the absurd expedition to Egypt in 1806, which ended, as he
judged it must do, unfavourably, he succeeded to the command of
the troops in Sicily, a situation which immediately involved him
in unpleasant discussions with the queen of Naples and the British
envoy: discussions to which the subsequent well-known enmity
of the cabinet of that day may be traced. By his frank conduct,
clear judgment, and firm spirit, he obtained an influence over the
wretched court of Palermo that promised the happiest results. The
queen’s repugnance to a reform was overcome, the ministers were
awed, and the miserable intrigues of the day were for the time
put down. The Sicilian army was reorganized, and a good military
system was commenced under the advice of the British general. This
promising state of affairs lasted but a short time; the Russian
fleet put into the Tagus, the French threatened Portugal, and
Sicily was no longer considered! Sir John Moore was ordered to
quit that island, and to assemble a large force at Gibraltar for
a specific service; but the troops to be gathered were dispersed
in the Mediterranean from Egypt to the straits, and their junction
could not be effected at all unless the English ambassador at
Constantinople should succeed in bringing a negotiation then
pending between the Turks and Russians to a happy issue. The
special service in question had two objects, 1º. to aid sir Sydney
Smith in carrying off the royal family of Portugal to the Brazils;
and 2º. to take possession of Madeira; but neither were made known
to the general before his arrival at Gibraltar, which was not
until after Junot had taken possession of Lisbon. Sir John Moore
then (following his instructions) proceeded home, and thus our
interests in Sicily were again abandoned to the vices and intrigues
of the court of Palermo. On the passage he crossed general Spencer
going with a force against Ceuta, and soon after he had reached
England, he was despatched to Sweden, without any specific object,
and with such vague instructions, that an immediate collision with
the unfortunate Gustavus was the consequence. Having with much
dexterity and judgment withdrawn himself and his army from the
capricious violence of that monarch, sir John was superseded and
sent to Portugal, with the third rank in an army which at that time
no man had such good claims to command as himself[27].
The good fortune of England was never more conspicuous than at this
period, when her armies and fleets were thus bandied about, and
a blind chance governed the councils at home. For first a force
collected from all parts of the Mediterranean was transported to
the Baltic sea, at a time when an expedition composed of troops
which had but a short time before come back from the Baltic were
sailing from England to the Mediterranean. An army intended to
conquer South America was happily assembled in Ireland at the
moment when an unexpected event called for their services in
Portugal, and a division destined to attack the Spaniards at
Ceuta arrived at Gibraltar at the instant when the insurrection
of Andalusia fortunately prevented them from making an attempt
that would have materially aided Napoleon’s schemes against the
Peninsula. Again, three days after sir John Moore had withdrawn
his army from Sweden, orders arrived to employ it in carrying
off the Spanish troops under Romana, an operation for which it
was not required, and which would have retarded, if not entirely
frustrated, the campaign in Portugal; nor was it the least part of
that fortune, that in such long continued voyages in bad seasons,
no disaster befell those huge fleets thus employed in bearing the
strength of England from one extremity of Europe to the other.
After the convention of Cintra, sir John Moore was again placed
at the head of an army; an appointment unexpected by him, for
the frank and bold manner in which he expressed himself to the
ministers on his return from Gottingen left him little to hope;
but the personal good-will of the king, and other circumstances,
procured him this command. Thus, in a few months after he had
quitted Sweden, Moore, with an army not exceeding twenty-four
thousand men, was in the heart of Spain, opposed to Napoleon, who
having passed the Pyrenees at the head of three hundred and thirty
thousand men, could readily bring two hundred thousand to bear on
the British; a vast disproportion of numbers, and a sufficient
answer to all the idle censures passed upon the retreat to Coruña.
The most plausible grounds of accusation against sir John Moore’s
conduct rest on three alleged errors:
1st. That he divided his forces.
2dly. That he advanced against Soult.
3dly. That he made a precipitate and unnecessary retreat.
When a general, aware of the strength of his adversary, and of
the resources to be placed at his own disposal, arranges a plan
of campaign, he may be strictly judged by the rules of art; but
if, as in the case of sir John Moore, he is suddenly appointed to
conduct important operations without a plan being arranged, or the
means given to arrange one, then it is evident that his capacity
or incapacity must be judged of, by the energy he displays, the
comprehensive view he takes of affairs, and the rapidity with which
he accommodates his measures to events, that the original vice of
his appointment will not permit him to control.
The first separation of the English army was the work of the
ministers, who sent sir David Baird to Coruña. The after separation
of the artillery was sir John Moore’s act; the reasons for which
have been already stated; but it is worth while to examine what
the effect of that measure was, and what it might have been;
and here it may be observed, that, although a brigade of light
six-pounders did accompany the troops to Almeida, the road was
_not practicable_; for the guns were in some places let down the
rocks by ropes, and in others, carried over the difficult places;
a practicable affair with one brigade; but how could the great
train of guns and ammunition waggons that accompanied sir John Hope
have passed such places without a loss of time that would have
proved more injurious to the operations than the separation of the
artillery?
The advance of the army was guided by three contingent cases,
any one of which arising would have immediately influenced the
operations; 1º. Blake on the left, or Castaños and Palafox upon the
right, might have beaten the French, and advanced to the Pyrenees.
2º. They might have maintained their position on the Ebro. 3º.
The arrival of reinforcements from France might have forced the
Spaniards to fall back upon the upper Douero, on one side, and to
the mountains of Guadalaxara on the other. In the first case, there
was no risk in marching by divisions towards Burgos, which was the
point of concentration given by the British and Spanish ministers.
In the second case, the army could safely unite at Valladolid; and
in the third case, if the division of sir David Baird had reached
Toro early in November (and this it was reasonable to expect, as
that general arrived at Coruña the 13th of October), the retrograde
movement of the Spanish armies would probably have drawn the
English to the Guadarama, as a safe and central point between
the retiring Spanish wings. Now the artillery marching from the
Alemtejo by the roads of Talavera and Naval Carnero, to Burgos,
would pass over one hundred and two Spanish leagues. To Aranda de
Douero, eighty-nine leagues. To Valladolid, ninety-two leagues.
While the columns that marched by Almeida and Salamanca would pass
over one hundred and sixteen leagues to Burgos, and ninety-eight
to Valladolid. Wherefore supposing the Spaniards successful, or
even holding their own, the separation of the artillery was an
advantage, and if the Spaniards were driven back, their natural
line of retreat would have brought them towards Madrid, Blake by
Aranda to the Somosierra, and Castaños and Palafox by Siguenza
and Tarancon, to cover the capital, and to maintain an interior
communication between the Somosierra and the Henares river. The
British artillery would then have halted at Espinar, after a march
of only eighty leagues, and Baird and Moore’s corps uniting at
Salamanca early in November, might, by a flank march to Arevalo,
have insured the concentration of the whole army.
[Illustration: _Plate VIII_
_To Face Page 516_
_London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street._]
Thus, in the three anticipated cases, the separation of the
artillery was prudent, and promised to be advantageous. There was
indeed a fourth case, that which really happened. All the Spanish
armies were dispersed in an instant!--utterly effaced! but sir
John Moore could not have divined such a catastrophe, while his
ears were ringing with the universal clamour about the numbers and
enthusiasm of the patriots; and if he had foreseen even a part of
such disasters, he would never have advanced from Portugal. With
the plans of the Spanish government he was unacquainted; but he
was officially informed that above one hundred and forty thousand
Spanish soldiers were between him and a feeble dispirited enemy;
and as the intercepted letter from the governor of Bayonne stated
that reinforcements would only arrive between the 18th of October
and the 18th of November, it was reasonable to suppose that the
French would not commence offensive operations before the latter
period, and that ample time would be afforded to concentrate the
English troops under the protection of the Spanish armies. If
sir John Moore could have suspected the delusion under which the
British government acted, the incredible folly of the central junta
and the Spanish generals, or the inaccuracy of the military agents,
if he could have supposed that the Spanish armies were weak in
numbers, weaker in spirit, and destitute of food and clothing; or
that, while the Spanish authorities were pressing him to advance,
they would wantonly detain sir David Baird’s troops seventeen
days on board the transports; if he could have imagined all this,
undoubtedly his arrangements ought and would have been different;
his army would have been kept together, and the road through Coria,
however difficult, would have been preferred to a divided march.
The dangerous and absurd position of the Spanish armies, and the
remote situation of the British troops in October, may be explained
by the annexed diagram. Lisbon being taken as a centre, and the
distance A between Lisbon and Coruña being the radius, let a circle
passing through Madrid be described. Let the tangential line C
be drawn perpendicular to the radius A, meeting the secant B at
Sanguessa.
The extreme right of the Spaniards was posted at Sanguessa.
Castaños was at Calahorra, and Blake was near Durango, but the
main body of the French was at Vittoria; and not only divided the
Spaniards, but was actually twenty-five miles nearer to Burgos and
Valladolid, (the points of concentration for Moore’s and Baird’s
corps) than either Castaños or Blake, and seventy-five miles nearer
than Palafox.
The 10th, the emperor struck the first blow, by beating Belvedere
and seizing Burgos. Sir David Baird did not march from Coruña until
the 12th, and did not bring up the whole of his troops to Astorga
before the 4th of December; hence it is clear, that whatever road
the artillery had taken, the British army could not have averted
the ruin of the Spaniards. Let us suppose the troops assembled at
Salamanca on the 13th of November. They must have advanced either
to Valladolid or to Madrid. If to Valladolid, the emperor was at
Burgos with the imperial guards, ten or twelve thousand cavalry,
and a hundred pieces of artillery. The first corps was within a
day’s march, the second and fourth corps within three marches, and
the sixth corps within two marches. Above a hundred thousand French
soldiers could, therefore, have been concentrated in three days;
and it is to be observed that sir John Moore never had twenty-five
thousand in the field.
It is said, he might have gone to Madrid: in that case the
separation of the artillery was a decided advantage, and the
separation of Baird’s corps (which was not the general’s
arrangement) was the error. The army could not have marched from
Salamanca to Madrid in less than seven days; on the 21st of
November then, twenty-four thousand British soldiers could have
been collected in the capital; but the fourth French corps, which
reached Segovia the 1st of December, would have cut off their
communication with Portugal, and the emperor with forty thousand
men was at Aranda de Douero. Castaños was defeated on the 23d;
the remnants of his army were only at Guadalaxara about the 1st
of December, and the sixth corps was in full pursuit of them. The
English general must then have done one of three things; advanced
to the relief of Castaños’s retreating army, joined St. Juan at
the Somosierra, or retreated across the Tagus. In the first case,
the emperor would have forced the Somosierra, and uniting with the
fourth corps, have placed sixty thousand men upon sir John Moore’s
rear; in the second case, the sixth and fourth corps, turning both
his flanks, would have effected a junction behind the Somosierra,
and cut him off from Madrid, while Napoleon, with forty thousand
men, assailed him in front. To retreat over the Tagus was to adopt
the southern provinces for a new base of operations, and might
have been useful if the Spaniards would have rallied round him
with enthusiasm and courage; but would they have done so when the
emperor was advancing with his enormous force? After-experience
proves that they would not. The duke of Dalmatia, in 1810, with an
army very inferior to that under Napoleon, reached the gates of
Cadiz without a serious blow being struck to oppose him, and at
this time the people of the south were reckless of the opportunity
procured for them by sir John Moore’s march on Sahagun; but, it
has been said, that twenty-four thousand British troops acting
vigorously, could have checked the emperor, and raised the courage
of the Spaniards. To such an observation I will oppose a fact. In
1815, Napoleon crossed the Sambre with one hundred and fifteen
thousand men, and the two hundred and ten thousand regular troops
in his front, among which were more than thirty thousand English,
could with difficulty stop his progress after four days’ fighting,
in three of which he was successful.
If sir John Moore, at a subsequent period, was willing to risk
the danger of a movement on the capital, it was because he was
misinformed of the French strength, and the Spaniards were
represented to be numerous and confident; he was also unacquainted
with the defeat at Tudela. His object was, by assisting Castaños,
to arouse the spirit of the patriots: and nothing more strongly
evinces his hardihood and prompt judgment, for, in his letter to
Mr. Frere, he distinctly stated the danger to be incurred, and
carefully separating the military from the political reasons, only
proposed to venture the army if the envoy was satisfied that the
Spanish government and people would answer to such an appeal, and
that the British cabinet would be willing to incur the risk for
such an object. If he did not follow up his own proposal, it was
because he had discovered that the army of Castaños was, not simply
defeated, but destroyed; because the Somosierra had been forced by
a charge of cavalry, and because the passes of the Guadarama, on
his line of march to Madrid, were seized by the enemy before his
own army could be concentrated.
Why then did he not retreat into Portugal? Because Napoleon, having
directed the mass of his forces against the capital, the British
army was enabled to concentrate; because Madrid shut her gates;
because Mr. Frere and the Spanish authorities deceived him by false
information; because the solemn declaration of the junta of Toledo,
that they would bury themselves under the ruins of that town rather
than surrender, joined to the fact that Zaragoza was fighting
heroically, seemed to guarantee the constancy and vigour of that
patriotic spirit which was apparently once more excited; because
the question was again become political, and it was necessary to
satisfy the English people, that nothing was left undone to aid a
cause which they had so much at heart; and, finally, because the
peculiar position of the French army at the moment, afforded the
means of creating a powerful diversion in favour of the southern
provinces. These are the unanswerable reasons for the advance
towards Sahagun. In the details of execution, that movement may
be liable to some trifling objections; perhaps it would have been
better to have carried the army on the 21st at once to Carrion
and neglected Sahagun and Saldanha; but in its stratagetical and
political character it was well conceived and well timed, hardy and
successful.
The irritating interference that sir John Moore was called upon
to repel, and the treachery and the folly, equal in its effects
to treachery, that he was obliged to guard against, have been
sufficiently dwelt upon already; but before discussing the retreat
from Astorga, it may be of some military interest to show that the
line of Portugal, although the natural one for the British army
to retire upon, was not at this period necessarily either safe or
useful, and that greater evils than those incurred by a retreat
through Gallicia would probably have attended a retrograde march
upon Lisbon.
The rugged frontier of Portugal lying between the Douero and the
Tagus, is vulnerable in many points to an invading army of superior
force. It may be penetrated between the Douero and Pinhel, and
between Pinhel and Guarda, by roads leading into the valleys of
the Zezere and the Mondego. Between the Sierra de Estrella and
the Sierra de Gata, by the road from Alfayates to Sabugal and
Penamacor, or that by Guarda and Coria. Again, it may be pierced
between the Sierra de Gata and the Tagus by Idanha Velha, Castello
Branco, and Sobreira Formosa; and from the Tagus to the Guadiana,
a distance of about twenty leagues, the Alentejo presents an open
country without any strong fortress, save Lalippe, which may be
disregarded and passed without danger.
Sir John Moore commenced his forward movement from Salamanca on the
12th of December, and at that period, the fourth corps being at
Talavera de la Reyna, was much nearer to Lisbon than the British
army was, and the emperor was preparing to march on that capital
with the sixth corps, the guards, and the reserve. He could, as
the duke of Berwick did, penetrate by both sides of the Tagus, and
what was to prevent him from reaching Lisbon before the British
force, if the latter had retreated from Salamanca? he marched on
a shorter line and a better road; he could supply his troops by
requisitions, a system that, however fatal it may be in the end, is
always advantageous at first. Sir John Moore must, from a scanty
military chest, have purchased his supplies from a suspicious
peasantry, rendered more distrustful by the retreat. In Lisbon, sir
John Craddock commanded six thousand infantry and two hundred and
fifty-eight cavalry; but the provisional government, who had only
organized a few ill-composed battalions, were so inactive, that it
was not until the 8th of December that a proclamation, calling on
the people to arm, was issued. In the arsenal there were scarcely
musquets and equipments for eight thousand men, and the new levies
were only required to assemble when Portugal should be actually
invaded. Sir Robert Wilson, indeed, having with great activity
organized about two thousand of the Lusitanian legion, marched in
the middle of December from Oporto; but this was all that could
be opposed to an army more numerous, more favourably situated for
invasion, and incomparably better commanded than that with which
Massena invaded the country in 1810. Thus it may be affirmed,
that if a retreat from Lisbon was advisable, before Napoleon took
Madrid, it was not a safe operation after that event, and it is
clear that sir John Moore neither lightly nor injudiciously adopted
the line of Gallicia.
The arguments of those who deny the necessity of falling back, even
behind the Esla, are scarcely worth notice; a simple reference to
the numbers under the emperor, and the direction of his march,
is sufficient to expose their futility; but the necessity of the
continued, and as it has been unjustly called, the precipitate
retreat to Coruña, may not be quite so obvious. The advance to
Sahagun was intended to create a diversion, and give the Spaniards
an opportunity of making head in the south; but although it
succeeded in drawing away the enemy, the Spaniards did not make any
head. The central junta displayed no energy or wisdom; a few slight
demonstrations by the marquis of Palacios, on the side of the
Sierra Morena, and by the duke of Infantado on the side of Cuenca,
scarcely disturbed the first corps which remained in La Mancha;
ten thousand men were sufficient to maintain Madrid in perfect
tranquillity, and a part of the fourth corps even marched from
Talavera by Placentia on Salamanca. By the letters of Mr. Stuart,
and the reports of his own spies, sir John Moore was informed
of all these disheartening circumstances; but the intelligence
arrived slowly and at intervals, and he, hoping that the Spaniards
would finally make an effort, announced his intention to hold the
Gallicias; but Mr. Stuart’s correspondence deprived him of that
hope; and the presence of the emperor, the great amount of his
force, and the vehemence with which he pressed forward, confirmed
the unhappy truth that nothing could be expected from the south.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 13, sect. 2.]
Sir John Moore could not with twenty-three thousand men maintain
himself against the whole French army, and until he reached
Astorga his flanks were always exposed. From thence, however, he
retreated in comparative security; but the natural strength of the
country between that town and Coruña misled persons of shallow
judgment, who have since inconsiderately advanced many vague
accusations, such as that passes where a hundred men could stop an
army were lightly abandoned; that the retreat was a flight, and
the general’s judgment clouded by the danger of his situation.
There might be some foundation for such observations if military
commanders were like prize-fighters, bound to strike always at the
front; but as long as armies are dependent for their subsistence
and ammunition upon lines of communication, the safety of their
flanks and rear must be considered as of consequence. Sir John
Moore was perfectly aware that he could fight any number of men
in some of the mountainous positions on the road to Coruña; but
unless he could make a permanent defence, such battles would have
been worse than useless, and a permanent defence was impossible,
inasmuch as there were none but temporary magazines nearer than
Coruña, and there were neither carriages of transport, nor money
to procure them; a severe winter had just set in, and the province
being poor, and the peasantry disinclined to aid the troops, few
resources could be drawn from the country itself, neither was
there a single position between Astorga and Coruña which could
be maintained for more than a few days against a superior force,
for that of Rodrigatos could be turned by the old road leading to
Villa Franca, Villa Franca itself by the valley of the Syl, and
from thence the whole line to Coruña might be turned by the road
of Orense, which also led directly to Vigo, and until he reached
Nogales, sir J. Moore’s intention was to retire to Vigo. The French
could have marched through the richest part of Gallicia to St.
Jago and Coruña on the left, or from the Asturias, by the way of
Mondonedo, on the right. If it be asked why they did not do so?
the answer is prompt. The emperor having quitted the army, the
jealousies and misunderstandings usual between generals of equal
rank impeded the operations. A coolness subsisted between marshal
Ney and the duke of Dalmatia, and without entering into the grounds
of their difference it is plain that, in a military point of view,
the judgment of the latter was the soundest. The former committed
a great error by remaining at Villa Franca instead of pushing his
corps, or a part of it, (as recommended by Soult) along the valley
of Orense to St. Jago de Compostella. The British army would have
been lost if the sixth corps had reached Coruña before it; and
what would have been the chances in the battle if three additional
French divisions had been engaged?
Granting, therefore, that the troops could have been nourished
during the winter, Villa Franca, Nogales, Constantino, and Lugo,
were not permanently defensible by an army whose base of operations
was at Coruña. Hence it was that sir John Moore resolved to regain
his ships with the view to renew the war in the south, and Hannibal
himself could have done no more. Nor was the mode of executing the
retreat at all unbecoming the character of an able officer.
Lord Bacon observes, that “honourable retreats are no ways inferior
to brave charges, as having less of fortune, more of discipline,
and as much of valour.” That is an honourable retreat in which
the retiring general loses no trophies in fight, sustains every
charge without being broken, and finally, after a severe action,
re-embarks his army in the face of a superior enemy without being
seriously molested. It would be honourable to effect this before
a foe only formidable from numbers, but it is infinitely more
creditable, when the commander, while struggling with bad weather
and worse fortune, has to oppose veterans with inexperienced
troops, and to contend against an antagonist of eminent ability,
who scarcely suffers a single advantage to escape him during
his long and vigorous pursuit. All this sir John Moore did, and
finished his work by a death as firm and glorious as any that
antiquity can boast of.
Put to lord Bacon’s test, in what shall the retreat to Coruña be
found deficient? something in discipline perhaps, but that fault
does not attach to the general. Those commanders who have been
celebrated for making fine retreats were in most instances well
acquainted with their armies; and Hannibal, speaking of the elder
Scipio, derided him, although a brave and skilful man, for that,
being unknown to his own soldiers, he should presume to oppose
himself to a general who could call to each man under his command
by name: thus inculcating, that, unless troops be trained in the
peculiar method of a commander, the latter can scarcely achieve any
thing great. Now sir John Moore had a young army suddenly placed
under his guidance, and it was scarcely united, when the superior
numbers of the enemy forced it to a retrograde movement under very
harassing circumstances; he had not time, therefore, to establish
a system of discipline, and it is in the leading events, not the
minor details, that the just criterion of his merits is to be
sought for.
Was the retreat uncalled for? Was it unnecessarily precipitate?
Was any opportunity of crippling the enemy lost? Was any weakness
to be discovered in the personal character of the general? These
are the questions that sensible men will ask; the first has been
already examined, the second is a matter of simple calculation.
The rear guard quitted Astorga on the 1st of January; on the 3rd,
it repulsed the enemy in a sharp skirmish at Calcabelos; the 6th
it rejoined the main body at Lugo, having three times checked
the pursuers during the march. It was unbroken, and lost no gun,
suffered no misfortune; the whole army offered battle at Lugo
for two successive days, it was not accepted, and the retreat
recommencing, the troops reached Betanzos on the morning of the
10th, and Coruña on the 11th; thus in eleven days, three of which
were days of rest, a small army passed over a hundred and fifty
miles of good road. Now Napoleon, with fifty thousand men, left
Madrid on the 22d of December, the 28th he was at Villapando,
having performed a march, on bad roads, of a hundred and sixty-four
miles in seven days. The retreat to Coruña was consequently not
precipitate, unless it can be shown, that it was unnecessary to
retreat at all beyond Villa Franca, neither can it be asserted,
that any opportunity of crippling the enemy was lost. To fight a
battle was the game of the French marshal, and if any censure will
apply to his able campaign, it is that he delayed to attack at
Lugo; victorious or beaten, the embarrassments of his adversary
must have been increased; sir John Moore must have continued his
retreat encumbered with the wounded, or the latter must have been
abandoned without succour in the midst of winter.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 26.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
At Coruña the absence of the fleet necessarily brought on a battle;
that it was honourable to the British troops is clear from the
fact that they embarked without loss after the action; and that it
was absolutely necessary to embark notwithstanding the success, is
as certain a proof how little advantage could have been derived
from any battle fought farther inland, and how prudently sir John
Moore acted in declining an action the moment he had rallied his
army at Lugo, and restored that discipline which the previous
movements had shaken; but, notwithstanding the clamour with which
this campaign has been assailed, as if no army had ever yet
suffered such misfortunes, it is certain that the nominal loss
was small, the real loss smaller, and that it sinks into nothing
when compared with the advantages gained. An army which, after
marching in advance or retreat above five hundred miles before
an enemy of immensely superior force, has only lost, including
those killed in battle, four thousand men, or a sixth part of its
numbers, cannot be said to have suffered severely, nor would the
loss have been so great but for the intervention of the accidental
occurrences mentioned in the narrative. Night marches are seldom
happy; that from Lugo to Betanzos cost the army in stragglers more
than double the number of men lost in all the preceding operations;
nevertheless the reserve in that, as in all the other movements,
suffered little; and it is a fact, that the light brigades detached
by the Vigo road, which were not pursued, made no forced marches,
slept under cover, and were well supplied, left, in proportion
to their strength, as many men behind as any other part of the
army; thus accumulating proof upon proof that inexperience was
the primary and principal cause of the disorders which attended
the retreat. Those disorders were sufficiently great, but many
circumstances contributed to produce an appearance of suffering
and disorganization which was not real. The intention of sir John
Moore was, to have proceeded to Vigo, in order to restore order
before he sailed for England: instead of which the fleet steered
home directly from Coruña; a terrible storm scattered it; many
ships were wrecked, and the remainder, driving up the channel, were
glad to put into any port. The soldiers, thus thrown on shore, were
spread from the Land’s End to Dover. Their haggard appearance,
ragged clothing, and dirty accoutrements, things common enough in
war, struck a people only used to the daintiness of parade, with
surprise; the usual exaggerations of men just escaped from perils
and distresses were increased by the uncertainty in which all were
as to the fate of their comrades; a deadly fever, the result of
anxiety, and of the sudden change from fatigue to the confinement
of a ship, filled the hospitals at every port with officers and
soldiers, and thus the miserable state of sir John Moore’s army
became the topic of every letter, and a theme for every country
newspaper along the coast. The nation, at that time unused to great
operations, forgot that war is not a harmless game, and judging of
the loss positively, instead of comparatively, was thus disposed
to believe the calumnies of interested men, who were eager to cast
a shade over one of the brightest characters that ever adorned the
country. Those calumnies triumphed for a moment; but Moore’s last
appeal to his country for justice will be successful. Posterity,
revering and cherishing his name, will visit such of his odious
calumniators as are not too contemptible to be remembered with a
just and severe retribution; for thus it is that time freshens
the beauty of virtue and withers the efforts of baseness; and if
authority be sought for in a case where reason speaks so plainly,
future historians will not fail to remark, that the man whose
talents exacted the praises of Soult, of Wellington, and of
Napoleon, could be no ordinary soldier.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. 16.]
“Sir John Moore,” says the first, “took every advantage that the
country afforded to oppose an active and vigorous resistance,
and he finished, by dying in a combat that must do credit to his
memory.”
[Sidenote: Vivian’s Conversations at Elba.]
[Sidenote: Voice from St. Helena]
Napoleon more than once affirmed, that if he committed a few
trifling errors they were to be attributed to his peculiar
situation, for that his talents and firmness alone had saved the
English army from destruction.
“In sir John Moore’s campaign,” said the duke of Wellington, “I
can see but one error; when he advanced to Sahagun he should have
considered it as a movement of retreat, and sent officers to the
rear to mark and prepare the halting-places for every brigade;
but this opinion I have formed after long experience of war, and
especially of the peculiarities of a Spanish war, which must have
been seen to be understood; finally, it is an opinion formed after
the event.”
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
The following five Notes, dictated by the emperor Napoleon,
and signed by general Bertrand, were found in king Joseph’s
portfolio, at the battle of Vittoria.
No. I.
OBSERVATIONS ADDRESSÉES AU GÉNÉRAL SAVARY SUR LES AFFAIRES
D’ESPAGNE.
_Le 13 Juillet, 1808._
1^{ere} _Observation_.--Les affaires des Français en Espagne
seroient dans une excellente position si la division Gobert avait
marché sur Valladolid, et si la division Frère eut occupé San
Clemente, ayant une colonne mobile à trois ou quatre journées sur
la route du général Dupont.
Le g^{al} Gobert ayant été dirigé sur le général Dupont, le g^{al}
Frère étant avec le maréchal Moncey, harassé et affaibli par des
marches et des contremarches, la position de l’armée Française est
devenue moins belle.
2^e _Observation_.--Le maréchal Bessières est aujourd’hui à
Medina del Rio Secco avec 15 mille hommes, infanterie, cavalerie,
artillerie. Le 15 ou le 16, il attaquera Bénavente, se mettra en
communication avec le Portugal, jettera les rebelles en Galice, et
s’emparera de Léon. Si toutes les opérations réussissent ainsi,
et d’une manière brillante, la position de l’armée Française
redeviendra ce qu’elle était.
Si le général Cuesta se retire de Bénavente sans combattre, il
se retirait sur Zamora, Salamanque, pour venir gagner Avila et
Segovia, certain qu’alors le maréchal Bessières ne pourrait point
le poursuivre, puisque, dans cette supposition, il serait menacé
par l’armée de Galice, dont l’avant-garde est réunie à Léon.
Alors il faut que le général qui commande à Madrid puisse
promptement réunir 6 à 7000 hommes pour marcher sur le général
Cuesta. Il faut que la citadelle de Ségovie soit occupée par
quelques pièces de canon, trois à 400 convalescens, avec six
semaines de biscuit.
C’est une grande faute de n’avoir pas occupé cette citadelle, quand
le major-général l’a mandé. De toutes les positions possibles,
Ségovie est la plus dangereuse pour l’armée: capitale d’une
province, assise entre les deux routes, elle ôterait a l’armée
toutes ses communications, et l’ennemi une fois posté dans cette
citadelle, l’armée Française ne pourrait plus l’en déloger. Trois
ou 400 convalescens et un bon chef de bataillon, une escouade
d’artillerie, rendront le château de Ségovie imprégnable pendant
bien de tems, et assureront à l’armée l’importante position de
Ségovie.
Si le général Cuesta se jette en Galice, sans combattre, sans
éprouver de défaite, la position de l’armée devient toujours
meilleure; à plus forte raison, s’il est jetté en Galice après
avoir éprouvé une forte défaite.
3^e _Observation_.--Si le maréchal Bessières, arrivé devant
Bénavente, reste en présence sans attaquer le g^{al} Cuesta, ou
s’il est repoussé, son but sera toujours de couvrir Burgos, en
tenant le plus possible l’ennemi en échec; il peut être renforcé
de 3000 hommes de troupes de ligne, qui accompagnent le roi, mais
alors il n’y a point à hésiter. Si le maréchal Bessières a fait
une marche rétrograde sans bataille, il faut sur le champ lui
envoyer 6000 hommes de renforts. S’il a fait son mouvement après
une bataille, où il ait éprouvé de grandes pertes, il faudra faire
de grandes dispositions: rappeller à marche forcée sur Madrid le
g^{al} Frère, le g^{al} Caulaincourt, le g^{al} Gobert, le g^{al}
Vedel, et laisser le g^{al} Dupont sur les montagnes de la Sierra
Morena, ou le rapprocher même de Madrid, en le tenant toujours,
cependant, à sept ou huit marches, afin de pouvoir écraser le
g^{al} Cuesta et toute l’armée de Galice, pendant que le g^{al}
Dupont servira d’avant-garde pour tenir l’armée d’Andalousie en
échec.
4^e _Observation_.--Si le général Dupont éprouvait un échec, cela
serait de peu de conséquence. Il n’aurait d’autre résultat que de
lui faire repasser les montagnes; mais le coup qui serait porté au
maréchal Bessières serait un coup porté au cœur de l’armée, qui
donnerait le _tetanos_, et qui se ferait sentir à toutes les points
extrêmes de l’armée. Voilà pourquoi il est très malheureux que
toutes les dispositions ordonnées n’aient pas été suivis. L’armée
du maréchal Bessières devrait se trouver avoir au moins huite mille
hommes de plus, afin qu’il n’y eut aucune espèce de chance contre
l’armée du maréchal Bessières.
La vraie manière de renforcer le général Dupont, ce n’est pas
de lui envoyer des troupes, mais c’est d’envoyer des troupes
au maréchal Bessières. Le général Dupont et le général Vedel
sont suffisans pour se maintenir dans les positions qu’ils ont
retranchés; et si le maréchal Bessières avait été renforcé, et
l’armée de Galice écrasée, le général Dupont immédiatement après se
trouverait dans la meilleure position, non seulement par des forces
qu’on pourrait alors lui envoyer, mais encore par la situation
morale des affaires. Il n’y a pas un habitant de Madrid, pas un
paysan des vallées qui ne sente que toutes les affaires d’Espagne
aujourd’hui sont dans l’affaire du maréchal Bessières. Combien
n’est-il pas malheureux que dans cette grande affaire on se soit
donné volontairement 20 chances contre soi.
_5^e Observation_.--L’affaire de Valence n’a jamais été d’aucun
considération. Le maréchal Moncey seul était suffisant. C’était une
folie que de songer à le secourir. Si le m^{al} Moncey ne pouvait
pas prendre Valence, 20 mille hommes de plus ne le lui auraient pas
fait prendre, parcequ’alors c’était un affaire d’artillerie, et non
une affaire d’hommes: car on ne prend pas d’un coup de collier une
ville de 80 ou 100 mille âmes, qui a barricadé ses rues, mis de
l’artillerie à toutes les portes et dans toutes les maisons. Or,
dans cette hypothèse, le m^{al} Moncey était suffisant pour former
une colonne mobile, faire face à l’armée de Valence, et faire
sentir dans toute leur force les horreurs de la guerre.
Le g^{al} Frère ne pouvait donc rien pour faire prendre Valence,
et le g^{al} Frère pouvait beaucoup posté à San Clemente, soit
qu’il dût revenir à Madrid, soit qu’il dût prendre une position
intermédiaire pour secourir le g^{al} Dupont.
C’était une autre erreur que de songer à faire aller le m^{al}
Moncey à Valence pour ensuite le faire marcher en Murcie et sur
Grenade. C’était vouloir fondre ce corps d’armée en détail et sans
fruit. Comme le dit fort bien le général Dupont, il valait mieux
lui envoyer directement un régiment que de lui envoyer trois dans
cette direction là.
Dans les guerres civiles ce sont les points importans qu’il faut
garder: il ne faut pas aller partout. Si cependant on a dirigé le
m^{al} Moncey sur Valence, c’était à une époque où la situation des
affaires n’était pas la même; c’était lorsque l’armée de Valence
pouvait envoyer en Catalogne ou à Saragosse comme elle en menaçait.
6^e _Observation_.--Le but de tous les efforts de l’armée doit
être de conserver Madrid. C’est là qu’est tout. Madrid ne peut
être menacé que par l’armée de Galice. Elle peut l’être aussi
par l’armée de l’Andalousie, mais d’une manière beaucoup moins
dangereux, parcequ’elle est simple et directe, et que par toutes
les marches que fait le g^{al} Dupont sur ses derrières, il
se renforce. Les généraux Dupont et Vedel étaient suffisans,
ayant plus de 20,000 hommes; le m^{al} Bessières ne l’est pas
proportionnellement, vû que sa position est plus dangereuse. Un
échec que recevrait le g^{al} Dupont serait peu de chose; un échec
que recevrait le m^{al} Bessières serait plus considérable et se
ferait sentir à l’extremité de la ligne.
_Résumé._--Faire reposer et rapprocher de Madrid le g^{al} Frère,
le g^{al} Caulaincourt, le g^{al} Gobert, afin qu’ils puissent
arriver à Madrid avant le g^{al} Cuesta, si celui-ci battait le
m^{al} Bessières. Immédiatement après l’événement qui aura lieu
le 15 ou le 16, prendre un part selon les événemens qui auront eu
lieu, et dans le but d’écraser l’armée ennemie en Galice.
Si le maréchal Bessières a eu grand succès, sans éprouver de
grandes pertes, tout sera bien dans la direction actuelle. S’il
a un succès après avoir éprouvé beaucoup de pertes, il faut se
mettre en mésure de le renforcer. S’il se tient en observation
sans attaquer, il faut le renforcer. S’il a été défait et bien
battu, il faut se concentrer et rassembler toutes ses troupes
dans le cercle de sept ou huit journées de Madrid, et étudier les
dispositions dans les différentes directions pour savoir où placer
les avant-gardes, afin de profiter de l’avantage qu’on a d’être
au milieu, pour écraser successivement avec toutes ses forces les
divers corps de l’ennemi. Si on n’ordonne pas sur le champ au
g^{al} Dupont de repasser les montagnes, c’est qu’on espère que
malgré la faute faite, le m^{al} Bessières a la confiance (qu’on
partage) qu’à la rigueur il est suffisant pour écraser l’ennemi.
Le m^{al} Bessières a eu le bon esprit de tellement réunir toutes
ses forces, qu’il n’a pas même laissé un seul homme à St. Ander.
Quelqu’ avantage qu’il y eut à laisser là un millier d’hommes, il a
senti qu’un millier d’hommes pouvait décider sa victoire.
Quant à la division du g^{al} Verdier devant Saragosse, elle a
rempli aux trois quarts son but. Elle a désorganisé tous les
Arragoniens, a porté le découragement parmi eux, les a reduits à
défendre les maisons de leur capitale, a soumis tous les environs,
a bloqué la ville, et réuni tous les moyens pour s’en emparer sans
que cela devienne trop conteux.
Voilà l’esprit de la guerre d’Espagne.
* * * * *
Dictated by the emperor Napoleon. Taken at the battle of Vittoria.
No. II.
NOTE POUR LE ROI D’ESPAGNE.
_Bayonne, le Juillet, 1808._
L’armée d’Espagne a son quartier général à Madrid; voici sa
composition actuelle:
1º. _Corps des Pyrénées Occidentales._
Le maréchal Bessières commande le corps des Pyrénées Occidentales,
qui est fort de 23 mille hommes, infanterie, cavalerie, artillerie,
occupe la place de St. Sebastian, les trois Biscays, les montagnes
de St. Ander, la place de Burgos, et est chargée de combattre
l’armée ennemie des Asturies et de Galice.
Toutes les troupes sont en mouvement pour composer l’armée de la
manière suivante.
{ {le 4^e reg^t d’infanterie }
{ {legère }
{1^{ere} _brigade_, { 15^e d’infanterie de }
{le g^{al} Reynaud. { ligne }
{ {1^{er} bat^{on} de Paris en}
{ {marche }
{ }
{total 3000 hom. présens sous les armes, }
Division { et 6 pièces de canon, ci 3000 h^{es} }
du g^{al} {(_Cette brigade marche sur Bénévent._) } 5100 h^{es}
Mouton. {2^e _brigade_, {2^e reg^t d’infanterie legère }
{le g^{al} Rey. {12^e idem }
{total 2100 hommes et 6 pièces de }
{ canon, ci 2100 }
{(_Cette brigade est à Burgos avec le roi, }
{ et doit joindre sa division._) }
----
À reporter 5100 h^{es}
De l’autre part 5100 h^{es}
{Brigade d’Armagnac 1800 }
Division {Brigade Gaulois 1800 }
du g^{al} {Brigade Sabathier 2800 } 8400 h^{es}
Merle. {Brigade Ducos 2000 }
----
Total 8400 h^{es}
et 16 pièces de canon.
Garde. {Infanterie 1900 h^{es}
{et 6 pièces de canon.
(_Toutes ces troupes marchent sur Bénévent._)
{10^e de chasseurs 450 }
{22^e id. 450 }
{Garde 300 }
{(_Ces troupes marchent }
{ sur Bénévent._) }
{Escadrons de dragons 200 }
Cavalerie. {(_Ces escadrons sont }
{ en marche et ont dépassé } 1950 h^{es}
{ et ont dépassé la frontière._) }
{26^e de chasseurs 450 }
{(_Arrivant à Bayonne sous peu }
{ de jours._) }
{ ---- }
{ Total de la cavalerie 1950 h^{es}
{ ====
Les forces actives du maréchal Bessières sont donc de 17,000
h^{es}. Il n’en a guère que 15,000 pour l’affaire de Bénévent.
S’il obtenait à Bénévent et à Léon un grand succès contre l’armée
de Galice, peut-être serait-il convenable pour profiter de la
victoire et de la terreur des premiers moments de se jetter dans la
Galice. Toutesfois, il devrait d’abord prendre position à Léon, en
s’emparant de la plaine, jettant l’ennemi dans les montagnes, et
interceptant au moins à Astorga la communication de la grande route.
_Garnison de Burgos_.--Il y a dans le château
de Burgos une garnison _de dépôt_[28] 600 h^{es}
------
À reporter 17,950 h^{es}
------
De l’autre part 17,950 h^{es}
_Colonne du général Bonnet._--Il y a encore à }
Burgos le g^{al} de division Bonnet, faisant partie }
du corps du m^{al} Bessières: ce g^{al} va avoir }
sous ses ordres une colonne mobile de 1200 }
hommes, pour maintenir la tranquillité dans }
la ville et ses environs. Cette colonne est composée }
comme il suit: }
}
4^e bataillon du 118^e, formant 450 h^{es} }
(_Actuellement existant à Burgos._) }
}
3^e bataillon du dépôt g^{al} actuellement }
à Vittoria 450 } 1500 h^{es}
}
2 comp^{ies} du 4^e d’infanterie legère, }
formant un petit bataillon 400 }
(_En marche, ayant passé la frontière._) }
---- }
1300 h^{es} }
Escadron de dragons (en marche) 200 }
2 pièces de canon en marche }
---- }
1500 h^{es} }
==== }
_Colonne d’Aranda._--Cette colonne, formée du 1^{er}
bataillon de marche, fort de 1000 h^{es} et de 4
pièces de canon, peut se réunir au bésoin avec la
colonne du g^{al} Bonnet: elles doivent assurer la
communication jusqu’aux montagnes en avant
d’Aranda, ci 1000 h^{es}
_Colonne de Vittoria._--Le général de brigade
Monthion, et le colonel Barerre, occupent Vittoria
avec une colonne composée comme il suit:
2 compagnies du 15^e de ligne, formant un petit
bataillon de 300 h^{es}
Le 2^e bat^{on} du 12^e d’infanterie legère 600
Le 2^e bat^{on} du 2^e id. 600
----
(Ce qui fait en infanterie) 1500 h^{es}
1 escadron de dragons (en marche) 200
2 pièces de canon.
----
(Tous ces corps sont en marche) 1700 ci 1700
------
À reporter 22,150 h^{es}
De l’autre part 22,150 h^{es}
_Garnison de St. Sebastian._--Le général Thouvenot
commande à St. Sebastian avec mille
hommes de garnison, ci 1000
------
_Recapitulation._--Le corps du m^{al} Bessières
est de 23,150
Et 36 pièces de canon. ======
Les détachemens et troisièmes bataillons des corps qui sont aux
divisions actives du m^{al} Bessières pourront sous 15 jours le
réjoindre, vû qu’ils seront remplacés à Vittoria et à Burgos par
d’autres corps.
2º. _Arragon._
Jusqu’à cette heure les troupes qui sont en Arragon, faisaient
partie du corps des Pyrénées Occidentales. Mais le corps des
Pyrénées Occidentales se portant sur la Galice, il devient
indispensable d’en faire une division à part.
Aujourd’hui, ce commandement comprend Pampelune, la Navarre, et
les troupes qui forment le siège de Saragosse, sous les ordres du
général Verdier.
Ces troupes sont divisées en quatre brigades, et sont composées
ainsi qu’il suit:
3 regimens d’infanterie de ligne de la Vistule, ayant
sous les armes 3600 h^{es}
Les 4^{e}, 6^{e} et 7^{e} bataillons de marche 1500
Le 3^{e} bataillon du 14^{e} provisoire 1300
Le 1^{er} regiment supplementaire 900
Les 47^{e}, 15^{e} et 70^{e} 1600
Un bataillon des gardes nationales d’élite 600
-----
Total. 9500 h^{es}
La cavalerie consiste dans un regiment de
lanciers Polonais 700 } 1100
Plus un escadron de marche 400 }
_À Pampelune_ le g^{al} Dagout commande.
Indépendamment d’une dépôt de 800 hommes, (ci 800
formant 800 la garnison de la citadelle; il a
une colonne mobile composée du 1^{er} bataillon
de marche du Portugal, du troisième bataillon du
118^{e}, fort de 650 hommes, et d’un escadron de
dragons, ce qui forme un total de 1400 hommes
disposibles pour se porter sur tous les points
de la Navarre, et sur
------
À reporter 11,400
De l’autre part 11,400
Et les communications de Saragosse, pour y mettre
l’ordre: ci 1,400
Artillerie 200
------
Il y a donc en cernement en Arragon et en Navarre 13,000
======
Aussitôt que Saragosse sera pris, et que le corps de l’Arragon
sera constitué, il sera nécessaire de fairer entrer au corps
du mar^l Bessières le bataillon du 47^e, celui du 15^e, et les
trois bataillons du 14^e provisoire; ce qui augmentera le m^{al}
Bessières de deux mille hommes, afin de tenir les corps réunis.
Il est possible qu’on fasse partir de Bayonne le 19,300 hommes de
bonnes troupes de ligne, pour se diriger sur Saragosse et enlever
la prise de cette place, si toutefois elle n’est pas encore prise.
Si Saragosse était pris, le corps du m^{al} Bessières pourrait
être renforcé de ces trois mille hommes d’élite et de 2000 hommes
du corps de Saragosse, ce qui lui ferait un corps nombreux pour la
campagne de Galice.
Indépendamment de Saragosse, les rebelles occupent la ville de Jaca
et plusieurs points dans les vallées. À tous les débouchés des
vallées en France il y a un général de brigade avec une colonne
mobile. On attendra la prise de Saragosse pour entrer dans ces
vallées et y marcher dans les deux sens. En général l’esprit des
vallées est bon; mais des troupes de contrebandiers que les chefs
des rebelles ont enrégimentés les vexent.
3º. _Catalogne._
Le général Duhesme occupe Barcelone, qui est une place qui a deux
très belles forteresses, qui la dominent. C’est la plus grande
ville de la monarchie.
Le général Duhesme a deux divisions, la division Chabran et la
division Lechi, formant 11,000 h^{es} d’infanterie, 1600 h^{es} de
cavalerie et 18 pièces de canon.
Le général Duhesme a eu plusieurs événemens; il a brulé un grand
nombre de villages, et maintenu en respect le pays à 15 lieues à la
ronde.
La ville de Géronne, n’ayant pas été occupée, les insurgés de la
Catalogne ont établis là leur Junte, d’où ils donnent le mouvement
au reste de la province. 2000 insurgés assiégeaint le fort de
Figuéras. On y avait heureusement laissé 300 Français: ils ont
été obligés de tirer beaucoup de coups de canon et de bruler le
village.
Le g^{al} de division Reille, avec deux bataillons Toscans; a
marché sur Figuéras, l’a débloqué, le 6 du mois, et y a fait
entrer une grande quantité de vivres, dont on manquait. Le 10, il
réunissait sa division, qui arrivait de divers points de la France;
il avait déjà 6000 hommes, et il doit avoir aujourd’hui 9000
h^{es}; il doit s’assurer de Roses et marcher sur Géronne, établir
ses communications avec le général Duhesme et ensemble pacifier la
Catalogne.
Les forces réunies des généraux Duhesme et Reille
s’élevent donc à 22,000 h^{es}
Ainsi le corps des Pyrénées Occidentales est fort de 23,000
Celui d’Arragon, de 13,000
Celui de Catalogne, de 22,000
------
Total 68,000 h^{es}.
======
Nous venons de faire connaître la situation de l’armée dans les
provinces de la Biscaye, de St. Ander, de la Castille, de la
Navarre, de l’Arragon et de la Catalogne; c’est à dire, sur toute
la frontière de France.
Voici actuellement la situation dans les autres points:
Les deux corps qui se sont rendus à Madrid sous les ordres du
général Dupont et du m^{al} Moncey portaient, et portent encore;
le premier, le nom de corps d’observation de la Gironde, commandé
par le g^{al} Dupont; le second, le nom de corps d’observation des
Côtés de l’Océan, commandé par le m^{al} Moncey.
_Le corps d’observation de la Gironde_ est composé de trois
divisions: deux sont en Andalousie avec le général Dupont; la
3^{eme}, celle du général Frere, doit être à present à San Clemente.
_Le corps d’observation des Côtés de l’Océan_ est composé également
de trois divisions. La première est avec le maréchal Moncey,
sous Valence: les deux autres sont à Madrid, et disséminés en
differentes colonnes, pour maintenir la communication avec le
général Dupont. Les états de situation vous feront connaître la
force de ces divisions: mais on peut en général les considérer les
unes dans les autres comme fortes de 6000 hommes présens sous les
armes.
Il y a _à Madrid_ deux bataillons de la garde, formant 1000 hommes,
et à-peu-près 900 hommes de cavalerie de la garde.
Ainsi il y a _à Madrid_, et du côté _de Valence_ et _de
l’Andalousie_, la valeur de 40,000 hommes d’infanterie, huit mille
hommes de cavalerie et 80 pièces de canon attelées.
_Le général Junot_ a en Portugal trois divisions, formant présens
sous les armes, compris son artillerie, sa cavalerie, 23 mille
hommes[29].
Telle est la situation de l’armée en Espagne et en Portugal.
1^{ere} _Observation._--Les événemens qui se passent aujourd’hui et
demain amélioreront beaucoup la situation de toutes les affaires,
en jettant dans la Galice le général Cuesta, en lui ôtant ses
communications avec l’Estramadure, Madrid et l’Andalousie, en
assurant nôtre communication avec le Portugal, et en assurant la
soumission des provinces de Salamanque, Zamora, Toro, &^a.
La manière dont ces événemens auront lieu décideront à entrer sur
le champ en Galice, à soumettre les Asturies, ou à différer encore
quelques jours.
2^e _Observation._--La Navarre et la Biscaye se sont maintenues
tranquilles.
En Arragon le plat pays a été soumis, les rebelles ont été battus
plusieurs fois; avec deux seuls bataillons, 8 à 10 mille insurgés
ont été détruits ou dispersés; le découragement est à dernier point
parmi eux. Ils se sont défendus dans leurs maisons à Saragosse;
on les a bombardé; on leur a fait beaucoup de mal; on achève
aujourd’hui de bloquer la ville en jettant un pont sur l’Ebre. Une
fois cette ville soumise, il n’y a pas de doute que tout l’Arragon
ne devienne tranquille. Une partie des troupes sera cependant
nécessaire pour maintenir la province; une petite partie pourra
aider à la soumission de la Catalogne. La partie qui est nécessaire
pour le bien du service du maréchal Bessières ira le rejoindre.
Ainsi cet événement équivaudra à un secours considérable.
3^{eme} _Observation._--La première opération du général Reille
a débloqué Figuères: il soumet à présent tous les environs. Il
ne tardera pas sans doute à s’emparer de Géronne et à établir sa
communication par terre avec le général Duhesme. La reduction de
Géronne éntamera probablement celle de Lerida; on pourra avoir
alors une colonne de deux trois ou mille hommes, qu’on dirigera par
Tortose sur Valence.
4^{eme} _Observation._--On n’a point de nouvelles de l’expédition
de Valence, et le maréchal Moncey a huit mille hommes. Avec ces
forces il n’a rien à craindre. Il peut ne pas prendre la ville, qui
est très grande, si les paysans s’y sont renfermés et ne craignent
point de la ruiner: mais le m^{al} Moncey se maintiendra dans le
plat pays, occupera les revoltés, qu’il empêchera de se porter
ailleurs, et fera porter au pays tout le poids de la guerre.
_5^e Observation._--On compte que le général Dupont a aujourd’hui
près de 20,000 hommes. Si les opérations du maréchal Bessières
réussissent bien, il n’y aura pas d’inconvénient à appuyer encore
le général Dupont et à lui permettre de reprendre l’offensive.
Ainsi les deux points importans, et où on fera une véritable guerre
reglée, sont la Galice et l’Andalousie, parceque les troupes du
camp de St. Roche, de Cadiz, des Algarves, sont près de 25 mille
hommes, qu’elles ont pris parti pour la sedition de Seville en
Andalousie, et que tout ce qui était à Porto a pris parti pour les
rebelles de Galice.
Le point le plus important de tous est celui du m^{al} Bessières,
comme on l’a déjà vu dans la note qu’on a envoyé. On doit tout
faire pour que ce corps n’éprouve aucun mouvement rétrograde, aucun
échec; celui du général Dupont vient après.
Les affaires de Saragosse sont au 3^e ordre; celles de Valence ne
sont qu’en 4^{me}.
Voilà la véritable situation des affaires militaires du royaume.
Il parait convenable de former dans l’Arragon une division de
10 à 12 mille hommes que pourra commander le g^{al} Verdier. Il
devra corréspondre directément avec l’état major du roi, avec le
m^{al} Bessières (pour s’éntendre), avec le g^{al} Duhesme pour se
concerter, et avec le général de la 11^e division militaire, qui
se tiendra à Bayonne, afin de connaître toujours la situation de
cette frontière. Son commandement doit embrasser la Navarre et tout
l’Arragon.
Alors l’armée sera composée du corps des Pyrénées Occidentales, de
la division de l’Arragon (il est inutile d’en faire un corps), du
corps de la Catalogne composé de trois divisions, y compris celle
du général Reille, et des six divisions que forment les corps
d’observation de la Gironde et des Côtés de l’Océan.
Cela fera à-peu-près 12 divisions réunies et en outre un certain
nombre de petites colonnes mobiles et de garnisons.
* * * * *
Dictated by the emperor Napoleon. Taken at Vittoria.
No. III.
NOTE SUR LA POSITION ACTUELLE DE L’ARMÉE EN ESPAGNE.
_Bayonne, le 21 Juillet, 1808._
_1^{ere} Observation._--La bataille de Medina del Rio Secco a
mis les affaires de l’armée dans la meilleure situation. Le
maréchal Bessières ne donne plus aucune inquiétude, et toutes les
sollicitudes doivent se tourner du côté du général Dupont.
_2^{de} Observation._--Dans la position actuelle des affaires,
l’armée Française occupe le centre; l’ennemi, un grand nombre de
points de la circonférence.
_3^{me} Observation._--Dans une guerre de cette nature, il faut du
sang froid, de la patience, et du calcul; et il ne faut pas épuiser
les troupes en fausses marches et contremarches; il ne faut pas
croire, quand on a fait une fausse marche de trois à quatre jours,
qu’on l’aie réparé par une contremarche: c’est ordinairement deux
fautes au lieu d’une.
_4^{me} Observation._--Toutes les opérations de l’armée ont
réussies jusqu’à cette heure, autant qu’elles devaient réussir.
Le général Dupont s’est maintenu au-delà des montagnes, et dans
le bassin de l’Andalousie; trois fois il a défait les insurgés.
Le maréchal Moncey a défait les insurgés à Valence; il n’a
pas pu prendre la ville, ce qui est une chose qui n’est pas
extraordinaire. Peut-être eût-on pu désirer qu’il eût pu se camper
à une journée de la ville, comme a fait le général Dupont; mais,
enfin, qu’il soit à une journée ou à cinq, comme à Saint Clément,
la différence n’est pas très grande. En Arragon, on a battu sur
tous les points, et dans toutes les circonstances, l’ennemi, et
porté le découragement partout. Saragosse n’a pas été pris; il est
aujourd’hui cerné; et une ville de 40 à 50 mille âmes, défendue
par une mouvement populaire, ne se prend qu’avec du tems et de la
patience. Les histoires des guerres sont pleins des catastrophes
des plus considérables pour avoir brusqué et s’être enfourré dans
les rues étroites des villes. L’exemple de Buenos Ayres, et des 12
milles Anglais d’élite qui y ont péri, en est une preuve.
_5^{me} Observation._--Ainsi la position de l’armée est bonne,
le maréchal Moncey étant à Saint Clément, ou environs, et les
généraux Gobert et Vedel réunis au général Dupont en Andalousie; ce
serait une faute, à moins d’incidents et d’un emploie immédiat, à
donner à ces troupes dans un autre point, que de concentrer toutes
les troupes trop près de Madrid. L’incertitude des événemens du
maréchal Bessières, et les 25 chances qu’il avoit contre lui sur
cent, pouvaient déterminer à faire arrêter la marche de toutes les
troupes qui s’éloignaient de la capitale, afin que les colonnes
pussent être rappellés à Madrid si le maréchal Bessières était
battu, et pussent arriver dans cette ville avant l’ennemi; mais
ce serait une faute si on eut fait retrograder ces colonnes, et
si on eut agi comme si le maréchal Bessières avait été battu,
lorsque quelques jours avant on agissait comme si l’armée de Galice
n’existait pas. 500 chevaux et 1800 hommes d’infanterie dirigés
sur Valladolid étaient tous ce qu’il fallait. Si cette colonne
était partie trois jours plutôt, elle y serait arrivé le 15. Le
maréchal Bessières a été vainqueur, et avait pour être vainqueur
75 chances contre 25; mais la fatigue qu’on a donné à l’armée, et
les mouvemens rétrogrades qu’on a ordonné inutilement, puisque même
le maréchal Bessières battu, on avait 8 à 10 jours pour réunir
l’armée, ont fait un mal moral et physique. Il faut espérer que
la nouvelle de la victoire arrivée à tems aura mis l’état major à
même d’arrêter toute mouvement sur Madrid, et que chaque colonne se
trouvera plus près du point où elle doit se trouver.
_6^{me} Observation._--Dans la situation actuelle des affaires, le
plus important de tous est le général Dupont. On doit lui envoyer
le reste de la division Gobert, et employer d’autres troupes pour
maintenir la communication; il faut tenir la tête de la division du
maréchal Moncey, sur Saint Clement, et menacer toujours la province
de Valence. Si le maréchal Bessières a battu sans effort, et avec
peu de perte, l’armée de Galice, et a eu moins de huit milles
hommes engagés, il n’y a pas de doute qu’avec 20 milles le général
Dupont ne culbute tout ce qu’il a devant lui.
_7^{me} Observation._--La brigade du général Rey rend à l’armée
plus qu’elle n’a perdu par le détachement qui a été fait sur
Valladolid. Toutes les probabilitées humaines sont que le maréchal
Bessières n’a plus besoin d’aucun renfort, du moins pour être
maître de toute la Castille et du royaume de Léon. Ce n’est que
lorsqu’on aura reçu la nouvelle de ce qu’il aura fait à Bénévent et
à Léon qu’on pourra décider s’il doit attaquer la Galice.
_8^{me} Observation._--Le général Verdier, en Arragon, a cerné
Saragosse: le 14^{eme} et le 44^{eme} de ligne partent demain pour
s’y rendre. Les partis Français vont jusqu’à moitié chemin de
Lerida, de Barbastro, et de Jaca. Dans dix jours toute l’artillerie
sera arrivée. Cette belle et bonne brigade de troupes de ligne
porte à près de quinze mille hommes l’armée du général Verdier. Il
est probable que Saragosse tombera bientôt, et que les deux tiers
de ces 15 milles hommes deviendrons disposibles.
_9^{eme} Observation._--Ainsi le corps du maréchal Bessières a
pris l’offensive, il est depuis sa victoire renforcé de la brigade
Lefebre et de la brigade Gaulois; il est donc dans le cas de
conserver l’offensive. Le corps du général Verdier en Arragon
a battu partout les insurgés, a cerné la ville avec des forces
beaucoup moindres; il vient d’être considérablement renforcé; ainsi
il peut donner une nouvelle activité aux opérations du siège, et
conserver son activité offensive sur les deux rives de l’Ebre.
Le corps de Catalogne a joliment agi, ayant pour point d’appui
Barcelonne, l’ajonction sera faite aujourd’hui ou demain devant
Géronne, avec le gén^l Reille.
_10^{eme} Observation._--Voilà pour les trois corps d’armée situés
du côté de la France. La communication de Madrid avec la France
est important sous tous les points de vue. Il faut donc que les
colonnes qui viennent d’être organisées à Burgos et à Vittoria et
qui seront journellement renforcées et augmentées, soient laissées
dans ces stations.
Ci joint la note de la formation de ces colonnes. Elles sont
presque toutes composées de 3^{eme} bataillons et de conscrits,
mais avec de bons cadres; 15 à 20 jours de stations à Burgos et à
Vittoria les mettront à-peu-près à l’école de bataillon. Ce serait
une très grande faute que de rappeller trop tôt ces troupes pour
en renforcer les cadres principaux; il faut attendre jusqu’à ce
qu’on ait pu les remplacer à Vittoria et à Burgos par de nouvelles
troupes.
_11^{eme} Observation._--Il n’y a donc rien à craindre du côté du
maréchal Bessières, ni dans le nord de la Castille, ni dans le
royaume de Léon.
Il n’y a rien à craindre en Arragon; Saragosse tombera un jour plus
tôt ou un jour plus tard.
Il n’y a rien à craindre en Catalogne.
Il n’y a rien à craindre pour les communications de Burgos à
Bayonne, moyennant les deux colonnes organisées dans ces deux
villes, et qui seront renforcées. S’il y avait des événemens en
Biscaye, la force qui se réunit à Bayonne, formant une réserve,
seroit suffisante pour mettre tout en ordre.
S’il arrive à Burgos quelque événement trop considérable pour
que la colonne mobile qui est à Burgos puisse y mettre ordre, le
maréchal Bessières ne sera pas assez loin pour ne pouvoir faire un
détachement.
Le général Monthion a la surveillance de toutes les Biscayes. Le
général Bonnet à Burgos est chargé de maintenir la communication
de Vittoria avec le maréchal Bessières et avec Madrid. Il est
nécessaire que ces deux généraux correspondent tous les jours
entr’eux et avec le général Drouet, qui est laissé en réserve à
Bayonne, de même que le gén^l Verdier de Saragosse et le gén^l
Dagoult de Pampelune doivent correspondre tous les jours avec
le général Drouet à Bayonne, et avec Madrid, par le canal de
Bayonne et de Vittoria: jusqu’à ce que les communications directes
soient rétablies, un courier partant de Madrid peut se rendre
par Vittoria, Tolosa, Pampelune, devant Saragosse. Le seul point
important donc aujourd’hui est le général Dupont. Si l’ennemi
parvenait jamais à s’emparer des défiles de la Sierra Morena, il
serait difficile de l’en chasser; il faut donc renforcer le gén^l
Dupont, de manière qu’il ait 25 mille hommes, compris ce qu’il
faudra pour gardes les passages des montagnes et une partie du
chemin de La Manche. Il pourra disposer les troupes de manière que
le jour où il voudra attaquer, la brigade de deux à trois mille
hommes, destinée à garder les montagnes, arrive au camp du gén^l
Dupont à marches forcées, et soit successivement remplacée par les
colonnes qui seraient en arrière, de sorte que le gén^l Dupont ait
pour le jour de la bataille plus de 23 mille hommes à mettre en
ligne.
Une fois qu’on aura bien battu l’ennemi, une partie des troupes se
dissipera, et selon que la victoire sera plus ou moins décidée,
on pourra faire continuer le mouvement à d’autres troupes sur le
général Dupont.
_12^{eme} Observation._--Saragosse pris, on aura des troupes
disposibles, soit pour renforcer l’armée de Catalogne, soit pour
marcher sur Valence de concert avec le maréchal Moncey, soit pour
renforcer le maréchal Bessières et marcher en Galice, si après la
victoire qu’il a déjà remporté, et celle qu’il remportera à Léon,
il ne croit pas assez fort pour s’y porter d’abord.
_13^{eme} Observation._--Il serait important de choisir deux
points intermédiaires entre Andujar et Madrid, pour pouvoir y
laisser garnison permanente, un commandant, un dépôt de cartouches,
munitions, canons, magazins de biscuit, des fours, du farine,
et un hôpital, de sorte que 3 à 400 hommes défendent le magazin
et l’hôpital contre toute une insurrection. Il est difficile de
croire qu’il n’y ait point quelque château ou donjon, pouvant être
retranché promptement et propre à cela. C’est par ce seul moyen
qu’on peut raccourcir la ligne d’opération, et être sur d’avoir
toutes les trois ou quatre grandes marches, une manutention et un
point de repos.
_14^{eme} Observation._--En résumé, le partage de l’armée parait
devoir être celui-ci:
Corps de Catalogne, tel qu’il existe à-peu-près 20,000 h^{es}.
Corps d’Arragon, tel qu’il existe à-peu-près 15 mille
hommes, jusqu’à ce que Saragosse soit pris 15,000
Corps du maréchal Bessières, ce qu’il
a à-peu-près 17,000
Colonne de Burgos 2,000
Colonne de Vittoria 2,000
Garnison de St. Sebastian 1,500
Corps d’Aranda 1,000
------
Total du corps du mar^l Bessières. 24,000 h^{es}.
Après la prise de Saragosse, lorsque les affaires de Catalogne
seront un peu appaisées, on pourra, selon les circonstances, ou
renforcer le maréchal Bessières, ou renforcer le général Dupont, ou
entreprendre l’opération de Valence.
Aujourd’hui, le seul point qui menace, où il faut promptement avoir
un succès, c’est du côté du général Dupont, avec 25 mille hommes
infanterie, cavalerie, et artillerie comprise: il a beaucoup plus
qu’il ne faut pour avoir de grands résultats; à la rigueur, avec 21
mille hommes présent sur le champ de bataille, il peut hardiment
prendre l’offensive, il ne sera pas battu, et il aura pour lui plus
de 80 chances.
* * * * *
Dictated by Napoleon. Taken at Vittoria.
No. IV.
NOTE SUR LES AFFAIRES D’ESPAGNE.
_St. Cloud, le 30 août, 1808._
_1^{ere} Observation._--Dans la position de l’armée d’Espagne on a
à craindre d’être attaqué sur le droite par l’armée de Galice, sur
le centre par l’armée venant de Madrid, sur le gauche par l’armée
venant de Saragosse et Valence. Ce serait une grande faute que
de laisser l’armée de Saragosse et de Valence prendre position à
Tudela.
Tudela doit être occupé, parceque c’est une position honorable, et
Milagro une position obscure.
Tudela est sur les communications de Pampelune, a un beau pont
en pierre, est l’aboutissant d’un canal sur Saragosse. C’est une
position offensive sur Saragosse telle que l’ennemi ne peut pas
la négliger; cette position seule couvre la Navarre. En gardant
Tudela, on garde une grande quantité de bateaux, qui nous seront
bientôt nécessaires pour le siège de Saragosse.
Si l’ennemi était maître de Tudela, toute la Navarre s’insurgerait,
l’ennemi pourrait arriver à Estella, en négligeant la position de
Milagro et en coupant la communication avec Pampelune.
D’Estella il serait sur Tolosa; il y serait sans donner le tems de
faire les dispositions convenables; il n’est pas à craindre, au
contraire, que l’ennemi fasse aucune opération sur Pampelune; tant
que nous aurons Tudela, il serait lui-même coupé sur Saragosse.
Le général qui commande à Tudela peut couvrir les hauteurs
de redoutes; si c’est une armée d’insurgés, s’en approcher
et la battre, la tenir constamment sur le defensive par les
reconnoissances et ses mouvemens sur Saragosse.
Et si, au lieu de cela, une partie de l’armée de ligne Espagnole
marchait sur Tudela, le général Français repassera l’Ebre, s’il y
est forcé, disputera le terrein sur Pampelune, et donnera le tems
au général en chef de l’armée Française de prendre ses mésures. Ce
corps d’observation remplira alors son but, et aucune opération
prompte sur Tolosa ni Estella n’est à craindre.
Au lieu qu’en occupant la position de Milagro, l’ennemi sera à
Estella, le même jour qu’on l’apprendra au quartier général. Si
on occupe Tudela, il faut s’y aider de redoutes, et s’y établir,
n’y conserver aucune espèce d’embarras, et les tenir tous dans
Pampelune. Si l’ennemi l’occupe, il faut l’en chasser, et s’y
établir; car dans l’ordre défensif, ce serait une grande faute, qui
entrainerait de fâcheuses consequences.
_2^e Observation._--La position de Burgos était également
importante à tenir, comme ville de haute réputation, comme centre
de communication et de rapports.
Delà des partis non seulement de cavalerie, mais encore de deux
ou de trois mille hommes d’infanterie, et même quatre ou cinq
mille hommes en échelons peuvent poster les premières patrouilles
d’housards dans toutes les directions jusqu’à deux marches, et
parfaitement informés de tout ce qui ce fait, en instruire le
quartier général, de manière que si l’ennemi se présente en force
sur Burgos, les différentes divisions puissent à temps s’y porter
pour le soutenir et livrer la bataille, ou si cela n’est pas jugé
convenable, éclairer les mouvemens de l’ennemi, lui laisser croire
qu’on veut se porter sur Burgos, et pouvoir ensuite faire sa
retraite pour se porter ailleurs.
Un corps de 12 à 15 mille hommes ne prend-il pas 20 positions dans
la journée au seul commandement d’un adjudant major? et nos troupes
seraient-elles devenues des levées en masse, qu’il faudroit placer
15 jours d’avance dans les positions où on voudroit qu’elles se
battent?
Si cela eut été jugé ainsi, le corps du maréchal Bessières eut
pris la position de Miranda ou de Briviesca; mais lorsque l’ennemi
est encore à Madrid, lorsqu’on ignore où est l’armée de Galice,
et qu’on a le soupçon que les rebelles pourront employer une
partie de leurs efforts contre le Portugal, prendre, au lieu
d’une position menaçante, offensive, honorable comme Burgos, une
position honteuse, borgne comme Trevino, c’est dire à l’ennemi,
“Vous n’avez rien à craindre; portez vous ailleurs; nous avons
fait nos dispositions pour aller plus loin, ou bien nous avons
choisi un champ de bataille pour nous battre; venez ici, vous ne
craignez pas d’être inquiétés.” Mais que fera le général Français,
si l’on marche demain sur Burgos? laissera-t-il prendre par 6,000
insurgés la citadelle de cette ville, ou si les Français ont
laissés garnison dans le château (car on ignore la position et la
situation de l’armée), comment une garnison de 4, 6, ou 800 hommes
se retira-t-elle dans une si vaste plaine? Et des lors c’est comme
s’il n’y avoit rien: l’ennemi maître de cette citadelle, on ne la
reprendra plus.
Si, au contraire, on veut garder la citadelle, on veut donc livrer
bataille à l’ennemi; car cette citadelle ne peut pas tenir plus de
trois jours; et si on veut livrer bataille à l’ennemi, pourquoi
le ma^l. Bessières abandonne-t-il le terrein où on veut livrer
bataille?
Ces dispositions paraissent mal raisonneés, et quand l’ennemi
marchera on fera essuyer à l’armée un affront qui demoralisera
les troupes, n’y eut-il que des corps légers ou des insurgés qui
marchassent.
En résumé, la position de Burgos devait être gardée; tous les jours
à trois heures du matin on devait être sous les armes, et à une
heure du matin il devait partir des reconnaissances dans toutes
les directions. On devait ainsi recueillir des nouvelles à huit ou
dix lieux à la ronde, pour qu’on peut prendre ensuite le parti que
les circonstances indiqueraient.
C’est la première fois qu’il arrive à une armée de quitter toutes
les positions offensives, pour se mettre dans de mauvaises
positions défensives, d’avoir l’air de choisir des champs de
bataille, lorsque l’éloignement de l’ennemi, les mille et une
combinaisons différentes qui peuvent avoir lieu, ne laissent point
la probabilité de prévoir si la bataille aura lieu à Tudela, entre
Tudela et Pampelune, entre Soria et l’Ebre, ou entre Burgos et
Miranda.
La position de Burgos, tenue en force et d’une manière offensive,
menace Palencia, Valladolid, Aranda. Madrid même. Il faut avoir
longtems fait la guerre pour la concevoir; il faut avoir entrepris
un grand nombre d’opérations offensives pour savoir comme le
moindre événement ou indice encourage ou décourage, décide une
opération ou une autre.
En deux mots, si 15 mille insurgés entrent dans Burgos, se
retranchent dans la ville, et occupent le château, il faut calculer
une marche de plusieurs jours pour pouvoir s’y poster et reprendre
la ville; ce qui ne sera pas sans quelque inconvenient; si pendant
ce tems-là la véritable attaque est sur Logroño ou Pampelune, on
aura fait des contremarches inutiles, qui auront fatigué l’armée;
et enfin, si l’ennemi occupe Logroño, Tudela, et Burgos, l’armée
Française serait dans une triste et mauvaise position.
Quand on tiens à Burgos de la cavalerie sans infanterie, n’est-ce
pas dire à l’ennemi qu’on ne veut pas y tenir; n’est-ce pas
l’engager à y venir? Burgos a une grande influence dans le monde
par son nom, dans la Castille parceque c’en est la capitale, dans
les opérations parcequ’elle donne une communication directe avec
St. Ander. Il n’est pas permis à 300 lieues, et n’ayant pas même
un état de situation de l’armée, de prescrire ce qu’on doit faire;
mais on doit dire que si aucune force majeure ne l’empêche, il faut
occuper Burgos et Tudela.
Le corps détaché de Tudela a son mouvement assuré sur Pampelune,
a la rôle de garder la Navarre, a ses ennemis à tenir en échec,
Saragosse et tous les insurgés. Il était plus que suffisant
pour surveiller Tudela, l’Ebre, et Pampelune, pour dissiper les
rassemblemens s’il n’y avait que des insurgés, contenir l’ennemi,
donner des renseignemens, et retarder la marche sur Pampelune. Si
au lieu des insurgés, c’est l’armée ennemie qui marche de ce côté,
il suffit encore pour donner le tems à l’armée de Burgos, à celle
de Miranda, de marcher réunie avec 36 mille hommes, soit pour
prendre l’offensive, soit pour prendre en flanc l’ennemi qui marche
sur Pampelune, soit pour se replier et rentrer dans la Navarre, si
toute l’armée ennemie avait pris cette direction.
Si ces observations paraissent bonnes et qu’on les adopte, que
l’ennemi n’ait encore montré aucun plan, il faut que le général
qui commande le corps de Sarragosse fasse construire quelque
redoutes autour de Tudela, pour favoriser ses champs de bataille,
réunisse des vivres de tous les côtés, et soit là dans une position
offensive sur Sarragosse en maintenant sa communication avec
Logroño par sa droite, mais au moins par la rive gauche de l’Ebre.
Il faut que le maréchal Bessières, avec tout son corps, renforcé
de la cavalerie légère, soit campé dans le bois près Burgos, la
citadelle bien occupée; que tous les hôpitaux, les dépôts, les
embarras soient au delà de l’Ebre; qu’il soit là en position de
manœuvrer, tous les jours, à trois heures du matin, sous les armes,
jusqu’au retour de toutes les reconnaissances, et éclairant le
pays dans la plus grande étendue; que le corps du ma^l Moncey soit
à Miranda et à Briviesca, tous ses embarras et hôpitaux derrière
Vittoria, toujours en bataille avant le jour, et envoyant des
reconnaissances sur Soria et les autres directions de l’ennemi.
Il ne faut pas perdre de vue que les corps des maréchaux Bessières
et Moncey, devant être réunis, il faut se lier le moins possible
avec Logroño, et cependant considérer le corps du général Lefebre
comme un corps détaché, qui a une ligne d’opération particulière
sur Pampelune et un rôle séparé; vouloir conserver Tudela comme une
partie contigue de la ligne, c’est se desseminer beaucoup. Enfin,
faire la guerre, c’est à dire, avoir des nouvelles par les curés,
les alcaldes, les chefs de couvent, les principaux proprietaires,
les postes: on sera alors parfaitement informé.
Les reconnaissances qui tous les jours se dirigeront du côté de
Soria, de Burgos, sur Palencia, et du côté d’Aranda, peuvent
former tous les jours trois postes d’interception, trois rapports
d’hommes arrêtés, qu’on traitera bien, et qu’on rélachera quand
ils auront donné les renseignemens qu’on desire. On verra alors
venir l’ennemi, on pourra réunir toutes ses forces, lui dérober
des marches, et tomber sur ses flancs au moment ou il meditera un
projet offensif.
_3^{me} Observation._--L’armée Espagnole d’Andalousie étoit
peu nombreuse. Toutes les Gazettes Anglaises, et les rapports
de l’officier Anglais qui était au camp, nous le prouvent.
L’inconcevable ineptie du général Dupont, sa profonde ignorance
des calculs d’un général en chef, son tâtonnement, l’ont perdu.
18 mille hommes ont posé les armes, six mille seulement se sont
battus, et encore ces 6000 hommes que le gen^l Dupont a fait battre
à la pointe du jour, après les avoir fait marcher toute la nuit,
étaient un contre trois. Malgré tout cela, l’ennemi c’est si mal
battu, qu’il n’a pas fait un prisonnier, pris une pièce de canon,
gagné un pouce de terrein, et l’armée de Dupont est restée intacte
dans sa position; ce qui sans doute a été un malheur; car il eût
mieux valu que cette division eût été mise en déroute, éparpillée,
et détruite, puisque les divisions Vedel et Dufour, au lieu de se
rendre par la capitulation, auraient fait leur retraite. Comment
ces deux divisions ont-elles été comprises dans la capitulation?
c’est par la lâcheté insultante et l’imbécilité des hommes qui ont
négocié, et qui porteront sur l’échaffaud la peine de ce grand
crime national.
Ce que l’ont vient de dire prouve que les Espagnols ne sont pas
à craindre; toutes les forces Espagnols ne sont pas capables de
culbuter 25 mille Français, dans une position raisonnable.
Depuis le 12 jusqu’au 19, le général Dupont n’a fait que des
bêtises, et malgré tout cela, s’il n’avait pas fait la faute de
se séparer de Vedel, et qu’il eût marché avec lui, les Espagnols
auraient été battus et culbutés. A la guerre les hommes ne sont
rien, c’est un homme qui est tout. Jusqu’à cette heure nous
n’avons trouvé ces exemples que dans l’histoire de nos ennemis:
aujourd’hui, il est fâcheux que nous puissions les trouver dans la
nôtre.
Une rivière, fût-elle aussi large que la Vistule, aussi rapide que
le Danube à son emboucheur, n’est rien si on n’a des débouchés sur
l’autre rive, et une tête prompte à reprendre l’offensive. Quand à
l’Ebre, c’est moins que rien; on ne la regarde que comme une trace.
Dans toutes ces observations, on a parlé dans la position où se
trouvait l’armée du 20 au 26, lorsqu’elle n’avait nulle part
nouvelle de l’ennemi.
Si on continue à ne prendre aucune mésure pour avoir des nouvelles,
on n’apprendra que l’armée de ligne Espagnol est arrivée sur Tudela
et Pampelune, qu’elle est sur les communications, sur Tolosa, que
lorsqu’elle y sera déjà rendue. On a fait connaître dans la note
précédente comment on faisait à la guerre pour avoir des nouvelles.
Si la position de Tudela est occupée par l’ennemi, on ne voit pas
que l’Ebre soit tenable. Comment a-t-on évacué Tudela, lorsqu’on
avait mandé dans des notes précédentes qu’il fallait garder
ce point, et que l’opinion même des généraux qui venaient de
Sarragosse étaient d’occuper cette importante position.
* * * * *
Dictated by Napoleon. Taken at Vittoria.
No. V.
NOTE SUR LES AFFAIRES D’ESPAGNE.
_St. Cloud, Août, 1808._
_1^{ere} Observation._--Tudela est importante sous plusieurs
points de vue: il a un pont sur l’Ebre, et protège parfaitement la
Navarre: c’est le point d’intersection du canal qui va à Sarragosse.
Les convois d’artillerie et de vivres mettent pour se rendre de
Pampelune à Tudela trois jours, de Tudela à Sarragosse trois jours.
Mais en se servant du canal, on va de Tudela à Sarragosse en 14
heures. Lorsque donc les vivres, les hôpitaux, sont à Tudela, c’est
comme s’ils étaient à Sarragosse.
La première opération qui doit faire l’armée lorsqu’elle reprendra
son système d’offensive, et qu’elle sera forte de tous ses moyens,
ce doit être d’invester et de prendre Sarragosse; et si cette ville
résiste comme elle l’a fait la première fois, en donner un exemple
qui retentisse dans toute l’Espagne.
Une vingtaine de pièces de 12 de campagne, une vingtaine
d’obsusiers de six pièces de campagne, une douzaine de mortières,
et une douzaine de pièces de 16 et de 24, parfaitement
approvisionée, seront nécessaires, ainsi que des mineurs pour
remplir ce but.
Il n’est aucun de ces bouches de feu qui doive consommer son
approvisionement de campagne.
Un approvisionement extraordinaire de 80 mille coups de canon,
bombes ou obus, parait nécessaire pour prendre cette ville.
II faudrait donc, pour ne pas retarder la marche de la grande
armée, 15 jours avant qu’elle ne puisse arriver, commencer le
transport de Pampeluna à Tudela, et que dans les 48 heures après
l’investissement de Sarragosse, l’artillerie y arrivât sur des
bâteux, de manière que quatre jours après on put commencer trois
attaques à la fois, et avoir cette ville en peu de jours, ce qui
serait une partie des succès, en y employant 25 à 30 mille hommes,
ou plus s’il était nécessaire.
On suppose que, si l’ennemi a pris position entre Madrid et Burgos,
il aura été battu.
Il faut donc occuper Tudela. Ce point est tellement important
qu’il serait à desirer qu’on put employer un mois à le fortifier
et à s’y retrancher de manière qu’un millier d’hommes avec 8 à 10
pièces de canon s’y trouvassent en sûreté et à l’abri de toutes les
insurrections possibles. Il ne faut pas surtout souffrir que les
revoltés s’y retranchât; ce serait deux sièges au lieu d’une; et
il serait impossible de prendre Sarragosse avant d’avoir Tudela, à
cause du canal.
On trouvera ci-joint des observations du colonel Lacoste sur
Tudela; puisque les localités empêchent de penser à le fortifier,
il eût été utile de l’occuper au lieu de Milagro, qui n’aboutit à
rien.
2^{de}. Soria n’est je crois qu’à deux petits marches des positions
actuelles de l’armée. Cette ville s’est constamment mal comportée.
Une expedition qui se porterait sur Soria, la désarmerait, en
prendrait une trentaine d’hommes des plus considerables, qu’on
enverrait en France pour ôtages, et qui enfin lui ferait fournir
des vivres pour l’armée, serait d’un bon effet.
3^{me}. Une troisième opération qui serait utile serait
l’occupation de St. Ander. Il serait bien avantageux qu’elle put ce
faire par la route directe de Bilbao à St. Ander.
4^{me}. Il faut s’occuper de désarmer la Biscaye et la Navarre;
c’est un point important; tout Espagnol pris les armes à la main
doit être fusillé.
Il faut veiller sur la fabrique d’armes de Palencia, ne point
laisser travailler les ouvriers pour les rebelles.
Le fort de Pancorvo doit être armé et fortifie avec la plus grande
activité. Il doit y avoir dans ce fort des fours, des magazins de
bouches et de guerre. Situé presqu’à mi-chemin de Bayonne à Madrid,
c’est une poste intermédiare pour l’armée, et un point d’appui pour
les opérations de la Galicie.
Il y a dans l’armée plus de généraux qu’il n’en faut; deux seraient
nécessaires au corps qui était sous Sarragosse. Les généraux de
division La Grange, Belliard, et Grandjean sont sans emploi, et
tous trois bons généraux.
Il faut renvoyer, le plus promptement possible, le regiment et le
général Portugais pour joindre leurs corps à Grenobles, où il doit
se former.
5^{me}. On ne discutera pas ici si la ligne de l’Ebre est bonne, si
elle a la configuration requise pour être défendu avec avantage.
On discutera encore moins si on eût pu ne pas evacuer Madrid,
conserver la ligne du Duero, ou prendre une position qui eût
couvert le siège de Sarragosse et eût permis d’attendre que cette
ville fut prise; toutes ces questions sont oiseuses.
Nous nous contenterons de dire, puisqu’on a pris la ligne de
l’Ebre, que les troupes s’y desout et s’y reposent, qu’elle a au
moins l’avantage que le pays est plus sain, étant plus élevé, et
qu’on peut y attendre que les chaleurs soient passées.
Il faut surtout ne point quitter cette ligne sans avoir un projet
déterminé, qui ne laisse aucune incertitude dans les opérations à
suivre. Ce serait un grand malheur de quitter cette ligne pour être
ensuite obligé de la reprendre.
A la guerre les trois quarts sont des affaires morales; la balance
des forces réelles n’est que pour un autre quart.
6^{me}. En gardant la ligne de l’Ebre il faut que le général ait
bien prévu tout ce que l’ennemi peut faire dans tous les hypothèses.
L’ennemi peut se présenter devant Burgos, partir de Soria, et
marcher sur Logroño, ou, en partant de Sarragosse, se porter
sur Estella, et menacer ainsi Tolosa. Il faut, dans tous ces
hypothèses, qu’il n’y ait point un longtems perdu en déliberations,
qu’on puisse se ployer de sa droite à sa gauche, et de sa gauche
à sa droite, sans faire aucun sacrifice. Car dans des manœuvres
combinées, les tâtonnements, l’irrésolution qui naissent des
nouvelles contradictoires qui se succedent rapidement, conduisent à
des malheurs.
Cette diversion de Sarragosse sur Tolosa est une des raisons qui a
longtems fait penser que la position de Tudela devait être gardée,
soit sur la rive droite, soit avec la faculté de repasser sur la
rive gauche. Elle est offensive sur Sarragosse, elle previent à tem
de tous les mouvemens qui pourraient se faire de ce côté.
7^{me}. Une observation qu’il n’est pas hors de propos de faire
ici c’est, que l’ennemi, qui a intérêt de masquer ses forces, en
cachant le véritable point de son attaque, opère de manière que le
coup qu’il veut porter n’est jamais indiqué d’une manière positive,
et le général ne peut deviner que par la connaissance bien
approfondie de sa position, et la manière dont il fait entrer son
système offensive, pour proteger et garantir son système défensive.
8^{me}. On n’a point de renseignements sur ce que fait l’ennemi.
On dit toujours qu’on ne peut pas avoir des nouvelles, comme si
cette position était extraordinaire dans une armée, comme si on
trouvait ordinairement des éspions. Il faut en Espagne, comme
partout ailleurs, envoyer des parties qui enlevent tantôt le curé
ou l’alcalde, tantôt un chef de couvent ou le maître de poste, et
surtout toutes les lettres, quelquefois le maître de la poste, aux
douanes, ou celui qui en fait les fonctions, ou les met aux arrêts
jusqu’à ce qu’ils parlent, en les faisant interroger deux fois
par jour; on les garde en ôtage, et on les charge d’envoyer des
piétons, et de donner des nouvelles.
Quand on saura prendre des mésures de force et de vigueur, on aura
des nouvelles; il faut intercepter toutes les postes, toutes les
lettres.
Le seul motif d’avoir des nouvelles peut determiner à faire un gros
détachement de quatre à cinq milles hommes, qui se portent dans une
grande ville, prennent les lettres à la poste, se saississent des
citoyens les plus aisés de leurs lettres, papiers, gazettes, etc.
Il est hors de doute que même dans la ligne des Français les
habitants sont tous informés de ce qui se passe: à plus forte
raison hors de la ligne. Qui empêche donc, qu’on prenne les hommes
marquants, et qu’on les renvoyé ensuite sans les maltraiter?
Il est donc de fait, lorsqu’on n’est point dans un désert, et qu’on
est dans un pays peuple, que si le general n’est pas instruit,
c’est qu’il n’a pas su prendre les mésures convenables pour l’être.
Les services que les habitants rendent à un général ennemi, ils ne
le font jamais par affection, ni même pour avoir de l’argent; les
plus réels qu’on obtient c’est pour avoir de sauve-gardes, et de
protections; c’est pour conserver ses biens, ses jours, sa ville,
son monastère.
* * * * *
The original of the following memoir is a rough draft, written by
king Joseph. It has many erasures and interlineations, and was
evidently composed to excuse his retreat from Madrid. The number
of the French troops was undoubtedly greater than is here set
down, unless the infantry alone be meant.
No. VI.
Lorsqu’on a quitté Madrid a la nouvelle de _la defection_ d’un
corps de vingt-deux mille hommes, il y avoit dans Madrid dix-sept
mille hommes, au corps du maréchal Bessières quinze mille cinq
cent, au corps de Sarragosse onze mille sept cent: l’armée se
composait done de quarante-cinq mille hommes; mais ces trois corps
étaient distans entre eux de près de cent lieus. La première idée
fut de réunir le corps de Madrid à celui de Léon, à Burgos, et par
suite d’entrer en communication avec celui de Sarragosse, avec
lequel l’état major de Madrid n’avoit jamais eu aucune relation
directe, et dont il ignorait absolument la situation et la
composition.
Vingt jours après sa sortie de Madrid le roi s’est trouvé à la
tête d’une armée de cinquante mille hommes. Le feu de la sedition
n’a pas pu se communiquer sur les points parcourus par les trois
corps d’armée alors réunis; les communications avec la France out
été gardées; l’insurrection de Bilbao a été eteinte dans le sang
de 1200 insurgés. Peu de jours après, 20,000 d’entre eux réunis
a 60 lieus delà, à Tudela, à l’autre extrémité de la ligne, out
été dispersés et poursuivis rigoureusement. Les provinces de la
Biscaye, de Burgos, et le royaume de Navarre ont été contenus. Une
organization intérieure a prepare les moyens de nourrir l’armée,
d’approvisionner les places de Pampelune, St. Sebastien, les
forts de Pancorvo et de Burgos, en rendant le moins insupportable
possible à ces provinces cette charge évidemment disproportionnée à
leurs moyens.
Le matériel de l’artillerie a été réparé et mis en état d’agir,
l’armée réorganisée, les hommes et les chevaux sont aujourd’hui en
bon état.
C’est ainsi que s’est passé le mois d’Août et partie de Septembre.
Les renforts arrivés de France ont à peine indemnisé l’armée
des pertes qu’elle a éprouvés par les maladies et le siège de
Sarragosse.
Voici sa force, et son organisation actuelle:
Le corps de droite, commandé par m^r le mar^{al} Bessières, est
forte de 18,000 hommes.
Celui de gauche, commandé par m^r le mar^{al} Moncey, est de 18,000
hommes.
Celui du centre, aux ordres de m^r le mar^{al} Ney, est de onze
mille hommes.
La reserve du roi est de quatre mille hommes[30].
Le corps de droite occupe le pays depuis Burgos jusqu’à Pancorvo,
et Ponte de Lara.
Le corps de gauche depuis Tudela jusqu’à Logroño.
Le corps du centre depuis Logroño jusqu’à Haro.
La reserve Miranda.
La nouvelle position prise par l’armée depuis que les événemens de
l’Andalousie avaient fait présager une guerre réelle en Espagne,
était évidemment commandée par les simples notions de la saine
raison, qui ne pouvait permettre sa séparation à plus de dix jours
de marche, de trois corps d’armée, dont le plus fort n’arrivait
pas à 18,000 hommes, au milieu d’une nation de onze millions
d’habitans, qui se déclarait ennemi, et se mettait universellement
en état de guerre.
Cinquante mille Français ont pu se tenir avec succès sur une ligne
de plus de 60 lieus, gardant les deux grandes communications de
Burgos et de Tudela contre des ennemis qui n’ont pu jusqu’ici
porter sur l’un ou l’autre de ces points plus de 25,000 hommes;
puisque 15,000 Français pouvaient être réunis sur l’une ou l’autre
de ces deux communications principales en 24 heures.
Si les corps d’armée dirigés sur l’Espagne devaient arriver dans
le mois de Septembre, ce système défensif et offensif à la fois se
continuerait avec avantage, puisqu’il tend à refaire l’armée, à
attendre celle qui doit arriver, et continue à menacer l’ennemi;
mais il ne saurait se prolonger jusqu’au mois de Novembre. L’ennemi
n’a pu rester trois mois sans faire de grands progrès; bientôt il
sera en état de prendre l’offensif avec de grands corps organisés,
obéissans à une administration centrale, qui aura eu le tems de se
former à Madrid. Tout nous annonce que le mois d’Octobre est une
de ces époques décisives qui donne à celui qui sait s’en emparer
la priorité des mouvemens et des succès dont la progression est
incalculable.
Quel est le parti à prendre dans la position où se trouve l’armée,
et avec l’assurance qu’elle a? de voir entrer en Espagne dans le
mois de Novembre deux cent mille Français.
Six manières de voir se présentent à l’esprit.
1^{ere}. D’essayer de rester encore dans l’état où l’on est.
Ce système est évidemment insoutenable. De Tudela à Burgos et
à Bilbao il y a plus de 60 lieus. L’ennemi pourra attaquer la
gauche de cette ligne avec quarante mille hommes, la droite avec
quarante mille hommes, le centre avec des forces égales. Tudela
et la Navarre jusqu’à Logroño demandent 25,000 hommes pour être
défendues. Burgos ne peut être défendue que par une armée en état
de résister aux forces réunis de MM. Blake, Cuesta, qui peuvent
présenter 80,000 hommes. Il est douteux que les 20,000 bayonettes
qu’il serait possible de leur presente puissent les battre
complètement. Si le succès est douteux, ces 20,000 hommes seront
harcelés par les insurgés, qui pourront alors soulever les trois
provinces, les séparer totalement d’avec le corps de gauche et de
la France.
2^{de}. Porter le corps du centre et la reserve par Tudela au
devant de l’ennemi sur la route de Sarragosse, ou sur celle
d’Albazan; on réunirait ainsi 30,000 hommes, on chercherait
l’ennemi, et nul doute on le battrait si on le rencontrait de ce
côté.
Le maréchal Bessières serait chargé d’observer la grande
communication de Burgos à Miranda, laisserait garnison dans le
château de Burgos, dans le fort de Pancorvo, occuperait l’ennemi,
surveillerait les mouvemens des montagnes de Reynosa, les
débarquemens possibles de Santander. Sa tâche serait difficile
si l’on considère que le défilé de Pancorvo n’est pas le seul
accessible à l’artillerie, qu’à trois lieus delà on arrive sur
Miranda par une route practicable à l’artillerie, que quelques
lieus plus loin l’Ebre offre un troisième passage sur le point de
la chaîne qu’il traverse entre Haro et Miranda.
3^{eme}. Laisser le maréchal Moncey à la défence de la Navarre, et
se porter avec le corps du centre et la reserve sur Burgos. Réuni
au maréchal Bessières on pourroit chercher l’ennemi, et attaquer
avec avantage, on marcherait à lui avec trente mille hommes, et on
n’attendrait pas qu’il fut réuni avec toutes ses forces. Il serait
peut-être possible de donner pour instruction au maréchal Moncey,
dans le cas ou il serait débordé sur sa gauche, et qu’il ne verrait
pas probabilité de battre l’ennemi, de faire un mouvement par sa
droite, et se porter par Logroño sur Briviesca, où il se réunirait
au reste de l’armée. Dans ce cas, la Navarre s’insurgerait, les
communications avec la France seraient coupées, mais l’armée
réunie dans la plaine serait assez forte pour attendre les corps
qui arrivent de France, et qui seront assez forts pour pénétrer
partout. Il serait aussi possible que, dans tous les cas, le
maréchal Moncey se maintienne dans le camp retranché de Pampelune;
manœuvrant autour de cette place, il y attendrait le résultat des
opérations des deux corps d’armée qui auraient été au devant de
l’ennemi dans la plaine de Burgos, et l’arrivée des corps de la
grande armée.
4^{eme}. Passer l’Ebre, et chercher à amener l’ennemi à une
bataille dans la plaine que est entre Vittoria et l’Ebre.
5^{eme}. Se retirer appuyant sa gauche sur Pampelune, et sa droite
dans les montagnes de Mondragone.
6^{eme}. Laisser une garnison en état de se défendre pendant six
semaines à Pampelune, St. Sebastien, Pancorvo, et Burgos, réunir
le reste de l’armée, marcher à la rencontre de l’ennemi sur l’une
ou l’autre des grandes communications, le battre partout où on le
trouverait, attendre, ou près de Madrid, ou dans le pays où les
mouvemens de l’ennemi et la possibilité de vivre aurait porté
l’armée, les troupes de France; on abandonnerait ses derrières,
ses communications; mais la grande armée serait assez forte pour
en ouvrir pour elle-même. Et quant à l’armée qui est en Espagne,
réunie ainsi elle serait en état de braver tous les efforts, de
déconcerter tous les projets de l’ennemi, et d’attendre dans une
noble attitude le mouvement général qui sera imprimé par vôtre
majesté lors de l’arrivée de toutes les troupes dans ce pays.
De tous les projets le dernier parait preférable; il est plus noble
et aussi sur que le 5^{eme}.
Ces deux projets sont seuls entiers absolument offensif ou
absolument défensif. On peut les regarder, l’un et l’autre, comme
propres à assurer la conservation de l’armée jusqu’à l’arrivée des
renforts. Le dernier a sur l’autre l’avantage d’arrêter le progrès
de l’ordre nouveau qui s’établit en Espagne; il est plus digne des
troupes Françaises, et du frère de vôtre majesté. Il est aussi sur
que celui de la sévère et honteuse défensive proposée par l’article
cinq. Je l’ai communiqué au mar^{al} Jourdan et au mar^{al} Ney,
qui l’un et l’autre sont de cet avis. Je ne doute point que les
autres maréchaux ne partagent leur opinion.
Au premier Octobre je puis avoir la réponse de V. M., et même
avant, puisque je lui ai manifesté cette opinion par ma lettre du
14 Septembre.
Si V. M. approuve ce plan, il sera possible qu’elle n’ait pas de
mes nouvelles jusqu’à l’arrivée des troupes; mais je suis convaincu
qu’elle trouvera les affaires dans une bien meilleure situation
qu’en suivant aucun des autres cinq projets.
_Miranda, le 16 Sept. 1808._
* * * * *
No. VII.
S. EXTRAIT DE LA LETTER DU MAJOR GÉNÉRAL AU GÉNÉRAL SAVARY, À
MADRID.
_Bayonne, 12^e Juillet, 1808._
_Section 1._--J’ai rendu compte à l’empereur, général, de vôtre
lettre du 8^{me}. S. M. trouve que vous vous étes dégarni de trop
de monde à Madrid, que vous avez fait marcher trop de troupes au
secours du g^{al} Dupont, qu’on ne doit pas agir offensivement
jusqu’à ce que les affaires de la Galice soient éclairées. De
tous les points de l’armée, général, le plus important est la
Galice, parceque c’est la seule province qui ait réellement conclu
un traité avec l’Angleterre. La division de ligne des troupes
Espagnoles qui était à Oporto s’est joint à celle qui était en
Galice, et enfin par la position de cette province extrêmement
près de l’Angleterre. Indépendamment de ces considérations, la
position la rend encore plus interessante; car les communications
de l’armée se trouveraient compromises si le maréchal Bessières
n’avait pas un entier succès, et il faudrait bien alors reployer
toutes vos troupes, et marcher isolément au secours du maréchal
Bessières. Encore une fois, général, vous vous étes trop dégarni
de Madrid, et si un bon régiment de cuirassiers, quelque pièces
d’artillerie, et 1000 à 1200 hommes d’infanterie avaient pu arriver
à l’appui du maréchal Bessières, le 14, cela lui aurait été d’un
éminent secours. _Q’importe que Valence soit soumis? Q’importe
que Sarragosse soit soumis?_ Mais, général, le moindre succès de
l’ennemi du côté de la Galice aurait des inconvéniens immenses.
Instruit comme vous l’étiez des forces du général Cuesta, de la
désertion de troupes d’Oporto, &^a.... S. M. trouve que pour bién
manœuvrer il aurait fallu vous arranger de manière à avoir du 12^e
au 15^e 8000 hommes pour renforcer le maréchal Bessières. Une fois
nos derrières debarassées, et cette armée de Galice détruite, tout
le reste tombe et se soumit de soi-même, &c. &c.
S. EXTRAIT DE LA LETTRE, &c.
_Bayonne, 13 Juillet, 1808._
_Section 2._--Nous recevons vos lettres du 9^e et du 10^e, général.
L’empereur me charge de vous faire connaître que si le général
Gobert était à Valladolid, le général Frère à San Clemente ayant
une colonne dans la Manche, si 300 à 400 convalescens, un bon
commandant, 4 pièces de canon, un escouade d’artillerie, et vingt
mille rations de biscuit étaient dans le château de Ségovie,
la position de l’armée serait superbe et à l’abri de toute
sollicitude. La conduite du général Frère ne parait pas claire. Let
nouvelles qu’il a eues de maréchal Moncey paraissent apocryphes.
Il est possible que ses 8000 hommes et son artillerie n’aient
pas été suffisans pour enlever la ville de Valence. Cela étant,
le maréchal Moncey ne l’enleverait pas d’avantage avec 20,000
hommes, parcequ’alors c’est une affaire de canons et de mortiers,
&^a. &^a.... _Valence est comme la Catalogne et l’Arragon; ces
trois points sont secondaires._ Les deux vrais points importans
sont le général Dupont et particulièrement le maréchal Bessières,
parceque le premier a devant lui le corps du camp de St. Roch et
le corps de Cadiz, et le maréchal Bessières parcequ’il a devant
lui les troupes de la Galice et celles qui etaient à Oporto. Le
général Dupont a près de 20,000 hommes; il ne peut pas avoir contre
lui un pareil nombre de troupes; il a déjà obtenu des succès
très marquans, et au pis aller il ne peut être contraint qu’à
repasser les montagnes, ce qui n’est qu’un événement de guerre.
Le maréchal Bessières est beaucoup moins fort que le général
Dupont, et les troupes Espagnoles d’Oporto et de la Galice sont
plus nombreuses que celles de l’Andalousie, et les troupes de la
Galice n’ont pas encore été entamées. Enfin le moindre insuccés du
maréchal Bessières intercepte tous les communications de l’armée
et compromettrait même sa sûreté. Le général Dupont se bat pour
Andujar, et le maréchal Bessières se bat pour les communications
de l’armée et pour les opérations les plus importans aux affaires
d’Espagne, &c. &c.
S. EXTRAIT DE LA LETTRE, &c. &c.
_Bayonne, 18 Juillet, 1808, à dix heures du soir._
_Section 3._--Je reçois, général, vos lettres du 14. L’aide-de-camp
du maréchal Moncey a donné à sa majesté tous les détails sur ce
qui s’est passé. La conduite du maréchal a été belle. Il a bien
battu les rebelles en campagne. Il est tout simple qu’il n’ait pu
entrer à Valence; c’étoit une affaire de mortiers et de pièces de
siège. Sa position à San Clement est bonne, de là il est à même de
remarcher sur Valence. De reste, général, _l’affaire de Valence
est une affaire du second ordre, même celle de Sarragosse_, qui
cependant est plus importante. L’affaire du maréchal Bessières
était d’un intérêt majeur pour les affaires d’Espagne, et la
première après cette affaire c’est celle du général Dupont, et
c’est le moment de laisser le général Gobert suivre la route. Le
maréchal Moncey se repose; le général Reille marche sur Gironne:
ainsi trois colonnes pourront marcher ensemble sur Valence; le
corps du général Reille, celui de Sarragosse, et celui du maréchal
Moncey, ce qui formera les 20,000 hommes que ce maréchal croit
nécessaire. Mais l’empereur, général, trouve que vous avez tort
de dire qu’il n’y a rien été fait depuis six semaines. On a battu
les rassemblemens de la Galice, de St. Ander, ceux d’Arragon et de
Catalogne, qui dans leur aveuglement croyaient qu’ils n’avaient
qu’à marcher pour détruire les Français: le maréchal Moncey, les
généraux Duhesme, Dupont, Verdier, ont fait de bonne besogne, et
tous les hommes sensés en Espagne ont changé dans le fonds de leur
opinion, et voient avec la plus grande peine l’insurrection. Au
reste, général, les affaires d’Espagne sont dans la situation la
plus prospère depuis la bataille de Medina del Rio Seco, &c. &c. Le
14^e et le 44^e arrivent demain; après demain ils partent pour le
camp de Sarragosse; _non pas que ces troupes puissent avancer la
reddition, qui est une affaire de canon_, mais elles serviraient
contre les insurgés de Valence, s’ils voulaient renforcer ceux de
Sarragosse. Enfin, si le général Gobert et les détachemens qui
sont à moitié chemin pour rejoindre le général Dupont font juger à
ce général qu’il a des forces suffisantes pour battre le général
Castaños, il faut qu’elles continuent leur direction, et qu’il
attaque l’ennemi, s’il croit devoir le faire, &^a. &^a.
(Cette lettre a été ecrite le jour de la bataille de Baylen.)
EXTRAIT DE LA LETTRE, &^a.
_Bourdeaux, 3 Août, 1818._
_Section 4._--Les événemens du général Dupont sont une chose sans
exemple, et la rédaction de sa capitulation est de niveau avec
la conduite tenue jusqu’à cette catastrophe. L’empereur pense
qu’on n’a pas tenue compte du vague de la rédaction de l’acte, en
permettant que les corps en échellons sur la communication entre
vous et le général Dupont aient marché pour se rendre aux Anglais:
car on ne doit pas presumer qu’ils aient la loyauté de laisser
passer les troupes qui s’embarquent. Comme vous ne parlez pas de
cela, on pense que vous avez retiré ces échellons sur Madrid. Après
avoir lu attentivement la rélation du général Dupont, on voit qu’il
n’a capitulé que le lendemain de la bataille, et que les corps des
généraux Vedel et Dufour, qui se trouvent compris pour quelque
chose dans la capitulation (on ne sait pourquoi), ne se sont pas
battus. Par la relation même du général Dupont, tout laisse penser
que l’armée du général Castaños n’était pas à beaucoup près aussi
forte qu’on le dit, et qu’il avait réuni à Baylen tout ce qu’il
avait de forces. S. M. ne lui calcule pas plus de 25,000 hommes
de troupes de ligne et plus de 15,000 paysans. Par la lettre du
général Belliard _il parait que l’ordre est donné de lever le siège
de Sarragosse_, ce qui serait prématuré; car vous comprendrez qu’il
n’est pas possible qu’on ne laisse un corps d’armée, qui couvre
Pampelune, et contienne la Navarre, sans quoi l’ennemi peut cerner
Pampelune, insurger la Navarre, et alors la communication de
France par Tolosa serait coupée, et l’ennemi sur les derrières de
l’armée. Supposant l’ennemi réuni à Pampelune, la ville bloquée, il
peut se trouver en cinq à six marches sur les derrières de Burgos.
L’armée qui assiège Sarragosse est donc à-peu-près nécessaire pour
contenir la Navarre, les insurgés de l’Arragon et de Valence, et
pour empêcher de percer sur nôtre flanc gauche; car si, comme
le dit le général Belliard, le général Verdier se porte avec
ses troupes à Logroño, en jetant 2000 hommes dans Pampelune, la
communication de Bayonne, qu’eut sur le champ être interceptée le
général Verdier, serait mieux à Tudela qu’à Logroño. Si le général
Castaños s’avance, et que vous puissiez lui livrer la bataille,
on ne peut en prévoir que les plus heureux résultats: mais de la
manière dont il a marché vis-à-vis du général Dupont, tout donne
à croire qu’il mettra la plus grande circonspection dans ses
mouvemens. Si par le canal des parlementaires l’on peut établir une
suspension d’armes sans que le roi y soit pour rien en apparence,
cette espèce d’armistice pourrait se rompre en se prévenant de part
et d’autre huit jours d’avance, donnant aux Français la ligne du
Duero passant par Almazan pour joindre l’Ebre. Cette suspension
d’armes, que les insurgés pourraient regarder comme avantageuse,
afin de s’organiser à Madrid ne nous serait pas défavorable,
parcequ’on verrait pendant ce temps l’organisation que prendraient
les parties insurgés de l’Espagne, et ce que veut la nation, &c. &c.
LE MAJOR GÉNÉRAL AU ROI D’ESPAGNE.
_Nantes, 11 Août, 1808._
_Section 5._--Sire, le général Savary ni vos ministres Azanza et
Urquijo ne sont arrivés: il parait qu’il y a des rassemblemens à
Bilbao d’après les nouvelles que nous recevons. S. M. pense qu’il
est important d’y faire marcher le plutôt possible une colonne pour
y rétablir l’ordre. _V. M. sait que la moitié de Sarragosse était
en nôtre pouvoir, et que sous peu on esperait avoir le reste de
la ville. Lorsque le général Belliard a donné l’ordre de lever le
siège, il eût été à désirer que cet ordre fut conditionnel, comme
cela paraissait être l’intention de V. M., ainsi qu’on le voit dans
sa correspondance; c’est à dire, que le siège ne fut levé que dans
le cas où l’on n’aurait pas cru être maître de la ville avant cinq
ou six jours._ Cela aurait présenté des circonstances meilleurs;
car si le général Verdier évacu en entier la Navarre et l’Arragon,
il est à craindre que la Navarre ne s’insurge, et Pampelune ne
tarderait pas à être cernée. J’ai mandé à V. M. que déjà des corps
entiers de la grande armée sont en mouvement pour se rendre en
poste en Espagne. Les dispositions les plus vigoureuses sont prises
de tous côtés, et _dans six semaines ou deux mois l’Espagne sera
soumise_. L’empereur, qui continue à jouir d’une bonne santé,
quoiqu’il soit très occupé, part dans une heure pour continuer sa
route sur Angers, Tours, et Paris. V. M. doit être persuadée que
toutes nos pensées sont sur elle et sur l’armée qu’elle commande.
* * * * *
No. VIII.
LETTER FROM MR. DRUMMOND TO SIR ALEXANDER BALL.
_Palermo, July 4th, 1808._
MY DEAR SIR,
His highness the duke of Orleans has applied to me to write to you
on a subject about which he appears to be extremely interested. I
take it for granted that you are acquainted with all the events
which have lately happened in Spain. The duke thinks that the
appearance of a member of the house of Bourbon in that country
might be acceptable to the Spaniards, and of great service to the
common cause. In this I perfectly concur with his highness, and if
you be of the same opinion you will probably have no objection to
send a ship here to carry his highness to Gibraltar. He himself is
exceedingly sanguine. We have letters from London down to the 5th
of June. Portugal has followed the example of Spain, and Lisbon is
probably now in other hands: an invitation has been sent to sir
Charles Cotton.
(Signed) WILLIAM DRUMMOND.
P.S. “* * *”
MR. DRUMMOND TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
_Palermo, July 24th, 1808._
DEAR SIR,
This letter will be delivered to you by his royal highness prince
Leopold, second son of the king of the Two Sicilies. This prince
goes immediately to Gibraltar to communicate immediately with the
loyal Spaniards, and to notify to them that his father will accept
the regency, if they desire it, until his nephew Ferdinand the
Seventh be delivered from captivity. Don Leopold and his cousin the
duke of Orleans will offer themselves as soldiers to the Spaniards,
and will accept such situations as may be given to them suitable to
their illustrious rank. If their visit should not be acceptable to
the Spaniards, don Leopold will return to Sicily, and his serene
highness the duke of Orleans will proceed to England. Being of
opinion that the appearance of an infant of Spain may be of the
greatest utility at the present crisis, and in all events can
hardly be productive of harm, I have urged his Sicilian majesty to
determine upon this measure, which I conceive to be required at his
hands, in consequence of the manifesto of Palafox, which you have
probably seen. At the distance of 1000 miles, however, we cannot be
supposed to be accurately informed here of many circumstances with
which you probably may be intimately acquainted; prince Leopold
therefore will be directed to consult with you, and to follow your
advice, which I have no doubt you will readily and cheerfully give
him. I take the liberty at the same time of recommending him to
your care and protection.
(Signed) WM. DRUMMOND.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM SIR HEW DALRYMPLE TO LORD CASTLEREAGH.
_Gibraltar, August 10th, 1808._
MY LORD,
Last night the Thunderer arrived here, having on board the duke of
Orleans, the second prince of the Two Sicilies, and a considerable
number of noblemen and others, the suite of the latter. As the ship
came to anchor at a late hour, I had not the honour of seeing the
duke of Orleans until near ten at night, when he came accompanied
by captain Talbot. The duke first put into my hands a letter from
Mr. Drummond, as captain Talbot did a despatch from sir Alexander
Ball, copies of which I have the honour to enclose. As the latter
seemed bulky, I did not immediately open it, and therefore did not
immediately remark that sir Alexander Ball _did not seem aware_
that the prince of the Two Sicilies was coming down, much less that
he meditated establishing his residence at Gibraltar for the avowed
purpose of negotiating for the regency of Spain. Of this object
the duke of Orleans made no mystery, and proceeded to arrange the
time and manner of the prince’s reception in the morning, and the
accommodation that should be prepared for him, suited to his rank,
and capable of containing his attendants. I took early occasion
first to remark the ill effect this measure might produce in Spain
at the moment when the establishment of a central government had
become obviously necessary, and would naturally lead to much
intrigue and disunion, until the sentiments of the people and the
armies (which would naturally assemble for the purpose of expelling
the enemy from their territory) should be pronounced....
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM LORD CASTLEREAGH TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
_Downing Street, Nov. 4th, 1808._
“I have great pleasure, however, in assuring you that the measures
pursued by you on that delicate and important subject” (the
unexpected arrival of prince Leopold and the duke of Orleans at
Gibraltar) “received his majesty’s entire approbation.”
* * *
(Signed) CASTLEREAGH.
* * * * *
No. IX.
SIR A. WELLESLEY TO SIR HARRY BURRARD.
_Head-quarters, at Lavos, August 8th, 1808._
SIR,
Having received instructions from the secretary of state that you
were likely to arrive on the coast of Portugal with a corps of
10,000 men, lately employed in the north of Europe under the orders
of sir John Moore, I now submit to you such information as I have
received regarding the general state of the war in Portugal and
Spain, and the plan of operations which I am about to carry into
execution.
The enemy’s force at present in Portugal consists, as far as I am
able to form an opinion, of from 16,000 to 18,000 men, of which
number there are about 500 in the fort of Almeida, about the same
number in Elvas, about 6 or 800 in Peniché, and 16 or 1800 in
the province of Alemtejo, at Setuval, &c.; and the remainder are
disposable for the defence of Lisbon, and are in the forts of St.
Julian and Cascaes, in the batteries along the coast as far as the
Rock of Lisbon, and the old citadel of Lisbon, to which the enemy
have lately added some works.
Of the force disposable for the defence of Lisbon, the enemy have
lately detached a corps of about 2000, under general Thomieres,
principally I believe to watch my movements, which corps is now
at Alcobaça; and another corps of 4000 men, under gen^l. Loison,
was sent across the Tagus into Alemtejo on the 26th of last month,
the object of which detachment was to disperse the Portuguese
insurgents in that quarter, to force the Spanish corps, consisting
of about 2000 men, which had advanced into Portugal as far as Evora
from Estremadura, to retire, and then to be enabled to add to
the force destined for the defence of Lisbon the corps of French
troops which had been stationed at Setuval and in the province of
Alemtejo; at all events Loison’s corps will return to Lisbon, and
the French corps disposable for the defence of that place will
probably be about 14,000 men, of which at least 3000 must be left
in the garrisons and forts on the coast and in the river.
The French army under Dupont, in Andalusia, surrendered on the 20th
of last month to the Spanish army under Castaños; so that there are
now no French troops in the south of Spain. The Spanish army of
Gallicia and Castille, to the northward, received a check at Rio
Seco, in the province of Valladolid, on the 14th of July, from a
French corps supposed to be under the command of general Bessieres,
which had advanced from Burgos.
The Spanish troops retired on the 15th to Benevente, and I
understand there has since been an affair between the advanced
posts in that neighbourhood, but I am not certain of it; nor am I
acquainted with the position of the Spanish army, or of that of the
French, since the 14th July. When you will have been a short time
in this country, and will have observed the degree to which the
deficiency of real information is supplied by the circulation of
unfounded reports, you will not be surprised at my want of accurate
knowledge on these subjects.
It is however certain that nothing of importance has occurred in
that quarter since the 14th July; and from this circumstance I
conclude that the corps called Bessieres attacked the Spanish army
at Rio Seco solely with a view to cover the march of king Joseph
Buonaparte to Madrid, where he arrived on the 21st July. Besides
their defeat in Andalusia, the enemy, as you may probably have
heard, have been beat off in an attack upon Sarragossa, in Arragon,
in another upon the city of Valencia (in both of which it is said
that they have lost many men); and it is reported that in Catalonia
two of their detachments have been cut off, and that they have
lost the fort of Figueras in the Pyrenees, and that Barcelona is
blockaded. Of these last-mentioned actions and operations I have
seen no official accounts, but the report of them is generally
circulated and believed; and at all events, whether these reports
are founded or otherwise, it is obvious that the insurrection
against the French is general throughout Spain; that large bodies
of Spaniards are in arms; amongst others, in particular, an army
of 20,000 men, including 4000 cavalry, at Almaraz on the Tagus in
Estremadura, and that the French cannot carry on their operations
by means of small corps. I should imagine from their inactivity,
and from the misfortunes they have suffered, that they have not
the means of collecting a force sufficiently large to oppose the
progress of the insurrection and the efforts of the insurgents,
and to afford supplies to their different detached corps, or that
they find that they cannot carry on their operations with armies so
numerous as they must find it necessary to employ without magazines.
In respect to Portugal, the whole kingdom, with the exception of
the neighbourhood of Lisbon, is in a state of insurrection against
the French; their means of resistance are, however, less powerful
than those of the Spaniards, their troops had been completely
dispersed, their officers had gone off to the Brazils, and their
arsenals pillaged, or in the power of the enemy, and their revolt
under the circumstances in which it has taken place is still more
extraordinary than that of the Spanish nation.
The Portuguese may have in the northern part of the kingdom about
10,000 men in arms, of which number 5000 are to march with me
towards Lisbon. The remainder, with a Spanish detachment of about
1500 men which came from Gallicia, are employed in a distant
blockade of Almeida, and in the protection of Oporto, which is now
the seat of government.
The insurrection is general throughout Alemtejo and Algarve to the
southward, and Entre Minho et Douero and Trasasmontes and Beira
to the northward; but for want of arms the people can do nothing
against the enemy.
Having consulted sir C. Cotton, it appeared to him and to me that
the attack proposed upon Cascaes bay was impracticable, because
the bay is well defended by the fort of Cascaes and the other
works constructed for its defence, and the ships of war could not
approach sufficiently near to silence them. The landing in the
Passa d’Arcos in the Tagus could not be effected without silencing
fort St. Julian, which appeared to be impracticable to those who
were to carry that operation into execution.
There are small bays within which might admit of landing troops,
and others to the northward of the rock of Lisbon, but they are
all defended by works which must have been silenced; they are
of small extent, and but few men could have landed at the same
time. There is always a surf on them which affects the facility
of landing at different times so materially, as to render it very
doubtful whether the troops first landed could be supported in
sufficient time by others, and whether the horses for the artillery
and cavalry, and the necessary stores and provisions could be
landed at all. These inconveniences attending a landing in any of
the bays near the rock of Lisbon would have been aggravated by
the neighbourhood of the enemy to the landing-place, and by the
exhausted state of the country in which the troops would have been
landed. It was obviously the best plan, therefore, to land in the
northern parts of Portugal, and I fixed upon Mondego bay as the
nearest place which afforded any facility for landing, excepting
Peniché, the landing-place of which peninsula is defended by a
fort occupied by the enemy, which it would be necessary to attack
regularly in order to place the ships in safety.
A landing to the northward was farther recommended, as it would
ensure the co-operation of the Portuguese troops in the expedition
to Lisbon. The whole of the corps placed under my command,
including those under the command of general Spencer, having
landed, I propose to march on Wednesday, and I shall take the road
by Alcobaça and Obidos, with a view to keep up my communication by
the sea-coast, and to examine the situation of Peniché, and I shall
proceed towards Lisbon by the route of Mafra, and by the hills to
the northward of that city.
As I understand from the secretary of state that a body of troops
under the command of brigadier-general Ackland may be expected
on the coast of Portugal before you arrive, I have written to
desire he will proceed from hence along the coast of Portugal to
the southward; and I propose to communicate with him by the means
of captain Bligh of the Alfred, who will attend the movements of
the army with a few transports, having on board provisions and
military stores. I intend to order brigadier-general Ackland to
attack Peniché, if I should find it necessary to obtain possession
of that place, and if not, I propose to order him to join the
fleet stationed off the Tagus, with a view to disembark in one
of the bays near the rock of Lisbon as soon as I shall approach
sufficiently near to enable him to perform that operation. If I
imagined that general Ackland’s corps was equipped in such a manner
as to be enabled to move from the coast, I should have directed him
to land at Mondego, and to march upon Santarem, from which station
he would have been at hand either to assist my operations, or to
cut off the retreat of the enemy, if he should endeavour to make it
either by the north of the Tagus and Almeida, or by the south of
the Tagus and Elvas; but as I am convinced that general Ackland’s
corps is intended to form a part of some other corps which is
provided with a commissariat, that he will have none with him,
and consequently that his corps must depend upon the country; and
as no reliance can be placed upon the resources of this country,
I have considered it best to direct the general’s attention to
the sea-coast; if, however, the command of the army remained in
my hands, I should certainly land the corps which has lately been
under the command of sir John Moore at Mondego, and should move it
upon Santarem. I have the honour to enclose a return of the troops,
&c. &c.
(Signed) ARTHUR WELLESLEY.
SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY TO SIR HARRY BURRARD.
_Camp at Lugar, 8 miles north of Lerya, August 10, 1808._
SIR,
Since I wrote to you on the 8th inst. I have received letters
from Mr. Stuart and colonel Doyle at Corunna, of which I enclose
copies. From them you will learn the state of the war in that part
of Spain, and you will observe that Mr. Stuart and colonel Doyle
are of opinion that marshal Bessieres will take advantage of the
inefficiency of the Gallician army under general Blake to detach
a corps to Portugal to the assistance of general Junot; we have
not heard yet of that detachment, and I am convinced it will not
be made till king Joseph Buonaparte will either be reinforced to
such a degree as to be in safety in Madrid, or till he shall have
effected his retreat into France, with which view it is reported
that he left Madrid on the 29th of last month.
I conceive, therefore, that I have time for the operations which I
propose to carry on before a reinforcement can arrive from Leon,
even supposing that no obstacles would be opposed to its march in
Spain or Portugal; but it is not probable that it can arrive before
the different reinforcements will arrive from England; and as
marshal Bessieres had not more than 20,000 men in the action at Rio
Seco on the 14th July, I conceive that the British troops, which
will be in Portugal, will be equal to contend with any part of that
corps which he may detach.
The possibility that, in the present state of affairs, the
French corps at present in Portugal may be reinforced, affords
an additional reason for taking the position of Santarem, which
I apprised you in my letter of the 8th I should occupy, if the
command of the army remained in my hands after the reinforcements
should arrive. If you should occupy it, you will not only be in the
best situation to support my operations, and to cut off the retreat
of the enemy, but if any reinforcements of French troops should
enter Portugal, you will be in the best situation to collect your
whole force to oppose him, &c. &c.
(Signed) ARTHUR WELLESLEY.
* * * * *
No. X.
ARTICLES OF THE DEFINITIVE CONVENTION FOR THE EVACUATION OF
PORTUGAL BY THE FRENCH ARMY.
The generals commanding in chief, &c. &c. being determined to
negotiate, &c. &c.
Article 1. All the places and forts in the kingdom of Portugal
occupied by the French troops shall be given up to the British army
in the state in which they are at the period of the signature of
the present convention.
Art. 2. The French troops shall evacuate Portugal with their arms
and baggage, they shall not be considered as prisoners of war, and
on their arrival in France they shall be at liberty to serve.
Art. 3. The English government shall furnish the means of
conveyance for the French army, which shall be disembarked in any
of the ports of France between Rochefort and L’Orient inclusively.
Art. 4. The French army shall carry with it all its artillery
of French calibre, with the horses belonging thereunto, and the
tumbrils supplied with 60 rounds per gun: all other artillery,
arms, and ammunition, as also the military and naval arsenals,
shall be given up to the British army and navy, in the state
in which they may be at the period of the ratification of the
convention.
Art. 5. The French army shall carry with it all its equipments,
and all that is comprehended under the name of property of the
army; that is to say, its military chest, and carriages attached
to the field commissariat and field hospital; or shall be allowed
to dispose of such part of the same on its account, as the
commander-in-chief may judge it unnecessary to embark. In like
manner, all individuals of the army shall be at liberty to dispose
of their private property of every description, with full security
hereafter for the purchasers.
Art. 6. The cavalry are to embark their horses, as also the
generals and other officers of all ranks. It is however fully
understood that the means of conveyance for horses, at the disposal
of the British commanders, are very limited; some additional
conveyance may be procured in the port of Lisbon. The number of
horses to be embarked by the troops shall not exceed 600, and the
number embarked by the staff shall not exceed 200. At all events
every facility will be given to the French army to dispose of the
horses belonging to it which cannot be embarked.
Art. 7. In order to facilitate the embarkation, it shall take place
in three divisions, the last of which will be principally composed
of the garrisons of the places, of the cavalry, the artillery,
the sick, and the equipment of the army. The first division shall
embark within seven days of the date of the ratification, or sooner
if possible.
Art. 8. The garrison of Elvas and its forts, and of Peniché and
Palmela, will be embarked at Lisbon. That of Almeida at Oporto, or
the nearest harbour. They will be accompanied on their march by
British commissaries, charged with providing for their subsistence
and accommodation.
Art. 9. All the sick and wounded who cannot be embarked with the
troops are intrusted to the British army. They are to be taken care
of whilst they remain in this country at the expense of the British
government, under the condition of the same being reimbursed
by France when the final evacuation is effected. The English
government will provide for their return to France, which will take
place by detachments of about one hundred and fifty or two hundred
men at a time. A sufficient number of French medical officers shall
be left behind to attend them.
Art. 10. As soon as the vessels employed to carry the army to
France shall have disembarked in the harbours specified, or in any
other of the ports of France to which stress of weather may force
them, every facility shall be given them to return to England
without delay, and security against capture until their arrival in
a friendly port.
Art. 11. The French army shall be concentrated in Lisbon, and
within a distance of about two leagues from it. The English army
will approach within three leagues of the capital, and will be so
placed as to leave about one league between the two armies.
Art. 12. The forts of St. Julien, the Bugio, and Cascaes, shall
be occupied by the British troops on the ratification of the
convention. Lisbon and its citadel, together with the forts and
batteries as far as the lazaretto or Trafaria on one side, and
fort St. Joseph on the other, inclusively, shall be given up on
the embarkation of the 2d division; as shall also the harbour
and all armed vessels in it of every description, with their
rigging, sails, stores, and ammunition. The fortresses of Elvas,
Almeida, Peniché, and Palmela, shall be given up as soon as the
British troops can arrive to occupy them. In the meantime the
general-in-chief of the British army will give notice of the
present convention to the garrisons of those places, as also to
the troops before them, in order to put a stop to all further
hostilities.
Art. 13. Commissioners shall be named on both sides to regulate and
accelerate the execution of the arrangements agreed upon.
Art. 14. Should there arise doubts as to the meaning of any
article, it will be explained favourably to the French army.
Art. 15. From the date of the ratification of the present
convention, all arrears of contributions, requisitions, or claims
whatever, of the French government against subjects of Portugal,
or any other individuals residing in this country, founded on
the occupation of Portugal by the French troops, in the month of
December, 1807, which may not have been paid up, are cancelled; and
all sequestration laid upon their property, moveable or immoveable,
are removed, and the free disposal of the same is restored to the
proper owners.
Art. 16. All subjects of France, or of powers in friendship or
alliance, domiciliated in Portugal, or accidentally in this
country, shall be protected; their property of every kind, moveable
and immoveable, shall be respected; and they shall be at liberty
either to accompany the French army or to remain in Portugal. In
either case their property is guaranteed to them, with the liberty
of retaining or of disposing of it, and passing the produce of the
sale thereof into France, or any other country where they may fix
their residence; the space of one year being allowed them for that
purpose. It is fully understood that shipping is excepted from this
arrangement, only however in as far as regards leaving the port,
and that none of the stipulations above mentioned can be made the
pretext of any commercial speculations.
Art. 17. No native of Portugal shall be rendered accountable for
his political conduct during the period of the occupation of this
country by the French army; and all those who have continued in
the exercise of their employments, or who have accepted situations
under the French government, are placed under the protection of the
British commanders; they shall sustain no injury in their persons
or property; it not having been at their option to be obedient or
not to the French government, they are also at liberty to avail
themselves of the stipulations of the 16th article.
Art. 18. The Spanish troops detained on board ship, in the port of
Lisbon, shall be given up to the commander-in-chief of the British
army, who engages to obtain of the Spaniards to restore such French
subjects, either military or civil, as may have been detained in
Spain without having been taken in battle, or in consequence of
military operations, but on occasion of the occurrences of the 29th
of last May, and the days immediately following.
Art. 19. There shall be an immediate exchange established for all
ranks of prisoners made in Portugal since the commencement of the
present hostilities.
Art. 20. Hostages of the rank of field officers shall be mutually
furnished, on the part of the British army and navy, and on that
of the French army, for the reciprocal guarantee of the present
convention. The officer of the British army shall be restored on
the completion of the articles which concern the army; and the
officer of the navy on the disembarkation of the French troops in
their own country. The like is to take place on the part of the
French army.
Art. 21. It shall be allowed to the general-in-chief of the French
army to send an officer to France with intelligence of the present
convention. A vessel will be furnished by the British admiral to
convey him to Bourdeaux or Rochefort.
Art. 22. The British admiral will be invited to accommodate his
excellency the commander-in-chief and the other principal officers
of the French army on board ships of war.
Done and concluded at Lisbon this 30th day of August, 1808.
(Signed) GEORGE MURRAY, quarter-master-general.
KELLERMAN, le général de division.
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES.
Art. 1. The individuals in the civil employment of the army, made
prisoners either by the British troops or by the Portuguese, in
any part of Portugal, will be restored, as is customary, without
exchange.
Art. 2. The French army shall be subsisted from its own magazines
up to the day of embarkation. The garrisons up to the day of the
evacuation of the fortresses. The remainder of the magazines shall
be delivered over in the usual forms to the British government,
which charges itself with the subsistence of the men and horses
of the army from the above mentioned periods till their arrival
in France, under the condition of being reimbursed by the French
government for the excess of the expense beyond the estimation to
be made by both parties, of the value of the magazines delivered
up to the British army. The provisions on board the ships of war
in the possession of the French army will be taken on account by
the British government, in like manner with the magazines of the
fortresses.
Art. 3. The general commanding the British troops will take the
necessary measures for re-establishing the free circulation of the
means of subsistence between the country and the capital.
Done and concluded at Lisbon this 30th day of August, 1808.
(Signed) GEORGE MURRAY, quarter-master-general.
KELLERMAN, le général de division.
Ratified, &c. &c.
* * * * *
No. XI.
1st. LETTER FROM BARON VON DECKEN TO THE GENERAL COMMANDING THE
ARMY IN PORTUGAL.
_Oporto, August 18th, 1808._
SIR,
The bishop of Oporto having expressed to me his wish to see me in
private, in order to make me an important communication, which
he desired to be kept secret, I went to his palace last night at
a late hour. The bishop told me that he had taken the government
of Portugal in his hands to satisfy the wish of the people, but
with the intention to re-establish the government of his lawful
sovereign; and he hoped that his majesty the king of Great Britain
had no other point in view in sending troops to this country. After
having given him all possible assurance on that head, the bishop
continued, that as the prince regent, in leaving Portugal, had
established a regency for the government of this country during his
absence, he considered it his duty to resign the government into
the hands of that regency as soon as possible. My answer was, that
I had no instruction from my government on that head, but that I
begged him to consider whether the cause of his sovereign would not
be hurt in resigning the government into the hands of a regency
which, from its having acted under the influence of the French,
had lost the confidence of the nation, and whether it would not be
more advisable for him to keep the government until the pleasure of
the prince regent was known. The bishop allowed that the regency
appointed by the prince regent did not possess the confidence of
the people, that several members of it had acted in such a manner
as to show themselves as friends and partisans of the French, and
that, at all events, all the members of the late regency could
not be re-established in their former power; but he was afraid
that the provinces of Estramadura, Alemtejo, and Algarvé, would
not acknowledge his authority if the British government did not
interfere. After a very long conversation, it was agreed that I
should inform our ministers with what the bishop had communicated
to me, and in order to lose no time in waiting for an answer, the
bishop desired me to communicate the same to you, expressing a wish
that you would be pleased to write to him an official letter, in
order to express your desire that he might continue the government
until the pleasure of his sovereign was known, for the sake of the
operations of the British and Portuguese troops under your command.
The secretary of the bishop, who acted as interpreter, told me
afterwards in private, that the utmost confusion would arise from
the bishop resigning the government at this moment, or associating
with people who were neither liked nor esteemed by the nation.
I beg leave to add, that although the bishop expressed the
contrary, yet it appeared to me that he was not averse to his
keeping the government in his hands, if it could be done by the
interference of our government. I have the honour to be, &c. &c.
(Signed) FREDERICK VON DECKEN, brig. gen.
2d. DITTO TO DITTO.
_Oporto, August 22, 1808._
SIR,
Your excellency will have received the secret letter which I had
the honour to send you by brigadier-general Stuart, on the 18th,
respecting the communication of his excellency the bishop of Oporto
relative to his resignation of the government into the hands of
the regency established by the prince regent.--In addition to what
I have had the honour to state upon that subject, I beg leave to
add, that his excellency the bishop has this day desired me to make
your excellency aware, in case it might be wished that he should
keep the government in his hands until the pleasure of the prince
regent may be known, that he could not leave Oporto; and the seat
of government must in that case necessarily remain in this town.
His excellency the bishop thinks it his duty to inform you of this
circumstance as soon as possible, as he foresees that the city of
Lisbon will be preferred for the seat of government, as soon as
the British army have got possession of it. If the seat of the
temporary government should remain at Oporto, the best method to
adopt with respect to the other provinces of Portugal appears to
be, to cause them to send deputies to that place for the purpose of
transacting business relative to their own provinces; in the same
manner as the provinces of Entre Douro y Minho and Tras los Montes
now send their representatives. One of the principal reasons why
his excellency the bishop can only accede to continue at the head
of the government under the condition of remaining at Oporto is,
because he is persuaded that the inhabitants of this town will not
permit him to leave it, unless by order of the prince regent. It
might also be advisable to keep the seat of government at Oporto,
as it may be supposed that Lisbon will be in a state of great
confusion for the first two months after the French have left it. I
have the honour to be, sir, &c. &c.
(Signed) FREDERICK VON DECKEN, brig. gen.
3d.
_Oporto, August 28._
SIR,
Your excellency will have received my secret letters of the 18th
and 22d instant relative to the temporary government of this
kingdom. His excellency the bishop of Oporto has received lately
deputies from the province of Alemtejo and the kingdom of Algarve.
Part of Estremadura, viz. the town of Leria has also submitted
to his authority, and it may be therefore said that the whole
kingdom of Portugal has acknowledged the authority of the temporary
government, of which the bishop of Oporto is at the head, with the
exception of Lisbon and the town of Setubal (St. Ubes). Although
the reasons why these towns have not yet acknowledged the authority
of the temporary government may be explained by their being in
possession of the French, yet the bishop is convinced that the
inhabitants of Lisbon will refuse to submit to the temporary
government of Oporto, in which they will be strongly supported
by the members of the former regency established by the prince
regent, who of course will be very anxious to resume their former
power. The bishop in assuming the temporary government complied
only with the wishes of the people: he was sure that it was the
only means of saving the country; but having had no interest of his
own in view, he is willing to resign the authority which he has
accepted with reluctance, as soon as he is convinced that it can
be done without hurting the cause of his sovereign, and throwing
the country into confusion. There is every reason to apprehend that
the inhabitants of the three northern provinces of Portugal will
never permit the bishop to resign the government, and submit to the
former regency. They feel extremely proud of having first taken to
arms, and consider themselves as the deliverers and saviours of
their country; and as the inhabitants of Lisbon will be as much
disinclined to submit to the temporary government of Oporto; a
division of the provinces, which will excite internal commotion,
will naturally follow, if not supported by your excellency. It
has appeared to me that the best way to reconcile these opposite
parties would be in endeavouring to unite the present government
at Oporto with such of the members of the former regency who have
not forfeited by their conduct the confidence of the people; and
having opened my idea to the bishop, his answer was, that he would
not object to it if proposed by you. I therefore take the liberty
of suggesting, that the difficulty above mentioned would be in a
great measure removed if your excellency would be pleased to make
it known after Lisbon has surrendered, that until the pleasure
of the prince regent was known, you would consider the temporary
government established at Oporto as the lawful government, with
the addition of the four members of the late regency, who have
been pointed out to me by the bishop as such who have behaved
faithfully to their sovereign and country; viz. _don Francisco
Noronha_, _Francisco da Cunha_, _the Monteiro Mor_, _and the
principal Castro_. These members to be placed at the head of the
different departments, and to consider the bishop as the president,
whose directions they are to follow, a plan which will meet with
the less difficulty, as the president of the former regency, named
by the prince regent, has quitted Portugal, and is now in France.
The circumstance that Lisbon is now in a state of the greatest
confusion will furnish a fair pretext for fixing the seat of the
temporary government in the first instance at Oporto, to which
place the gentlemen above named would be ordered to repair without
loss of time, and to report themselves to the bishop. Independent
of the reasons which I had the honour of stating to your excellency
in my letter of the 22d instant, why it is impossible for the
bishop to leave Oporto, I must beg leave to add, that, from what I
understand, the greater part of the inhabitants of Lisbon are in
the French interest, and that it will require a garrison of British
troops to keep that city in order. The bishop of Oporto, although
convinced of the necessity of considering Lisbon at present as
a military station, and of placing a British commandant and a
British garrison there, yet from a desire that the feelings of the
inhabitants might be wounded as little as possible, wishes that you
would be pleased to put also some Portuguese troops in garrison at
Lisbon, together with a Portuguese commandant, who, though entirely
under the orders of the British governor, might direct the police
in that town, or at least be charged with putting into execution
such orders as he may receive from the British governor under that
head. If your excellency should be pleased to approve of this
proposal, the bishop thinks brigadier Antonio Pinto Bacelar to be
the properest officer of those who are now with the Portuguese
army to be stationed at Lisbon, and who might also be directed
to organise the military force of the province of Estremadura.
The bishop is fully convinced that the temporary government of
the country cannot exist without the support of British troops:
he hopes that our government will leave a corps of 6000 men in
Portugal after the French have been subdued, until the Portuguese
troops may be sufficiently organised and disciplined to be able to
protect their own government. I have the honour to be, sir, your
most obedient and humble servant,
FREDERICK VON DECKEN, brig. gen.
* * * * *
No. XII.
(Translation.)
LETTER FROM GENERAL LEITE TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT SIR,
Strength is the result of union, and those who have reason to be
grateful should be most urgent in their endeavours to promote
it. I therefore feel it to be my duty to have recourse to your
excellency to know how I should act without disturbing the union
so advantageous to my country. The supreme junta of the Portuguese
government established at Oporto, which I have hitherto obeyed as
the representatives of my sovereign, have sent me orders by an
officer, dated the 1st instant, to take possession of the fortress
of Elvas as soon as it shall be evacuated. After having seen those
same Spaniards who got possession of our strong places as friends,
take so much upon themselves as even to prevent the march of the
garrison which I had ordered to replace the losses sustained in
the battle of Evora, which deprived me of the little obedience
that was shown by the city of Beja, always favoured by the Spanish
authorities; after having seen the Portuguese artillery which was
saved after the said battle taken possession of by those same
Spaniards, who had lost their own, without being willing even to
lend me two three-pounders to enable me to join his excellency
the Monteiro Mor; after having the arms which were saved from the
destructive grasp of the common enemy made use of by those same
Spaniards, _who promised much and did nothing_; after having seen a
Spanish brigadier dispute my authority at Campo Mayor, where I was
president of the junta, and from whence his predecessor had taken
away 60,000 crowns without rendering any account; in a word, after
having seen the march of these Spaniards marked by the devastation
of our fields, and the country deserted to avoid the plunder of
their light troops, I cannot for a moment mistake the cause of the
orders given by the supreme junta of Oporto. A corps of English
troops having yesterday passed Estremos, on their road to Elvas,
knowing that in a combined army no officer should undertake any
operation which may be intended for others, thereby counteracting
each other, I consulted lieutenant-general Herre (Hope), who has
referred me to your excellency, to whom in consequence I send
lieut.-colonel the marquis of Terney, my quarter-master-general,
that he may deliver you this letter, and explain verbally every
thing you may wish to know which relates to my sovereign and the
good of my country, already so much indebted to the English nation.
God preserve your excellency many years.
(Signed) FRANCISCO DE PAULO LEITE, lieut.-general.
(Dated) _Estremos, 16th September, 1808_.
To the most illustrious and most excellent
sir Hew Dalrymple.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM SIR HEW DALRYMPLE TO LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
SIR JOHN HOPE.
_Head-quarters, Benefico, 25th Sept. 1808._
SIR,
Impediments having arisen to the fulfilment of that article of
the convention which relates to the cession of Elvas by the
French to the British army, in consequence of the unexpected and
unaccountable conduct of the commander in chief of the army of
Estremadura, in bombarding that place, and endeavouring to impose
upon the French garrison terms of capitulation different from
those which were agreed upon by the British and French generals
in chief; and as the British corps sent to take possession of
the above fortress, and to hold it in the name of the prince
regent until reinforced by a body of Portuguese troops, is not
of sufficient strength to preclude the possibility of insult,
should the general above mentioned persevere in the contemptuous
and hostile disposition he has hitherto shown; I have therefore
thought it advisable to order the remainder of your division, and
general Paget’s advanced guard, to cross the Tagus, and to occupy
cantonments as near as possible to the place above mentioned. In
the mean time colonel Graham is gone to Badajos to expostulate with
general Galluzzo on the singular and very inexplicable line of
conduct he has seen cause to adopt....
* * * * *
No. XIII.
JUSTIFICATORY EXTRACTS FROM SIR JOHN MOORE’S AND OTHER
CORRESPONDENCE.
SECTION I.--RELATING TO WANT OF MONEY.
_Sir John Moore to lord William Bentinck, October 22, 1808._
“Sir David Baird has unfortunately been sent out without money. He
has applied to me, and I have none to give him.” ... “I undertake
my march in the hope that some will arrive; if it does not, it will
add to the number of a great many distresses.”
_Sir John Moore to general Hope, October 22, 1808._
“Baird has sent his aide-de-camp Gordon to me: he is without money,
and his troops only paid to September. He can get none at Coruña.”
_Sir John Moore to sir David Baird, October 22, 1808._
“We are in such want of money at this place that it is with
difficulty I have been able to spare 8000l., which went to you in
the Champion this day.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, October 27._
“It is upon the general assurance of the Spanish government that I
am leading the army into Spain without any established magazines.
In this situation nothing is more essentially requisite than money,
and unfortunately we have been able to procure very little here.”
_Sir John Moore to Mr. Frere, November 10, 1808._
“I understand from sir David Baird that you were kind enough to
lend him 40,000_l._ from the money you brought with you from
England. We are in the greatest distress for money. I doubt if
there is wherewithal after the 24th of this month to pay the troops
their subsistence.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, Nov. 24, 1808._
“I am without a shilling of money to pay, and I am in daily
apprehension that from the want of it our supplies will be
stopped. It is impossible to describe the embarrassments we are
thrown into from the want of that essential article.”
SECTION II.--RELATING TO ROADS.
_Sir John Moore to general Anstruther, at Almeida, dated Lisbon,
October 12, 1808._
“A division under Beresford is marching upon Coimbra, and a part
of it will proceed on to Oporto or not, as information is received
from you, that the road from thence to Almeida is or is not
practicable. Some officers of the Spanish engineers, employed in
the quarter-master-general’s department, with commissaries, are
sent from Madrid to obtain information on the subjects you will
want with respect to roads, subsistence, &c. &c. from Almeida to
Burgos.”
_Sir John Moore to lord William Bentinck, October 22, 1808._
“Colonel Lopez has no personal knowledge of this part of Spain; but
what he has told me accords with other information I had before
received, that the great Madrid road was the only one by which
artillery could travel; the French brought theirs from Ciudad
Rodrigo to Alcantara, but by this _it was destroyed_.” ... “The
difficulty of obtaining correct information of roads, and the
difficulties attending the subsistence of troops through Portugal,
are greater than you can believe.”
_Sir John Hope to sir John Moore, Madrid, Nov. 20._
“I sent Wills of the engineers by Placentia to Salamanca, and
before this time I suppose he may have made his report to you of
the roads from the Tagus at Almaraz and Puente de Cardinal to
Salamanca.” ... “Delancy is upon this road, and I have directed him
to communicate with you at Salamanca, as soon as possible.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, Oct. 27, 1808._
“I am under the necessity of sending lieutenant-general Hope,
with the artillery, &c. by the great road leading from Badajos to
Madrid, as _every information_ agreed that no other was fit for the
artillery.”
_Substance of a report from captain Carmichael Smyth of the
engineers, 26th December, 1808._
“The country round about Astorga is perfectly open, and affords no
advantage whatsoever to a small corps to enable it to oppose a
large force with any prospect of success. In retreating, however,
towards Villa Franca, at the distance of about two leagues from
Astorga, the hills approaching each other form some strong ground;
and the high ground in particular in the rear of the village of
Rodrigatos appears at first sight to offer a most advantageous
position. One very serious objection presents itself nevertheless
to our making a stand near Rodrigatos, or indeed at any position
before we come to the village of Las Torres (about one league from
Bembibre), as the talus, or slope of the ground, from Manzanal
(close to Rodrigatos) until Las Torres, would be in favour of
an enemy should we be forced at Rodrigatos, and we should be
consequently obliged to retreat down hill for nearly two leagues,
the enemy having every advantage that such a circumstance would
naturally give them.
“From Las Torres to Bembibre the ground becomes more open, but with
the disadvantage, however, of the slope being still against us.
From Bembibre to Villa Franca there is great variety of ground,
but no position that cannot easily be turned, excepting the ground
in the rear of Calcavellos, and about one league in front of
Villafranca. This is by far the strongest position between Astorga
and Villafranca. It is also necessary to add, that the position
at Rodrigatos can easily be turned by the Foncevadon road (which,
before the establishment of the Camina real, was the high road
towards Coruña). This is not the case with the position in front
of Villafranca, as the Foncevadon road joins the Camina real at
Calcavallos in front of the proposed position.”
SECTION III.--RELATING TO EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES.
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, October 9, 1808._
“At this instant the army is without equipment of any kind, either
for the carriage of the light baggage of regiments, artillery
stores, commissariat stores, or other appendages of an army, and
not a magazine is formed on any of the routes by which we are to
march.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, Oct. 18, 1808._
“In none of the departments is there any want of zeal, but in
some of the important ones there is much want of experience.” ...
“I have no hope of getting forward at present with more than the
light baggage of the troops, the ammunition immediately necessary
for the service of the artillery, and a very scanty supply of
medicines.”
_Sir John Moore’s Journal._
“My anxiety is to get out of the rugged roads of Portugal before
the rains.”
_Sir John Moore to lord William Bentinck, Oct. 22, 1808._
“The season of the year admitting of no delay, there was a
necessity for beginning the march, and trusting for information
and supplies as we get on unfortunately our commissariat is
inexperienced, and a **** of a contractor, Mr. Sattaro, has
deceived us.”
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, October 29, 1808._
“The want of provisions for the men and forage for the horses has
been one of the most serious obstacles we have had to contend with.
Nor do I at present feel at all easy upon that subject.”--“The
horses are suffering very severely, both for want of proper
accommodations and food.” ... “From lord Castlereagh’s letter, I
was led to expect that every preparation for our equipment had
been made previous to our leaving England; I need hardly say how
different the case was, and how much I have been disappointed.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, November 17, 1808._
“The continued slowness of the junta is the only explanation I can
offer for the want of proper arrangements on the routes for the
reception of the English troops.”
SECTION IV.--RELATING TO THE WANT OF INFORMATION.
_Sir John Moore’s Journal, November 28, 1808._
“I am not in communication with any of the (Spanish) generals, and
neither know their plans nor those of the government. No channel of
information has been opened to me, and I have no knowledge of the
force or situation of the enemy, but what, as a stranger, I pick
up.”
_Ditto, Salamanca._
“It is singular that the French have penetrated so far
(Valladolid), and yet no sensation has been made upon the
people. They seem to remain quiet, and the information was not
known through any other channel but that of a letter from the
captain-general of the province to me.”
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, Astorga, Nov. 19, 1808._
“The local authorities have not only failed in affording us the
least benefit in that respect (supplies), but have neglected to
give us any kind of information as to the proceedings of the armies
or the motions of the enemy.”
_Ditto, Astorga, 23d November._
“It is clearly apparent how very much exaggerated the accounts
generally circulated of the strength of the Spanish armies have
been.” ... “It is very remarkable that I have not procured the
least intelligence, or received any sort of communication from any
of the official authorities at Madrid, or either of the Spanish
generals.”
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, Villafranca, Dec. 12, 1808._
“I also enclose a letter from the marquis of Romana; you will be
fully able to appreciate the degree of reliance that may be placed
on the _verbal_ communication made to him by the extraordinary
courier from Madrid. It was from the same kind of authority that he
desired the information he conveyed to me of a supposed brilliant
affair at Somosierra, which turned out to be an inconsiderable
skirmish altogether undeserving of notice.”
_Colonel Graham to sir John Moore, Madrid, Oct. 4, 1808._
“The deputies sent over knew nothing but just concerning their own
provinces and _pour se faire valoir_, they exaggerated every thing;
for example, those of the Asturias talked louder than any body,
and Asturias as yet has never produced a man to the army; thus
government, with all their wish to get information (which cannot be
doubted), failed in the proper means.”
_Lord Wm. Bentinck to sir John Moore, Madrid, Nov. 20, 1808._
“I must at the same time take the liberty of stating my belief,
that reliance cannot be placed upon the correctness of information,
even if such information should not be kept back, which does not
come through the channel of a British officer. It is the choice of
officers, rather than the system, that seems to have failed.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, Madrid, Nov. 19, 1808._
“In your direct communications with Spanish generals, you must,
however, be contented with their version of the state of affairs,
which I do not think can always be relied on, because they only put
matters in the view in which they wish you to see them.”
_Ditto, Nov. 29._
“The calculation of force which the junta hope may be united in
the army under your command will be as follows, if no impediment
prevents the different corps reaching the points selected for their
junction.”
_Remarks by the author._
British 35,000 They were only 23,500.
La Romana 20,000 ... only 5000 armed.
San Juan 15,000 Totally dispersed.
Levies from the south, say 10,000 None ever arrived.
------
80,000 Real total, 28,500.
------
_Lieut. Boothby, royal engineers, to sir John Moore, La Puebla,
Jan. 1, 1809._
“I shall consider of any means that may more completely ensure
the earliest information of the enemy’s movements towards this
quarter; but the Spaniards are the most difficult people in the
world to employ in this way, they are so slow, so talkative, and so
credulous.”
SECTION V.--RELATING TO THE CONDUCT OF THE LOCAL JUNTAS.
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, Coruña, Oct. 24, 1808._
“The answer of the supreme government to our application as read by
Mr. Frere last night in the presence of the junta of this province,
is certainly very different from what I expected. Instead of
expressing an anxiety to promote our views and dissatisfaction at
the impediments thrown in the way of our measures by the Gallician
government, it merely permits us to land here in the event of its
being found impracticable to send us by sea to St. Andero, and
directs that if our disembarkation takes place, it should be made
in detachments of 2000 or 3000 men each! to be successively pushed
on into Castille, without waiting for the necessary equipment of
mules and horses.”
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, Coruña, Nov. 7._
“We have received no sort of assistance from the government.”
_Ditto, Astorga, Nov. 19._
“Had the Spanish government afforded us any active assistance, the
state of our equipments would have been much more advanced.”
_Colonel Graham to sir John Moore, Madrid, Oct. 4, 1808._
“All this instead of at once appointing the fittest men in the
country to be ministers, looks much like private interest and
patronage being the objects more than the public good.”
_Colonel Graham to sir John Moore, Tudela, Nov. 9, 1808._
“_It is hoped_ that the Arragonese army will come over to fill it”
(the line) “up, but being an independent command, no order has yet
been sent. An express went after Palafox, who will return here this
morning, and _then, it is hoped_, that he will send an order to
general O’Neil at Sanguessa to march instantly; and _further, it is
hoped_, that general O’Neil will obey this order without waiting
for one from his immediate chief, Palafox, the captain-general of
Arragon, who is at Zaragoza; at all events, there is a loss of
above 24 hours by the happy system of independent commands, which
may make the difference of our having 18,000 men more or less in
the battle that may be fought whenever the French are ready.” ...
“Making me compliments of there being no secrets with their allies,
they” (the members of the council of war) “obliged me to sit down,
which I did for a quarter of an hour, enough to be quite satisfied
of the miserable system established by this junta” ... “In short, I
pitied poor Castaños and poor Spain, and came away disgusted to the
greatest degree.”
_Col. Graham to Lord W. Bentinck, Centruenigo, Nov. 13, 1808._
“If any thing can make the junta sensible of the absurdity of their
conduct this will. It would indeed have been more felt if a great
part of the division had been lost, as might well have happened.
But the difficulty of passing so many men with artillery, and in
small boats, and the time that would have been required so great,
that I can hardly persuade myself these people can be so foolish
as ever seriously to have entertained the idea. But with whatever
intentions, whether merely as a pretence for assuming the command
for the purpose of irritating Castaños; whether from the silly
vanity of exercising power, and doing something which, if by great
good luck it had succeeded, might have proved what might be done
with a more active commander; or whether from a real conviction
of the excellence of the scheme, it must be equally evident to
every military man, indeed to every man of common sense, that it
is impossible things can succeed in this way; and then the junta
itself interferes, and to worse purpose.”
_Castaños’s Vindication._
“The nation is deceived in a thousand ways; as an example, it
believed that our armies were greatly superior to those of
the enemy, reckoning 80,000 men that of the centre, when your
excellencies” (the junta) “knew that it only amounted to 26,000
men.” ... “Madrid possessed money and riches; the nobles and loyal
inhabitants of that capital wished to give both the one and the
other; but whilst the armies were suffering the horrors of famine,
naked, and miserable, the possessions and jewels of the good
Spaniards remained quiet in Madrid, that they might be soon seized
by the tyrant, as they were in the end.”
_Stuart’s Despatch, August 7, 1808._
“No province shares the succours granted by Great Britain, although
they may not be actually useful to themselves. No gun-boats have
been sent from Ferrol to protect St. Ander or the coast of Biscay;
and the Asturians have in vain asked for artillery from the dépôts
of Gallicia. The stores landed at Gihon, and not used by the
Asturians, have remained in that port and in Oviedo, although they
would have afforded a seasonable relief to the army of general
Blake. The money brought by the Pluto for Leon, which has not
raised a man, remains in the port where it was landed.”
_Major Cox to sir Hew Dalrymple, Seville, August 3, 1808._
“I freely confess that I cannot help feeling some degree of
apprehension that this great and glorious cause may be ruined by
the baneful effects of jealousy and division.”
_Major Cox to sir Hew Dalrymple, Seville, August 27._
“The fact is, their” (the junta of Seville) “attention has been for
some time past so much occupied by vain and frivolous disputes, and
by views of private interest and advantage, that they seem to have
neglected entirely every concern of real importance, and almost
to have lost sight of the general interests of the country.” ...
“A million of dollars have, I understand, been sent out.” ... “It
certainly would not be prudent to intrust so large a sum to the
management of the temporary government of a particular province,
without having a sufficient security for its proper application.
My own opinion is, that the less money which is given to them the
better, until the general government is formed. This junta have
shown too evident signs of a wish to aggrandize themselves, and
a disinclination to afford those aids to other provinces, which
they had it in their power to grant, not to afford just grounds
of suspicion, that their boasted loyalty and patriotism have at
times been mixed with unworthy considerations of self-interest and
personal advantage.”
_Ditto, Sept. 5._
“By Mr. Duff’s present instructions, he would have had no option”
(distributing the money), “even though the _iniquitous project of
partition_, which your excellency knows was once contemplated, were
still in existence.”
_Ditto, Sept. 7._
“A dispute between the two juntas” (Seville and Grenada), “which
had nearly been productive of the most serious consequences,
and would probably have ended in open hostility, had it not
been prevented by the moderate, but decided conduct, of general
Castaños.”
_Ditto, Sept. 10._
“The supreme junta of Seville have latterly manifested very
different views, and, I am sorry to say, they seem almost to have
lost sight of the common cause, and to be wholly addicted to their
particular interests: instead of directing their efforts to the
restoration of their legitimate sovereign and the established form
of national government, they are seeking the means of fixing the
permanency of their own, and endeavouring to separate its interests
from those of the other parts of Spain. To what other purpose can
be attributed the order given to general Castaños, not to march
on any account beyond Madrid? To what the instructions given to
their deputy, don Andrea Miñiano, to uphold the authority, and
preserve the integrity of the junta of Seville; to distinguish the
army to which he is attached by the name of the army of Andalusia;
to preserve constantly the appellation, and not to receive any
orders but what came directly from this government? And above all,
what other motive could induce the strong and decided measure of
enforcing obedience to those orders, by withholding from general
Castaños the means of maintaining his troops, in case of his
refusing to comply with them?”--“What has been the late occupation
of the junta of Seville? Setting aside the plans which were formed
for augmenting the Spanish army in these provinces, and neglecting
the consideration of those which have been proposed in their stead,
their attention has been taken up in the appointment of secretaries
to the different departments, in disposing of places of emolument,
in making promotions in the army, appointing canons in the church,
and instituting orders of knighthood. Such steps as these make
their designs too evident.”
_Captain Carrol to sir David Baird, Llanes, Dec. 17, 1808._
“This province” (Asturias), “the first to declare war with France,
has, during seven months, taken no steps that I can discover to
make arrangements against the event of the enemy’s entering the
province.” ... “What has been done with the vast sums of money
that came from England, you will naturally ask? Plundered and
misapplied: every person who had or has any thing to do with money
concerns endeavouring to keep in hand all he can, and be ready, let
affairs turn out as they may, to help himself.”
_Lord William Bentinck to sir Hew Dalrymple, Seville, Sept. 19,
1808._
“Notwithstanding the professions of the Junta, their conduct has
evidently fallen short of them, and I think it would be very
desirable that more money should not fall into their hands.”
_Major Cox to sir H. Dalrymple, Seville, 10 July and 27th do._
“The proclamation of Florida Blanca was received here some time
ago, but was carefully suppressed by the government.”
Other publications containing maxims similar to those inculcated
by the proclamation of Florida Blanca have appeared, but are
suppressed here with equal care.
SECTION VI.--CENTRAL JUNTA.
_Lord Wm. Bentinck to sir John Moore, Madrid, Oct. 4, 1808._
“I am sorry to say that the new government do not seem to proceed
with the despatch and energy which the critical situation of the
country demands.”
_Ditto to sir H. Burrard, Madrid, Oct. 8._
“In my last letter I adverted to the inactivity and apparent
supineness which prevailed in the central council in regard to the
military, as well as to the other business of the government.”
_Ditto to sir John Moore, Nov. 8._
“But it is upon the spot where the exact state of the armies,
and the extraordinary inefficiency of the government, whose past
conduct promises so little for the future, are known, that the
danger must be the more justly appreciated.” ... “The most simple
order, however urgent the case, cannot be obtained from the
government without a difficulty, solicitation, and delay, that is
quite incredible.”
_Sir John Hope to sir John Moore, Madrid, Nov. 20, 1808._
“It is perfectly evident that they” (the junta) “are altogether
without a plan as to their future military operations, either in
the case of success or misfortune. Every branch is affected by the
disjointed and inefficient construction of their government.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, Madrid, Oct. 18, 1808._
“Lord William Bentinck, as well as myself, have made repeated
representations, and I have given in paper after paper to obtain
something like promptitude and vigour; but though loaded with fair
promises in the commencement, we scarcely quit the members of the
junta before their attention is absorbed in petty pursuits and the
wrangling which impedes even the simplest arrangements necessary
for the interior government of a country.” ... “In short, we are
doing what we can, not what we wish; and I assure you we have
infamous tools to work with.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, Seville, Jan. 2, 1809._
“Morla’s treason is abused, but passed over; and the arrival of
money from Mexico, which is really the arrival of spoil for the
French, seems to have extinguished every sentiment the bad views
and the desperate state of things ought to have created.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, Jan. 10, 1809._
“Castaños, Heredia, Castelar, and Galluzzo, are all here. These
unfortunate officers are either prisoners or culprits, waiting the
decision of government on their conduct in the late transactions.
If the state of affairs should allow the government to continue in
existence they will probably wait many months, for no determination
is to be expected from people who have in no one instance punished
guilt or rewarded merit since they ruled the country. The junta
indeed, to say the truth, is at present absolutely null, and
although they represent the sovereign authority I have never
witnessed the exercise of their power for the public good.”
_Mr. Frere to sir John Moore. Las Santos, Dec. 16, 1808._
“The subject of the ships in Cadiz had not escaped me, but I
thought it so _very dangerous_ to suggest to the junta any idea
except that of living and dying on Spanish ground, that I avoided
the mention of any subject that could seem to imply that I
entertain any other prospects.”
SECTION VII.--RELATING TO THE PASSIVE STATE OF THE PEOPLE.
_Sir John Moore’s Journal, Dec. 9, 1808._
“In this part the people are passive. We find the greatest
difficulty to get people to bring in information.”
_Sir John Moore to Mr. Frere. Sahagun, Dec. 23, 1808._
“If the Spaniards are enthusiastic or much interested in this
cause, their conduct is the most extraordinary that was ever
exhibited.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh, Dec. 31, 1808, Astorga._
“I arrived here yesterday, where, contrary to his promise, and to
my expectation, I found the marquis la Romana, with a great part
of his troops. Nobody can describe his troops to be worse than he
does, and he complains as much as we do of the indifference of the
inhabitants, his disappointment at their want of enthusiasm; and
said to me in direct terms, that had he known how things were, he
neither would have accepted the command nor have returned to Spain.
With all this, however, he talks of attacks and movements which are
quite absurd, and then returns to the helpless state of his army
and of the country.”
_Mr. Stuart to sir John Moore, Nov. 17, 1808._
“The tranquillity of Madrid is truly wonderful.”
_Sir David Baird to sir John Moore, Dec. 6._
“Destitute as we are of magazines, and without receiving even a
show of assistance either from the government or inhabitants of the
country, who, on the contrary, in many instances, even thwarted our
plans and measures; we could not have advanced without exposing
ourselves to almost certain destruction.”
_Sir David Baird to lord Castlereagh, Nov. 22, 1808, Astorga._
“Major Stuart of the 95th regiment, who was despatched in front
of this place to obtain information, reports that the inhabitants
appear perfectly depressed by their losses, and seem to abandon all
hope of making a successful resistance.”
_Captain Carrol to sir John Moore, Dec. 17, 1808._
“On my arrival at Oviedo all was confusion and dismay; the
confidence between the people, the army, and the junta destroyed.”
... “Is it to be expected that the peasantry can be as hearty in
the cause of patriotism as if they were treated with justice.”
_Lieut. Boothby to sir J. Moore. La Puebla, Jan. 1. 1809._
“The Spanish soldiers now here (about 700) are merely on their way
to the marquis de la Romana; and as to any neighbouring passes,
there are no people whom I can call upon to occupy them, or should
expect to defend them, however naturally strong they may be, for
I see no people who are thinking of the enemy’s advance with any
sentiments beyond passive dislike, and hopes of protection from God
and the English army.”
_The prince of Neufchatel to the duke of Dalmatia, Dec. 10, 1808._
“The city of Madrid is quite tranquil, the shops are all open, the
public amusements are resumed.”
_General Thouvenot to the prince of Neufchatel. St. Sebastian, 29th
Nov. 1808._
“The successes obtained by the armies of the emperor, and those
which are also foreseen, begin to make a sensible impression upon
the authorities of the country, who become from day to day more
affable towards the French, and more disposed to consider the king
as their legitimate sovereign.”
_The commandant Meslin to the prince of Neufchatel. Vittoria, 29th
Nov. 1808._
“The public feeling is still bad, still incredulous of our
successes.” ... “As to the tranquillity of the country, it appears
certain.”
_Mr. Frere to sir John Moore. Merida, Dec. 14, 1808._
“A thousand barriers would be interposed against that deluge of
panic which sometimes overwhelms a whole nation, and of which at
one time I was afraid I saw the beginning in this country.” ...
“_The extinction of the popular enthusiasm in this country_, and
the means which exist for reviving it, would lead to a very long
discussion.”
Section VIII.--Miscellaneous.
_Lord Collingwood to sir H. Dalrymple. Ocean, Cadiz, June 23, 1808._
“At Minorca and Majorca they describe themselves to be strong, and
having nothing to apprehend. However, they made the proposal for
entering into a convention with us for their defence, and in the
course of it demanded money, arms, and the protection of the fleet.
When, in return for them, it was required that their fleet should
be given up to us, to be held for their king Ferdinand, or that
a part of them should join our squadron against the enemy, they
rejected all those proposals: so that whatever we did for them was
to be solely for the honour of having their friendship.”
_Captain Whittingham to sir Hew Dalrymple, June 12, 1808._
“12th June. I returned to Xerez at three o’clock, A.M. The
general sent for me and requested I would go without delay to
Gibraltar, and inform lieut.-general sir Hew Dalrymple that he at
present occupied Carmona with 3000 men (regulars), having his
head-quarters at Utrera, where his regular force would amount to
12,000 men; that it was not his intention to attempt to defend
Seville; that the heavy train of artillery, consisting of 80
pieces, was already embarked for Cadiz, under the pretext that they
were wanting for the defence of its works; and that every thing was
prepared for burning the harness, timbers, &c. &c. of the field
pieces; that he intended to fall gradually back upon Cadiz, if
forced to retreat; and that he did not at present desire that any
English troops should be landed till their numbers should amount to
8 or 10,000 men, lest the ardour of the people should oblige him to
commence an offensive system of warfare before the concentration of
a considerable Spanish and English force should afford reasonable
hopes of success.”
_Capt. Whittingham to sir H. Dalrymple. Utrera, June 29, 1808._
“The president approved of the idea, condemned the policy which
had led Spain to attempt to establish manufactories by force, and
showed clearly that the result had been the loss of a considerable
branch of the revenue, the increase of smuggling, and consequently
an enormous expense, in the payment of nearly _one hundred
thousand_ custom or rather excise officers, distributed about
the country, and the ruin of numberless families seduced by the
prospect of immediate profit to engage in illicit traffic.”
_Lord William Bentinck to sir H. Dalrymple. Madrid, Oct. 2, 1808._
“A passage of lord Castlereagh’s letter, of which I received
from you a copy, instructed you, if possible, to ascertain the
intentions of the Spanish government after the expulsion of
the French. Though not positively directed by you to ask this
information, yet the occasion appeared to make the question so
natural, and seemingly of course, and even necessary, that I
availed myself of it, and gave to general Castaños, to be laid
before count Florida Blanca, a memorandum, of which I enclose a
copy, marked A.”
_Extract from the copy marked_ A.
“It seems probable in such case that no diversion could be more
effectual or more formidable to Buonaparte than the march of a
large combined British and Spanish army over the Pyrenees, into
that part of France where there are no fortified places to resist
their passage into the very heart of the country, and into that
part where great disaffection is still believed to exist.”
_Major Fletcher, royal engineers, to sir John Moore. Betanzos, Jan.
5, 1809._
“I have the honour to report to your excellency that, in obedience
to your orders, I have examined the neck of land between the
harbour of Ferrol and the bridge of Puente de Humo. This ground
does not appear to possess any position that has not several
defects.” ... “I did not find any ground so decidedly advantageous,
and containing a small space, as to render it tenable for the
vanguard of an army to cover the embarkation of the main body.” ...
“I should have sent this report much sooner, but found it
impossible to procure post horses until my arrival at Lugo, and
since that time I have had very bad ones.”
_Ditto to Ditto. Coruña, Jan. 6, 1809._
“I am therefore led to suggest, that as Coruña is fortified,
reveted, and tolerably flanked (though the ground about it is
certainly not favourable), as it could not be carried by a
coup-demain if properly defended, as it contains a great quantity
of cover for men; and as, even against artillery, it might make
resistance for some days, it may be worth consideration whether,
under present circumstances, it may not be desirable to occupy it
in preference to the peninsula of Betanzos, should the army not
turn off for Vigo.”
* * * * *
No. XIV.
JUSTIFICATORY EXTRACTS FROM SIR JOHN MOORE’S CORRESPONDENCE.
_Sir J. Moore to Mr. Frere. Salamanca, Nov. 27, 1808._
“The movements of the French give us little time for discussion.
As soon as the British army has formed a junction I must, upon the
supposition that Castaños is either beaten or retreated, march upon
Madrid, and throw myself into the heart of Spain, and thus run all
risks and share the fortunes of the Spanish nation, or I must fall
back upon Portugal.” ... “The movement into Spain is one of greater
hazard, as my retreat to Cadiz or Gibraltar must be very uncertain.
I shall be entirely in the power of the Spaniards, but perhaps
this is worthy of risk, if the government and people of Spain are
thought to have still sufficient energy, and the means to recover
from their defeats; and by collecting in the south be able, with
the aid of the British army, to resist, and finally repel, the
formidable attack which is prepared against them.”
_Sir John Moore’s Journal. Salamanca, Nov. 30, 1808._
“In the night of the 28th I received an express from Mr. Stuart, at
Madrid, containing a letter from lieut.-colonel Doyle, announcing
the defeat of Castaños’s army near Tudela. They seem to have made
but little resistance, and are, like Blake’s, flying; this renders
my junction with Baird so hazardous that I dare not attempt it;
but even were it made, what chance has this army, now that all
those of Spain are beaten, to stand against the force which must
be brought against it. The French have 80,000 in Spain, and 30,000
were to arrive in 20 days from the 15th of this month. As long as
Castaños’s army remained there was a hope, but I now see none. I am
therefore determined to withdraw the army.”
_Ditto, Dec. 9._
“After Castaños’s defeat, the French marched for Madrid, the
inhabitants flew to arms, barricaded their streets, and swore to
die rather than submit. This has arrested the progress of the
French, and Madrid still holds out; this is the first instance
of enthusiasm shown; there is a chance that the example may be
followed, and the people be roused; in which case there is still
a chance that this country may be saved. Upon this chance I have
stopt Baird’s retreat, and am taking measures to form our junction
whilst the French are wholly occupied with Madrid. We are bound
not to abandon the cause as long as there is hope; but the courage
of the populace of Madrid may fail, or at any rate they may not be
able to resist; in short, in a moment things may be as bad as ever,
unless the whole country is animated and flock to the aid of the
capital, and in this part the people are passive.”
_Sir John Moore to lord Castlereagh. Salamanca, Dec. 10, 1808._
“I certainly think the cause desperate, because I see no determined
spirit any where, unless it be at Zaragoza. There is however a
chance, and whilst there is that I think myself bound to run all
risks to support it I am now differently situated from what I was
when Castaños was defeated: I have been joined by general Hope, the
artillery, and all the cavalry (lord Paget, with three regiments,
is at Toro); and my junction with sir David Baird is secure, though
I have not heard from him since I ordered him to return to Astorga.”
_Ditto to Ditto, Dec. 12._
“I shall threaten the French communications and create a diversion,
if the Spaniards can avail themselves of it; but the French have in
the north of Spain from 80 to 90,000 men, and more are expected.
Your lordship may therefore judge what will be our situation if the
Spaniards do not display a determination very different from any
they have shown hitherto.”
_Sir John Moore’s journal. Sahagan, Dec. 24, 1808._
“I gave up the march on Carrion, which had never been undertaken
but with the view of attracting the enemy’s attention from the
armies assembling in the south, and in the hope of being able to
strike a blow at a weak corps, whilst it was still thought the
British army was retreating into Portugal; for this I was aware
I risked infinitely too much, but something I thought was to be
risked for the honour of the service, and to make it apparent that
we stuck to the Spaniards long after they themselves had given up
their cause as lost.”
_Sir J. Moore to lord Castlereagh. Coruña, Jan. 13, 1808._
“Your lordship knows that had I followed my own opinion, as a
military man, I should have retired with the army from Salamanca.
The Spanish armies were then beaten; there was no Spanish force to
which we could unite; and from the character of the government, and
the disposition of the inhabitants, I was satisfied that no efforts
would be made to aid us, or favour the cause in which they were
engaged. I was sensible, however, that the apathy and indifference
of the Spaniards would never have been believed; that had the
British been withdrawn, the loss of the cause would have been
imputed to their retreat; and it was necessary to risk this army to
convince the people of England, as well as the rest of Europe, that
the Spaniards had neither the power nor the inclination to make
any efforts for themselves. It was for this reason that I marched
to Sahagun. As a diversion it has succeeded. I brought the whole
disposable force of the French against this army, and it has been
allowed to follow it, without a single movement being made by any
of what the Spaniards call armies to favour its retreat.”
* * * * *
No. XV.
This despatch from the count of Belvedere to the count of Florida
Blanca, relative to the battle of Gamonal, is an example of the
habitual exaggerations of the Spanish generals.
(Translation.)
Since my arrival at Burgos I have been attacked by the enemy: in
two affairs I repulsed him; but to-day, after having sustained
his fire for thirteen hours, he charged me with double my force,
besides cavalry, as I believe he had three thousand of the latter,
and six thousand infantry at least, and I have suffered so much
that I have retired on Lerma, and mean to assemble my army at
Aranda de Douero. I have sustained a great loss in men, equipage,
and artillery; some guns have been saved, but very few. Don Juan
Henestrosa, who commanded in the action, distinguished himself, and
made a most glorious retreat; but as soon as the cavalry attacked,
all was confusion and disorder. I shall send your excellency the
particulars by an officer when they can be procured. The volunteers
of Zafra, of Sezena, of Valentia, and the first battalion of
infantry of Truxillo, and the provincials of Badajoz, had not
arrived at Burgos, and consequently I shall be able to sustain
myself at Aranda, but they are without cartridges and ammunition. I
lament that the ammunition in Burgos could not be brought off. The
enemy followed me in small numbers: I am now retiring (10 P.M.),
fearing they may follow me in the morning. I yesterday heard from
general Blake, that he feared the enemy would attack him to-day,
but his dispositions frustrated the enemy’s designs, beginning the
action at eleven at night.
(Signed) CONDE DE BELVEDERE.
* * * * *
No. XVI.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM THE DUKE OF DALMATIA TO THE AUTHOR.
“Dans la même lettre que vous m’avez fait l’honneur de m’écrire
vous me priez aussi, monsieur, de vous donner quelques lumières
sur la poursuite de Mr. le général sir John Moore, quand il fit
sa retraite sur la Corogne en 1809. Je ne pense pas que vous
désiriez des détails sur cette operation, car ils doivent vous être
parfaitement connus, mais je saisirai avec empressement l’occasion
que vous me procurez pour rendre à la mémoire de sir John Moore
le témoignage que ses dispositions furent toujours les plus
convenables aux circonstances, et qu’en profittant habillement des
avantages que les localités pouvaient lui offrir pour seconder sa
valeur, il m’opposa partout la resistance la plus énergique et la
mieux calculée; c’est ainsi qu’il trouva une mort glorieuse devant
la Corogne, au milieu d’un combat qui doit honorer son souvenir.”
“_Paris, ce 15 Novembre, 1824._”
* * * * *
No. XVII.
LETTER FROM MR. CANNING TO MR. FRERE.
_London, Dec. 10, 1808._
“SIR,
“The messenger, Mills, arrived here yesterday with your despatches,
No. 19 to No. 26 inclusive; and at the same time advices were
received from lieutenant-general sir David Baird, dated on the
29th ultimo at Astorga, which state that general to have received
intelligence from sir John Moore of the complete defeat of
general Castaños’s army, and of the determination taken by sir
John Moore, in consequence, to fall back upon Portugal, while sir
David Baird is directed by sir John Moore to re-embark his troops,
and to proceed to the Tagus. Thus at the same moment at which I
receive from you the caution entertained in your No. 20, that a
retreat into Portugal would be considered by the central junta
as indicating an intention to abandon the cause of Spain, his
majesty’s government receive the information that this measure has
actually been adopted, but under circumstances, which, it is to be
supposed, could not have been in the contemplation of the central
junta. To obviate, however, the possibility of such an impression,
as you apprehend, being produced upon the Spanish government by the
retreat of the British armies, I lose no time in conveying to you
his majesty’s commands, that you should forthwith give the most
positive assurance, that the object of this retreat is no other
than that of effecting in Portugal the junction which the events
of the war have unfortunately rendered impracticable in Spain,
with the purpose of preparing the whole army to move forward again
into Spain whenever, and in whatever direction their services
may be best employed in support of the common cause. In proof of
this intention, you will inform the Spanish government, that an
additional reinforcement of cavalry is at this moment sailing
for Lisbon, and that the British army in Portugal will be still
further augmented, if necessary, so as to make up a substantive
and effective force adequate to any operation, for which an
opportunity may be offered in the centre or south of Spain,
according to the course which the war may take. But while you make
this communication to the Spanish government, it is extremely
necessary that you should accompany it with a distinct and pressing
demand for the communication to you and to the British general of
whatever be the plan of operations of the Spanish armies. Sir John
Moore complains that he had not received the slightest intimation
of any such plan at the date of his last despatch of the 20th
ultimo; and I am afraid the appointment which you mention in your
No. 20 of general Morla to discuss with the British commanders the
mode of co-operation between the British and Spanish armies will
not have taken place till after the defeat of the Spanish armies
will have entirely disposed of that question for the present. The
language of sir David Baird, with respect to defect of information,
is precisely the same as that of sir John Moore. Sir D. Baird has
indeed had the advantage of some intercourse with the marquis de
la Romana; but the marquis de la Romana himself does not appear to
have been in possession of any part of the views of his government,
nor to have received any distinct account of the numbers, state,
or destination even, of either of the armies which he was himself
appointed to command. The British government has most cautiously
and scrupulously abstained from interfering in any of the counsels
of the junta, or presuming to suggest to them, by what plan they
should defend their country. But when the question is as to the
co-operation of a British force, they have a right, and it is their
duty to require, that some plan should have been formed, and being
formed, should be communicated to the British commander, in order
that he may judge of, and (if he shall approve), may be prepared
to execute the share intended to be assigned to him. You will
recollect, that the army which has been appropriated by his majesty
to the defence of Spain and Portugal is not merely a considerable
part of the disposeable force of this country: it is, in fact, the
British army. The country has no other force disposeable. It may
by a great effort reinforce the army for an adequate purpose; but
another army it has not to send. The proposals, therefore, which
are made somewhat too lightly for appending parts of this force,
sometimes to one of the Spanish armies, sometimes to another, and
the facility with which its services are called for, wherever the
exigency of the moment happens to press, are by no means suited to
the nature of the force itself, or consonant to the views, with
which his majesty has consented to employ it in Spain. You are
already apprised by my former despatch (enclosing a copy of general
Moore’s instructions), that the British army must be kept together
under its own commander, must act as one body for some distinct
object, and on some settled plan.
“It will decline no difficulty, it will shrink from no danger,
when, through that difficulty and danger, the commander is enabled
to see his way to some definite purpose. But, in order to this, it
will be necessary that such purpose should have been previously
arranged, and that the British army should not again be left as
that of sir John Moore and sir David Baird have recently been, in
the heart of Spain, without one word of information, except such as
they could pick up from common rumour, of the events passing around
them. Previously, therefore, to general sir John Moore’s again
entering Spain, it will be expected that some clear exposition
should be made to him of the system upon which the Spaniards intend
to conduct the war; the points which they mean to contest with
the advancing enemy, and those which, if pressed by a series of
reverse, they ultimately propose to defend.
“The part assigned to the British army in the combined operation
must be settled with sir John Moore, and he will be found not
unambitious of that in which he may be opposed most directly to the
enemy. The courage and constancy displayed by the junta, under the
first reverses, are in the highest degree worthy of admiration.[31]
And if they shall persevere in the same spirit, and can rouse the
country to adequate exertions, there is no reason to despair of the
ultimate safety of Spain. But it is most earnestly to be hoped,
that the same confidence which they appear to have placed in the
ability of their armies, under Blake and Castaños, to resist the
attacks of the enemy, will not be again adopted as their guide,
again to deceive them in the ulterior operations of the war. It is
to be hoped that they will weigh well their really existing means
of defence against the means of attack on the part of the enemy,
and that if they find them unequal to maintain a line of defence as
extended, as they have hitherto attempted to maintain, they will at
once fall back to that point, wherever it may be, at which they can
be sure that their stand will be permanent, and their resistance
effectual. It is obvious, that unless they can resist effectually
in the passes of the Guadarama, or in the Sierra Morena, the
ultimate point of retreat, after a series of defeats more or less
numerous and exhausting, according as they shall the sooner or the
later make up their minds to retreat, is Cadiz. Supported by Cadiz
on one side, and by the fortress of Gibraltar on the other, the
remaining armies of Spain might unquestionably make such a stand,
as no force which France could bring against them could overpower;
and the assistance of the British army would be in this situation
incalculably augmented by the communication with Gibraltar and the
sea. I am aware of the jealousy with which the mention of a British
force of any sort coupled with the name of Cadiz will be received.
But the time seems to be arrived at which we must communicate with
each other (the Spanish government and England) without jealousy
or reserve. His majesty has abjured, in the face of the world,
any motive of interested policy,--you are authorised to repeat in
the most solemn manner, if necessary, that abjuration. But if in
the midst of such sacrifices and such exertions as Great Britain
is making for Spain; if after having foregone all objects of
partial benefit, many of which the state of Spain (if we had been
so ungenerous as to take that advantage of it) would have brought
within our reach, the fair opinion of the British government
cannot be received without suspicion; there is little hope of real
cordiality continuing to subsist under reverses and misfortunes,
such as Spain must but too surely expect, and such as are at all
times the tests of sincerity and confidence. It is the opinion of
the British government that the last stand (if all else fails) must
be made at Cadiz. It is the opinion of the British government,
that this stand will be made in vain _only_ if the necessity of
resorting to it is too late acknowledged, and the means of making
it effectually not providently prepared. It is the opinion of the
British government, that on no account should the naval means of
Spain be suffered to fall into the hands of France, or those of
France to be recovered by her. It is their opinion that this may be
prevented, but to prevent it, the object must be fairly looked at
beforehand; and it is hoped that a spirit of distrust unworthy both
of those who entertain it, and of those with respect to whom it is
entertained, will not be suffered to interfere between an object of
so great importance and the means of ensuring its accomplishment.
It is absolutely necessary to lose no time in bringing this
subject fairly before the Spanish government, and if in doing so,
you should see either in M. Cevallos or in count Florida Blanca
marks of that distrust and suspicion which must fatally affect any
measure of co-operation between the British and Spanish forces,
it will be right that you should at once anticipate the subject,
and you are at liberty to communicate this despatch _in extenso_,
as the surest mode of proving the openness with which the British
government is desirous of acting, and the disdain which it would
feel of any imputation upon its disinterestedness and sincerity.
But while this object is thus to be stated to the central
government, it is not to this object alone that the services of
the British army are to be appropriated. The commander-in-chief
will have both the authority and the inclination to listen to any
proposal for any other practicable undertaking. And it is only in
the event of no such object or undertaking being presented to him
in Spain, that he is directed to confine himself to the defence of
Portugal. I am, &c. &c. &c.
(Signed) “GEORGE CANNING.”
EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER FROM MR. CANNING TO MR. FRERE, OF THE SAME
DATE AS THE ABOVE.
_December 10, 1808._
“The timely preparation of the fleets of France and Spain, now in
the harbour of Cadiz, is also a point to be pressed by you with
earnestness, but at the same time with all the delicacy which
belongs to it. In the event of _an emigration to America_ it is
obvious that this preparation should be made beforehand. And in the
case of this project not being adopted, and of a resolution being
taken to defend Cadiz to the utmost, it would still be desirable
that the fleets should be prepared for removal to Minorca, in
order to be out of the reach of any use which the disaffected in
Cadiz (of whom general Morla is represented to have expressed
considerable apprehensions), might be disposed to make of them for
compromise with the enemy.”
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM MR. CANNING TO MR. FRERE.
_December 11, 1808._
“SIR,
“Complaints have been justly made of the manner in which the
British troops, particularly those under sir David Baird, have been
received in Spain.
“The long detention of sir David Baird’s corps on board the
transports at Coruña may but too probably have contributed to
render the difficulties of a junction between the two parts of
the British army insurmountable, by giving the enemy time to
advance between them. In addition to this it is stated, that
there was a total want of preparation for supply of any sort, and
the unwillingness with which those supplies appear to have been
administered, have undoubtedly occasioned as much disappointment
as inconvenience to the British commanders. Unless some change
is effected in these particulars when the army again moves into
Spain, the advance of the British troops through that country will
be attended with more difficulty than a march through a hostile
country.”
* * * * *
No. XVIII.
RETURN OF BRITISH TROOPS EMBARKED FOR PORTUGAL AND SPAIN, IN 1808.
Extracted from the adjutant-general’s returns.
|Artil.|Caval.|Infantry.|Total. |
+------+------+---------+-------+
| 357 | 349 | 8688 | 9394 |Commanded by sir A. Wellesley; embarked
| | | | | at Cork the 15th, 16th, and
| | | | | 17th June, 1808; sailed 12th July;
| | | | | landed at Mondego, August 1st.
| | | | |
| 379 | ... | 4323 | 4702 |Commanded by generals Ackland and|
| | | | | Anstruther; embarked at Harwich,
| | | | | July 18th and 19th; landed at Maceira,
| | | | | August 20th, 1808.|
| | | | |
| 66 | ... | 4647 | 4713 |Commanded by general Spencer; embarked
| | | | | at Cadiz; landed at Mondego,
| | | | | August 3d
| | | | |
| 712 | 563 | 10,049 |11,324 |Commanded first by sir John Moore,
| | | | | secondly by sir Harry Burrard;
| | | | | embarked at Portsmouth, April,
| | | | | 1808; sailed to the Baltic; returned
| | | | | and sailed to Portugal, July 31st;
| | | | | landed at Maceira, August 29th.
| | | | |
| ... | 672 | ..... | 672 |Landed at Lisbon, Dec. 31st, 1808.
| | | | |
| 186 | ... | 943 | 1129 |Embarked at Gibraltar; sailed Aug.
| | | | | 14th; landed at the Tagus in September.
| | | | |
| 94 | ... | 929 | 1023 |Commanded by gen. Beresford; embarked
| | | | | at Madeira; sailed Aug. 17th;
| | | | | landed at the Tagus in September.
| | | | |
| ... | 672 | ..... | 672 |Commanded by general C. Stewart;
| | | | | embarked at Gravesend; landed at
| | | | | Lisbon, September 1st.
| | | | |
| 798 | ... | 10,271 |11,069 |Commanded by sir D. Baird; embarked
| | | | | at Falmouth; sailed Oct.
| | | | | 9th; arrived at Coruña, 13th Oct.;
| | | | | landed 29th ditto.
| | | | |
| ... | ... | 1622 | ..... |Two regiments sent round to Lisbon
| | | | | from sir D. Baird’s force.
| | | | |
| ... | 2021 | ..... | 2021 |Commanded by lord Paget; embarked
| | | | | at Portsmouth; landed at Coruña,
| | | | | October 30th.
+------+------+---------+-------+
| 2592 | 4277 | 41,472 |46,719 |
| | | | |
| | | | 1622 |Add two regiments sent to Lisbon from
| | | +-------+ Coruña.
| | | |48,341 |Grand total, of which 800 were
| | | | | artificers, waggon train, and
| | | | | commissariat.
* * * * *
No. XIX.
RETURNS OF KILLED, WOUNDED, AND MISSING, OF THE ARMY UNDER THE
COMMAND OF SIR A. WELLESLEY.
Key: K, killed; W, wounded; M, missing.
+-----------------------+-----------------------+------+
1808. | _Officers._ | _Men._ | |
August. | K | W | M | K | W | M | Tot. |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
15th. Brillos | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 21 | 29 |
17th. Roriça | 4 | 19 | 4 | 66 | 316 | 70 | 479 |
21st. Vimiero | 4 | 35 | 2 | 131 | 499 | 49 | 720 |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
Grand total | | | | | | | |
for | 9 | 55 | 6 | 198 | 820 | 140 | 1228 |
the campaign. | | | | | | | |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+
* * * * *
No. XX.
BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE. RORIÇA, 17th AUG. 1808.
Extracted from the adjutant-general’s states.
Regiments.
{ {5th } }
{1st brigade, maj.-gen. Hill, {9th } 2780 }
{ {38th } }
{ }
Right {3d ditto, maj.-gen. Nightingale, {29th } 1722 } 7246
wing. { {82d } }
{ }
{ {45th } }
{5th ditto, C. Crawfurd, {50th } 2744 }
{ {91st } }
{4th brigade, brig.-gen. Bowes, {6th } 1829 }
{ {32d } }
{ }
{ {36th } }
Left {2d ditto, maj.-gen. Ferguson, {40th } 2681 } 5846
wing. { {71st } }
{ }
{ 6th ditto (light), {95th, 2d bn. } 1336 }
{ brig.-gen. Fane, {60th, 5th, bn. } }
Artillery, 18 guns, 6 and 9 lbs. 660 660
Cavalry 240 240
------
Total British 13,992
{ Infantry of the line, 1000 }
Portuguese, col. Trant, { Light Troops, 400 } 1,650
{ Cavalry, 250 }
------
Grand total, British and Portuguese,
including sick men, &c. &c. 15,642
* * * * *
No. XXI.
BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE. VIMIERO, 21st AUG. 1808.
Extracted from the adjutant-general’s states.
Regiments.
Right { { 5th } }
wing. { 1st brigade, gen. Hill, { 9th } 2780 } 2780
{ { 38th } }
{ { 50th } }
{ 6th ditto, brig.-gen. Fane, { 60th } 2293 }
{ { 95th, 2d bn} }
{ }
Centre. { { 9th } } 4953
{ 7th ditto, brig.-gen. Anstruther, { 43d, 2d bn } 2660 }
{ { 52d, 2d bn } }
{ { 97th } }
{ { 36th } }
{ 2d brigade, maj.-gen. Ferguson, { 40th } 2681 }
{ { 71st } }
{ }
Left { 3d ditto, maj.-gen. Nightingale, { 29th } 1722 }
wing. { { 82d } } 7612
{ }
{ 4th ditto, brig.-gen Bowes, { 6th } 1829 }
{ { 32d } }
{ }
{ 8th ditto, maj.-gen. Ackland, { 2d } }
{ { 20th } 1380 }
{ { 45th } }
Reserve.{ 5th brigade, brig.-gen. C. Crawfurd, { 50th } 2744 } 2744
{ { 91st } }
Artillery, 18 guns, 6 and 9lbs. 660 660
Cavalry, 20th light dragoons, 240 240
------
Total British 18,989
Portuguese, col. Trant, {Infantry, 1400 1,650
{Cavalry, 250
------
Grand total, including sick, wounded, and missing, 20,639
* * * * *
No. XXII.
RETURN OF SIR HEW DALRYMPLE’S ARMY, OCT. 1, 1808.
Head-quarters, Bemfica.
+--------------+-------------+------------+--------+
|Fit for duty. | Hospital. | Detached. | Total.|
+--------------+-------------+------------+--------+
Cavalry | 1402 | 128 | 28 | 1558 |
Artillery | 2091 | 146 | 6 | 2243 |
Infantry | 25,678 | 3196 | 454 | 29,328 |
+--------------+-------------+------------+--------+
Total | 29,171 | 3470 | 488 | |
+--------------+-------------+------------+--------+
Grand total, including artificers, waggon train, &c. &c. | 33,129 |
+--------+
* * * * *
No. XXIII.
EMBARKATION RETURN OF THE FRENCH ARMY UNDER GENERAL JUNOT.
+------------------------------------------------------------+
|Key: Of=Officers.; Hor=Horses.; Hosp.=Hospit^l.; |
| Pris.=Prison^s; Cr.=Criminals. |
+---------------+-----------+----------+-----------------+---+
| | | Absent | | |
| Present under | | without | | |
| arms. | Detached. | pay. | Total. |Cr.|
+---+------+----+--+----+---+--+----+--+---+--+------+---+---+
| | | | | | | Hosp. | Pris.| | | | |
| Of| Men |Hor |Of| Men|Hor|Of| Men|Of|Men|Of| Men |Hor|Men|
---------+---+------+----+--+----+---+--+----+--+---+--+------+---+---+
Infantry |273|15,860|....|52|2078| 0|46|3281|17|895|..|22,635| ..| 13|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Cavalry | 48| 1722|1176|..| 1| 1|..| 195| 1|...|..| 1974| ..| ..|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Artillery| 21| 1015| 472|..| 6| ..|..|....|..|...|..| 1121| ..| ..|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Engineers| 14| ....|....|..|....| ..|..|....| 3|...|..| 17| ..| ..|
---------+---+------+----+--+----+---+--+----+--+---+--+------+---+---+
Guns 10 8 lbs. }
16 4 lbs. } 35
Howitzers 4 6 inch. }
Grand total 25,747 men, 1655 horses, and 35 pieces of artillery.
Note.--On the staff of each division there are
1 General of division. 1 Inspector of reviews.
2 Generals of brigade. 1 Commissary of engineers.
7 Aides-de-camp. 2 Officers of engineers.
Artillery { 1 General.
{ 4 Colonels.
{ 2 Chefs de bataillon.
Engineers { 1 Colonel. }The remainder in the divisions.
{ 2 Captains. }
* * * * *
No. XXIV.
THE FOLLOWING EXTRACT FROM A MINUTE MADE BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE
DUKE OF YORK IN 1808
Proves that sixty thousand men could have been provided for the
campaign of 1808-9 in _Spain_, without detriment to other services.
“There are present in Portugal,
Cavalry 1640 } 31,446
Infantry 34 battalions 29,806 }
“Under orders to embark, { Cavalry 3410 } 14,829
{ Infantry 11,419 }
------
Total. 46,275
------
“Of this force the 20th dragoons and 8 battalions should remain
in Portugal. The disposeable force would then be
Cavalry. Infantry.
From Portugal 1313 23,575
Under orders 3200 11,419
Force to be drawn from Sicily 8000
--------------
Total 4513 42,994
“To this may be added four reg^s of cav^{ry}
And the two brigades of guards 2560 2434
--------------
Grand total 7073 45,428
--------------
“When to this you add 4 battalions of infantry, which may be
spared, and the artillery, it will form a corps of above sixty
thousand rank and file.”
Note.--The detail of names and strength of the regiments are
omitted to save space.
* * * * *
No. XXV.
ORDER OF BATTLE OF THE ARMY UNDER THE COMMAND OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
_2d Division._ _3d Division._ _1st Division._
Lt.-gen. Hope. Lt.-gen. Fraser. Lt.-gen. Baird.
| | |
Brigades. Brigades. Brigades.
1st. 2d. 3d. 1st. 2d. 1st. 2d. 3d.
| | | | | | | |
4 batts. 3 batts. 3 batts. 4 batts. 3 batts. 2 batts. 3 batts. 3 batts.
_2d Flank Brigade._ _Reserve._ _1st Flank Brigade._
German.
Br.-gen. Alten. M.-gen. Paget. Col. B. Crawford.
| | |
2 Battalions. Brigades. 3 Battalions.
1st. 2d.
| |
3 batts. 2 batts.
_Cavalry._ _Artillery._
Lord Paget. Col. Harding.
| |
Brigades. 11 Brigades.
1st. 2d. |
| | 66 Pieces.
3 reg^s. 2 reg^s.
_Return of sir John Moore’s army, Dec. 19, 1808, extracted from the
adjutant-general’s morning state of that day._
+--------+----------+----------+--------+
|Fit for | Hospital.| Detached.| Total.|
| duty. | | | |
+--------+----------+----------+--------+
Cavalry | 2278 | 182 | 794 | 3254 |
Artillery | 1358 | 97 | ... | 1455 |
Infantry | 22,222 | 3756 | 893 | 26,871 |
+--------+----------+----------|--------+
| 25,858 | 4035 | 1687 | 31,580 |
| |
Deduct | 2275 | Men composing { 3d reg. left in Portugal.
| | four battalions, viz. { 76th } Between Villa
+--------+ { 51st } Franca and
| | Total number { 59th } Lugo.
| 23,583 | under arms.
+--------+
Note.--Of 66 guns 42 were attached to the divisions, the remainder
in reserve, with the exception of one brigade of 3 lbs.
* * * * *
No. XXVI.
The following General Return, extracted from especial regimental
reports, contains the whole number of non-commissioned officers and
men, cavalry and infantry, lost during sir John Moore’s campaign:
Total.
Lost at or previous to the arrival of { Cavalry, 95 } 1397
the army at the position of Lugo, { Infantry, 1302 }
Of this number 200 were left in the wine-vaults of Bembibre,
and nearly 500 were stragglers from the troops that marched
to Vigo.
Lost between the departure of the army }
from Lugo and the embarkation at } Cavalry, 9 }
Coruña, } Infantry, 2627 } 2636
----
Grand total 4033
Of the whole number above 800 contrived to escape to Portugal, and
being united with the sick left by the regiments in that country,
they formed a corps of 1876 men, which being re-embodied under the
name of the battalions of detachments, did good service at Oporto
and Talavera.
The pieces of artillery abandoned during the retreat were six
3-pounders.
These guns were landed at Coruña without the general’s knowledge;
they never went beyond Villa Franca, and, not being horsed, were
thrown down the rocks when the troops quitted that town.
The guns used in the battle of Coruña were spiked and buried in the
sand, but the French discovered them.
N.B.--Some errors may have crept into the regimental states, in
consequence of the difficulty of ascertaining exactly where each
man was lost, but the inaccuracies could not affect the total
amount above fifty men more or less.
* * * * *
No. XXVII.
The following states of the Spanish armies are not strictly
accurate, because the original reports from whence they have
been drawn were generally very loose, and often inconsistent and
contradictory. Nevertheless, it is believed that the approximation
is sufficiently close for any useful purpose.
STATE I.
_Army of Andalusia._
1808. Armed peasantry. Regulars.
19th July, Baylen Unknown 29,000
{ Madrid, }
1st Sept. { La Mancha, } -- 30,000
{ Sierra Morena, }
STATE II.
Numbers of the Spanish armies in October, 1808, according to the
reports transmitted to sir John Moore by the military agents.
Armed peasantry,
incorporated
Regulars. with the
regular troops.
Troops upon the Ebro,
and in Biscay, 75,000 70,000 145,000
In Catalonia, 20,000 -- 20,000
In march from Aragon
to Catalonia, 10,000 -- 10,000
Ditto new levies
from Grenada, 10,000 10,000
In the Asturias, 18,000 -- 18,000
-------- -------
Total 123,000 80,000
-------
Grand total 203,000
STATE III.
Real numbers of the Spanish armies in line of battle, in the months
of October, November, and December, 1808.
_1st Line._
Cavalry. Infantry. Guns.
Army of Palafox, 550 17,500 20 } Defeated and dispersed
Army of Castaños, 2,200 24,500 48 } at Tudela.
Army of Blake, 100 30,000 26 } Ditto at the battles
Army of Romana, 1,404 8,000 25 } of Zornoza and
Asturians, -- 8,000 -- } Espinosa.
Army of count Belvedere, 1,150 11,150 30 Ditto at Gamonal.
------ ------ ---
Total 5,404 99,150 149
Deduct Romana’s cavalry }
and guns, which never } 1,404 -- 25
came into the line of }
battle }
----- ------ ---
Total, brought into 1st }
line of battle } 4,000 99,150 124 103,150
_2d Line._
Infantry. Cavalry. {Were beaten at the
{ Somosierra 30th Nov.;
General St Juan’s { murdered their general
division, 12,000 -- { at Talavera, Dec. 7th,
{ and dispersed.
Fugitives from Gamonal, } {Fled from Segovia and
commanded by general } 4,000 -- { Sepulveda, Dec. 2d, and
Heredia, } { dispersed at Talavera,
{ 7th.
Fugitives from Blake’s } {Beaten at Mancilla, 29th
army, re-organised } 6,000 1,400 { Dec.; retired into
by Romana, } { Gallicia. Infantry
{ dispersed there.
Asturian levies under } 5,000 -- Were not engaged.
Ballesteros, }
Fugitives assembled } {Defeated and dispersed,
by Galluzzo behind } 6,000 -- { 24th Dec., by the 4th
the Tagus, } { corps, at Almaraz.
------ ------
Total, brought into }
2d line, } 33,000 1,400
* * * * *
To cover Moore’s advance there were on the Ebro, in Biscay,
and in the Asturias, according to the Spanish and the
military agents reports 173,000
The real number brought into the field was 103,150
-------
Exaggeration 69,850
Note.--The real amount includes the sick in the field hospitals.
* * * * *
No. XXVIII.
SECTION I.--STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY CALLED THE FIRST PART OF THE
ARMY OF SPAIN, DATED OCT. 1, 1808.
Head-quarters, Vittoria.
King Joseph, commander-in-chief.
General Jourdan, major-general. General Belliard, chief of the staff.
Recapitulation, extracted from the imperial states, signed by the
prince of Neufchatel.
Officers included, present under arms.
Men. Horses.
Division imperial guard, commanded by gen. Dorsenne 2423 786
Do. reserve cavalry, imperial gendarmes, }
and other troops } Gen. Saligny 5417 944
Corps of marshal Bessieres 15,595 2923
Do. marshal Ney 13,756 2417
Do. marshal Moncey 16,636 } 22,640 3132
Garrison of Pampeluna 6004 }
Garrisons of Vittoria, Bilbao, St. Sebastian,}
Tolosa, Montdragon, Salinas, Bergara, } Gen.
Villa Real, Yrun, and other places of less } Lagrange 8479 1458
note }
{ Gen. Drouet }
Troops disposeable at Bayonne and the { commanding } 20,005 5196
vicinity, or in march upon that { 11th military }
place { division. }
Do. employed as moveable columns in the }
defence of the frontier from Bayonne } 6042 261
to Belgarde }
In Catalonia, gen. Duhesme 10,142 1638
Fort of Fernando Figueras, gen. Reille 4027 557
Division of gen. Chabot 1434 --
------- -----
Total 110,660 19,312
------- ------
Note.--At this period the Spaniards and the military agents always
asserted that the French had only from 35 to 45,000 men of all
weapons.
STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY, CALLED “THE SECOND PART OF THE ARMY OF
SPAIN,” OCTOBER 1, 1808.
This army, composed of the troops coming from the grand army and
from Italy, was by an imperial decree, dated 7th September, divided
into six corps and a reserve.
Present under arms.
Men. Horses.
1st corps, marshal Victor, duke of Belluno 29,547 5552
5th Do. Mortier, duke of Treviso 24,405 3495
6th Do. destined for Ney, duke of Elchingen 22,694 3945
Infantry of the viceroy of Spain’s guards 1213 ...
Cavalry ditto 456 551
1st division of dragoons 3695 3994
2d ditto 2940 3069
3d ditto 2020 2238
4th ditto 3101 3316
5th ditto 2903 3068
Division of general Sebastiani 5808 185
5th regiment of dragoons 556 531
German division 6067 381
Polish ditto 6818 ...
Dutch brigade 2280 751
Westphalian light horse 522 559
General Souham’s division 7259 ...
Ditto Pino’s ditto 6803 ...
24th regiment of dragoons 664 731
Regiment of royal Italian chasseurs 560 512
Regiment of Napoleon’s dragoons 500 474
Artillery and engineers in march for Perpignan 1706 1430
------- ------
Total of 2d part 132,530 34,786
Total of 1st part 110,660 19,312
------- ------
243,190 54,098
------- ------
Grand total 243,190 men and 54,098 horses.
SECTION II.--GENERAL STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN SPAIN, OCTOBER
10th, 1808.
KEY:
Hosp. = Hospital.
Pr. = Prisoners.
Hor. = Horses.
CH = Cav. Hors. (Cavalry Horses)
AH = Art. Hors. (Artillery Horses)
Inf. = Infantry.
+--------------+-----------+------+----+---------------------+
|Present under | Detached. | Hosp.| Pr.| Effective. |
| arms. | | | | |
+-------+------+------+----+------+----+-------+------+------+
| Men. | Hor.| Men. |Hor.| Men. |Men.| Men. | CH | AH |
1st corps, | | | | | | | | | |
duke of | | | | | | | | | |
Belluno, | 28,797| 5615| 2201| 219| 2939| ..| 33,937| 3329| 2501|
| | | | | | | | | |
2d do. | | | | | | | | | |
-- Istria,| 20,093| 3219| 7394|1199| 5536| 30| 33,054| 3616| 802|
| | | | | | | | | |
3d do. | | | | | | | | | |
-- | | | | | | | | | |
Cornegliano,| 18,867| 3186|11,082|2472| 7522| 219| 37,690| 4537| 821|
| | | | | | | | | |
4th do. | | | | | | | | | |
-- Dantzic,| 22,859| 2410| 955| 40| 2170| ..| 25,984| 1791| 659|
| | | | | | | | | |
5th do. | | | | | | | | | |
-- Treviso,| 24,552| 3833| 188| 6| 1971| 2| 26,713| 1805| 2034|
| | | | | | | | | |
6th do. | | | | | | | | | |
-- | | | | | | | | | |
Elchingen, | 29,568| 4304| 3381| 257| 5051| 33| 38,033| 2465| 2096|
| | | | | | | | | |
7th do. | | | | | | | | | |
general | | | | | | | | | |
St. Cyr, | 35,657| 5254| 1302| 198| 4948| 200| 42,107| 4045| 1404|
| | | | | | | | | |
8th do. | | | | | | | | | |
duke of | | | | | | | | | |
Abrantes, | 19,059| 2247| 2137| 1| 3528|1006| 25,730| 1776| 472|
| | | | | | | | | |
Reserve, | 34,924|23,604| 3533| 733| 3553| 392| 42,382|21,225| 3112|
| | | | | | | | | |
1st hussars | | | | | | | | | |
and 27th | | | | | | | | | |
chasseurs, | 1,424| 1463| 256| 208| 74| ..| 1,754| 1675| ..|
| | | | | | | | | |
Artillery | | | | | | | | | |
and | | | | | | | | | |
engineers | | | | | | | | | |
in march, | | | | | | | | | |
coming from| | | | | | | | | |
Germany, | 3,446| 958| 107| ..| ..| ..| 3,446| ..| 958|
| | | | | | | | | |
Moveable | | | | | | | | | |
columns for| | | | | | | | | |
the defence| | | | | | | | | |
of the | | | | | | | | | |
frontiers | | | | | | | | | |
of France, | 8,588| 477| 107| ..| 146| 19| 8,860| 268| 209|
+-------+------+------+----+------+----+-------+------+------+
Total |247,834|56,567|32,536|5329|37,419|1901|319,690|46,828|15,068|
+-------+------+------+----+------+----+-------+------+------+
+-----------------------------------+-----------+------+
| Under arms. | Detached. | Hosp.|
+-------------+-------------+-------+------+----+------+
| Artillery. | Cavalry. | Inf. | | | |
| Men. | Hor. | Men. | Hor. | Men. | Men. |Hor.| Men. |
+------+------+------+------+-------+------+----+------+
Of this number | | | | | | | | |
{French, |17,868|15,107|34,172|35,761|152,770|29,647|5052|31,401|
{Auxiliaries | 1,503| 968| 4,782| 4,831| 36,739| 2,889| 277| 6,018|
+------+------+------+------+-------+------+----+------+
Total |19,371|16,075|38,954|40,592|189,509|32,536|5329|37,419|
+------+------+------+------+-------+------+----+------+
+-----+---------------------+
| Pr. | Effective. |
+-----+-------+------+------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
| Men.| Men. | CH | AH |
+-----+-------+------+------+
Of this number | | | | |
{French, | 1771|267,629|41,565|14,253|
{Auxiliaries | 130| 52,061| 5,261| 819|
+-----+-------+------+------+
Total | 1901|319,690|46,828|15,068|
+-----+-------+------+------+
Grand total 319,690 men and 61,896 horses.
SECTION III.--STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY OF SPAIN, THE EMPEROR
NAPOLEON COMMANDING IN PERSON, 25th OCTOBER, 1808.
1148 Officers of the staff. 298 Battalions. 184 Squadrons.
---------------+-------------+-------+------+-----------------------
| | | | Grand total.
Present under | Detached. | Hosp. | Pr. |
arms. | | | |
Total, | | | | Cavalry Artil.
Men. Horses.| Men. Horses.| Men. | Men. | Men. horses. horses.
249,046 55,759|33,438 4943 |34,558 | 1892 | 318,934 45,242 15,498
Grand total 318,934 men and 60,740 horses.
STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN SPAIN, THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON COMMANDING,
15th NOVEMBER, 1808.
Officers of the staff, 1064. Battalions, 290. Squadrons, 181.
--------------+--------------+-------+-------+----------------------
| | | | Grand total.
Present under | Detached. | Hosp. | Pr. |
arms. | | | |
Total, | | | | Cavalry Artil.
Men. Horses.| Men. Horses.| Men. | Men. | Men. horses. horses.
255,876 52,430|32,245 8295 | 4517 | 1995 | 335,223 43,920 16,808
Grand total 335,223 men, and 60,728 horses.
SECTION IV.--THE STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN PORTUGAL, JANUARY 1st,
1808.
Extracted from the imperial returns.
General Junot, commander-in-chief.
General Thiebault, chief of the staff.
1st division, general De Laborde, }
2d ditto, general Loison, } 26 battalions, 7 squadrons.
3d ditto, general Travot, }
Cavalry, general Kellerman, }
10 guns of 8 lbs. }
22 ditto 4 lbs. } 36 pieces.
4 6 inch howitzers. }
Present under arms. Effective.
Men. Horses. Men. Horses.
16,190 1,114 24,735 1,377
At Salamanca, or in march to }
join the army in Portugal. } 4,795 1,296 4,795 1,296
------ ------ ------ ------
Total 20,985 2,310 29,530 2,673
STATE OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN PORTUGAL, 23d MAY, 1808.
Under arms. |Detached. Hosp. | Effective.
Men. Horses.|Men.Horses. Men. | Men. Horses. Art.
French, 24,446 2789 | -- -- 2449 | 29,684 3586 629
Spanish division }
of gen. Quesnel,} 9281 101 | 1087 -- 651 | 11,019 -- --
Do. gen. Caraffa, 6309 844 | 174 13 141 | 6,624 13 --
Portuguese troops, 4621 483 | 570 234 116 | 5,307 234 --
------ ---- | ---- --- ---- | ------ ---- ---
Total 38,657 4217 | 1831 247 3357 | 52,634 3835 629
Grand total 52,634 men, 4454 horses, and 36 guns.
SECTION V.--STATE OF THE “2d ARMY OF OBSERVATION OF THE GIRONDE,”
1st FEB. 1808, SPAIN.
General Dupont, commanding.
20 battalions, and 1 division of cavalry.
Head-quarters Valladolid.
Present under arms. Detached. Hospital. Effective.
Men. Horses. Men. Horses. Men. Men. Horses.
20,729 2884 1303 334 2277 24,309 3218
Total 24,309 men, and 3218 horses.
SECTION VI.--STATE OF THE “ARMY OF OBSERVATION DE COTÉ D’OCEAN,”
1st FEB. 1808, SPAIN.
Marshal Moncey, commanding.
Head-quarters, Vittoria.
Present under arms. Detached. Hospital. Effective.
Men. Horses. Men. Horses. Men. Men. Horses.
21,878 2547 2144 -- 4464 28,486 2547
Train of the guard 225 509
Grand total 28,711 men, and 3301 horses.
* * * * *
No. XXIX.
The following letters from lord Collingwood did not come into my
possession before the present volume was in the press. It will be
seen that they corroborate many of the opinions and some of the
facts that I have stated, and they will doubtless be read with the
attention due to the observations of such an honourable and able
man.
TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
_Ocean, Gibraltar, 30th August, 1808._
MY DEAR SIR,
I have been in great expectation of hearing of your progress with
the army, and hope the first account will be of your success
whenever you move. I have heard nothing lately of Junot at Cadiz;
but there have been accounts not very well authenticated, that
Joseph Buonaparte, in his retiring to France, was stopped by the
mass rising in Biscay, to the amount of 14,000 well-armed men,
which obliged him to return to Burgos, where the body of the French
army was stationed.
At Saragossa the French, in making their fourteenth attack upon
the town, were defeated, repulsed with great loss, and had retired
from it. There is a deputy here from that city with a commission
from the marquis de Palafox to request supplies. The first aid upon
their list is for 10 or 15,000 troops. The deputy states they have
few regulars in the province, and the war has hitherto been carried
on by all being armed. In this gentleman’s conversation I observe,
what I had before remarked in others, that he had no view of Spain
beyond the kingdom of Aragon; and in reply to the observations I
made on the necessity of a central government, he had little to
say, as if that had not yet been a subject of much consideration.
I have great hope that general Castaños, Cuesta, and those
captains-general who will now meet at Madrid will do something
effectual in simplifying the government. In a conversation I had
with Morla on the necessity of this, he seemed to think the juntas
would make many difficulties, and retain their present power as
long as they could.
I hope, my dear sir, you will give some directions about this
puzzling island (_Perexil_), which it appears to me will not be
of any future use; but the people who are on it will suffer much
in the winter, without habitations, except tents; I conceive the
purpose for which it was occupied is past, and will probably never
return; whenever they quit it, they should bring the stores away as
quietly as possible; for if I am not mistaken, the emperor has an
intention to keep them, and will remonstrate against them going. I
hope you have received good accounts from lady Dalrymple, &c.
* * * * *
I am to sail to-day for Toulon, where every thing indicates an
intention in the French to sail. Mr. Duff brought a million of
dollars to Seville, and has instructions to communicate with the
junta; but he appears to me to be too old to do it as major Cox
has done: he is still there, and I conclude will wait for your
instructions. Mr. Markland would accept with great thankfulness the
proposal you made to him to go to Valencia.
I beg my kind regards, &c.
COLLINGWOOD.
P. S. Prince Leopold is still here, and I understand intends to
stay until he hears from England. I have given passports for
Dupont and a number of French officers to go to France on parole,
ninety-three in number. General Morla was impatient to get them out
of the country. The Spaniards were much irritated against them;
they were not safe from their revenge, except in St. Sebastian’s
castle.
TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
_Ocean, off Toulon, October 18, 1808._
MY DEAR SIR,
I have received the favour of your letters of the 27th August and
5th September, and beg to offer you my sincere congratulations on
the success of the British army in Portugal, which I hope will have
satisfied the French that they are not those invincible creatures
which Buonaparte had endeavoured to persuade them they were.
It is a happy event to have rescued Portugal from the government of
France, and their carrying off a little plunder is a matter of very
secondary consideration; perhaps it may have the good effect of
keeping up the animosity of the Portuguese who suffer, and incite
them to more resistance in future.
The great business now is to endeavour to establish that sort of
government, and organise that sort of military force, which may
give security to the country; and the great difficulty in Portugal
will be to find men who are of ability to place at the head of the
several departments, who have patriotism to devote themselves to
its service, and vigour to maintain its independence. In a country
exhausted like Portugal, it will require much ingenious expedient
to supply the want of wealth and of every thing military. If it
is not found in the breasts of those to whom the people look up,
Portugal will remain in a hapless and uncertain state still.
I have not heard from sir Charles Cotton how he settled his
terms with the Russian admiral; but as he has got possession of
the ships to be sent to England, they cannot but be good: the
hoisting the English flag on the fort which surrendered to our
troops, I conclude, would be explained to the Portuguese as not to
be understood as taking possession by England for other purpose
than to be restored to its prince, as was done at Madeira; but in
this instance it ought to have been thought necessary to deprive
Siniavin of the argument he would have used of the neutrality of
the Portuguese flag, with whom his nation was not at _war_.
I left Cadiz the moment every thing in that quarter was pacific;
and Mr. Duff arrived there with a million of dollars for their use:
this money was sent to the junta of Seville, where I am afraid
there are many members unworthy of the trust.
I have only heard once from Cox since I left that quarter.
After getting the money, father Gil seemed to have dropt his
communications with major C., and their discussions were not of
a nature to excite much public interest; they consisted more in
private bickerings than of grave consult for the public weal. Tilly
seems to have been entirely disappointed in his project, both in
respect to the annexation of southern Portugal to Andalusia and the
pension of 12,000 dollars for his service in the supreme council:
of those you will be informed by major Cox. I am afraid I related
the proceedings to his majesty’s ministers of events which were
passing almost under my eye, and gave my opinion on them with
too great freedom; I mean with a freedom that is not usual; but
they were facts of which, without being possessed, his majesty’s
ministers could not have a knowledge of the real state of affairs
in Spain; and the sentiments those facts inspired were necessary
to explain my motives and the rule of conduct which I pursued.
And still I consider the great and only danger to which Spain is
now exposed is the supposition that the whole nation is possessed
of the same patriotism which, in Andalusia, Aragon, and Valencia,
led to such glorious results. It is far otherwise: there are not
many Castaños, nor Cuestas, nor Palafox’s; and take from Spain the
influence of the clergy, and its best source of power would be
lost: wherever this influence is least, the war is languid.
I wrote to you some time since to represent the state of Catalonia.
Nothing can be more indifferent to the cause than they appear
to be; yet the common peasantry have not less spirit nor less
desire to repel their enemy. They have no leaders. Palacio, the
captain-general, stays at Villa Franca, west of Barcelona, talking
of what he intends to do; and the people speak of him as either
wanting zeal in their cause or ability to direct them; while the
French from Barcelona and Figueras do just what they please. When
the French attacked Gerona he did nothing to succour it. The
greatest discomfiture they suffered was from lord Cochrane, who,
while they were employed at the siege, blew up the road, making
deep trenches in a part where the fire of his ships could be
brought upon; and when they came there he drove them from their
guns, killed many, and took some cannon.
The French fleet is here quite ready for sea, and I am doing all
that is in my power to meet them when they do come out. It is
an arduous service: the last ten days we have had gales of wind
incessantly: the difficulty of keeping a sufficient squadron is
very great. I think the storms from those Alpine mountains are
harder than in England, and of more duration.
I beg my best regards to captain Dalrymple, and my sincerest wishes
for every success to attend you.
I am, my dear sir Hew,
Your obedient and most humble servant,
COLLINGWOOD.
P. S. In the letter which I wrote to you on the state of Catalonia
I represented the necessity of sending a body of British troops to
Catalonia. There is no other prospect of the French being kept in
any bounds. The avenues to France are as open now as at any time
they have been. I have kept a ship always at Rosas Bay; her marines
have garrisoned the castle, and her company assisted in repairing
the works. The French appear to have designs on that place. The
presence of the English alone prevents them. If 18,000 men were
here of our army I think they would make Mr. Palacio come forward
and put the whole country into activity, which till then I don’t
think they ever will be.
COLLINGWOOD.
They want an English resident at Gerona, that they may have
somebody to apply to for succour....
[The rest torn off in the original.]
TO SIR HEW DALRYMPLE.
_Ocean, off Minorca, April 8, 1809._
MY DEAR SIR,
I received the favour of your letter a few days ago, which gave me
great pleasure, after all the trouble and vexations you have had,
to hear you were all well.
I was exceedingly sorry when I saw the angry mood in which the
convention in Portugal was taken up, even before the circumstances
which led to it were at all known. Before our army landed in
Portugal the French force was reported to be very small. I remember
its being said that a body of 5000 troops were all that was
necessary to dispossess Junot. I conclude the same sort of report
went to England; and this, with the victory that was obtained, led
people to expect the extermination of the few French which were
supposed to be there; and when once the idea is entertained people
shut their eyes to difficulties.
I remember what you told me, the last time I saw you off Cadiz, of
the communications which might be made to you by an officer who
possessed the entire confidence of ministers. I thought then, that
whatever ministers had to communicate to a commander-in-chief,
could not be done better than by themselves; for intermediate
communications are always in danger of being misunderstood, and
never fail to cause doubts and disturb the judgment. I hope now it
is all over, and your uneasiness on that subject at an end.
My labours I think will never cease. I am worn down by fatigue of
my mind; with anxiety and sorrow; my health is very much impaired;
and while our affairs require an increased energy, I find myself
less able to conduct them, from natural causes. I give all my
thoughts and time, but have interruptions, from my weak state of
body, which the service will scarcely admit of. I never felt the
severity of winter more than this last. They were not gales of
wind, but hurricanes; and the consequence is, that the fleet has
suffered very much, and many of the ships very infirm. I would not
have kept the sea so long, because I know the system of blockading
must be ruinous to our fleet at last; and in no instance that I
can recollect has prevented the enemy from sailing. In the spring
we are found all rags, while they, nursed through the tempest, are
all trim. I would not have done it; but what would have become
of me if, in my preserving the ships, the French had sailed and
effected any thing in any quarter? The clamour would have been
loud, and they would have sought only for the cause in my treachery
or folly, for none can understand that there is any bad weather in
the Mediterranean. The system of blockade is ruinous; but it has
continued so long, and so much to the advantage of the mercantile
part of the nation, that I fear no minister will be found bold
enough to discontinue it. We undertake nothing against the enemy,
but seem to think it enough to prevent him taking our brigs: his
fleet is growing to a monstrous force, while ours every day gives
more proof of its increasing decrepitude.
Of the Spaniards I would not say much; I was never sanguine in
the prospect of success, and have no reason to change my opinion:
the lower class of people, those who are under the influence of
priests, would do any thing were they under proper direction; but
directors are difficult to be found. There is a canker in the
state: none of the superior orders are serious in their resistance
to the French, and have only taken a part against them thus far
from the apprehension of the resentment of the people. I believe
the junta is not free from the taint of the infection, or would
they have continued Vives Don Miguel in high and important command
after such evident proofs as he gave of want of loyalty? I do not
know what is thought of Infantado in England; but in my mind,
the man, the duke (for his rank has a great deal to do with it),
who would seat himself in Buonaparte’s council at Bayonne, sign
his decrees, which were distributed in Spain, and then say he was
forced to do it, is not the man who will do much in maintaining
the glory or the independence of any country, no such man should
be trusted now. The French troops are mostly withdrawn from Spain,
except such as are necessary to hold certain strong posts, and
enable them to return without impediment. Figueras, Barcelona, and
Rosas, are held here in Catalonia, and of course the country quite
open to them. Will the Spaniards dispossess them? The junta does
not seem to know any thing of the provinces at a distance from
them. At Tarragona the troops are ill clothed, and without pay;
on one occasion they could not march against the enemy, having no
shoes; and yet at Cadiz they have 51 millions of dollars. Cadiz
seems to be a general depôt of every thing they can get from
England. If they are not active the next two months Spain is lost.
I hope lady Dalrymple, &c. &c.
I ever am, my dear sir,
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
COLLINGWOOD.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For a description of this organization, the reader is referred
to the “Precis des Evénemens Militaires, par Mathieu Dumas;” a work
of infinite labour and research, in which the military story of ten
years is told with unrivalled simplicity and elegance.
[2]
Viz.:-- about 30,000 Cavalry,
6,000 Foot Guards,
170,000 Infantry of the line,
14,000 Artillery.
-------
Total, 220,000
Of these, between 50 and 60,000 were employed in the Colonies and
in India; the remainder were disposable, because from 80 to 100,000
militia, differing from the regular troops in nothing but the
name, were sufficient for the home duties. If to this force we add
30,000 marines, the military power of England must be considered
prodigious.
[3] The anagram of Llorente.
[4] I think it necessary to state, in addition to the authorities
quoted in the margin, that I have derived my information from
officers, some French, some Italian, who were present in the tumult
of the 2d of May. On the veracity of my informants I have the
firmest reliance; their accounts agreed well, and the principal
facts were confirmed by the result of my personal inquiries at
Madrid in the year 1812.
[5] Five sail of the line and one frigate.
[6] Forty-two thousand dollars.
[7] Tio Jorge and Tio Marin, which may be rendered goodman Jorge,
and goodman Marin, were two of the real chiefs whose energy saved
Zaragoza in the first siege.
[8] The late Lord Melville.
[9] This transaction furnishes an example of the imprudence of
being precipitate in granting public honours. Lord Strangford’s
despatch relative to the emigration was written (as it is
confidently asserted) not at Lisbon, but at Salt Hill, in the
presence of sir James Yeo. His lordship (unintentionally of
course) impressed the ministers with an idea that to his personal
exertions the emigration should be attributed; whereas the prince
regent of Portugal, yielding to the vigorous negotiations of
sir Sydney Smith, not only embarked on the 27th, _before_ lord
Strangford arrived at Lisbon, but actually sailed without his
lordship’s having had any official interview with his royal
highness, and consequently without having had any opportunity to
advance or retard the emigration. The English ministers, eager
to testify their satisfaction at that event, conferred the red
riband, not upon sir Sydney Smith, who had succeeded, but upon lord
Strangford, who had failed! a result that his lordship could not
have anticipated, or he would undoubtedly have written his despatch
at Lisbon when the facts were fresh on his mind, and when he could
have more forcibly described the admiral’s share in the transaction.
[10] The coast of Portugal.
[11] This is a remarkable instance of ministerial confusion;
the despatch from sir Hew Dalrymple referred to as giving this
“assurance,” not only made no mention of a promise to the junta of
Seville, but the junta itself was not in existence at the time his
despatch was written.
[12] The occupation of Cadiz was a favourite project with the
English government at this period. They were not discouraged by
Spencer’s unsuccessful efforts to gain admittance, nor by the
representations of sir Hew Dalrymple, who had grounds for believing
that any attempt to introduce British troops there, would bring
down the greater part of Castaños’ army to oppose it by force; nor
by the consideration that in a political view such a measure would
give a subject for misrepresentation to the enemy’s emissaries,
and that, in a military view, the burthen of Cadiz would clog all
general operations in Portugal.
[13] The ministers were so intent upon occupying Cadiz, and so
little acquainted with the state of public feeling in Andalusia,
that one of those generals carried with him his appointment as
governor of that city.
[14] Yet lord Byron has gravely asserted in prose and verse that
the convention was signed at the marquis of Marialva’s house at
Cintra; and the author of “The Diary of an Invalid,” improving upon
the poet’s discovery, detected the stains of the ink spilt by Junot
upon the occasion.
[15] There is good reason to believe, that a silly intrigue carried
on through the medium of the princess of Tour and Taxis with
Talleyrand, and some others, who were even then ready to betray
Napoleon, was the real cause of the negotiation having been broken
off by Mr. Canning.
[16] Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Napoleon, inaccurately
asserts, that sir John Moore, “sent ten thousand men, under sir
David Baird, by sea, to Coruña,” and that “_the general science
of war, upon the most extended scale_, seems to have been so
little understood or practised by the English generals at this
time, that instead of the country being carefully reconnoitred
by officers of skill, the march of the army was arranged by such
hasty and inaccurate information as could be collected from the
peasants. _By their reports general Moore was induced to divide
his army_”----What “_the general science of war upon an extended
scale_” may mean, I cannot pretend to say; but that sir David Baird
was sent by the government from England direct to Coruña, and that
sir John Moore _was not induced_ by the reports of the peasants to
divide his army, may be ascertained by a reference to the Appendix,
No. 13, section 2.
[17] Navarre and Biscay being within the French line of defence,
the inhabitants were, according to the civilians, de facto French
subjects.
[18] In the winter of 1812, captain Hill, of the royal navy, was
sent to Cronstadt to receive Spanish prisoners who had been taken
by the Russians. Of five thousand Spaniards that were delivered
to him, above four thousand were men who had escaped with Romana
from the Danish isles in 1808. Captives at Espinosa, they had
entered the French ranks, served in Napoleon’s continental wars,
and being made prisoners by the Russians in the retreat from
Moscow, were once more brought back to Spain in English vessels.
This is a curious commentary upon the silly stories that have been
promulgated relative to the desperate fighting of Blake’s army, and
the devoted courage with which, _Spartan-like_, Romana’s soldiers
died to a man upon the field of battle.
MEN.
Landed at Gihon, 9th October, 1808 9,404
Deduct cavalry, which never joined Blake’s army 1,404
-----
8,000
Prisoners delivered to captain Hill 4,500
-----
3,500
Now, if we make allowance, 1º. For natural and violent deaths
during four years of service under Napoleon, 2º. For those who
might not have been taken by the Russians, and if we believe that
some _might possibly have escaped from Espinosa alive_, the number
of Spartans will probably be thought not to have exceeded the
classical number of 300.
[19] Dukes of Infantado, of Hijar, Medina Celi, and Ossuna;
marquis Santa Cruz; counts Fernan, Miñez, and Altamira; prince of
Castello Franco, Pedro Cevallos, and the bishop of St. Ander, were
proscribed, body and goods, as traitors to France and Spain.
[20] The following remarkable instance of courage and discipline
deserves to be recorded. John Walton, a native of the south of
Ireland, and Richard Jackson, an Englishman, were posted in a
hollow road on the plain beyond the bridge, and at a distance from
their piquet. If the enemy approached, one was to fire, run back to
the brow of the hill, and give notice if there were many or few;
the other was to maintain his ground. A party of cavalry following
a hay cart stole up close to these men, and suddenly galloped in,
with a view to kill them and surprise the post. Jackson fired,
but was overtaken, and received twelve or fourteen severe wounds
in an instant; he came staggering on, notwithstanding his mangled
state, and gave the signal. Walton, with equal resolution and more
fortune, defended himself with his bayonet, and wounded several of
the assailants, who retreated, leaving him unhurt; but his cap,
his knapsack, his belts, and his musquet were cut in above twenty
places, and his bayonet was bent double, his musquet covered with
blood, and notched like a saw from the muzzle to the lock. Jackson
escaped death during the retreat, and finally recovered of his
wounds.
[21] Several thousand infantry slept in the long galleries of an
immense convent built round a square; the lower corridors were
filled with the horses of the cavalry and artillery, so thickly
stowed that it was scarcely possible for a single man to pass them,
and there was but one entrance. Two officers returning from the
bridge, being desirous to find shelter for their men, entered the
convent, and with horror perceived that a large window shutter
being on fire, and the flame spreading to the rafters above, in
a few moments the straw under the horses would ignite, and six
thousand men and animals would inevitably perish in the flames.
One of the officers, (captain Lloyd, of the forty-third,) a man of
great activity, strength, and presence of mind, made a sign to his
companions to keep silence, and springing on to the nearest horse,
run along the backs of the others until he reached the flaming
shutter, which he tore off its hinges and cast out of the window;
then returning quietly, awakened some of the soldiers, and cleared
the passage without creating any alarm, which in such a case would
have been as destructive as the flames. Captain Lloyd was a man of
more than ordinary talents; his character has been forcibly and
justly depicted in that excellent little work called the “_Life of
a Sergeant_.”
[22]
Lorges’s dragoons 1,400
La Houpaye’s ditto 1,450
Franceschi’s light cavalry 1,350
-----
Total 4,200
[23] Ninety-fifth regiment.
[24] I am aware that the returns laid before Parliament in 1809
make the sum 60,000_l._, and the whole loss during the campaign
nearly 77,000_l._; but it is easier to make an entry of one sum
for a treasury return, than to state the details accurately. The
money agents were, like the military agents, acting independently,
and all losses went down under the head of abandoned treasure. My
information is derived from officers actually present, and who all
agree that the only treasure abandoned was that at Nogales, and
that the sum was 25,000_l._ When it was ordered to be rolled over
the brink of the hill, two guns, and a battalion of infantry, were
actually engaged with the enemy to protect it, and some person in
whose charge the treasure was, exclaiming, “it is _money_!” the
general replied, “so are shot and shells.” The following anecdote
will show how such accidents may happen in war. An officer had
charge of the cars that drew this treasure; in passing a village,
a lieutenant of the fourth regiment observing that the bullocks
were exhausted, took the pains to point out where fresh and strong
animals were to be found, and advised that the tired ones should
be exchanged for others more vigorous, which were close at hand;
but the escorting officer, either ignorant of, or indifferent to
his duty, took no notice of this recommendation, and continued his
march with the exhausted cattle.
[25] The author’s eldest brother. He was returned amongst the
killed. When the French renewed the attack at Elvina he was, with
a few men, somewhat in advance of the village, for the troops
were broken into small parties by the vineyard walls and narrow
lanes. Being hurt, he endeavoured to return, but the enemy coming
down, he was stabbed, and thrown to the ground with five wounds;
and death appeared inevitable, when a French drummer rescued him
from his assailants, and placed him behind a wall. A soldier with
whom he had been struggling, irritated to ferocity, returned to
kill him, but was prevented by the drummer. The morning after
the battle the duke of Dalmatia being apprised of major Napier’s
situation, had him conveyed to good quarters, and with a kindness
and consideration very uncommon, wrote to Napoleon, desiring that
his prisoner might not be sent to France, which (from the system of
refusing exchanges) would have been destruction to his professional
prospects. The marshal also obtained for the drummer the decoration
of the legion of honour. The events of the war obliged Soult to
depart in a few days from Coruña, but he recommended major Napier
to the attention of marshal Ney; and that marshal also treated his
prisoner with the kindness of a friend rather than the rigour of
an enemy, for he quartered him with the French consul, supplied
him with money, gave him a general invitation to his house on
all public occasions, and refrained from sending him to France.
Nor did marshal Ney’s kindness stop there; for when the flag of
truce arrived, and that he became acquainted with the situation of
major Napier’s family, he suddenly waved all forms, and instead
of answering the inquiry by a cold intimation of his captive’s
existence, sent him, and with him the few English prisoners taken
in the battle, at once to England, merely demanding that none
should serve until regularly exchanged. I should not have dwelt
thus long upon the private adventures of an officer, but that
gratitude demands a public acknowledgment of such generosity, and
the demand is rendered imperative by the after misfortunes of
marshal Ney. The fate of that brave and noble-minded man is well
known. He who had fought five hundred battles for France, not one
against her, was shot as a traitor!
[26] The loss of the English army was never officially returned,
but was estimated by sir John Hope at about eight hundred. The
French loss I have no accurate account of. I have heard from
French officers that it was above three thousand men; this number,
I confess, appears to me exaggerated; but that it was very great
I can readily believe. The arms of the British were all new, the
ammunition quite fresh, and it is well known that, whether from the
peculiarity of our musquets, the physical strength and coolness of
the men, or both combined, the fire of an English line is at all
times the most destructive known. The nature of the ground also
prevented any movement of the artillery on either side; hence the
French columns in their attacks were exposed to a fire of grape
which they could not return, because of the distance of their
batteries.
[27] Sir John Moore’s sentiments upon this occasion are expressed
in the following letter, which displays the pure and elevated
patriotism that distinguished him through life, and rendered his
death heroic.
“Portsmouth, 23d July, 1808.
“MY LORD,
“I am this instant honoured with your lordship’s letter (by
messenger) of yesterday’s date. As I have already had the honour
to express my sentiments to your lordship fully at my last
interview, it is, I think, unnecessary to trouble you with a
repetition of them now.
“I am about to proceed on the service on which I have been
ordered, and it shall be my endeavour to acquit myself with
the same zeal by which I have ever been actuated when employed
in the service of my country. The communication which it has
been thought proper to make to his majesty cannot fail to give
me pleasure; I have the most perfect reliance on his majesty’s
justice, and shall never feel greater security than when my
conduct, my character, and my honour, are under his majesty’s
protection.
“I have the honour to be, &c. &c.
(Signed) “JOHN MOORE.
“To the Right Honourable Viscount Castlereagh.”
[28] Note.--These two words are added in Napoleon’s own
hand-writing.
[29] _Note by the author._--This calculation was made under the
supposition that general Avril had joined Dupont.
[30] On ne comprend pas dans ces celculs les garnisons de
Pampelune, St. Sebastien, Vittoria, Tolosa, Bilbao, &c.: il n’est
pas question non plus de l’armée de Catalogne.
[31] The extract which follows this letter furnishes a curious
comment on this passage.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
In Note No. XXV in the Appendix, horizontal parentheses have been
replaced by a vertical bar |.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
In those sections of the Appendix that are French documents, some
corrections to accents have been made silently; primarily é for e,
and e for é. Incorrect spelling has been left unchanged.
The city of Logroña is mentioned 35 times; the city of Logroño 17
times. They are undoubtably the same city; the text has not been
changed. Castille is mentioned 43 times; Castile 15 times. They are
undoubtably the same region; the text has not been changed.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Corrigenda:
‘the first class’ replaced by ‘of the first class’.
page number ‘436’ replaced by ‘426’.
Main text:
Pg 34: ‘at the instance’ replaced by ‘at the insistence’.
Pg 78: ‘were also dedefeated’ replaced by ‘were also defeated’.
Pg 151: ‘Genaral Thiebault’ replaced by ‘General Thiebault’.
Pg 162: ‘give birth too’ replaced by ‘give birth to’.
Pg 163: ‘Guarda, Attalaya’ replaced by ‘Guarda, Atalaya’.
Pg 165: ‘into the towu’ replaced by ‘into the town’.
Pg 189: ‘Wellelley decided’ replaced by ‘Wellesley decided’.
Pg 200: ‘the 5th batallion’ replaced by ‘the 5th battalion’.
Pg 294: ‘force under Cataños’ replaced by ‘force under Castaños’.
Pg 315: ‘to develope all’ replaced by ‘to develop all’.
Pg 344: ‘to recal the’ replaced by ‘to recall the’.
Pg 346: ‘to another æra’ replaced by ‘to another era’.
Pg 356: ‘or Albazan; united’ replaced by ‘or Almazan; united’.
Pg 361: ‘Pyrennes opening’ replaced by ‘Pyrenees opening’.
Pg 363: ‘being desseminated’ replaced by ‘being disseminated’.
Pg 367: ‘and Giupuscoa. With’ replaced by ‘and Guipuscoa. With’.
Pg 400: ‘at Calahora on’ replaced by ‘at Calahorra on’.
Pg 484: ‘or, in secresy’ replaced by ‘or, in secrecy’.
Pg 506: ‘to envelope and’ replaced by ‘to envelop and’.
Pg 517: ‘If to Valladodid’ replaced by ‘If to Valladolid’.
Pg 519: ‘the Somosierrra had’ replaced by ‘the Somosierra had’.
Appendix:
Pg ix: Missing word ‘Et’ inserted into ‘Et les communications ...’.
Pg xl: ‘route of Maffra’ replaced by ‘route of Mafra’.
Pg lxiii: ‘my last last letter’ replaced by ‘my last letter’.
Pg lxix: ‘barricadoed their’ replaced by ‘barricaded their’.
Pg lxxxii, in Note XXV : ‘bat^{ns}’ replaced by ‘batts.’.
Pg lxxxv: ‘by Galluzo behind’ replaced by ‘by Galluzzo behind’.
Pg lxxxix: ‘general Kellermann’ replaced by ‘general Kellerman’.
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