A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 5, Oct. 1811-Aug. 31, 1812

by Charles Oman

CHAPTER I

THE INVASION OF VALENCIA. SIEGE OF SAGUNTUM. SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1811

In the last volume of this work the chronicle of all the campaigns of 1811 was completed, save in one corner of Spain, where, on the eastern coast, the fortunes of the French armies have only been pursued down to the recall of Marshal Macdonald to Paris on October 28th. Already, before the Duke of Tarentum had been added to the list of the generals who had been withdrawn and superseded for failure in Catalonia, another series of operations had been begun in the East, which was destined to lead directly to one more Spanish disaster, but indirectly to the ruin of the French cause in Spain. For, as has already been pointed out in the last pages of the last volume[1], it was to be the diversion by Napoleon’s orders of French divisions eastward, from the borders of Portugal to those of Valencia, that was to give Wellington his long-desired opportunity of opening a successful offensive campaign against his immediate opponents in the West. The fall of Valencia was to lead to the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812.

It will be remembered that the Emperor’s ambitious schemes for the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia, the last district of eastern Spain where he had as yet secured no solid foothold, had been deferred perforce till Figueras fell, on August 19, 1811. As long as that great fortress, which lies only a few miles from the French frontier, and blocks the main road from Perpignan to Barcelona, had been maintained against Macdonald by the resolute Martinez, it was impossible to take up a new offensive campaign: all the disposable French troops in Catalonia were immobilized around the stubborn garrison. At length the remnant of the starving miqueletes had laid down their arms, and the troops which had been for so long blockading them became disposable for the assistance of Suchet, whose ‘Army of Aragon’ was to deliver the main blow against Valencia.

Six days after the surrender of Figueras the news that the obstacle to advance had been at last removed reached Paris, on August 25, and on the same evening Berthier wrote, by his master’s orders, to bid Suchet move forward: ‘Everything leads us to believe that Valencia is in a state of panic, and that, when Murviedro has been taken and a battle in the open field has been won, that city will surrender. If you judge otherwise, and think that you must wait to bring up your siege artillery for the attack on the place, or that you must wait for a better season [i. e. early autumn] to commence the operation, I must inform you that, in every case, it is the imperative order of the Emperor that your head-quarters are to be on Valencian territory on or about September 15th, and as far forward towards the city as possible.’

The orders were feasible, and (as we shall see) were duly executed: but Napoleon had committed his usual mistake of undervaluing the tenacity of the Spanish enemy, whom he so deeply despised. Suchet set his troops in motion on September 15th; he took Murviedro—but only after a desperate siege of two months—he beat the army of Valencia in a very decisive pitched battle, but the city by no means fulfilled the Emperor’s prophecy by a prompt surrender. Fighting round its walls went on for five weeks after Murviedro fell: and it was not till troops had been brought to aid Suchet from very remote provinces, that he at last compelled the capitulation of Valencia after the New Year of 1812 had passed. Before the city yielded Wellington was on the move, far away on the Portuguese frontier, and it was not many days after Suchet’s aide-de-camp brought the glorious news of the capitulation of Valencia, that Marmont’s aide-de-camp followed, with the wholly unexpected and unwelcome tidings that the British had stormed Ciudad Rodrigo, and that the hold of the French army on Leon and Castile had been shaken. The one piece of information was the complement and consequence of the other.

Suchet’s invasion of Valencia, in short, was a much harder and more venturesome enterprise than his master had calculated. It was true that the Spanish forces in front of him seemed in September wholly incapable of holding him back. The Army of Catalonia had been reduced by a series of disasters, culminating in the falls of Tarragona and Figueras, to a mere remnant of 8,000 men, lurking in the high hills of the interior. The Army of Valencia had made a miserable exhibition of itself during the last year: it had brought no effective help to the Catalans, and whenever any of its detachments came into contact with the French, they had invariably suffered discreditable defeats, even when their numbers were far greater than those of the invaders. Of all the armies of Spain this was undoubtedly the one with the worst fighting reputation. It was to small profit that the Captain-General was raising yet newer and rawer battalions than those which already existed, to swell the numbers, but not the efficiency, of his command. In July the nominal total of the Valencian army, including the irregulars of the ‘flying column’ of the Empecinado, had been just 30,000 men. By October there were 36,000 under arms, including the new ‘Reserve Division[2],’ whose six battalions of recruits had only 135 officers to 6,000 men—an allowance of one officer to 45 men, not much more than half of the proportion that is necessary even among good veteran troops. But in truth the only valuable fighting force that was present in the kingdom in September was the infantry of the two weak divisions of the old Albuera army, under Zayas and Lardizabal, whom Blake had brought round from Cadiz with him, when he assumed command of the Eastern provinces. They did not between them muster more than 6,000 bayonets, but were good old troops, who were to distinguish themselves in the oncoming campaign.

In addition, it was possible that Valencia might be able to draw a few thousand men to her aid from the depleted army of Murcia, which had suffered so severely at Soult’s hands during the short campaign of the previous August[3]. But such assistance was purely problematical; if Soult should stir again from the side of Andalusia, it would be impossible for General Mahy to bring a single Murcian battalion to the succour of Blake. If, by good fortune, he should not, only a fraction of Mahy’s small army would be free, since the greater part of it would be required to watch the Andalusian frontier, and to protect the great naval arsenal and fortress of Cartagena.

If the regular troops only in eastern Spain had to be counted, it was certain that Suchet could dispose of numbers superior to his adversaries. The gross total of the French Army of Catalonia, where General Decaen had now taken Macdonald’s place, was 30,000 men. That of Suchet’s own ‘Army of Aragon’ was nearly 50,000, if garrisons, sick, and drafts on the march are reckoned in it. With these deducted, it could still supply about 31,000 men of all arms for the field. But these were not the only resources available. On the upper Ebro, in Navarre and western Aragon, were the two newly arrived divisions of Reille and Severoli, which had entered Spain during the summer, and had hitherto had no occupation save a little hunting of Mina’s guerrilleros. These two divisions counted 15,000 fresh troops of good quality, and Suchet reckoned on their assistance to cover his rear, when he should begin his march on Valencia. Technically they belonged to Dorsenne’s ‘Army of the North,’ but Severoli’s Italians had been promised as a reinforcement for Aragon already, and when Suchet asked for the grant of Reille’s division also it was not denied him. There were 70,000 men in all to be taken into consideration when the attack on Valencia was planned out.

No such force, of course, could be set aside for the actual invasion. The reason why not half so many thousands could be utilized for the projected stroke was that the Spanish War, as we have already had to point out on many occasions, was not a normal struggle between regular armies. The French had not only to conquer but to occupy every province that they overrun. Wherever an adequate garrison was not left, the guerrilleros and miqueletes inundated the country-side, cut all communications, and blockaded such small detachments as had been left far apart from the main army. Suchet’s 70,000 men had to hold down Aragon and Catalonia, at the same time that they undertook the further extension of their master’s power on the Valencian side.

Decaen in Catalonia had 23,000 men fit for service, not including sick and drafts on the march. Lacy’s little army was not more than 8,000 strong in September: yet Suchet dared not take away a man from Catalonia. The large garrison of Barcelona, a whole division, and the smaller garrisons of Gerona, Rosas, and Mont Louis absorbed nearly half the effective total. The remainder were, as it turned out, not strong enough to keep the Catalans in check, much less to prosecute active offensive operations against them. It was in October, after Suchet had started against Valencia, that Lacy carried out the series of small successful raids against Igualada, Cervera, and Montserrat, which have been spoken of in an earlier chapter[4]. We need not wonder, then, that not a Frenchman was drawn from Catalonia: they were all wanted on the spot to keep a tight hold on the turbulent principality. The example of the surprise of Figueras in the last spring was sufficient to prove the necessity of keeping every point strongly garrisoned, on pain of possible disaster.

As to the Army of Aragon, it was far stronger than the Army of Catalonia, but on the other hand it had even more fortresses to garrison. Saragossa, Tortosa, Tarragona, Lerida, were large places, each absorbing several battalions. In addition there were the smaller strongholds of Jaca, Mequinenza, Monzon, Morella, requiring care. All these were regular fortresses, but they did not exhaust the list of points that must be firmly held, if the communications of Suchet’s field-force with its distant base were to be kept free and unhampered. Southern Aragon and the mountain-ganglion where the borders of that kingdom and of Valencia and New Castile meet, in the roughest country of the whole Spanish peninsula, had to be guarded. For in this region lay the chosen hunting-ground of the guerrillero bands of the Empecinado, Duran, and many other lesser chiefs: and Mina himself, from his usual haunts in Navarre, not unfrequently led a raid far to the south of the Ebro. Suchet had therefore to place garrisons in Teruel, Daroca, Alcañiz, Calatayud, and Molina, none of which possessed modern fortifications. The detachments left to hold them had to utilize a large convent, a mediaeval castle, or some such post of defence, in case they were attacked by the roving hordes of the enemy. Able to protect themselves with ease against small parties, and to keep the roads open under ordinary circumstances, they were exposed to serious danger if the guerrilleros should mass themselves in force against any one garrison—more especially if the bands should have been lent a few cannon and gunners from the regular Spanish armies. For convents or old castles could not resist artillery fire.

To cover his rear Suchet was forced to set aside one whole division, that of Frère, thirteen battalions strong[5], and mustering over 7,000 men, and immense detachments of the three other French divisions of the Army of Aragon. The units told off for the field army left no less than 6,800 able-bodied men (besides sick and convalescents) behind them, while they took 22,000 to the front. Frère’s division remained on the side of Western Catalonia, holding Lerida and Tortosa in force, and the intermediate places with small posts. The detachments from Musnier’s, Harispe’s, and Habert’s French, and from Palombini’s Italian divisions, took charge of Southern Aragon, leaving a company here and a battalion there. But the Marshal selected with great care the men who were to march on the Valencian expedition: each regiment drafted its most effective soldiers into the marching units, and left the recruits and the old or sickly men in the garrisons. Thus the battalions used in the oncoming campaign were rather weak, averaging not much over 450 men, but were composed entirely of selected veterans. The only doubtful element taken forward was the so-called ‘Neapolitan Division’ of General Compère, which was only 1,500 strong—in reality a weak brigade—and had no great reputation. But what was left of this corps was its best part—the numerous men who wanted to desert had already done so, and its weaklings were dead by this time. Of his cavalry Suchet took forward almost the whole, leaving behind only two squadrons of the 4th Hussars for the service between the garrisons, and of the other regiments only the weakly men and horses[6]. Practically all his horse and field artillery also went forward with him.

Of his own Army of Aragon, Suchet, as we have thus seen, left nearly 14,000 men ‘present under arms’ to cover his rear. But this was not enough to make matters wholly secure, so untameable were the Aragonese and Catalans with whom he had to deal. Indeed, if this force only had been left to discharge the appointed task, it is clear, from subsequent happenings, that he would have suffered a disaster during his absence in Valencia. He asked from the Emperor the loan of half Reille’s division from Navarre, as well as the prompt sending to the front of Severoli’s Italians, who had been promised him as a reinforcement when first they entered Spain. The petition was granted, and these troops entered northern Aragon, and took charge of the places along the Ebro, while the expeditionary army was on its way to Valencia. Most of them were ultimately brought forward to the siege of the great city, and without them neither could Aragon have been maintained nor Valencia captured. Practically we may say that Suchet, at his original start, took 26,000 men to beat the Valencians and capture their city, but that he left nearly 30,000 more behind him, to hold down the provinces already conquered and to deal with the guerrilleros.

Two main roads lead from the north to Valencia: the one, coming from Tortosa and Catalonia, hugs the coast of the Mediterranean, from which it is never more than a few miles distant. The other, far inland, and starting from Saragossa, follows the valley of the Xiloca among the hills of Southern Aragon, crosses the watershed beyond Teruel, and descends to the sea near Murviedro, where it joins the coast-road only a few miles north of Valencia. There is a third, and much inferior, route between these two, which starts from Mequinenza on the Lower Ebro, crosses the mountainous Valencian frontier near Morella, and comes down to the coast at Castellon de la Plana, twenty miles north of Murviedro. Of these roads the first was as good as any in Spain, and was suitable for all manner of traffic: but it had the disadvantage of being flanked at a distance of only two miles by the small but impregnable fortress of Peniscola, which lies on a rocky headland thirty miles beyond Tortosa, and of being absolutely blocked by the little town of Oropesa, twenty miles further south. Oropesa was no more than a ruinous mediaeval place, with two castles hastily repaired, without any modern works: but since the road passed through it, no heavy guns or wagons starting from Tortosa could get further south till its forts had been captured.

The second road, that from Aragon by Teruel and Murviedro, is marked on contemporary maps as a post-route fit for all vehicles: but it passed through a very mountainous country, and was much inferior as a line of advance to the coast-road. It was not blocked by any fortress in the hands of the Spaniards, but between Teruel and Segorbe it was crossed by many ridges and ravines highly suitable for defence. The third track, that by Morella, was unsuitable for wheeled traffic, and could only be used by infantry and cavalry. Its one advantage was that Morella, its central point, had been already for some time in French hands, and contained a garrison and stores, which made it a good starting-point for a marching column.

Suchet determined to use all three of these roads, though such a plan would have been most hazardous against a wary and vigorous enemy: for though they all converge in the end on the same point, Murviedro, they are separated from each other by long stretches of mountain, and have no cross-communications. In especial, the road by Teruel was very distant from the other two, and any isolated column taking it might find itself opposed by immensely superior forces, during the last days of its march; since Valencia, the enemy’s base and headquarters, where he would naturally concentrate, lies quite close to the concluding stages of the route Teruel-Murviedro. It must have been in sheer contempt for his opponent—a contempt which turned out to be justified—that the Marshal sent a detachment of eleven battalions by this road, for such a force of 5,000 men might have been beset by the whole Valencian army, 30,000 strong, and the other columns could not have helped it.

Suchet’s arrangements were governed by a single fact—his siege artillery and heavy stores were parked at Tortosa, and from thence, therefore, along the coast road, must be his main line of advance, though it would be necessary to mask Peniscola and to capture Oropesa, before he could get forward to his objective—the city of Valencia. It might have seemed rational to move the whole field army by this route: but some of the troops destined for it were coming from distant points, and to march them down the Ebro bank to Tortosa would have taken much time. Moreover if the whole force concentrated there, it would all have to be fed from the magazines at Tortosa, and those lying in Aragon would be of no use. The Marshal started himself from this point, on September 15, with the division of Habert, and an infantry reserve formed of Robert’s brigade of the division of Musnier, together with the whole of the cavalry and field artillery of the army. The siege-train guarded by the other brigade of Musnier’s division—that of Ficatier—followed: but Musnier himself did not accompany the expedition, having been left in general charge of the detachments placed in garrison on the Ebro and in Upper Aragon. The whole column made up about 11,000 combatants.

The second column, consisting of the two auxiliary divisions—Palombini’s eleven Italian battalions and Compère’s 1,500 Neapolitans—took (without any artillery to hamper them) the mountain road by Alcañiz and Morella: they were slightly over 7,000 strong, and, if all went well, were destined to unite with the main body somewhere near Oropesa or Castellon de la Plana. It was not likely that this column would meet with much opposition.

But the third detachment, Harispe’s 5,000 men from Upper Aragon, who were to take the inland and western road by Teruel, were essaying a very dangerous task, if the enemy should prove active and enterprising, more especially as they had no artillery and hardly any cavalry with them. Blake might have taken the offensive with 20,000 men against them, while still leaving something to contain—or at least to observe—Suchet’s main column.

The Spanish Commander-in-Chief, however, did nothing of the sort, and met the invasion with a tame and spiritless defensive on all its points. When Suchet’s advance was reported, Blake had his forces in a very scattered situation. Of the 36,000 men of whom he could nominally dispose, the Empecinado’s ‘flying column’ was as usual detached in the mountains of Molina and Guadalajara, harassing small French garrisons. Zayas’s division had been left far to the south at Villena, near Alicante, to work off the contagion of yellow fever which it had contracted while passing by Cartagena. For in that port the disease was raging terribly at the time. Obispo’s division was in the high hills on the borders of Aragon. In the neighbourhood of Valencia were only the troops of Lardizabal and Miranda, with the main body of the cavalry. The Army of Murcia, which was destined to send succour if it should not find itself beset by Soult on the other side, was lying cantoned at various points in that province. As the French were at this time making no demonstration from the side of Granada, it now became clear that it would be able to send certain succours to Blake. But they were not yet designated for marching, much less assembled, and it was clear that they would come up very late.

This dispersion of the available troops did not, in the end, make much difference to the fate of the campaign, for Blake had from the first made up his mind to accept the defensive, to draw in his outlying detachments, and to stand at bay in the neighbourhood of Valencia, without attempting to make any serious resistance on the frontier. Since his arrival he had been urging on the construction of a line of earthworks, forming fortified camps, around the provincial capital. The ancient walls of Valencia itself were incapable of any serious resistance to modern artillery, but outside them, all along the banks of the Guadalaviar river, for some miles inland to the West, and as far as the sea on the East, batteries, têtes-de-pont, trenches, and even closed works of considerable size had been constructed. It was by holding them in force and with great numbers that Blake intended to check the invasion. In front of his chosen position, at a distance of twenty miles, there was a great advanced work—a newly restored fortress of crucial importance—the fastness of Saguntum, or ‘San Fernando de Sagunto’ as it had just been re-christened. This was the acropolis of one of the most ancient towns of Spain, the Saguntum which had detained Hannibal so long before its walls at the opening of the Third Punic War. In the age of the Iberians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, and even down to the days of the Ommeyad califs, there had been a large and flourishing city on this site. But in the later middle ages Saguntum had declined in prosperity and population, and the modern town—which had changed its name to Murviedro (muri veteres) had shrunk down to the foot of the hill. It was now a small open place of 6,000 souls, quite indefensible. But above it towered the steep line of rock which had formed the citadel in ancient days: its narrow summit was crowned with many ruins of various ages—from cyclopean foundations of walls, going back to the time of the ancient Iberians, to Moorish watch-towers and palaces. The empty space of steep slope, from the acropolis down to the modern town, was also sprinkled with decaying walls and substructures of all sorts, among which were cisterns and broken roadways, besides the remains of a large Roman theatre, partly hewn out of the live rock.

There had been no fortifications by Murviedro when Suchet last passed near Valencia, in his abortive raid of March 1810[7]. On that occasion he had scaled the citadel to enjoy the view and to take a casual survey of the picturesque ruins upon it[8]. But since then a great change had taken place. On the advice, as it is said, of the English general, Charles Doyle[9], Blake had determined to restore the citadel as a place of strength. This was when he last held command in Valencia, and before he joined the Cadiz Regency. But his idea had been carried out after his departure by the Valencian Junta and the successive Captains-General who had come after him. By means of more than a year’s work the citadel had been made a tenable fortress, though one of an irregular and unscientific sort. The old Iberian and Moorish walls had been repaired and run together in a new enceinte, with material taken from the other ruins all around. In especial the Roman theatre, hitherto one of the most perfect in Southern Europe, had been completely gutted, and its big blocks had proved most useful for building the foundations of weak points of the circuit of fortification. This was strong at some points, from the toughness and height of the old ramparts, but very sketchy at others. Where the slope was absolutely precipitous, a rough wall of dry stone without mortar alone had been carried along the edge of the cliff. The narrow summit of the rock formed a most irregular enclosure, varying much in height from one point to another. It was divided into four separate sections cut off from each other by cross-walls. The westernmost and lowest, facing the only point from which there is a comparatively gentle ascent to the summit, was crowned by a new battery called by the name of Dos de Mayo, to commemorate the Madrid Insurrection of 1808. Rising high in the centre of this work was an ancient bastion named the Tower of San Pedro. Much higher, on the extreme peak of the summit, was the citadel tower, called San Fernando, where the governor’s flag flew, and from whence the whole fortress could be best surveyed. From this point the rock descended rapidly, and its long irregular eastern crest was surrounded by weakly-repaired walls, ending in two batteries called by the names of Menacho, the gallant governor of Badajoz[10], and Doyle, the English general who had suggested the fortification of the place. But the greater part of this eastern end of the works lay above slopes so precipitous that it seemed unlikely that they would ever be attacked. The western end, by the Dos Mayo battery, was the obvious point of assault by an enemy who intended to use regular methods.

The construction was by no means finished when Suchet’s expedition began: many parts of the new walls were only carried up to half their intended height, and no regular shelter for the garrison had been contrived. Instead of proper barracks and casemates there were only rough ‘leans-to,’ contrived against old walls, or cover made by roofing in with beams old broken towers, and bastions. The hospital was the only spacious and regular building in the whole enceinte: the powder magazine was placed deep down in the cellars of the fort San Fernando. The armament of the place was by no means complete: the guns were being sent up just as Suchet started. Only seventeen were ready, and of these no more than three were 12-pounders: the rest were only of the calibre of field artillery (4- and 8-pounders) or howitzers. A fortress which has only seventeen guns for an enceinte of 3,000 yards, and possesses no heavy guns to reply to the 18- or 24-pounders of a siege-train, is in a state of desperate danger.

Blake had thrown into the place a brigade under the command of Colonel Luis Andriani, consisting of five battalions, two each of the regiments of Savoya and Don Carlos, one of the Cazadores de Orihuela. Of these two were new ‘third battalions[11]’ from the recently raised ‘Division of Reserve,’ incomplete in officers, only half drilled, and not yet fully provided with uniforms. The total force came to 2,663 officers and men, including about 150 artillerymen and sappers. It is probable that these troops would have made no better show in the open field than did the rest of the Valencian army, a few weeks later: but they showed behind walls the same capacity for unexpected resistance which had surprised the French on other occasions at Ciudad Rodrigo, Gerona, and Figueras. Andriani, the governor, seems to have made an honourable attempt to do his duty at the head of the doubtfully efficient garrison placed at his disposal.

In addition to Saguntum Blake held two outlying posts in his front, Peniscola on its lofty headland, garrisoned by about 1,000 men under General Garcia Navarro, and the half-ruined Oropesa, which he had resolved to hold, because it blocked the sea-coast road so effectively. But its only tenable points were two mediaeval towers, one in the town commanding the high-road, the other by the shore of the Mediterranean. Their joint garrisons did not amount to 500 men, and it was obvious that they could not hold out many days against modern artillery. But the gain of a day or two might conceivably be very valuable in the campaign that was about to begin. It is clear, however, that his main hope of resistance lay in the line of entrenched camps and batteries along the Guadalaviar, in front of Valencia: here he intended to make his real stand, and he hoped that Saguntum, so little distant from this line, would prove a serious hindrance to the enemy when he came up against it.

Suchet’s three columns all started, as Napoleon had ordered, on September 15th. The Marshal’s own main body, coming from Tortosa, reached Benicarlo, the first town across the Valencian frontier, next day, and on the 17th came level with Peniscola, whose garrison kept quiet within the limits of its isthmus. The Marshal left a battalion and a few hussars to observe it, and to see that it did not make sallies against his line of communication. On the 19th the head of the marching column reached Torreblanca, quite close to Oropesa. A reconnaissance found that the place was held, and came into contact with some Spanish horse, who were easily driven off. This was the first touch with Blake’s field army that had been obtained. But the enemy was evidently not in force, and the garrison of Oropesa hastily retired into the two towers which formed its only tenable positions. On a close inspection it was found that the tower in the town completely commanded the high-road, wherefore the Marshal took a slight circuit by suburban lanes round the place, with his main body and guns, and continued his advance, after leaving a few companies to blockade the towers. On the same evening he was joined by Palombini’s column from Morella, consisting of the two Italian divisions. They had accomplished their march without meeting any resistance, though the road from Morella by San Matteo and Cabanes was rough and easily defensible. The united force, now 16,000 strong, proceeded on its march next day, and the Marshal was agreeably surprised when, on the morning of the 20th, the cavalry scouts on his right flank announced to him that they had come in touch with Harispe’s column from Teruel, which had appeared at the village of Villafanes a few miles from the main road. Thus the whole army of invasion was happily united.

Harispe, as it turned out, had left Teruel on the 15th, in obedience to his orders, by the post-road to Segorbe and the coast. But hearing on the second day that a large Valencian force was holding the defile of Las Barracas, where the road crosses the watershed, he had turned off by a bad side-path to Ruvielos in the upper valley of the Mijares, in the hope of joining his chief without being forced to storm a difficult position. Blake, as a matter of fact, much alarmed at the approach of a flanking column on the Teruel side, and ignorant of its strength, had sent the division of Obispo and some other detachments to hold the pass. But no enemy came this way—Harispe had diverged down the course of the Villahermosa river, by a country road only practicable for a force without guns or wheeled transport, and got down by rapid marches to the coast-plain beyond Alcora, without having seen any enemy save some scattered guerrillero bands. He had thoroughly distracted Blake’s attention and had run no danger, because he took an unexpected and difficult route, in a direction quite different from that by which the Spaniards expected him to appear[12].

The whole army was now concentrated near Villafanes on September 21, save the detachments left to block Peniscola and Oropesa, and the brigade of Ficatier, which, escorting the siege-train, had been left at Tortosa, to await orders for starting when there should be no enemy left in northern Valencia to molest it. The heavy guns were to come forward down the coast-road, first to breach the towers of Oropesa, and when the way past them was clear, to play their part, if necessary, in the more serious task of battering Saguntum.

On advancing from Castellon de la Plana on September 22 the French army found a very small Spanish rearguard—500 or 600 men—covering the bridge of Villareal over the Mijares. They gave way before the first attack, which was a very simple affair, since the river was nearly dry and everywhere fordable. No more was seen of the enemy next day, and on the 23rd Suchet found himself on the banks of the Palancia stream, which flows under the foot of the rock of Saguntum. The Spaniards had retired still further towards Valencia, leaving the fortress to its own resources. These were unknown to Suchet, who was aware that the ruinous citadel had been rebuilt, but could not tell without further reconnaissance what was its strength. In order to invest the place, and to make closer investigation possible, Harispe’s division crossed the Palancia to the right of Saguntum, Habert’s to the left. The latter sent six companies into the town of Murviedro, and drove up some Spanish pickets from it into the fortress which towered above. The two divisions then joined hands to the south of Saguntum, completing its investment, while Palombini’s Italians took post at Petres and Gillet on the road to Segorbe—to the north-west—in case Blake might have placed some of his troops on this side-route, with the object of troubling the siege by attacks from the rear. The cavalry went forward down the high-road to Valencia, and sent back news that they had explored as far as Albalete, only six miles from the capital, and had met no enemy. The division of Lardizabal and the cavalry of San Juan, which had been the observing force in front of Suchet, had retired beyond the Guadalaviar river, and had shut themselves up (along with the rest of Blake’s army) in the entrenchments behind that stream. The Spanish general was evidently acting on the strictest principles of passive defence.

The French marshal determined not to seek his enemy on his chosen ground, till he should have taken Saguntum and brought up his siege-train to the front. The former condition he thought would not prove difficult to accomplish. A survey of the fortress revealed its extremely irregular and incomplete state of defence. Though the cliffs were in all parts steep and in some places inaccessible, many sections of the works above them were obviously unfinished and very weak. After a close reconnaissance by his engineer officers had been made, Suchet determined that it would be worth while to try an attempt at escalade on some of the most defective points, without waiting for the arrival of the siege-train. He set his sappers and carpenters to work to make sixty ladders, which were ready in full number on the third day. The front chosen for the assault was in the enceinte immediately overhanging the town of Murviedro, where two ancient gaps in the wall were clearly visible; the new work was not half finished, and a low structure, roughly completed with beams laid above the regular foundations, was all that blocked the openings. The masons of the garrison were heard at night, working hard to raise the height of the stone wall which was to replace the temporary wooden parapets. There being no artillery available, they could not be hindered in their building: but it did not seem to advance very rapidly.

Suchet set apart for the actual escalade two columns, each composed of 300 volunteers from Habert’s division: they were to be supported by a reserve of similar strength under Colonel Gudin, which was formed up, completely under cover, within the streets of Murviedro. At midnight on September 27th-28th the stormers pushed forward under cover of the darkness, and in small successive parties, into a large Roman cistern above the ruined theatre, which was ‘dead ground,’ and not exposed to fire from any part of the ramparts. Here they were only 120 yards from the two breaches. Meanwhile, as a diversion, six Italian companies from Palombini’s division were ordered to make a noisy demonstration against the distant part of the defences which lay under the tower of San Pedro[13]. General Habert was to have 2,000 men more under arms, ready to support the assailing column.

The stormers reached their appointed place apparently undiscovered, and the attack would have been delivered—according to Suchet’s dispatch—without any preliminary firing, but for an accident. The Marshal says that the Spaniards had pushed an exploring patrol down the hillside, which fell in with the French pickets and drew their fire. Thereupon the assaulting columns in the cistern, thinking themselves discovered, let off a few shots and charged uphill, a little ahead of the appointed time, and before the Italian demonstration had begun[14]. The governor, Andriani, in his dispatch, makes no mention of this, but merely says that about 2 a.m. his sentinels thought that they detected movements on the slopes, and that a short time afterwards a fierce attack was delivered. At any rate the garrison was not surprised as Suchet had hoped.

Owing to the lowness, however, of the walls blocking the two old breaches, the assailants had, in their first rush, a fair chance of breaking in. Many ladders were successfully planted, and repeatedly small parties of the French got a footing on the wooden parapets. If the garrison had flinched, the storm might have succeeded: but far from flinching, they offered a desperate resistance, overthrew the ladders, slew all who had gained the top of the enceinte, and kept up a furious musketry fire, which laid low many of the soldiers who kept pressing forward to the breaches. It was to no purpose that the demonstration by the Italians below San Pedro now began: the Spaniards fired hard and fast in this direction also, but did not withdraw any men from the real point of attack, where they maintained themselves very courageously. It was in vain that Colonel Gudin brought up his reserve: it could make no head, and the survivors threw themselves down among the rocks and ruins in front of the wall—unwilling to recede, but quite unable to advance. Seeing his attack a hopeless failure, Suchet ordered the stormers back just before daylight began to appear. They had lost 247 killed and wounded out of 900 men engaged: the garrison only 15 killed and less than 30 wounded[15].

The escalade having come to this disappointing conclusion, the Marshal saw that the siege of Saguntum would be anything but a quick business. It would be necessary to bring up the siege-train to the front: orders were sent back to Ficatier to start it at once from Tortosa; but it had to batter and take Oropesa before it could even reach Murviedro. There were some weeks of delay before him, and meanwhile Blake might at last begin to show some signs of life. Suchet therefore disposed his army so as to provide both a blockading force and a covering force, to see that the blockade was not interfered with from without. It being evident that many days would elapse before the siege artillery arrived, the French engineer officers got leave to employ many detachments in preparing roads fit to bear heavy guns up the western slopes of the hill of Saguntum, from which alone the regular attack on the fortress could be conducted. Several emplacements for batteries were also chosen, and work upon them was begun.

From September 23rd, the day of Suchet’s arrival before Saguntum, down to October 16, when the heavy guns at last arrived, the French army was practically ‘marking time’: the idea which the Emperor had conceived, and which his lieutenant had adopted, that Valencia could be conquered by a sudden rush, had been proved false. Apparently Suchet had gained no more by his rapid advance to the foot of the hill of Saguntum than he would have obtained by marching in more leisurely fashion, with his siege artillery in company, and taking Oropesa on the way. The reduction of that place indeed was (as it turned out) only a single day’s task for heavy guns: and if the Marshal had captured it on his march, he might have presented himself before Saguntum with his siege-train, and have begun an active attack on that fortress, some weeks before he was actually able to get to serious work. In fact he might have been battering Saguntum on October 1, instead of having to wait till October 16th. But this is ‘wisdom after the event’: Napoleon thought that Valencia could be ‘rushed,’ and Suchet was bound to make the experiment that his master ordered.

Blake meanwhile, finding, on September 23rd, that the enemy was not about to advance against his lines, and learning soon after that the French army had settled down before Saguntum, had to revise his plans, since it was clear that he was not to be attacked in his entrenchments as he had supposed. Three courses were now open to him: either he might collect every man for a decisive battle in the open, and try to raise the siege; or he might attempt to open up attacks on Suchet’s line of communications and on his base in Aragon, so as to force him to retire by indirect operations; or he might remain passive behind the lines of the Guadalaviar. The last was an almost unthinkable alternative—it would have ruined his reputation for ever to sit quiet and do nothing, as Wellington had done during the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1810. Only a general with an established reputation for courage and ability could have dared to take such a course; and Blake’s record was a long series of disasters, while he was detested by the Valencians one and all—by the army, to whom he rightly preferred his own excellent troops, no less than by the Captain-General Palacios, and the Junta, whom he had sent out of the city to sit at Alcira, when they showed a tendency to hamper his operations. Practically he was forced by his situation to take some definite offensive move against Suchet.

He chose that of indirect operations, having a well-rooted distrust of the fighting powers of a great part of the troops that were at his disposition. The record of the Valencian army he knew: the state of the Murcian army, on which he could draw for reinforcements, was represented to him in the most gloomy colours by Mahy, who had recently replaced Freire in command. On September 12th Mahy had written to him, to warn him that the spirit of his troops was detestable: ‘the Army of Murcia was little better than a phantom: there were only four or five officers for whom the rank and file had any respect or esteem, the rest were regarded as timid or incapable: the men had no confidence in themselves or their chiefs. The best thing to do would be to break up the whole army, and incorporate it into the “Expeditionary Divisions,” whose commanders were known as good soldiers, and whose battalions were trustworthy[16].’

In view of these facts Blake resolved to threaten Suchet’s flanks with demonstrations, which he had no intention of turning into attacks, but to endeavour to dislodge him from his forward position by turning loose the guerrilleros of Aragon on to his rear. With the former purpose he sent out two detachments from the Valencian lines, Obispo’s division to Segorbe,—where it cut the French communication with Teruel and southern Aragon,—Charles O’Donnell with Villacampa’s infantry and San Juan’s horse to Benaguacil, a point in the plains fifteen miles west of Saguntum, where his force formed a link between Obispo and the main body of the Valencian army, which still remained entrenched in the lines of the Guadalaviar[17]. These two detachments threatened Suchet’s flank, and even his rear, but there was no intention of turning the threat into a reality.

The real movement on which Blake relied for the discomfiture of the invaders of Valencia was that of the guerrillero bands of Aragon and the neighbouring parts of Castile, to whom he had appealed for help the moment that Suchet commenced his march. He believed that the 6,000 or 7,000 men which Suchet had left scattered in small garrisons under General Musnier might be so beset and worried by the partidas, that the Marshal might be compelled to turn back to their aid. Even Mina from his distant haunts in Navarre had been asked to co-operate. This was an excellent move, and might have succeeded, if Musnier alone had remained to hold down Aragon. But Blake had forgotten in his calculations the 15,000 men of Reille and Severoli, cantoned in Navarre and along the Upper Ebro, who were available to strengthen the small force which lay in the garrisons under Musnier’s charge.

The diversion of the guerrilleros, however, was effected with considerable energy. On September 26th the Empecinado and Duran appeared in front of Calatayud, the most important of the French garrisons in the mountains of western Aragon. They had with them 5,000 foot and 500 horse—not their full strength, for a large band of the Empecinado’s men beset at the same time the remote castle of Molina, the most outlying and isolated of all Suchet’s posts. Calatayud was held by a few companies of French, to which an Italian flying column of a battalion had just joined itself. The guerrilleros, coming in with a rush, drove the garrison out of the town into their fortified post, the large convent of La Merced, taking many prisoners in the streets. Duran then beleaguered the main body in the convent, while the Empecinado took post at the defile of El Frasno on the Saragossa road, to hold off any succour that Musnier might send up from the Aragonese capital. This precaution was justified—a column of 1,000 men came out of Saragossa, but was far too weak to force the pass and had to retire, with the loss of its commander, Colonel Gillot, and many men. Meanwhile Duran pressed the besieged in the convent with mines, having no artillery of sufficient calibre to batter its walls. After blowing down a corner of its chapel with one mine, and killing many of the defenders, the guerrillero chief exploded a second on October 3, which made such a vast breach that the garrison surrendered, still 560 strong, on the following day[18].

This success would have gone far to shake the hold of the French on Aragon, but for the intervention of Reille from Navarre. At the first news of the blockade of Calatayud, he had dispatched a column, consisting of the whole brigade of Bourke, 3,500 strong, which would have saved the garrison if it had had a less distance to march. But it arrived on the 5th to find the convent blown up, while the Spaniards had vanished with their prisoners. Bourke thereupon returned to Tudela, and the guerrilleros reoccupied Calatayud on his departure.

Meanwhile, however, the whole Italian division of Severoli, over 7,000 strong, marched down the Ebro to reinforce the small garrison of Saragossa. This large reinforcement restored the confidence of the French. Musnier himself took charge of it and marched at its head against Duran and the Empecinado. They wisely refused to fight, gave way, evacuated Calatayud, and took refuge in the hills (October 12). While the main field-force of the enemy was drawn off in this direction, Mina took up the game on the other side of the Ebro. Entering Aragon with 4,000 men he besieged the small garrison of Exea, which abandoned its post, and cut its way through the guerrilleros, till it met a column of 800 Italian infantry[19] sent out from Saragossa to bring it off. Colonel Ceccopieri, the leader of this small force, underrating the strength of his enemy, then marched to relieve the garrison of Ayerbe. He was surprised on the way by Mina’s whole force, and in a long running fight between Ayerbe and Huesca was surrounded and slain. The column was exterminated, two hundred Italians were killed, six hundred (including many wounded) were taken prisoners (October 16th).

Musnier returned in haste from Calatayud at the news of this disaster, but left the bulk of Severoli’s division to occupy western Aragon. He then set himself, with the help of Reille, to hunt down Mina. But the latter, marching with ease between the columns that pursued him, for the peasantry kept him informed day by day of every movement of the enemy, retreated westward. Easily eluding the French, he made an extraordinary excursion, right across Navarre, Alava, and Biscay, down to the sea coast at Motrico, where he handed over his prisoners to the captain of the British frigate Isis, and then returned unharmed to his familiar haunts. Of such a delusive nature was the hold of the French on Northern Spain, that a column of 5,000 men could march for 200 miles across it without being intercepted or destroyed.

All these exploits of the guerrilleros were daring and well planned, but though they had given Musnier much trouble, and cost the French many a weary hour of march and countermarch, they had not cleared Aragon of the enemy, nor shaken Suchet’s position. Indeed, on October 20, the general condition of affairs in Aragon was more favourable for the invaders than on September 20, for two fresh divisions had been drawn down into that province, and there were 20,000 French and Italian troops in it instead of 6,000. The petty disasters at Calatayud and Ayerbe were irritating rather than important. Suchet never for a moment felt inclined to relax his hold upon Valencia: that western Aragon was in an uproar affected him little, when his communication with his two main dépôts of stores at Tortosa and Morella was not interrupted.

Blake, it may be mentioned, did not content himself with setting the Empecinado and Duran in motion, he tried another division in another quarter with even less result. Rumours had reached him that King Joseph’s Army of the Centre was about to co-operate with Suchet, by sending a column across the mountains to Cuenca and Requeña. The news was false, for though Napoleon had ordered the King to do what he could to help in the invasion of Valencia, Joseph had replied that he had not even one brigade to spare for a serious demonstration, and had not moved—the guerrilleros gave sufficient occupation to his much-scattered army, of which a large portion was composed of untrustworthy Spanish Juramentados. But, listening to vain reports, Blake ordered Mahy to collect the best of his Murcian troops and to march on Cuenca to meet the supposed invaders. His subordinate, leaving Freire in command in Murcia, took seven selected battalions of foot under Creagh and the Marquis of Montijo, with 800 horse and one battery, and moved from his camp at Mula by Hellin and Chinchilla northward. The distance to be covered was great, the roads after Chinchilla very bad. Mahy arrived in front of Cuenca on October 15th, to find that there was only one battalion and two squadrons of Joseph’s army there. This little force evacuated the high-lying city in haste, and fled towards Madrid the moment that the Murcians showed themselves. No other French force could be heard of in any direction. At Cuenca Mahy received a dispatch from Blake (who had apparently discovered his mistake about the Army of the Centre), telling him to descend from the mountains by Moya and Liria, and to join the wing of the main army, which lay under Obispo at Segorbe. It was only on the 23rd October that he came in: his troops, the pick of the Murcian army, had been completely wasted for some twenty days in a circular march against a non-existent enemy. Meanwhile every man had been wanted in Valencia.

Suchet, when once he had settled down to the siege of Saguntum, had not failed to notice Blake’s weak demonstration against his flank by means of the divisions of Obispo and Charles O’Donnell. He did not intend to tolerate it, and on September 30 had sent Palombini with his own Italian division and Robert’s French brigade to beat up Obispo’s quarters at Segorbe. The Spanish division made a poor attempt to defend itself on a position in front of that town, but was easily beaten and retired into the mountains. It was then the turn of Charles O’Donnell; when Palombini had come back to the camp, Suchet took Harispe’s division, with Robert’s brigade, and two regiments of cavalry, to evict the Spanish division from Benaguacil. O’Donnell made a slightly better fight than Obispo had done, and deployed Villacampa’s infantry behind an irrigation canal, with San Juan’s cavalry on his flanks. But the French were superior in numbers as well as in confidence: one fierce charge broke O’Donnell’s line, and he had to retreat in haste to the hills behind him, losing 400 men, cut up in the pursuit by Suchet’s cavalry, while the French casualties barely reached three officers and sixty men (October 2nd). Blake, who had been quite close enough to succour O’Donnell if he had chosen, made no attempt to aid him, and kept quiet behind his lines on the Guadalaviar. There the routed troops joined him next day.

Suchet, having thus cleared his flanks, settled down to the siege of Saguntum, where his heavy artillery was now much needed. The besieging army had to content itself for another fortnight with making preparations for the expected train—levelling roads and constructing approaches on the ground which was destined for the front of attack, at the west end of the hill of Saguntum.

Meanwhile the siege-train was lumbering down from Tortosa by the coast-road. On October 6th Suchet started to meet it, taking with him the 1,500 Neapolitans of Compère. On the 8th he reached Oropesa, where he found the small Spanish garrison still holding the two towers which have before been mentioned. The first guns that came up were turned against the tower by the high-road; it was easily breached, and on the 10th surrendered: 215 men and four guns were captured. Next day came the turn of the other tower, that by the sea; but before the siege-battery had opened on it, the British 74 Magnificent and a squadron of Spanish gunboats ran inshore, and took off the garrison of 150 men in their boats, under the ineffective fire of the French.

The moment that the tower which blocked the high-road had fallen, and before that on the shore had been evacuated, Suchet began to push the head of his precious convoy of heavy artillery southward. It made such a good pace that the first guns arrived at the camp before Saguntum as early as the night of October 12th. Meanwhile the Marshal himself returned thither, escorted by Compère’s Neapolitans: the brigade of Ficatier, which had escorted the train hitherto, was dispersed to cover the line of communications, placing its five battalions at Oropesa, Almenara, and Segorbe.

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SECTION XXX: CHAPTER II

THE BATTLE OF SAGUNTUM. OCTOBER 1811

After Charles O’Donnell and Obispo had been driven away from the threatening position upon Suchet’s flank, Blake found himself during the early days of October in a very unpleasant dilemma. It was clear that his own feeble efforts to molest the French army were a complete failure. Presently the message reached him that Mahy’s unlucky expedition to Cuenca had been absolutely useless. But the most disheartening news was that the attempt to overrun Aragon by means of the guerrilleros had failed; its initial success, the capture of Calatayud on October 3, had only led to the inundation of the whole countryside in that direction by the numerous battalions of Reille and Severoli.

As the days wore on, Blake found himself obliged to confess that the idea of dislodging Suchet by operations in his rear was hopeless. The only remaining alternative for him was to endeavour to call together every available man, and to try to beat the French army in a great pitched battle. Considering the well-known disrepute of both the Murcian and the Valencian troops, the prospect was not one that the Spanish general could view with much confidence. But political reasons forced him to fight—his policy of passive resistance had made him so unpopular with the Valencians of all ranks, from the members of the exiled Junta down to the private soldiers, that if he had held back any longer it is probable that he might have been deposed or murdered by a conspiracy. Saguntum was holding out most gallantly, and the ignominy of leaving it to fall, without making any effort for its succour, was sufficiently evident. He made up his mind about the middle of October that he must advance and fight. But, being very properly determined to fight with all available resources, he had to await the descent of Mahy and the Murcians from Cuenca, and by his own fault that important column could not be drawn in to the main army before the 23rd. It was only on that day that an advance in force became possible: for a week and more Blake anxiously awaited the junction, and until it took place he would not move.

Meanwhile Suchet, entirely unmolested, was pressing the siege of Saguntum with all possible expedition. The first siege-guns from Tortosa reached his camp, as has been already mentioned, on October 12th. But it was not till four days later that the actual battering of the place began. Though paths had been traced out, and the emplacements of batteries settled, long ere the siege-train came up, the actual getting of the guns into position proved a very tiresome business, on account of the steep and rocky slopes over which they had to be dragged. And the construction of approaches and parallels upon the hillside progressed very slowly, because of the absence of earth—at last it was found that soil to bind the loose stones of the ground together would have, for the most part, to be carried up in sandbags from the valley below, for hardly any could be scraped together on the spot. The engineer officer who wrote the diary of the siege confesses that if the Spanish garrison had only been provided with heavy artillery, the approach-building would have proved almost impossible[20]. But, as has been already noted, there were but seventeen guns mounted in the whole fortress, and of these only three were 12-pounders—the rest being small field-pieces, too weak to batter down parapets of even modest thickness. Moreover the very steepness of the slope over which the siege-works were being advanced made much of it ‘dead ground,’ which guns above could not properly sweep or search out.

On the 11th of October the two generals, Vallée and Rogniat, who had regularly commanded Suchet’s artillery and engineers during his previous sieges, arrived from the rear—both had been in France on leave, and they had come forward with the train from Tortosa to Oropesa. Their arrival added confidence to the subordinates who had hitherto worked without them, for the reputation of each for success was very great. Rogniat immediately on his arrival made several important modifications in the projected batteries, and showed how the approaches might be pushed forward to within seventy yards of the fortress, by taking advantage of favourable dips and rocky outcrops in the hillside.

On the 16th, five batteries were armed with the guns which had come up, and fire was opened upon the projecting western angle of the fortress, the tower of San Pedro. It proved to be made of ancient Moorish stone and mortar, almost as hard as iron, and crumbled very slowly. But the modern works below it, which were only a few months old, owned no such resisting power, and within two days showed signs of serious damage. The Spanish counter-fire was insignificant—there were very few guns available, and it was only when the approaches got within easy musket shot of the walls that the besiegers began to suffer appreciable casualties. For the Spanish infantry, disregarding the cannonade, kept up a furious fire against the heads of the saps all day and night.

On the afternoon of the 18th the engineer and artillery officers reported to Suchet that they had made a sufficient breach in the curtain of the work called the Dos Mayo battery, just where it joined on the tower of San Pedro, and that they regarded it as practicable for assault. The Marshal ordered that the storm should be fixed for the same evening, lest the Spaniards should succeed in repairing the breach during the hours of darkness. The column of assault consisted of 400 men, picked from Habert’s division, supported by a reserve of Palombini’s Italians. The fire of the siege artillery was kept up to the last moment, and did much harm to the garrison, who were very clearly seen piling gabions, sandbags, and stones on the ruinous lip of the breach, in disregard of the steady fire that kept pounding it down[21].

The assault was duly delivered at five o’clock, and proved a complete failure. The stormers found the breach most difficult to climb, as its face was entirely formed of big blocks of stone without earth or débris. The column won its way half up the ascent, and isolated officers and men got further, and were bayoneted or shot at close quarters by the defenders, who clustered very thickly at the top. But no general rush of men could reach the summit, where (it is said) the actual gap in the parapet was not more than six or seven feet broad. After several ineffective attempts to mount, the assailants came to a stand on the lower part of the slope, and opened a scattering fire on the Spaniards above them. Whereupon, seeing the opportunity lost, General Habert, who had been given charge of the operations, ordered the men to fall back to the trenches, and to abandon the assault.

This was a most creditable feat of arms for the garrison, who had hardly a cannon to help them, and held their own almost entirely by musketry fire, though they rolled some live shells, beams, and large stones down the breach at intervals. Their casualties were heavy, but those of the assailants, as was natural, much greater. Suchet lost at least 300 men, though in his dispatch to the Emperor[22] he gave an elaborate table of casualties showing a total of only 173. But his ‘returns,’ even the most specious looking of them, should never be trusted—as will be seen when we are dealing with the second battle of Castalla in a later volume. This excellent officer was as untrustworthy as Soult or Masséna in the figures which he sent to his master[23].

After this Suchet resolved to make no more attempts to storm Saguntum. ‘When even the best of soldiers,’ remarks Belmas, ‘have made every effort to carry a place and have failed, they imagine that the place is impregnable. And if an attempt is made to lead them once more to an assault, they will not again act with the confidence which is needed to secure victory.’ Wellington was to find this out at Burgos, a year later. Indeed in their early stages the sieges of Saguntum and Burgos show a rather notable parallelism, though their ends were dissimilar. General Rogniat easily persuaded the Marshal to drop the heroic method which had gained so little success, and to fall back on the systematic work which is slow but certain[24].’ Suchet gave permission to the engineers to establish more batteries, and to defer all further attempts to storm till the approaches should have been carried up to the very foot of the walls, and the whole curtain of the Dos Mayo redoubt should have been battered down.

The garrison, much encouraged by their successful effort of the 18th, continued to make an obstinate resistance: as the enemy sapped uphill towards them, they kept up such a careful and deadly fire that the casualties in the trenches amounted every day to 15 or 20 men. For the next six days nothing decisive happened, though the works continued to creep slowly forward: they had to be built with parapets consisting entirely of earth brought from below, and made very high, since the nearer they got to the works, the more did the plunging fire from above search them out.

Meanwhile Blake was preparing, though with no great self-confidence, to make an attack on Suchet’s siege-lines, and was only awaiting the arrival of Mahy and the Murcians before striking. He began by trying a feeble diversion on the flank, sending back Obispo’s division once more to Segorbe, and getting some of the Empecinado’s bands to threaten Teruel, the southernmost of the garrisons in Aragon. This so far annoyed the French marshal that on the 20th of October he sent off Palombini, with one French and one Italian brigade and 400 horse, to drive Obispo out of Segorbe, and to open the road to Teruel. By so doing he placed himself in a dangerous position, for he had detached 4,500 men on an excursion which could not take less than four days, and if Blake had refused to wait for Mahy, and had let Obispo amuse Palombini, he could have marched against the siege-lines with 20,000 men, including all his best troops, and would have found only 12,000, besides the gunners of the siege artillery, left in the French camp. If Suchet had left any detachments to maintain the blockade, as he probably would have done, he could only have fought with odds of less than one to two. If he had brought up all his battalions, the garrison would have sallied forth and destroyed his siege-works.

But Blake did not take his chance—whatever it may have been worth: he waited for Mahy, who was only due on the 23rd. Meanwhile Palombini made a rapid raid upon Segorbe: but Obispo, leaving two battalions only to make a show of resistance, crossed the hills by by-paths and drew in to Liria, on the flank of the main army, and in close touch with it. He could have been used for a battle, if Blake had chosen to deliver one upon the 22nd or 23rd. But the unlucky Spanish general did not so choose: and Palombini—finding nothing serious in front of him, and hearing that Teruel had been already relieved by Severoli—rightly returned by forced marches to Saguntum, which he reached on the afternoon of the 24th of October.

Meanwhile the long-expected Mahy arrived at Liria on the night of the 23rd, and found Obispo already lying there. The two forces united, and marched on the 24th to Betera, but there again divided, the Murcians going on to join Blake’s main body, while the Valencian division received orders from the Commander-in-Chief to move as an independent flanking column, and from Naquera to fall upon the flank or right rear of Suchet’s position in front of Saguntum.

On the same day Blake himself broke out of the lines behind the Guadalaviar, and after issuing a well-worded proclamation, in which he said that Andriani’s gallant garrison must not perish unassisted, and declared a confidence which he must have been far from feeling in the resolution of his troops, advanced for some miles along the high-road, so as to place himself at nightfall within striking distance of the enemy.

His plan of operations, which was clearly set forth in his directions to Mahy[25], was ambitious in the highest degree, and aimed at the complete destruction of his enemy. Expecting to find Suchet drawn up to meet him in the plain south of Saguntum, it appears that he intended to fight a battle in which an immensely strong left wing was to turn and break down Suchet’s right, while a weaker right wing (composed, however, of his best troops) was to attack him frontally, and hold his main body ‘contained,’ while the turning movement was delivered. The left wing contained 26 battalions and nearly 20 squadrons, making nearly 16,000 bayonets and 1,700 sabres[26]. The detached division of Obispo, from Naquera, was to fall on the extreme French right from the rear; the two other Valencian infantry divisions (Miranda and Villacampa), led by Charles O’Donnell, were to tackle it in front. Mahy’s Murcians were to support O’Donnell, at the same time reaching out a hand towards Obispo—in order to do this Mahy was directed to send out two battalions (under a Colonel O’Ronan) to Cabezbort, a hillside intermediate between the point where Obispo was expected and the left of the two other Valencian divisions. The left wing had allotted to it the whole of the Murcian horse, 800 sabres, and one of the two Valencian cavalry brigades, under General San Juan, which was of about the same strength. It had also 18 guns.

So much for the left wing. The right wing, conducted by Blake in person, which had advanced up the high-road from Valencia towards Murviedro, consisted of the two ‘Expeditionary Divisions’ of Zayas and Lardizabal, both very weak because of the losses which they had suffered in the campaign around Baza in August—each was eight battalions strong; but the former had only 2,500, the latter 3,000 men, so that the units averaged well under 400 bayonets. But these were good old troops, which had greatly distinguished themselves at Albuera: they were the only part of Blake’s army in which any real confidence could be placed. In support of these veterans the Commander-in-Chief brought up the Valencian ‘Division of Reserve,’ which consisted entirely of the newly raised 3rd battalions of the regiments serving with Villacampa and Miranda. They had only been under arms a few months, were not fully equipped or clothed, and were dreadfully under-officered; for five strong battalions, of over 700 bayonets each, there were only 75 officers in all—fifteen per battalion, where there should have been thirty, and these were the mere leavings of the older units of each regiment, or else newly gazetted ensigns. As a fighting force these 3,500 men were nearly useless—and Blake put them where they were least likely to get into trouble. They were divided into two brigades: Brigadier-General Velasco seems to have been in command, vice Acuña, who had the division during the autumn. The right column was accompanied by the handful of horse belonging to the ‘Expeditionary Force’—300 sabres under General Loy—and by the second Valencian Cavalry Brigade under General Caro, some 800 mounted men more. It was accompanied, like the other wing, by three batteries. Thus, counting its gunners and sappers, the right wing had under 10,500 men, while the immensely strong left had over 17,000. But it is quality rather than mere numbers which counts in war—the weak wing fought a good battle against equal strength, and looked for a moment as if it might win. The strong wing disgraced itself, and was routed by a fourth of its own numbers.

Suchet had been somewhat troubled by the first news of Blake’s sudden sally from Valencia, for though he desired a battle, wherein success would probably win him the immediate surrender of the hard-pressed garrison of Saguntum, yet he did not wish that matters should be forced to a crisis in Palombini’s absence. It was only after the well-timed return of that general to his camp, that he welcomed the approach of a decisive action. But with Palombini at his disposition again, he was eager to fight.

He had at this moment with him, in the lines before Saguntum, 35 battalions of foot (of which the three Neapolitan units under Compère were mere skeletons, with little over a thousand men between them), with 15 squadrons of horse and 36 field-guns. He left behind him, to maintain the siege-works before the fortress, two battalions of the 117th line from Habert’s division, and Balathier’s Italian brigade, making four battalions more. The weak Neapolitan brigade of Compère, only 1,400 men, even with its cavalry included, was placed in support of the blockading force, at Gillet and Petres, to watch the road from Segorbe, by which some outlying Spanish detachment might possibly attempt to communicate with the garrison of Saguntum. This left for the line of battle 26 battalions—six of Habert’s, eleven of Harispe’s, four of Palombini’s Italians, and five of Robert’s reserve brigade. The total amounted to about 12,000 infantry, while the whole of the cavalry, except the two Neapolitan squadrons, was put in the field to the amount of some 1,800 sabres. Counting the gunners of the six batteries of artillery, Suchet’s fighting force was not much over 14,000 men. He had left 4,000, besides the gunners of the siege-train and the sappers, to deal with the garrison of Saguntum. This was little more than half of Blake’s numbers, for the Spanish general—as we have seen—was marching forward with 27,000 men in line. That Suchet gladly took the risk sufficiently shows his opinion of the quality of the greater part of the Valencian army. It seems, we must confess, rather hazardous to have left 4,000 men in the blockading corps, when forces were so unequal. In a similar case Beresford at Albuera took every man out of the trenches, and fought with his whole army. Andriani’s garrison was not numerous enough to execute any really dangerous sally in the rear, and was so constricted, in its precipitous fastness, that it could not easily come down or deploy itself. Perhaps Suchet may have feared, however, that it would take the opportunity of absconding by some postern, if it were not shut in upon all sides. But there were to be moments during the battle when the Marshal would gladly have had the assistance of two or three more battalions of steady troops.

Suchet had chosen for his fighting-ground the narrow plain south of Saguntum, extending from the sea to the foot of the hills of the Sancti Espiritus range—a space of less than three miles in very flat ground. It was open for the most part, but sprinkled in certain sections with olives and carob-trees, and contained one or two slight eminences or mounds, which rose above the general surface, though only by a score or two of feet, so that they had a certain command over the adjoining flats. The left of the line, nearest to the sea, was formed of Habert’s imperfect division, which, having detached two battalions for the blockade of Saguntum, had only six left—2,500 bayonets—in line. The right consisted of Harispe’s division, which was stronger than Habert’s, as it had nine battalions in line, even after setting aside one regiment (the 44th) for a flank-guard. Its force was about 3,600 bayonets. This division lay to the right of the road from Murviedro to Valencia. The reserve consisted of the Italian brigade (that of Saint Paul), which had not been told off for the siege, and of the three French cavalry regiments, in all 2,000 bayonets and 1,300 sabres. It was drawn up half a mile in rear of Habert and Harispe, ready to support either of them. The batteries, horse and foot, accompanied their respective divisions.

We have thus accounted for 10,000 men. The remainder of Suchet’s fighting force constituted a flank-guard, to prevent his line from being turned on its right, the side of the hills. It originally consisted of Robert’s ‘reserve brigade,’ five battalions, or 2,500 bayonets, and of one cavalry regiment, Schiazzetti’s Italian dragoons—450 sabres—with one battery. These troops were drawn up on the higher slopes of the Sancti Espiritus hills, covering the pass of the same name and the country road which goes over it. To these Suchet added, at the last moment, one regiment from Harispe’s division, the 44th, under the Brigadier Chlopiski, who, being senior to Robert, took command of the whole flank-guard. These two battalions—1,200 men—took post on the hill-slopes to the left of Robert, half-way between his position and that of Harispe’s right. The whole force, including the dragoons and the artillery, made about 4,300 men. Compère’s Neapolitans were too far to their left rear to be reckoned an appreciable support, and had their own separate task, though they were never called upon to discharge it. The ground occupied by Chlopiski’s 4,300 men was exceedingly strong, and the Marshal hoped that they might be relied upon to hold off the turning movement, which he was aware was to be made against his inland flank. For he knew that Charles O’Donnell was advancing from the direction of Betera, which could only mean a projected attack on his own right. Had he realized that not only O’Donnell, but also Obispo and Mahy’s Murcians, in all some 17,000 men, were about to operate against Chlopiski, he must surely have strengthened his covering force, for the odds would have been impossible if the Valencians had made any fight at all. But they did not!

On the morning of the 25th of October Suchet was ready to receive the attack which was impending. He could make out the general dispositions of the enemy, and the concentric advance of Obispo’s, O’Donnell’s, and Blake’s own men was duly reported to him. It was on receiving notice of the heavy appearance of the second, or central, hostile column that he detached Chlopiski’s two battalions to strengthen Robert’s flank-guard. Presently, about 7 o’clock, the Spaniards came within touch; the left, it would seem, somewhat before the right[27], the first shots being interchanged between the two battalions which Mahy had sent towards Cabezbort and Robert’s troops. This was only a trifling skirmish, the Spaniards being completely checked. But soon after a serious attack was delivered.

The next advance was that of the two Valencian divisions under Charles O’Donnell, who were a long way ahead of the main body of Mahy’s Murcians, their destined reserve. Blake’s intention was apparently to strike with his left wing first, and to force in the French right before his own column delivered its blow. Everything depended on the successful action of the mass of Valencian and Murcian infantry against the small hostile force posted on the slopes of the Sancti Espiritus hills.

The divisions of Miranda and Villacampa duly descended from the lower opposite heights of the Germanels, crossed the bottom, and began to mount the opposing slope, Villacampa on the left, somewhat in advance, Miranda a little to his right rear: behind them in support marched San Juan’s Valencian cavalry. Beyond the latter there was a considerable gap to the nearest troops of Blake’s own column, which had not yet come into action. Mahy, whose orders definitely said that he was to act as a reserve, and to protect O’Donnell’s flank if the latter were checked, occupied the Germanels, when the Valencians had gone on, and was still at the top of his own slope, having to his left front the two detached battalions at Cabezbort under O’Ronan, when the clash came. Waiting till the two Valencian divisions and the cavalry in support were some little way up the hill, and had begun to drive in his skirmishers, Chlopiski moved down upon them with the whole of his modest force—Robert’s five battalions in front, to the right of the pass and the road, his own two battalions of the 44th to its left and somewhat on the flank. Meanwhile Schiazzetti’s regiment of Italian dragoons charged down the gap between the two bodies of infantry. As Villacampa was somewhat ahead of Miranda, the first crash fell upon him. Robert’s infantry drove him without any difficulty right downhill, while the Italian dragoons rode at Miranda’s battalions on his right. Villacampa’s men fell into hopeless confusion, but what was worse was that Miranda’s division, seeing their comrades break, gave way before the cavalry without making any resistance whatever, apparently before the French 44th had even got into touch with them on the flank. This was a disgraceful business: the 7,000 Valencian infantry, and the 1,700 cavalry in support, were routed in ten minutes by half their own numbers—one good cavalry regiment of 450 sabres sufficed to upset a whole division of seven battalions—if a single one of them had formed a steady square, the Italian horse ought to have been driven off with ease!

But this was not the end of the affair. San Juan’s horse were close behind the routed divisions—O’Donnell ordered them up to save the wrecks of his infantry: at the same time Mahy hurried forward two battalions of his Murcians[28] to support San Juan, and began to advance with the rest of his division down the slope of the Germanels hill.

After making havoc of the Valencian foot, Chlopiski had halted his troops for a moment, wishing to be sure that matters were going well with the French main body before he committed himself to any further enterprise. But the temptation to go on was too great, for the routed Spanish troops and their supports were weltering together in confusion at the bottom of the hill. It is said that the dragoon colonel, Schiazzetti, settled the matter for his superior, by charging at San Juan’s horse the moment that he had got his squadrons re-formed. The Valencian cavalry, though it outnumbered the Italians by two to one, turned tail at once and bolted, riding over the two battalions of Murcian infantry which were in its immediate rear, and carrying them away in its panic. Chlopiski then led on his seven battalions against the disordered mass in front of him, and swept the whole before him. It gave way and fled uphill, horse and foot, the Murcian cavalry brigade in reserve going off on the same panic-stricken way as the Valencian. It was some time before Mahy could get a single regiment to stand—but at last he found a sort of rearguard of two battalions (one of his own, one of Villacampa’s[29]) which had kept together and were still capable of obeying orders. The French were now exhausted; the infantry could not follow in regular formation so fast as their enemy fled; the handful of cavalry was dispersed, driving in prisoners on every side. So Mahy and O’Donnell ultimately got off, with their men in a horde scattered over the country-side—the cavalry leading the stampede and the two rallied battalions bringing up the rear[30]. The Spanish left wing lost over 2,000 prisoners, mainly from Miranda’s division, but only some 400 killed and wounded; several guns from the divisional batteries were of course lost. All this was over so early in the day that the fighting on Blake’s right wing was at its hottest just when the wrecks of his left were disappearing over the hills. Obispo, who came up too late to help,[31] and the two detached battalions under O’Ronan got off separately, more towards the north, retiring on Naquera.

The tale of this part of the battle of Saguntum is lamentable. There is no record so bad in the whole war: even the Gebora was a well-contested fight compared with this—and at Belchite the army that fled so easily gave way before numbers equal or superior to its own, not inferior in the proportion of one to three. The fact was that the Valencian troops had a long record of disasters behind them, were thoroughly demoralized, and could not be trusted for one moment, and that the Murcians (as Mahy confessed) were not much better. The defeat was rendered more shameful by the fact that the smaller half of Blake’s Army, the ‘Expeditionary Force,’ was at the same moment making head in good style against numbers rather larger than its own, and seemed for a moment about to achieve a splendid success. If the Spanish left, 17,000 strong, could have ‘contained’ half its own strength, if it could have kept 8,000 instead of 4,000 French employed for one hour, Blake might have relieved Saguntum and driven off Suchet. But the story is disgraceful. Mahy wrote next morning to Blake, ‘I must tell you, with my usual bluntness, that you had better sell the horses of this cavalry, and draft the men into the infantry. I could not have believed in the possibility of such conduct, if I had not seen it with my own eyes take place and cost us so much[32].’ Blake actually gave orders for one hussar regiment (a Murcian one) to be deprived of its horses and drafted out. But did the infantry behave much better?

We may now turn to a less depressing narrative, the story of the operations of Blake’s own wing. The Commander-in-Chief, as it will be remembered, had with him the ‘Expeditionary Divisions,’ the Valencian Reserve Division, and Loy’s and Caro’s 1,100 cavalry. He took post himself on the height called El Puig, with one brigade of the Valencians, to the south of the ravine of the Picador, which crosses the plain in a diagonal direction. The rest of the troops went forward in two columns: Zayas formed the right near the sea; his flank was covered by a squadron of gunboats, which advanced parallel with him, as near the shore as their draught permitted. He was ordered to push on and get, if possible, round Suchet’s flank, where Habert’s line was ‘refused,’ because of the guns of the flotilla, whose fire the French wished to avoid. If successful Zayas was to try to communicate with the garrison of Saguntum. Further inland Lardizabal’s division, accompanied by the 1,100 cavalry, and followed by the other brigade of the Valencian reserve, crossed the Picador at the bridge on the chaussée, and deployed in the plain, directly opposite Harispe’s division. The whole force was about equal to the French opposed to it.

The two ‘Expeditionary Divisions’ went forward in good order and with great confidence: Suchet remarks in his Mémoires that in all his previous campaigns he had never seen Spanish troops advance with such resolution or in such good order[33]. Zayas, on the sea-flank, became immediately engaged with Habert, before the village of Puzzol, in a heavy fight, with exactly equal numbers—each had about 2,500 men. Both sides lost heavily, and neither had any advantage: Suchet had ordered Habert not to take the offensive till matters were settled in the centre, but the defensive proved costly, and the Spaniards pushed on—these were the same battalions which had behaved so well on the hill of Albuera—Irlanda, Patria, and the Spanish and Walloon Guards.

Further to the left Lardizabal had deployed, after crossing the ravine, with his two weak brigades in line; the Valencian reserve remained behind near the bridge, but Loy’s and Caro’s cavalry came forward on the right in support. Opposite the front brigade (Prieto’s) was a long low mound, the last outlying spur of the Sancti Espiritus range. This was soon seen by both sides to be a point of vantage—the army that could occupy it would have a good artillery position commanding the hostile line. Suchet ordered up Harispe’s right battalions to seize it, and galloped thither in person at the head of his escort of fifty hussars. But the Spaniards had also marked it, and the Marshal had hardly reached its top when he found Prieto’s skirmishers swarming up the slope. He had to retire, and rode back to bring up his infantry; but, by the time that they had come forward, the enemy had formed a hasty line of battle along the mound, with a battery in its centre. Suchet had therefore to attack—which he did in full force, the four battalions of the 7th Line forming a heavy column in the centre, while those of the 116th and the 3rd of the Vistula deployed on each side somewhat to the rear—a clear instance of the use of the ordre mixte which Napoleon loved. The left flank was covered by two squadrons of the 4th Hussars and one of the 13th Cuirassiers, brought out from the reserve.

This was bringing 3,600 bayonets to bear against 1,500, for Prieto’s brigade counted no more upon the mound. The attack was successful, but not without severe loss: General Paris, leading on the 7th regiment, was wounded, as were both his aides-de-camp, and Harispe’s horse was killed under him; the Spanish artillery fire had been deadly. When the mound was stormed, the Spanish infantry were forced back, but by no means in disorder. They formed up again not far from its foot, and Lardizabal brought up his second brigade to support his first, placed two batteries in line, and stood to fight again. Suchet, having re-formed Harispe’s men, found that he had before him a second combat on the flat ground. The infantry on both sides were heavily engaged, and six French guns had been brought forward to enfilade Lardizabal’s right, when a new turn was given to the battle. The Spanish general ordered Loy’s and Caro’s 1,100 cavalry to charge in mass upon the three squadrons of hussars and cuirassiers which covered Harispe’s left. The move was an unexpected one, and was concealed for some time by scattered carob-trees: the attack was well delivered, and the French horse, outnumbered by more than two to one, were completely routed and fled in disorder. Loy then wheeled in upon the French flank, captured three guns of the battery there placed, and nearly broke the 116th of the Line, which had only just time to fall back and form itself en potence to the rest of the division. The remainder of the Spanish cavalry pursued the retreating hussars.

The moment looked black for the Marshal: he himself confesses in his Mémoires that if Harispe’s infantry had given way the battle might have been lost[34]. But he had still a reserve: he sent back orders to Palombini to bring up Saint Paul’s four Italian battalions into the gap, and rode himself to the two squadrons of the 13th Cuirassiers which had not yet advanced into the fight. They were only 350 sabres, but the regiment was a fine one, and had won, at Margalef and other fields, a great confidence in its ability to face long odds. They were launched straight at the victorious Spanish cavalry, whose main body was advancing in great disorder, and with its line broken by the groves of carob-trees, while the remainder had turned inward against the French infantry. The cuirassiers went straight through the squadrons opposed to them, and swept them away: whereupon even those units of the Spanish horse which had not been attacked wheeled round, and retreated hastily toward the Picador ravine and its bridge. The cuirassiers followed, upsetting everything in their front, and only halted on the edge of the ravine, where they were checked by the fire of the battery attached to the Valencian reserve, and the skirmishers of that body, who had lined the farther edge of the depression[35]. Both the Spanish brigadiers, Loy and Caro, had behaved very gallantly; both were severely wounded, while trying to rally their men, and were left on the field as prisoners.

The defeat of the Spanish horse settled the day, which had for a moment looked doubtful. At the sight of the French hussars breaking, and the advance of their own line, the garrison of Saguntum, who had the whole field in view from their lofty perch, had lined their walls, cheering and waving their shakos in the air—despite of the shells from the siege-batteries which continued to play upon them. The cheers died down as the changed fortunes of the day became visible, and hearts sank in the fortress. But the fighting was not yet concluded.

The rout of Loy’s and Caro’s horse had not directly affected Lardizabal’s infantry, for the victorious cuirassiers had galloped straight before them after the fugitives, though they had also ridden over and captured a Spanish battery on the right of the line of deployed battalions. The decisive blow in this quarter was given by Saint Paul’s Italians, who, issuing from olive groves behind Harispe’s left, came in upon the unprotected flank of Lardizabal’s troops, which they rolled up, driving away at the same time a few squadrons which had not been affected by the charge of the cuirassiers. These last rode in among their own infantry, which was already hotly engaged with Harispe’s battalions, and carried confusion down the line. The division, which had hitherto fought most gallantly, gave way, and retired in confusion towards the bridge over the Picador, and the Cartuja where Lardizabal hoped to sustain himself by means of the battery and the Valencian reserve battalions which he left there.

Meanwhile Blake, from the summit of the knoll of El Puig, had witnessed with impotent grief the rout of his right centre. He had placed himself so far to the rear that no orders which he sent reached Lardizabal in time, and the reserve which he had kept under his own hand, three raw Valencian battalions and a battery, would have been too weak to save the day, even if it had not been so far—two miles—from the central focus of the fight as to make its arrival in time quite impossible. The General, from the moment that he had given the original order to advance, exercised no influence whatever on the operations; one of his staff says that he sat on his horse in blank and stupid amazement at the rout, and that some of those who watched him thought him wanting in personal courage no less than in decision[36]. But at last he roused himself to issue orders for the retreat of his broken left and centre towards Valencia, and for the instant withdrawal of his still intact right wing.

Here Zayas’s division stood in a most difficult place, for though it had been contending on equal terms with Habert’s in front of the village of Puzzol, it is one thing to keep up a standing fight, and another to withdraw from it with a victorious enemy pushing in upon the flank. However, Zayas ordered his battalions back, and though pressed by Habert, brought them in good order across the ravine and back to the height of El Puig, where Blake stood waiting him with his small reserve. Only one corps, the Walloon Guards, had thrown itself into the houses of Puzzol, could not be extracted from them in time, and was surrounded and captured. But this small disaster did much to save the rest of the division, for so many of the French closed in upon the village, where the Walloons made a good stand, that the pursuit was not so hotly pushed as it might have been. If Suchet could have pressed in upon Blake before Zayas joined him, the whole Spanish right column might have been completely cut off from its retreat. But the Marshal required some leisure to rearrange his line, after routing Lardizabal; and by the time that he had sent off the rallied 4th Hussars to help Chlopiski gather in prisoners, and had turned the Italians aside to march against Blake, with Harispe in support, nearly two hours had gone by, and the Spanish right, molested only by Habert, was drawing off towards safety. Following the road along the sea-shore, it reached the suburbs of Valencia without any further loss.

Not so the unfortunate remnant of Lardizabal’s troops. They had halted at the Cartuja, behind the Picador, while their general strove to rally them on the reserve there left. This delay, though soldier-like and proper, enabled Suchet to catch them up: he charged them with his last fresh regiment, the 24th Dragoons, which had been kept in hand, apparently behind Habert’s position, till the retreat of the Spanish right began. Then, attacking along the high-road, these squadrons broke in upon the half-rallied troops, swept them away, and captured two guns put in battery across the chaussée, and badly supported by the Valencian reserve battalions. Lardizabal’s column went off in great disorder, and was hunted as far as the Caraixet stream, losing many prisoners to the dragoons, as well as four flags.

So ended the day; the loss of the Spaniards was not very heavy in killed and wounded—about 1,000 it is said, mainly in Lardizabal’s and Zayas’s divisions—for the others did not stand to fight. But of prisoners they lost 4,641, including 230 officers and the two wounded cavalry brigadiers. Miranda’s division contributed the largest proportion to the captives, though Zayas lost 400 men of the Walloon battalion, and Lardizabal a still greater number out of his weak division of 3,000 bayonets[37]. Twelve guns were left behind, seven captured in the hard fighting in the right centre, five from O’Donnell’s easily-routed divisions. The French casualties are given by Suchet at about 130 killed and 590 wounded—probably an understatement, as the regimental returns show 55 officers hit, which at the ordinary rate of casualties should imply over 1,000 rank and file disabled. As a commentary on the fighting, it may be remarked that Chlopiski and Robert, in dealing with Obispo, O’Donnell, and Mahy, had only 7 officers hors de combat, while Harispe and Habert lost 41 in the real fight with Zayas and Lardizabal[38].

The actual losses in action were not the worst part of the battle of Saguntum—the real disaster was the plain demonstration that the Valencian troops could not stand even against very inferior numbers. It was to no purpose that the two gallant ‘Expeditionary Divisions’ had sacrificed themselves, and lost one man in three out of their small force of 5,500 men in hard fighting. They had been betrayed by their worthless associates on the left. Blake’s generalship had not been good—he dispersed his columns in the most reckless way, and kept no sufficient reserves—but with the odds in his favour of 27,000 men to 14,000, he ought yet to have won, if the larger half of his army had consented to fight. They did not: with such troops no more could be hoped from further battles in the open field—whatever the numerical odds might be. They could at most be utilized behind walls and entrenchments, for purely passive defence. And this, as we shall see, was the deduction that their general made from the unhappy events of October 25.

Next morning Suchet sent in a summons to the garrison of Saguntum, and the governor, Andriani, after short haggling for terms, surrendered. He is not to be blamed: his garrison had seen the rout of Blake’s army with their own eyes, and knew that there was no more hope for them. They were, as we have seen, mainly raw troops, and their good bearing up to this moment, rather than their demoralization after the battle, should provoke notice. The French approaches were by this time within a few yards of the Dos Mayo redoubt and its hastily patched breaches. The artillery fire of the besiegers was rapidly levelling the whole work, and the next storm, made on a wide front of shattered curtain, must have succeeded. It is true that a governor of the type of Alvarez of Gerona would then have held out for some time in the castle of San Fernando. But Andriani’s troops were not like those of Alvarez, and he himself was a good soldier, but not a fanatical genius. Two thousand three hundred prisoners marched out on the 26th, leaving not quite 200 men in hospital behind them. The 17 guns of the fortress were many of them damaged, and the store of shot and shell was very low, though there were plenty of infantry cartridges left[39].

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SECTION XXX: CHAPTER III

THE CAPTURE OF VALENCIA AND OF BLAKE’S ARMY. NOVEMBER 1811-JANUARY 1812

As the result of the disastrous battle of Saguntum Blake had lost the fortress which had served him so well as an outwork: while his field army was much decreased in numbers, and still more in self-confidence. It was obviously impossible that he should ever again attempt to take the offensive with it. But he was still in possession of Valencia and all its resources, and his carefully fortified lines along the Guadalaviar were so strong that even a defeated army could make some stand behind them. He had still, after all his losses, more than 22,000 men under arms[40]. Yet it is doubtful whether a resolute push on the part of the enemy would not have dislodged him, for more than half his army was in a state of complete demoralization.

Suchet, however, had made up his mind not to strike at once; and when a few days had passed, and the Spaniards had been granted time to settle down into the lines, it would undoubtedly have been hazardous to attack them with the very modest numbers that the Army of Aragon had still in line. The chance would have been to press the pursuit hard, on the very day after the battle. But when the Marshal had counted up his losses in the trenches and the field, had deducted a small garrison for Saguntum, and had detached a brigade to escort to Tortosa his numerous prisoners, he thought himself too weak for a decisive blow. He would not have had 15,000 men in hand, unless he should call up Ficatier’s brigade from Segorbe and Oropesa, and this he did not want to do, as he was entirely dependent for food and stores on the line of communication which Ficatier was guarding. Accordingly he resolved to defer his next blow at Blake, till he should have summoned from Aragon Severoli’s division, and Reille’s too, if the Emperor would give him leave to requisition that force. He could not utilize Reille without that leave; but Severoli’s troops belonged to his own army, and were at his disposition, if he should judge it possible to draw them southward without endangering the safety of Aragon. This he was prepared to do, if a sufficient garrison for that province could be provided from another source. And the only obvious source was the Army of the North: if the Emperor would consent to order Dorsenne to find troops to make Saragossa and the line of the Ebro secure, it would not be over rash to borrow both Severoli and Reille for operations against Valencia. But it was clear that it would take some weeks for the permission to be sent from Paris, and for the troops of the Army of the North to be moved, when and if the permission was granted. We shall see, as a matter of fact, that it was not till the end of December, two full months after the battle of Saguntum, that the two divisions were collected on the desired ground, and the final blow against Blake was delivered.

Meanwhile Suchet could do no more than place his divisions in the most favourable position for making the advance that would only be possible when Severoli, and perhaps Reille also, should arrive. With this object he pushed them forward on November 3 to the line of the Guadalaviar, close in front of Blake’s long series of entrenchments. Harispe on the right advanced to Paterna, Habert on the left to the close neighbourhood of Valencia. He drove the Spanish outposts from the outlying suburb of Serranos, which lay beyond the lines and on the north side of the river, and also from the Grao, or port and mole which forms the outlet of Valencia to the sea. It was most unlucky for Blake, in the end, that his natural line of communication with the Mediterranean and the English fleet lay north of the Guadalaviar, and outside his line of fortifications. Indeed it looks as if there was a cardinal fault in the planning of the defences when the Grao was left outside them, for though rather remote from the city (two miles) it would be of inestimable importance, supposing that the French were to succeed in crossing the Guadalaviar and investing Valencia. With the port safe, the defenders could receive succour and supplies to any extent, and if finally reduced to extremity could retreat by sea. Some of the energy which had been expended in throwing up the immense fortified camp which embraced all the southern suburbs, and in lining the river westward with batteries, might well have been diverted to the fortification of the Grao and its connexion with the works of the city. But probably Blake, in his looking forward to the possible events of the future, did not contemplate among the contingencies to be faced that of his being shut up with the greater part of his army within the walls of Valencia. If he were forced from the lines of the Guadalaviar, he must have intended to fall back inland or southward, and not to allow himself to be surrounded in the capital. Otherwise it would have been absolutely insane for him to leave unfortified, and abandon without a struggle, Valencia’s sole outlet to the sea.

Meanwhile finding himself for week after week unassailed in his lines, Blake had to take stock of his position, and see if there was anything that he could do to avert the attack which must come one day, and which would obviously be formidable. For it had become known to him, ere long, that Severoli’s division, and probably other troops, were working in towards Valencia, and would certainly join Suchet before the winter was over. The only expedients of which Blake made use were to keep masses of men continuously at work strengthening his lines, and to renew the attempt, which he had made fruitlessly in September, for loosing Suchet’s hold on Valencia by launching against his rear the irregulars of Aragon—the bands of the Empecinado, Duran, and the minor chiefs. To add some solidity to their hordes he detached from his army the Conde de Montijo, with one of the two brigades which Mahy had brought from Murcia. This turbulent nobleman, more noted for his intrigues than for his fighting power, was given a general command over all the bands, and marched to join them with three battalions[41] and a few guns—the latter provision was intended to obviate the difficulty which the irregulars had experienced in October from their want of artillery. Blake intended to call up Freire from Murcia with another draft from the depleted ‘Third Army,’ whose best troops Mahy had already led to Valencia. But, as we shall see, this detachment was presently distracted to another quarter, and never joined the main force. The nominal strength of the mass of troops along the Guadalaviar was, however, increased by degrees, owing to the filling of the ranks of the divisions cut up at Saguntum by men from the half-trained reserve and dépôts. Miranda’s division in particular, which had lost so many prisoners in the battle, was completed to more than its original strength by absorbing three raw ‘third battalions’ from the ‘Reserve Division,’ besides other drafts[42]. Blake also endeavoured to make use of ‘urban guards’ and other levies of irregular organization and more than doubtful value: the population in the north of the kingdom, behind Suchet’s lines, were invited to form guerrillero bands: but the Valencians never showed the zeal or energy of the Catalans and Aragonese. The bands that appeared were few in numbers, and accomplished nothing of note. Indeed, it appears that the patriotic spirit of the province had run low. Mahy, in a letter to Blake of this month, complains bitterly that the peasantry refuse to convey letters for him, or even to give him information as to the position and movements of the French, while he knew that hundreds of them were visiting Suchet’s camps daily in friendly fashion[43]. It appears that the people were sick of the war, and discontented with Blake, whose conduct to the local authorities was even more injurious to him than the uniform failure of all his military operations.

The diversion to be conducted by Montijo and the irregulars in Aragon constituted the only real hope of salvation for Blake and the city of Valencia. But it was, we may say, doomed from the first to failure, unless some favourable chance should intervene. A couple of thousand regulars, with the aid of guerrillero bands, hard to assemble, and not mustering at any time more than 6,000 or 7,000 men collected on one spot, were sent to paralyse the movements of more than 20,000 French. For to that figure Reille’s and Severoli’s divisions, together with the original garrison left in Aragon under Musnier, most certainly amounted. It cannot be denied that the diversion gave much trouble to the enemy, but it never prevented him from executing any operation of primary importance. On October 27th the Italian general, Mazzuchelli, with one of Severoli’s brigades, drove off the Empecinado, and relieved the long-besieged garrison of Molina, which he brought off, abandoning the castle. But as he was returning to his chief, who then lay at Daroca, the Empecinado fell on his marching column in the Pass of Cubillejo, and inflicted severe damage upon it[44]. Severoli then sent out a second column of 800 men, to relieve Almunia, on the road to Saragossa, another outlying garrison. But Duran surprised and scattered this party just as it reached its destination, and then captured the fort with its garrison of 140 men (October 31). This provoked the enemy to march against him in force, whereupon, after fighting an obstinate engagement with Mazzuchelli near Almunia, in which the Italians lost 220 men, he turned sideways, and descended upon Daroca, which his adversary had left weakly manned; he stormed the town and laid siege to the fort. This brought down upon him Pannetier, with one of Reille’s brigades: thereupon, wisely refusing to fight, Duran went up into the mountains of Molina (November 1811).

Here he was joined some weeks later by the regular brigade under the Conde de Montijo, which Blake had sent up from Valencia. This little detachment had threaded its way among Reille’s columns, and had narrowly escaped destruction near Albarracin. The Conde, assuming chief command at the high-lying village of Mulmarcos, informed the Aragonese guerrilleros that something desperate must be done, to relieve the pressure on Valencia; and after sending for the Empecinado, who was now beyond the mountains, in the province of Guadalajara, marched on Calatayud. Unfortunately the Partida chiefs, accustomed to conduct their expeditions on their own responsibility, viewed the advent of Montijo, a stranger of no great military reputation, with jealousy and dislike. Duran and the Conde having reached Ateca near Calatayud, committed themselves to a serious combat with a column of 2,000 men from its garrison, having every expectation of being succoured by the Empecinado, who had reached their neighbourhood. He did not appear, however, and they were repulsed. Thereupon the Spaniards parted, the Conde and the regulars retiring to Torrehermosa, Duran to Deza, in the province of Soria. The Empecinado, when all was over, sent in a letter in which he explained that he had held off ‘because his officers and soldiers had no confidence save in their own chief:’ but it was clear that he himself wrecked the expedition out of self-willed indiscipline.

The month of December was now far advanced, and nothing effective had been done to help Blake. The Aragonese bands had cost Reille and Severoli many toilsome marches, and had inflicted on them appreciable losses—Severoli’s division was now 2,000 men weaker than it had been in September. But they had failed entirely to stop the larger movements of the enemy, who was able to move wherever he pleased with a column of 3,000 men, though any lesser force was always in danger of being harried or even destroyed. When Suchet determined that he would again risk trouble in his rear, and would bring both the divisions from the Ebro down to Valencia, no one could prevent him from doing so. It is true that Severoli and Reille were leaving behind them a country-side still infested by an active and obstinate enemy. But if their generalissimo judged that he was prepared to take this risk, and was determined to crush Blake before he completed the subjugation of Upper Aragon, there was nothing that could hinder him from carrying out his intention. By the middle of December Severoli was on his way to the Guadalaviar by way of Teruel, and Reille followed not far behind, though one of his brigades (Bourke’s) had been distracted, by being ordered to conduct the prisoners from Saguntum to the French frontier, and the other (Pannetier’s) had been drawn so far northward in hunting Montijo and Duran that it was several marches behind the leading columns.

It was not, however, Reille and Severoli alone who were set in motion for the ruin of Blake and Valencia. Nor was Suchet’s mind the final controlling force of the operations which were to spread all over eastern Spain in the months of December 1811 and January 1812. The Emperor, when he hurried the Army of Aragon forward in September, had explained that this was the crucial point of the war, and repeated in November that ‘l’important, dans ce moment, est la prise de Valence.’ Portugal could wait—Wellington, with 18,000 men sick, and forced to remain on the defensive,—was a negligible quantity during the winter: he should be dealt with in the spring by a general combination of all the French armies[45]. Acting on this comfortable but erroneous hypothesis, Napoleon determined to shift eastward and southward not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops from the armies which were directly or indirectly opposed to Wellington, so as to alter for a time the general balance of forces on the Portuguese side of the Peninsula. On October 18th, before the battle of Saguntum had been fought and won, Berthier had been directed to write to Marmont that, for the support of the invasion of Valencia, King Joseph and the Army of the Centre would be ordered to send troops to Cuenca, to take Blake in the rear. In consequence the Army of Portugal must ‘facilitate the task of the King,’ i. e. find detachments to occupy those parts of New Castile from which Joseph would have to withdraw the normal garrison for his expedition to Cuenca. But presently it became evident that the Army of the Centre would have great difficulty in providing a column strong enough to make this diversion, even if it were relieved in La Mancha, or the province of Toledo, by units belonging to Marmont. Napoleon then made the all-important determination to borrow troops from the Army of Portugal for the Valencian expedition. By this time he knew of the battle of Saguntum, and had received Suchet’s appeals for reinforcements. His dispatch to Marmont of November 20th informs the Marshal that he must provide a division of 6,000 men of all arms, to join the disposable force which King Joseph can spare for the assistance of Suchet. The still more important dispatch of the next day varied the orders in an essential detail, by saying that the Marshal must send not ‘a detachment of 6,000 men’ but such a force as, united to the column supplied by King Joseph, would provide a total of 12,000 men for the diversion.’ And it was added that, in addition, the Army of Portugal would have to find 3,000 or 4,000 men more, to keep up the communications of the expeditionary force with its base in New Castile. The detachment might be made without any fear of adverse consequences, since Wellington had 20,000 men in hospital, and barely as many in a state to take the field, so no risk would be run in depleting the force opposed to him[46]. Napoleon, conveniently ignoring the exact wording of his own dispatch, reproached Marmont (when evil results had followed) for having detached ‘an army corps and thirty guns’ for the diversion, instead of ‘a light flying column.[47]’ But it will be seen that the Marshal was literally obeying the orders given him when he moved 12,000 men towards Valencia. For the Army of the Centre provided not much more than 3,000 men under General d’Armagnac for the Cuenca expedition[48], and Marmont had, therefore, to find 9,000 men to bring it up to the strength which the Emperor prescribed, as well as the 3,000-4,000 men to cover the line of communications.

All these dispatches reached Marmont’s head-quarters at Plasencia with the tardiness that was normal in Spain, where officers bearing orders had to be escorted by detachments many hundreds strong, supposing that their certain arrival at their destination was desired. If they travelled rapidly and unescorted, they became the inevitable prey of the guerrilleros. The dispatch of October 18th, saying that Marmont must replace King Joseph’s garrisons in La Mancha, came to hand on November 11, and the Marshal accordingly directed Foy’s division, then at Toledo, to break itself up and occupy the various posts which the German division of the Army of the Centre had been holding. Foy set out to fulfil these orders on November 22.

The Emperor’s second and third dispatches, those of November 20-21st, turned up on December 13th[49], and Marmont found himself under orders to find 9,000 men for the Cuenca expedition,—since d’Armagnac had only 3,000 men to contribute—and in addition 3,000-4,000 more for the line of communications. Now the Marshal was as fully convinced as his master that Wellington was not in a condition to move, or to do any serious harm, and under this impression, and being probably stirred (as Napoleon afterwards remarked)[50] by the desire to increase his own reputation by a dashing feat of arms, he resolved to take charge of the expedition in person. He ordered that the divisions of Foy and Sarrut—both weak units, the one of eight, the other of nine battalions[51]—and Montbrun’s light cavalry should prepare to march under his own charge to join d’Armagnac, and move on Valencia. Another division should come into La Mancha to take up the cantonments evacuated by Foy, and keep over the line of communications. Clausel should be left in charge of the remainder of the army, and observe Wellington.

This scheme was never carried out, for on December 20 Marmont received another dispatch, ordering him to transfer his head-quarters to Valladolid, and to move a large part of his army into Old Castile. Of this more hereafter. But being thus prevented (for his own good fortune as it turned out) from going on the expedition, he gave over Foy’s and Sarrut’s divisions to Montbrun, and bade him execute the diversion. He himself went, as ordered, to Valladolid. If he had received the last dispatch a little later, or had started a little earlier, he would have been put in the ignominious position of being absent from his own point of danger, when Wellington suddenly struck at Ciudad Rodrigo in the early days of January.

Montbrun, his substitute, had drawn together his forces in La Mancha by the 29th of December, but receiving from d’Armagnac, who was already on the move with 3,000 men, the assurance that the road from Cuenca to Valencia was practically impassable at midwinter, and that he could certainly get no guns along it, he resolved to take another route towards the scene of active operations. Accordingly he set out to march by the road San Clemente, Chinchilla, Almanza, which runs across the upland plain of La Mancha and Northern Murcia, and does not cross rough ground till it nears the descent to the sea-coast on the borders of Valencia. The column did not leave San Clemente and El Probencio till January 2, and (as we shall see) was too late to help Suchet, who had brought matters to a head long before it drew near him.

Meanwhile d’Armagnac, though his force was trifling[52], had been of far greater use. He had reoccupied Cuenca, but finding (as he had informed Montbrun) that the roads in that direction were impracticable, had swerved southward, avoiding the mountains, and getting to Tarazona in La Mancha, marched towards the passes of the Cabriel River, and the road on to Valencia by way of Requeña. His approach being reported to Blake, who had no troops in this direction save two battalions under Bassecourt, the Captain-General was seized with a natural disquietude as to his rear, for he had no accurate knowledge of the French strength. Wherefore he directed General Freire, with the succours which he had been intending to draw up from Murcia, to abandon the idea of reinforcing the main army, and to throw himself between d’Armagnac and Valencia [November 20]. The French general, beating the country on all sides, and thrusting before him Bassecourt’s small force and the local guerrilleros, marched as far as Yniesta, and forced the passage of the Cabriel at Valdecañas, but finding that he had got far away from Montbrun, who did not march till many days after he himself had started, and being informed that Freire, with a very large force, was coming in upon his rear, he stopped before reaching Requeña and turned back towards La Mancha[53]. He had succeeded, however, in preventing Freire from reinforcing Valencia, and the Murcian succours never got near to Blake. He even for a time distracted troops from the main Spanish army, for Zayas was sent for some days to Requeña, and only returned just in time for the operations that began on December 25th. The net outcome, therefore, of Montbrun’s and d’Armagnac’s operations was simply to distract Freire’s division from Valencia at the critical moment—an appreciable but not a decisive result.

Meanwhile Suchet found himself able to deliver his decisive blow on the Guadalaviar. By his orders Severoli and Reille had drawn southward by way of Teruel, deliberately abandoning most of Aragon to the mercy of the insurgent bands; for though Caffarelli had moved some battalions of the Army of the North to Saragossa and the posts along the Ebro, the rest of the province was left most inadequately guarded by the small force that had originally been committed to Musnier’s charge, when first Suchet marched on Valencia. Musnier himself accompanied Severoli’s division, leaving his detachments under Caffarelli’s orders, for he had been directed to come to the front and assume the command of his old brigades, those of Ficatier and Robert, both now with the main army. When Reille and the Italians marched south, Aragon was exposed to the inroads of Montijo, Duran, the Empecinado, and Mina, all of whom had been harried, but by no means crushed, by the late marches and countermarches of the French. That trouble would ensue both Napoleon and Suchet were well aware. But the Emperor had made up his mind that all other considerations were to be postponed to the capture of Valencia and the destruction of Blake’s army. When these ends were achieved, not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops as well, should be drawn northwards, to complete the pacification of Aragon, and to make an end of the lingering war in Catalonia.

Severoli had reached Teruel on November 30, but was ordered to await the junction of Reille’s troops, and these were still far off. Indeed Reille himself only started from Saragossa with Bourke’s brigade on December 10th, and Pannetier’s brigade (which had been hunting Duran in the mountains) was two long marches farther behind. Without waiting for its junction, Severoli and Reille marched from Teruel on December 20th, and reached Segorbe unopposed on the 24th. Here they were in close touch with Suchet, and received orders to make a forced march to join him, as he intended to attack the lines of the Guadalaviar on the 26th. To them was allotted the most important move in the game, for they were to cross the Guadalaviar high up, beyond the westernmost of Blake’s long string of batteries and earthworks, and to turn his flank and get in his rear, while the Army of Aragon assailed his front, and held him nailed to his positions by a series of vigorous attacks. The point on which Reille and Severoli were to march was Ribaroja, fifteen miles up-stream from Valencia.

When the two divisions from Aragon should have arrived, Suchet could count on 33,000 men in line, but as Pannetier was still labouring up two marches in the rear, it was really with 30,000 only that he struck his blow—a force exceeding that which Blake possessed by not more than 6,000 or 7,000 bayonets. Considering the strength of the Spanish fortifications the task looked hazardous: but Suchet was convinced, and rightly, that the greater part of the Army of Valencia was still so much demoralized that much might be dared against it: and the event proved him wise.

On the night of December 25th all the divisions of the Army of Aragon had abandoned their cantonments, and advanced towards the Spanish lines—Habert on the left next the sea; Palombini to the west of Valencia, opposite the village of Mislata; Harispe and Musnier farther up-stream, opposite Quarte. The cavalry accompanied this last column. Reille and Severoli, on their arrival, were to form the extreme right of the line, and would extend far beyond the last Spanish entrenchments. The weak Neapolitan division alone (now not much over 1,000 strong) was to keep quiet, occupying the entrenched position in the suburb of Serranos, which faced the city of Valencia. Its only duty was to hold on to its works, in case Blake should try a sortie at this spot, with the purpose of breaking the French line in two. That such a weak force was left to discharge such an important function, is a sufficient proof of Suchet’s belief in Blake’s incapacity to take the offensive.

The lines which the French were about to assail were rather long than strong, despite of the immense amount of labour that had been lavished on them during the last three months. Their extreme right, on the side of the sea, and by the mouth of the Guadalaviar was a redoubt (named after the Lazaretto hard by) commanding the estuary: from thence a long line of earthworks continued the defences as far as the slight hill of Monte Oliveto, which guarded the right flank of the great entrenched camp of which the city formed the nucleus. Here there was a fort outside the walls, and connected with them by a ditch and a bastioned line of earthworks, reaching as far as the citadel at the north-east corner of the town. From thence the line of resistance for some way was formed of the mediaeval wall of Valencia itself, thirty feet high and ten thick. It was destitute of a parapet broad enough to bear guns: but the Spaniards had built up against its back, at irregular distances, scaffolding of heavy beams, and terraces of earth, on which a certain amount of cannon were mounted. The gates were protected by small advanced works, mounting artillery. Blake had made Valencia and its three outlying southern and western suburbs of Ruzafa, San Vincente, and Quarte into a single place of defence, by building around those suburbs a great line of earthworks and batteries. It was an immense work consisting of bastioned entrenchments provided with a ditch eighteen feet deep, and filled in some sections with water. From the city the line of defence along the river continued as far as the village of Manises, with an unbroken series of earthworks and batteries. The Guadalaviar itself formed an outer obstacle, being a stream running through low and marshy ground, and diverted into many water-cuts for purposes of irrigation.

The continuous line of defences from the sea as far as Manises was about eight miles long. It possessed some outworks on the farther bank of the Guadalaviar, three of the five bridges which lead from Valencia northward having been left standing by Blake, with good têtes-de-pont to protect them from Suchet’s attacks. Thus the Spaniards had the power to debouch on to the French side of the river at any time that they pleased. This fact added difficulties to the projected attack which the Marshal was planning.

The troops behind the lines of the Guadalaviar consisted of some 23,000 regulars, with a certain amount of local urban guards and armed peasantry whose number it is impossible to estimate with any precision—probably they gave some 3,000 muskets more, but their fighting value was almost negligible. The right of the line, near the sea, was entirely made over to these levies of doubtful value. Miranda’s division manned the fort of Monte Oliveto and the whole north front of the city. Lardizabal garrisoned the earthworks from the end of the town wall as far as the village of Mislata. This last place and its works fell to the charge of Zayas. Creagh’s Murcians were on Zayas’s left at Quarte: finally the western wing of the army was formed by the Valencian divisions of Obispo and Villacampa; holding San Onofre and Manises, where the fortifications ended. The whole of the cavalry was placed so as to cover the left rear of the lines, at Aldaya and Torrente. A few battalions of the raw ‘Reserve Division’ were held in the city as a central reserve. The arrangements of Blake seem liable to grave criticism, since he placed his two good and solid divisions, those of Lardizabal and Zayas, in the strongest works in the centre of his line, but entrusted his left flank, where a turning movement by the French might most easily take place, to the demoralized battalions of Villacampa and Obispo, who had a consistent record of rout and disaster behind them. It is clear that lines, however long, can always be turned, unless their ends rest, as did those of Torres Vedras, on an impassable obstacle such as the sea. If the French should refuse to attack the works in front, and should march up the Guadalaviar to far beyond the last battery, it would be impossible to prevent them from crossing, all the more so because, after Manises, the network of canals and water-cuts, which makes the passage difficult in the lower course of the river, comes to an end, and the only obstacle exposed to the invader is a single stream of no great depth. Blake, therefore, should have seen that the critical point was the extreme west end of his lines, and should have placed there his best troops instead of his worst. Moreover he appears to have had no proper system of outposts of either cavalry or infantry along the upper stream, for (as we shall see) the first passage of the French was made not only without opposition, but without any alarm being given. Yet there were 2,000 Spanish cavalry only a few miles away, at Torrente and Aldaya.

Suchet’s plan of attack, which he carried out the moment that Reille joined him, and even before the latter’s rearmost brigade had got up into line, was a very ambitious one, aiming not merely at the forcing of the Guadalaviar or the investment of Valencia, but at the trapping of the whole Spanish army. It was conducted on such a broad front, and with such a dispersion of the forces into isolated columns, that it argued a supreme contempt for Blake and his generalship. Used against such a general as Wellington it would have led to dreadful disaster. But Suchet knew his adversary.

The gist of the plan was the circumventing of the Spanish lines by two columns which, starting one above and the other below Valencia, were to cross the river and join hands to the south of the city. Meanwhile the main front of the works was to be threatened (and if circumstances favoured, attacked) by a very small fraction of the French army. Near the sea Habert’s division was to force the comparatively weak line of works at the estuary, and then to cut the road which runs from Valencia between the Mediterranean and the great lagoon of the Albufera. Far inland the main striking force of the army, composed of the divisions of Harispe and Musnier, with all the cavalry, and with Reille’s three brigades following close behind, was to pass the Guadalaviar at Ribaroja, three or four miles above Manises, and from thence to extend along the south front of the Spanish lines, take them in the rear, and push on so as to get into touch with Habert. Compère’s weak Neapolitan brigade was to block the bridge-heads out of which Blake might make a sally northward. Palombini’s Italians were to press close up to Mislata, which Suchet judged to be the weakest point in the Spanish lines, and to deliver against it an attack which was to be pushed more or less home as circumstances might dictate. The whole force employed (not counting Pannetier’s brigade, which had not yet joined Reille) was just 30,000 men. Of these 25,000 were employed in the flanking movements; less than 5,000 were left to demonstrate against Blake’s front along the lines of the Guadalaviar.

The main and decisive blow was of course to be delivered by Harispe, Musnier, and Reille, who were to cross the river at a point where the Spaniards were unlikely to make any serious opposition, since it was outside their chosen ground of defence, and was clearly watched rather than held. If 20,000 men crossed here, and succeeded in establishing themselves south of Valencia by a rapid march, Blake would find his lines useless, and would be forced to fight in the open, in order to secure a retreat southward, or else to shut himself and his whole force up in the entrenched camp around the city. Suchet could accept either alternative with equanimity: a battle, as he judged, meant a victory, the breaking up of the Spanish army and the capture of Valencia. If, on the other hand, Blake refused to fight a general engagement, and retired within his camp, it would lead to his being surrounded, and the desired end would only be deferred for a few days. There were only two dangers—one was that the Spanish general might abscond southward with the bulk of his army, without fighting, the moment that he heard that his enemy was across the Guadalaviar. The second was that, waiting till the French main body was committed to its flank march, he might break out northward by the three bridges in his hands, overwhelm the Neapolitans, and escape towards Liria and Segorbe into the mountains. Suchet judged that his enemy would try neither of these courses; he would not be timid enough to retreat on the instant that he learnt that his left wing was beginning to be turned; nor would he be resourceful enough to strike away northward, as soon as he saw that the turning movement was formidable and certain of success. Herein Suchet judged aright.

At nightfall on the 25th-26th of December two hundred hussars, each carrying a voltigeur behind him, forded the Guadalaviar at Ribaroja, and threw out a chain of posts which brushed off a few Spanish cavalry vedettes. The moment that the farther bank was clear, the whole force of Suchet’s engineers set to work to build two trestle-bridges for infantry, and to lay a solid pontoon bridge higher up for guns and cavalry. A few hours later Harispe’s division began to pass—then Musnier’s, lastly Boussard’s cavalry. The defile took a long time, and even by dawn Reille’s three brigades had not arrived or begun to pass. But by that time ten thousand French were over the river. The Spanish vedettes had reported, both to their cavalry generals at Aldaya and to Blake at Valencia, that the enemy was busy at Ribaroja, but had not been able to judge of his force, or to make out that he was constructing bridges. Their commanders resolved that nothing could be done in the dark, and that the morning light would determine the character of the movement[54].

The late December sun soon showed the situation. Harispe’s division was marching on Torrente, to cut the high-road to Murcia. The cavalry and one brigade of Musnier were preparing to follow: the other brigade of the second division (Robert’s) was standing fast by the bridges, to cover them till Reille should appear and cross. But while this was the most weighty news brought to Blake, he was distracted by intelligence from two other quarters. Habert was clearly seen coming down by the seaside, to attack at the estuary; and Palombini was also approaching in the centre, in front of Mislata. The daylight was the signal for the commencement of skirmishing on each of the three far-separated points. Blake, strange as it may appear, made up his mind at first that the real danger lay on the side next the sea, and that Habert’s column was the main striking force[55]. But when it became clear that this wing of the French army was not very strong, and was coming on slowly, he turned his attention to Palombini, whose attack on Mislata was made early, and was conducted in a vigorous style. It was to this point that he finally rode out from the city, and he took up his position behind Zayas, entirely neglecting the turning movement on his left—apparently because it was out of sight, and he could not make the right deduction from the reports which his cavalry had brought him.

Meanwhile Harispe’s column, pushing forward with the object of reaching the high-road from Valencia to Murcia, the natural route for Blake’s army to take, if it should attempt to escape southward, ran into the main body of the Spanish horse, which was assembling in the neighbourhood of the village of Aldaya. The French infantry were preceded by a squadron of hussars, who were accompanied by General Boussard, the commander of Suchet’s cavalry division. This small force was suddenly encompassed and cut up by several regiments of Martin Carrera’s brigade. Boussard was overthrown and left for dead—his sword and decorations were stripped from his body. But more French squadrons began to come up, and Harispe’s infantry opened fire on the Spaniards, who were soon forced to retire hurriedly—they rode off southward towards the Xucar river. They were soon completely out of touch with the rest of Blake’s army.

Harispe’s column then continued its way, sweeping eastward towards the Murcian chaussée in the manner that Suchet had designed; but the rest of the operations of the French right wing were not so decisive as its commander had hoped. Mahy, learning of the movement of the encircling column, and seeing Robert’s brigade massed opposite the extreme flank of his position at Manises, while some notice of Reille’s near approach also came to hand, suddenly resolved that he would not be surrounded, and abandoned all his lines before they were seriously attacked. He had the choice of directing Villacampa and Obispo to retire towards Valencia and join Blake for a serious battle in the open, or of bidding them strike off southward and eastward, and escape towards the Xucar, abandoning the main body of the army. He chose the second alternative, and marched off parallel with Harispe’s threatening column, directing each brigade to get away as best it could. His force at once broke up into several fractions, for the cross-roads were many and perplexing. Some regiments reached the Murcian chaussée before Harispe, and escaped in front of him, pursued by the French cavalry. Others, coming too late, were forced to forgo this obvious line of retreat, and to struggle still farther eastward, only turning south when they got to the marshy borders of the lagoon of Albufera. Obispo, with 2,000 of his men, was so closely hunted by the hostile cavalry that he barely found safety by striking along the narrow strip of soft ground between the lagoon and the sea. On the morning of the 27th he struggled through to Cullera near the mouth of the Xucar: Mahy, with the greater part of Villacampa’s division and some of Obispo’s and Creagh’s, arrived somewhat earlier at Alcira, higher up the same stream, where he found the fugitive cavalry already established. The divisions were much disorganized, but they had lost very few killed or wounded, and not more than 500 prisoners. Mahy rallied some 4,000 or 5,000 men at Alcira, and Obispo a couple of thousand at Cullera, but they were a ‘spent force,’ not fit for action. Many of the raw troops had disbanded themselves and gone home.

Thus three-sevenths of Blake’s army were separated from Valencia and their Commander-in-Chief without having made any appreciable resistance. But it seems doubtful whether Mahy should be blamed—if he had waited an hour longer in his positions his whole corps might have been captured. If he had retired towards Valencia he would have been, in all probability, forced to surrender with the rest of the army a few days later. And in separating himself from his chief he had the excuse that he knew that Blake’s intention had been to retire towards the Xucar if beaten, not to shut himself up in Valencia. He may have expected that the rest of the army would follow him southward, and Blake (as we shall see) probably had the chance of executing that movement, though he did not seize it.

Meanwhile the progress of the engagement in other quarters must be detailed. Palombini made a serious attempt to break through the left centre of the Spanish lines at Mislata. His task was hard, not so much because of the entrenchments, or of the difficulty of crossing the Guadalaviar, which was fordable for infantry, but from the many muddy canals and water-cuts with which the ground in front of him abounded. These, though not impassable for infantry, prevented guns from getting to the front till bridges should have been made for them. The Italians waded through the first canal, and then through the river, but were brought to a stand by the second canal, that of Fabara, behind which the Spanish entrenchments lay. After a furious fire-contest they had to retire as far as the river, under whose bank many sought refuge—some plunged in and waded back to the farther side. Palombini rallied them and delivered a second attack; but at only one point, to the left of Mislata, did the assault break into the Spanish line. Zayas, aided by a battalion or two which Mahy had sent up from Quarte, vindicated his position, and repulsed the attack with heavy loss. But when the news came from the left that Harispe had turned the lines, and when Mahy’s troops were seen evacuating all their positions and hurrying off, Zayas found himself with his left flank completely exposed.

Blake made some attempt to form a line en potence to Zayas’s entrenchments, directing two or three of Creagh’s battalions from Quarte and some of his reserve from the city to make a stand at the village of Chirivella. But the front was never formed—attacked by some of Musnier’s troops these detachments broke up, Creagh’s men flying to follow Mahy, and the others retiring to the entrenched camp.

Thereupon Blake ordered Zayas and Lardizabal, who lay to his right, to retreat into Valencia before they should be turned by the approaching French. The movement was accomplished in order and at leisure, and all the guns in and about the Mislata entrenchments were brought away. Palombini had been too hardly handled to attempt to pursue.

The General-in-Chief seemed stunned by the suddenness of the disaster. ‘He looked like a man of stone,’ says Schepeler, who rode at his side, ‘when any observation was made to him he made no reply, and he could come to no decision. He would not allow Zayas to fight, and when a colonel (the author of this work) suggested at the commencement of the retreat that it would be well to burn certain houses which lay dangerously close to the entrenched camp, he kept silence. Whereupon Zayas observed in bitter rage to this officer: “Truly you are dull, my German friend; do you not see that you cannot wake the man up?”’ According to the narratives of several contemporaries there would still have been time at this moment to direct the retreating column southward and escape, as Obispo did, along the Albufera. For Habert (as we shall see) had been much slower than Harispe in his turning movement by the side of the Mediterranean. Some, among them Schepeler, suggest that the whole garrison might have broken out by the northern bridges and got away. For Palombini was not in a condition to hinder them, and the Neapolitans in front of the bridge-heads were but a handful of 1,200 men. But the General, still apparently unconscious of what was going on about him, drew back into the entrenched camp, and did no more.

Habert, meanwhile, finally completed his movement, and joined hands with Harispe at last. His lateness was to be accounted for not by the strength of the opposition made by the irregular troops in front of him, but by the fact that his advance had been much hindered by the fire of the flotilla lying off the mouth of the Guadalaviar. Here there was a swarm of gunboats supported by a British 74 and a frigate. Habert would not commence his passage till he had driven them away, by placing a battery of sixteen siege-guns on the shore near the Grao. After much firing the squadron sheered off[56], and about midday the French division crossed the Guadalaviar, partly by fording, partly on a hastily constructed bridge, and attacked the line of scattered works defended by irregulars which lay behind. The Spaniards were successively evicted from all of them, as far as the fort of Monte Oliveto. Miranda’s division kept within the entrenched camp, and gave no assistance to the bands without; but it was late afternoon before Habert had accomplished his task, and finally got into touch with Harispe.

Blake was thus shut up in Valencia with the divisions of Miranda, Zayas, and Lardizabal, and what was left of his raw reserve battalions: altogether some 17,000 fighting-men remained with him. The loss in actual fighting had been very small—about 500 killed and wounded and as many prisoners. The French captured a good many guns in the evacuated works and a single standard. Suchet returned his total casualties at 521 officers and men, of whom no less than 50 killed and 355 wounded were among Palombini’s Italians—the only corps which can be said to have done any serious fighting[57]. The Marshal’s strategical combination would have been successful almost without bloodshed, if only Palombini had not pressed his attack so hard, and with so little necessity. But the Spanish army, which was drawn out on a long front of nine miles, without any appreciable central reserve, and with no protection for its exposed flank, was doomed to ruin the moment that the enemy appeared in overwhelming force, beyond and behind its extreme left wing. Blake’s only chance was to have watched every ford with great vigilance, and to have had a strong flying column of his best troops ready in some central position, from which it could be moved out to dispute Suchet’s passage without a moment’s delay. Far from doing this, he tied down his two veteran divisions to the defence of the strongest part of his lines, watched the fords with nothing but cavalry vedettes, and kept no central reserve at all, save 2,000 or 3,000 men of his untrustworthy ‘Reserve Division.’ In face of these dispositions the French were almost bound to be successful. A disaster was inevitable, but Blake might have made it somewhat less ruinous if he had recognized his real position promptly, and had ordered a general retreat, when Harispe’s successful turning movement became evident. In this case he would have lost Valencia, but not his army.

As it was, a week more saw the miserable end of the campaign. Suchet’s first precaution was to ascertain whether there was any danger from the fraction of the Spanish army which Mahy and Obispo had carried off. He was uncertain how strong they were, and whether they were prepared to attack him in the rear, supposing that he should sit down to the siege of Valencia. Accordingly he sent out at dawn on the 26th December two light columns of cavalry and voltigeurs against Alcira and Cullera, whither he knew that the refugees had retired. These two reconnaissances in force discovered the enemy in position, but the moment that they were descried Mahy retreated towards Alcoy, and Obispo towards Alicante—both in such haste and disorder that it was evident that they had no fighting spirit left in them.

Suchet, therefore, was soon relieved of any fear of danger from this side, and could make his arrangements for the siege. He sent back to the north bank of the Guadalaviar the whole division of Musnier, which was there joined three days later by Reille’s belated brigade, that of Pannetier. Harispe, Habert, Severoli, and Reille’s other French brigade (that of Bourke) formed the investment on the southern bank. Palombini lay astride of the river near Mislata, with one brigade on each bank. The whole force of 33,000 men was sufficient for the task before it. The decisive blow would have to be given by the siege artillery; the whole train which had captured Saguntum had long been ready for its work. And it had before it not regular fortifications of modern type, but, in part of the circumference of Blake’s position, mediaeval walls not built to resist artillery, in the rest the ditch and bank of the entrenched camp, which, though strong as a field-work, could not be considered capable of resisting a formal attack by a strong siege-train.

Blake was as well aware of this as Suchet, and he also knew (what Suchet could not) that the population of 100,000 souls under his charge had only 10 days’ provision of flour and 19 or 20 of rice and salt fish. The city, like the army, had been living on daily convoys from the south, and had no great central reserves of food. If he should sit down, like Palafox at Saragossa, to make an obstinate defence behind improvised works, he would be on the edge of starvation in less than three weeks. But such a defence was impossible in face of the spirit of the people, who looked upon Blake as the author of all their woes, regarded him as a tyrant as well as an imbecile, and were as likely to rise against him as to turn their energies to resisting the French. Palafox at Saragossa accomplished what he did because the spirit of the citizens was with him: Blake was despised as well as detested.

When he recovered his composure he called a council of war, which voted almost unanimously[58] that the city was indefensible, and that the army must try to cut its way out on the north side of the Guadalaviar. If the sally had been made on the 27th it might have succeeded, for it was not till late on that day that Suchet’s arrangements for the blockade of the north bank were complete. But the investing line had been linked up by the night of the 28th-29th, when Blake made his last stroke for safety. At six in the evening the field army issued from the gate of St. José and began to cross the bridge opposite it, the westernmost of the three of which the Spaniards were in possession. This led not to the great chaussée to Saguntum and Tortosa, which was known to have been cut and entrenched by the enemy, but to the by-road to Liria and the mountains. Lardizabal headed the march, Zayas followed, escorting the artillery and a considerable train, Miranda brought up the rear. Charles O’Donnell was left to man the walls with the urban guards and the ‘Reserve Division,’ and was given permission to capitulate whenever he should be attacked.

Lardizabal’s vanguard, under a Colonel Michelena, swerved from the Liria road soon after passing the Guadalaviar, in order to avoid French posts, and successfully got as far as the canal of Mestalla before it was discovered or checked. The canal was too broad to be passed by means of some beams and planks which had been brought up. But Michelena got his men across, partly by fording and partly over a mill-dam, and presently got to the village of Burjasort, where the artillery of Palombini’s division were quartered. These troops, surprised in the dark, could not stop him, and he pushed on through them and escaped to the hills with his little force—one squadron, one battalion, and some companies of Cazadores—some 500 or 600 men[59]. Lardizabal, who should have followed him without delay, halted at the canal, trying to build a bridge, till the French all along the line were alarmed by the firing at Burjasort and began to press in upon him. He opened fire instead of pushing on at all costs, and presently found himself opposed by forces of growing strength. Blake thereupon made up his mind that the sally had failed, and gave orders for the whole column to turn back and re-enter Valencia. It seems probable that at least a great part of the army might have got away, if an attempt had been made to push on in Michelena’s wake, for the blockading line was thin here, and only one French regiment seems to have been engaged in checking Lardizabal’s exit.

Be this as it may, the sortie had failed, and Blake was faced by complete ruin, being driven back with a disheartened army into a city incapable of defence against a regular siege, and short of provisions. Next morning the despair of the garrison was shown by the arrival of many deserters in the French camp. The inevitable end was delayed for only eleven days more. On January 1, most of the siege-guns having been brought across the Guadalaviar, Suchet opened trenches against two fronts of the entrenched camp, the fort of Monte Oliveto and the southern point of the suburb of San Vincente, both salient angles capable of being battered from both flanks. Seven batteries were built opposite them by January 4th, and the advanced works in front were pushed up to within fifty yards of the Spanish works. Thereupon Blake, before the siege-guns had actually opened, abandoned the whole of his entrenched camp on the next day, without any attempt at defence. The French discovering the evacuation, entered, and found eighty-one guns spiked in the batteries, and a considerable quantity of munitions.

Blake was now shut up in the narrow space of the city, whose walls were very unsuited for defence, and were easily approachable in many places under shelter of houses left undemolished, which gave cover only fifty yards from the ramparts. For no attempt had been made to clear a free space round the inner enceinte, in case the outer circuit of the camp should be lost. While fresh batteries were being built in the newly-captured ground, to breach the city wall, Suchet set all the mortars in his original works to throw bombs into Valencia. He gathered that the population was demoralized and probably the garrison also, and thought that a general bombardment of the place might bring about a surrender without further trouble. About a thousand shells were dropped into the city within twenty-four hours, and Suchet then (January 6th) sent a parlementaire to invite Blake to capitulate. The Captain-General replied magniloquently that ‘although yesterday morning he might have consented to treat for terms allowing his army to quit Valencia, in order to spare the inhabitants the horrors of a bombardment, now, after a day’s firing, he had learnt that he could rely on the magnanimity and resignation of the people. The Marshal might continue his operations if he pleased, and would bear the responsibility for so maltreating the place.’

As a matter of fact the bombardment had been very effective, numerous non-combatants had perished, and the spirit of the population was broken. Many openly pressed for a surrender, and only a few fanatical monks went round the streets exhorting the citizens to resistance. The bombardment continued on the 7th and 8th, and at the same time Suchet pushed approaches close to the walls, and in several places set his miners to work to tunnel under them. Actual assault was never necessary, for on the 8th Blake held a council of war, which voted for entering into negotiation with the enemy. The report of this meeting sets forth that ‘it had taken into consideration the sufferings of the people under these days of bombardment; the cry of the populace was that an end must be put to its misery; it was impossible to prolong the defence with any profit, without exposing the city to the horrors of an assault, in which the besiegers would probably succeed, considering the depressed condition of the garrison, and the feebleness of the walls. The citizens had not only failed to aid in the defence and to second the efforts of the regular troops, but were panic-stricken and demanded a surrender. The army itself did not seem disposed to do its duty, and after hearing the evidence of the commanders of different corps, the council decided in favour of negotiating to get honourable terms. If these were refused it might be necessary to continue a hopeless defence and die honourably among the ruins of Valencia[60].

It is probable that Blake would really have accepted any terms offered him as ‘honourable,’ for he assented to all that Suchet dictated to him. A feeble attempt to stipulate for a free departure for the field army, on condition that the city and all its armaments and resources were handed over intact, met with the curt refusal that it deserved. A simple capitulation with the honours of war was granted: one clause, however, was looked upon by Blake as somewhat of a concession, though it really was entirely to Suchet’s benefit. He offered to grant an exchange to so many of the garrison as should be equivalent man for man, to French prisoners from the dépôts in Majorca and Cabrera, where the unfortunate remnants of Dupont’s army were still in confinement. As this was not conceded by the Spanish government, the clause had no real effect in mitigating the fate of Blake’s army[61]. Other clauses in the capitulation declared that private property should be respected, and that no inquiry should be made after the surrender into the past conduct of persons who had taken an active part in the revolution of 1808, or the subsequent defence of the kingdom of Valencia: also that such civilians as chose might have three months in which to transport themselves, their families, and their goods to such destination as they pleased. These clauses, as we shall see, were violated by Suchet with the most shocking callousness and shameless want of respect for his written word.

On January 9 the citadel and the gate adjacent were handed over to the French; Blake (at his own request) was sent away straight to France, and did not remain to take part in the formal surrender of his troops and of the city. It would seem that he could not face the rage of the Valencians, and was only anxious to avoid even twenty-four hours of sojourn among them after the disaster. Napoleon affected to regard him as a traitor, though he had never done even a moment’s homage to Joseph Bonaparte in 1808, and shut him up in close captivity in the donjon of Vincennes, where he remained very uncomfortably lodged till the events of April 1814 set him free[62].

The total number of prisoners yielded up by Valencia was 16,270 regular troops, of whom some 1,500 were sick or wounded in the hospitals. The urban guards and armed peasants, who were supposed to be civilians covered by the amnesty article in the capitulation, are not counted in the total. The regulars marched out of the Serranos gate on January 10, and after laying down their arms and colours were sent prisoners to France, marching in two columns, under the escort of Pannetier’s brigade, to Saragossa. Twenty-one colours and no less than 374 cannon (mostly heavy guns in the defences) were given over, as also a very large store of ammunition and military effects, but very little food, which was already beginning to fail in the city when Blake surrendered.

To prevent unlicensed plunder Suchet did not allow his own troops to enter Valencia till January 14th, giving the civil authorities four days in which to make preparations for the coming in of the new régime. He was better received than might have been expected—apparently Blake’s maladroit dictatorship had thoroughly disgusted the people. Many of the magistrates bowed to the conqueror and took the oath of homage to King Joseph, and the aged archbishop emerged from the village where he had hidden himself for some time, and ‘showed himself animated by an excellent spirit’ according to the Marshal’s dispatch.

This prompt and tame submission did not save Valencia from dreadful treatment at the victor’s hands. Not only did he levy on the city and district a vast fine of 53,000,000 francs (over £2,120,000), of which 3,000,000 were sent to Madrid and the rest devoted to the profit of the Army of Aragon, but he proceeded to carry out a series of atrocities, which have been so little spoken of by historians that it would be difficult to credit them, if they were not avowed with pride in his own dispatches to Berthier and Napoleon.

The second article of Blake’s capitulation, already cited above, had granted a complete amnesty for past actions on the part of the Valencians—’Il ne sera fait aucune recherche pour le passé contre ceux qui auraient pris une part active à la guerre ou à la révolution,’ to quote the exact term. In his dispatch of January 12 to Berthier, Suchet is shameless enough to write: ‘I have disarmed the local militia: all guilty chiefs will be arrested, and all assassins punished; for in consenting to Article II of the Capitulation my only aim was to get the matter over quickly[63].’ ‘Guilty chiefs’ turned out to mean all civilians who had taken a prominent part in the defence of Valencia: ‘assassins’ was interpreted to cover guerrilleros of all sorts, not (as might perhaps have been expected) merely those persons who had taken part in the bloody riots against the French commercial community in 1808[64]. In his second dispatch of January 17 Suchet proceeds to explain that he has arrested 480 persons as ‘suspects,’ that a large number of guerrillero leaders have been found among them, who have been sent to the citadel and have been already shot, or will be in a few days. He has also arrested every monk in Valencia; 500 have been sent prisoners to France: five of the most guilty, convicted of having carried round the streets a so-called ‘banner of the faith,’ and of having preached against capitulation, and excited the people to resistance, have been already executed. Inquiries were still in progress. They resulted in the shooting of two more friars[65]. But the most astonishing clause in the dispatch is that ‘all those who took part in the murders of the French [in 1808] will be sought out and punished. Already six hundred have been executed by the firmness of the Spanish judge Marescot, whom I am expecting soon to meet[66].’ It was a trifling addition to the catalogue of Suchet’s doings that 350 students of the university, who had volunteered to aid the regular artillery during the late siege, had all been arrested and sent off to France like the monks. Two hundred sick or footsore prisoners who straggled from the marching column directed on Teruel and Saragossa are said to have been shot by the wayside[67]. It is probable that innumerable prisoners were put to death in cold blood after the capitulation of Valencia, in spite of Suchet’s guarantee that ‘no research should be made as to the past.’ Of this Napier says no word[68], though he quotes other parts of Suchet’s dispatches, and praises him for his ‘vigorous and prudent’ conduct, and his ‘care not to offend the citizens by violating their customs or shocking their religious feelings.’

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SECTION XXX: CHAPTER IV

SUCHET’S CONQUEST OF VALENCIA: SIDE-ISSUES AND CONSEQUENCES. JANUARY-MARCH 1812

When once Suchet’s long-deferred movements began, on December 26, 1812, his operations were so rapid and successful that the whole campaign was finished in fourteen days. The unexpected swiftness of his triumph had the result of rendering unnecessary the subsidiary operations which Napoleon had directed the Armies of Portugal, the Centre, and Andalusia, to carry out.

D’Armagnac, with his 3,000 men of the Army of the Centre, still lay at Cuenca when Suchet’s advance began, hindered from further movement by the badness of the roads and the weather. Opposite him were lying Bassecourt’s small force at Requeña—not 2,000 men—and the larger detachment of the Murcian army under Freire, which Blake had originally intended to draw down to join his main body. This seems to have consisted of some 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse[69] about the time of the New Year.

Far more important was the force under Montbrun, detached from the Army of Portugal, which had moved (all too tardily) from La Mancha and the banks of the Tagus, by Napoleon’s orders. Assembled, as we have already shown[70], only on December 29th, it had started from San Clemente on January 2 to march against Blake’s rear by the route of Almanza, the only one practicable for artillery at midwinter. Thus the expedition was only just getting under way when Suchet had already beaten Blake and thrust him into Valencia. It consisted of the infantry divisions of Foy and Sarrut, of the whole of the light cavalry of the Army of Portugal, and of five batteries of artillery, in all about 10,000 men. Of the succour which had been promised from d’Armagnac’s division, to raise the force to the figures of 12,000 men, few if any came to hand[71].

Montbrun marched with Sarrut and the cavalry by Albacete and Chinchilla, leaving Foy as a reserve échelon, to follow by slower stages and keep up the communication with La Mancha. Between Chinchilla and Almanza the advanced cavalry fell in with Freire’s Spanish division, marching across its front. For on the news of Suchet’s passage of the Guadalaviar on December 26, Freire had moved southward from his position on the Cabriel river, with the intention of joining Mahy, and so of building up a force strong enough to do something to succour Blake and the beleaguered garrison of Valencia. On January 6th Montbrun’s horse came upon one of Freire’s detachments, dispersed it, and took some prisoners. But the greater part of the Murcians succeeded in getting past, and in reaching Mahy at Alicante (January 9th).

So cowed was the country-side by the disasters about Valencia that Montbrun at Almanza succeeded in getting a letter carried by one of his staff to Valencia in two days[72]. It announced to Suchet his arrival on the rear of the Spanish army, and his intention of pressing on eastward so as to drive away Freire and Mahy and completely cut off the retreat of Blake towards Murcia. But when the dispatch was received Blake was already a prisoner, and his army had laid down its arms on the preceding day. Suchet, therefore, wrote a reply to Montbrun to thank him for his co-operation, to inform him that it was no longer necessary, and to advise him to return as quickly as possible toward the Army of Portugal and the Tagus, where his presence was now much more needed than on the coast of the Mediterranean. The Army of Aragon was strong enough to deal in due course with Mahy and Freire, and to take Alicante.

Montbrun, however, refused to accept this advice. He was probably, as his chief Marmont remarks, desirous of distinguishing himself by carrying out some brilliant enterprise as an independent commander[73]. Knowing that Mahy’s and Freire’s troops were in a very demoralized condition, and underrating the strength of the fortress of Alicante, he resolved to march against that place, which he thought would make little or no resistance. Accordingly he called forward Foy to Albacete and Chinchilla, left the main part of his guns in his charge, and marched on Alicante with the cavalry and Sarrut’s division, having only one battery of horse artillery with him.

At the news of his approach Mahy, who had been at Alcoy since he abandoned the line of the Nucar on December 27th, retired into Alicante with Creagh’s and Obispo’s infantry. Bassecourt also joined him there, while Freire with his own column, Villacampa’s division, and all the Murcian and Valencian cavalry, occupied Elche and other places in the neighbourhood. Over 6,000 regular infantry were within the walls of Alicante by January 15th. Montbrun on the following day drove Freire out of Elche westward, and presented himself in front of the new fortification of Alicante, which had been much improved during the last year, and included a new line of bastioned wall outside the old mediaeval enceinte and the rocky citadel. It is probable that Montbrun had no knowledge of the recent improvements to the fortress, and relied on old reports of its weakness. After advancing into the suburbs, and throwing a few useless shells into the place, whose artillery returned a heavy fire, he retreated by Elche and Hellin to Albacete[74]. As he went he laid waste the country-side in the most reckless fashion, and raised heavy requisitions of money in Elche, Hellin, and other places. This involved him in an angry correspondence with Suchet, who insisted that no commander but himself had a right to extort contributions in the region that fell into his sphere of operations.

Montbrun’s raid was clearly a misguided operation. Alicante was far too strong to be taken by escalade, when it was properly garrisoned: the only chance was that the garrison might flinch. They refused to do so, and the French general was left in an absurd position, demonstrating without siege-guns against a regular fortress. His action had two ill-effects—the first was that it concluded the Valencian campaign with a fiasco—a definite repulse which put heart into the Spaniards. The second (and more important) was that it separated him from Marmont and the Army of Portugal for ten days longer than was necessary. His chief had given him orders to be back on the Tagus by the 15th-20th of January, as his absence left the main body too weak. Owing to his late start he would in any case have overpassed these dates, even if he had started back from Almanza on January 13th, after receiving the news of the fall of Valencia. But by devoting nine days to an advance from Almanza to Alicante and then a retreat from Alicante to Albacete, he deferred his return to Castile by that space of time. He only reached Toledo on January 31st with his main column. Foy’s division, sent on ahead, arrived there on the 29th. Montbrun’s last marches were executed with wild speed, for he had received on the way letters of the most alarming kind from Marmont, informing him that Wellington had crossed the Agueda with his whole army and laid siege to Ciudad Rodrigo. The Army of Portugal must concentrate without delay. But by the time that Montbrun reached Toledo, Rodrigo had already been twelve days in the hands of the British general, and further haste was useless. The troops were absolutely worn out, and received with relief the order to halt and wait further directions, since they were too late to save the fallen fortress. It is fair to Montbrun to remark that, even if he had never made his raid on Alicante, he would still have been unable to help his chief. If he had turned back from Almanza on January 13th, he would have been at Toledo only on the 22nd—and that city is nearly 200 miles by road from Ciudad Rodrigo, which had fallen on the 19th. The disaster on the Agueda was attributable not to Montbrun’s presumptuous action, but to the Emperor’s orders that the Army of Portugal should make a great detachment for the Valencian campaign. Even if the raiding column had started earlier, as Napoleon intended, it could not have turned back till it got news of the capitulation of Blake, which only took place on January 8th. And whatever might then have been its exact position, it could not have been back in time to join Marmont in checking the operations of Wellington, which (as we have already stated) came to a successful end on January 19th. Wherefore, though Montbrun must receive blame, the responsibility for the fall of Rodrigo lay neither with him nor with Marmont, but with their great master.

Another diversion made by Napoleon’s orders for the purpose of aiding Suchet was quite as futile—though less from the fault of the original direction, and more from an unforeseen set of circumstances. Like Marmont and King Joseph, Soult had also been ordered to lend Suchet assistance against Valencia, by demonstrating from the side of Granada against Murcia and its army. This order, issued apparently about November 19, 1811[75]. and repeated on December 6th, reached the Duke of Dalmatia just when he had assembled all his disposable field-forces for the siege of Tarifa, an operation where preparations began on December 8th and which did not end till January 5th. Having concentrated 13,000 men in the extreme southern point of his viceroyalty, Soult had not a battalion to spare for a sally from its extreme eastern point. He could not give up a great enterprise already begun; and it was only when it had failed, and the troops from Tarifa were returning—in a sufficiently melancholy plight—that Soult could do anything. But by this time it was too late to help Suchet, who had finished his business without requiring assistance from without.

Whether Soult was already aware of the surrender of Valencia or not, when January 20th had arrived, he had before that day issued orders to his brother, the cavalry general, Pierre Soult, to take the light horse of the 4th Corps from Granada, and to execute with them a raid against Murcia, with the object of drawing off the attention of any Spanish troops left in that direction from Suchet. The General, with about 800 sabres, pushing on by Velez Rubio and Lorca, arrived before the gates of Murcia quite unopposed on January 25th. Freire had left no troops whatever to watch the borders of Granada, and had drawn off everything, save the garrison of Cartagena, toward the Valencian frontiers. Pierre Soult summoned the defenceless city, received its surrender, and imposed on it a ransom of 60,000 dollars. He entered next day, and established himself in the archbishop’s palace; having neither met nor heard of any enemy he was quite at his ease, and was sitting down to dine, when a wild rush of Spanish cavalry came sweeping down the street and cutting up his dispersed and dismounted troopers. This was General Martin La Carrera, whose brigade was the nearest force to Murcia when Soult arrived. Hearing that the French were guarding themselves ill, he had resolved to attempt a surprise, and, dividing his 800 men into three columns, assailed Murcia by three different gates. His own detachment cut its way in with success, did much damage, and nearly captured the French general. But neither of the other parties showed such resolution; they got bickering with the French at the entries of the city, failed to push home, and finally retired with small loss. The gallant and unfortunate La Carrera, charging up and down the streets in vain search for his reinforcements, was finally surrounded by superior numbers, and died fighting gallantly.

His enterprise warned Soult that Spanish troops were collecting in front of him, and indeed Villacampa’s infantry was not far off. Wherefore he evacuated Murcia next day, after raising so much of the contribution as he could, and plundering many private houses. The Spaniards reoccupied the place, and Joseph O’Donnell, now placed in command of the Murcian army in succession to Mahy, gave La Carrera’s corpse a splendid funeral. Soult retreated hastily to the Granadan frontier, pillaging Alcantarilla and Lorca by the way. This was the only part taken by the French Army of Andalusia in the January campaign of 1812. The siege of Tarifa had absorbed all its energies.

Montbrun’s and Pierre Soult’s enterprises had little effect on the general course of events in eastern Spain. It was Suchet’s own operations which, in the estimation of every observer from the Emperor downwards, were to be considered decisive. When Valencia had fallen, every one on the French side supposed that the war was practically at an end in this region, and that the dispersion of the remnants of Mahy’s and Freire’s troops and the capture of Peniscola, Alicante, and Cartagena,—the three fortresses still in Spanish hands,—were mere matters of detail. No one could have foreseen that the region south of the Xucar was destined to remain permanently in the hands of the patriots, and that Suchet’s occupation of Valencia was to last for no more than eighteen months. Two causes, neither of them depending on Suchet’s own responsibility, were destined to save the kingdom of Murcia and the southern region of Valencia from conquest. The first was Napoleon’s redistribution of his troops in eastern Spain, consequent on the approach of his war with Russia. The second was the sudden victorious onslaught of Wellington on the French in the western parts of the Peninsula. How the former of these causes worked must at once be shown—the effect of the latter cause did not become evident till a little later.

Of the 33,000 men with whom Suchet had conquered Valencia and captured Blake, no less than 13,000 under Reille had been lent him from the Army of the North, and were under orders to return to the Ebro as soon as possible. Indeed, till they should get back, Aragon, very insufficiently garrisoned by Caffarelli’s division, was out of hand, and almost as much in the power of the Empecinado, Duran, and Montijo, as of the French. Moreover, so long as Caffarelli was at Saragossa, and his troops dispersed in the surrounding region, both Navarre and Old Castile were undermanned, and the Army of the North was reduced to little more than Dorsenne’s two divisions of the Young Guard. To secure the troops for the great push against Valencia, so many divisions had shifted eastward, that Marmont and Dorsenne between them had, as the Emperor must have seen, barely troops enough in hand to maintain their position, if Wellington should make some unexpected move—though Napoleon had persuaded himself that such a move was improbable. In spite of this, he was anxious to draw back Reille’s and Caffarelli’s, no less than Montbrun’s, men to more central positions.

But this was not all: in December the Emperor’s dispatches begin to show that he regarded war with Russia in the spring of 1812 as decidedly probable, and that for this reason he was about to withdraw all the Imperial Guard from Spain. On December 15th a note to Berthier ordered all the light and heavy cavalry of the Guard—chasseurs, grenadiers à cheval, dragoons, Polish lancers—to be brought home, as also its horse artillery and the gendarmes d’élite. All these were serving in the Army of the North, and formed the best part of its mounted troops. This was but a trifling preliminary warning of his intentions: on January 14, 1812—the results of the Valencian campaign being still unknown—he directed Berthier to withdraw from Spain the whole of the Infantry of the Guard and the whole of the Polish regiments in Spain. This was an order of wide-spreading importance, and created large gaps in the muster-rolls of Suchet, Soult, and Dorsenne. Suchet’s Poles (three regiments of the Legion of the Vistula, nearly 6,000 men, including the detachments left in Aragon) formed a most important part of the 3rd Corps. Soult had the 4th, 6th, and 9th Polish regiments and the Lancers, who had done such good service at Albuera, a total of another 6,000 men. But Dorsenne was to be the greatest sufferer—he had in the Army of the North not only the 4th of the Vistula, some 1,500 bayonets, but the whole of the infantry of the Young Guard, the two divisions of Roguet and Dumoustier, twenty-two battalions over 14,000 strong. The dispatch of January 14 directed that Suchet should send off his battalions of the Legion ‘immediately after the fall of Valencia.’ Soult was to draft away his Poles ‘within twenty-four hours after the receipt of the order.’ Dorsenne, of course, could not begin to send off the Guard Divisions of infantry till the troops lent from the Army of the North (Reille and Caffarelli) were freed from the duties imposed on them by the Valencian expedition. A supplementary order of January 27th told him that he might keep them for some time longer if the English took the offensive—news of Wellington’s march on Rodrigo was just coming to hand. ‘Le désir,’ says the Emperor, ‘que j’ai d’avoir ma Garde n’est pas tellement pressant qu’il faille la renvoyer avant que les affaires aient pris une situation nouvelle dans le Nord[76].’ As a matter of fact some Guard-brigades did not get off till March, though by dint of rapid transport, when they had once passed the Pyrenees, they struggled to the front in time to take part in the opening of the great Russian campaign in June. The fourth brigade, eight battalions under Dumoustier, did not get away till the autumn was over.

Thus the Emperor had marked off about 27,000 good veteran troops for removal from the Peninsula, with the intention of using them in the oncoming Russian war. The Army of the North was to lose the best of its divisions—those of the South and of Aragon very heavy detachments. Nothing was to come in return, save a few drafts and bataillons de marche which were lying at Bayonne. The Emperor in his dispatch makes some curious self-justificatory remarks, to the effect that he should leave the Army of Spain stronger than it had been in the summer of 1811; for while he was withdrawing thirty-six battalions, he had sent into the Peninsula, since June last, forty-two battalions under Reille, Caffarelli, and Severoli. This was true enough: but if the total strength of the troops now dedicated to Spain was not less than it had been in June 1811, it was left weaker by 27,000 men than it had been in December 1811.

Now Suchet, when deprived of Reille’s aid, and at the same time directed to send back to France his six Polish battalions, was left with a very inadequate force in Valencia—not much more than half what he had at his disposition on January 1. It would seem that the Emperor overrated the effect of the capture of Blake and the destruction of his army. At any rate, in his dispatches to Suchet, he seemed to consider that the whole business in the East was practically completed by the triumph at the New Year. The Marshal was directed ‘to push an advanced guard towards Murcia, and put himself in communication with the 4th Corps—the eastern wing of Soult’s army—which would be found at Lorca[77].’ But the operations of the troops of the Army of Andalusia in this quarter were limited to the appearance for two days at Murcia of Pierre Soult’s small cavalry raid, of which Suchet got no news till it was passed and gone. He was left entirely to his own resources, and these were too small for any further advance: the Emperor not only took away both Reille and the Poles, but sent, a few days later, orders that Palombini’s Italian division, reduced by now to 3,000 men by its heavy casualties on December 26th, should be sent into southern Aragon against Duran and Montijo. The departure of Palombini (February 15th) left Suchet with less than 15,000 men in hand. It must be remembered that the conquest of a Spanish province always meant, for the French, the setting aside of a large immobilized garrison, to hold it down, unless it were to be permitted to drop back into insurrection. It was clear that with the bulk of the kingdom of Valencia to garrison, not to speak of the siege of the still intact fortress of Peniscola, Suchet would have an infinitesimal field-force left for the final move that would be needed, if Mahy and Freire were to be crushed, and Alicante and Cartagena—both strong places—to be beleaguered.

The Marshal had by the last week in January pushed Harispe’s division to Xativa, beyond the Xucar, and Habert’s to Gandia near the sea-coast. These 9,000 men were all his disposable force for a further advance: Valencia had to be garrisoned; Musnier’s division had gone north, to cover the high-road as far as Tortosa and the Ebro; some of the Italians were sent to besiege Peniscola. Suchet might, no doubt, have pushed Habert and Harispe further forward towards Alicante, but he had many reasons for not doing so. That fortress had been proved—by Montbrun’s raid—to be in a posture of defence: besides its garrison there were other Spanish troops in arms in the neighbourhood. To the forces of Freire, Obispo, Villacampa, and Bassecourt, there was added the newly-formed brigade of General Roche, an Irish officer lent by the British government to the Spaniards, who had been drilling and disciplining the cadres of the battalions handed over to him[78], till they were in a better condition than most of the other troops on this coast. The muster-rolls of the ‘united 2nd and 3rd armies,’ as these remnants were now officially styled, showed, on February 1, 1812, 14,000 men present, not including Villacampa’s division, which was moving off to its old haunts in Aragon. By March 1 this figure had risen to 18,000, many deserters who had gone home after the fall of Valencia having tardily rejoined the ranks of their battalions. Over 2,000 cavalry were included in the total—for nearly the whole of Blake’s squadrons had escaped (not too gloriously) after the disastrous combats on December 26, 1812.

If Suchet, therefore, had moved forward with a few thousand men at the end of January, he would have risked something, despite of the depressed morale of his enemies. But in addition there was vexatious news from Catalonia, which presently caused the sending of part of Musnier’s division beyond the Ebro, and it was reported (only too correctly) that the yellow fever had broken out with renewed violence at Murcia and Cartagena. An advance into the infected district might be hazardous. But most of all was any further initiative discouraged by the consideration that no help could be expected from Marmont or Soult. By the end of January Suchet was aware of Wellington’s invasion of Leon, and of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. Not only did this move absorb all the attention of Marmont, Dorsenne, and King Joseph, but Soult was convinced that it boded evil for him also, and that a new attack on Badajoz was imminent. Hill’s manœuvres in Estremadura (of which more elsewhere) attracted all his attention, and he let it be known that he had neither the wish nor the power to send expeditions eastward, to co-operate against Murcia. Last, but most conclusive, of all Suchet’s hindrances was a grave attack of illness, which threw him on a bed of sickness early in February, and caused him to solicit permission to return to France for his convalescence. The Emperor (with many flattering words) refused this leave, and sent two of his body physicians to Valencia to treat the Marshal’s ailment. But it was two months before Suchet was able to mount his horse, and put himself at the head of his army. From February to the beginning of April operations were necessarily suspended for the Army of Aragon, since its chief was not one of those who gladly hand over responsibility and the power of initiative to his subordinates.

Hence there was a long gap in the story of the war in south-eastern Spain from January to April 1812. The only events requiring notice during that period were the occupation by the French of Denia and Peniscola. The former, a little port on the projecting headland south of Valencia, was furnished with fortifications newly repaired during Blake’s régime, and had been an important centre of distribution for stores and munitions of war, after the Spaniards lost the Grao of Valencia in November, since it was the nearest harbour to their positions along the Guadalaviar. In the general panic after Blake’s surrender Mahy withdrew its garrison, but forgot to order the removal of its magazines. Harispe seized Denia on January 20, and found sixty guns mounted on its walls, and forty small merchant vessels, some of them laden with stores, in its port. He garrisoned the place, and fitted out some of the vessels as privateers. Mahy’s carelessness in abandoning these resources was one of the reasons which contributed most to his removal from command by the Cadiz Regency. It was indeed a gross piece of neglect, for at least the guns might have been destroyed, and the ships brought round to Alicante.

The story of Peniscola, however, was far more disgraceful. This fortress sometimes called ‘the little Gibraltar’ from its impregnable situation—it is a towering rock connected with the mainland by a narrow sand-spit 250 yards long—was one of the strongest places in all Spain. It had appeared so impregnable to Suchet, that, on his southward march from Tortosa to Valencia, he had merely masked it, and made no attempt to meddle with it[79]. Peniscola had suffered no molestation, and was regularly revictualled by Spanish and British coasting vessels from Alicante, Cartagena, and the Balearic Isles. The governor, Garcia Navarro, was an officer who had an excellent reputation for personal courage—taken prisoner at Falset in 1811[80] he had succeeded in escaping from a French prison and had reported himself again for further service. The garrison of 1,000 men was adequate for such a small place, and was composed of veteran troops. In directing it to be formally beleaguered after the fall of Valencia, Suchet seems to have relied more on the general demoralization caused by the annihilation of Blake’s army than on the strength of his means of attack. On January 20th he ordered Severoli with two Italian and two French battalions to press the place as far as was possible, and assigned to him part of the siege-train that had been used at Saguntum. The trenches, on the high ground of the mainland nearest the place, were opened on the 28th, and on the 31st the besiegers began to sap downhill towards the isthmus, and to erect five batteries on the best available points. But it was clear that the fortress was most inaccessible, and that to reach its walls across the low-lying sand-spit would be a very costly business.

Nevertheless, when a summons was sent in to the governor on February 2nd, he surrendered at once, getting in return terms of an unusually favourable kind—the men and officers of the garrison were given leave either to depart to their homes with all their personal property, or to enlist in the service of King Joseph. This was a piece of mere treachery: Navarro had made up his mind that the cause of Spain was ruined by Blake’s disaster, and had resolved to go over to the enemy, while there were still good terms to be got for deserters. As Suchet tells the story, the affair went as follows. A small vessel, sailing from Peniscola to Alicante, was taken by a privateer fitted out by Harispe at Denia. Among letters seized by the captors[81] was one from the governor, expressing his disgust with his situation, and in especial with the peremptory advice given him by the English naval officers who were in charge of the revictualling service and the communications. He went on to say that he would rather surrender Peniscola to the French than let it be treated as a British dependency, whereupon the Marshal asked, and obtained, the surrender of the place. Napier expresses a suspicion—probably a well-founded one—that the letter may have been really intended for Suchet’s own eye, and that the whole story was a piece of solemn deceit. ‘Such is the Marshal’s account of the affair—but the colour which he thought it necessary to give to a transaction so full of shame to Navarro, can only be considered as part of the price paid for Peniscola[82].’ The mental attitude of the traitor is sufficiently expressed by a letter which reached Suchet along with the capitulation. ‘I followed with zeal, with fury I may say, the side which I considered the just one. To-day I see that to render Spain less unhappy it is necessary for us all to unite under the King, and I make my offer to serve him with the same enthusiasm. Your excellency may be quite sure of me—I surrender a fortress fully provisioned and capable of a long defence—which is the best guarantee of the sincerity of my promise[83].’

The most astounding feature of the capitulation was that Navarro got his officers to consent to such a piece of open treachery. If they had done their duty, they would have arrested him, and sent him a prisoner to Alicante. Demoralization and despair must have gone very far in this miserable garrison.

The capture of Peniscola was Suchet’s last success. He fell sick not long after, and when he once more assumed the active command of his troops in April, the whole situation of French affairs in Spain was changed, and no further advance was possible. The results of Wellington’s offensive operations in the West had begun to make themselves felt.

Meanwhile the remains of the Valencian and Murcian armies were reorganizing themselves, with Alicante as their base and central port of supply. Joseph O’Donnell, though not a great general, was at least no worse than Blake and Mahy—of whom the former was certainly the most maladroit as well as the most unlucky of commanders, while the latter had shown himself too timid and resourceless to play out the apparently lost game that was left to his hand in January 1812. By March there was once more an army in face of the French, and in view of the sudden halt of the invaders and the cheerful news from the West, hope was once more permissible. The main body of O’Donnell’s army remained concentrated in front of Alicante, but Villacampa’s division had gone off early to Aragon, to aid in the diversion against Suchet’s communications, which was so constantly kept up by Duran and the Empecinado. This was a good move: the weak point of the French occupation was the impossibility of holding down broad mountain spaces, in which small garrisons were useless and helpless, while heavy columns could not live for more than a few days on any given spot.

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