AFFAIRS OF SPAIN.
After the battle of Corunna, the cause of Spain seemed wholly lost. The Austrian war, however, which broke out when Napoleon was in pursuit of Sir John Moore, operated as a grand diversion, favourable for the Peninsula, inasmuch as it distracted his attention, and obliged him to withdraw his imperial guards from Spain, and prevented him from sending re-enforcements to that country so quickly as he otherwise would have done. In the meantime King Joseph had, on the 23rd of January, re-entered Madrid. His party was increased by a considerable number of the Spanish people, who thought that a new order of things was necessary to resuscitate the Spanish monarchy. After the departure of Napoleon seven divisions of the French forces remained in Spain; Marshal Jourdan having the chief command, under the auspices of King Joseph. The war was continued with success, although with less vigour; but the Spanish nation only became more exasperated by every defeat, so that it was not subdued. On the other hand, the French, enraged by obstinate resistance, and more yet by the stratagems and assassinations compassed by the Spaniards, became daily more severe and cruel.
The spirit of the Spanish people is well exemplified in the siege of Saragossa. This siege had been formed anew before Napoleon returned to Paris, and it was carried on by the third and fifth corps, under Marshals Moncey and Mortier. The citizens of Saragossa prepared an internal system of defence, far more effectual than that of external fortification; transforming the city itself into one huge fortress, and coalescing with the troops in one energetic garrison. The French made but little progress until Marshal Lasnes took the command, and then the external defences of the city were quickly demolished. Saragossa itself, however, still defied all the efforts of the French. The war-cry was heard in all her streets, and every house became a fortress, and every church and convent a citadel, garrisoned by heroic men, resolved to die for its defence. The French had laboured and fought without intermission fifty days; they had crumbled the walls with their bullets, burst the convents with their mines, and carried the breaches with their bayonets; fighting above and beneath the surface of the earth, they had spared neither fire nor sword; their bravest men were falling in the obscurity of a subterranean warfare; famine pinched them; and Saragossa was still unconquered. Lasnes, however, persevered in his attempts to take the city, and at length he was successful. Discovering that a pestilence raged within the devoted city, that the living were unable to bury the dead, he ordered a general assault; and then, when one quarter of the city was laid waste, Saragossa was captured. The garrison were allowed to “march out with the honours of war,” to be sent prisoners to France, while the possession of their property and the exercise of their religion were guaranteed to the inhabitants.
The first burst of popular enthusiasm in Spain, however, was followed by a withering lethargy. Even with the assistance of Lord Collingwood and his fleet, with arms from Malta and Sicily, and with the regiments that had been released by the convention of Cintra, and which had by this time joined the patriots, the Spaniards were unable to prevent the capture of Rosas. After the fall of this place everything seemed to go wrong. Though in considerable force, the Spaniards dispersed whenever the enemy appeared, and although they were continually making application to the English for money, arms, and ammunition, they made no use of them when they were supplied. Their very navy was left to rot in the harbours of Cadiz and Carthagena, although money was advanced by the British government, and the assistance of its seamen offered to fit them out for sea. But for the co-operation of the British fleet Spain would have been, after the capture of Saragossa, easily conquered, for the Spaniards, though lions in their fortresses, acted like women in the field.
It was not the English fleet alone that defended Spain from the arms of the French. While that nation was thus on the verge of ruin, Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived in Portugal to take the command of the British army, which by re-enforcements amounted to 30,000 men. At this time, in April, the French had obtained possession of Ferrol, Bilboa, and all the most important places on the northern coast of Spain. Soult had even advanced into Portugal, and had taken possession of the city of Oporto. Sir Arthur Wellesley’s first business was to dislodge the French general from this place, and on the 11th of May Oporto fell into his hands. Soult retired by Amarante, with the intention of passing through Tras-os-Montes into Spain. He left behind him all his sick and wounded, with many prisoners, and much artillery and ammunition. Sir Arthur wrote to him, requesting that he would send some French medical officers to take care of his sick and wounded, as he could not spare his own army-surgeons, and as he did not wish to trust to the practitioners of the town of Oporto. It does not appear, however, that Soult was able to respond to his request, for there was murmurings and discontents, arising from defeat, among his troops; and besides this, the Portuguese peasantry mercilessly attacked the French in their retreat, cutting off great numbers of them. He was followed in his retreat by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and on the 16th of May he was overtaken at Salmonde, and a great many of his rearguard were either killed or taken prisoners. More would have been lost, but night favoured the retreat of the fugitives, and Soult finally gained the frontier of Spain. Sir Arthur Wellesley stopped his pursuit at Montealegre, a few miles from the frontier, and returned by Renairs, Braga, and S. Terso to Oporto. According to his letters, the rout of Soult was complete. He had lost everything, cannon, ammunition, baggage, and military-chest. The mountainous road through which he passed was indeed covered with dead horses and mules, and with the bodies of French soldiers, who were put to death by the peasantry before the British could come up to their rescue. The cruelty of the Portuguese peasantry, however, was provoked by the conduct of the French themselves. Sir Arthur Wellesley writes:—“Their soldiers have plundered and murdered the peasantry at their pleasure; and I have seen many persons hanging in the trees by the sides of the road, executed for no other reason, that I could learn, excepting that they have not been friendly to the French invasion and usurpation of the government of their country; and the route of their column on their retreat could be traced by the smoke of the villages to which they set fire.” These horrible scenes occurred in all the subsequent retrograde movements of the French: before them, the countries through which they passed were lovely as the garden of Eden—behind them they were desolate as the wilderness.
GEORGE III. 1809—1812