AFFAIRS OF SPAIN.
The Russian campaign had operated favourably for the progress of the British arms in Spain. The catastrophe by which it was concluded not only prevented Napoleon from re-enforcing his marshals in Spain, But it also obliged him to recall the best of them; and among them Marshal Soult, whose generalship had cost Lord Wellington very serious thoughts. Still the French in Spain were formidable. Soult left behind him 70,000 men to oppose Wellington; and there was still an army, under Suchet, in the eastern provinces. At the opening of this year the French armies were thus disposed:—the army of Portugal, under General Reille, was in and around Valladolid; the army of the centre, under Drouet, was distributed round Madrid; and the army of the south was at Toledo. All these forces were under King Joseph, who was assisted by Marshal Jourdan; Generals Clausel and Foy commanded separate divisions in Aragon and Biscay. Against these forces Lord Wellington could only bring 63,000 British and Portuguese infantry and 6,000 cavalry, on whom he could rely; for, though measures had been taken to improve the Spanish troops, their slothfulness and indiscipline were evils which could not be suddenly remedied; and therefore his lordship did not expect great things from them. He commenced operations about the middle of May, making the allied army enter Spain in three separate bodies; the left under Sir Thomas Graham, the right under General Hill, and the centre under his own command. The French were alarmed; and on the 1st of June they were in full retreat before Graham. Subsequently the three divisions of the allied army united; and Wellington was also joined by the Spanish army from Galicia, and by a Spanish force from the south. Thus strengthened Lord Wellington advanced towards Madrid; and as he advanced Joseph Buonaparte again took refuge in flight. The French army retired to Burgos; but as Wellington approached they blew up the fortifications of the castle, and retreated to the Ebro. A strong garrison was thrown into the fortress of Pancoros, a little in advance of the river, and they conceived that they could defend this line; but Lord Wellington found out a new road through a rugged country, completely turned their position on the Ebro, and drove them back upon Vittoria, after a successful engagement at Osma. Lord Wellington still pursued them; and on the 21st of June he gained a complete victory over them on the plains of Vittoria. In this battle the enemy lost one hundred and fifty-one pieces of cannon, four hundred and fifteen waggons of ammunition, all their baggage, provisions, and treasures, with the French commander’s, Jourdan’s, baton of a marshal of France. Their loss in killed and wounded, according to their own statement, amounted to eight thousand men; while the total loss of the allies was seven hundred and forty killed, and four thousand one hundred and seventy-four wounded. The French army was, indeed, reduced to a total wreck; and they saved themselves from utter destruction only by abandoning the whole materiel of the army, and running away from the field of battle like an undisciplined mob. About one thousand were taken prisoners in their flight; but, lightened of their usual burdens, they ran with so much alacrity that it was generally impossible to overtake them. The spoils of the field also occupied and detained the troops of Wellington, they thinking more of the money and the wine than the flying foe. Lord Wellington, however, continued the pursuit; and on the 25th took the enemy’s only remaining gun. This victory was complete; and the battle of Vittoria was celebrated in England by illuminations and fêtes; while the Cortes, by an unanimous vote, decreed a territorial property to Lord Wellington, in testimony of the gratitude of the Spanish nation.
When the battle of Vittoria was fought General Clausel, with about 14,000 men, had commenced his march to support Joseph; but now changing his direction, he turned towards Logrono, and then to Saragossa, with the guerilla forces of Mina and Sau-chez hanging on his rear. As for Joseph he scarcely looked back before he reached the walls of Pamplona in Navarre. Joseph was admitted into its walls; but the fugitives from Vittoria were refused an entrance; and when they attempted to scale the walls they were fired upon by their own countrymen, as if they had been mortal foes; and they were compelled to continue their flight across the Pyrenees towards France. Subsequently General Clausel retreated by the central Pyrenees into France; and General Foy likewise, who was with another division of the French army at Bilboa, fell back rapidly upon French territory and the fortress of Bayonne. Except on the eastern coast, where Suchet was with about 40,000 men, there was not a spot in all Spain where the French dared show themselves. Lord Wellington, under these circumstances, turned his attention to the capture of some of the strongholds in which French garrisons were maintained. He established the blockade of Pamplona, and directed Graham to invest San Sebastian; and he then advanced with the main body of his army to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees from Roncesvalles to Irun, at the mouth of the Bidassoa. Early in July, having driven the enemy to his own soil, his sentinels looked down from the rugged frontier of Spain upon the lovely and fertile plains of France. In forty-five days he had conducted the allied army from the frontiers of Portugal to the Pyrenees; he had marched four hundred miles; had gained a great and complete victory; had driven the French through a country abounding in strong positions; had liberated Spain; and now stood as a conqueror upon the skirts of France.
The campaign was not yet over. Sensibly affected by this defeat of Jourdan, Napoleon immediately superseded that officer in the command, and appointed Soult to succeed him, with the title of Lieutenant-general of the empire. His directions were to re-equip the defeated troops, to gather formidable re-enforcements, to lead his masses speedily against Wellington, to clear the French frontier and the passes of the Pyrenees, relieve Pamplona and San Sebastian, and to drive the allied army behind the Ebro. Soult undertook to do all this; and having collected all manner of disposable forces, on the 13th of July he joined the disorganized fragments of Jourdan’s army. On his arrival he forthwith issued one of those boastful addresses for which the French emperor and his marshals had become celebrated. He remarked:—“I have borne testimony to the emperor of your bravery and zeal: his instructions are that you must drive the enemy from those heights, which enable them to look proudly down on our fertile valleys, and then chase them beyond the Ebro. It is on the Spanish soil that your tents must be pitched and your resources drawn. Let the account of our successes be dated from Vittoria, and let the fête-day of his majesty be celebrated in that city.” At this time Wellington’s attention was divided between the care of his army on the frontier of France and the siege of San Sebastian. He was returning from San Sebastian to his head-quarters on the night of the 17th of July, when he received intelligence that the great army of Soult, from 70,000 to 80,000 strong, was in rapid motion; that the French had overpowered his troops in two of the mountain passes on the right of the allied army; had penetrated into the valleys of the Pyrenees, and were pressing onwards for Pamplona. “We must do the best to stop them,” was the prompt reply; and stop them he did after a week’s almost incessant fighting. From the 25th of July to the 2nd of August a series of engagements took place, the result of which was the retreat of Soult from the Spanish frontiers into France, with a loss, in killed and prisoners, of nearly 20,000 men. In a private letter, just after the “battles of the Pyrenees,” Wellington wrote, “I never saw such fighting as we had here. It began on the 25th of Jury, and, excepting the 29th, when not a shot was fired, we had it every day till the 2nd of August. The battle of the 28th was fierce bludgeon work. The fourth division was principally engaged, and the loss of the enemy was immense. I hope Soult will not feel any inclination to renew his expedition. The French army must have suffered considerably. Between the 25th of last month and the 2nd of this they were engaged seriously not less than ten times, on many occasions in attacking very strong positions, in others beat from them or pursued. I understand their officers say they have lost 15,000 men: I thought so; but as they say so, I now think more. I believe we have about four thousand prisoners. It is strange enough that our diminution of strength up to the 31st did not exceed 1,500 men, although I believe our casualties are 6,000.” In his retreat Soult was closely followed by his adversaries; but, after meeting with severe loss, especially in crossing the Bidassoa, he conducted the main body of his army in safety to France. Lord Wellington at first designed to follow the enemy into his own country, but weighty considerations induced him to abandon this design; and the two armies therefore rested quiet in their respective positions. In the interval of repose efforts were made by the French to relieve San Sebastian; and these were met by an increased activity on the part of the allies to capture both, that place and Pamplona. In his attempt to relieve San Sebastian Soult was defeated by the Spanish troops alone, and the place was captured on the 8th of September, when the garrison, consisting of about 1,800 men, were made prisoners. On the 31st of October, also, the French in Pamplona, having lost all hope of relief, surrendered prisoners of war to Don Carlos de Espana, who had latterly commanded the blockading forces. But before the reduction of Pamplona Lord Wellington had called down part of his troops from the heights of the Pyrenees, and had led them forward a march or two on French ground. Early in October he took possession of the French hills of La Rhune; and on the 10th of November he called down the rest of the allied army, and began to descend into the valleys on the French side. Before taking this decisive step he told the officers and soldiers of the various nations that followed his standard, to remember that they were at war with France because the ruler of the French would not allow them to be at peace, and wanted to force them to submit to his yoke; and he exhorted them not to retaliate on the peaceable inhabitants of France the injuries that the soldiers of Napoleon had inflicted on their own countrymen. It was difficult to convince the Spanish and Portuguese troops that they ought not to retaliate upon the French; but the Portuguese at least attended to the exhortation. The admirable discipline maintained, indeed, the care bestowed to see that the property and persons of the French were protected, converted all around into friends, and they came flocking to the English camp with provisions and wine as to a friendly market. Men, women, and children, struck with admiration at their conduct, followed our troops and wished them success in their enterprise. In the meantime, Soult had retired to a strong position on the Nivelle, his right resting upon St. Jean de Luz, and his left upon Ainhoe. From this position he was driven on the 10th of November, and Lord Wellington established his head-quarters at St. Jean de Luz, on the right bank of the Nivelle, while the allies went into cantonments between the sea and the river Nive, where their extreme right rested on Cambo. The enemy guarded the right bank of the Nive from Bayonne to St. Jean Pied de Port; but Lord Wellington, being straitened for room and supplies for his army, resolved to cross the Nive, and occupy the country between that river and the Adour. This was effected, and the French were driven to Bayonne. Subsequently, during the month of December, Soult made several attempts to dislodge the British; but all his attacks were repulsed with great loss, and the French marshal finally drew off his troops in despair, and retired into his entrenched camp The allied army had also need of rest and re-enforcements, and it went into winter-quarters. The campaign of 1813, in which the troops of France had been taught the frail tenure of human fame, was terminated.
In the meantime, ill-success had attended the British arms on the eastern coast of the Peninsula. On the 3rd of June, General Sir John Murray had invested Tarragona, but after advancing his batteries against it he received reports that Suchet was marching from Valencia for its relief, and he immediately re-embarked his army, leaving his cannon in the batteries. General Murray was succeeded in his command in August by Lord William Bentinck, who resumed the siege of Tarragona, but it was abandoned on the approach of Suchet, and the French marshal entered the city, destroyed the works, withdrew the garrison, and retired towards Barcelona. At this time the state of affairs in Sicily, and the ill-success of political changes there, rendered it necessary for Lord Bentinck to repair thither, and the command devolved on Sir William Clinton; who as soon as arrangements could be made for restoring the works at Tarragona and supplying with provisions the Spanish troops attached to his command, fixed his head-quarters at Villa-franca With an inadequate force, Sir William had to prevent Suchet from following up his recent advantages, and so to occupy his attention, as to stop the succours which he might send to Soult.