Catalonia. (Sept. 1813.)
While Wellington was thus victorious in Navarre, Lord W. Bentinck, having reorganized Murray’s army at Alicant, was pushing the war in Catalonia; for to that province Suchet retired after the battle of Vittoria, relinquishing Valencia and Aragon, though he knew Clausel was at Zaragoza. But in every way his determination to act independently, however injurious it might prove to the emperor’s interest, was apparent. Had he joined Clausel, forty-five thousand men, well based on fortresses, would have menaced Wellington’s right flank when Soult took the command: neither Sebastian nor Pampeluna could then have been invested, and Soult’s recent defeats would have been spared.
Lord William Bentinck had command of the Spanish armies as well as his own, and Lord Wellington had planned a cautious scheme for renewed operations, with reference to his own position in the Pyrenees: but Lord William, whose thoughts were running on Sicily and an invasion of Italy, pushed headlong into Catalonia, and though a brave and able man he did not meet with much success. Having passed the Ebro late in July, leaving the fortress of Tortoza behind him, he on the 30th sat down before Tarragona with his own and Del Parque’s armies.
Up to this time the Spaniards, giving copious but false information to Lord William, and none to Suchet, had induced a series of errors on both sides. The Englishman thinking his adversary weak had pressed forwards rashly; the Frenchman, deeming the other’s boldness the result of strength, thought himself weak, and awaited reinforcements from Upper Catalonia. Suchet first recognised his own superior force, and advanced on the 16th of August to attack with thirty thousand men; and then Lord William, also discovering the true state of affairs, refused the battle he had provoked and retired. He had indeed equal numbers, yet of a quality not to be put in competition with his opponents.
During the retreat, his brother, Lord Frederick, being on the left, defeated the French hussars with a loss of fifty men, and it was said either General Habert or Harispe was taken but escaped in the confusion. This checked the enemy, and in the mountains above Tortoza the allies halted. Suchet would not assail them there, but he destroyed the works of Tarragona and took a permanent position behind the Llobregat, thus giving up the fertile Campo de Tarragona, allowing the allies to invest Tortoza, and isolating himself entirely from the operations in Navarre, where he might have decided the war. Seeing this timidity, Lord William again moved forward, but again misled by false information, detached Del Parque’s army by the way of Tudela to Navarre: meanwhile going himself beyond Tarragona to Villa Franca, he placed Colonel Adam with twelve hundred men ten miles in advance, at the strong pass of Ordal.
In this position, having lost Del Parque’s army, and left Whittingham’s Spanish division in the rear for the sake of subsistence, Lord William was exposed to a formidable attack from Suchet, who had more than thirty thousand men on the Llobregat, a few miles off. But he could only be approached on two lines—one in front, from Molino del Rey, by the royal road; the other on his left by Martorel and San Sadurni. The first he blocked with Adam’s corps, at Ordal, which he now reinforced with three battalions and a squadron of Spanish cavalry; the second, a rugged and difficult way, he guarded by two Catalan corps under Eroles and Manso, reinforced with a Calabrese battalion: there was indeed a third line on his right by Avionet, but it was little better than a goat-path.
He had designed to push his main body close to Ordal on the evening of the 12th, yet from some slight cause, and in war slight causes often determine the fate of nations, he delayed it until next day. Meanwhile he viewed the country in front of that defile without discovering an enemy, his confidential emissaries assured him the French were not going to advance, and he so expressed himself to Adam on his return. A report of a contrary tendency was made by Colonel Reeves of the 27th, on the authority of a Spanish woman who had before proved her accuracy and ability as a spy, but she was now disbelieved: this incredulity was unfortunate. Suchet thus braved, and his communication with Lerida threatened by Manso on the side of Martorel, was in person actually marching to attack Ordal, and Decaen and Maurice Mathieu were turning the left by San Sadurni.