History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER I.

The uninterrupted success that for so many years attended the arms of Napoleon, gave him a moral influence doubling his actual force. Exciting at once terror, admiration, and hatred, he absorbed the whole attention of an astonished world, and openly or secretly all men acknowledged the power of his wonderful genius. The continent bowed before him, and even in England an increasing number of absurd and virulent libels on his person and character indicated the growth of secret fear. His proceedings against the Peninsula were, in truth, viewed at first with anxiety rather than with the hope of arresting their progress; yet when the full extent of the injustice became manifest, the public mind was vehemently excited, and a sentiment of some extraordinary change being about to take place in the affairs of the world prevailed among all classes of society; suddenly the Spanish people rose against the man that all feared; and the admiration which energy and courage exact, even from the base and timid, became enthusiastic in a nation conscious of the same virtues.

No factious feelings interfered to check this enthusiasm: the party in power, anxious to pursue a warlike system necessary to their own political existence, saw with joy that the stamp of justice and high feeling would, for the first time, be affixed to their policy. The party out of power having always derided the impotence of the ancient dynasties, and asserted that regular armies alone were insufficient means of defence, could not consistently refuse their approbation to a struggle originating with, and carried on entirely by the Spanish multitude. The people at large exulted that the manifest superiority of plebeian virtue and patriotism was acknowledged.

The arrival of the Asturian deputies was, therefore, universally hailed as an auspicious event. Their wishes were forestalled, their suggestions were attended to with eagerness; their demands were so readily complied with, and the riches of England were so profusely tendered to them by the ministers, that it can scarcely be doubted that the after arrogance and extravagance of the Spaniards arose from the manner in which their first applications were met; for there is a way of conferring a favour that appears like accepting one: and this secret being discovered by the English cabinet, the Spaniards soon demanded as a right what they had at first solicited as a boon. In politics it is a grievous fault to be too generous; gratitude, in state affairs, is unknown; and as the appearance of disinterested kindness never deceives, it should never be assumed.

The capture of the Spanish frigates had placed Great Britain and Spain in a state of hostility without a declaration of war. The invasion of Napoleon produced a friendly alliance between those countries without a declaration of peace, for the cessation of hostilities was not proclaimed until long after succours had been sent to the juntas.

The ministers seemed, by their precipitate measures, to be more afraid of losing the assistance of the Spaniards than prepared to take the lead in a contest which could only be supported by the power and riches of Great Britain. Instead of adopting a simple and decisive policy towards Spain, instead of sending a statesman of high rank and acknowledged capacity to sustain the insurrection, and to establish the influence of England by a judicious application of money and other supplies, the ministers employed a number of obscure men in various parts of the Peninsula who, without any experience of public affairs, were empowered to distribute succours of all kinds at their own discretion. Instead of sifting carefully the information obtained from such agents, and consulting distinguished military and naval officers in the arrangement of some comprehensive plan of operations which, being well understood by those who were to execute it, might be supported vigorously, the ministers formed crude projects, and parcelled out the forces in small expeditions, without any definite object in view, altering their plans with every idle report, and changing the commanders as lightly as the plans.

Entering into formal relations with every knot of Spanish politicians that assumed the title of a supreme junta, the government dealt with unsparing hands enormous supplies at the demand of those self-elected authorities, yet took no assurance that the succours should be justly applied, but, with affected earnestness, disclaimed all intention of interfering with the internal arrangements of the Spaniards, when the Mr. Stuart’s Letters.
Lord W. Bentinck’s ditto. ablest men of Spain expected and wished for such an interference to repress the folly and violence of their countrymen, and when England was entitled, both in policy and justice, not only to interfere, but to direct the councils of the insurgents. The latter had solicited and obtained her assistance; the cause was become common to both nations, and their welfare demanded, that a prudent, just, and vigorous interference on the part of the most powerful and enlightened, should prevent that cause from being ruined by a few ignorant and conceited men, accidentally invested with authority.

The numbers and injudicious choice of military agents were also the source of infinite mischief; Vide Instructions for sir Thos. Dyer, &c. &c.
Parliamentary Papers, 1809. selected, as it would appear, principally because of their acquaintance with the Spanish language; few of those agents had any knowledge of war beyond the ordinary duties of a regiment; there was no concert among them, for there was no controlling power vested in any, but each did that which seemed good to him. Readily affecting to consult men whose inexperience rendered them amenable, and whose friendship could supply the means of advancing their own interests in a disorganised state of society, the Spanish generals received the agents with a flattering and confidential politeness, that diverted the attention of the latter from the true objects of their mission. Instead of ascertaining the real numbers and efficiency of the armies, they adopted the inflated language and extravagant opinions of the chiefs, with whom they lived; and their reports gave birth to most erroneous notions of the relative strength and situation of the contending forces in the Peninsula. Some exceptions there were; but the ministers seemed to be better pleased with the sanguine than with the cautious, and made their own wishes the measure of their judgments. Accordingly, enthusiasm, numbers, courage, and talent, were gratuitously found for every occasion; but money, arms, and clothing, were demanded incessantly, and supplied with profusion; the arms were, however, generally left in their cases to rot, or to fall into the hands of the enemy; the clothing seldom reached the soldier’s back, and the money, in all instances misapplied, was in some, embezzled [Appendix, No. 13], Section 5th. by the authorities, into whose hands it fell, and in others employed to create disunion, and to forward the private views of the juntas, at the expense of the public welfare. It is a curious fact, that from the beginning to the end of the war, an English musket was rarely to be seen in the hands of a Spanish soldier. But it is time to quit this subject, and to trace the progress of Junot’s invasion of Portugal, that the whole circle of operations in the Peninsula being completed, the reader may take a general view of the situation of all parties, at the moment when sir Arthur Wellesley, disembarking at the Mondego, commenced those campaigns which form the proper subject of this history.

INVASION OF PORTUGAL BY JUNOT.

Peremptory orders obliged Junot to commence operations at an unfavourable time of year, and before his preparations were completed. In his front the roads were nearly impracticable, and a part of his troops were still in the rear of Salamanca. Hence, Thiebault. his march from that town to Alcantara (where he effected his junction in the latter end of November, with the part of the Spanish force that was to act under his immediate orders) was very disastrous, and nearly disorganized his inexperienced army.

The succours he expected to receive at Alcantara were not furnished, and the repugnance of the Spanish authorities to aid him, was the cause of so much embarrassment, that his chief officers doubted the propriety of continuing operations under the accumulating difficulties of his situation; but Junot’s firmness was unabated. He knew that no English force had landed at Lisbon, and the cowardice of the Portuguese court was notorious. Encouraged by these considerations, he undertook one of those hardy enterprises which astound the mind by their success, and leave the historian in doubt if he should praise the happy daring, or stigmatise the rashness of the deed.

Without money, without transport, without ammunition sufficient for a general action, with an auxiliary force of Spaniards by no means well disposed to aid him, Junot, at the head of a raw army, penetrated the mountains of Portugal on the most dangerous and difficult line by which that country can be invaded. He was ignorant of what was passing in the interior; he knew not if he was to be opposed, nor what means were prepared to resist him; but trusting to the inertness of the Portuguese government, to the rapidity of his own movements, and to the renown of the French arms, he made his way through Lower Beira, and suddenly appeared in the town of Abrantes, a fearful and unexpected guest. There he obtained the first information of the true state of affairs. Lisbon was tranquil, and the Portuguese fleet was ready to sail, but the court still remained on shore. On hearing this, Junot, animated by the prospect of seizing the prince regent, pressed forward, and reached Lisbon in time to see the fleet, having the royal family on board, clearing the Thiebault. mouth of the Tagus. One vessel dragged astern within reach of a battery, the French general himself fired a gun at her; and on his return to Lisbon, meeting some Portuguese troops, he resolutely commanded them to form an escort for his person, and thus attended, passed through the streets of the capital. Nature alone had opposed his progress; yet such were the hardships his army had endured, that of a column which had numbered twenty-five thousand in its ranks, two thousand tired grenadiers only entered Lisbon with their general; fatigue, and want, and tempests, had scattered the remainder along two hundred miles of rugged mountains, inhabited by a warlike and ferocious peasantry, well acquainted with the strength of their fastnesses, and proud of many successful defences made by their fore-fathers against former invaders. Lisbon itself contained three hundred thousand inhabitants, and fourteen thousand regular troops were collected there. A powerful British fleet was at the mouth of the harbour; the commander, sir Sydney Smith, had urged the court to resist, and offered to land his seamen and marines to aid in the defence of the town; but his offers were declined; and the people, disgusted with the pusillanimous conduct of their rulers, and confounded by the strangeness of the scene, evinced no desire to impede the march of events. Thus three weak battalions sufficed to impose a foreign yoke upon this great capital, and illustrated the truth of Napoleon’s maxim:—that in war the moral is to the physical force as three parts to one.

The prince regent, after having at the desire of the French government, expelled the British factory, ordered the British minister plenipotentiary away from his court, sequestered British property, and shut the ports of Portugal against British merchants; after having degraded himself and his nation by performing every submissive act which France could devise to insult his weakness, was still reluctant to forego the base tenure by which he hoped to hold his crown. Alternately swayed by fear and indolence, a miserable example of helpless folly, he lingered until the reception of a Moniteur, announcing that “the house of Braganza had ceased to reign,” awoke all the energy he was capable of. At that time lord Strangford, the British minister plenipotentiary, had resigned all hope of persuading the royal family to emigrate; but sir Sydney Smith, seizing the favourable moment, threatened to commence hostilities if the emigration should be longer delayed; and thus urged, the prince regent of Portugal, the old queen his mother, and the rest of the royal family, had embarked on the 27th; and quitting the Tagus on the 29th of November[9], sailed for the Brazils, a few hours only before Junot arrived with his slight escort of grenadiers.

This celebrated emigration was beneficial to the Brazils in the highest degree, and of vast importance to England in two ways, for it ensured great commercial advantages, and it threw Portugal completely into her power in the approaching conflict; but it was disgraceful to the prince, insulting to the brave people he abandoned, and impolitic, inasmuch as it obliged men to inquire how far subjects were bound to a monarch who deserted them in their need? how far the nation could belong to a man who did not belong to the nation?

It has been observed by political economists, that where a gold and paper currency circulate together, if the paper be depreciated it will drag down the gold with it, and deteriorate the whole mass; but that after a time, the metal revolts from this unnatural state, and asserts its own intrinsic superiority. So a privileged class, corrupted by power and luxury, drags down the national character; but there is a point when the people, like the gold, no longer suffering such a degradation, will separate themselves with violence from the vices of their effeminate rulers. Before that time arrives a nation may appear to be sunk in hopeless lethargy, when it is really capable of great and noble exertions. Thus it was with the Portuguese, who were at this time unjustly despised by enemies, and mistrusted by friends.

Thiebault.
Foy.

The invading army, in pursuance of the convention of Fontainebleau, was divided into three corps; the central one, composed of the French troops, and a Spanish division, under general Caraffa, had penetrated by the two roads, which from Alcantara lead, the one by Pedragoa, the other by Sobreira Formosa; but at Abrantes, Caraffa’s division separated from the French, and took possession of Thomar. Meanwhile the right, under general Taranco, marching from Gallicia established themselves at Oporto, and the marquis of Solano, with the left, entered the Alemtejo, and fixed his quarters at Setuval. The Spanish troops did not suffer on their route; but such had been the distress of the French army, that three weeks afterwards it could only muster ten thousand men under arms, and the privations encountered on the march led to excesses which first produced that rancorous spirit of mutual hatred, so remarkable between the French and Portuguese. Young soldiers always attribute their sufferings to the ill-will of the inhabitants; it is difficult to make them understand that a poor peasantry have nothing to spare; old soldiers, on the contrary, blame nobody, but know how to extract subsistence in most cases without exciting enmity.

Junot passed the month of December in collecting his army, securing the great military points about Lisbon, and in preparations to supplant the power of a council of regency, to whom the prince at his departure had delegated the sovereign authority. As long as the French troops were scattered on the line of march, and that the fortresses were held by Portuguese garrisons, it would have been dangerous to provoke the enmity, or to excite the activity of this council, and the members were treated with studious respect; but they were of the same leaven as the court they emanated from, and the quick resolute proceedings of Junot soon deprived them of any importance conferred by the critical situation of affairs during the first three weeks.

The Spanish auxiliary forces were well received in the north and in the Alemtejo; but general Taranco dying soon after his arrival at Oporto, the French general Quesnel was sent to command that province. Junot had early taken possession of Elvas, and detached general Maurin to the Algarves, with sixteen Return of the French army. [Appendix, No. 28.] hundred men; and, when Solano was ordered by his court to withdraw from Portugal, nine French battalions and the cavalry, under the command of Kellerman, took possession of the Alemtejo also, and occupied the fortress of Setuval. At the same time Junot replaced Caraffa’s division at Thomar by a French force, and distributed the former in small bodies, at a considerable distance from each other, on both sides of the Tagus, immediately round Lisbon.

Foy.

The provisions of the treaty of Fontainebleau were unknown to the Portuguese, a circumstance that procured the Spanish troops a better reception than the French; but that treaty was now no longer regarded by Junot, whose conduct plainly discovered that he considered Portugal to be a possession entirely belonging to France.

When all his stragglers were come up, his army recovered from its fatigues, and that he knew that a reinforcement of five thousand men had arrived at Salamanca on its march to Lisbon, Junot proceeded more openly to assume the chief authority; he commenced Ibid.
Thiebault. by exacting a forced loan of two hundred thousand pounds, and not only interfered with the different departments of state, but put Frenchmen into all the lucrative offices; and his promises and protestations of amity became loud and frequent in proportion to his encroachments and the increase of his power. At last being created by Napoleon duke of Abrantes, he threw off all disguise, suppressed the council of regency, seized the reins of government himself, and while he established many useful regulations, made the nation sensibly alive to the fact that he was a despotic conqueror.

The flag and the arms of Portugal were replaced by those of France; and of the Portuguese army, eight thousand men were selected and sent from the kingdom, under the command of the marquis d’Alorna and Gomez Frere, two noblemen of the greatest reputation for military talent among the native officers. Five thousand more were attached to the divisions of Junot’s army, and the rest were disbanded.

An extraordinary contribution of four millions sterling, decreed by Napoleon, was then demanded, under the curious title of a ransom for the state; this sum was exorbitant, and Junot prevailed on the emperor Thiebault. to reduce it one half. He likewise on his own authority accepted the forced loan, the confiscated English merchandise, the church plate, and the royal property, in part payment; but the people were still unable to raise the whole amount, for the court had Foy. before taken the greatest part of the church plate and bullion of the kingdom, and had also drawn large sums from the people, under the pretext of defending the country, with which treasure they departed, leaving the public functionaries, the army, private creditors, and even domestic servants, unpaid.

But although great discontent and misery prevailed, the tranquillity of Lisbon, during the first month after the arrival of the French, was remarkable; no disturbance took place, the populace were completely controlled by the activity of a police, established under the prince regent’s government by the count de Novion, a French emigrant, and continued by Junot on an extended scale.

No capital city in Europe suffers so much as Lisbon from the want of good police regulations, and the French general conferred an unmixed benefit on the inhabitants by giving more effect to Novion’s plans; yet so deeply rooted is the prejudice in favour of ancient customs, that no act of the duke of Abrantes gave the Portuguese more offence than his having the streets cleansed, and the wild dogs (that infested them by thousands) killed. A French serjeant, distinguished by his zeal in destroying those disgusting and dangerous animals, was in revenge assassinated.

Thiebault.

In the course of March and April, Junot’s military system was completed; the arsenal of Lisbon, one of the finest establishments of the kind in Europe, contained all kinds of naval and military stores in abundance, and ten thousand excellent workmen in every branch of business appertaining to war; hence the artillery, the carriages, the ammunition, and all the minor equipments of the army, were soon renewed and put in the best possible condition, and the hulks of two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, and seven lighter vessels of war, were refitted, armed, and moored across the river to defend the entrance, and to awe the town. The army itself, perfectly recovered from its fatigues, reinforced, and better disciplined, was grown confident in its chief from the success of the invasion, and being well fed and clothed, was become a fine body of robust men, capable of any exertion. In March it was re-organized in three divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. General La Borde commanded the first, general Loison the second, general Travot the third, general Margaron the fourth, and general Taviel directed the artillery. General Kellerman commanded in the Alemtejo, general Quesnel at Oporto, general Maurin in the Algarves, and Junot himself in Lisbon.

The fortresses of Faro in Algarve, of Almeida, of Elvas, La Lippe, St. Lucie, Setuval, Palmela, and those between Lisbon and the mouth of the Tagus, of Ericia and Peniché, were furnished with French garrisons; and Estremos, Aldea-Gallegos, Santarem, and Abrantes were occupied, and put in such a state of defence as their decayed ramparts would permit.

Return of the French army. [Appendix, No. 28.]

The whole army, including the French workmen and marines attached to it, amounted to above fifty thousand men, of which above forty-four thousand were fit for duty; that is to say, fifteen thousand five hundred Spaniards, five thousand Portuguese, and twenty-four thousand four hundred French.

Of the latter 1000 were in Elvas and La Lippe,
1000 in Almeida,
1000 in Peniché,
1600 in the Algarves,
2892 in Setuval,
750 in Abrantes,
450 cavalry were kept in Valencia
d’Alcantara, in Spanish Estremadura,
and 350 distributed in the proportion of

fifteen men to a post, guarded the lines of communication which were established from Lisbon to Elvas, and from Almeida to Coimbra. Above fifteen thousand men remained disposable.

Thus Lisbon, the capital, containing all the civil, military, and naval, and the greatest part of the commercial establishments, the only fine harbour, two-eighths of the population, and two-thirds of the riches of the whole kingdom, was secured by the main body, which formed the centre, while on the circumference a number of strong posts gave support to the operations of the moveable column. By this disposition, the garrison of Peniché commanded the only harbour between the Tagus and the Mondego, in which a large disembarkation of English troops could take place; and the little port of Figueras, which was held by a small garrison, blocked the mouth of the latter river; while the division at Thomar secured all the great lines of communication to the north-east, and in conjunction with the garrison of Abrantes, commanded both sides of the Zezere.

From Abrantes to Estremos and Elvas, and from the former to Setuval, the lines of communication were short, and through an open country, suitable for the operations of the cavalry, which was all quartered on the south bank of the Tagus. Thus, without breaking up the mass of the army, the harbours were sealed against the English, and a great and rich tract was enclosed by posts, and rendered so pervious to the troops, that any insurrection could be reached by a few marches, and immediately crushed. The connexion between the right and left banks of the Tagus at Lisbon was secured, and the entrance to the port defended by the vessels of war which had been refitted and armed. A light squadron was also prepared to communicate with South America, and nine Russian line of battle ships, and a frigate under the command of admiral Siniavin, which had taken refuge some time before from the English fleet, were of necessity engaged in the defence of the harbour, and formed an unwilling, but not an unimportant auxiliary force.

These military arrangements were Junot’s own, and suitable enough if his army had been unconnected with any other; but they clashed with the general views of Napoleon, who regarded the force in Portugal only as a division of troops, to be rendered subservient to the general scheme of subjecting the Peninsula; wherefore, in the month of May, he ordered that general Avril, with three thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and ten guns, should co-operate with Dupont in Andalusia, and that general Loison, with four thousand infantry, should proceed to Almeida, and from thence co-operate with Bessieres in the event of an insurrection taking place in Spain.

General Thiebault complains of this order as injurious to Junot, ill combined, and the result of a foolish vanity that prompted the emperor to direct all the armies himself; yet it would be difficult to show that the arrangement was faulty. Avril’s division, if he had not halted at Tavora, for which there was no reason, would have ensured the capture of Seville, and if Dupont’s defeat had not rendered the victory of Rio Seco useless, Loison’s division would have been eminently useful in controlling the country behind Bessieres, in case the latter invaded Gallicia; and it was well placed to intercept the communication between the Castilian and the Estremaduran armies. Thus the emperor’s combinations, if they had been fully executed, would have brought seventy thousand men to bear on the defence of Portugal.

Such was the military attitude of the French in May; their political situation was far from being so favourable. Junot’s natural capacity was very considerable; but it was neither enlarged by study, nor Napoleon in Las Casas. strengthened by mental discipline. Of intemperate Foy. habits, indolent in business, yet prompt and brave in action, quick to give offence, ready to forget an injury; at one moment a great man, the next below mediocrity, Junot was at all times unsuited to the task of conciliating and governing a people like the Portuguese, who, with passions as sudden and vehement as his own, retain a sense of injury or insult with incredible tenacity; otherwise, although he had many difficulties to encounter, and his duty towards France was in some instances incompatible with good policy towards Portugal, he was not without resources for establishing a strong French interest. But he possessed neither the ability nor disposition to soothe a nation that, without having suffered a defeat, was suddenly bowed to a foreign yoke.

The pride and the poverty of the Portuguese, and the influence of ancient usages, interfered with Junot’s policy. The monks and friars, and most of the nobility, were inimical to his sway; and all the activity of the expelled British factory, and the secret warfare of spies and writers in the pay of England, were directed to undermine his plans, and to render him and his nation odious; but on the other hand, he was in possession of the government and of the capital, he had a fine army, and he could offer novelty so dear to the multitude, and he had the name and the fame of Napoleon to assist him. The promises of power are always believed by the many; and there were abundance of grievances to remedy, and wrongs to redress in Portugal. And such a strong feeling existed among the best educated men (and especially at the universities) of dislike to the Braganza family, and in favour of a reformed system, that steps were actually Foy. taken to have prince Eugene declared king of Portugal; and we shall find hereafter, that this spirit was not extinguished at a much later date.

With these materials, and the military vanity of the Portuguese to work upon, Junot might have established a powerful French interest; and under an active government, the people would not long have regretted the loss of an independence that had no wholesome breathing amidst the corrupt stagnation of the old system. But the arrogance of a conqueror, and the necessities of an army, which was to be subsisted and paid by an impoverished people, soon gave rise to all kinds of oppression; private abuses followed close upon the heels of public rapacity, and insolence left its sting to rankle in the wounds of the injured. The malignant humours broke out in quarrels and assassinations, and the severe punishments that ensued, many of them unjust and barbarous in the highest degree, created rage, not terror; for the nation had not tried its strength in battle, and would not believe that it was weak.

Thiebault.

The ports were rigorously blockaded by the English fleet, the troubles in Spain interrupted the commerce in grain, by which Portugal had been usually supplied from that country, and the unhappy people suffered under the triple pressure of famine, war-contributions, and a foreign yoke. With all external aliment thus cut off, and a hungry army gnawing at its vitals, the nation could not remain tranquil; and although the first five months of Junot’s government was, with the exception of a slight tumult at Lisbon (when the arms of Portugal were taken down), undisturbed by commotion, the whole country was soon ripe for a general insurrection. The harvest, however, proved remarkably fine, and Junot hailed the prospect of returning plenty, as a relief from his principal difficulty; but as one danger disappeared, another presented itself. The Spanish insurrection excited the hopes of the Portuguese; agents from the neighbouring juntas communicated secretly with the Spanish generals in Portugal. The capture of the French fleet in Cadiz became known, assassinations multiplied; the pope’s nuncio fled on board the English fleet, and all things tended to a general explosion. The English agents were of course actively engaged in promoting this spirit; and the appearance of two English fleets at different points of the coast, having troops on board, produced great alarm among the French, and augmented the impatient fierceness of the Portuguese.

Among the various ways in which the people discovered their hatred of the invaders, one was very characteristic: an egg was marked with certain letters by a chemical process, and then placed in a nest; being taken from thence, it was exhibited, and created a great sensation; the letters were interpreted to indicate the speedy coming of don Sebastian, king of Portugal, who, like Arthur of romantic memory, was supposed to be hidden in a secret island, waiting for the destined period when he was to re-appear and restore his country to her ancient glory. The trick was turned against the contrivers; other eggs prophesied in the most impatriotic manner, but the belief of the Sebastianists lost nothing of its zeal; many people, and those not of the most uneducated classes, were often observed upon the highest points of the hills, casting earnest looks towards the ocean, in the hopes of descrying the island in which their long lost hero was detained.