CHAPTER II.
The French patroles sent towards the Somosierra ascertained, on the 21st, that above six thousand men were entrenching themselves in the gorge of the mountains; that a small camp at Sepulveda blocked the roads leading upon Segovia; and that general Heredia was preparing to secure the passes of the Guadarama. Napoleon, however, having resolved to force the Somosierra, and reach the capital before Castaños could arrive there, ordered Ney to pursue the army of the centre without intermission, and directed the fourth corps to continue its march from Carion by Palencia, Valladolid, Olmedo, and Segovia.
The movement of this corps is worthy of the attention of military men. We shall find it confusing the spies and country people; overawing the flat country of Leon and Castile; protecting the right flank of the army; menacing Gallicia and Salamanca; keeping the heads of Moore’s and Baird’s columns from advancing, and rendering it dangerous for them to attempt a junction; threatening the line of Hope’s march from the Tagus to the Guadarama; dispersing Heredia’s corps, and finally turning the pass of Somosierra, without ever ceasing to belong to the concentric movement of the great army upon Madrid.
S.
Journal of Operations, MS.
The time lost in transmitting the intelligence of the victory at Tudela was productive of serious consequences. The officer despatched with these fresh instructions, found Ney and Moncey (Lasnes remained sick at Tudela), each advanced two days’ march in the wrong direction.
The first, as we have seen, was at Mallen, preparing to attack Zaragoza; the second was at Almunio, near Calatayud, pursuing Castaños. They were consequently obliged to countermarch, and during the time thus lost, the people of Zaragoza recovering from the consternation into which they were at first thrown by the appearance of the flying troops, made arrangements for a vigorous defence. Castaños also escaped to Siguenza, without any further loss than what was inflicted in a slight action at Burvieca, where general Maurice Mathieu’s division came up with his rear-guard.
The emperor quitted Aranda on the 28th with the guards, the first corps, and the reserve, and marched towards Somosierra. Head-quarters were at Boucequillas on the 29th. A detachment sent to attack the camp at Sepulveda failed, with a loss of fifty or sixty men; but the Spaniards, struck with a panic after the action, quitted their post, which was very strong, and fled in disorder towards Segovia. The 30th, the French advanced guard reached the foot of the Somosierra. General St. Juan, whose force now amounted to ten or twelve thousand men, was judiciously posted; sixteen pieces of artillery, planted in the neck of the pass, swept the road along the whole ascent, which was exceedingly steep and favourable for the defence. The infantry were advantageously placed on the right and left, in lines, one above another, and some entrenchments made in the more open parts strengthened the whole position.
PASSAGE OF THE SOMOSIERRA.
At day-break, three French battalions attacked St. Juan’s right, three more assailed his left, and as many marched along the causeway in the centre, six guns supported the last column. The French wings soon spread over the mountain side, and commenced a warm skirmishing fire. At this moment Napoleon arrived. He rode into the mouth of the pass, and attentively examined the scene before him. The infantry were making no progress; a thick fog mixed with smoke hung upon the ascent; suddenly, as if by inspiration, he ordered the Polish lancers of his guard to charge up the causeway, and seize the Spanish battery. The first squadron was thrown into confusion, by a fire which levelled the foremost ranks. General Krazinski rallied them in a moment, and under cover of the smoke, and the thick vapours of the morning, the regiment, with a fresh impetus, proceeded briskly up the mountain, sword in hand. As those gallant horsemen passed, all the Spanish infantry fired, and fled from the entrenchments on each side, towards the summit of the causeway; so that, when the Poles fell in among the gunners, and took the battery, the whole Spanish army was in flight, abandoning arms, ammunition, baggage, and a number of prisoners.
This surprising exploit, in the glory it conferred upon one party, and the disgrace it heaped upon the other, can hardly be paralleled in the annals of war. It is indeed almost incredible, even to those who are acquainted with Spanish armies, that a position, in itself nearly impregnable, and defended by twelve thousand men, should, without any panic, but merely from a deliberate sense of danger, be abandoned, at the wild charge of a few squadrons, which two companies of good infantry would have effectually stopped. Yet some of the Spanish regiments so shamefully beaten here, had been victorious at Baylen a few months before; and general St. Juan’s dispositions at Somosierra were far better than Reding’s at the former battle; but thus absolutely does Fortune govern in war!
The charge of the Poles, viewed as a simple military operation, was extravagantly foolish, but taken as the result of Napoleon’s sagacious estimate of the real value of Spanish troops, and his promptitude in seizing the advantage, offered by the smoke and fog that clung to the side of the mountain, it was a felicitous example of intuitive genius.
The routed troops were pursued towards Buitrago by the French cavalry. St. Juan himself broke through the French on the side of Sepulveda, and gained the camp of Heredia at Segovia; but the cavalry of the fourth corps approached, and the two generals crossing the Guadarama, united some of the fugitives from Somosierra, on the Madrid side of the mountains, and endeavoured to enter that capital. The appearance of a French patrole terrified the vile cowards that followed them; the multitude once more fled to Talavera Col. Graham’s Correspondce. de la Reyna, and there consummated their intolerable villany by murdering their unfortunate general, and fixing his mangled body to a tree; after which, dispersing, they carried dishonour and fear into their respective provinces.
The Somosierra being forced, the imperial army came down from the mountains; the sixth corps hastened up from the side of Alcala and Guadalaxara; the central junta fled from Aranjuez; and the remnant of the forces under Castaños, being intercepted on the side of Madrid, and pressed by Ney in the rear, turned towards the Tagus. The junta, while flying with indecent haste, spread a thousand false reports, and with more than ordinary pertinacity, endeavoured to deceive the people and the English general; a task, in which they were strongly aided by the weak credulity of Mr. Frere, the British plenipotentiary, who accompanied them in their flight to Badajos. Mr. Stuart, with greater discretion and firmness, remained at Madrid until the enemy had actually commenced the investment of that town.
The army of the centre, after the combat of Burvieca, had continued its retreat unmolested by Ney. The time lost, in the false movement upon Mallen, was never recovered. The Spaniards escaped the sword, but their numbers daily diminished; their sufferings increased, and their insubordination kept pace with Castaños’ Vindication. their privations. At Alcazar del Rey, Castaños resigned the command to general La-Peña, and proceeded to Truxillo himself, with an escort of thirty infantry and fifteen dragoons, a number scarcely sufficient to protect his life from the ferocity of the peasants, who were stirred up and prepared, by the falsehoods of the central junta, and the villany of the deserters, to murder him.
Madrid was in a state of anarchy seldom equalled. A local and military junta were formed, to conduct the defence; the inhabitants took arms, a multitude of peasants from the neighbourhood entered the place, and the regular forces, commanded by the marquis of Castellar, amounted to six thousand men, with a train of sixteen guns. The pavement was taken up, the streets were barricadoed, the houses were pierced, and the Retiro, a weak irregular work, which commanded the city, was occupied in strength. Don Thomas Morla, and the prince of Castelfranco, were the chief men in authority. The people demanded ammunition, and when they received it, discovered, or said, that it was mixed with sand. Some person accused the marquis of Perales, a respectable old general, of the deed; a mob rushed to his house, murdered him, and dragged his body about the streets. Many others of inferior note fell victims to this fury, for no man was safe, none durst assume authority to control, none durst give honest advice; the houses were thrown open, the bells of the convents and churches rung incessantly, and a band of ferocious armed men traversed the streets in all the madness of popular insurrection.
Eight days had now elapsed since the first preparations for defence were made; each day the public effervescence increased, the dominion of the mob became more decisive, their violence more uncontrollable, and the uproar was extreme, when, on the morning of the 2d of December, three heavy divisions of French cavalry suddenly appeared on the high ground to the north-west, and like a dark cloud overhung the troubled city.
At twelve o’clock the emperor himself arrived, and the duke of Istria, by his command, summoned the Fourteenth Bulletin. town. The officer employed was upon the point of being massacred by the irregulars, when the Spanish soldiers, ashamed of such conduct, rescued him. This determination to resist was, notwithstanding the fierceness displayed at the gates, very unpalatable to many of the householders, numbers of whom escaped from different quarters; deserters also came over to the French, and Napoleon, while waiting for his infantry, examined all the weak points of the city.
Madrid was for many reasons incapable of defence. First, there were no bulwarks; secondly, the houses, although strong and well built, were not like many Spanish towns, fire proof; thirdly, there were no outworks, and the heights on which the French cavalry were posted, the palace, and the Retiro, completely commanded the city; fourthly, the perfectly open country around would have enabled the French cavalry to discover and cut off all convoys, and no precaution had been taken to provide subsistence for the hundred and fifty thousand people contained within the circuit of the place.
The desire of the central junta, that this metropolis should risk the horrors of a storm, was equally silly and barbarous. Their own criminal apathy had deprived Madrid of the power of procrastinating its defence until relieved from without, and there was no sort of analogy between the situation of Zaragoza and this capital. Napoleon knew this well; he was not a man to plunge headlong into the streets of a great city, among an armed and excited population; he knew that address in negotiation, a little patience, [Appendix, No. 3.] and a judicious employment of artillery, would soon reduce the most outrageous to submission, and he had no wish to destroy the capital of his brother’s kingdom.
In the evening the infantry and artillery arrived; they were posted at the most favourable points; the night was clear and bright, the French camp was silent and watchful; but the noise of tumult was Fourteenth Bulletin. heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was struggling and howling in the toils.
At midnight a second summons was sent through the medium of a prisoner. The captain-general Castellar attempted to gain time by an equivocal reply, but he failed in his object. The French light troops then stormed some houses, and one battery of thirty guns opened against the Retiro, while another threw shells from the opposite quarter, to distract the attention of the inhabitants.
The Retiro, situated on a rising ground, was connected with a range of buildings erected on the same side of the Prado, a public walk which nearly encircled the town. Some of the principal streets opened into the Prado nearly opposite to those buildings. In the morning a practicable breach being made in the Retiro wall, the difference between military courage and ferocity became apparent, for Villatte’s division breaking in easily, routed the garrison, and pursuing its success, seized the public buildings above spoken of, crossed the Prado, gained the barriers erected at the entrance of the streets, and took possession of the immense palace of the duke of Medina Celi, which was in itself the key to the city on that side. This vigorous commencement created great terror, and the town was summoned for the third time.
In the afternoon, Morla and another officer came out to demand a suspension of arms, necessary, they said, to persuade the people to surrender. Being admitted to the emperor’s presence, he addressed Morla in terms of great severity; he reproached him for his scandalous conduct towards Dupont’s army. “Injustice and bad faith,” he exclaimed, “always recoil upon those who are guilty of either.” This saying was well applied to that Spaniard, and Napoleon himself confirmed its philosophic truth in after times. “The Spanish ulcer destroyed me,” was an expression of deep anguish which escaped from him in his own hour of misfortune.
Morla returned to the town: his story was soon told: before six o’clock the next morning Madrid must surrender or perish. A division of opinion arose; the violent excitement of the populace was considerably abated, but the armed peasantry from the country, and the poorest inhabitants, still demanded to be led against the enemy. A constant fire was kept up from the houses in the neighbourhood of the Prado; the French general Maison was wounded, and general Bruyeres was killed; but the disposition to fight became each moment weaker, and Morla and Castelfranco prepared a capitulation. The captain-general Castellar refused to sign it, and as the town was only invested on one side, he effected his escape with the regular troops during the night, carrying with him sixteen guns. The people now sunk into a quiescent state, and at eight o’clock in the morning of the 4th, Madrid surrendered.
That Morla was a traitor there is no doubt, and his personal cowardice was excessive; but Castelfranco appears to have been rather weak and ignorant than treacherous, and certainly the surrender of Madrid was no proof of his guilt; that event was inevitable. The boasting uproar of the multitude when they are permitted to domineer for a few days is not enthusiasm. The retreat of Castellar with the troops of the line during the progress of the negotiation was the wisest course to pursue, and proves that he acquiesced in the propriety of surrendering. That the people neither could nor would defend the city is quite evident, for it is incredible that Morla and Castelfranco should have been able to carry through a capitulation in so short a period, if the generals, the regular troops, the armed peasantry, and the inhabitants, had been all, or even a part of them, determined to resist.
The emperor, cautious of giving offence to a population so lately and so violently excited, carefully provided against any sudden reaction, and preserved the strictest discipline. A soldier of the imperial guard was shot in one of the squares for having a plundered watch in his possession. The infantry were placed in barracks and convents, and the cavalry were kept ready to scour the streets at the first alarm. The Spaniards were disarmed, and Napoleon fixed his own quarters at Chamartin, a country house four miles from Madrid. In a few days every thing presented the most tranquil appearance; the shops were opened, the public amusements recommenced, and the theatres were frequented. The inhabitants of capital cities are easily moved, and easily calmed; self-interest and the pursuit of pleasure unfit them for noble and sustained efforts; they can be violent, ferocious, cruel, but are seldom constant and firm.
It was during this operation that La-Peña, after escaping from the sixth corps, arrived at Guadalaxara with about five thousand men. On the 2d, the dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque having left Madrid, joined him, and on the 4th, Venegas came up with two thousand men. While the generals were hesitating what course to pursue, Napoleon being apprized of their vicinity, directed Bessieres with sixteen squadrons upon Guadalaxara, supporting him by Ruffin’s division of the first corps. At the approach of the cavalry, the main body retired through the hills by Sanctorcaz towards Aranjuez, and the artillery crossed the Tagus at Sacedon. Ruffin’s division immediately changed its direction, and cut the Spaniards off from La Mancha by the line of Ocaña. A mutiny among the Spanish troops having forced La-Peña to resign his command, the duke of Infantado was chosen in his place, the army crossed the Tagus at several points, and after some slight actions with the advanced cavalry of the French, this miserable body of men finally saved themselves at Cuenca. Many deserters and fugitives, and the brigades of Cartoajal and Lilli, which had escaped the different French columns, also arrived there, and the duke proceeded to organize another army.
In the mean time the fourth French corps reached Segovia, passed the Guadarama, dispersed some armed peasants assembled at the Escurial, and then marched toward Almaraz, to attack general Galluzzo, who, having assembled five or six thousand men to defend the left bank of the Tagus, was, with the usual skill of a Spanish general, occupying a line of forty miles. The first corps entered La Mancha; Toledo immediately Sir John Moore’s Papers. shut its gates, and the junta of that town publicly proclaimed their resolution to bury themselves under the ruins of the city; but at the approach of a French division, betrayed the most contemptible cowardice.
Thus, six weeks had sufficed to dissipate the Spanish armies; the glittering bubble bursted, and a terrible reality remained. From St. Sebastian to the Asturias, from the Asturias to Talavera de la Reina, from Talavera to the gates of the noble city of Zaragoza, all was submission, and beyond that boundary all was apathy or dread. Ten thousand French soldiers could safely (as far as regarded the Spaniards) have marched from one extremity of the Peninsula to the other.
After the fall of Madrid, king Joseph remained at Burgos, issuing proclamations, and carrying on a sort of underplot, through the medium of his native ministers. The views of the latter being naturally turned towards the Spanish interests as distinct from the French, a source of infinite mischief to Joseph’s cause was opened; for that monarch, anxious to please and conciliate his subjects, ceased to be a Frenchman without becoming a Spaniard. At this time Napoleon assumed and exercised all the rights of conquest; and it is evident, from the tenor of his speeches, proclamations, and decrees, that some ulterior project, in which the king’s personal interests were not concerned, was contemplated by him. It appeared as if he wished the Spaniards to offer the crown to himself a second time, that he might obtain a plausible excuse for adopting a new line of policy by which to attract the people, or at least to soften their pride, which was now the main obstacle to his success.
An assemblage of the nobles, the clergy, the corporations, and the tribunals of Madrid, waited upon him at Chamartin, and presented an address, in which Moniteur. they expressed their desire to have Joseph among them again. The emperor’s reply was an exposition of the principles upon which Spain was to be governed, and offers a fine field for reflection upon the violence of those passions which induce men to resist positive good, and eagerly seek for danger, misery, and death, rather than resign their prejudices.
“I accept,” said he, “the sentiments of the town of Madrid. I regret the misfortunes that have befallen it, and I hold it as a particular good fortune that I am enabled, under the circumstances of the moment, to spare that city, and to save it from yet greater misfortunes.
“I have hastened to take measures fit to tranquillize all classes of citizens, knowing well that to all people, and to all men, uncertainty is intolerable.
“I have preserved the religious orders; but I have restrained the number of monks. No sane person can doubt that they are too numerous. Those who are truly called to this vocation by the grace of God will remain in their convents; those who have lightly adopted their vocation, or from worldly motives, will have their existence secured among the secular ecclesiastics, from the surplus of the convents. I have provided for the wants of the most interesting and useful of the clergy, the parish priests.
“I have abolished that tribunal against which Europe and the age alike exclaimed. Priests ought to guide consciences; but they should not exercise any exterior and corporal jurisdiction over men.
“I have taken the satisfaction which was due to myself and to my nation, and the part of vengeance is completed. Ten[19] of the principal criminals bend their heads before her; but for all others there is absolute and entire pardon.
“I have suppressed the rights usurped by the nobles during civil wars, when the kings have been too often obliged to abandon their own rights to purchase tranquillity and the repose of their people.
“I have suppressed the feudal rights; and every person can now establish inns, mills, ovens, weirs, and fisheries, and give free play to their industry; only observing the laws and customs of the place. The self-love, the riches, and the prosperity of a small number of men, was more hurtful to your agriculture than the heats of the dog days.
“As there is but one God, there should be in one estate but one justice; wherefore all the particular jurisdictions having been usurped, and being contrary to the national rights, I have destroyed them. I have also made known to all persons that which each can have to fear, and that which they may hope for.
“The English armies I will drive from the Peninsula. Zaragoza, Valencia, Seville, shall be reduced either by persuasion or by the force of arms.
“There is no obstacle capable of retarding for any length of time the execution of my will. But that which is above my power, is to constitute the Spaniards a nation, under the orders of the king, if they continue to be imbued with the principle of division, and of hatred towards France, such as the English partizans and the enemies of the continent have instilled into them. I cannot establish a nation, a king, and the Spanish independence, if that king is not sure of the affection and fidelity of his subjects.
“The Bourbons can never again reign in Europe. The divisions in the royal family were concerted by the English. It was not either king Charles or his favorite, but the duke of Infantado, the instrument of England, that was upon the point of overturning the throne. The papers recently found in his house prove this; it was the preponderance of England that they wished to establish in Spain. Insensate project! which would have produced a land war without end, and caused torrents of blood to be shed.
“No power influenced by England can exist upon the continent. If any desire it, their desire is folly, and sooner or later will ruin them. I shall be obliged to govern Spain, and it will be easy for me to do it by establishing a viceroy in each province. However, I will not refuse to concede my rights of conquest to the king, and to establish him in Madrid, when the thirty thousand citizens assemble in the churches, and on the holy sacrament take an oath, not with the mouth alone, but with the heart, and without any jesuitical restriction, ‘to be true to the king, to love and to support him.’ Let the priests from the pulpit and in the confessional, the tradesmen in their correspondence and their discourses, inculcate these sentiments in the people; then I will relinquish my rights of conquest, then I will place the king upon the throne, and I will take a pleasure in showing myself the faithful friend of the Spaniards.
“The present generation may differ in opinions; too many passions have been excited; but your descendants will bless me as the regenerator of the nation: they will mark my sojourn among you as memorable days, and from those days they will date the prosperity of Spain. These are my sentiments: go, consult your fellow citizens, choose your part, but do it frankly, and exhibit only true colours.”
The dispositions now made by Napoleon indicated a vast plan of operations. It would appear that he intended to invade Gallicia, Andalusia, and Valencia, by his lieutenants, and to carry his arms to Lisbon in person. Upon the 20th December the sixth corps, the guards, and the reserve, were assembled under his own immediate control. The first corps was stationed at Toledo, but the light cavalry attached to it scoured the roads leading to Andalusia, up to the foot of the Sierra Morena. The fourth corps was at Talavera, on the march towards the frontier of Portugal. The second corps was on the Carrion river, preparing to advance against Gallicia. The eighth corps was broken up; the divisions composing it ordered to join the second, and Junot, who commanded it, repaired to the third corps, to supply the place of marshal Moncey, who was called to Madrid for a particular service; doubtless an expedition against Valencia. The fifth corps, which had arrived at Vittoria, was directed to reinforce the third, then employed against Zaragoza. The seventh was always in Catalonia.
Vast as this plan of campaign appears, it was not beyond the emperor’s means; for without taking into consideration his own genius, activity, and vigour, he counted on his muster-rolls, above three hundred and thirty thousand men, and above sixty thousand horses; above two hundred pieces of field artillery followed the corps to battle, and as many more remained in reserve. Of this monstrous army, two hundred and fifty-five [Appendix, No. 28.] thousand men, and fifty thousand horses, were actually under arms, with their different regiments; thirty-two thousand were detached or in garrisons, preserving tranquillity in the rear, and guarding the communications of the active force. The remainder were in hospital, and so slight had been the resistance of the Spanish armies, that only nineteen hundred prisoners were to be deducted from this multitude. Of the whole host, two hundred and thirteen thousand were native Frenchmen, the residue were Poles, Germans, and Italians.
Of the disposable troops, thirty-five thousand men and five thousand horses were appropriated to Catalonia, and about the same number to the siege of Zaragoza. Above one hundred and eighty thousand men, and forty thousand horses, were therefore available for any enterprise, without taking a single man from the service of the lines of communication.
What was there to oppose this fearful array? What consistency or vigour in the councils? What numbers? What discipline and spirit in the armies of Spain? What enthusiasm among the people? What was the disposition, the means? What the activity of the allies of that country? The answers to these questions demonstrate, that the fate of the Peninsula hung at this moment upon a thread, and that the deliverance of that country was due to other causes than the courage, the patriotism, or the constancy of the Spaniards.
Infantado’s Letters.
Narrative of Moore’s Campaign.
First, with regard to their armies. The duke of Infantado resided among, rather than commanded, a few thousand wretched fugitives at Cuenca, destitute, mutinous, and cowed in spirit. At Valencia there was no army, for that which belonged to the province was shut up in Zaragoza, and dissensions had arisen between Palafox and the local junta in consequence.
Stuart’s and Frere’s Letters.
The passes of the Sierra Morena were occupied by five thousand raw levies, hastily made by the junta of Seville, after the defeat of St. Juan. Galluzzo, who had undertaken to defend the Tagus, with six thousand timid and ill-armed soldiers, was at this time in flight, having been suddenly attacked and defeated at Almaraz by a detachment of the fourth corps. Romana was near Leon, at the head of eighteen or twenty Sir J. Moore’s Papers. thousand runaways, collected by him after the dispersion at Reynosa; but of this number only five thousand were armed, and none were subordinate or capable of being disciplined; for when checked for misconduct, the marquis complained that they deserted. In Gallicia there was no army; in the Asturias, the [Appendix, No. 13], Section 5. local government were so corrupt, so faithless, and so oppressive, that the spirit of the people was crushed, and patriotism reduced to a name.
Stuart.
The central junta, having first repaired to Badajos, were terrified, and fled from thence to Seville, and their inactivity was more conspicuous in this season of adversity than before, and contrasted strangely with the pompous and inflated language of their public papers. Their promises were fallacious, their incapacity glaring, their exertions ridiculous and abortive; and the junta of Seville, still actuated by their own ambitious views, had now openly reassumed all their former authority.
In short, the strength and spirit of Spain was broken, the enthusiasm was null, except in a few places, and the emperor was, with respect to the Spaniards, perfectly master of his operations. He was in the centre of the country; he held the capital; the fortresses; the command of the great lines of communication between the provinces; and on the wide military horizon, no dark cloud intercepted his view, save the heroic city of Zaragoza on the one side, and a feeble British army on the other. Sooner or later, he observed, and with truth, that the former must fall; it was an affair of artillery calculation. The latter, he naturally supposed to be in full retreat for Portugal; but the fourth corps were nearer to Lisbon than the British general; a hurried retreat alone could bring the latter in time to that capital, and consequently no preparations for defence could be made sufficient to arrest the sixty thousand Frenchmen which the emperor could carry there at the same moment. The subjugation of Spain appeared inevitable, when the genius and vigour of one man frustrated Napoleon’s plans at the very moment of execution; and the Austrian war breaking out at the instant, drew the master-spirit from the scene of contention. England then put forth all her vast resources; fortunately those resources were wielded by a general equal to the task of delivering the Peninsula, and it was delivered. But through what changes of fortune; by what unexpected helps; by what unlooked-for and extraordinary events; under what difficulties; and by whose perseverance, and in despite of whose errors, let posterity judge; for in that judgment only will impartiality and justice be found.