CHAPTER IV.
The commotion of Aranjuez had undeceived the French emperor; he perceived that he was engaged in a delicate enterprise, and that the people he had to deal with were any thing but tame and quiescent under insult. Determined, however, to persevere, he pursued his political intrigues, and, without relinquishing the hope of a successful termination to the affair by such means, he arranged a profound plan of military operations, and so distributed his forces, that, at the moment when Spain was pouring forth her swarthy bands, the masses of the French army were concentrated upon the most important points, and combined in such a manner, that, from their central position they had the power of overwhelming each separate province, no three of which could act in concert without first beating a French corps; and if any of the Spanish armies succeeded in routing a French force, the remaining corps of the latter could unite without difficulty, and retreat without danger. It was the skill of this disposition which enabled seventy thousand men, covering a great extent of country, to brave the simultaneous fury of a whole nation: an army less ably distributed would have been trampled under foot, and lost amidst the tumultuous uproar of eleven millions of people.
The inconvenience in a political point of view that would have arisen from suffering a regular army to take the field was evident. To have been able to characterise the opposition of the Spanish people as a partial insurrection of peasants, instigated by some evil-disposed persons to act against the wishes of the respectable part of the nation, would have given some colour to the absorbing darkness of the invasion: but to have permitted that which was at first an insurrection of peasants to take the form and consistence of regular armies and methodical warfare, would have been a military error, and dangerous in the extreme. Napoleon, who well knew that scientific war is only a wise application of force, laughed at the delusion of those who regarded the want of a regular army as a favourable circumstance, and who hailed the undisciplined peasant as the more certain defender of the country. He knew that a general insurrection can never last long, that it is a military anarchy, and incapable of real strength: he knew that it was the disciplined battalions of Valley Forge, not the volunteers of Lexington, that established American independence; that it was the veterans of Arcole and Marengo, not the republicans of Valmy, that fixed the fate of the French revolution; and consequently his efforts were directed to hinder the Spaniards from drawing together any great body of regular soldiers; an event that might easily happen, for the gross amount of the organized Spanish force was, in the month of May, about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand men of all arms. Fifteen thousand of these were in Holstein, under the marquis of Romana, but twenty thousand were already partially concentrated in Portugal. The remainder, in which were comprised eleven thousand Swiss and thirty thousand militia, were dispersed in various parts Historia de la Guerra contra Napoleon Buonaparte. of the kingdom, principally in Andalusia. Besides this force, there was a sort of local reserve called the urban militia, much neglected, and indeed more a name than a reality. Nevertheless the advantage of such an institution was considerable; men were to be had in abundance: and as the greatest difficulty in a sudden crisis is to prepare the frame-work of order, it was no small resource to find a plan of service ready, the principle of which was understood by the people.
The French army in the Peninsula about the same period, although amounting to eighty thousand men, exclusive of those under Junot in Portugal, had not more than seventy thousand capable of active operations; the remainder were sick or in depôts. The possession of the fortresses, the central position, and the combination of this comparatively small army, gave it great strength; but it had also many points of weakness; it was made up of the conscripts of different nations, French, Swiss, Italians, Poles, and even Portuguese, whom Junot had expatriated, partly to strengthen the French army, partly to weaken the nation which he held in subjection; and it is a curious fact, that some of them remained in Spain until the end of the war. A few of the imperial guards were also employed, and here and there an old regiment of the line was mixed with the young troops to give them consistence; but with these exceptions Napoleon’s notes. [Appendix, No. 3.]
Thiebault.
Dupont’s Journal. MSS. the French army must be considered as a raw levy fresh from the plough and unacquainted with discipline: so late even as the month of August many of the battalions had not completed the first elements of their drill, and if they had not been formed upon good skeletons, the difference between them and the insurgent peasantry would have been very trifling. This fact explains, in some measure, the otherwise incomprehensible checks and defeats which the French sustained at the commencement of the contest, and it likewise proves how little of vigour there was in Spanish resistance at the moment of the greatest enthusiasm.
In the distribution of these troops Napoleon attended principally to the security of Madrid. The capital city, and the centre of all interests, its importance was manifest, and the great line of communication between it and Bayonne was early and constantly covered with troops. But the imprudence with which the grand duke of Berg brought up the corps of Moncey and Dupont to the capital, the manner in which those corps were posted, cutting off the communication between the northern and southern provinces, and the haughty impolitic demeanour assumed by that prince, drew on the crisis of affairs before the time was ripe, and obliged the French monarch to hasten the advance of other troops, and to make a greater display of his force than was consistent with his policy; for Murat’s movement, while it threatened the Spaniards and provoked their hostility, placed the French army in an isolated position, leaving the long line of communication with France unprovided with soldiers and requiring fresh battalions to fill up the void thus discovered; and this circumstance generated additional anger and suspicion at a very critical period of time. To supply the chasm left by Moncey’s advance, the formation of a new corps was commenced in Navarre, Napoleon’s notes, [Appendix, No. 2.] and by successive reinforcements so increased; that in June it amounted to twenty-three thousand men, who were placed under the command of marshal Bessieres, and took the title of the “army of the Western Pyrenees.”
Bessieres, at the first appearance of the commotion, fixed his head quarters at Burgos and occupied Vittoria, Miranda de Ebro, and other towns, placing posts in his front towards Leon; this position, while it protected the line from Bayonne to the capital, enabled him to awe the Asturias and Biscay, and (by giving him the command of the valley of the Duero,) to keep the kingdom of Leon and the province of Segovia in check. The town and castle of Burgos, being put into a state of defence, contained his dépôts, and became the centre and pivot of his operations; while some intermediate posts and the fortresses connected him with Bayonne, where a reserve of twenty thousand men was formed under general Drouet, then commanding the eleventh military division of France.
By the convention of Fontainebleau, the emperor was entitled to send forty thousand men into the northern parts of Spain. The right thus acquired was grossly abused, but the exercise of it being expected, created at first but little alarm. It was different on the eastern frontier: Napoleon had never intimated a wish to pass forces by Catalonia; neither the treaty nor the convention authorized such a measure, nor could the pretence of supporting Junot in St. Cyr.
Napoleon’s notes, [Appendix, No. 2.] Portugal be advanced as a mask. Nevertheless, so early as the 9th of February, eleven thousand infantry, sixteen hundred cavalry, and eighteen pieces of artillery, under the command of general Duhesme, crossed the frontier at La Jonquera, and marched upon Barcelona, leaving a detachment at the town of Figueras, the strong citadel of which commands the principal pass of the mountains. Arrived at Barcelona, Duhesme prolonged his residence there under the pretext of waiting for instructions from Madrid, relative Duhesme’s Instructions, Jan. 28th. Vide St. Cyr. to a pretended march upon Cadiz; but his secret orders were, to obtain exact information concerning the Catalonian fortresses, dépôts, and magazines,—to ascertain the state of public feeling,—to preserve a rigid discipline,—scrupulously to avoid giving any offence to the Spaniards, and to enter into close communication with marshal Moncey, at that time commanding the whole of the French army in the north of Spain.
The political affairs were even then beginning to indicate serious results, and as soon as Duhesme’s report was received, and the troops in the north were in a condition to execute their orders, he was directed to seize upon the citadel of Barcelona, and the fort of Monjuick. The citadel was obtained by stratagem; the fort, one of the strongest in the world, was surrendered by the governor Alvarez. That brave and worthy officer, knowing the baseness of his court, was certain that he would receive no support from that quarter, and did not resist the demand of the French general, who having failed to surprise the vigilance of the garrison, impudently insisted upon a surrender of the place. Alvarez consented to relinquish his charge, although he felt the disgrace of his situation so acutely that, it is said, he had some thoughts of springing a mine beneath a French detachment during the conference; but his mind, unequal to the occasion, betrayed his spirit, and he sunk, oppressed by the force of unexpected circumstances.
What a picture of human weakness do these affairs present; the boldest men shrinking from the discharge of their trust like the meanest cowards, and the wisest following the march of events, confounded and without a rule of action! If such a firm man, as Alvarez afterwards proved himself to be, could think the disgrace of surrendering his charge at the demand of an insolent and perfidious guest a smaller misfortune than the anger of a miserable court, what must the state of public feeling have been, and how can those men who, like O’Farril and Azanza, served the intruder be with justice blamed, if, amidst the general stagnation, they could not perceive the elements of a salutary tempest? At the view of such scenes Napoleon might well enlarge his ambitious designs, his fault was not in the projection, but in the rough execution of his plan; another combination would have ensured success, and the resistance he encountered only shows, that nations as well as individuals are but the creatures of circumstances, at one moment weak, trembling, and submissive; at another proud, haughty, and daring; every novel combination of events has an effect upon public sentiment distinct from, and often at variance, with what is called national character.
The treacherous game played at Barcelona was renewed at Figueras, and with equal success; the citadel of that place fell into the hands of the detachment left there, and thus a free entrance, and a secure base of operations, was established in Catalonia, and the magazines of Barcelona being filled, Duhesme, whose corps took the name of the “army of the Eastern Pyrenees,” concluded that his task was well accomplished.
The affair was indeed a momentous one, and Napoleon earnestly looked for its termination before the transactions at Madrid could give an unfavourable impression of his ulterior intentions; he saw the importance which, under certain circumstances, a war would confer upon Barcelona. With an immense population, great riches, a good harbour, and almost impregnable defences, that town might be called the key of the south of France or Spain, just as it happened to be in the possession of the one or the other nation. The proximity of Sicily, where a large British force was kept in a state of constant preparation, made it more than probable that if hostilities broke out between himself and the Spaniards, an English army would be quickly carried to Barcelona, and a formidable systematic war be established upon the threshold of France. Such an occurrence would have been fatal to his projects, he felt the full extent of the danger, and at the risk of rendering abortive the efforts to create a French party at Madrid, guarded against it by this open violation of Spanish independence; but the peril of exposing Barcelona to the English was too imminent to leave room for hesitation.
Thirty or forty thousand British troops occupying an entrenched camp in front of that town, supported by a powerful fleet, and having reserve magazines and dépôts in Sicily and the Spanish islands, might have been so wielded as to give ample occupation to a hundred and fifty thousand enemies. Under the protection of such an army, the Spanish levies might have been organised and instructed, and as the actual numbers assembled could have been at all times easily masked, increased, or diminished, and the fleet ready to co-operate, the south of France (from whence all the provisions of the enemy must have been drawn) would have been exposed to descents, and have sustained all the inconvenience of actual hostilities. The Spanish provinces of Valencia, Murcia, and even Andalusia, being thus covered, the war would have been drawn to a head, and concentrated about Catalonia, the most warlike, rugged, and sterile portion of Spain. But Duhesme’s success having put an end to this danger, the affairs of Barcelona sunk into comparative insignificance. Nevertheless, the emperor kept a jealous watch upon that quarter, the corps employed there was increased to twenty-two thousand men, the general commanding it corresponded directly with Napoleon, and Barcelona was made the centre of a system complete in itself, and distinct from that which held the other corps, rolling round Madrid as their point of attraction.
The capital of Spain is situated in a sort of basin, formed by a semicircular range of mountains, which under the different denominations of the Sierra de Guadarama, the Carpentanos, and the Sierra de Guadalaxara, sweep in one unbroken chain from east to west, touching the Tagus at either end of an arch, of which that river is the chord.
All direct communications between Madrid and France, or between the former and the northern provinces of Spain, must necessarily pass over one or other of those Sierras, which are separated from the great range of the Pyrenees by the valley of the Ebro, and from the Biscayan and Asturian mountains by the valley of the Duero.
The four principal roads which lead from France directly upon Madrid are, first, the royal causeway, which passing the frontier at Irun runs under St. Sebastian, and then through a wild and mountainous country (full of dangerous defiles) to the Ebro, crosses that river by a stone bridge at Miranda, and leads upon Burgos, from which town it turns short to the left, is carried over the Duero at Aranda, and soon after encountering the Carpentanos and the Sierra de Guadalaxara, penetrates them by the strong pass of the Somosierra, and descends upon the capital. Vittoria stands in a plain about half way between St. Sebastian and Burgos.
The second, which is inferior to the first, commences at St. Jean Pied de Port, and unites at Pampelona: it runs through Taffalla, crosses the Ebro at Tudela, and enters the basin of Madrid by the eastern range of the Sierra de Guadalaxara, where the declination of the mountains presents a less rugged barrier than the snowy summits of the northern and western part of the chain.
The third threads the Pyrenees by the way of Jaca, passes the Ebro at Zaragoza, and uniting with the second, likewise crosses the Guadalaxara ridge.
The fourth is the great route from Perpignan by Figueras and Gerona to Barcelona; from this latter town it leads by Cervera and Lerida to Zaragoza.
Hence Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, one of the great dépôts of Spain for arms and ammunition, and at that time containing fifty thousand inhabitants, was a strategetical point of importance. An army in position there could operate on either bank of the Ebro, intercept the communication between the armies of the Eastern and Western Pyrenees, and block three out of the four great roads leading upon Madrid; if the French had occupied it in force, their army in the capital would have been free and unconstrained in its operations, and might have acted with more security against Valencia; and the dangerous importance of the united armies of Gallicia and Leon would also have been diminished, when the road of Burgos ceased to be the only line of retreat from the capital. Nevertheless, Napoleon neglected Zaragoza at first, because that having no citadel, a small body of troops could not control the inhabitants, and a large force would have created suspicion too soon, and perhaps have prevented the success of the attempts against Pampelona and Barcelona (objects of still greater importance); neither was the heroic defence which that city afterwards made within a reasonable calculation.
The grand duke of Berg and the duke of Rovigo remained at Madrid, and from that central point appeared to direct the execution of the French emperor’s projects; but he distrusted their judgment, and exacted the most detailed information of every movement and transaction.
In the course of June, Murat, who was suffering from illness, quitted Spain, leaving behind him a troubled people, and a name for cruelty which was foreign to his character. Savary remained the sole representative of the new monarch: his situation was delicate; he was in the midst of a great commotion; upon every side he beheld the violence of insurrection and the fury of an insulted nation; it behoved him, therefore, to calculate with coolness and to execute with vigour.
Each Spanish province had its own junta of government; but although equally enraged, they were not equally dangerous in their anger. The attention of the Catalonians was completely absorbed by Duhesme’s operations; but the soldiers of the regiments which Cabanes’ War in Catalonia, 1st Part. composed the Spanish garrisons of Barcelona, Monjuick, and Figueras, quitting their ranks after the seizure of those places, flocked to the patriotic standards in Murcia and Valencia. The greatest part belonged to the Spanish and Walloon guards, and they formed a good basis for an army which the riches of the two provinces and the arsenal of Carthagena afforded ample military resources to equip.
The French had, however, nothing to fear from any direct movement of this army against Madrid, as such an operation could only bring on a battle; but if by a march towards Zaragoza, the Valencians had united with the Aragonese and then operated against the line of communication with France, the insurrection of Catalonia would have been supported, and a point of union for three great provinces fixed. In the power of executing this project lay the sting of the Valencian insurrection. To besiege Zaragoza and prevent such a junction was the remedy.
The importance of Andalusia was greater; the division of regular troops which under the command of the unhappy Solano had been withdrawn from Portugal, was tolerably disciplined; a large veteran force was assembled at the camp of St. Roque under general Castaños; and the garrisons of Ceuta, Algeziras, Cadiz, Granada, and other places being united, the whole formed a considerable mass of troops; while a superb cannon foundry at Seville, and the arsenal of Cadiz, furnished the means of equipment and the materials for a train of artillery. An active intercourse was maintained between the patriots and the English: the juntas of Granada, Jaen, and Cordova Mr. Stuart’s Letters, vide Parliamentary Papers, 1810. admitted the supremacy of the junta of Seville, and the army of Estremadura consented to obey their orders. The riches of the province, its distance from Madrid, the barrier of the Sierra Morena, which like a strong wall covered Andalusia, and favoured the insurrection, afforded the means of establishing a systematic war, and drawing together all the scattered elements of resistance in the southern and western provinces of Spain and Portugal; but this danger, although pregnant with future consequences, was not immediate: there was no line of offensive movement against the flank or rear of the French army open to the Andalusian patriots, and a march to the front against Madrid would have been tedious and dangerous; the true policy of the Andalusians was palpably defensive.
In Estremadura the activity and means of the junta were not at first sufficient to excite much attention; but in Leon, Old Castile, and Gallicia, a cloud was gathering that threatened a perilous storm. Don Gregorio Cuesta was captain-general of the two former kingdoms: inimical to popular movements, and of a haughty resolute disposition, he at first checked the insurrection with a rough hand; by this conduct he laid the foundation for quarrels and intrigues, which afterwards impeded the military operations, and split the northern provinces into factions; finally, however, he joined the side of the patriots. Behind him the kingdom of Gallicia, under the direction of Filanghieri, had prepared a large and efficient force. It was composed of the strong and disciplined body of troops Thiebault. Exped. Portugal. which, under the command of Tarranco, had taken possession of Oporto, and after that general’s death had returned with general Belesta to Gallicia. The garrisons of Ferrol and Coruña and a number of soldiers, flying from the countries occupied by the French, swelled the regular army, the agents of Great Britain were actively employed in blowing the flame of insurrection; money, arms, and clothing, were poured into the province through their hands; Coruña afforded an easy and direct intercourse with England, and a strict connexion was maintained between the Gallician and Portuguese patriots.
The facility of establishing the base of a regular systematic war in Gallicia was therefore as great as in Andalusia, the resources perhaps greater on account of the proximity of Great Britain, and the advantage of position at this time was essentially in favour of Gallicia, because the sources of her strength were equally well covered from the direct line of the French operations, and the slightest offensive movement upon her part threatened the communications of the French army in Madrid, and endangered the safety of any corps marching from the capital against the southern provinces. To be prepared against the Gallician forces was, therefore, a matter of pressing importance; a defeat from that quarter would have been felt in all parts of the army; and no considerable or sustained operation could have been undertaken against the other insurgent forces until the strength of Gallicia had been first broken.
In Biscay and the Asturias the want of regular troops and fortified towns, and the contracted shape of those provinces, placed them completely within the power of the French, who had nothing to fear as long as they could maintain possession of the sea-ports.
From this sketch it results that Savary, in classing the dangers of his situation, should have rated Gallicia and Leon in the first, Zaragoza in the second, Andalusia in the third, and Valencia in the fourth rank, and by that scale he should have regulated his operations. It was thus Napoleon looked at the affair, but the duke of Rovigo, wavering in his opinions, neglected or misunderstood the spirit of his instructions, lost the control of the operations, and sunk amidst the confusion which he had himself created.
Nearly fifty thousand men and eighty guns were disposable for offensive operations in the beginning of June: collected into one mass such an army was more than sufficient to crush any or all of the insurgent armies combined; but it was necessary to divide it and to assail several points at the same time; in doing this the safety of each minor body depended upon the stability of the central point from whence it emanated; and again the security of that centre depended upon the strength of its communications with France; in other words, Bayonne was the base of operations against Madrid, and this town in turn became the base of operations against Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia.
To combine all the movements of a vast plan which would embrace the operations against Catalonia, Aragon, Biscay, the Asturias, Gallicia, Leon, Castille, Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia, in such a simple manner that the corps of the army working upon one principle might mutually support and strengthen each other, and at the same time preserve their communication with France, was the great problem to be solved. Napoleon felt that it required a master mind, and from Bayonne he put all the different armed masses in motion himself, and with the greatest caution; for it is a mistaken notion, although one very generally entertained, that he plunged headlong into this contest without precaution, as having to do with adversaries he despised.
In his instructions to the duke of Rovigo he says, “In a war of this sort it is necessary to act with patience, coolness, and upon calculation.” “In civil wars it is the important points only which should be guarded, we must not go to all places;” and he inculcates the doctrine that to spread the troops over the country without the power of uniting upon emergency would be a dangerous and useless display of activity. The principle upon which he proceeded may be illustrated by the comparison of a closed hand thrust forward and the fingers afterwards extended: as long as the solid part of the member was securely fixed and guarded, the return of the smaller portions of it and their flexible movement was feasible and without great peril; but a wound given to the hand or arm not only endangered that part but paralyzed the action of the whole limb. Hence all the care and attention with which his troops were arranged along the road to Burgos; hence all the measures of precaution already described, such as the seizure of the fortresses, and the formation of the reserves at Bayonne.
The insurrection having commenced, Bessieres was ordered to put Burgos into a state of defence,—to detach a division of four or five thousand men under general Lefebre Desnouettes against Zaragoza,—to keep down the insurgents of Biscay, Asturias, and Old Castille,—and to watch the army assembling in Gallicia; he was likewise enjoined to occupy and watch with jealous care the port of St. Ander and the coast towns. At the same time a reinforcement of nine thousand men was preparing for Duhesme, which, it was supposed, would enable him to tranquillize Catalonia, and co-operate with a division marching from Madrid against Valencia.
The reserve under general Drouet was nourished by drafts from the interior: it supplied Bessieres with reinforcements, and afforded a detachment of four thousand men to watch the openings of the valleys Napoleon’s notes, [Appendix, No. 2.] of the Pyrenees, especially towards the castle of Jaca, which was in possession of the Spanish insurgents. A smaller reserve was established at Perpignan, and another detachment watched the openings of the eastern frontier. All the generals commanding corps, or even detachments, were directed to correspond daily with general Drouet.
The security of the rear being thus provided for, the main body at Madrid commenced offensive operations. Marshal Moncey was directed, with part of S.
Journal of Moncey’s Operations. MSS. his corps upon Cuenca, to intercept the march of the Valencian army upon Zaragoza, and general Dupont, with ten thousand men, marched towards Cadiz; the remainder of his and Moncey’s troops were kept in reserve and distributed in various parts of La Mancha and the neighbourhood of Madrid. Napoleon likewise directed, that Segovia should be occupied Napoleon’s notes, [Appendix, No. 1.] and put in a state of defence, that a division (Gobert’s) of Moncey’s corps should co-operate with Bessieres on the side of Valladolid, and that moveable columns should scour the country in rear of the acting bodies, and unite again at stated times upon points of secondary interest. Thus linking his operations together, Napoleon hoped, by grasping as it were the ganglia of the insurrection, to paralyze its force, and reduce it to a few convulsive motions which would soon subside. The execution of his plan failed in the feebler hands of his lieutenants, but it was well conceived, and embraced every probable immediate chance of war, and even provided for the distant and uncertain contingency of an English army landing upon the flanks or rear of the corps at either extremity of the Pyrenean frontier.
Military men would do well to reflect upon the prudence which the French emperor displayed upon this occasion. Not all his experience, his power, his fortune, nor the contempt which he felt for the prowess of his adversaries, could induce him to relax in his precautions; every chance was considered, and every measure calculated with as much care and circumspection as if the most redoubtable enemy was opposed to him. The conqueror of Europe was as fearful of making false movements before an army of peasants, as if Frederick the Great had been in his front, and yet he failed! Such is the uncertainty of war!