CHAPTER I.
The effect produced in England by the unfortunate issue of sir John Moore’s campaign, was not proportionable to the importance of the subject. The people, trained to party politics, and possessing no real power to rebuke the folly of the cabinet, regarded disasters and triumphs with factious rather than with national feelings, and it was alike easy to draw the public attention from affairs of weight, and to fix it upon matters of little moment. In the beginning of 1809, the duke of York’s conduct being impeached, a parliamentary investigation followed; and to drag the private frailties of that prince before the world, was thought essential to the welfare of the country, when the incapacity which had caused England and Spain to mourn in tears of blood, was left unprobed. An insular people only, who are protected by their situation from the worst evils of war, may suffer themselves to be thus deluded; but if an unfortunate campaign were to bring a devastating enemy into the heart of the country, the honour of a general, and the whole military policy of the cabinet, would no longer be considered as mere subjects for the exercise of a vile sophist’s talents for misrepresentation.
It is true that the ill success of the British arms was a topic, upon which many orators in both houses of parliament expatiated with great eloquence, but the discussions were chiefly remarkable, as examples of acute debating without any knowledge of facts. The opposition speakers, eager to criminate the government, exaggerated the loss and distress of the retreat, and comprehending neither the movements nor the motives of sir John Moore, urged several untenable accusations against their adversaries. The ministers, disunited by personal feelings, did not all adopt the same ground of defence. Lord Castlereagh and lord Liverpool, passing over the errors of the cabinet by which the general had been left only a choice of difficulties, asserted, and truly, that the advantages derived from the advance to Sahagun more than compensated for the losses in the subsequent retreat. Both those statesmen paid an honourable tribute to the merits of the commander; but Mr. Canning, unscrupulously resolute to screen Mr. Frere, assented to all the erroneous statements of the opposition, and endeavoured with malignant dexterity to convert them into charges against the fallen general. Sir John Moore was, he said, answerable for the events of the campaign, whether the operations were glorious or distressful, whether to be admired or deplored, they were his own, for he had kept the ministers ignorant of his proceedings. Being pressed closely on that point by Mr. C. Hutchinson, Mr. Canning repeated this assertion. Not long afterwards, sir John Moore’s letters, written almost daily and furnishing exact and copious information of all that was passing in the Peninsula, were laid before the house.
The reverses experienced in Spain had somewhat damped the ardour of the English people; but a cause so rightful in itself, was still popular, and a treaty having been concluded with the junta, by which the contracting powers bound themselves to make common cause against France, and to agree to no peace except by mutual consent, the ministers appeared resolute to support the contest. But while professing unbounded confidence in the result of the struggle, they already looked upon the Peninsula as a secondary object; for the preparations of Austria, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon’s, had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions. It was more agreeable to the aristocratic feelings of the English cabinet, that the French should be defeated by a monarch in Germany, than by a plebeian insurrection in Spain. The obscure intrigues carried on through the princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies of Germany emanating as they did from patrician sources, engaged all the attention of the ministers, and exciting their sympathy, nursed those distempered feelings, which led them to see weakness and disaffection in France when, throughout that mighty empire, few desired and none dared openly to oppose the emperor’s wishes, when even secret discontent was confined to some royalist chiefs and splenetic republicans, whose influence was never felt until after Napoleon had suffered the direst reverses.
Unable to conceive the extent of that monarch’s views, and the grandeur of his genius, the ministers attributed the results of his profound calculations to a blind chance, his victories to treason, to corruption, to any thing but that admirable skill, with which he wielded the most powerful military force that ever obeyed the orders of a single chief. And thus self-deluded, and misjudging the difficulties to be encountered, they adopted every idle project, and squandered their resources without any great or decided effort. While negotiating with the Spanish Junta for the occupation of Cadiz, they were also planning an expedition against Sicily; and while loudly asserting their resolution to defend Portugal, reserved their principal force for a blow against Holland; their preparations for the last object being, however, carried on with a pomp and publicity little suitable to war. With what a mortal calamity that pageant closed, shall hereafter be noticed; but at present it is fitting to describe the operations that took place in Spain, coincident with and subsequent to the retreat of sir John Moore.
It has been already stated, that when the capital surrendered to the Emperor, he refused to permit Joseph to return there, unless the public bodies and the heads of families would unite to demand his restoration, and swear, without any mental reservation, to be true to him. Registers had consequently Nellerto. been opened in the different quarters of the city, and twenty-eight thousand six hundred heads of families inscribed their names, and voluntarily swore, in presence of the host, that they were Azanza and O’Farril. sincere in their desire to receive Joseph. After this, deputations from all the councils, from the junta of commerce and money, the hall of the Alcaldes, and from the corporation, waited on the emperor at Valladolid, and being there joined by the municipality of that town, and by deputies from Astorga, Leon, and other places, presented the oath, and prayed that Joseph might be king. Napoleon thus entreated, consented that his brother should return to Madrid, and reassume his kingly functions.
It would be idle to argue from this apparently voluntary submission to the French emperor, that a change favourable to the usurpation had been produced in the feelings of the Spanish people; but it is evident that Napoleon’s victories and policy had been so far effectual, that in the capital, and many other great towns, the multitude as well as the notables were, either from fear or conviction, submissive to his will; and it is but reasonable to suppose, that if his conquests had not been interrupted by extraneous circumstances, this example would have been generally followed, in preference to the more glorious, but ineffectual, resistance made by the inhabitants of those cities, whose fortitude and whose calamities have forced from mankind a sorrowful admiration. The cause of Spain at this moment was in truth lost; if any cause depending upon war, which is but a succession of violent and sudden changes, can be called so; for her armies were dispersed, her government bewildered, and her people dismayed; the cry of resistance had ceased, and in its stead the stern voice of Napoleon, answered by the tread of three hundred thousand French veterans was heard throughout the land. But the hostility of Austria having arrested the emperor’s career in the Peninsula, the energy of the Spaniards revived at the abrupt cessation of his terrific warfare.
Joseph, escorted by his French guards, in number between five and six thousand, entered Madrid in state the 23d of January. He was, however, a king without revenues, and he would have been without even the semblance of authority, if he had not been likewise nominated the emperor’s lieutenant in Spain, by virtue of which title he was empowered to move the French army at his will. This power was one extremely unacceptable to the marshals, and he would have found it difficult to enforce it, even though he had restrained the exercise to the limits prescribed by his brother. But disdaining to separate the general from the monarch, King’s correspondence captured at Vittoria, MSS. he conveyed his orders to the French army, through his Spanish ministers, and the army in its turn disdained and resisted the assumed authority of men, who, despised for their want of military knowledge, were also suspected as favouring interests essentially differing from those of the troops.
The iron grasp that had compressed the pride and the ambitious jealousy of the marshals being thus relaxed, the passions that had ruined the patriots began to work among their enemies, producing indeed less fatal effects, because their scope was more circumscribed, but sufficiently pernicious to stop the course of conquest. The French army, no longer a compact body, terrible alike from its massive strength, and its flexible activity, became a collection of independent bands, each formidable in itself, but, from the disunion of the generals, slow to combine for any great object; and plainly discovering, by irregularities and insubordination, that they knew when a warrior, and when a voluptuous monarch was at their head; but these evils were only felt at a later period; and the distribution of the troops, when Napoleon quitted Valladolid, still bore the impress of his genius.
The first corps was quartered in La Mancha.
The second corps was destined to invade Portugal.
The third and fifth corps carried on the siege of Zaragoza.
The fourth corps remained in the valley of the Tagus.
The sixth corps, wanting its third division, was appointed to hold Gallicia.
The seventh corps continued always in Catalonia.
The imperial guards, directed on Vittoria, contributed to the security of the great communication with France until Zaragoza should fall, and were yet ready to march when wanted for the Austrian war.
General Dessolles, with the third division of the sixth corps, returned to Madrid. General Bonnet, with the fifth division of the second corps, remained in the Montagna St. Andero.
General Lapisse, with the second division of the first corps, was sent to Salamanca, where he was joined by Maupetit’s brigade of cavalry, which had crossed the Sierra de Bejar.
The reserve of heavy cavalry being broken up, was distributed, by divisions, in the following order:—
Latour Maubourg’s joined the first corps. Lorge’s and Lahoussaye’s were attached to the second corps. Lassalle’s was sent to the fourth corps. The sixth corps was reinforced with two brigades. Milhaud’s division remained at Madrid, and Kellerman’s guarded the lines of communication between Tudela, Burgos, and Palencia.
Thus, Madrid being still the centre of operations, the French were so distributed, that by a concentric movement on that capital, they could crush every insurrection within the circle of their positions; and the great masses, being kept upon the principal roads diverging from Madrid to the extremities of the Peninsula, intercepted all communication between the Provinces: while the second corps, thrust out, as it were, beyond the circumference, and destined, as the fourth corps had been, to sweep round from point to point, was sure of finding a supporting army, and a good line of retreat, at every great route leading from Madrid to the yet unsubdued provinces of the Peninsula. The communication with France was, at the same time, secured by the fortresses of Burgos, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian; and by the divisions posted at St. Ander, Burgos, Bilbao, and Vittoria; and it was supported by a reserve at Bayonne.
The northern provinces were parcelled out into military governments, the chiefs of which corresponded with each other; and, by the means of moveable columns, repressed every petty insurrection. The third and fifth corps, also, having their base at Pampeluna, and their line of operations directed against Zaragoza, served as an additional covering force to the communication with France, and were themselves exposed to no flank attacks, except from the side of Cuença, where the duke of Infantado commanded; but that general was himself watched by the first corps.
All the lines of correspondence, not only from France but between the different corps, were maintained by fortified posts, having greater or lesser garrisons, according to their importance. Between Bayonne and Burgos there were eleven military stations. Between Burgos and Madrid, by the road of Muster-rolls of the French army, MSS. Aranda and Somosierra, there were eight; and eleven others protected the more circuitous route to the capital by Valladolid, Segovia, and the Guadarama. Between Valladolid and Zaragoza the line was secured by fifteen intermediate points. The communication between Valladolid and St. Ander contained eight posts; and nine others connected the former town with Villa Franca del Bierzo, by the route of Benevente and Astorga; finally, two were established between Benevente and Leon.
At this period, the force of the army, exclusive of Joseph’s French guards, was three hundred [Appendix, No. 1], section 1. and twenty-four thousand four hundred and eleven men, about thirty-nine thousand being cavalry.
Fifty-eight thousand men were in hospital.
The depôts, governments, garrisons, posts of correspondence, prisoners, and “battalions of march,” composed of stragglers, absorbed about twenty-five thousand men.
The remainder were under arms, with their regiments; and, consequently, more than two hundred and forty thousand men were in the field: while the great line of communication with France was (and the military reader will do well to mark this, the key-stone of Napoleon’s system) protected by above fifty thousand men, whose positions were strengthened by three fortresses and sixty-four posts of correspondence, each more or less fortified.
Having thus shewn to the reader the military state of the French, I shall now proceed with the narrative of their operations; following, as in the first volume, a local rather than a chronological arrangement of events.
OPERATIONS IN ESTREMADURA AND LA MANCHA.
The defeat of Galluzzo has been incidentally touched upon before. The duke of Dantzic having observed that the Spanish general, with six thousand raw levies, pretended to defend a line of forty miles, made a feint of crossing the Tagus, at Arzobispo, and then suddenly descending to Almaraz, forced a passage over that bridge, on the 24th of December, killed and wounded many Spaniards, and captured four guns: and so complete was the dispersion, that for a long time after, not a man was to be found in arms throughout Estremadura. [Appendix, No. 2], sections 2 and 3. The French cavalry were at first placed on the tracks of the fugitives; but intelligence of sir John Moore’s advance to Sahagun being received, Ibid. the pursuit ceased at Merida, and the fourth corps, which had left eight hundred and thirty men in garrison at Segovia, took post between Talavera and Placentia. The duke of Dantzic was then recalled to France, and general Sebastiani succeeded to the command of the fourth corps. It was at this period that the first corps (of which the division of Lapisse only had followed the emperor to Astorga) moved against Toledo, and that town was occupied without opposition. The French outposts were then pushed towards Cuença on the one side, and towards the Sierra Morena on the other.
Meanwhile, the central junta, changing its first design, retired to Seville, instead of Badajos; and being continually urged, both by Mr. Stuart and Mr. Frere, to make some effort to lighten the pressure on the English army, ordered Palafox and the duke of Infantado to advance; the one from Zaragoza towards Tudela, the other from Cuença towards Madrid. The marquis of Palacios, who had been removed from Catalonia, and was now at the head of five or six thousand levies in the Sierra Morena, was also directed to advance into La Mancha; and Galluzzo, deprived of his command, was constituted a prisoner, along with Cuesta, Castaños, and a number of other culpable or unfortunate officers, who, vainly demanding a judgement on their cases, were dragged from place to place by the government.
Cuesta was, however, so popular in Estremadura, that the central junta, although fearing and detesting him, consented to his being placed at the head of Galluzzo’s fugitives, part of whom had, when the pursuit ceased, rallied behind the Guadiana, and were now, with the aid of fresh levies, again taking the form, rather than the consistence, of an army. This appointment was an act of deplorable weakness and incapacity. The moral effect was to degrade the government by exposing its fears and weakness; and, in a military view, it was destructive, because Cuesta was physically and mentally incapable of command. Obstinate, jealous, and stricken in years, he was heedless of time and circumstances, of disposition and fitness. To punish with a barbarous severity, and to rush headlong into battle, constituted, in his mind, all the functions of a general.
[Appendix, No. 2], section 2d.
The president, Florida Blanca, being eighty-one years of age, died at Seville, and the marquis of Astorga succeeded him; but the character of the junta was in no manner affected by the change. Some fleeting indications of vigour had been produced by the imminence of the danger during the flight from Aranjuez, but a large remittance of silver, from South America, having arrived at Cadiz, Appendix, No. 13. Vol. I. the attention of the members was so absorbed, by this object, that the public weal was blotted from their remembrance, and even Mr. Frere, ashamed [Appendix, No. 2], section 2. of their conduct, appeared to acquiesce in the justness of sir John Moore’s estimate of the value of Spanish co-operation.
The number of men to be enrolled for the defence of the country had been early fixed at five hundred thousand, but scarcely one-third had joined their colours; nevertheless, considerable bodies were assembling at different points, because the people, especially those of the southern provinces, although dismayed, were obedient, and the local authorities, at a distance from the actual scene of war, rigorously enforced the law of enrolment, and sent the recruits to the armies, hoping thereby either to stave the war off from their own districts, or to have the excuse of being without fighting men, to plead for quiet submission.
The fugitive troops also readily collected again at any given point, partly from patriotism, partly because the French were in possession of their native provinces, partly that they attributed their defeats to the treachery of their generals, and partly that, being deceived by the gross falsehoods and boasting of the government, they, with ready vanity, imagined that the enemy had invariably suffered enormous losses. In fine, for the reasons mentioned in the commencement of this history, men were to be had in abundance; but, beyond assembling them and appointing some incapable person to command, nothing was done for defence.
The officers who were not deceived had no confidence either in their own troops or in the government, nor were they themselves confided in or respected by their men. The latter were starved, were misused, ill-handled, and they possessed neither the compact strength of discipline nor the daring of enthusiasm. Under such a system, it was impossible that the peasantry could be rendered energetic soldiers; and they certainly were not active supporters of their country’s cause; but, with a wonderful constancy, they suffered for it, enduring fatigue and sickness, nakedness and famine, with patience, and displaying, in all their actions and in all their sentiments, a distinct and powerful national character. This constancy and the iniquity of the usurpation hallowed their efforts in despite of their ferocity, and merits respect, though the vices and folly of the juntas and the leading men rendered the effect of those efforts nugatory.
Palacios, on the receipt of the orders above mentioned, advanced, with five thousand men, to Vilharta, in La Mancha, and the duke of Infantado, anticipating the instructions of the junta, was already in motion from Cuença. His army, reinforced by the divisions of Cartoajal and Lilli and by fresh levies, was about twenty thousand men, of which two thousand were cavalry. To check the incursions of the French horsemen, he had, a few days after the departure of Napoleon from Madrid, detached general Senra and general Venegas with eight thousand infantry and all the horse to scour the country round Tarancon and Aranjuez; the former halted at Horcajada, and the latter endeavoured to cut off a French detachment, but was himself surprised and beaten by a very inferior force.
Marshal Victor, however, withdrew his advanced posts, and, concentrating Ruffin’s and Villatte’s divisions of infantry and Latour Maubourg’s cavalry, at Villa de Alorna, in the vicinity of Toledo, left Venegas in possession of Tarancon. But, among the Spanish generals, mutual recriminations succeeded this failure: the duke of Infantado possessed neither authority nor talents to repress their disputes, and in this untoward state of affairs receiving the orders of the junta, he immediately projected a movement on Toledo, intending to seize that place and Aranjuez, to break down the bridges, and to maintain the line of the Tagus.
Quitting Cuença on the 10th, he reached Horcajada on the 12th, with ten thousand men, the remainder of the army, commanded by Venegas, being near Tarancon.
The 13th, the duke having moved to Carascosa, a town somewhat in advance of Horcajada, met a crowd of fugitives, and heard, with equal surprise and consternation, that the corps under Venegas was already destroyed, and the pursuers close at hand.
ROUT OF UCLES.
It appeared that Victor, uneasy at the movements of the Spanish generals, but ignorant of their situation and intentions, had quitted Toledo also on the 10th, and marched to Ocaña, whereupon Venegas, falling back from Tarancon, took a position at Ucles. The 12th, the French continued to advance in two columns, of which the one, composed of Ruffin’s division and a brigade of cavalry, lost its way, and arrived at Alcazar; but the other, commanded by Victor himself, and composed of Villatte’s division, the remainder of the cavalry, and the parc of artillery, took the road of Ucles, and came upon the position of Venegas early in the morning of the 13th.
This meeting was unexpected by either party, but the French attacked without hesitation, and the Spaniards, flying towards Alcazar, fell in with Ruffin’s division, and were totally discomfitted. Several thousands laid down their arms, and many, dispersing, fled across the fields; some, however, keeping their ranks, made towards Ocaña, where, coming suddenly upon the French parc of artillery, they received a heavy discharge of grape-shot, and dispersed. Of the whole force, a small party only, under general Giron, succeeded in forcing its way by the road of Carascosa, and so reached the duke of Infantado, who immediately retreated to Cuença, and without further loss, as the French cavalry were too fatigued to pursue briskly.
From Cuença the duke sent his artillery towards Valencia, by the road of Tortola; but himself, with the infantry and cavalry, marched by Chinchilla, and from thence to Tobarra, on the frontiers of Murcia.
At Tobarra he turned to his right, and made for Santa Cruz de Mudela, a town situated near the entrance to the defiles of the Sierra Morena. There he halted in the beginning of February, after a painful and circuitous retreat of more than two hundred miles, in a bad season. But all his artillery had been captured at Tortola, and his forces were, by desertion and straggling, reduced to a handful of discontented officers and a few thousand dispirited men, worn out with fatigue and misery.
Meanwhile, Victor, after scouring a part of the province of Cuença and disposing of his prisoners, made a sudden march upon Vilharta, intending to surprise Palacios, but that officer apprized of the retreat of Infantado had already effected his junction with the latter at Santa Cruz de Mudela. Whereupon the French marshal recalling his troops, again occupied his former position at Toledo. The prisoners taken at Ucles were marched to Madrid, those who were weak and unable to walk were Rocca’s Memoirs. (according to Mr. Rocca) shot by the orders of Victor, because the Spaniards had hanged some French prisoners. If so, it was a barbarous and a shameful retaliation, unworthy of a soldier; for what justice or honour is there in revenging the death of one innocent person by the murder of another.
When Victor withdrew his posts the duke of Infantado and Palacios proceeded to re-organize their forces under the name of the Carolina Army. The levies from Grenada and other parts were ordered up, and the cavalry, commanded by the duke of Alburquerque, endeavoured to surprise a French regiment of dragoons at Mora, but the latter getting together quickly, made a bold resistance and effected their retreat with scarcely any loss. Alburquerque having failed in this attempt retired to Consuegra and was attacked the next day by superior numbers, but retired fighting and got safely off. The duke of Infantado was now displaced, and the junta conferred the command on general Urbina Conde de Cartaojal, who applied himself to restore discipline, and after a time finding no enemy in front advanced to Ciudad Real, and taking post on the left bank of the Upper Guadiana opened a communication with Cuesta. At this period the latter’s force amounted to sixteen thousand men, of which three thousand were cavalry; for, as the Spaniards generally suffered more in their flights than in their battles, the horsemen escaped with little damage and were easily rallied again in greater relative numbers than the infantry.
The fourth corps having withdrawn, as I have already related, to the right bank of the Tagus, Cuesta advanced from the Guadiana and occupied the left bank of that river, on a line extending from the mountains in front of Arzobispo to the Puerto de Mirabete. The French, by fortifying an old tower, held the command of the bridge of Arzobispo, but Cuesta immediately broke down that of Almaraz, a magnificent structure, the centre arch of which was more than a hundred and fifty feet in height.
In these positions the troops on either side remained tranquil both in La Mancha and Estremadura, and so ended the exertions made to lighten the pressure upon the English army. Two French divisions of infantry and as many brigades of cavalry had more than sufficed to baffle them, and hence the imminent danger that menaced the south of Spain, when sir John Moore’s vigorous operations drew the emperor’s forces to the north, may be justly estimated.