CHAPTER IV.
When the duke of Belluno retired from Salinas to Maqueda, the king, fearing that the allies were moving up the right bank of the Alberche, carried his reserve, in the night of the 3d, to Mostoles; but the fourth corps remained at Illescas, and sent strong patroles to Valdemoro. Wilson, however, retired, as we have seen, from Nombella on the 4th; and the king, no longer expecting the allies in that quarter, marched in the night to Valdemoro, where he was joined by the fourth corps from Illescas.
The 5th, the duke of Belluno returned to St. Ollalla; and the king marched against general Venegas, who, in pursuance of the secret orders of the junta, before mentioned, had loitered about Daymiel and Tembleque until the 27th of July. The 29th, however, Venegas reached Ocaña, his advanced posts being at Aranjuez, his rear-guard at Yepes, and one division, under Lacy, in front of Toledo. The same day, one of the partidas, attending the army, surprised a small French post on the other side of the Tagus; and Lacy’s division skirmished with the garrison of Toledo.
The 30th, Venegas heard of the battle of Talavera; and at the same time Lacy reported that the head of the enemy’s columns were to be seen on the road beyond Toledo. Hereupon, the Spanish commander reinforced Lacy, and gave him Mora as a point of retreat; but, on the 2d of August, being falsely informed by Cuesta that the allied troops would immediately march upon Madrid, Venegas recalled his divisions from Toledo, pretending to concentrate his army at Aranjuez, in order to march also upon the capital; but he had no intention of doing so; for the junta did not desire to see Cuesta, at the head of sixty thousand men, in that city; and, previous to the battle of Talavera, had not only forbidden him to enter Madrid, but appointed another man governor. This prohibition would, no doubt, have been disregarded by Cuesta; but Venegas was obedient to their secret instructions, and under pretence of danger to his flanks, if he marched on the capital, remained at Aranjuez, where his flank being equally exposed to an enemy coming from Toledo, he yet performed no service to the general cause.
The 3d, he pushed an advanced guard to Puente Largo; and leaving six hundred infantry, and some cavalry, near Toledo, concentrated his army between Aranjuez and Ocaña; and in this position he remained until the 5th, when his advanced guard was driven from the Puente Largo, and across the Tagus. His line of posts on that river was then attacked by the French skirmishers, and, under cover of a heavy cannonade, his position was examined by the enemy’s generals; but when the latter found that all the bridges above and below Aranjuez were broken down, they resolved to pass the Tagus at Toledo. With this intent, the French army re-crossed the Xarama river, and marched in the direction of that city; but Venegas still keeping his posts at Aranjuez, foolishly dispersed his other divisions at Tembleque, Ocaña, and Guardia. He himself was desirous of defending La Mancha. The central junta, with more prudence, wished him to retreat into the Sierra Morena; but Mr. Frere proposed that his army should be divided; one part to enter the Morena, and the other to march by Cuença, upon Aragon, and so to menace the communications with France! The admirable absurdity of this proposal would probably have caused it to be adopted, if Sebastiani’s movements had not put an end to the discussion. That general, crossing the Tagus at Toledo, and at a ford higher up, drove the Spaniards’ left back upon the Guazalate. This was on the 9th of August; on the 10th, Venegas concentrated his whole army at Almonacid, and, holding a council of war, resolved to attack the French on the 12th; but the time was miscalculated. Sebastiani advanced on the 11th, and commenced
THE BATTLE OF ALMONACID.
The army of Venegas, including two thousand cavalry, was somewhat more than twenty-five thousand strong, with forty pieces of artillery. It was the most efficient Spanish force that had yet taken the field; it was composed of the best regiments in Spain, well armed and clothed; and the generals of division were neither incapacitated by age, nor destitute of experience, most of them having been employed in the previous campaign. The village of Almonacid was in the centre of the Spanish position; and, together with some table-land in front of it, was occupied by two divisions of infantry under general Castejon. The left wing, under general Lacy, rested on a hill which covered the main road to Consuegra. The right wing, commanded by general Vigodet, was drawn up on some rising ground covering the road to Tembleque. A reserve, under general Giron, and the greatest part of the artillery, were posted behind the centre, on a rugged hill, crowned by an old castle. The cavalry were placed at the extremity of each wing.
General Dessolles, with the French reserve, was still some hours’ march behind, but Sebastiani, after observing the dispositions made by Venegas, resolved to attack him with the fourth corps only. The Polish division immediately marched against the front; Leval’s Germans turned the flank of the hill, on which the Spanish left was posted; and two French brigades were directed upon the centre. After a sharp fight, the Spanish left was put to flight; but Venegas, outflanking the victorious troops with his cavalry, charged and threw them into disorder. At this moment, the head of Dessolles’s column arrived, and enabled Sabastiani’s reserves to restore the combat; and then the Spanish cavalry, shattered by musketry, and by the fire of four pieces of artillery, was, in turn, charged by a French regiment of horse, and broken. Venegas rallied his troops again on the castle-hill, behind the village; but the king came up with the remainder of the reserve, and the attack was renewed. The Poles and Germans continued their march against the left flank of the Spaniards; nine fresh battalions fell upon their centre, and a column of six battalions forced the right. The height and the castle were thus carried at the first effort. Venegas attempted to cover his retreat, by making a stand in the plain behind; but two divisions of dragoons charged his troops before they could re-form, and the disorder became irremediable. The Spaniards, throwing away their arms, dispersed in every direction, and were pursued and slaughtered by the horsemen for several hours.
Following the French account, three thousand of the vanquished were slain, and four thousand taken prisoners; and all the guns, baggage, ammunition, and carriages fell into the hands of the victors, whose loss did not exceed fifteen hundred men. The remnants of the defeated army took shelter in the Sierra Morena. The head-quarters of the fourth corps were then established at Aranjuez; those of the first at Toledo; and the king returned in triumph to the capital.
The allied troops, however, still held their position at Deleytosa and Jaraicejo, and sir Arthur Parliamentary Papers, 1810. Wellesley was not, at the first, without hopes to maintain himself there, or even to resume offensive operations; for he knew that Ney had returned to Salamanca, and he erroneously believed that Mortier commanded only a part of the first corps, and that the remainder were at Toledo. On the other hand, his own strength was about seventeen thousand men; Beresford had reached Moraleja, with from twelve to fourteen thousand Portuguese; and between the frontier of Portugal and Lisbon there were at least five thousand British troops, composing the brigades of Catlin Craufurd and Lightburn. If Soult invaded Portugal, the intention of the English general was to have followed him. If the French remained in their present position, he meant to re-cross the Tagus, and, in conjunction with Beresford’s troops, to fall upon their right at Plasencia. For his own front he had no fear; and he was taking measures to restore the broken arch of the Cardinal’s bridge over the Tagus, with a view to his operation against Plasencia, when the misconduct of the Spanish government and its generals again obliged him to look solely to the preservation of his own army.
From the 23d of July, when the bad faith of the junta, the apathy of the people in Estremadura, and the wayward folly of Cuesta, had checked the forward movements of the British, the privations of the latter, which had commenced at Plasencia, daily increased. It was in vain that sir Arthur, remonstrating [Appendix, No. 7]. with Cuesta and the junta, had warned them of the consequences; it was in vain that he refused to pass the Alberche until the necessary supplies were secured. His reasonings, his representations, and even the fact of his having halted at Talavera, were alike disregarded by men who, judging from their own habits, concluded that his actions would also be at variance with his professions.
If he demanded food for his troops, he was answered by false statements of what had been supplied, and falser promises of what would be done; and the glorious services rendered at Talavera, far from exciting the gratitude or calling forth the activity of the Spanish authorities, seemed only to render them the more perverse. The soldiers in the ranks were weakened by hunger, the sick were dying for want of necessary succours, the commissaries were without the means of transport; and when sir Arthur Wellesley applied for only ninety artillery horses to supply the place of those killed in the action, Cuesta, on the very field of battle, and with the steam of the English blood still reeking in his nostrils, refused this request, and, two days after, abandoned the wounded men to an enemy that he and his countrymen were hourly describing as the most ferocious and dishonourable of mankind.
The retreat of the allies across the Tagus increased the sufferings of the troops, and the warmth of their general’s remonstrances rose in proportion to the ill-treatment they experienced; but the replies, nothing abating in falseness as to fact, now became insulting both to the general and his army: “The British were not only well but over supplied:”—“they robbed the peasantry, pillaged the villages, intercepted the Spanish convoys, and openly sold the provisions thus shamefully acquired:”—“the retreat of the army across the Tagus was unnecessary; Soult ought to have been destroyed; and the English general must have secret motives for his conduct, which he dare not avouch:”—and other calumnies of the like nature.
Now, from the 20th of July to the 20th of August, although the Spaniards were generally well fed, the English soldiers had not received ten full rations. Half a pound of wheat in the grain, and, twice a week, a few ounces of flour, with a quarter of a pound of goat’s flesh, formed the sole subsistence of men and officers; and this scanty supply was procured with much labour, for the goats were to be caught and killed by the troops; and it was, perhaps, upon this additional hardship that the accusation of selling provisions was founded, for, in such cases, it is in all armies the custom that the offal belongs to the men who slaughter the animals. But the famine in the camp was plainly proved by this very fact; for a goat’s offal sold, at this time, for three and even four dollars, or about double the usual price of the whole animal; and men and officers strove to outbid each other for the wretched food.
It has been said that the British soldiers are less intelligent in providing for themselves, and less able to sustain privations of food than the soldiers of any other nation. This is one of many vulgar errors which have been promulgated respecting them. How they should be constantly victorious, and yet inferior to all other nations in military qualification, does not, at first sight, appear a very logical conclusion; but the truth is, that, with the exception of the Spanish and Portuguese, who are, undoubtedly, more sober, the English soldiers possess all the most valuable military qualities in as high, and many in a much higher degree than any other nation. They are as rapid and as intelligent as the French, as obedient as the German, as enduring as the Russian, and more robust than any; and, with respect to food, this is sure, that no man, of any nation, with less than two pounds of solid food of some kind daily, can do his work well for any length of time. A general charge of pillaging is easily made and hard to be disproved; but it is certain that the Spanish troops themselves did not only pillage, but wantonly devastate the country, and that without any excuse; for, with the exception of the three days succeeding the defeat of Arzobispo, their rations were regular and sufficient: and, with respect to the interruption of their convoys, by the British [Appendix, No. 18]. soldiers, the reverse was the fact. The Spanish cavalry intercepted the provisions and forage destined for the English army, and fired upon the foragers, as if they had been enemies.
Parliamentary Papers, 1810.
Before the middle of August there were, in the six regiments of English cavalry, a thousand men completely dismounted, and the horses of seven hundred others were unserviceable. The baggage animals died in greater numbers; the artillery cattle were scarcely able to drag the guns; and one-third of the reserve ammunition was given over to the Spaniards, because the ammunition carts were required for the conveyance of sick men, of which the number daily increased.
Marshal Beresford experienced the same difficulties in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. The [Appendix, No. 17]. numerous desertions that took place in the Portuguese army, when it became known that the troops were to enter Spain, prevented him from taking the field so soon as he had expected; but, in the last days of July, being prepared to act, he crossed the Portuguese frontier, and, from that moment, the usual vexatious system of the Spaniards commenced. Romana still continued at Coruña; but the duke del Parque was full of mighty projects, and indignant that Beresford would not blindly adopt his recommendations. Both generals were ignorant of the real strength of the French; but the Spaniard was confident, and insisted upon offensive movements, while Beresford, a general by no means of an enterprising disposition when in the sole command of an army, contented himself with taking up a defensive line behind the Agueda. In this, however, he was justified; first, by his instructions, which obliged him to look to the pass of Perales and the defence of the frontier line; secondly, by the state of his army, which was not half organized, and without horsemen or artillery; and, thirdly, by the conduct of the Spanish authorities.
The Portuguese troops were not only refused provisions, but those which had been collected by sir Arthur Wellesley, and put into the magazines at Ciudad Rodrigo, with a view to operate in that quarter, were seized by the cabildo, as security for a debt pretended to be due for the supply of sir John Moore’s army. The claim itself was of doubtful character, for Cradock had before offered to pay it if the cabildo would produce the voucher for its being due, a preliminary which had not been complied with. There was also an English commissary at Ciudad Rodrigo, empowered to liquidate that and any other just claim upon the British military chest; but the cabildo, like all Spaniards, mistaking violence for energy, preferred this display of petty power to the interests of the common cause. Meanwhile, Soult having passed the Sierra de Gredos, by the Baños, Beresford, moving in a parallel direction, crossed the Sierra de Gata, at Perales; reached Moraleja about the 12th of August, and having rallied the troops and convalescents cut off from Talavera, marched to Salvatierra, where he arrived the 17th, and took post behind the Elga, covering the road to Abrantes.
The supreme junta now offered sir Arthur Wellesley the rank of captain-general, and sent him a present of horses; and when he, accepting the rank, refused the pay, as he had before refused that of the Portuguese government, they pressed him to renew offensive operations; but, acting as if they thought the honours conferred upon the general would amply compensate for the sufferings of the troops, the junta made no change in their system. These things convinced sir Arthur Wellesley that Spain was no longer the place for a British army, and he relinquished the idea of further operations in that country. Sending his cavalry to the neighbourhood of Caceres, he broke down another arch of the Cardinal’s bridge, to prevent the enemy from troubling him, and, through the British ambassador, informed the junta that he would immediately retire into Portugal.
This information created the wildest consternation; for, in their swollen self-sufficiency, the members of the government had hitherto disregarded all warnings upon this subject, and now acting as, in the like case, they had acted, the year before, with sir John Moore, they endeavoured to avert the consequences of their own evil doings, by vehement remonstrances and the most absurd statements:—“The French were weak and the moment most propitious for driving them beyond the Pyrenees:” “the uncalled-for retreat of the English would ruin the cause:” and so forth. But they had to deal with a general as firm as sir John Moore; and, in the British ambassador, they no longer found an instrument suited to their purposes.
Lord Wellesley, a man with too many weaknesses to be called great, but of an expanded capacity, and a genius at once subtle and imperious, had come out on a special mission,—and Mr. Frere, whose last communication with the junta had been to recommend another military project, was happily displaced; yet, even in his private capacity, he made an effort to have some of the generals superseded; and the junta, with a refined irony, truly Spanish, created him marquis of Union.
At Cadiz, the honours paid to lord Wellesley were extravagant and unbecoming, and his journey from thence to Seville was a scene of triumph; but these outward demonstrations of feeling did not impose upon him beyond the moment. His brother’s correspondence and his own penetration soon enabled him to make a just estimate of the junta’s protestations. Disdaining their intrigues, and fully appreciating a general’s right to direct the operations of his own army, he seconded sir Arthur’s remonstrances with firmness, and wisely taking the latter’s statements as a guide and basis for his own views, urged them upon the Spanish government with becoming dignity.
The junta, on their part, always protesting that the welfare of the British army was the principal object of their care, did not fail to prove, very clearly upon paper, that the troops, ever since their entry into Spain, had been amply supplied: and that no measure might be wanting to satisfy the English general, they invested don Lorenzo Calvo, a member of their body, with full powers to draw forth and apply all the resources of the country to the nourishment of both armies. This gentleman’s promises and assurances, relative to the supply, were more full and formal than M. de Garay’s, and equally false. He declared that provisions and forage, in vast quantities, were actually being delivered into the magazines at Truxillo, when, in fact, there was not even an effort making to collect any. He promised that the British should be served, although the Spanish troops should thereby suffer; and, at the very time of making this promise, he obliged the alcaldes of a distant town to send, into the Spanish camp, provisions which had been already purchased by an English commissary. In fine, lord Wellesley had arrived too late; all the mischief that petulance, folly, bad faith, violence, and ignorance united, could inflict, was already accomplished, and, while he was vainly urging a vile, if not a treacherous government, to provide sustenance for the soldiers, sir Arthur withdrew the latter from a post where the vultures, in their prescience of death, were already congregating.
The 20th, the main body of the British army quitted Jaraicejo, and marched by Truxillo upon Merida. The light brigade, under Craufurd, being relieved at Almaraz by the Spaniards, took the road of Caceres to Valencia de Alcantara. But the pass of Mirabete bore ample testimony to the previous sufferings of the troops; Craufurd’s brigade, which, only three weeks before, had traversed sixty miles in a single march, were now with difficulty, and after many halts, able to reach the summit of the Mirabete, although only four miles from their camp; and the side of that mountain was covered with baggage, and the carcases of many hundred animals that died in the ascent.
The retreat being thus commenced, the junta, with the malevolence of anger engendered by fear, calumniated the man to whom, only ten days before, they had addressed the most fulsome compliments, and to whose courage and skill they owed their own existence. “It was not the want of provisions,” they said, “but some other motive that caused the English general to retreat.” This was openly and insultingly stated by Garray, by Eguia, and by Calvo, in their correspondence with lord Wellesley and sir Arthur; and at the same time the junta industriously spread a report that the true reason was their own firm resistance to the ungenerous demands of the English ministers, who had required the cession of Cadiz and the island of Cuba, as the price of furthur assistance.
At Talavera, sir Arthur Wellesley had been forced to give over to the Spaniards the artillery taken from the enemy. At Meza d’Ibor, he had sacrificed a part of his ammunition, to obtain conveyance for the wounded men, and to effect the present movement from Jaraicejo, without leaving his sick behind, he was obliged to abandon all his parc of ammunition, and stores, and then the Spanish generals, who had refused the slightest aid to convey the sick and wounded men, immediately found ample means to carry off all these stores to their own magazines. In this manner, almost bereft of baggage and ammunition, those soldiers, who had withstood the fiercest efforts of the enemy, were driven, as it were, ignominiously from the country they had protected to their loss.
The 24th, the head-quarters being at Merida, a despatch from lord Wellesley was received. He painted in strong colours the terror of the junta, the distraction of the people, and the universal confusion; and with a natural anxiety to mitigate their distress, he proposed that the British army should, notwithstanding the past, endeavour to cover Andalusia, by taking, in conjunction with the Spanish army, a defensive post behind the Guadiana, in such manner that the left should rest on the frontier of Portugal: to facilitate this he had, he said, presented a plan to the junta for the future supply of provisions, and the vicinity of the frontier and of Seville would, he hoped, obviate any difficulty on that point. But he rested his project entirely upon political grounds; and it is worthy of observation that he who, for many years had, with despotic power, controlled the movements of immense armies in India, carefully avoided any appearance of meddling with the general’s province. “I am,” said he, “fully sensible not only of the indelicacy, but of the inutility of attempting to offer to you any opinion of mine in a situation where your own judgement must be your best guide.”—“Viewing, however, so nearly, the painful consequences of your immediate retreat into Portugal, I have deemed it to be my duty to submit it to your consideration the possibility of adopting an intermediate plan.”
On the receipt of this despatch, sir Arthur Wellesley halted at Merida for some days. He was able in that country to obtain provisions, and he wished, if possible, to allay the excitement occasioned by his retreat; but he refused to co-operate again with the Spaniards. Want, he said, had driven him to separate from them, but their shameful flight at Arzobispo would alone have justified him for doing so. To take up a defensive position behind the Guadiana would be useless, because that river was fordable, and the ground behind it weak. The line of the Tagus, occupied at the moment by Eguia, was so strong, that if the Spaniards could defend any thing they might defend that. His advice then was that they should send the pontoon-bridge to Badajos, and remain on the defensive at Deleytoza and Almaraz. But, it might be asked, was there no chance of renewing the offensive? To what purpose? The French were as numerous, if not more so, than the allies; and, with respect to the Spaniards at least, superior in discipline and every military quality. To advance again was only to play the same losing game as before. Baños and Perales must be guarded, or the bands in Castile would again pour through upon the rear of the allied army; but who was to guard these passes? The British were too few to detach, and the Spaniards could not be trusted; and if they could, Avila and the Guadarama passes remained, by which the enemy could reinforce the army in front,—for there were no Spanish troops in the north of Spain capable of making a diversion.
“But there was a more serious consideration, namely, the constant and shameful misbehaviour of the Spanish troops before the enemy. We, in England,” said sir Arthur, “never hear of their defeats and flights, but I have heard Spanish officers telling of nineteen or twenty actions of the description of that at the bridge of Arzobispo, accounts of which, I believe, have never been published.” “In the battle of Talavera,” he continued, “in which the Spanish army, with very trifling exception, was not engaged,—whole corps threw away their arms, and run off, when they were neither attacked nor threatened with an attack. When these dastardly soldiers run away they plunder every thing they meet. In their flight from Talavera they plundered the baggage of the British army, which was, at that moment, bravely engaged in their cause.”
For these reasons he would not, he said, again co-operate with the Spaniards; yet, by taking post on the Portuguese frontier, he would hang upon the enemy’s flank, and thus, unless the latter came with very great forces, prevent him from crossing the Guadiana. This reasoning was conclusive; but, ere it reached lord Wellesley, the latter found that so far from his plans, relative to the supply, having been adopted, he could not even get an answer from the junta; and that miserable body, at one moment stupified with fear, at the next bursting with folly, now talked of the enemy’s being about to retire to the Pyrenees, or even to the interior of France: and assuming the right to dispose of the Portuguese army as well as of their own, importunately pressed for an immediate, combined, offensive operation, by the troops of the three nations, to harass the enemy in his retreat; but, at the same time, they ordered Eguia to withdraw from Deleytoza, behind the Guadiana.
The 31st, Eguia reached La Serena; and Venegas having rallied his fugitives in the Morena, and being reinforced from the depôts in Andalusia, the two armies amounted to about fifty thousand men, of which eight or ten thousand were horse: for, as I have before observed, the Spanish cavalry seldom suffered much. But the tide of popular discontent was now setting full against the central government. The members of the ancient junta of Seville worked incessantly for their overthrow. Romana, Castaños, Cuesta, Albuquerque, all, and they were many, who had suffered dishonour at their hands, were against them; and the local junta of Estremadura insisted that Albuquerque should command in that province.
Thus pressed, the supreme junta, considering Venegas as a man devoted to their wishes, resolved to increase his forces. For this purpose they gave Albuquerque the command in Estremadura, but furnished him with only twelve thousand men, sending the remainder of Eguia’s army to Venegas; and, at the same time, making a last effort to engage the British general in their proceedings, they offered to place Albuquerque under his orders, provided he would undertake an offensive movement. [Appendix, No. 17]. By these means, they maintained their tottering power: but their plans, being founded upon vile political intrigues, could in no wise alter sir Arthur Wellesley’s determination, which was the result of enlarged military views. He refused their offers; and, the 4th of September, his head-quarters were established at Badajos. Meanwhile, Romana delivered over his army to the duke del Parque, and repaired to Seville. Venegas again advanced into La Mancha, but at the approach of a very inferior force of the enemy, retired, with all the haste and confusion of a rout, to the Morena. The English troops were then distributed in Badajos, Elvas, Campo Mayor, and other places, on both banks of the Guadiana. The brigades already in Portugal were brought up to the army, and the lost ammunition and equipments were replaced from the magazines at Lisbon, Abrantes, and Santarem. Beresford, leaving some light troops and militia on the frontier, retired to Thomar, and this eventful campaign, of two months, terminated.
The loss of the army was considerable; above three thousand five hundred men had been killed, or had died of sickness, or fallen into the enemy’s hands. Fifteen hundred horses had perished from want of food, exclusive of those lost in battle; the spirits of the soldiers were depressed; and a heart-burning hatred of the Spaniards was engendered by the treatment endured. To fill the cup, the pestilent fever of the Guadiana, assailing bodies which fatigue and bad nourishment had already predisposed to disease, made frightful ravages. Dysentry, that scourge of armies, raged; and, in a short time, above five thousand men died in the hospitals.