CHAPTER V.
OBSERVATIONS.
During this short, but important campaign, the armies on both sides acted in violation of that maxim which condemns “double external lines of operation,” but the results vindicated the soundness of the rule. Nothing permanent or great, nothing proportionate to the number of the troops, the vastness of the combinations, or the reputation of the commanders, was achieved; yet, neither sir Arthur Wellesley nor the duke of Dalmatia can be justly censured, seeing that the last was controlled by the king, and the first by circumstances of a peculiar nature. The French marshal was thwarted by superior authority; and the English general, commanding an auxiliary force, was obliged to regulate his movements, not by his own military views, but by the actual state of the Spaniards’ operations, and with reference to the politics and temper of that people.
La Mancha was the true line by which to act against Madrid, but the British army was on the frontier of Portugal. The junta refused Cadiz as a place of arms; and without Cadiz, or some other fortified sea-port, neither prudence, nor his instructions, would permit sir Arthur to hazard a great operation on that side. Hence he adopted, not what was most fitting, in a military sense, but what was least objectionable among the few plans that could be concerted at all with the Spanish generals and government. Now, the latter being resolved to act with strong armies, both in Estremadura and La Mancha, the English general had but to remain on a miserable defensive system in Portugal, or to unite with Cuesta in the valley of the Tagus. His territorial line of operations was therefore a matter of necessity, and any fair criticism must be founded on the management of his masses after it was chosen. That he did not greatly err in his conception of the campaign, is to be inferred from the fact, that Napoleon, Soult, Victor, and Jourdan, simultaneously expected him upon the very line he followed. He was thwarted by Cuesta at every step, Venegas failed to aid him, and the fatal error relative to Soult’s forces, under which he laboured throughout, vitiated all his operations; yet he shook the intrusive monarch roughly, in the midst of fifty thousand men.
Let the project be judged, not by what did happen, but by what would have happened, if Cuesta had been active, and if Venegas had performed his part loyally. The junction of the British and Spanish forces was made at Naval Moral, on the 22d of July. The duke of Belluno, with twenty-one thousand men, was then in position behind the Alberche, the fourth corps near Madrilejos in La Mancha, and Joseph at Madrid, where general Foy had just arrived, to concert Soult’s movement upon Plasencia.
It is evident that the king and Sebastiani could not reach the scene of action before the 25th or 26th of July, nor could Soult influence the operations before the 1st or 2d of August. If then, the allied army, being sixty thousand strong, with a hundred pieces of artillery, had attacked Victor on the morning of the 23d, it is to be presumed that the latter would have been beaten, and obliged to retreat, either upon Madrid or Toledo; but the country immediately in his rear was open, and ten thousand horsemen could have been launched in the pursuit. Sir Robert Wilson, also, would have been on Victor’s flank, if, neglecting a junction with the fourth corps, that marshal had taken the road to Madrid; and if that of Toledo, the first and fourth corps would have been separated from the king, who did not reach Vargas until the evening of the 25th, but who would not, in this case, have been able to advance at all beyond Naval Carneiro.
Now, admitting that, by superior discipline and experience, the French troops had effected their retreat on either line without any serious calamity, what would have followed?
1º. If Victor joined the king, the latter could only have retired, by Guadalaxara, upon the third corps, or have gone by the Guadarama towards Soult.
2º. If Victor joined Sebastiani, the two corps must have retreated to Guadalaxara, and the king would have joined them there, or, as before said, have pushed for the Guadarama to join Soult.
No doubt, that marshal, having so powerful an army, would, in either case, have restored Joseph to his capital, and have cut off sir Arthur’s communication with Portugal by the valley of the Tagus. Nevertheless, a great moral impression would have been produced by the temporary loss of Madrid, which was, moreover, the general depôt of all the French armies; and, meanwhile, Venegas, Cuesta, and sir Arthur Wellesley would have been united, and on one line of operations (that of La Mancha), which, under such circumstances, would have forced the junta to consent to the occupation of Cadiz. In this view it must be admitted that the plan was conceived with genius.
Victor’s position on the Alberche was, however, strong; he commanded twenty-five thousand veterans; and, as the Spaniards were very incapable in the field, it may be argued that a general movement of the whole army to Escalona, and from thence to Maqueda, would have been preferable to a direct attack at Salinas; because the allies, if thus suddenly placed in the midst of the French corps, might have beaten them in detail, and would certainly have cut the king off from the Guadarama, and forced him back upon the Guadalaxara. But, with Cuesta for a colleague, how could a general undertake an operation requiring celerity and the nicest calculation?
The false dealing of the junta no prudence could guard against; but experience proves that, without extraordinary good fortune, some accident will always happen to mar the combinations of armies acting upon “double external lines.” And so it was with respect to Venegas; for that general, with a force of twenty-six thousand men, suffered himself to be held in check for five days by three thousand French, and at the battle of Almonacid shewed that he knew neither when to advance nor when to retreat.
The patience with which sir Arthur Wellesley bore the foolish insults of Cuesta, and the undaunted firmness with which he fought to protect the Spanish army, require no illustration. When the latter fell back from St. Ollalla on the 26th, it was impossible for the British to retreat with honour; and there is nothing more memorable in the history of this war, nothing more creditable to the personal character of the English chief, than the battle of Talavera, considered as an isolated event. Nevertheless, that contest proved that the allies were unable to attain their object; for, notwithstanding Victor’s ill-judged partial attacks on the night of the 27th and morning of the 28th, and notwithstanding the final repulse of the French, all the advantages of the movements, as a whole, were with the latter. They were, on the 31st of July, including the garrison of Toledo, still above forty thousand men; and they maintained their central position, although it was not until the 1st of August that Soult’s approach caused any change in the views of the allied generals; and this brings us to the fundamental error of sir Arthur Wellesley’s operations.
That so able a commander should engage himself in the narrow valley of the Tagus with twenty thousand British and forty thousand Spanish troops, when fifty thousand French were waiting for him at the further end, and above fifty thousand more were hanging on his flank and rear, shews that the greatest masters of the art may err. He who wars walks in a mist through which the keenest eyes cannot always discern the right path. “Speak to me of a general who has made no mistakes in war,” said Turenne, “and you speak of one who has seldom made war.”
Sir Arthur Wellesley thus excused his error:—“When I entered Spain I had reason to believe that I should be joined by a Spanish army in such a respectable state of discipline and efficiency, as that it had kept in check, during nearly three months after a defeat, a French army, at one time superior, and at no time much inferior.”
“I had likewise reason to believe that the French corps, in the north of Spain, were fully employed; and although I had heard of the arrival of marshal Soult at Zamora, on the 29th of June, with a view to equip the remains of his corps, I did not think it possible that three French corps, consisting of thirty-four thousand men, under three marshals, could have been assembled at Salamanca without the knowledge of the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo, or of the junta of Castile; that these corps could have been moved from their stations in Gallicia, the Asturias, and Biscay, without setting free, for general operations, any Spanish troops which had been opposed to them, or without any other inconvenience to the enemy than that of protracting, to a later period, the settlement of his government in those provinces;—and that they could have penetrated into Estremadura, without a shot being fired at them by the troops deemed sufficient to defend the passes by the Spanish generals.” But thus it was that, like the figures in a phantasmagoria, the military preparations of Spain, however menacing in appearance, were invariably found to be vain and illusory.
That sir Arthur Wellesley’s error was not fatal is to be attributed to three causes:—
1º. The reluctance of marshal Ney to quit Astorga;—2º. The march of the fifth corps upon Villa Castin instead of Salamanca;—3º. The vehemence with which Victor advised the battle of Talavera: in short, jealousy among the marshals, and the undecided temper of the king.
If Soult had not been thwarted, he would have concentrated the three corps near Salamanca before the 20th, and he would have reached Plasencia before the 28th of July. The allies must then have forced their way into La Mancha, or been crushed; but could they have done the former without another battle? without the loss of all the wounded men? could they have done it at all? The British, including Robert Craufurd’s brigade, were seventeen thousand fighting men on the 29th, but wasted with fatigue and hunger. The Spaniards were above thirty thousand: but in them no trust could be placed for an effort requiring fine discipline and courage of the highest order. The intrusive king was at the head of forty thousand good troops. Venegas, at once ignorant and hampered by the intrigues of the junta, was as nought in the operations; but Soult’s step, stealthy while the situation of affairs was obscure, would have been impetuous when a light broke on the field of battle; and it is scarcely possible to conceive that the allies could have forced their way in front before that marshal would have fallen on their rear.
FRENCH OPERATIONS.
The intrusive monarch was finally successful; yet it may be safely affirmed that, with the exception of uniting his three corps behind the Guadarama, on the evening of the 25th, his proceedings were an uninterrupted series of errors. First, he would not suffer Soult to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo with seventy thousand men, in the end of July. To protect Madrid from the army of Venegas overbalanced, in his mind, the advantages of this bold and grand project, which would inevitably have drawn sir Arthur Wellesley from the Tagus, and which, interrupting all military communication between the northern and southern provinces, and ensuring possession of Castile and Leon, would, by its success, have opened a broad way to Lisbon. But Cuesta and Venegas, meanwhile, would have marched against Madrid! Cuesta and Venegas, acting on external lines, and whose united force did not exceed sixty-five thousand men! And the king, holding a central position, with fifty thousand French veterans, was alarmed at this prospect, and, rejecting Soult’s plan, drew Mortier, with the fifth corps, to Villa Castin. Truly, this was to neglect the bearing fruit-tree from fear of the nettle at its stem!
Sir Arthur Wellesley’s advance to Talavera was the result of this great error; but he having thus incautiously afforded Soult an opportunity of striking a fatal blow, a fresh combination was concerted. The king, with equal judgement and activity, then united all his own forces near Toledo, separated Venegas from Cuesta, pushed back the latter upon the English army, and obliged both to stand on the defensive, with eyes attentively directed to their front, when the real point of danger was in the rear. This was skilful; but the battle of Talavera which followed was a palpable, an enormous, fault. The allies could neither move forward nor backward, without being infinitely worse situated for success than in that strong position, which seemed marked out by fortune herself for their security. Until the 31st, the operations of Venegas were not even felt; hence, till the 31st, the position on the Alberche might have been maintained without danger; and, on the first of August, the head of Soult’s column was at Plasencia.
Let us suppose that the French had merely made demonstrations on the 28th, and had retired behind the Alberche the 29th, would the allies have dared to attack them in that position? The conduct of the Spaniards, on the evening of the 27th, answers the question; and, moreover, Joseph, with an army compact, active, and experienced, could, with ease, have baffled any efforts of the combined forces to bring him to action; he might have covered himself by the Guadarama and by the Tagus, in succession, and the farther he led his opponents from Talavera, without uncovering the line of La Mancha, the more certain the effect of Soult’s operation: but here we have another proof that double external lines are essentially vicious.
The combined movement of the French was desirable, from the greatness of the object to be gained, and safe, from the powerful force on each point. The occasion was so favourable that, notwithstanding the imprudent heat of Victor, the reluctance of Ney, and the unsteady temper of the king, the fate of the allies was, up to the evening of the 3d, heavy in the scale. Nevertheless, as the central position held by the allies, cut the line of correspondence between Joseph and Soult, the king’s despatches were intercepted, and the whole operation, even at the last hour, was baffled. The first element of success in war is, that every thing should emanate from a single head; and it would have been preferable that the king, drawing the second and fifth corps to him by the pass of the Guadarama, or by that of Avila, should, with the eighty thousand men thus united, have fallen upon the allies in front. Such a combination, although of less brilliant promise than the one adopted, would have been more sure; and the less a general trusts to fortune the better:—she is capricious!
When one Spanish army was surprised at Arzobispo, another completely beaten at Almonacid, and when Wilson’s Portuguese corps was dispersed at Baños, the junta had just completed the measure of their folly by quarrelling with the only force left that could protect them. The French were, in truth, therefore, the masters of the Peninsula; but they terminated their operations at the very moment when they should have pursued them with redoubled activity; for the general aspect of affairs and the particular circumstances of the campaign were alike favourable.
Napoleon was victorious in Germany; and of the British expeditions against Italy and Holland, the former had scarcely struggled into life,—the latter was already corrupting in death. Hence, Joseph might have been assured that he would receive reinforcements, but that none, of any consequence, could reach his adversaries; and, in the Peninsula, there was nothing to oppose him. Navarre, Biscay, Aragon, and the Castiles were subdued; Gerona closely beleaguered; and the rest of Catalonia, if not quiescent, totally unable to succour that noble city. Valencia was inert; the Asturias still trembling; and in Gallicia there was nothing but confusion. Romana, commanding fifteen thousand infantry, but neither cavalry nor artillery, was still at Coruña, and durst not quit the mountains. The duke del Parque held Ciudad Rodrigo, but was in no condition to make head against more than a French division. The battle of Almonacid had cleared La Mancha of troops. Estremadura and Andalusia were, as we have seen, weak, distracted, and incapable of solid resistance. There remained only the English and Portuguese armies, the one being at Jaraceijo, the other at Moraleja.
The line of resistance may, therefore, be said to have extended from the Sierra Morena to Coruña—weak from its length; weaker, that the allied corps, being separated by mountains, by rivers, and by vast tracts of country, and having different bases of operation, such as Lisbon, Seville, and Ciudad Rodrigo, could not act in concert, except offensively; and with how little effect in that way the campaign of Talavera had proved. But the French were concentrated in a narrow space, and, having only Madrid to cover, were advantageously situated for offensive or defensive movements.
The allied forces were, for the most part, imperfectly organized, and would not, altogether, have amounted to ninety thousand fighting men. The French were above one hundred thousand, dangerous from their discipline and experience, more dangerous that they held a central position, and that their numbers were unknown to their opponents; and, moreover, having, in four days, gained one general and two minor battles, their courage was high and eager.
See Calvo Garray and Lord Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, 1810.
At this period, by the acknowledgement of the Spaniards themselves, the fate of the country depended entirely upon the British troops, and, doubtless, the latter were soldiers of no ordinary stamp; but there is a limit to human power, in war as well as in other matters. Sir Arthur Wellesley was at the head of some seventeen thousand men, of all arms, and about five thousand were somewhere between Lisbon and Alcantara: but the whole French army could, in two days, have been concentrated in the valley of the Tagus. Soult, alone, of all the associated generals, appears to have viewed this crisis with the eye of a great commander. Had he been permitted to follow up the attack at Arzobispo, on the 8th of August, what could the seventeen thousand starving British troops, encumbered with the terror-stricken Spaniards, have effected against the seventy thousand French that would have stormed their positions on three sides at once? The hardy, enduring English infantry might, indeed, have held their ground in one battle, but could they have fought a second? Would not a movement of the first corps by Guadalupe, would not famine alone, have forced the ten or twelve thousand men remaining (if, indeed, so many were left) to abandon the banks of the Tagus, to abandon, also, their parcs of ammunition and their wounded men, and to retreat towards Portugal; and to retreat, also, with little hope, harassed, as they would have been, by six thousand horsemen, for Soult had eighteen regiments of cavalry?
Let it be supposed, however, that the strength of the Meza d’Ibor and the Mirabete had baffled all the enemy’s efforts, and that, seeing the allies fixed in those positions, the sixth corps, in pursuance of Soult’s second proposal, had crossed the frontier of Parl. Pap. 1810. Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley, contemplating such an event, affirmed that he meant to follow them in any movement they might make against Lisbon; but there were two ways of following, the one by the south and the other by the north bank of the Tagus. Now, if he designed to cross the Tagus at the Cardinal’s bridge, and so, connecting his right with Beresford, to hang on the enemy’s rear, it could only have been while he was ignorant of Venegas’ defeat, and when he imagined the French to have but thirty thousand men in the valley of the Tagus; but they had above seventy thousand; and, without endangering Madrid, they could have invaded Portugal with, at least, fifty thousand men under arms.
If, on the other hand, he designed to move by the south side of the Tagus, the French line of march upon Abrantes and Lisbon was shorter than his; and Beresford, who only reached Moraleja on the 12th, would have been cut off, and thrown back upon Almeida. It is true that marshal Ney alleged the difficulty of feeding the troops in the country about Plasencia and Coria, and the prudence of Soult’s project might, in that respect, have been somewhat questionable. But the duke of Elchingen was averse to any invasion of Portugal; and, to an unwilling mind, difficulties are enlarged beyond their due proportion. Moreover, his talents were more remarkable in a battle than in the dispositions for a campaign; and Soult’s opinion must, on this occasion, be allowed greater weight, because the Vera de Plasencia and the valleys of the Bejar and the Gata mountains were certainly exceedingly fertile, they had been little injured, and the object was, not to fix a base of operations, but to obtain a momentary subsistence until a richer country could be opened.
Admitting, however, that a march on Lisbon was not feasible at that moment, there could have been no well-founded objection to the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, which Soult again proposed. The emperor’s instructions were indeed pleaded; but those were general, founded upon the past errors of the campaign, which made him doubtful of the future; they were not applicable to the peculiar circumstances of the moment, and would have been disregarded by a general with a tithe of his own genius. Fortunately for Spain, the intrusive king was not a great commander. When he might have entered the temple of victory with banners flying, he stretched himself at the threshold and slept.
The departure of the English army was a remarkable epoch in the Peninsular war. The policy of combining operations with the Spanish armies, and of striking directly at the great masses of the French, had been fairly acted upon, and had failed; and the long-cherished delusion, relative to Spanish enthusiasm and Spanish efficiency, was at last dissipated. The transactions of the campaign of 1809 form a series of practical comments upon the campaign of 1808. All the objections which had been made to sir John Moore’s conduct, being put to the test of experience, proved illusory, while the soundness of that general’s views were confirmed in every particular. The leading events of the two campaigns bear a striking resemblance to each other.
Both sir Arthur Wellesley and sir John Moore advanced from Portugal to aid the Spanish armies. The first general commanded twenty-five thousand, the last twenty thousand men; but there was this difference: that, in 1808, Portugal was so disorganised as to require a British force to keep down anarchy; whereas, in 1809, Portugal formed a good base of operations, and a Portuguese army was acting in conjunction with the British.
Sir John Moore was joined by six thousand men, under Romana, and there was no other Spanish army in existence to aid him.
Sir Arthur Wellesley was joined by thirty-eight thousand Spaniards, under Cuesta, and he calculated upon twenty-six thousand, under Venegas; while from twenty to twenty-five thousand others were acting in Gallicia and Leon.
Sir John Moore was urged to throw himself into the heart of Spain, to aid a people represented as abounding in courage and every other military virtue. Judging of what he could not see by that which was within his view, he doubted the truth of these representations, and thinking that a powerful army, commanded by a man of the greatest military genius, was likely to prove formidable, he was unwilling to commit his own small force in an unequal contest. Nevertheless, feeling that some practicable demonstration of the difficulties to be encountered was required by the temper of the times, he made a movement, too delicate and dangerous to be adopted, unless for a great political as well as military purpose.
To relieve the southern provinces, and to convince the English government and the English public that they had taken a false view of affairs, were the objects of his advance to the Carrion river; but, although he carried his army forward with a boldness that marked the consciousness of superior talents, he never lost sight of the danger he was incurring by exposing his flank to the French emperor. To obviate this danger as much as possible, he established a second line of retreat upon Gallicia, and he kept a watchful eye upon the cloud gathering at Madrid. Arrived in front of Soult’s corps, and being upon the point of attacking him, the expected storm burst, but, by a rapid march to Benevente, Moore saved himself from being taken in flank and rear and destroyed. Benevente was, however, untenable against the forces brought up by Napoleon, and, the retreat being continued to Coruña, the army, after a battle, embarked.
It was objected—1º. That Moore should have gone to Madrid;—2º. That he should have fought at Astorga, at Villa Franca, and at Lugo, instead of at Coruña;—3º. That he overrated the strength of the enemy, and undervalued the strength and enthusiasm of the Spaniards; and that, being of a desponding temper, he lost the opportunity of driving the French beyond the Ebro, for, that a battle gained (and it was assumed that a battle must have been gained had he attacked) would have assuredly broken the enemy’s power, and called forth all the energies of Spain.
Sir John Moore reasoned that the Spanish enthusiasm was not great, that it evaporated in boasting and promises, which could not be relied upon; that the British army was sent as an auxiliary, not as a principal force; and that the native armies being all dispersed before he could come to their assistance, the enemy was far too strong to contend with single handed; wherefore, it was prudent to re-embark, and to choose some other base of operations, to be conducted upon sounder views of the actual state of affairs, or to give up the contest altogether; for that little or no hope of final success could be entertained, unless the councils and dispositions of the Spaniards changed for the better. He died; and the English ministers, adopting the reasoning of his detractors, once more sent an auxiliary army to Spain; although the system still existed which he had denounced as incompatible with success.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, a general of their own choice, and assuredly a better could not have been made, was placed at the head of this army; and, after giving Soult a heavy blow on the Douro, he also advanced to deliver Spain. Like sir John Moore, he was cramped for want of money; and, like sir John Moore, he was pestered with false representations, and a variety of plans, founded upon short sighted views, and displaying great ignorance of the art of war; but, finally, he adopted, and, as far as the inveterate nature of the people he had to deal with would permit, executed a project, which, like sir John Moore’s, had for its object to overpower the French in his front, and, by forcing them to concentrate, relieve the distant provinces; and give full play to the enthusiasm of the Spaniards.
When sir John Moore advanced, there were no Spanish armies to assist him; the French were above three hundred and twenty thousand strong, and of these two hundred and fifty thousand were disposable to move against any point; moreover, they were commanded in person by Napoleon, of whom it has been said by the duke of Wellington, that his presence, alone, was equal to forty thousand good troops.
When sir Arthur Wellesley advanced, the French forces in the Peninsula did not exceed two hundred and sixty thousand men, of which only one hundred thousand could be brought to bear on his operations; and he was assisted by sixty thousand Spaniards, well armed, and tolerably disciplined. His plans were certainly laid with great ability upon the data furnished to him; but he trusted to Spanish promises and to Spanish energy, and he did not fail to repent his credulity; nevertheless, he delivered and gained that battle which sir John Moore had been reproached for not essaying; but it was found that a veteran French army, even of inferior numbers, was not to be destroyed, or even much dispirited, by one defeat; and while this battle was fighting, Soult, with fifty thousand men, came down upon the flank and rear of the English, a movement precisely similar to that which Napoleon had made from Madrid upon the flank and rear of sir John Moore. This last general saved himself by crossing the Esla, in the presence of the French patroles; and in like manner, sir Arthur evaded destruction by crossing the Tagus, within view of the enemy’s scouts, so closely timed was the escape of both.
When sir John Moore retreated, the Spanish government, reproaching him, asserted that the French were on the point of ruin, and Romana, even at Astorga, continued to urge offensive operations.
When sir Arthur Wellesley retired from Jaraceijo, the junta in the same manner asserted that the French were upon the point of retiring from Spain, and general Equia proposed offensive operations. In explaining his motives, and discussing the treatment he had met with, sir John Moore wrote thus to his own government: “The British were sent to aid the Spanish armies, but they are not equal to encounter the French, who have at least eighty thousand men, and we have nothing to expect from the Spaniards, who are not to be trusted; they are apathetic, lethargic, quick to promise, backward to act, improvident, insensible to the shame of flying before the enemy, they refuse all assistance, and I am obliged to leave ammunition, stores, and money, behind. The Spanish armies have shewn no resolution, the people no enthusiasm nor daring spirit, and that which has not been shown hitherto, I know not why it should be expected to be displayed hereafter.” Such were his expressions.
When sir Arthur Wellesley had proved the Spaniards, he, also, writing to his government, says:—“We are here worse off than in a hostile country;—never was an army so ill used;—the Spaniards have made all sorts of promises;—we had absolutely no assistance from the Spanish army; on the contrary, we were obliged to lay down our ammunition, to unload the treasure, and to employ the cars in the removal of our sick and wounded. The common dictates of humanity have been disregarded by them, and I have been obliged to leave ammunition, stores, and money behind. Whatever is to be done must be done by the British army, but that is certainly not capable, singly, to resist a French army of at least seventy thousand men.”
The last advice given to the government, by sir John Moore, was against sending an auxiliary force to Spain. Sir Arthur Wellesley, in the same spirit, withdrew his troops; and, from that moment, to the end of the struggle, he warred, indeed, for Spain, and in Spain, but never with Spain. “I have fished in many troubled waters, but Spanish troubled waters I will never try again,” was his expression, when speaking of this campaign; and he kept his word. That country became, indeed, a field, on which the French and English armies contended for the destiny of Europe; but the defeats or victories, the promises or the performances of the Spaniards scarcely influenced the movements. Spain, being left to her own devices, was beaten in every encounter, foiled in every project, yet made no change in her policy; and while Portugal endeavoured to raise her energy on a level with that of her ally, Spain sought to drag down England to the depth of folly and weakness, in which she herself was plunged. The one would not sacrifice an atom of false pride to obtain the greatest benefits; the other submitted, not with abject dependence, but with a magnanimous humility, to every mortification, rather than be conquered; and the effects of their different modes were such as might be expected. Portugal, although assaulted by an infinitely greater number of enemies, in proportion to her strength, overthrew the oppressors the moment they set foot upon her soil; while in Spain, town after town was taken, army after army dispersed, every battle a defeat, and every defeat sensibly diminished the heat of resistance. Napoleon once declared that a nation resolved to be free could not be conquered; and the Spaniards re-echoed the sentiment in their manifestos, as if to say it was all that was necessary. But Napoleon contemplated a nation, like the Portuguese, making use of every means of defence, whether derived from themselves or their alliances; not a people puffed with conceit, and lavish of sounding-phrases, such as “perishing under the ruins of the last wall,” yet beaten with a facility that rendered them the derision of the world; a people unable to guide themselves yet arrogantly refusing all advice. Such a nation is ripe for destruction, and such a nation was Spain.
The campaign of 1809 finished the third epoch of the war, and it was prolific of instruction. The jealousy of the French marshals, the evils of disunion, the folly of the Spanish government, and the absurdity of the Spanish character, with respect to public affairs, were placed in the strongest light; while the vast combinations, the sanguinary battles, the singular changes of fortune, the result so little suitable to the greatness of the efforts, amply demonstrated the difficulty and the uncertainty of military affairs. It was a campaign replete with interest; a great lesson from which a great commander profited. Sir Arthur Wellesley had now experienced the weakness of his friends and the strength of his enemies, and he felt all the emptiness of public boasting. Foreseeing that if the contest was to be carried on, it must be in Portugal, and that unless he himself could support the cause of the Peninsula, it must fall, his manner of making war changed. His caution increased tenfold; yet, abating nothing of his boldness, he met and baffled the best of the French legions in the fulness of their strength. He was alike unmoved by the intrigues of the Portuguese regency, and by the undisguised hatred of the Spanish government; and when some of his own generals, and one of them on his personal staff, denouncing his rashness and predicting the ruin of the army, caused the puny energy of the English ministers to quail as the crisis approached, he, with gigantic vigour, pushed aside these impediments, and, steadily holding on his own course, proved himself a sufficient man, whether to uphold or to conquer kingdoms.