CHAPTER IV.
OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA AND ESTREMADURA.
The affairs of these provinces were so intimately1811. connected, that they cannot be treated separately, wherefore, taking Soult’s position at Seville as the centre of a vast system, I will show how, from thence, he dealt his powerful blows around, and struggled, even as a consuming fire, which none could smother though many tried.
Seville the base of his movements, and the storehouse of his army, was fortified with temporary citadels, which, the people being generally submissive, were tenable against desultory attacks. From this point he maintained his line of communication, with the army of Portugal, through Estremadura, and with Madrid through La Mancha; and from this point he sustained the most diversified operations on all parts of a circle, which embraced the Condado de Niebla, Cadiz, Grenada, Cordoba, and Estremadura.
The Niebla, which furnished large supplies, was the most vulnerable point, because from thence the allies might intercept the navigation of the river Guadalquivir, and so raise the blockade of Cadiz; and the frontier of Portugal would cover the assembly of the troops until the moment of attack. Moreover, expeditions from Cadiz to the mouth of the Guadiana were as we have seen frequent. Nevertheless, when Blake and Ballesteros had been driven from Ayamonte, in July and August, the French were masters of the Condado with the exception of the castle of Paymago, wherefore Soult, dreading the autumnal pestilence, did not keep more than twelve hundred men on that side.
The blockade of the Isla was always maintained by Victor, whose position formed an irregular crescent, extending from San Lucar de Barameda on the right, to Conil on the left, and running through Xeres, Arcos, Medina, Sidonia, and Chiclana. But that marshal while thus posted was in a manner blockaded himself. In the Isla, including the Anglo-Portuguese division, there were never less than sixteen thousand troops, who, having the command of the sea, could at any moment land on the flanks of the French. The Partidas, although neither numerous nor powerful, often impeded the intercourse with Seville; the Serranos of the Ronda and the regular forces at Algeziras issuing, as it were, from the fortress of Gibraltar, cut the communication with Grenada; and as Tarifa was still held by the allies, for general Campbell would never relinquish that important point, the fresh supplies of cattle, drawn from the great plain called the Campiña de Tarifa, were straitened. Meanwhile the expeditions to Estremadura and Murcia, the battles of Barosa and Albuera, and the rout of Baza, had employed all the disposable part of the army of the south; hence Victor’s corps, scarcely strong enough to preserve its own fortified position, could make no progress in the attack of the Isla. This weakness of the French army being well known in Cadiz, the safety of that city was no longer doubtful, a part of the British garrison therefore joined lord Wellington’s army, and Blake as we have seen carried his Albuera soldiers to Valencia.
In Grenada the fourth corps, which, after the departure of Sebastiani, was commanded by general Laval, had two distinct tasks to fulfil. The one to defend the eastern frontier from the Murcian army; the other to maintain the coast line, beyond the Alpuxaras, against the efforts of the Partidas of those mountains, against the Serranos of the Ronda, and against the expeditionary armies from Cadiz and from Algeziras. However, the defeat at Baza, and the calling off of Mahi, Freire, and Montijo to aid the Valencian operations, secured the Grenadan frontier; and Martin Carera, who was left there with a small force, having pushed his partizan excursions rashly, was killed in a skirmish at Lorca about the period when Valencia surrendered.
Cordoba was generally occupied by a division of five or six thousand men, who were ready to operate on the side of Estremadura, or on that of Murcia, and meanwhile chased the Partidas, who were more numerous there than in other parts, and were also connected with those of La Mancha.
Estremadura was the most difficult field of operation. There Badajos, an advanced point, was to be supplied and defended from the most formidable army in the Peninsula; there the communications with Madrid, and with the army of Portugal, were to be maintained by the way of Truxillo; and there the fifth French corps, commanded by Drouet, had to collect its subsistence from a ravaged country; to preserve its communications over the Sierra Morena with Seville; to protect the march of monthly convoys to Badajos; to observe the corps of general Hill, and to oppose the enterprises of Morillo’s Spanish army, which was becoming numerous and bold.
Neither the Spanish nor British divisions could prevent Drouet from sending convoys to Badajos, because of the want of bridges on the Guadiana, below the fortress, but Morillo incommoded his foraging parties; for being posted at Valencia de Alcantara, and having his retreat upon Portugal always secure, he vexed the country about Caceres, and even pushed his incursions to Truxillo. The French general, therefore, kept a strong detachment beyond the Guadiana, but this exposed his troops to Hill’s enterprises; and that bold and vigilant commander having ten thousand excellent troops, and being well instructed by Wellington, was a very dangerous neighbour.
Marmont’s position in the valley of the Tagus; the construction of the forts and bridge at Almaraz, which enabled him to keep a division at Truxillo, and connected him with the army of the south, tended indeed to hold Hill in check, and strengthened the French position in Estremadura; nevertheless, Drouet generally remained near Zafra with his main body, because from thence he could more easily make his retreat good to the Morena, or advance to Merida and Badajos as occasion required.
Such was the state of military affairs on the different parts of the circle round Seville, at the period when Suchet invaded Valencia, and Wellington blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo; and to support his extensive operations, the duke of Dalmatia, if his share of the reinforcements which entered Spain in July and August had joined him, would have had[Appendix, No. IX.] Section 3. about a hundred thousand troops, of which ninety thousand men and fourteen thousand horses were French. But the reinforcements were detained in the different governments, and the actual number of French present with the eagles was not more than sixty-seven thousand.
The first corps contained twenty thousand; the fourth and fifth about eleven thousand each; the garrison of Badajos was five thousand; twenty thousand formed a disposable reserve, and the rest of the force consisted of “Escopeteros” and civic guards, who were chiefly employed in the garrisons and police. Upon pressing occasions, Soult could therefore take the field, at any point, with twenty-four or twenty-five thousand men, and in Estremadura, on very pressing occasions, with even a greater number of excellent troops well and powerfully organized. The manner in which this great army was paralysed in the latter part of 1811, shall now be shown.
In October, Drouet was in the Morena, and1811. October. Girard at Merida, watching Morillo, who was in Caceres, when Soult, who had just returned to Seville after his Murcian expedition, sent three thousand men to Fregenal, seemingly to menace the Alemtejo. General Hill therefore recalled his brigades from the right bank of the Tagus, and concentrated his whole corps behind the Campo Maior on the 9th.
The 11th Girard and Drouet advanced, the Spanish cavalry retired from Caceres, the French drove Morillo to Caza de Cantellaña, and every thing indicated a serious attack; but at this moment Soult’s attention was attracted by the appearance of Ballesteros in the Ronda, and he recalled the force from Fregenal. Drouet, who had reached Merida, then retired to Zafra, leaving Girard with a division and some cavalry near Caceres.
Ballesteros had disembarked at Algeziras on the 11th of September, and immediately marched with his own and Beguine’s troops, in all four thousand men, to Ximena, raising fresh levies and collecting the Serranos of the Ronda as he advanced. On the 18th he had endeavoured to succour the castle of Alcala de Gazules, where Beguines had a garrison, but a French detachment from Chiclana had already reduced that post, and after some skirmishing both sides fell back, the one to Chiclana, the other to Ximena.
At this time six thousand French were collected at Ubrique, intending to occupy the sea-coast, from Algeziras to Conil, in furtherance of a great project which Soult was then meditating, and by which he hoped to effect, not only the entire subjection of Andalusia, but the destruction of the British power in the Peninsula. But this design, which shall be hereafter explained more fully, required several preliminary operations, amongst the most important of which was the capture of Tarifa; for that place, situated in the narrowest part of the straits, furnished either a protection, or a dangerous point of offence, to the Mediterranean trade, following the relations of its possessor with England. It affected, as we have seen, the supplies of the French before the Isla; it was from its nearness, and from the run of the current, the most convenient and customary point for trading with Morocco; it menaced the security of Ceuta, and it possessed, from ancient recollections, a species of feudal superiority over the smaller towns, and ports along the coast, which would have given the French, if they had taken it, a moral influence of some consequence.
Soult had in August despatched a confidential officer from Conil to the African coast to negotiate with the Barbaric emperor, and the latter had agreed to a convention, by which he engaged to exclude British agents from his court; and to permit vessels of all nations to use the Moorish flag to cover their cargoes, while carrying to the French those supplies hitherto sent to the allies, provided Soult would occupy Tarifa as a depôt. This important convention was on the point of being ratified, when the opportune arrival of some unusually magnificent presents from England, turned the scale against the French: their agent was then dismissed, the English supplies were increased, and Mr. Stuart entered into a treaty for the purchase of horses to remount the allied cavalry.
Although foiled in this attempt, Soult, calculating on the capricious nature of barbarians, resolved to fulfil his part by the capture of Tarifa; hence it was, that when Ballesteros appeared at Ximena, he arrested the movement of Drouet against the Alemtejo, and sent troops from Seville by Ubrique against the Spanish general, whose position besides being extremely inconvenient to the first and fourth corps, was likely to affect the taking of Tarifa. Ballesteros, if reinforced, might also have become very dangerous to the blockade of Cadiz, by intercepting the supplies from the Campiña de Tarifa, and still more by menacing Victor’s communications with Seville, along the Guadalquivir. A demonstration by the allies in the Isla de Leon arrested the march of these French troops for a moment, but on the 14th eight thousand men under generals Godinot and Semélé advanced upon St. Roque and Algeziras. The inhabitants of those places immediately fled to the green island, and Ballesteros took refuge under Gibraltar, where his flanks were covered by the gun-boats of the place. The garrison was too weak to assist him with men, and thus cooped up, he lived upon the resources of the place, while efforts were therefore made to draw off the French by harassing their flanks. The naval means were not sufficient to remove his whole army to another quarter, but seven hundred were transported to Manilba, where the Serranos and some Partidas had assembled on the left of the French, and at the same time twelve hundred British troops with four guns, under colonel Skerrett, and two thousand Spaniards, under Copons, sailed from Cadiz to Tarifa to act upon the French right.
Copons was driven back by a gale of wind, but Skerrett arrived the 17th. The next day Godinot sent a detachment against him, but the sea-road by which it marched was so swept with the guns of the Tuscan frigate, aided by the boats of the Stately, that the French after losing some men returned. Then Godinot and Semélé being in dispute, and without provisions, retreated; they were followed by Ballesteros’ cavalry as far as Ximena, where the two generals separated in great anger, and Godinot having reached Seville shot himself. This failure in the south unsettled Soult’s plans, and was followed by a heavier disaster in Estremadura.
SURPRISE OF AROYO MOLINO.
When Drouet had retired to Zafra, Hill received orders from Wellington to drive Girard away from Caceres, that Morillo might forage that country. For this purpose he assembled his corps at Albuquerque on the 23d, and Morillo brought the fifth Spanish army to Aliseda on the Salor. Girard was then at Caceres with an advanced guard at Aroyo de Puerco, but on the 24th Hill occupied Aliseda and Casa de Cantillana, and the Spanish cavalry drove the French from Aroyo de Puerco. The 26th at day-break Hill entered Malpartida de Caceres, and his cavalry pushed back that of the enemy. Girard then abandoned Caceres, but the weather was wet and stormy, and Hill, having no certain knowledge of the enemy’s movements, halted for the night at Malpartida.
On the morning of the 27th the Spaniards entered Caceres; the enemy was tracked to Torre Mocha on the road to Merida; and the British general, hoping to intercept their line of march, pursued by a cross road, through Aldea de Cano and Casa de Don Antonio. During this movement intelligence was received that the French general had halted at Aroyo Molino, leaving a rear-guard at Albala, on the main road to Caceres, which proved that he was ignorant of the new direction taken by the allies, and only looked to a pursuit from Caceres. Hill immediately seized the advantage, and by a forced march reached Alcuesca in the night, being then within a league of Aroyo de Molinos.
This village was situated in a plain, and behind it a sierra or ridge of rocks, rose in the form of a crescent, about two miles wide on the chord. One road led directly from Alcuesca upon Aroyo, another entered it from the left, and three led from it to the right. The most distant of the last was the Truxillo road, which rounded the extremity of the sierra; the nearest was the Merida road, and between them was that of Medellin.
During the night, though the weather was dreadful, no fires were permitted in the allied camp; and at two o’clock in the morning of the 28th, the troops moved to a low ridge, half-a-mile from Aroyo, under cover of which they formed three bodies; the infantry on the wings and the cavalry in the centre. The left column then marched straight upon the village, the right marched towards the extreme point of the sierra, where the road to Truxillo turned the horn of the crescent; the cavalry kept its due place between both.
One brigade of Girard’s division, having marched at four o’clock by the road of Medellin, was already safe, but Dombrouski’s brigade and the cavalry of Briche were still in the place; the horses of the rear-guard, unbridled, were tied to the olive-trees, and the infantry were only gathering to form on the Medellin road outside the village. Girard himself was in his quarters, waiting for his horse, when two British officers galloped down the street, and in an instant all was confusion; the cavalry bridled their horses, and the infantry run to their alarming posts. But a thick mist rolled down the craggy mountain, a terrifying shout, drowning even the clatter of the elements arose on the blast, and with the driving storm came the seventy-first and ninety-second regiments, charging down the street. Then the French rear-guard of cavalry, fighting and struggling hard, were driven to the end of the village, and the infantry, hastily forming their squares, covered the main body of the horsemen which gathered on their left.
The seventy-first immediately lined the garden walls, and opened a galling fire on the nearest square, while the ninety-second filing out of the streets formed upon the French right; the fiftieth regiment closely following, secured the prisoners in the village, and the rest of the column, headed by the Spanish cavalry, skirted the outside of the houses, and endeavoured to intercept the line of retreat. The guns soon opened on the French squares, the thirteenth dragoons captured their artillery, the ninth dragoons and German hussars, charged their cavalry and entirely dispersed it with great loss; but Girard, an intrepid officer, although wounded, still kept his infantry together, and continued his retreat by the Truxillo road. The right column of the allies was however already in possession of that line, the cavalry and artillery were close upon the French flank, and the left column, having re-formed, was again coming up fast; Girard’s men were falling by fifties, and his situation was desperate, yet he would not surrender, but giving the word to disperse, endeavoured to escape by scaling the almost inaccessible rocks of the sierra. His pursuers, not less obstinate, immediately divided. The Spaniards ascended the hills at an easier part beyond his left, the thirty-ninth regiment and Ashworth’s Portuguese turned the mountain by the Truxillo road; the twenty-eighth and thirty-fourth, led by general Howard, followed him step by step up the rocks, and prisoners were taken every moment, until the pursuers, heavily loaded, were unable to continue the trial of speed with men who had thrown away their arms and packs. Girard, Dombrouski, and Briche, escaped at first to San Hernando, and Zorita, in the Guadalupe mountains, after which, crossing the Guadiana at Orellano on the 9th of November, they rejoined Drouet with about six hundred men, the remains of three thousand. They were said to be the finest troops then in Spain, and indeed their resolution not to surrender in such an appalling situation was no mean proof of their excellence.
The trophies of this action were the capture of twelve or thirteen hundred prisoners, including general Bron, and the prince of Aremberg; all the French artillery, baggage, and commissariat, together with a contribution just raised; and during the fight, a Portuguese brigade, being united to Penne Villamur’s cavalry was sent to Merida, where some stores were found. The loss of the allies was not more than seventy killed and wounded, but one officer, lieutenant Strenowitz, was taken. He was distinguished by his courage and successful enterprises, but he was an Austrian, who having abandoned the French army in Spain to join Julian Sanchez’ Partida, was liable to death by the laws of war; having been however originally forced into the French service he was, in reality, no deserter. General Hill, anxious to save him, applied frankly to general Drouet, and such was the latter’s good temper, that while smarting under this disaster he released his prisoner.
Vol. 4 Plate 6.
Explanatory Sketch of
GENL. HILL’S OPERATIONS,
1811.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.
Girard was only deprived of his division, which was given to general Barois, yet in a military point of view his offence was unpardonable. He knew two or three days before, that general Hill was near him; he knew that there was a good road from Malpartida to Alcuesca, because he had himself passed it coming from Caceres; and yet he halted at Aroyo de Molino without necessity, and without sending out even a patrole upon his flank, thus sacrificing two thousand brave men. Napoleon’s clemency was therefore great, and yet not misplaced, for Girard, afterwards, repaid it by his devotion at the battle of Lutzen when the emperor’s star was on the wane. On the other hand general Hill neglected no precaution, let no advantage escape; and to good arrangements added celerity of movement, with the utmost firmness and vigour of execution. His troops seconded him as he merited; and here was made manifest the advantage of possessing the friendship of a people so strongly influenced by the instincts of revenge as the Peninsulars; for, during the night of the 27th, every Spaniard in Aroyo, as well as in Alcuesca, knew that the allies were at hand, and not one was found so base or so indiscreet as to betray the fact.
This blow being struck, Hill returned to his old1811. Nov. quarters, and the Spanish troops fell back behind the Salor, but the report of Girard’s disaster set all the French corps in motion. Drouet reoccupied Caceres with a thousand men; Foy passed the Tagus at Almaraz on the 15th of November, and moved to Truxillo; a convoy entered Badajos from Zafra on the 12th, a second on the 20th, and Soult, while collecting troops in Seville, directed Phillipon to plant all the ground under the guns at Badajos with potatoes and corn. Every thing seemed to indicate a powerful attack upon Hill, when a serious disturbance amongst the Polish troops, at Ronquillo, obliged Soult to detach men from Seville to quell it. When that was effected, a division ofMr. Stuart’s papers, MSS. four thousand entered Estremadura, and Drouet, whose corps was thus raised to fourteen thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, on the 5th of December advanced to Almendralejos, and the 18th his advanced guard occupied Merida. At the same time Marmont concentrated part of his army at Toledo, from whence Montbrun, as we have seen, was directed to aid Suchet at Valencia, and Soult with the same view sent ten thousand men to the Despeños Peros.
Drouet’s movements were, however, again stopped1811. Dec. by some insubordination in the fifth corps. And as it was now known that Soult’s principal object was to destroy Ballesteros, and take Tarifa, Hill again advanced, partly to protect Morillo from Drouet, partly to save the resources of Estremadura, partly to make a diversion in favour of Ballesteros and Tarifa, and in some sort also for Valencia. With this view he entered Estremadura by Albuquerque on the 27th of December, and having received information that the French, untaught by their former misfortunes were not vigilant, he made a forced march in hopes to surprise them. On the 28th he passed Villar del Rey and San Vincente and reached Nava de Membrillos, where he fell in with three hundred French infantry, and a few hussars, part of a foraging party, the remainder of which was at a village two leagues distant. A patrole gave an alarm, the French retreated towards Merida, and were closely followed by four hundred of the allied cavalry, who had orders to make every effort to stop their march; but to use the words of general Hill, “the intrepid and admirable manner in which the enemy retreated, the infantry formed in square, and favoured as he was by the nature of the country of which he knew how to take the fullest advantage, prevented the cavalry alone from effecting any thing against him.” Captain Neveux, the able officer who commanded on this occasion, reached Merida with a loss of only forty men, all killed or wounded by the fire of the artillery; but the French at Merida immediately abandoned their unfinished works, and evacuated that town in the night, leaving behind some bread and a quantity of wheat.
From Merida, Hill, intending to fight Drouet,1812. January marched on the 1st of January to Almendralejos, where he captured another field store; but the French general, whose troops were scattered, fell back towards Zafra; the weather was so bad, and the roads so deep, that general Hill with the main body halted while colonel Abercrombie with a detachment of Portuguese and German cavalry followed the enemy’s rear-guard. Meanwhile Phillipon, who never lost an advantage, sent, either the detachment which had escorted the convoy to Badajos, or some Polish troops with whom he was discontented, down the Portuguese frontier on the right of the Guadiana, by Moura, Mourao, and Serpe, with orders to drive the herds of cattle from those places into the sierra Morena.
Abercrombie reached Fuente del Maestro, on the evening of the 3d, where, meeting with a stout squadron of the enemy, a stiff charge took place, and the French out-numbered and flanked on both sides were overthrown with a loss of thirty men. But Drouet was now in full retreat for Monasterio, and Morillo moving upon Medellin, took post at San Benito. Thus the allies remained masters of Estremadura until the 13th of January, when Marmont’s divisions moved by the valley of the Tagus towards the eastern frontier of Portugal; Hill then returned to Portalegre and sent a division over the Tagus to Castello Branco. Drouet immediately returned to Llerena and his cavalry supported by a detachment of infantry marched against Morillo, but that general, instead of falling back when Hill did, had made a sudden incursion to La Mancha, and was then attacking the castle of Almagro. There, however, he was so completely defeated by general Treillard that, flying to Horcajo in the Guadaloupe mountains, although he reached it on the 18th, his fugitives were still coming in on the 21st, and his army remained for a long time in the greatest disorder.