CHAPTER VII.
While Soult was clearing the eastern frontier of1811. July. Andalusia, Marmont retired gradually from Badajos and quartered his troops in the valley of the Tagus, with exception of one division which he left, at Truxillo. At the same time the fifth corps retired to Zafra, and thus lord Wellington found himself relieved from the presence of the French, at the very moment when he had most reason to fear their efforts. He had by this time secured the fortresses on the frontier, his troops were beginning to suffer from the terrible pestilence of the Guadiana, this was sufficient to prevent him from renewing the siege of Badajos, if Marmont’s position had not forbid that measure, he therefore resolved to adopt a new system of operations. But to judge of the motives which influenced his conduct we must again cast a hasty glance over the general state of the Peninsula, which was hourly changing.
In Catalonia Suchet had stormed Taragona, seized Montserrat, and dispersed the Catalan army. A division of the army of the centre had chased the Partidas from Guadalaxara and Cuença, and re-established the communications with Aragon. Valencia and Murcia were in fear and confusion, both from internal intrigue and from the double disasters on each side of their frontier, at Baza and Taragona
The French emperor was pouring reinforcements into Spain by the northern line; these troops as usual scoured the country to put down the Guerillas on each side of their march, and nearly forty thousand fresh men, mostly old soldiers from the army of the reserve, were come, or coming into the north of Spain. The young guard which was at Burgos, under general Dorsenne, was increased to seventeen thousand men; and as no efforts, except those already noticed, were made by the Spaniards, to shake the French hold of the country while Soult and Marmont were on the Guadiana, the French generals were enabled to plan extensive measures of further conquest: and the more readily, because the king was now on his return from Paris, in apparent harmony with his brother, and the powers and duties of all parties were defined.
Suchet urged by Napoleon to hasten his preparations for the invasion of Valencia, was resolved to be under the walls of that city in the middle of September, and Soult was secretly planning a gigantic enterprise, calculated to change the whole aspect of the war. In the north when the king, who re-entered Madrid the 14th, had passed Valladolid, the imperial guards entered Leon; thirteen thousand men of the army of the north were concentrated at Benevente on the 17th, and Santocildes retired into the mountains. Bessieres then sent a large convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo, but following the treaty between Joseph and Napoleon, returned himself[Appendix, No. III.] Section 3. to France, and general Dorsenne taking the command of the army of the north, prepared to invade Gallicia.
Meanwhile Marmont was directed to resign the whole of Castile and Leon, to the protection of the army of the north, and to withdraw all his posts and depôts with the exception of the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo, which was to be changed at a more convenient time. His line of communication was to be with Madrid, and that city was to be his chief depôt and base; he was to take positions in the valley of the Tagus, and at Truxillo; to fortify either Alcantara or Almaraz, and to secure the communication across the river.
Thus posted, the emperor judged that Marmont could more effectually arrest the progress of the allies than in any other. The invasion of Andalusia, for the purpose of raising the siege of Cadiz, was, he said, the only object the allies had at the moment, but it could always be frustrated by Marmont’s moving against their flank; and with respect to the north, the allies having no object on that side, would be unlikely to make any serious attempt, because they must in time be overmatched, as the French fell back upon their resources. Marmont could also act against their right flank, as he could do against their left flank, if they marched upon Andalusia; and while stationary he protected Madrid, and gave power and activity to the king’s administration.
In pursuance of these instructions, Marmont, who had remained in Estremadura, to cover Soult’s operations against Blake and the Murcians, now proceeded to occupy Talavera, and other posts in the valley of the Tagus; and he placed a division at Truxillo, the castle of which place, as well as that of Medellin, was repaired. Another division occupied Placentia, with posts in the passes of Bejar and Baños; Girard’s division of the fifth corps, remained at Zafra, to serve as a point of connexion between Marmont and Soult, and to support Badajos, which, by a wise provision of Napoleon’s, was now garrisoned with detachments from the three armies, of the centre, of Portugal and of the south. This gave each general a direct interest in moving to its succour, and in the same policy Ciudad Rodrigo was to be wholly garrisoned by the army of the north, that Marmont might have no temptation to neglect the army of the south, under pretence of succouring Ciudad.
To restore and maintain Alcantara was beyond the means of the duke of Ragusa; he therefore repaired the bridge of Almaraz, and constructed two strong forts, one at each side, to protect it, and to serve as an intermediate field depôt; a third and more considerable fort was also built on the high ridge of Mirabete, to insure a passage over the hills from Almaraz to Truxillo. A free intercourse with the army of the south was thus secured on one side, and on the other, the passes of Baños and Bejar, and the Roman road of Puerto Pico, which had been restored in 1810, served for communication with the army of the north.
The French affairs had now assumed a very favourable aspect. There was indeed a want of money, but the generals were obeyed with scrupulous attention by the people of Spain, not only within the districts occupied by them, but even in those villages where the guerillas were posted. This obedience lord Wellington attributed entirely to fear, and hoped as the exactions were heavy, that the people would at last fight or fly from their habitations on the approach of a French soldier; but this did not happen generally, and to me it appears, that the obedience was rather a symptom of the subjection of the nation, and that with a judicious mixture of mildness and severity perfect submission would have followed if England had not kept the war alive.
On the other hand the weakness and anarchy of the Spaniards were daily increasing, and the disputes, between the British general and the Portuguese government, had arrived to such a height, that lord Wellington, having drawn up powerful and clear statements of his grievous situation, sent one to the Brazils and the other to his own government, with a positive intimation that if an entirely new system was not immediately adopted he would no longer attempt to carry on the contest. Lord Wellesley, taking his stand upon this ground, made strenuous exertions in both countries to prevent the ruin of the cause; but lord Wellington, while expecting the benefit of his brother’s interference, had to contend with the most surprising difficulties, and to seek in his own personal resources for the means of even defending Portugal. He had sent marshal Beresford to Lisbon, immediately after Albuera, to superintend the reorganization and restoration of the Portuguese forces, and Beresford had sent Mr. De Lemos, an officer of his own staff, to the Brazils, to represent the inconveniences arising from the interference of the regency in the military affairs. On the other hand the Souzas sent one Vasconcellos, who had been about the British head-quarters as their spy, to Rio Janeiro, and thus the political intrigues became more complicated than ever.
But with respect to the war Wellington had penetrated Napoleon’s object, when he saw Marmont’s position in the valley of the Tagus; he felt the full force of the emperor’s military reasoning, yet he did not despair, if he could overcome the political obstacles, to gain some advantage. He had now a powerful and experienced British force under his command, the different departments and the staff of the army were every day becoming more skilful and ready, and he had also seen enough of his adversaries to estimate their powers. The king he knew to be no general, and discontented with the marshals; Soult he had found able and vast in his plans, but too cautious in their execution; Marmont, with considerable vigour, had already shown some rashness in the manner he had pushed Reynier’s division forward, after passing the Tagus, and it was, therefore, easy to conceive that no very strict concert would be maintained in their combined operations.
Lord Wellington had also established some good channels of information. He had a number of spies amongst the Spaniards who were living within the French lines; a British officer in disguise, constantly visited the French armies in the field; a Spanish state-counsellor, living at the head-quarters of the first corps, gave intelligence from that side, and a guitar-player of celebrity, named Fuentes, repeatedly making his way to Madrid, brought advice from thence. Mr. Stuart, under cover of vessels licensed to fetch corn for France, kept chasse marées constantly plying along the Biscay coast, by which he not only acquired direct information, but facilitated the transmission of intelligence from the land spies, amongst whom the most remarkable was a cobbler, living in a little hutch at the end of the bridge of Irun. This man while plying his trade, continued for years, without being suspected, to count every French soldier, that passed in or out of Spain by that passage, and transmitted their numbers by the chasse marées to Lisbon.
With the exception of the state spy at Victor’s head-quarters, who being a double traitor was infamous, all the persons thus employed were very meritorious. The greater number, and the cleverest also, were Spanish gentlemen, alcaldes, or poor men, who disdaining rewards and disregarding danger, acted from a pure spirit of patriotism, and are to be lauded alike for their boldness, their talent, and their virtue. Many are dead. Fuentes was drowned in passing a river, on one of his expeditions; and the alcalde of Caceres, a man, of the clearest courage and patriotism, who expended his own property in the cause, and spurned at remuneration, was on Ferdinand’s restoration cast into a dungeon, where he perished; a victim to the unbounded ingratitude and baseness of the monarch he had served so well!
With such means lord Wellington did not despair of baffling the deep policy of the emperor in the field. He thought that the saying of Henry the Fourth of France, that “large armies would starve and small ones be beaten in Spain,” was still applicable. He felt that a solid possession of Portugal and her resources, which, through his brother’s aid, he hoped to have, would enable him either to strike partial blows against the French, or oblige them to concentrate in large masses, which, confident in his own martial genius he felt he could hold in check, while the Spaniards ruined the small posts, and disorganized the civil administrations in their rear. Hitherto, indeed, the Spaniards had not made any such efforts except by the partidas, which were insufficient; but time, his own remonstrances, and the palpable advantages of the system, he trusted would yet teach them what to do.
Having deeply meditated upon these matters and received his reinforcements from England, he resolved to leave Hill with ten thousand infantry, a division of cavalry, and four brigades of artillery, about Portalegre, Villa Viciosa, and Estremos. From these rich towns which were beyond the influence of the Guadiana fever, the troops could rapidly concentrate either for an advance or retreat; and the latter was secured upon Abrantes, or upon the communications with Beira, by Niza, and Vilha Velha, where a permanent boat-bridge had now been established. The front was protected by Elvas, Jerumenha, Campo Mayor, and Ouguella; and Castaños also remained in Estremadura with the fifth army, which by the return of the cavalry from Ayamonte and the formation of Downie’s legion now amounted to about a thousand infantry and nine hundred horse. This force placed on the side of Montijo, had Albuquerque and Valencia de Alcantara as posts of support, and a retreat either by the fords of the Tagus near the bridge of Alcantara, or upon Portugal by Marvão and Castello de Vide. Hill’s position was thus so well covered, that he could not be surprised, nor even pressed except by a very strong army; and he was always on the watch as we shall hereafter find, to make incursions against the division of the fifth corps, which remained in Estremadura. The rest of the army was then placed in quarters of refreshment at Castello de Vide, Marvão and other places near the Tagus, partly to avoid the Guadiana fever, partly to meet Marmont’s movement to that river.
When this disposition was made, the English general arranged his other measures of offence. The conduct of the Portuguese government and the new positions of the French armies had, as Napoleon had foreseen, left him no means of undertaking any sustained operation; but, as he was ignorant of the great strength of the army of the north, he hoped to find an opportunity of taking Ciudad Rodrigo before Marmont could come to its assistance. For this purpose he had caused a fine train of iron battering guns, and mortars, together with a reinforcement of British artillery-men, which had arrived at Lisbon from England, to be shipped in large vessels, and then with some ostentation made them sail as it were for Cadiz; at sea they were however shifted on board small craft, and while the original vessels actually arrived at Cadiz and Gibraltar, the guns were secretly brought first to Oporto and then in boats to Lamego. During this process, several engineer, artillery, and commissariat officers, were sent to meet and transport these guns, and the necessary stores for a siege, to Villaponte near Celerico; and as one of the principal magazines of the army was at Lamego, and a constant intercourse was kept up between it and Celerico, another great depôt, the arrival, and passage of the guns and stores to their destination was not likely to attract the attention of the French spies.
Other combinations were also employed, both to deceive the enemy and to prepare the means for a sudden attack, before the troops commenced their march for Beira; but the hiding of such extensive preparations from the French would have been scarcely possible, if the personal hatred borne to the invaders by the peninsulars, combined with the latter’s peculiar subtlety of character, had not prevented any information spreading abroad, beyond the fact that artillery had arrived at Oporto. The operation of bringing sixty-eight huge guns, with proportionate stores, across nearly fifty miles of mountain, was however one of no mean magnitude;[Appendix, No. V.] Section 1. five thousand draft bullocks were required for the train alone, and above a thousand militia were for several weeks employed merely to repair the road.
The allies broke up from the Caya the 21st of July, and they had received considerable reinforcements, especially in cavalry, but they were sickly and required a change of cantonments; hence when an intercepted despatch gave reason to believe that Ciudad Rodrigo was in want of provisions, Wellington suddenly crossed the Tagus at Vilha Velha, and marched in the beginning of August by Castello Branco and Penamacor towards Rodrigo, hoping to surprise it in a starving state, but giving out that his movement was for the sake of healthy quarters. His movement was unmolested save by some FrenchGeneral Harvey’s Journal. dragoons, from the side of Placentia, who captured a convoy of seventy mules loaded with wine near Pedrogoa, and getting drunk with their booty attacked some Portuguese infantry, who repulsed them and recovered the mules; but there were other ostensible objects besides the obvious one of removing from the well-known pestilence of the Guadiana, which contributed to blind the French as to the secret motives of the English general. We have seen that Dorsenne was menacing Gallicia, and that Soult was in full operation against the Murcians; it was supposed that he intended to invade Murcia itself, and therefore the march of the allies had the double object, of saving Gallicia, by menacing the rear of the invading army; and of relieving Murcia by forcing Marmont to look after Ciudad Rodrigo, and thus draw him away from the support of Soult, who would not, it was supposed, then quit Andalusia.
Gallicia was meanwhile in great danger, for the Partidas of the north had been vigorously repressed by Caffarelli and Reille, which enabled Dorsenne to collect about twenty thousand men on the Esla. Abadia, who had succeeded Santocildes,General Walker’s Correspondence, MSS. was posted with about seven thousand disciplined men behind this river, and he had a reserve of fifteen hundred at Foncebadon; but he could make no head, for to this number the GallicianAbadia’s ditto, MSS. army had again dwindled, and these were starving. The 25th the French, having passed the river in four columns, made a concentric march upon Astorga. Abadia, whose rear-guard sustained a sharp conflict near La Baneza, retreated, precisely by the same line as sir John Moore had done in 1809, and with about the same relative proportion of force; but as he only took the Foncebadon road[Appendix, No. V.] Section 1. and did not use the same diligence and skill as that general, the enemy forestalling him by Manzanal and Bembibre, cut him off from Villa Franca del Bierzo and from the road to Lugo, and on the 27th drove him into the Val des Orres. During this operation the division of the army of the north, which Bessieres had sent with the convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo, entered that place and returned to Salamanca.
The Spanish general having thus lost his line of communication with Lugo, and the few stores he possessed at Villa Franca, took post at Domingo Flores in the Val des Orres, where he entered aSir H. Douglas’s Correspondence, MSS. strong country, and, under the worst circumstances, could retire upon Portugal and save his troops if not his province. But his army which was in the utmost distress before, for shoes and clothing, was now ready to disband from misery, and the consternation in Gallicia was excessive. That province torn by faction, stood helpless before the invader, who could, and would, have taken both Coruña and Ferrol, but for the sudden arrival of the allies on the Coa, which obliged him, for his own safety, to return to the plains. Souham, also, who was coming from Burgos, by forced marches, to support Dorsenne, halted at Rio Seco, and Abadia did not fail to ascribe all this to the loss he had inflicted, but his vanity was laughed at.
To have thus saved Gallicia was a great thing. That kingdom was the base of all the operations against the line of communication with France; from thence went forth, those British squadrons which nourished the guerilla warfare in Biscay, in the Montaña, in Navarre, in the Rioja, and the Asturias; it was the chief resource for the supply of cattle to the allied army, it was the outwork of Portugal, and honestly and vigorously governed, would have been more important than Catalonia. But like the rest of Spain it was always weak from disorders, and, if the allies had remained in Alemtejo, there was nothing to prevent Dorsenne from conquering it; for though he should not have taken Ferrol and Coruña, the points of St. Jago, Lugo, Villa Franca, and Orense would have given him an entire command of the interior, and the Spaniards holding the ports only would not have been able to dislodge him.
Lord Wellington arrived upon the Coa about the1811. August. 8th of August, intending, as I have said, first a close blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, and finally a siege; it was however soon known that the French had on the 6th supplied the place for two months, and the first part of the design was therefore relinquished. The troops were then quartered near the sources of the Coa and Agueda, close to the line of communication between Marmont and Dorsenne, and in a country where there was still some corn. If the enemy advanced in superior numbers, the army could retire through a strong country to a position of battle near Sabugal, whence the communication with Hill was direct. Nor was the rest of Beira left unprotected, because the French would have exposed their left flank, by any advance in the direction of Almeida, and the allies could, by Guarda, send detachments to the valley of the Mondego in time to secure the magazines at Celerico. The line of supply from Lamego along which the battering-train was now moving, was however rather exposed.
While the army was in this position, the preparations for the siege went on briskly, until Wellington learned, contrary to his former belief, that the disposable force of the army of the north, was above twenty thousand good troops; and consequently, that Ciudad Rodrigo could not be attacked in face of that corps, and of Marmont’s army. Then changing his plan, he resolved to blockade the place, and wait for some opportunity to strike a sudden blow, either against the fortress, or against the enemy’s troops; for it was the foundation of his hopes, that as the French could not long remain in masses, for want of provisions, and that he could check those masses on the frontier of Portugal, so he could always force them to concentrate, or suffer the loss of some important post. But it is worthy of observation, that his plans were based on calculations which did not comprise the Gallician army. He had no expectation that it would act at all, or if it did, that it would act effectually. It had no cavalry, and the infantry being undisciplined dared not enter the plains in face of the enemy’s horsemen; yet this was in August 1811, and Gallicia had not seen the face of an enemy since June 1809!
Early in September, Marmont, pushing a detachment from Placencia through the passes, surprised a British cavalry piquet, at St. Martin de Trebejo, and opened his communications with Dorsenne. Nevertheless lord Wellington formed the blockade. His head-quarters were fixed at Guinaldo, the fifth division was placed at Perales, in observation of Marmont, and the first division, now commanded by general Graham, occupied Penamacor. A battery of artillery, was withdrawn from Hill, and three brigades of that general’s corps, reinforced by a Portuguese regiment, passed the Tagus, and were placed on the Ponçul, in advance of Castello Branco, to protect the magazines on that line of communication. Meanwhile the battering-train was collected at Villa de Ponte, the troops were employed to prepare gabions and fascines, and the engineers instructed two hundred men of the line, in the duties of sappers. The bridge over the Coa at Almeida which had been broken by Massena, was permanently repaired, and the works of Almeida itself, were ordered to be once more restored to form a place of arms for the battering-train and stores; Carlos d’España came also to Leon to form a new army under the protection of the allies, but he was without officers, arms, money, or stores, and his force was a mere name.