CHAPTER II.
OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA.
1812. August. Suchet found resources in Valencia to support the king’s court and army, without augmenting the pressure on the inhabitants, and a counter-stroke could have been made against the allies, if the French commanders had been of one mind and had looked well to the state of affairs; but Joseph exasperated by the previous opposition of the generals, and troubled by the distresses of the numerous families attached to his court, was only intent upon recovering Madrid as soon as he could collect troops enough to give Wellington battle. He had demanded from the French minister of war, money, stores, and a reinforcement of forty thousand men, and he had imperatively commanded Soult to abandon Andalusia; that clear-sighted commander,[Appendix, No. 3.] could not however understand why the king, who had given him no accurate details of Marmont’s misfortunes, or of his own operations, should yet order him to abandon at once, all the results, and all the interests, springing from three years’ possession of the south of Spain. He thought it a great question not to be treated lightly, and as his vast capacity enabled him to embrace the whole field of operations, he concluded that rumour had exaggerated the catastrophe at Salamanca and that the abandoning of Andalusia would be the ruin of the French cause.
French correspondence taken at Vittoria, MSS. “To march on Madrid,” he said, “would probably produce another pitched battle, which should be carefully avoided, seeing that the whole frame-work of the French invasion was disjointed, and no resource would remain after a defeat. On the other hand, Andalusia, which had hitherto been such a burthen to the invasion, now offered means to remedy the present disasters, and to sacrifice that province with all its resources, for the sake of regaining the capital of Spain, appeared a folly. It was purchasing a town at the price of a kingdom. Madrid was nothing in the emperor’s policy, though it might be something for a king of Spain; yet Philip the Vth had thrice lost it and preserved his throne. Why then should Joseph set such a value upon that city? The battle of the Arapiles was merely a grand duel which might be fought again with a different result; but to abandon Andalusia with all its stores and establishments; to raise the blockade of Cadiz; to sacrifice the guns, the equipments, the hospitals and the magazines, and thus render null the labours of three years, would be to make the battle of the Arapiles a prodigious historical event, the effect of which would be felt all over Europe and even in the new world. And how was this flight from Andalusia to be safely effected? The army of the south had been able to hold in check sixty thousand enemies disposed on a circuit round it, but the moment it commenced its retreat towards Toledo those sixty thousand men would unite to follow, and Wellington himself would be found on the Tagus in its front. On that line then the army of the south could not march, and a retreat through Murcia would be long and difficult. But why retreat at all? Where,” exclaimed this able warrior, “where is the harm though the allies should possess the centre of Spain?”
“Your majesty,” he continued, “should collect the army of the centre, the army of Aragon, and if possible, the army of Portugal, and you should march upon Andalusia, even though to do so should involve the abandonment of Valencia. If the army of Portugal comes with you, one hundred and twenty thousand men will be close to Portugal; if it cannot or will not come, let it remain, because while Burgos defends itself, that army can keep on the right of the Ebro and the emperor will take measures for its succour. Let Wellington then occupy Spain from Burgos to the Morena, it shall be my care to provide magazines, stores, and places of arms in Andalusia; and the moment eighty thousand French are assembled in that province the theatre of war is changed! The English general must fall back to save Lisbon, the army of Portugal may follow him to the Tagus, the line of communication with France will be established by the eastern coast, the final result of the campaign turns in our favour, and a decisive battle may be delivered without fear at the gates of Lisbon. March then with the army of the centre upon the Despenas Peros, unite all our forces in Andalusia, and all will be well! Abandon that province and you lose Spain! you will retire behind the Ebro and famine will drive you thence before the emperor can, from the distant Russia, provide a remedy; his affairs even in that country will suffer by the blow, and America dismayed by our misfortunes will perhaps make peace with England.”
Neither the king’s genius, nor his passions, would permit him to understand the grandeur and vigour of this conception. To change even simple lines of operation suddenly, is at all times a nice affair, but thus to change the whole theatre of operations and regain the initial movements after a defeat, belongs only to master spirits in war. Now the emperor had recommended a concentration of force, and Joseph would not understand this save as applied to the recovery of Madrid; he was uneasy for the frontiers of France; as if Wellington could possibly have invaded that country while a great army menaced Lisbon; in fine he could see nothing but his lost capital on one side, and a disobedient lieutenant on the other, and peremptorily repeated his orders. Then Soult, knowing that his plan could only be effected by union and rapidity, and dreading the responsibility of further delay, took immediate steps to abandon Andalusia; but mortified by this blighting of his fruitful genius, and stung with anger at such a termination to all his political and military labours, his feelings over-mastered his judgment. Instead of tracing the king’s rigid counteraction of his scheme to the narrowness of the monarch’s military genius, he judged it part of a design to secure his own fortune at the expense of his brother, an action quite foreign to Joseph’s honest and passionate nature. Wherefore making known this opinion to six generals, who were sworn to secrecy, unless interrogated by the Emperor, he wrote to the French minister of war[Appendix No. 4.] expressing his doubts of the king’s loyalty towards the emperor, and founding them on the following facts.
1º. That the extent of Marmont’s defeat had been made known to him only by the reports of the enemy, and the king, after remaining for twenty-three days, without sending any detailed information of the operations in the north of Spain, although the armies were actively engaged, had peremptorily ordered him to abandon Andalusia, saying it was the only resource remaining for the French. To this opinion Soult said he could not subscribe, yet being unable absolutely to disobey the monarch, he was going to make a movement which must finally lead to the loss of all the French conquests in Spain, seeing that it would then be impossible to remain permanently on the Tagus, or even in the Castiles.
2º. This operation ruinous in itself was insisted upon at a time, when the newspapers of Cadiz affirmed, that Joseph’s ambassador at the court of Petersburgh, had joined the Prussian army in the field; that Joseph himself had made secret overtures to the government in the Isla de Leon; that Bernadotte, his brother-in-law, had made a treaty with England and had demanded of the Cortez a guard of Spaniards, a fact confirmed by information obtained through an officer sent with a flag of truce to the English admiral; finally that Moreau and Blucher were at Stockholm, and the aide-de-camp of the former was in London.
Reflecting upon all these circumstances he feared that the object of the king’s false movements, might be to force the French army over the Ebro, in the view of making an arrangement for Spain, separate from France; fears, said the duke of Dalmatia, which may be chimerical, but it is better in such a crisis to be too fearful than too confident. This letter was sent by sea, and the vessel having touched at Valencia at the moment of Joseph’s arrival there, the despatch was opened, and it was then, in the first burst of his anger, that the king despatched Desprez on that mission to Moscow, the result of which has been already related.
Soult’s proceedings though most offensive to the king and founded in error, because Joseph’s letters, containing the information required, were intercepted, not withheld, were prompted by zeal for his master’s service and cannot be justly condemned, yet Joseph’s indignation was natural and becoming. But the admiration of reflecting men must ever be excited by the greatness of mind, and the calm sagacity, with which Napoleon treated this thorny affair. Neither the complaints of his brother, nor the hints of his minister of war (for the duke of Feltre, a man of mean capacity and of an intriguing disposition, countenanced Joseph’s expressed suspicions[Appendix, No. 5.] that the duke of Dalmatia designed to make himself king of Andalusia) could disturb the temper or judgment of the Emperor; and it was then, struck with the vigour of the plan for concentrating the army in Andalusia, he called Soult the only military head in Spain. Nor was Wellington inattentive of that general’s movements, he knew his talents, and could foresee and appreciate the importance of the project he had proposed. Anxiously he watched his reluctant motions, and while apparently enjoying his own triumph amidst the feasts and rejoicings of Madrid, his eye was fixed on Seville; the balls and bull-fights of the capital cloaked both the skill and the apprehensions of the consummate general.
Before the allies had crossed the Guadarama, Hill had been directed to hold his army in hand, close to Drouet, and ready to move into the valley of the Tagus, if that general should hasten to the succour of the king. But when Joseph’s retreat upon Valencia was known, Hill received orders to fight Drouet, and even to follow him into Andalusia; at the same time general Cooke was directed to prepare an attack, even though it should be an open assault on the French lines before Cadiz, while Ballesteros operated on the flank from Gibraltar. By these means Wellington hoped to keep Soult from sending any succour to the king, and even to force him out of Andalusia without the necessity of marching there himself; yet if these measures failed, he was resolved to take twenty thousand men from Madrid and uniting with Hill drive the French from that province.
Previous to the sending of these instructions, Laval and Villatte had pursued Ballesteros to Malaga, which place, after a skirmish at Coin, he entered, and was in such danger of capture, that the maritime expedition already noticed was detached from Cadiz, by sea, to carry him off. However the news of the battle of Salamanca having arrested the French movements, the Spanish general regained San Roque, and the fleet went on to Valencia. Meanwhile Soult, hoping the king would transfer the seat of war to Andalusia had caused Drouet to shew a bold front against Hill, extending from the Serena to Monasterio, and to send scouting parties towards Merida; and large magazines were formed at Cordoba, a central point, equally suited for an advance by Estremadura, a march to La Mancha, or a retreat by Grenada. Wherefore Hill, who had not then received his orders to advance, remained on the defensive; nor would Wellington stir from Madrid, although his presence was urgently called for on the Duero, until he was satisfied that the duke of Dalmatia meant to abandon Andalusia. The king, as we have seen, finally forced this measure upon the marshal; but the execution required very extensive arrangements, for the quarters were distant, the convoys immense, the enemies numerous, the line of march wild, and the journey long. And it was most important to present the imposing appearance of a great and regular military movement and not the disgraceful scene of a confused flight.
The distant minor posts, in the Condado de Niebla and other places, were first called in, and then the lines before the Isla were abandoned; for Soult, in obedience to the king’s first order, designed to move upon La Mancha, and it was only by accident, and indirectly, that he heard of Joseph’s retreat to Valencia. At the same time he discovered that Drouet, who had received direct orders from the king, was going to Toledo, and it was not without difficulty, and only through the medium of his brother, who commanded Drouet’s cavalry, that he could prevent that destructive isolated movement. Murcia then became the line of retreat but every thing was hurried, because the works before the Isla were already broken up in the view of retreating towards La Mancha, and the troops were in march for Seville although the safe assembling of the army at Grenada required another arrangement.
On the 25th of August a thousand guns, stores in proportion, and all the immense works of Chiclana, St. Maria, and the Trocadero, were destroyed. Thus the long blockade of the Isla de Leon was broken up at the moment when the bombardment of Cadiz had become very serious, when the opposition to English influence was taking a dangerous direction, when the French intrigues were nearly ripe, the cortez becoming alienated from the cause of Ferdinand and the church; finally when the executive government was weaker than ever, because the count of Abispal, the only active person in the regency, had resigned, disgusted that his brother had been superseded by Elio and censured in the cortez for the defeat at Castalla. This siege or rather defence of Cadiz, for it was never, strictly speaking, besieged, was a curious episode in the war. Whether the Spaniards would or would not have effectually defended it without the aid of British troops is a matter of speculation; but it is certain that notwithstanding Graham’s glorious action at Barrosa, Cadiz was always a heavy burthen upon Lord Wellington; the forces, there employed, would have done better service under his immediate command, and many severe financial difficulties to say nothing of political crosses would have been spared.
In the night of the 26th Soult quitting Seville, commenced his march by Ossuna and Antequera, towards Grenada; but now Wellington’s orders had set all the allied troops of Andalusia and Estremadura in motion. Hill advanced against Drouet; Ballesteros moved by the Ronda mountains to hang on the retiring enemy’s flanks; the expedition sent by sea to succour him, returned from Valencia; colonel Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon disembarked with four thousand English and Spanish troops, at Huelva, and marching upon St. Lucar Mayor, drove the enemy from thence, on the 24th. The 27th they fell upon the French rear-guard at Seville, and the suburb of Triana, the bridge, and the streets beyond, were soon carried, by the English guards and Downie’s legion. Two hundred prisoners, several guns and many stores were taken, but Downie himself was wounded and made prisoner, and treated very harshly, because the populace rising in aid of the allies had mutilated the French soldiers who fell into their hands. Scarcely was Seville taken, when seven thousand French infantry came up from Chiclana, but thinking all Hill’s troops were before them, instead of attacking Skerrit hastily followed their own army, leaving the allies masters of the city. But this attack though successful, was isolated and contrary to lord Wellington’s desire. A direct and vigorous assault upon the lines of Chiclana by the whole of the Anglo-Spanish garrison was his plan, and such an assault, when the French were abandoning their works there, would have been a far heavier blow to Soult.
That commander was now too strong to be meddled with. He issued eight days’ bread to his army, marched very leisurely, picked up on his route the garrisons and troops who came into him at Antequera, from the Ronda and from the coast; and at Grenada he halted eleven days to give Drouet time to join him, for the latter quitting Estremadura the 25th by the Cordova passes, was marching by Jaen to Huescar. Ballesteros had harassed the march, but the French general had, with an insignificant loss, united seventy-two guns and forty-five thousand soldiers under arms, of which six thousand were cavalry. He was however still in the midst of enemies. On his left flank was Hill; on his right flank was Ballesteros; Wellington himself might come down by the Despenas Perros; the Murcians were in his front, Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon behind him, and he was clogged with enormous convoys; his sick and maimed men alone amounted to nearly nine thousand; his Spanish soldiers were deserting daily, and it was necessary to provide for several hundreds of Spanish families who were attached to the French interests. To march upon the city of Murcia was the direct, and the best route for Valencia; but the yellow fever raged there and at Carthagena; moreover, Don S. Bracco, the English consul at Murcia, a resolute man, declared his resolution to inundate the country if the French advanced. Wherefore again issuing eightSeptember days’ bread Soult marched by the mountain ways leading from Huescar to Cehejin, and Calasparra, and then moving by Hellin, gained Almanza on the great road to Madrid, his flank being covered by a detachment from Suchet’s army which skirmished with Maitland’s advanced posts at San Vicente close to Alicant. At Hellin he met the advanced guard of the army of Aragon, and on the 3rd of October the military junction of all the French forces was effected.
October. The task was thus completed, and in a manner worthy of so great a commander. For it must be recollected that besides the drawing together of the different divisions, the march itself was three hundred miles, great part through mountain roads, and the population was every where hostile. General Hill had menaced him with twenty-five thousand men, including Morillo and Penne Villemur’s forces; Ballesteros, reinforced from Cadiz, and by the deserters, had nearly twenty thousand; there were fourteen thousand soldiers still in the Isla; Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon had four thousand, and the Partidas were in all parts numerous: yet from the midst of these multitudes the duke of Dalmatia carried off his army his convoys and his sick without any disaster. In this manner Andalusia, which had once been saved by the indirect influence of a single march, made by Moore from Salamanca, was, such is the complexity of war, after three years’ subjection, recovered by the indirect effect of a single battle delivered by Wellington close to the same city.
During these transactions Maitland’s proceedings had been anxiously watched by Wellington; for though the recovery of Andalusia was, both politically and militarily, a great gain, the result, he saw, must necessarily be hurtful to the ultimate success of his campaign by bringing together such powerful forces. He still thought that regular operations would not so effectually occupy Suchet, as a littoral warfare, yet he was contented that Maitland should try his own plan, and he advised that general to march by the coast, and have constant communication with the fleet, referring to his own campaign against Junot in 1808 as an example to be followed. But, the coast roads were difficult, the access for the fleet uncertain; and though the same obstacles, and the latter perhaps in a greater degree, had occurred in Portugal, the different constitution of the armies, and still more of the generals, was an insuperable bar to a like proceeding in Valencia.
General Maitland only desired to quit his command, and the more so that the time appointed by lord William Bentinck for the return of the troops to Sicily was approaching. The moment was critical, but Wellington without hesitation forbade their departure, and even asked the ministers to place them under his own command. Meanwhile with the utmost gentleness and delicacy, he showed to Maitland, who was a man of high honour, courage, and feeling, although inexperienced in command, and now heavily oppressed with illness, that his situation was by no means dangerous;—that the entrenched camp of Alicant might be safely defended,—that he was comparatively better off than Wellington himself had been when in the lines of Torres Vedras, and that it was even desirable that the enemy should attack him on such strong ground, because the Spaniards when joined with English soldiers in a secure position would certainly fight. He also desired that Carthagena should be well looked to by general Ross lest Soult should turn aside to surprise it. Then taking advantage of Elio’s fear of Soult he drew him with the army that had been O’Donel’s towards Madrid and so got some controul over his operations.
If the English general had been well furnished with money at this time, and if the yellow fever had not raged in Murcia, it is probable he would have followed Joseph rapidly, and rallying all the scattered Spanish forces, and the Sicilian armament on his own army, have endeavoured to crush the king and Suchet before Soult could arrive; or he might have formed a junction with Hill at Despenas Perros and so have fallen on Soult himself, during his march, although such an operation would have endangered his line of communication on the Duero. But these obstacles induced him to avoid operations in the south, which would have involved him in new and immense combinations, until he had secured his northern line of operations by the capture of Burgos, meaning then with his whole army united to attack the enemy in the south.
However he could not stir from Madrid until he was certain that Soult would relinquish Andalusia, and this was not made clear before Cordoba was abandoned. Then Hill was ordered to advance on Zalamea de la Serena, where he commanded equally, the passes leading to Cordoba in front, those leading to La Mancha on the left, and those leading by Truxillo to the Tagus in the rear; so that he could at pleasure either join Wellington, follow Drouet towards Grenada, or interpose between Soult and Madrid, if he should turn towards the Despenas Perros: meanwhile Skerrit’s troops were marching to join him, and the rest of the Anglo-Portuguese garrison of Cadiz sailed to Lisbon, with intent to join Wellington by the regular line of operations.
August. During these transactions the affairs in Old Castile had become greatly deranged, for where Wellington was not, the French warfare generally assumed a severe and menacing aspect. Castaños had, in person, conducted the siege of Astorga, after the battle of Salamanca, yet with so little vigour, that it appeared rather a blockade than a siege. The forts at Toro and Zamora had also been invested, the first by the Partidas, the second by Silveira’s militia, who with great spirit had passed their own frontier, although well aware that they could not be legally compelled to do so. Thus all the French garrisons abandoned by Clauzel’s retreat were endangered, and though the slow progress of the Spaniards before Astorga was infinitely disgraceful to their military prowess, final success seemed certain.
General H. Clinton was at Cuellar, Santo Cildes occupied Valladolid, Anson’s cavalry was in the valley of the Esqueva, and the front looked fair enough. But in the rear the line of communication, as far as the frontier of Portugal, was in great disorder; the discipline of the army was deteriorating rapidly, and excesses were committed on all the routes. A detachment of Portuguese, not more than a thousand strong, either instigated by want or by their hatred of the Spaniards, had perpetrated such enormities on their march from Pinhel to Salamanca, that as an example, five were executed and many others severely punished by stripes, yet even this did not check the growing evil, the origin of which may be partly traced to the license at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, but principally to the sufferings of the soldiers.
All the hospitals in the rear were crowded, and Salamanca itself, in which there were six thousand sick and wounded, besides French prisoners, was the very abode of misery. The soldiers endured much during the first two or three days after the battle, and the inferior officers’ sufferings were still more heavy and protracted. They had no money, and many sold their horses and other property to sustain life; some actually died of want, and though Wellington, hearing of this, gave orders that they should be supplied from the purveyor’s stores in the same manner as the soldiers, the relief came late. It is a common, yet erroneous notion, that the English system of hospitals in the Peninsula was admirable, and that the French hospitals were neglected. Strenuous and unceasing exertions were made by lord Wellington and the chiefs of the medical staff to form good hospital establishments, but the want of money, and still more the want of previous institutions, foiled their utmost efforts. Now there was no point of warfare which more engaged Napoleon’s attention than the care of his sick and wounded; and he being monarch as well as general, furnished his hospitals with all things requisite, even with luxuries. Under his fostering care also, baron Larrey justly celebrated, were it for this alone, organized the establishment called the hospital “Ambulance;” that is to say, waggons of a peculiar construction, well horsed, served by men trained and incorporated as soldiers, and subject to a strict discipline. Rewarded for their courage and devotion like other soldiers they were always at hand, and whether in action or on a march, ready to pick up, to salve, and to carry off wounded men; and the astonishing rapidity with which the fallen French soldiers disappeared from a field of battle attested the excellence of the institution.
But in the British army, the carrying off the wounded, depended, partly upon the casual assistance of a weak waggon train, very badly disciplined, furnishing only three waggons to a division, and not originally appropriated to that service; partly upon the spare commissariat animals, but principally upon the resources of the country, whether of bullock-carts, mules, or donkeys, and hence the most doleful scenes after a battle, or when an hospital was to be evacuated. The increasing numbers of the sick and wounded as the war enlarged, also pressed on the limited number of regular medical officers, and Wellington complained, that when he demanded more, the military medical board in London neglected his demands, and thwarted his arrangements. Shoals of hospital mates and students were indeed sent out, and they arrived for the most part ignorant alike of war, and their own profession; while a heterogeneous mass of purveyors and their subordinates, acting without any military organization or effectual superintendence, continually bade defiance to the exertions of those medical officers, and they were many, whose experience, zeal, and talents would, with a good institution to work upon, have rendered this branch of the service most distinguished. Nay, many even of the well-educated surgeons sent out were for some time of little use, for superior professional skill is of little value in comparison of experience in military arrangement; where one soldier dies from the want of a delicate operation, hundreds perish from the absence of military arrangement. War tries the strength of the military frame-work; it is in peace that the frame-work itself must be formed, otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world; a perfect army can only be made by civil institutions, and those, rightly considered, would tend to confine the horrors of war to the field of battle, which would be the next best thing to the perfection of civilization that would prevent war altogether.
Such was the state of affairs on the allies’ line of communication, when, on the 14th of August, Clauzel suddenly came down the Pisuerga. Anson’s cavalry immediately recrossed the Duero at Tudela, Santo Cildes, following Wellington’s instructions, fell back to Torrelobaton, and on the 18th the French assembled at Valladolid to the number ofClauzel’s Correspondence, MSS. twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, and fifty guns well provided with ammunition. Five thousand stragglers, who in the confusion of defeat had fled to Burgos and Vittoria, were also collected and in march to join. Clauzel’s design was to be at hand when Joseph, reinforced from the south, should drive Wellington from Madrid, for he thought the latter must then retire by Avila, and the Valle de Ambles, and he purposed to gain the mountains of Avila himself, and harass the English general’s flank. Meanwhile Foy proposed with two divisions of infantry and sixteen hundredFoy’s correspondence, MSS. cavalry, to succour the garrisons of Toro, Zamora, and Astorga, and Clauzel consented, though he appears to have been somewhat fearful of this dangerous experiment, and did not believe Astorga was so near its fall.
Foy wished to march on the 15th by Placentia, yet he was not dispatched until the evening of the 17th, and then by the line of Toro, the garrison of which place he carried off in passing. The 19th he sabred some of the Spanish rear-guard at Castro Gonzalo, on the Esla; the 20th, at three o’clock in the evening, he reached La Baneza, but was mortified to learn, that Castaños, by an artful negociation had, the day before, persuaded the garrison of Astorga, twelve hundred good troops, to surrender, although there was no breach, and the siege was actually being raised at the time. The Gallicians being safe in their mountains, the French general turned to the left, and marched upon Carvajales, hoping to enclose Silveira’s militia, between the Duero and the Esla, and sweep them off in hisFoy’s correspondence, MSS. course; then relieving Zamora, he purposed to penetrate to Salamanca, and seize the trophies of the Arapiles. And this would infallibly have happened, butSir H. Douglas’s papers, MSS. for the judicious activity of sir Howard Douglas, who, divining Foy’s object, sent Silveira with timeful notice into Portugal; yet so critical was the movement that Foy’s cavalry skirmished with the Portuguese rear-guard near Constantin at day-break on the 24th. The 25th the French entered Zamora, but Wellington was now in movement upon Arevalo, and Clauzel recalled Foy at the moment when his infantry were actually in march upon Salamanca to seize the trophies, and his cavalry was moving by Ledesma, to break up the line of communication with Ciudad Rodrigo.
That Foy was thus able to disturb the line of communication was certainly Clinton’s error. Wellington left eighteen thousand men, exclusive of the troops besieging Astorga, to protect his flank and rear, and he had a right to think it enough, because he momentarily expected Astorga to fall, and the French army, a beaten one, was then in full retreat. It is true none of the French garrisons yielded before Clauzel returned, but Clinton alone had eight thousand good troops, and might with the aid of Santo Cildes and the partidas, have baffled the French; he might even have menaced Valladolid, after Foy’s departure, which would have certainly brought that general back. And if he dared not venture so much, he should, following his instructions, have regulated his movements along the left of the Duero, so as to be always in a condition to protect Salamanca; that is, he should have gone to Olmedo when Clauzel first occupied Valladolid, but he retired to Arevalo, which enabled Foy to advance.
The mere escape of the garrisons, from Toro and Zamora, was by the English general thought no misfortune. It would have cost him a long march and two sieges in the hottest season to have reduced them, which, in the actual state of affairs, was more than they were worth; yet, to use his own words, “it was not very encouraging to find, that the best Spanish army was unable to stand before the remains of Marmont’s beaten troops; that in more than two months, it had been unable even to breach Astorga, and that all important operations must still be performed by the British troops.” The Spaniards, now in the fifth year of the war, were still in the state described by sir John Moore, “without an army, without a government, without a general!”
While these events were passing in Castile Popham’s armament remained on the Biscay coast, and the partidas thus encouraged became so active, that with exception of Santona and Gueteria, all the littoral posts were abandoned by Caffarelli; Porlier, Renovalles, and Mendizabel, the nominal commanders of all the bands, immediately took possession of Castro, Santander, and even of Bilbao, and though general Rouget came from Vittoria to recover the last, he was after some sharp fighting obliged to retire again to Durango. Meanwhile Reille, deluded by a rumour that Wellington was marching through the centre of Spain upon Zaragoza, abandoned several important outposts, Aragon, hitherto so tranquil, became unquiet, and all the northern provinces were ripe for insurrection.