CHAPTER III.
OPERATIONS IN VALENCIA AND MURCIA.
1812. April. Suchet having recovered his health was again at the head of the troops, but the king’s military authority was so irksome to him, that he despatched an officer to represent the inconvenience of it to the Emperor, previous to that monarch’s departure for Russia. The answer in some degree restored his independence; he was desired to hold his troops concentrated, and move them in the manner most conducive to the interests of his own command. Hence, when Joseph, designing to act against lord Wellington in Estremadura, demanded the aid of one division, Suchet replied that he must then evacuate Valencia; and as the natural line of retreat for the French armies would, during the contemplated operations, be by the eastern provinces, it would be better to abandon Andalusia first! an answer calculated to convince Joseph that his authority in the field was still but a name.
Suchet, from a natural disposition towards order, and because his revenue from the fishery of the Albufera depended upon the tranquillity of the province, took infinite pains to confirm his power; and his mode of proceeding, at once prudent and firm, was wonderfully successful. Valencia, although one of the smallest provinces in Spain, and not naturally fertile, was, from the industry of the inhabitants, one of the richest. Combining manufactures with agriculture, it possessed great resources, but they had been injured by the war, without having been applied to its exigencies; and the people expected that a bloody vengeance would be taken for Calvo’s murder of the French residents at the commencement of the contest. Their fears were soon allayed: discipline was strictly preserved, and Suchet, having suppressed the taxes imposed by the Spanish government, substituted others, which, being more equal, were less onerous. To protect the people from oppression in the collection, he published in every corner his demands, authorising resistance to contributions which were not named in his list and demanded by the proper officers; and he employed the native authorities, as he had done in Aragon. Thus, all impolitic restrictions upon the industry and traffic of the country being removed, the people found the government of the invaders less oppressive than their own.
Napoleon, in expectation of Suchet’s conquest, had however imposed a war contribution, as a punishment for the death of the French residents, so heavy, that his lieutenant imagined Valencia would be quite unable to raise the sum; yet the emperor, who had calculated the Valencians’ means by a comparison with those of Aragon, would not rescind the order. And so exact was his judgement, that Suchet, by accepting part payment, in kind, and giving a discount for prompt liquidation, satisfied this impost in one year, without much difficulty, and the current expenses of the army were provided for besides; yet neither did the people suffer as in other provinces, nor was their industry so cramped, nor their property so injured, as under their own government. Valencia therefore remained tranquil, and, by contrast, the mischief of negligence and disorder was made manifest.
The advantages derived from the conquest were even extended to the province of Aragon, and to the court of Joseph, for the contributions were diminished in the former, and large sums were remitted to the latter to meet Napoleon’s grant of one-fifth of the war contributions in favour of the intrusive government. This prosperous state ofMay. French affairs in Valencia was established also in the face of an enemy daily increasing in strength. For the regent, Abispal, had given Blake’s command to his own brother Joseph O’Donel, who collecting the remains of the armies of Murcia and Valencia, had raised new levies, and during Suchet’s illness formed a fresh army of twelve or fourteen thousand men in the neighbourhood of Alicant. In the Balearic Isles also Roche and Whittingham’s divisions were declared ready to take the field, and fifteen hundred British troops, commanded by general Ross, arrived at Carthagena. To avoid the fever there, these last remained on shipboard, and were thus more menacing to the enemy than on shore, because they seemed to be only awaiting the arrival of a new army, which the French knew to be coming from Sicily to the eastern coast of Spain. And as the descent of this army was the commencement of a remarkable episode in the history of the Peninsular War, it is proper to give an exact account of its origin and progress.
Sir John Stuart had been succeeded, in Sicily, by lord William Bentinck, a man of resolution, capacity, and spirit, just in his actions, and abhorring oppression, but of a sanguine, impetuous disposition. Being resolved to ameliorate the condition of the Sicilian people, after surmounting many difficulties, he removed the queen from power, vested the direction of affairs in the crown prince, obtained from the barons a renunciation of their feudal privileges, and caused a representative constitution to be proclaimed. Believing then that the court was submissive because it was silent; that the barons would adhere to his system, because it gave them the useful power of legislation, in lieu of feudal privileges alloyed by ruinous expenses and the degradation of courtiers; because it gave them the dignity of independence at the cost only of maintaining the rights of the people and restoring the honour of their country:—believing thus, he judged that the large British force hitherto kept in Sicily, as much to overawe the court as to oppose the enemy, might be dispensed with; and that the expected improvement of the Sicilian army, and the attachment of the people to the new political system, would permit ten thousand men to be employed in aid of lord Wellington, or in Italy. In January, therefore, he wrote of these projects to the English ministers, and sent his brother to lord Wellington to consult upon the best mode of acting.
Such an opportune offer to create a diversion on the left flank of the French armies was eagerly accepted by Wellington, who immediately sent engineers, artificers, and a battering train complete, to aid the expected expedition. But lord William Bentinck was soon made sensible, that in large communities working constitutions are the offspring, and not the generators, of national feelings and habits. They cannot be built like cities in the desert, nor cast, as breakwaters, into the sea of public corruption, but gradually, and as the insect rocks come up from the depths of the ocean, they must arise, if they are to bear the storms of human passions.
The Sicilian court opposed lord William with falsehood and intrigue, the constitution was secretly thwarted by the barons, the Neapolitan army, a body composed of foreigners of all nations, was diligently augmented, with a view to overawe both the English and the people; the revenues and the subsidy were alike misapplied, and the native Sicilian army, despised and neglected, was incapable of service. Finally, instead of going to Spain himself, with ten thousand good troops, lord William could only send a subordinate general with six thousand—British, Germans, Calabrese, Swiss, and Sicilians; the British and Germans only, being either morally or militarily well organised. To these, however, Roche’s and Whittingham’s levies, represented to be twelve or fourteen thousand strong, were added, the Spanish government having placed them at the disposition of general Maitland, the commander of the expedition. Thus, in May, twenty thousand men were supposed ready for a descent on Catalonia, to which quarter lord Wellington recommended they should proceed.
But now other objects were presented to lord William Bentinck’s sanguine mind. The Austrian government, while treating with Napoleon, was secretly encouraging insurrections in Italy, Croatia, Dalmatia, the Venetian states, the Tyrol, and Switzerland. English, as well as Austrian agents, were active to organise a vast conspiracy against the French emperor, and there was a desire, especially on the part of England, to create a kingdom for one of the Austrian archdukes. Murat was discontented with France, the Montenegrins were in arms on the Adriatic coast, and the prospect of a descent upon Italy in unison with the wishes of the people, appeared so promising to lord William Bentinck, that supposing himself to have a discretionary power, he stopped the expedition to Catalonia, reasoning thus.
“In Spain, only six thousand middling troops can be employed on a secondary operation, and for a limited period, whereas twelve thousand British soldiers, and six thousand men composing the Neapolitan army of Sicily, can land in Italy, a grand theatre, where success will most efficaciously assist Spain. The obnoxious Neapolitan force being thus removed, the native Sicilian army can be organised, and the new constitution established with more certainty.” The time, also, he thought critical for Italy, not so for Spain, which would suffer but a temporary deprivation, seeing that failure in Italy would not preclude after aid to Spain.
Impressed with these notions, which, it must be confessed, were both plausible and grand, he permitted the expedition, already embarked, to sail for Palma in Sardinia, and Mahon in Minorca, yet merely as a blind, because, from those places, he could easily direct the troops against Italy, and meanwhile they menaced the French in Spain. But the conception of vast and daring enterprises, even the execution of them up to a certain point, is not very uncommon, they fail only by a little! that little is, however, the essence of genius, the phial of wit, which, held to Orlando’s nostril, changed him from a frantic giant to a perfect commander.
It was in the consideration of such nice points of military policy that lord Wellington’s solid judgement was always advantageously displayed. Neither the greatness of this project nor the apparent facility of execution weighed with him. He thought the recovery of Italy by the power of the British arms would be a glorious, and might be a feasible exploit, but it was only in prospect, Spain was the better field, the war in the Peninsula existed; years had been devoted to the establishment of a solid base there, and experience had proved that the chance of victory was not imaginary. England could not support two armies. The principle of concentration of power on an important point was as applicable here as on a field of battle, and although Italy might be the more vital point, it would be advisable to continue the war already established in Spain: nay it would be better to give up Spain, and direct the whole power of England against Italy, rather than undertake double operations, on such an extensive scale, at a moment when the means necessary to sustain one were so scanty.
The ministers, apparently convinced by this reasoning, forbad lord William Bentinck to proceed, and they expressed their discontent at his conduct. Nevertheless their former instructions had unquestionably conferred on him a discretionary power to act in Italy, and so completely had he been misled by their previous despatches, that besides delaying the expedition to Spain, he had placed twelve hundred men under admiral Fremantle, to assist the Montenegrins. And he was actually entangled in a negotiation with the Russian admiral, Greig, relative to the march of a Russian army; a march planned, as it would appear, without the knowledge of the Russian court, and which, from the wildness of its conception and the mischief it would probably have effected, deserves notice.
While the Russian war was still uncertain, admiral Tchtchagoff, who commanded sixty thousand men on the Danube, proposed to march with them, through Bosnia and the ancient Epirus, to the mouths of the Cattaro, and, there embarking, to commence the impending contest with France in Italy. He was, however, without resources, and expecting to arrive in a starving and miserable condition on the Adriatic, demanded, through admiral Greig, then commanding a squadron in the Mediterranean, that lord William Bentinck should be ready to supply him with fresh arms, ammunition, and provisions, and to aid him with an auxiliary force. That nobleman saw at a glance the absurdity of this scheme, but he was falsely informed that Tchtchagoff, trusting to his good will, had already commenced the march; and thus he had only to choose between aiding an ally, whose force, if it arrived at all, and was supplied by England, would help his own project, or permit it, to avoid perishing, to ravage Italy, and so change the people of that country from secret friends into deadly enemies. It would be foreign to this history to consider what effect the absence of Tchtchagoff’s army during the Russian campaign would have had upon Napoleon’s operations, but this was the very force whose march to the Beresina afterwards obliged the emperor to abandon Smolensko, and continue the retreat to Warsaw.
It was in the midst of these affairs, that the English minister’s imperative orders to look only to the coast of Spain arrived. The negociation with the Russians was immediately stopped, the project of landing in Italy was relinquished, and the expedition, already sent to the Adriatic, was recalled. Meanwhile the descent on Catalonia had been delayed, and as a knowledge of its destination, had reached Suchet through the French minister of war, and through the rumours rife amongst the Spaniards, all his preparations to meet it were matured. Nor was this the only mischief produced by the English minister’s want of clear views and decided system of policy. Lord William Bentinck had been empowered to raise money on bills for his own exigences, and being desirous to form a military chest for his project in Italy, he had invaded lord Wellington’s money markets. With infinite trouble and difficulty that general had just opened a source of supply at the rate of five shillings and four-pence, to five shillings and eight-pence the dollar, when lord William Bentinck’s agents offering six shillings and eight-pence, swept four millions from the markets, and thus, as shall be hereafter shewn, seriously embarrassed lord Wellington’s operations in the field.
This unhappy commencement of the Sicilian expedition led to other errors, and its arrival on the coast of Spain, did not take place, until after the campaign in Castile had commenced; but as its proceedings connected the warfare of Valencia immediately with that of Catalonia, and the whole with lord Wellington’s operations, they cannot be properly treated of in this place. It is, however, worthy of observation, how an illiberal and factious policy, inevitably recoils upon its authors.
In 1807 sir John Moore, with that sagacity and manliness which distinguished his career through life, had informed the ministers, that no hope of a successful attack on the French in Italy, could be entertained while the British army upheld the tyrannical system of the dissolute and treacherous Neapolitan court in Sicily. And as no change for the better could be expected while the queen was allowed to govern, he proposed, that the British cabinet should either relinquish Sicily, or, assuming the entire controul of the island, seize the queen and send her to her native Austria. This he judged to be the first step necessary to render the large British army in Sicily available for the field, because the Sicilian people could then be justly governed, and thus only could the organization of an effective native force attached to England, and fitted to offer freedom to Italy be effected.
He spoke not of constitutions but of justice to the people, and hence his proposal was rejected as a matter of Jacobinism. Mr. Drummond, the English plenipotentiary, even betrayed it to the queen, a woman not without magnanimity, yet so capable of bloody deeds, that, in 1810, she secretly proposed to Napoleon the perpetration of a second Sicilian vespers upon the English. The emperor, detesting such guilt, only answered by throwing her agent into prison, yet the traces of the conspiracy were detected by the British authorities in 1811; and in 1812 lord William Bentinck was forced to seize the government, in the manner before recommended by Moore, and did finally expel the queen by force. But because these measures were not resorted to in time, he was now, with an army of from twenty-five to thirty thousand men, sixteen thousand of which were British, only able to detach a mixed force of six thousand to aid lord Wellington. And at the same time the oppression of Ireland required that sixty thousand fine soldiers should remain idle at home, while France, with a Russian war on hand, was able to over-match the allies in Spain. Bad government is a scourge with a double thong!