CHAPTER IV.
1812. July. During the few hours of darkness, which succeeded the cessation of the battle, Clauzel had with a wonderful diligence, passed the Tormes by the narrow bridge of Alba and the fords below it, and at day-light was in full retreat upon Peneranda, covered by an organized rear-guard. Wellington also, having brought up the German dragoons and Anson’s cavalry to the front, crossed the river with his left wing at day-light, and moving up the stream, came about ten o’clock upon the French rear which was winding without much order along the Almar, a small stream at the foot of a height near the village of La Serna. He launched his cavalry against them, and the French squadrons, flying from Anson’s troopers towards their own left, abandoned three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were making up a hollow slope on their right, hoping to gain the crest of the heights before the cavalry could fall on. The two foremost did reach the higher ground and there formed squares, general Foy being in the one, and general Chemineau in the other; but the last regiment when half-way up, seeing Bock’s dragoons galloping hard on, faced about and being still in column commenced a disorderly fire. The two squares already formed above, also plied their muskets with far greater effect; and as the Germans, after crossing the Almar stream, had to pass a turn of narrow road, and then to clear some rough ground before they could range their squadrons on a charging front, the troopers dropt fast under the fire. By two’s, by three’s, by ten’s, by twenties they fell, but the rest keeping together, surmounted the difficulties of the ground, and hurtling on the column went clean through it; then the squares above retreated and several hundred prisoners were made by these able and daring horsemen.
This charge had been successful even to wonder, the joyous victors standing in the midst of their captives and of thousands of admiring friends seemed invincible; yet those who witnessed the scene, nay the actors themselves remained with the conviction of this military truth, that cavalry are not able to cope with veteran infantry save by surprize. The hill of La Serna offered a frightful spectacle of the power of the musket, that queen of weapons, and the track of the Germans was marked by their huge bodies. A few minutes only had the combat lasted and above a hundred had fallen; fifty-one were killed outright; and in several places man and horse had died simultaneously, and so suddenly, that falling together on their sides they appeared still alive, the horse’s legs stretched out as in movement, the rider’s feet in the stirrup, his bridle in hand, the sword raised to strike, and the large hat fastened under the chin, giving to the grim, but undistorted countenance, a supernatural and terrible expression.
When the French main body found their rear-guard attacked, they turned to its succour, but seeing the light division coming up recommenced the retreat and were followed to Nava de Sotroval. Near that place Chauvel’s horsemen joined them from the Duero, and covered the rear with such a resolute countenance that the allied cavalry, reduced in numbers and fatigued with continual fighting, did not choose to meddle again. Thus Clauzel carried his army clear off without further loss, and with such celerity, that his head-quarters were that night at Flores de Avila forty miles from the field of battle. After remaining a few hours there he crossed the Zapardiel, and would have halted the 24th, but the allied cavalry entered Cisla, and the march was then continued to Arevalo. This was a wonderful retreat, and the line was chosen with judgment, for Wellington naturally expected the French army would have made for Tordesillas instead of the Adaja. The pursuit was however somewhat slack, for on the very night of the action, the British left wing, being quite fresh, could have ascended the Tormes and reached the Almar before day-light, or, passing at Huerta, have marched by Ventosa to Peneranda; but the vigorous following of a beaten enemy was never a prominent characteristic of Lord Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula.
The 25th the allied army halted on the Zapardiel, and Adaja rivers, to let the commissariat, which had been sent to the rear the morning of the battle, come up. Meanwhile the king having quitted Madrid with fourteen thousand men on the 21st reached the Adaja and pushed his cavalry towardsSee [Plan 3.] Fontiveros; he was at Blasco Sancho the 24th, within a few hours’ march of Arevalo, and consequently able to effect a junction with Clauzel, yet he did not hurry his march, for he knew only of the advance upon Salamanca not of the defeat, and having sent many messengers to inform Marmont of his approach, concluded that general would await his arrival. The next day he received letters fromKing’s correspondence, MSS. the duke of Ragusa and Clauzel, dated Arevalo, describing the battle, and telling him that the defeated army must pass the Duero immediately to save the dépôt of Valladolid, and to establish new communications with the army of the north. Those generals promised however to halt behind that river, if possible, until the king could receive reinforcements from Suchet and Soult.
Joseph by a rapid movement upon Arevalo could still have effected a junction, but he immediately made a forced march to Espinar, leaving in Blasco Sancho two officers and twenty-seven troopers, who were surprised and made prisoners on the evening of the 25th by a corporal’s patrole; Clauzel at the same time marched upon Valladolid, by Olmedo, thus abandoning Zamora, Toro, and Tordesillas, with their garrisons, to the allies. Wellington immediately brought Santo Cildes, who was now upon the Esla with eight thousand Gallicians, to the right bank of the Duero, across which river he communicated by Castro Nuño with the left of the allies which was then upon the Zapardiel.
The 27th the British whose march had become more circumspect from the vicinity of the king’s army entered Olmedo. At this place, general Ferrey had died of his wounds, and the Spaniards tearing his body from the grave were going to mutilate it, when the soldiers of the light division who had so often fought against this brave man rescued his corpse, re-made his grave and heaped rocks upon it for more security, though with little need; for the Spaniards, with whom the sentiment of honor is always strong when not stifled by the violence of their passions, applauded the action.
On the 26th Clauzel, finding the pursuit had slackened, sent Colonel Fabvier to advise the king of it, and then sending his own right wing across the Duero, by the ford near Boecillo, to cover the evacuation of Valladolid, marched with the other wing towards the bridge of Tudela; he remained however still on the left bank, in the hope that Fabvier’s mission would bring the king back. Joseph who had already passed the Puerta de Guadarama immediately repassed it without delay and made a flank movement to Segovia, which he reached the 27th, and pushed his cavalry to Santa Maria de Nieva. Here he remained until the 31st expecting Clauzel would join him, for he resolved not to quit his hold of the passes over the Guadarama, nor to abandon his communication with Valencia and Andalusia. But Wellington brought Santo Cildes over the Duero to the Zapardiel, and crossing the Eresma and Ciga rivers himself, with the first and light divisions and the cavalry, had obliged Clauzel to retire over the Duero in the night of the 29th; and the next day the French general whose army was very much discouraged, fearing that Wellington would gain Aranda and Lerma while the Gallicians seized Dueñas and Torquemada, retreated in three columns by the valleys of the Arlanza, the Duero and the Esquiva towards Burgos.
The English general entered Valladolid amidst the rejoicings of the people and there captured seventeen pieces of artillery, considerable stores, and eight hundred sick and wounded men; three hundred other prisoners were taken by the Partida chief Marquinez, and a large French convoy intended for Andalusia returned to Burgos. While the left wing of the allies pursued the enemy up the Arlanza, Wellington, marching with the right wing against the king, reached Cuellar the 1st of August; on the same day the garrison of Tordesillas surrendered to the Gallicians, and Joseph having first dismantled the castle of Segovia and raised a contribution of money and church plate retreatedWellington’s despatch. through the Puerta de Guadarama, leaving a rear-guard of cavalry which escaped by the Ildefonso pass on the approach of the allied horsemen. Thus the army of the centre was irrevocably separated from the army of Portugal, the operations against the latter were terminated, and new combinations were made conformable to the altered state of affairs; but to understand these it is necessary to look at the transactions in other parts of the Peninsula.
See [Chap. IV. Book XVIII.] In Estremadura, after Drouet’s retreat to Azagua, Hill placed a strong division at Merida ready to cross the Tagus, but no military event occurred until the 24th of July, when general Lallemand, with three regiments of cavalry pushed back some Portuguese horsemen from Ribera to Villa Franca. He was attacked in front by general Long, while general Slade menaced his left, but he succeeded in repassing the defile of Ribera; Long then turned him by both flanks, and aided by Lefebre’s horse artillery, drove him with the loss of fifty men and many horses upon Llera, a distance of twenty miles. Drouet, desirous to retaliate, immediately executed a flank march towards Merida, and Hill fearing for his detachments there made a corresponding movement, whereupon the French generalIntercepted correspondence. returned to the Serena; but though he received positive orders from Soult to give battle no action followed and the affairs of that part of the Peninsula remained balanced.
August. In Andalusia, Ballesteros surprised colonel Beauvais, at Ossuna, took three hundred prisoners and destroyed the French dépôt there. After this he moved against Malaga, and was opposed by general Laval in front, while general Villatte, detached from the blockade of Cadiz, cut off his retreat to San Roque. The road to Murcia was still open to him, but his rashness, though of less consequence since the battle of Salamanca, gave Wellington great disquietude, and the more so that Joseph O’Donel had just sustained a serious defeat near Alicant. This disaster, which shall be described in a more fitting place, was however in some measure counterbalanced by the information, that the revived expedition from Sicily had reached Majorca, where it had been reinforced by Whittingham’s division, and by the stores and guns sent from Portugal to Gibraltar. It was known also, that in the northern provinces Popham’s armament had drawn all Caffarelli’s troops to the coast, and although the littoral warfare was not followed up the French were in confusion and the diversion complete.
In Castile the siege of Astorga still lingered, but the division of Santo Cildes, seven thousand strong, was in communication with Wellington, Silveira’s militia were on the Duero, Clauzel had retreated to Burgos, and the king joined by two thousand men from Suchet’s army, could concentrate twenty thousand to dispute the passes of the Guadarama. Hence Wellington, having nothing immediate to fear from Soult, nor from the army of Portugal, nor from the army of the north, nor from Suchet, menaced as that marshal was by the Sicilian expedition, resolved to attack the king in preference to following Clauzel. The latter general could not be pursued without exposing Salamanca and the Gallicians to Joseph, who was strong in cavalry; but the monarch could be assailed without risking much in other quarters, seeing that Clauzel could not be very soon ready to renew the campaign, and it was expected Castaños would reduce Astorga in a few days which would give eight thousand additional men to the field army. Moreover a strong British division could be spared to co-operate with Santo Cildes, Silveira, and the Partidas, in the watching of the beaten army of Portugal while Wellington gave the king a blow in the field, or forced him to abandon Madrid; and it appeared probable that the moral effect of regaining the capital would excite the Spaniards’ energy every where, and would prevent Soult from attacking Hill. If he did attack him, the allies by choosing this line of operations, would be at hand to give succour.
These reasons being weighed, Wellington posted general Clinton at Cuellar with the sixth division, which he increased to eight thousand men by the addition of some sickly regiments and by Anson’s cavalry; Santo Cildes also was put in communication with him, and the Partidas of Marquinez, Saornil, and El Principe agreed to act with Anson on a prescribed plan. Thus exclusive of Silveira’s militia, and of the Gallicians about Astorga, eighteen thousand men were left on the Duero, and the English general was still able to march against Joseph with twenty-eight thousand old troops, exclusive of Carlos D’España’s Spaniards. He had also assurance from lord Castlereagh, that a considerable sum in hard money, to be followed by other remittances, had been sent from England, a circumstance of the utmost importance because grain could be purchased in Spain at one-third the cost of bringing it up from Portugal.
Meanwhile the king, who had regained Madrid, expecting to hear that ten thousand of the army of the south were at Toledo, received letters from Soult positively refusing to send that detachment; and from Clausel, saying that the army of Portugal was in full retreat to Burgos. This retreat heKing’s correspondence, MSS. regarded as a breach of faith, because Clausel had promised to hold the line of the Duero if Wellington marched upon Madrid; but Joseph was unable to appreciate Wellington’s military combinations; he did not perceive, that, taking advantage of his central position, the English general, before he marched against Madrid, had forced Clausel to abandon the Duero to seek some safe and distant point to re-organize his army. Nor was the king’s perception of his own situation much clearer. He had the choice of several lines of operations; that is, he might defend the passes of the Guadarama while his court and enormous convoys evacuated Madrid and marched either upon Zaragoza, Valencia or Andalusia; or he might retire, army and convoy together, in one of those directions.
Rejecting the defence of the passes, lest the allies should then march by their right to the Tagus, and so intercept his communication with the south, he resolved to direct his march towards the Morena, and he had from Segovia sent Soult orders to evacuate Andalusia and meet him on the frontier of La Mancha; but to avoid the disgrace of flying before a detachment, he occupied the Escurial mountain, and placed his army across the roads leading from the passes of the Guadarama to Madrid. While in this position Wellington’s advanced guard, composed of D’Urban’s Portuguese a troop of horse artillery and a battalion of infantry, passed the Guadarama, and the 10th the whole army was over the mountains. Then the king, retaining only eight thousand men in position, sent the rest of his troops to protect the march of his court, which quitted Madrid the same day, with two or three thousand carriages of different kinds and nearly twenty thousand persons of all ages and sexes.
The 11th D’Urban drove back Trielhard’s cavalry posts, and entered Majadahonda, whilst some German infantry, Bock’s heavy cavalry, and a troop of horse artillery, occupied Las Rozas about a mile in his rear. In the evening, Trielhard, reinforced by Schiazzetti’s Italian dragoons and the lancers of Berg, returned, whereupon D’Urban called up the horse artillery and would have charged the enemy’s leading squadrons, but the Portuguese cavalry fled. The artillery officer thus abandoned, made a vigorous effort to save his guns, yet three of them being overturned on the rough ground were taken, and the victorious cavalry passed through Majadahonda in pursuit. The German dragoons, although surprised in their quarters, mounted and stopped the leading French squadrons until Schiazzetti’s Italians came up, when the fight was like to end badly; but Ponsonby’s cavalry and the seventh division arrived, and Trielhard immediately abandoned Majadahonda, leaving the captured guns behind him, yet carrying away prisoners, the Portuguese general Visconde de Barbacena, the colonel of the German cavalry, and others of less rank. The whole loss of the allies was above two hundred, and when the infantry passed through Rozas, a few hours after the combat, the German dead were lying thickly in the streets, many of them in their shirts and trousers, and thus stretched across the sills of the doors, they furnished proof at once of the suddenness of the action and of their own bravery. Had the king been prepared to follow up this blow with his whole force the allies must have suffered severely, for Wellington, trusting to the advanced guard, had not kept his divisions very close together.
After this combat the king retired to Valdemoro where he met his convoy from Madrid, and when the troops of the three different nations forming his army thus came together, a horrible confusion arose; the convoy was plundered, and the miserable people who followed the court, were made a prey by the licentious soldiers. Marshal Jourdan, a man at all times distinguished for the noblest sentiments, immediately threw himself into the midst of the disorderly troops, and aided by the other generals, with great personal risk arrested the mischief, and succeeded in making the multitude file over the bridge of Aranjues. The procession was however lugubrious and shocking, for the military line of march was broken by crowds of weeping women and children and by despairing men, and courtiers of the highest rank were to be seen in full dress, desperately struggling with savage soldiers for the possession of even the animals on which they were endeavouring to save their families. The cavalry of the allies could have driven the whole before them into the Tagus, yet Lord Wellington did not molest them. Either from ignorance of their situation, or what is more probable compassionating their misery, and knowing that the troops by abandoning the convoy could easily escape over the river, he would not strike where the blow could only fall on helpless people without affecting the military operations. Perhaps also he thought it wise to leave Joseph the burthen of his court.
In the evening of the 13th the whole multitude was over the Tagus, the garrisons of Aranjues and Toledo joined the army, order was restored, and the king received letters from Soult and Suchet. The first named marshal opposed the evacuation of Andalusia; the second gave notice, that the Sicilian expedition had landed at Alicant, and that a considerable army was forming there. Then irritated by Soult and alarmed for the safety of Suchet, the king relinquished his march towards the Morena and commenced his retreat to Valencia. The 15th the advanced guard moved with the sick and wounded, who were heaped on country cars, and the main body of the convoy followed under charge of the infantry, while the cavalry, spreading to the right and left, endeavoured to collect provisions. But the people, remembering the wanton devastation committed a few months before by Montbrun’s troops, on their return from Alicant, fled with their property; and as it was the hottest time of the year, and the deserted country was sandy and without shade, this march, of one hundred and fifty miles to Almanza, was one of continual suffering. The Partida chief Chaleco hovered constantly on the flanks and rear, killing without mercy all persons, civil or military, who straggled or sunk from exhaustion; and while this disastrous journey was in progress, another misfortune befel the French on the side of Requeña. For the hussars and infantry belonging to Suchet’s army, having left Madrid to succour Cuenca before the king returned from Segovia, carried off the garrison of that place in despite of the Empecinado, and made for Valencia; but Villa Campa crossing their march on the 25th of August, at the passage of a river, near Utiel, took all their baggage, their guns, and three hundred men. And after being driven away from Cuenca the Empecinado invested Guadalaxara where the enemy had left a garrison of seven hundred men.
Wellington seeing that the king had crossed the Tagus in retreat entered Madrid, a very memorable event were it only from the affecting circumstances attending it. He, a foreigner and marching at the head of a foreign army, was met and welcomed to the capital of Spain by the whole remaining population. The multitude who before that hour had never seen him, came forth to hail his approach, not with feigned enthusiasm, not with acclamations extorted by the fear of a conqueror’s power, nor yet excited by the natural proneness of human nature to laud the successful, for there was no tumultuous exultation; famine was amongst them, and long-endured misery had subdued their spirits, but with tears, and every other sign of deep emotion, they crowded around his horse, hung upon his stirrups, touched his clothes, or throwing themselves upon the earth, blessed him aloud as the friend of Spain. His triumph was as pure, and glorious, as it was uncommon, and he felt it to be so.
Madrid was however still disturbed by the presence of the enemy. The Retiro contained enormous stores, twenty thousand stand of arms, more than one hundred and eighty pieces of artillery, and the eagles of two French regiments, and it had a garrison of two thousand fighting men, besides invalids and followers, but its inherent weakness was soon made manifest. The works consisted of an interior fort called La China, with an exterior entrenchment; but the fort was too small, the entrenchment too large, and the latter could be easily deprived of water. In the lodgings of a French officer also was found an order, directing the commandant to confine his real defence to the fort, and accordingly, in the night of the 13th, being menaced, he abandoned the entrenchment, and the next day accepted honourable terms, because La China was so contracted and filled with combustible buildings, that his fine troops would with only a little firing have been smothered in the ruins; yet they were so dissatisfied that many broke their arms and their commander was like to have fallen a victim to their wrath. They were immediately sent to Portugal, and French writers with too much truth assert, that the escort basely robbed and murdered many of the prisoners. This disgraceful action was perpetrated, either at Avila or on the frontier of Portugal, wherefore the British troops, who furnished no escorts after the first day’s march from Madrid, are guiltless.
Coincident with the fall of the Retiro was that of Guadalaxara, which surrendered to the Empecinado. This mode of wasting an army, and its resources, was designated by Napoleon as the most glaring and extraordinary of all the errors committed by the king and by Marmont. And surely it was so. For including the garrisons of Toro, Tordesillas, Zamora and Astorga, which were now blockaded, six thousand men had been delivered, as it were bound, to the allies, and with them, stores and equipments sufficient for a new army. These forts had been designed by the emperor to resist the partidas, but his lieutenants exposed them to the British army, and thus the positive loss of men from the battle of Salamanca was doubled.
Napoleon had notice of Marmont’s defeat as early as the 2d of September, a week before the great battle of Borodino; the news was carried by colonel Fabvier, who made the journey from Valladolid in one course, and having fought on the 22d of July at the Arapiles, was wounded on the heights of Moskowa the 7th of September! However, the duke of Ragusa, suffering alike in body and in mind, had excused himself with so little strength, or clearness, that the emperor contemptuously remarking, that the despatch contained more complicate stuffing than a clock, desired his war minister to demand, why Marmont had delivered battle without the orders of the king? why he had not made his operations subservient to the general plan of the campaign? why he broke from defensive into offensive operations before the army of the centre joined him? why he would not even wait two days for Chauvel’s cavalry, which he knew were close at hand? “From personal vanity,” said the emperor, with seeming sternness, “the duke of Ragusa has sacrificed the interests of his country, and the good of my service, he is guilty of the crime of insubordination, and is the author of all this misfortune.”
September But Napoleon’s wrath so just, and apparently so dangerous, could not, even in its first violence, overpower his early friendship. With a kindness, the recollection of which must now pierce Marmont’s inmost soul, twice, in the same letter, he desired that these questions might not even be put to his unhappy lieutenant until his wounds were cured and his health re-established. Nor was this generous feeling shaken by the arrival of the king’s agent, colonel Desprez, who reached Moscow the 18th of October, just after Murat had lost a battle at the outposts and when all hopes of peace with Russia were at an end. Joseph’s dispatches bitter[Appendix, 4,] [5,] [6.] against all the generals, were especially so against Marmont and Soult; the former for having lost the battle, the latter because of his resistance to the royal plan. The recal of the duke of Dalmatia was demanded imperatively, because he had written a letter to the emperor, extremely offensive to the king; and it was also hinted, that Soult designed to make himself king of Andalusia. Idle stories of that marshal’s ambition seem always to have been resorted to, when his skilful plans were beyond the military judgement of ordinary generals; but Marmont was deeply sunk in culpable misfortune, and the king’s complaints against him were not unjust. Napoleon had however then seen Wellington’s dispatch, which was more favourable to the duke of Ragusa, than Joseph’s report; for the latter was founded on a belief, that the unfortunate general, knowing the army of the centre was close at hand, would not wait for it; whereas the partidas had intercepted so many of Joseph’s letters, it is doubtful if any reached Marmont previous to the battle. It was in vain therefore, that Desprez pressed the king’s discontent on the emperor; that great man, with unerring sagacity, had already disentangled the truth, and Desprez was thus roughly interrogated as to the conduct of his master.
Why was not the army of the centre in the field a month sooner to succour Marmont? Why was the emperor’s example, when, in a like case, he marched from Madrid against sir John Moore, forgotten? Why, after the battle, was not the Duero passed, and the beaten troops rallied on the army of the centre? Why were the passes of the Guadarama so early abandoned? Why was the Tagus crossed so soon? Finally, why were the stores and gun-carriages in the Retiro not burnt, the eagles and the garrison carried off?
To these questions the king’s agent could only reply by excuses which must have made the energetic emperor smile; but when, following his instructions, Desprez harped upon Soult’s demeanour, his designs in Andalusia, and still more upon the letter so personally offensive to the king, and which shall be noticed hereafter, Napoleon replied sharply, that he could not enter into such pitiful disputes while he was at the head of five hundred thousand men and occupied with such immense operations. With respect to Soult’s letter, he said he knew his brother’s real feelings, but those who judged Joseph by his language could only think with Soult, whose suspicions were natural and partaken by the other generals; wherefore he would not, by recalling him, deprive the armies in Spain of the only military head they possessed. And then in ridicule of Soult’s supposed treachery, he observed, that the king’s fears on that head must have subsided, as the English newspapers said the duke of Dalmatia was evacuating Andalusia, and he would of course unite with Suchet and with the army of the centre to retake the offensive.
The emperor, however, admitted all the evils arising from these disputes between the generals and the king, but said that at such a distance he could not give precise orders for their conduct. He had foreseen the mischief he observed, and regretted more than ever that Joseph had disregarded his counsel not to return to Spain in 1811, and thus saying he closed the conversation, but this expression about Joseph not returning to Spain is very remarkable. Napoleon spoke of it as of a well known fact, yet Joseph’s letters shew that he not only desired but repeatedly offered to resign the crown of Spain and live a private man in France! Did the emperor mean that he wished his brother to remain a crowned guest at Paris? or had some subtle intriguers misrepresented the brothers to each other? The noblest buildings are often defiled in secret by vile and creeping things.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. Menace your enemy’s flanks, protect your own, and be ready to concentrate on the important points:
These maxims contain the whole spirit of Napoleon’s instructions to his generals, after Badajos was succoured in 1811. At that time he ordered the army of Portugal to occupy the valley of the Tagus and the passes of the Gredos mountains, in which position it covered Madrid, and from thence it could readily march to aid either the army of the south, or the army of the north. Dorsenne, who commanded the latter, could bring twenty-six thousand men to Ciudad Rodrigo, and Soult could bring a like number to Badajos, but Wellington could not move against one or the other without having Marmont upon his flank; he could not move against Marmont, without having the others on both flanks, and he could not turn his opponent’s flanks save from the ocean. If notwithstanding this combination he took Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, it was by surprise, and because the French did not concentrate on the important points, which proved indeed his superiority to the executive general opposed to him but in no manner affected the principle of Napoleon’s plan.
Again, when the preparations for the Russian war had weakened the army of the north, the emperor, giving Marmont two additional divisions, ordered him to occupy Castile, not as a defensive position, but as a central offensive one from whence he could keep the Gallicians in check, and by prompt menacing movements, prevent Wellington from commencing serious operations elsewhere. This plan also had reference to the maxim respecting flanks. For Marmont was forbidden to invade Portugal while Wellington was on the frontier of Beira, that is when he could not assail him in flank; and he was directed to guard the Asturias carefully as a protection to the great line of communication with France; in May also he was rebuked for having withdrawn Bonet from Oviedo, and for delaying to reoccupy the Asturias when the incursion against Beira terminated. But neither then nor afterwards did the duke of Ragusa comprehend the spirit of the Emperor’s views, and that extraordinary man, whose piercing sagacity seized every chance of war, was so disquieted by his lieutenant’s want of perception, that all the pomp, and all the vast political and military combinations of Dresden, could not put it from his thoughts.
[Appendix No. 2.] “Twice,” said he, “has the duke of Ragusa placed an interval of thirty leagues between his army and the enemy, contrary to all the rules of war; the English general goes where he will, the French general loses the initial movements and is of no weight in the affairs of Spain. Biscay and the north are exposed by the evacuation of the Asturias; Santona and St. Sebastian are endangered, and the guerillas communicate freely with the coast. If the duke of Ragusa has not kept some bridges on the Agueda, he cannot know what Wellington is about, and he will retire before light cavalry instead of operating so as to make the English general concentrate his whole army. The false direction already given to affairs by marshal Marmont, makes it necessary that Caffarelli should keep a strong corps always in hand; that the commander of the reserve, at Bayonne, should look to the safety of St. Sebastian, holding three thousand men always ready to march; finally that the provisional battalions, and troops from the dépôts of the interior, should immediately reinforce the reserve at Bayonne, be encamped on the Pyrennees, and exercised and formed for service. If Marmont’s oversights continue, these troops will prevent the disasters from becoming extreme.”
Napoleon was supernaturally gifted in warlike matters. It has been recorded of Cæsar’s generalship, that he foretold the cohorts mixed with his cavalry would be the cause of victory at Pharsalia. But this letter was written by the French emperor on the 28th of May before the allies were even collected on the Agueda, and when a hundred thousand French troops were between the English general and Bayonne, and yet its prescience was vindicated at Burgos in October!
2º. To fulfil the conditions of the emperor’s design, Marmont should have adopted Soult’s recommendation, that is, leaving one or two divisions on the Tormes he should have encamped near Baños, and pushed troops towards the upper Agueda to watch the movements of the allies. Caffarelli’s divisions could then have joined those on the Tormes, and thus Napoleon’s plan for 1811 would have been exactly renewed; Madrid would have been covered, a junction with the king would have been secured, Wellington could scarcely have moved beyond the Agueda, and the disaster of Salamanca would have been avoided.
The duke of Ragusa, apparently because he would not have the king in his camp, run counter both to the emperor and to Soult. 1º. He kept no troops on the Agueda, which might be excused on the ground that the feeding of them there was beyond his means; but then he did not concentrate behind the Tormes to sustain his forts, neither did he abandon his forts, when he abandoned Salamanca, and thus eight hundred men were sacrificed merely to secure the power of concentrating behind the Duero. 2º. He adopted a line of operations perpendicular to the allies’ front, instead of lying on their flank; he abandoned sixty miles of country between the Tormes and the Agueda, and he suffered Wellington to take the initial movements of the campaign. 3º. He withdrew Bonet’s division from the Asturias, whereby he lost Caffarelli’s support and realized the emperor’s fears for the northern provinces. It is true that he regained the initial power, by passing the Duero on the 18th, and had he deferred the passage until the king was over the Guadarama, Wellington must have gone back upon Portugal with some shew of dishonour if not great loss. But if Castaños, instead of remaining with fifteen thousand Gallicians, before Astorga, a weak place with a garrison of only twelve hundred men, had blockaded it with three or four thousand, and detached Santocildes with eleven or twelve thousand down the Esla to co-operate with Silveira and D’Urban, sixteen thousand men would have been acting upon Marmont’s right flank in June; and as Bonet did not join until the 8th of July the line of the Duero would scarcely have availed the French general.
3º. The secret of Wellington’s success is to be found in the extent of country occupied by the French armies, and the impediments to their military communication. Portugal was an impregnable central position, from whence the English general could rush out unexpectedly against any point. This strong post was however of his own making, he had chosen it, had fortified it, had defended it, he knew its full value and possessed quickness and judgement to avail himself of all its advantages; the battle of Salamanca was accidental in itself, but the tree was planted to bear such fruit, and Wellington’s profound combinations must be estimated from the general result. He had only sixty thousand disposable troops, and above a hundred thousand French were especially appointed to watch and controul him, yet he passed the frontier, defeated forty-five thousand in a pitched battle, and drove twenty thousand others from Madrid in the greatest confusion, without risking a single strategic point, of importance to his own operations. His campaign up to the conquest of Madrid was therefore strictly in accord with the rules of art, although his means and resources have been shewn to be precarious, shifting, and uncertain. Indeed the want of money alone would have prevented him from following up his victory if he had not persuaded the Spanish authorities, in the Salamanca country, to yield him the revenues of the government in kind under a promise of repayment at Cadiz. No general was ever more entitled to the honours of victory.
4º. The success of Wellington’s daring advance would seem to indicate a fault in the French plan of invasion. The army of the south, numerous, of approved valour and perfectly well commanded, was yet of so little weight in this campaign as to prove that Andalusia was a point pushed beyond the true line of operations. The conquest of that province in 1811 was an enterprize of the king’s, on which he prided himself, yet it seems never to have been much liked by Napoleon, although he did not absolutely condemn it. The question was indeed a very grave one. While the English general held Portugal, and while Cadiz was unsubdued, Andalusia was a burthen, rather than a gain. It would have answered better, either to have established communications with France by the southern line of invasion, which would have brought the enterprize within the rules of a methodical war, or to have held the province partially by detachments, keeping the bulk of the army of the south in Estremadura, and thus have strengthened the northern line of invasion. For in Estremadura, Soult would have covered the capital, and have been more strictly connected with the army of the centre; and his powerful co-operation with Massena in 1810 would probably have obliged the English general to quit Portugal. The same result could doubtless have been obtained by reinforcing the army of the south, with thirty or forty thousand men, but it is questionable if Soult could have fed such a number; and in favour of the invasion of Andalusia it may be observed, that Seville was the great arsenal of Spain, that a formidable power might have been established there by the English without abandoning Portugal, that Cadiz would have compensated for the loss of Lisbon, and finally that the English ministers were not at that time determined to defend Portugal.
5º. When the emperor declared that Soult possessed the only military head in the Peninsula he referred to a proposition made by that marshal which shall be noticed in the next chapter; but having regard merely to the disputes between the duke of Dalmatia, Marmont, and the king, Suchet’s talents not being in question, the justice of the remark may be demonstrated. Napoleon always enforced with precept and example, the vital military principle of concentration on the important points; but the king and the marshals, though harping continually upon this maxim, desired to follow it out, each in his own sphere. Now to concentrate on a wrong point, is to hurt yourself with your own sword, and as each French general desired to be strong, the army at large was scattered instead of being concentrated.
The failure of the campaign was, by the king, attributed to Soult’s disobedience, inasmuch as the passage of the Tagus by Drouet would have enabled the army of the centre to act, before Palombini’s division arrived. But it has been shewn that Hill could have brought Wellington an equal, or superior reinforcement, in less time, whereby the latter could either have made head until the French dispersed for want of provisions, or, by a rapid counter-movement, he could have fallen upon Andalusia. And if the king had menaced Ciudad Rodrigo in return it would have been no diversion, for he had no battering train, still less could he have revenged himself by marching on Lisbon, because Wellington would have overpowered Soult and established a new base at Cadiz, before such an operation could become dangerous to the capital of Portugal. Oporto might indeed have been taken, yet Joseph would have hesitated to exchange Madrid for that city. But the ten thousand men required of Soult by the king, on the 19th of June, could have been at Madrid before August, and thus the passes of the Guadarama could have been defended until the army of Portugal was reorganized! Aye! but Hill could then have entered the valley of the Tagus, or, being reinforced, could have invaded Andalusia while Wellington kept the king’s army in check. It would appear therefore that Joseph’s plan of operations, if all its combinations had been exactly executed, might have prevented Wellington’s progress on some points, but to effect this the French must have been concentrated in large masses from distant places without striking any decisive blow, which was the very pith and marrow of the English general’s policy. Hence it follows that Soult made the true and Joseph the false application of the principle of concentration.
6º. If the king had judged his position truly he would have early merged the monarch in the general, exchanged the palace for the tent; he would have held only the Retiro and a few fortified posts in the vicinity of Madrid, he would have organized a good pontoon train and established his magazines in Segovia, Avila, Toledo, and Talavera; finally he would have kept his army constantly united in the field, and exercised his soldiers, either by opening good roads through the mountains, or in chasing the partidas, while Wellington remained quiet. Thus acting, he would have been always ready to march north or south, to succour any menaced point. By enforcing good order and discipline in his own army, he would also have given a useful example, and he could by vigilance and activity have ensured the preponderance of force in the field on whichever side he marched. He would thus have acquired the esteem of the French generals, and obtained their willing obedience, and the Spaniards would more readily have submitted to a warlike monarch. A weak man may safely wear an inherited crown, it is of gold and the people support it; but it requires the strength of a warrior to bear the weight of an usurped diadem, it is of iron.
7º. If Marmont and the king were at fault in the general plan of operations, they were not less so in the particular tactics of the campaign.
On the 18th of July the army of Portugal passed the Douro in advance. On the 30th it repassed that river in retreat, having, in twelve days, marched two hundred miles, fought three combats, and a general battle. One field-marshal, seven generals,[Appendix, Nos. 19], [20.] twelve thousand five hundred men and officers had been killed, wounded, or taken; and two eagles, besides those taken in the Retiro, several standards, twelve guns, and eight carriages, exclusive of the artillery and stores captured at Valladolid, fell into the victors’ hands. In the same period, the allies marched one hundred and sixty miles, and had one field-marshal, four generals, and somewhat less than six thousand officers and soldiers killed or wounded.
This comparison furnishes the proof of Wellington’s sagacity, when he determined not to fight except at great advantage. The French army, although surprised in the midst of an evolution and instantly swept from the field, killed and wounded six thousand of the allies; the eleventh and sixty-first regiments of the sixth division had not together more than one hundred and sixty men and officers left standing at the end of the battle; twice six thousand then would have fallen in a more equal contest, the blow would have been less decisive, and as Chauvel’s cavalry and the king’s army were both at hand, a retreat into Portugal would probably have followed a less perfect victory. Wherefore this battle ought not, and would not have been fought, but for Marmont’s false movement on the 22d. Yet it is certain that if Wellington had retired without fighting, the murmurs of his army, already louder than was seemly, would have been heard in England, and if an accidental shot had terminated his career all would have terminated. The cortez, ripe for a change, would have accepted the intrusive king, and the American war, just declared against England, would have rendered the complicated affairs of Portugal so extremely embarrassed that no new man could have continued the contest. Then the cries of disappointed politicians would have been raised. Wellington, it would have been said, Wellington, desponding, and distrusting his brave troops, dared not venture a battle on even terms, hence these misfortunes! His name would have been made, as sir John Moore’s was, a butt for the malice and falsehood of faction, and his military genius would have been measured by the ignorance of his detractors.
8º. In the battle Marmont had about forty-two thousand sabres and bayonets; Wellington who had received some detachments on the 19th had above forty-six thousand, but the excess was principally[Appendix, Nos. 19], [20.] Spanish. The French had seventy-four guns, the allies, including a Spanish battery, had only sixty pieces. Thus, Marmont, over-matched in cavalry and infantry, was superior in artillery, and the fight would have been most bloody, if the generals had been equal, for courage and strength were in even balance until Wellington’s genius struck the beam. Scarcely can a fault be detected in his conduct. It might indeed be asked why the cavalry reserves were not, after Le Marchant’s charge, brought up closer to sustain the fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions and to keep off Boyer’s dragoons, but it would seem ill to cavil at an action which was described at the time by a French officer, as the “beating of forty thousand men in forty minutes.”
9º. The battle of Salamanca remarkable in many points of view, was not least so in this that it was the first decided victory gained by the allies in the Peninsula. In former actions the French had been repulsed, here they were driven headlong as it were before a mighty wind, without help or stay, and the results were proportionate. Joseph’s secret negociations with the Cortez were crushed, his partizans in every part of the Peninsula were abashed, and the sinking spirit of the Catalans was revived; the clamours of the opposition in England were checked, the provisional government of France was dismayed, the secret plots against the French in Germany were resuscitated, and the shock, reaching even to Moscow, heaved and shook the colossal structure of Napoleon’s power to its very base.
Nevertheless Salamanca was as most great battles are, an accident; an accident seized upon with astonishing vigour and quickness, but still an accident. Even its results were accidental, for the French could never have repassed the Tormes as an army, if Carlos D’España had not withdrawn the garrison from Alba, and hidden the fact from Wellington; and this circumstance alone would probably have led to the ruin of the whole campaign, but for another of those chances, which, recurring so frequently in war, render bad generals timid, and make great generals trust their fortune under the most adverse circumstances. This is easily shewn. Joseph was at Blasco Sancho on the 24th, and notwithstanding his numerous cavalry, the army of Portugal passed in retreat across his front at the distance of only a few miles, without his knowledge; he thus missed one opportunity of effecting his junction with Clauzel. On the 25th this junction could still have been made at Arevalo, and Wellington, as if to mock the king’s generalship, halted that day behind the Zapardiel; yet Joseph retreated towards the Guadarama, wrathful that Clauzel made no effort to join him, and forgetful that as a beaten and pursued army must march, it was for him to join Clauzel. But the true cause of these errors was the different inclinations of the generals. The king wished to draw Clauzel to Madrid, Clauzel desired to have the king behind the Duero, and if he had succeeded the probable result may be thus traced.
Clauzel during the first confusion wrote that only twenty thousand men could be reorganised, but in this number he did not include the stragglers and marauders who always take advantage of a defeat to seek their own interest; a reference to the French loss proves that there were nearly thirty thousand fighting men left, and in fact Clauzel did in a fortnight reorganise twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry and fifty guns, besides gaining a knowledge of five thousand stragglers and marauders. In fine no soldiers rally quicker after a defeat, than the French, and hence as Joseph brought to Blasco Sancho thirty guns and fourteen thousand men of which above two thousand were horsemen, forty thousand infantry, and more than six thousand cavalry with a powerful artillery, might then have been rallied behind the Duero, exclusive of Caffarelli’s divisions. Nor would Madrid have been meanwhile exposed to an insurrection, nor to the operation of a weak detachment from Wellington’s army; for the two thousand men, sent by Suchet, had arrived in that capital on the 30th, and there were in the several fortified points of the vicinity, six or seven thousand other troops who could have been united at the Retiro, to protect that dépôt and the families attached to the intrusive court.
Thus Wellington without committing any fault, would have found a more powerful army than Marmont’s, again on the Duero, and capable of renewing the former operations with the advantage of former errors as warning beacons. But his own army would not have been so powerful as before, for the reinforcements sent from England did not even suffice to replace the current consumption of men; and neither the fresh soldiers nor the old Walcheren regiments were able to sustain the toil of the recent operations. Three thousand troops had joined since the battle, yet the general decrease, including the killed and wounded, was above eight thousand men, and the number of sick was rapidly augmenting from the extreme heat. It may therefore be said that if Marmont was stricken deeply by Wellington the king poisoned the wound. The English general had fore-calculated all these superior resources of the enemy, and it was only Marmont’s flagrant fault, on the 22d, that could have wrung the battle from him; yet he fought it as if his genius disdained such trial of its strength. I saw him late in the evening of that great day, when the advancing flashes of cannon and musketry, stretching as far as the eye could command, shewed in the darkness how well the field was won; he was alone, the flush of victory was on his brow, and his eyes were eager and watchful, but his voice was calm, and even gentle. More than the rival of Marlborough, since he had defeated greater warriors than Marlborough ever encountered, with a prescient pride he seemed only to accept this glory, as an earnest of greater things.