CHAPTER VI.
CONTINUATION OF THE PARTIZAN WARFARE.
1812. In the north, while Souham was gathering in front of Wellington, some of Mendizabel’s bands blockaded Santona by land, and Popham, after his failure at Gueteria blockaded it by sea. It was not very well provisioned, but Napoleon, always watchful, had sent an especial governor, general Lameth, and a chosen engineer, general D’Abadie, from Paris to complete the works. By their activity a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon were soon mounted, and they had including the crew of a corvette a garrison of eighteen hundred men. Lameth who was obliged to fight his way into the place in September, also formed an armed flotilla, with which, when the English squadron was driven off the port by gales of wind, he made frequent captures. Meanwhile Mendizabel surprised the garrison of Briviesca, Longa captured a large convoy with its escort, near Burgos, and all the bands had visibly increased in numbers and boldness.
When Caffarelli returned from the Duero, Reille took the command of the army of Portugal, Drouet assumed that of the army of the centre, and Souham being thus cast off returned to France. The army of Portugal was then widely spread over the country. Avila was occupied, Sarrut took possession of Leon, the bands of Marquinez and Salazar were beaten, and Foy marching to seize Astorga, surprised and captured ninety men employed to dismantle that fortress; but above twenty breaches had already been opened and the place ceased to be of any importance. Meanwhile Caffarelli troubled by the care of a number of convoys, one of which under general Frimont, although strongly escorted, and having two pieces of cannon, fell into Longa’s hands the 30th of November, was unable to commence active operations until the 29th of December. Then his detachments chased the bands from Bilbao, while he marched himself to succour and provision Santona and Gueteria, and to re-establish his other posts along the coasts; but while he was near Santona the Spaniards attacked St. Domingo in Navarre, and invested Logroña.
Sir Home Popham had suddenly quitted the Bay of Biscay with his squadron, leaving a few vessels to continue the littoral warfare, which enabled Caffarelli to succour Santona; important events followed but the account of them must be deferred as belonging to the transactions of 1813. Meanwhile tracing the mere chain of Guerilla operations from Biscay to the other parts, we find Abbé, who commanded in Pampeluna, Severoli who guarded the right of the Ebro, and Paris who had returned from Valencia to Zaragoza, continually and at times successfully attacked in the latter end of 1812; for after Chaplangarra’s exploit near Jacca, Mina intercepted all communication with France, and on the 22d of November surprised and drove back to Zaragoza with loss a very large convoy. Then he besieged the castle of Huesca, and when a considerable force, coming from Zaragoza, forced him to desist, he reappeared at Barbastro. Finally in a severe action fought on the heights of Señora del Poya, towards the end of December, his troops were dispersed by Colonel Colbert, yet the French lost seventy men, and in a few weeks Mina took the field again, with forces more numerous than he had ever before commanded.
About this time Villa Campa, who had entrenched himself near Segorbé to harass Suchet’s rear, was driven from thence by general Panetier, but being afterwards joined by Gayan, they invested the castle of Daroca with three thousand men. Severoli marching from Zaragoza succoured the place, yet Villa Campa reassembled his whole force near Carineña behind Severoli who was forced to fight his way home to Zaragoza. The Spaniards reappeared at Almunia, and on the 22nd of December, another battle was fought, when Villa Campa being defeated with considerable slaughter retired to New Castile, and there soon repaired his losses. Meanwhile, in the centre of Spain, Elio, Bassecour, and Empecinado, having waited until the great French armies passed in pursuit of Hill came down upon Madrid. Wellington, when at Salamanca, expected that this movement would call off some troops from the Tormes, but the only effect was to cause the garrison left by Joseph to follow the great army, which it rejoined, between the Duero and the Tormes, with a great encumbrance of civil servants and families. The Partidas then entered the city and committed great excesses, treating the people as enemies.
Soult and Joseph had been earnest with Suchet to send a strong division by Cuenca as a protection for Madrid, and that marshal did move in person with a considerable body of troops as far as Requeña on the 28th of November, but being in fear for his line towards Alicant soon returned to Valencia in a state of indecision, leaving only one brigade at Requeña. He had been reinforced by three thousand fresh men from Catalonia, yet he would not undertake any operation until he knew something of the king’s progress, and at Requeña he had gained no intelligence even of the passage of the Tagus. The Spaniards being thus uncontrolled gathered in all directions.
The duke del Parque advanced with Ballesteros’ army to Villa Nueva de los Infantes, on the La Mancha side of the Sierra Morena, his cavalry entered the plains and some new levies from Grenada, came to Alcaraz on his right. Elio and Bassecour, leaving Madrid to the Partidas, marched to Albacete, without hindrance from Suchet, and re-opened the communication with Alicant; hence exclusive of the Sicilian army, nearly thirty thousand regular Spanish troops were said to be assembled on the borders of Murcia, and six thousand new levies came to Cordoba as a reserve. However on the 3d of December, Joseph at the head of his guards and the army of the centre, drove all the Partidas from the capital, and re-occupied Guadalaxara and the neighbouring posts; Soult entered Toledo and his cavalry advanced towards Del Parque, who immediately recrossed the Morena, and then the French horsemen swept La Mancha to gather contributions and to fill the magazines at Toledo.
By these operations, Del Parque, now joined by the Grenadan troops from Alcaraz, was separated from Elio, and Suchet was relieved from a danger which he had dreaded too much, and by his own inaction contributed to increase. It is true he had all the sick men belonging to the king’s and to Soult’s army on his hands, but he had also many effective men of those armies; and though the yellow fever had shewn itself in some of his hospitals, and though he was also very uneasy for the security of his base in Aragon, where the Partida warfare was reviving, yet, with a disposable force of fifteen thousand infantry, and a fine division of cavalry, he should not have permitted Elio to pass his flank in the manner he did. He was afraid of the Sicilian army which had indeed a great influence on all the preceding operations, for it is certain that Suchet would otherwise have detached troops to Madrid by the Cuenca road, and then Soult would probably have sought a battle between the Tagus and the Guadarama mountains; but this influence arose entirely from the position of the Alicant army, not from its operations, which were feeble and vacillating.
Maitland had resigned in the beginning of October, and his successor Mackenzie immediately pushed out some troops to the front, and there was a slight descent upon Xabea by the navy, but the general remained without plan or object, the only signs of vitality being a fruitless demonstration against the castle of Denia, where general Donkin disembarked on the 4th of October with a detachment of the eighty-first regiment. The walls had been represented as weak, but they were found to be high and strong, and the garrison had been unexpectedly doubled that morning, hence no attack took place, and in the evening a second reinforcement arrived, whereupon the British re-embarked. However the water was so full of pointed rocks that it was only by great exertions lieutenant Penruddocke of the Fame could pull in the boats, and the soldiers wading and fighting, got on board with little loss indeed but in confusion.
Soon after this, general William Clinton came from Sicily to take the command, and Wellington who was then before Burgos, thinking Suchet would weaken his army to help the king, recommended an attempt upon the city of Valencia either by a coast attack or by a land operation, warning Clinton however to avoid an action in a cavalry country. This was not very difficult, because the land was generally rocky and mountainous, but Clinton would not stir without first having possession of the citadel of Alicant, and thus all things fell into disorder and weakness. For the jealous Spanish governor would not suffer the British to hold even a gate of the town, nay, he sent Elio a large convoy of clothing and other stores with an escort of only twenty men, that he might retain two of that general’s battalions to resist the attempt which he believed or pretended to believe Clinton would make on the citadel. Meanwhile that general, leaving Whittingham and Roche at Alcoy and Xixona, drew in his other troops from the posts previously occupied in front by Mackenzie; he feared Suchet’s cavalry, but the marshal, estimating the alliedSuchet’s official correspondence, MS. armies at more than fifty thousand men, would undertake no serious enterprize while ignorant of the king’s progress against lord Wellington. He however diligently strengthened his camp at St. Felipe de Xativa, threw another bridge over the Xucar, entrenched the passes in his front, covered Denia with a detachment, obliged Whittingham to abandon Alcoy, dismantled the extensive walls of Valencia, and fortified a citadel there.
It was in this state of affairs that Elio came down to Albacete, and priding himself upon the dexterity with which he had avoided the French armies, proposed to Clinton a combined attack upon Suchet. Elio greatly exaggerated his own numbers, and giving out that Del Parque’s force was under his command, pretended that he could bring forty thousand men into the field, four thousand being cavalry. But the two Spanish armies if united would scarcelyGeneral Donkin’s correspondence, MS. have produced twenty thousand really effective infantry; moreover Del Parque, a sickly unwieldy person, was extremely incapable, his soldiers were discontented and mutinous, and he had no intention of moving beyond Alcaraz.
With such allies it was undoubtedly difficult for the English general to co-operate, yet it would seem, something considerable might have been effected while Suchet was at Requeña, even before Elio arrived, and more surely after that general had reached Albacete. Clinton had then twelve thousand men, of which five thousand were British: there was a fleet to aid his operations, and the Spanish infantry under Elio were certainly ten thousand. Nothing was done, and it was because nothing was attempted, that Napoleon, who watched this quarter closely, assured Suchet, that howeverOfficial correspondence of the duke of Feltre, MS. difficult his position was from the extent of country he had to keep in tranquillity, the enemy in his front was not really formidable. Events justified this observation. The French works were soon completed and the British army fell into such disrepute, that the Spaniards with sarcastic malice affirmed it was to be put under Elio to make it useful.
General Donkin’s correspondence, MSS. Meanwhile Roche’s and Whittingham’s division continued to excite the utmost jealousy in the other Spanish troops, who asked, very reasonably, what they did to merit such advantages? England paid[Appendix, No. 17.] and clothed them and the Spaniards were bound to feed them; they did not do so, and Canga Arguelles, the intendant of the province, asserted that he had twice provided magazines for them in Alicant, which were twice plundered by the governor; and yet it is certain that the other Spanish troops were far worse off than these divisions. But on every side intrigues, discontent, vacillation, and weakness were visible, and again it was shewn that if England was the stay of the Peninsula, it was Wellington alone who supported the war.
On the 22d of November the obstinacy of the governor being at last overcome he gave up the citadel of Alicant to the British, yet no offensive operations followed, though Suchet on the 26th drove Roche’s troops out of Alcoy with loss, and defeated the Spanish cavalry at Yecla. However on the 2d of December, general Campbell arriving from Sicily, with four thousand men, principally British, assumed the command, making the fourth general-in-chief in the same number of months. His presence, the strong reinforcement he brought, and the intelligence that lord William Bentinck was to follow with another reinforcement, again raised the public expectation, and Elio immediately proposed that the British should occupy the enemy on the Lower Xucar, while the Spaniards crossing that river attacked Requeña. However general Campbell after making some feeble demonstrations declared he would await lord William Bentinck’s arrival. Then the Spanish general, who had hitherto abstained from any disputes with the British, became extremely discontented, and dispersed his army for subsistence. On the other hand the English general complained that Elio had abandoned him.
Suchet expecting Campbell to advance had withdrawn his outposts to concentrate at Xativa, but when he found him as inactive as his predecessors and saw the Spanish troops scattered, he surprised one Spanish post at Onteniente, another in Ibi, and re-occupied all his former offensive positions in front of Alicant. Soult’s detachments were now also felt in La Mancha, wherefore Elio retired into Murcia, and Del Parque, as we have seen, went over the Morena. Thus the storm which had menaced the French disappeared entirely, for Campbell,[Appendix, No. 17], [18.] following his instructions, refused rations to Whittingham’s corps and desired it to separate for the sake of subsistence; and as the rest of the Spanish troops were actually starving, no danger was to be apprehended from them: nay, Habert marched up to Alicant, killed and wounded some men almost under the walls, and the Anglo-Italian soldiers deserted to him by whole companies when opportunity offered.
Suchet did as he pleased towards his front but he was unquiet for his rear, for besides the operations of Villa Campa, Gayan, Duran and Mina in Aragon, the Frayle and other partida chiefs continually vexed his communications with Tortoza. Fifty men had been surprised and destroyed near Segorbe the 22d of November, by Villa Campa; and general Panetier, who was sent against that chief, though he took and destroyed his entrenched camp was unable to bring him to action or to prevent him from going to Aragon, and attacking Daroca as I have before shown. Meanwhile the Frayle surprised and destroyed an ordnance convoy, took several guns and four hundred horses, and killed in cold blood after the action above a hundred artillery-men and officers. A moveable column being immediately despatched against him, destroyed his dépôts and many of his men, but the Frayle himself escaped and soon reappeared upon the communications. The loss of this convoy was the first disgrace of the kind which had befallen the army of Aragon,Suchet, official correspondence with the king, MSS. and to use Suchet’s expression a battle would have cost him less.
Nor were the Spaniards quite inactive in Catalonia, although the departure of general Maitland had so dispirited them that the regular warfare was upon the point of ceasing altogether. TheCaptain Codrington’s papers, MS. active army was indeed stated to be twenty thousand strong, and the tercios of reserve forty-five thousand; yet a column of nine hundred French controuled the sea-line and cut off all supplies landed for the interior. Lacy who remained about Vich with seven thousand men affirmed that he could not feed his army on the coast, but captain Codrington says that nineteen feluccas laden with flour had in two nights only, landed their cargoes between Mattaro and Barcelona for the supply of the latter city, and that these and many other ventures of the same kind might have been captured without difficulty; that Claros and Milans continued corruptly to connive at the passage of French convoys; that the rich merchants of Mattaro and Arens invited the enemy to protect their contraband convoys going to France, and yet accused him publicly of interrupting their lawful trade when in fact he was only disturbing a treasonable commerce, carried on so openly that he was forced to declare a blockade of the whole coast. A plot to deliver up the Medas islands was also discovered, and when Lacy was pressed to call out the Somatenes, a favorite project with the English naval officers, he objected that he could scarcely feed and provide ammunition for the regular troops. He also observed that the general efforts of that nature hitherto made, and under more favourable circumstances, had produced only a waste of life, of treasure, of provisions, of ammunition and of arms, and now the French possessed all the strong places.
At this time so bitter were the party dissensions that sir Edward Pellew anticipated the ruin of the principality from that cause alone. Lacy, Sarzfield, Eroles and captain Codrington, continued their old disputes, and Sarzfield who was then in Aragon had also quarrelled with Mina; Lacy made a formal requisition to have Codrington recalled, the junta of Catalonia made a like demand to the regency respecting Lacy, and meanwhile such was the misery of the soldiers that the officers of one regiment actually begged at the doors of private houses to obtain old clothing for their men, and even this poor succour was denied. A few feeble isolated efforts by some of the partizan generals, were the only signs of war when Wellington’s victory at Salamanca again raised the spirit of the province. Then also for the first time the new constitution adopted by the cortez was proclaimed in Catalonia, the junta of that province was suppressed, Eroles the people’s favorite obtained greater powers, and was even flattered with the hope of becoming captain-general, for the regency had agreed at last to recal Lacy. In fine the aspect of affairs changed and many thousand English muskets and other weapons were by sir Edward Pellew, given to the partizans as well as to the regular troops which enabled them to receive cartridges from the ships instead of the loose powder formerly demanded on account of the difference in the bore of the Spanish muskets. The effect of these happy coincidences was soon displayed. Eroles who had raised a new division of three thousand men, contrived in concert with Codrington, a combined movement in September against Taragona. Marching in the night of the 27th from Reus to the mouth of the Francoli he was met by the boats of the squadron and having repulsed a sally from the fortress, drove some Catalans in the French service, from the ruins of the Olivo, while the boats swept the mole, taking five vessels. After this affair Eroles encamped on the hill separating Lerida, Taragona, and Tortoza, meaning to intercept the communication between those places and to keep up an intercourse with the fleet, now the more necessary because Lacy had lost this advantage eastward of Barcelona. While thus posted he heard that a French detachment had come from Lerida to Arbeça, wherefore making a forced march over the mountains he surprised and destroyed the greatest part on the 2d of October, and then returned to his former quarters.
October. Meanwhile Lacy embarked scaling-ladders and battering guns on board the English ships, and made a pompous movement against Mattaro with his whole force, yet at the moment of execution changed his plan and attempted to surprise Hostalrich, but he let this design be known, and as the enemy prepared to succour the place, he returned to Vich without doing any thing. During these operations Manso defeated two hundred French near Molino del Rey, gained some advantages over one Pelligri, a French miguelette partizan, and captured some French boats at Mattaro after Lacy’s departure. However Sarzfield’s mission to raise an army in Aragon had failed, and Decaen desiring to check the reviving spirit of the Catalans, made a combined movement against Vich in the latter end of October. Lacy immediately drew Eroles, Manso, and Milans towards that point, and thus the fertile country about Reus was again resigned to the French, the intercourse with the fleet totally lost, and the garrison of Taragona, which had been greatly straitened by the previous operations of Eroles, was relieved. Yet the defence of Vich was not secured, for on the 3d of November one division of the French forced the main body of the Spaniards, under Lacy and Milans, at the passes of Puig Gracioso and Congosto, and though the other divisions were less successful against Eroles and Manso, at St. Filieu de Codenas, Decaen reached Vich the 4th. The Catalans, who had lost altogether above five hundred men, then separated; Lacy went to the hills near Momblanch, Milans and Rovira towards Olot, and Manso to Montserrat.
Eroles returned to Reus, and was like to have surprised the Col de Balaguer, for he sent a detachment under colonel Villamil, dressed in Italian uniforms which had been taken by Rovira in Figueras, and his men were actually admitted within the palisade of the fort before the garrison perceived the deceit. A lieutenant with sixteen men placed outside were taken, and this loss was magnified so much to Eroles that he ordered Villamil to make a more regular attack. To aid him Codrington brought up the Blake, and landed some marines, yet no impression was made on the garrison, and the allies retired on the 17th at the approach of two thousand men sent from Tortoza. Eroles and Manso then vainly united near Manresa to oppose Decaen, who, coming down from Vich, forced his way to Reus, seized a vast quantity of corn, supplied Taragona, and then marched to Barcelona.
November. These operations indisputably proved that there was no real power of resistance in the Catalan army, but as an absurd notion prevailed that Soult, Suchet, and Joseph were coming with their armies in oneCaptain Codrington’s correspondence, MSS. body, to France, through Catalonia, Lacy endeavoured to cover his inactivity by pretending a design to raise a large force in Aragon, with which to watch this retreat, and to act as a flanking corps to lord Wellington, who was believed to be then approaching Zaragoza. Such rumours served to amuse the Catalans for a short time, but the sense of their real weakness soon returned. In December Bertoletti, the governor of Taragona, marched upon Reus, and defeated some hundred men who had reassembled there; and at the same time a French convoy for Barcelona, escorted by three thousand men, passed safely in the face of six thousand Catalan soldiers, who were desirous to attack but were prevented by Lacy.
The anger of the people and of the troops also, on this occasion was loudly expressed, Lacy was openly accused of treachery, and was soon after recalled. However, Eroles who had come to Cape Salou to obtain succour from the squadron for his suffering soldiers, acknowledged that the resources of Catalonia were worn out, the spirit of the people broken by Lacy’s misconduct, and the army, reduced to less than seven thousand men, naked and famishing. Affairs were so bad, that expecting to be made captain-general he was reluctant to accept that office, and the regular warfare was in fact extinguished, for Sarzfield was now acting as a partizan on the Ebro. Nevertheless the French were greatly dismayed at the disasters in Russia; their force was weakened by the drafts made to fill up the ranks of Napoleon’s new army; and the war of the partidas continued, especially along the banks of the Ebro, where Sarzfield, at the head of Eroles’ ancient division, which he had carried with him out of Catalonia, acted in concert with Mina, Duran, Villa Campa, the Frayle, Pendencia, and other chiefs, who were busy upon Suchet’s communication between Tortoza and Valencia.
Aragon being now unquiet, and Navarre and Biscay in a state of insurrection, the French forces in the interior of Spain were absolutely invested. Their front was opposed by regular armies, their flanks annoyed by the British squadrons, and their rear, from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, plagued and stung by this chain of partidas and insurrections. And England was the cause of all this. England was the real deliverer of the Peninsula. It was her succours thrown into Biscay that had excited the new insurrection in the northern provinces, and enabled Mina and the other chiefs to enter Aragon, while Wellington drew the great masses of the French towards Portugal. It was that insurrection, so forced on, which, notwithstanding the cessation of the regular warfare in Catalonia, gave life and activity to the partidas of the south. It was the army from Sicily which, though badly commanded, by occupying the attention of Suchet in front, obliged him to keep his forces together instead of hunting down the bands on his communications. In fine, it was the troops of England who had shocked the enemy’s front of battle, the fleets of England which had menaced his flanks with disembarkations, the money and stores of England which had supported the partidas. Every part of the Peninsula was pervaded by her influence, or her warriors, and a trembling sense of insecurity was communicated to the French wherever their armies were not united in masses.
Such then were the various military events of the year 1812, and the English general taking a view of the whole, judged that however anxious the French might be to invade Portugal, they would be content during the winter to gather provisions and wait for reinforcements from France wherewith to strike a decisive blow at his army. But those reinforcements never came. Napoleon, unconquered of man, had been vanquished by the elements. The fires and the snows of Moscow combined, had shattered his strength, and in confessed madness, nations and rulers rejoiced, that an enterprize, at once the grandest, the most provident, the most beneficial, ever attempted by a warrior-statesman, had been foiled: they rejoiced that Napoleon had failed to re-establish unhappy Poland as a barrier against the most formidable and brutal, the most swinish tyranny, that has ever menaced and disgraced European civilization.