CHAPTER VII.
1813. In the latter part of April the Spanish troops from Estremadura being assembled on the Tormes near Almada, Carlos d’España’s division moved to Miranda del Castanar, and every thing was ready to open the campaign when an unexpected and formidable danger menacing ruin arose. Some specie sent from England had enabled the general to pay up the British soldiers’ arrears to November 1812, but the Portuguese troops were still neglected by their government, a whole year’s pay was due to them, a suspicion that a systematic difference in this respect was to be established, pervaded their minds, and at the same time many regiments which had been raised for a limited period and whose term of service was now expired, murmured for their discharge, which could not be legally refused. The moment was critical, but Wellington applied suitable remedies. He immediately threatened to intercept the British subsidy for the payment of the troops which brought the Portuguese regency to its senses, and he then made an appeal to the honour and patriotism of the Portuguese soldiers whose time had expired. Such an appeal is never made in vain to the poorer classes of any nation; one and all those brave men remained in the service notwithstanding the shameful treatment they had endured from their government. This noble emotion would seem to prove that Beresford, whose system of military reform was chiefly founded upon severity, might have better attained his object in another manner; but harshness is the essence of the aristocratic principle of government, and the marshal only moved in the straight path marked out for him by the policy of the day.
May. When this dangerous affair was terminated Castaños returned to Gallicia, and the British cavalry, of the left wing, which had wintered about the Mondego crossed the Duero, some at Oporto some near Lamego, and entered the Tras os Montes. The Portuguese cavalry had been already quarteredFrench correspondence, MSS. all the winter in that province, and the enemy supposed that Sylveira would as formerly advance from Braganza to connect the Gallicians with the allies. But Sylveira was then commanding an infantry division on the Agueda, and a very different power was menacing the French on the side of Braganza. For about the middle of May the cavalry were followed by many divisions of infantry, and by the pontoon equipage, thus forming with the horsemen and artillery a mass of more than forty thousand men under general Graham. The infantry and guns being rapidly placed on the right of the Duero by means of large boats assembled between Lamego and Castelo de Alva, near the mouth of the Agueda, marched in several columns towards the lower Esla; the cavalry moved down to the same point by Braganza.
On the 20th Hill came to Bejar with the second division, and on the 22d of May, Graham being well advanced, Wellington quitted his head-quarters at Freneda and put his right wing in motion towards the Tormes. It consisted of five divisions of Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish infantry, and five brigades of cavalry, including Julian Sanchez’ horsemen, the whole forming with the artillery a mass of from twenty-five to thirty thousand men. The right under general Hill moved from Bejar upon Alba de Tormes, the left under Wellington himself by Matilla upon Salamanca.
On the 24th Villatte withdrew his detachment from Ledesma, and on the 26th at ten o’clock in the morning the heads of the allied columns with admirable concert appeared on all the different routes leading to the Tormes. Morillo’s and Long’s cavalry menaced Alba, Hill coming from Tamames bent towards the fords above Salamanca, and Wellington coming from Matilla marched straight against that city.
Villatte, a good officer, barricaded the bridge and the streets, sent his baggage to the rear, called in his detachment from Alba, and being resolved to discover the real force of his enemy waited for their approaching masses on the heights above the ford of Santa Marta. Too long he waited, for the ground on the left side of the river had enabled Wellington to conceal the movements, and already Fane’s horsemen with six guns were passing the ford at Santa Marta in Villatte’s rear, while Victor Alten’s cavalry removed the barricades on the bridge and pushed through the town to attack him in front. The French general being thus suddenly pressed gained the heights of Cabrerizos, marching towards Babila Fuente, before Fane got over the river; but he had still to pass the defiles of Aldea Lengua and was overtaken by both columns of cavalry.
The guns opening upon the French squares killed thirty or forty men, and the English horsemen charged, but horsemen are no match for such infantry whose courage and discipline nothing could quell; they fell before the round shot, and nearly one hundred died in the ranks without a wound, from the intolerable heat, yet the cavalry made no impression on those dauntless soldiers, and in the face of thirty thousand enemies they made their way to Babila Fuente where they were joined by general Lefol with the troops from Alba, and finally the whole disappeared from the sight of their admiring and applauding opponents. Nevertheless two hundred had sunk dead in the ranks, a like number unable to keep up were made prisoners, and a leading gun having been overturned in the defile of Aldea Lengua, six others were retarded and the whole fell in the allies’ hands together with their tumbrils.
The line of the Tormes being thus gained the allied troops were on the 27th and 28th pushed forward with their left towards Miranda and Zamora, and their right towards Toro; so placed the latter covered the communications with Ciudad Rodrigo while the former approached the point on the Duero where it was proposed to throw the bridge for communication with Graham’s corps. This done Wellington left general Hill in command, and went off suddenly, for he was uneasy about his combinations on the Esla. On the 29th he passed the Duero at Miranda, by means of a basket slung on a rope which was stretched from rock to rock, the river foaming several hundred feet below. The 30th he reached Carvajales.
Graham had met with many difficulties in his march through the rugged Tras os Montes, and though the troops were now close to the Esla stretching from Carvajales to Tabara, and their left was in communication with the Gallicians who were coming down to Benevente, the combination had been in some measure thwarted by the difficulty of crossing the Esla. The general combination required that river to be passed on the 29th, at which time the right wing, continuing its march from the Tormes without halting, could have been close to Zamora, and the passage of the Duero would have been insured. The French armies would then have been entirely surprised and separated, and some of their divisions overtaken and beaten. They were indeed still ignorant that a whole army was on the Esla, but the opposite bank of that river was watched by picquets of cavalry and infantry, the stream was full and rapid, the banks steep, the fords hard to find, difficult, and deep, with stony beds, and the alarm had spread from the Tormes through all the cantonments.
At day-break on the 31st some squadrons of hussars, with infantry holding by their stirrups, entered the stream at the ford of Almendra, and at the same time Graham approached the right bank with all his forces. A French picquet of thirty men was surprised in the village of Villa Perdrices by the hussars, the pontoons were immediately laid down, and the columns commenced passing, but several men, even of the cavalry, had been drowned at the fords.
June. On the 1st of June, while the rear was still on the Esla, the head of the allies entered Zamora which the French evacuated after destroying the bridge. They retired upon Toro, and the next day having destroyed the bridge there also, they again fell back, but their rear-guard was overtaken near the village of Morales by the hussar brigade under colonel Grant. Their horsemen immediately passed a bridge and swamp under a cannonade, and then facing about in two lines, gave battle, whereupon major Roberts with the tenth regiment, supported by the fifteenth, broke both the lines with one charge and pursued them for two miles, and they lost above two hundred men, but finally rallied on the infantry reserves.
The junction of the allies’ wings on the Duero was now secure, for that river was fordable, and Wellington had also, in anticipation of failure on one point, made arrangements for forming a boat-bridge below the confluence of the Esla; and he could also throw his pontoons without difficulty at Toro, and even in advance, because Julian Sanchez had surprised a cavalry picquet at Castronuño on the left bank, and driven the French outposts from the fords of Pollos. But the enemy’s columns were concentrating, it might be for a battle, wherefore the English general halted the 3d to bring the Gallicians in conjunction on his left, and to close up his own rear which had been retarded by the difficulty of passing the Esla. The two divisions of his right wing, namely, the second and light division, passed the Duero on the morning of the 3rd, the artillery and baggage by a ford, the infantry at the bridge of Toro, which was ingeniously repaired by the lieutenant of engineers Pringle, who dropped ladders at each side of the broken arch, and then laid planks from one to the other just above the water level. Thus the English general mastered the line of the Duero, and those who understand war may say whether it was an effort worthy of the man and his army.
Let them trace all the combinations, follow the movement of Graham’s columns, some of which marched one hundred and fifty, some more than two hundred and fifty miles, through the wild districts of the Tras os Montes. Through those regions, held to be nearly impracticable even for small corps, forty thousand men, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and pontoons, had been carried and placed as if by a supernatural power upon the Esla, before the enemy knew even that they were in movement! Was it fortune or skill that presided? Not fortune, for the difficulties were such that Graham arrived later on the Esla than Wellington intended, and yet so soon, that the enemy could make no advantage of the delay. For had the king even concentrated his troops behind the Esla on the 31st, the Gallicians would still have been at Benevente and reinforced by Penne Villemur’s cavalry which had marched with Graham’s corps, and the Asturians would have been at Leon on the Upper Esla which was fordable. Then the final passage of that river could have been effected by a repetition of the same combinations on a smaller scale, because the king’s army would not have been numerous enough to defend the Duero against Hill, the Lower Esla against Wellington, and the Upper Esla against the Spaniards at the same time. Wellington had also, as we have seen, prepared the means of bringing Hill’s corps or any part of it over the Duero below the confluence of the Esla, and all these combinations, these surprising exertions had been made merely to gain a fair field of battle.
But if Napoleon’s instructions had been ably worked out by the king during the winter, this great movement could not have succeeded, for the insurrection in the north would have been crushed in time, or at least so far quelled, that sixty thousand French infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and one hundred pieces of artillery would have been disposable, and such a force held in an offensive position on the Tormes would probably have obliged Wellington to adopt a different plan of campaign. If concentrated between the Duero and the Esla it would have baffled him on that river, because operations which would have been effectual against thirty-five thousand infantry would have been powerless against sixty thousand. Joseph indeed complained that he could not put down the insurrection in the north, that he could not feed such large armies, that a thousand obstacles arose on every side which he could not overcome, in fine that he could not execute his brother’s instructions. They could have been executed notwithstanding. Activity, the taking time by the forelock, would have quelled the insurrection; and for the feeding of the troops, the boundless plains called the “Tierras de Campos,” where the armies were now operating, were covered with the ripening harvest; the only difficulty was to subsist that part of the French army not engaged in the northern provinces during the winter. Joseph could not find the means though Soult told him they were at hand, because the difficulties of his situation overpowered him; they would not have overpowered Napoleon, but the difference between a common general and a great captain is immense, the one is victorious when the other is defeated.
The field was now clear for the shock of battle, but the forces on either side were unequally matched. Wellington had ninety thousand men, with more than one hundred pieces of artillery. Twelve thousand were cavalry, and the British and Portuguese present with the colours, were, including serjeants and drummers, above seventy thousand sabres and bayonets; the rest of the army was Spanish. Besides this mass there were the irregulars on the wings, Sanchez’ horsemen, a thousand strong, on the right beyond the Duero; Porlier, Barceña, Salazar and Manzo on the left between the Upper Esla and the Carion. Saornil had moved upon Avila, the Empecinado was hovering about Leval. Finally the reserve of Andalusia had crossed the Tagus at Almaraz on the 30th, and numerous minor bands were swarming round as it advanced. On the other hand though the French could collect nine or ten thousand horsemen and one hundred guns, their infantry was less than half the number of the allies, being only thirty-five thousand strong exclusive of Leval. Hence the way to victory was open, and on the 4th Wellington marched forward with a conquering violence.
The intrusive monarch was in no condition to stem or to evade a torrent of war, the depth and violence of which he was even now ignorant of, and a slight sketch of his previous operations willFrench Official correspondence, MSS. shew that all his dispositions were made in the dark and only calculated to bring him into trouble. Early in May he would have marched the army of the centre to the Upper Duero when Leval’s reports checked the movement. On the 15th of that month a spy sent to Bejar by D’Erlon, brought intelligence that a great number of country carts had been collected there and at Placentia, to follow the troops in a march upon Talavera, but after two days were sent back to their villages; that fifty mules had been purchased at Bejar and sent to Ciudad Rodrigo; that about the same time the first and fourth divisions and the German cavalry had moved from the interior towards the frontier, saying they were going, the first to Zamora, and the last to Fuente Guinaldo; that many troops were already gathered at Ciudad Rodrigo under Wellington and Castaños; that the divisions at Coria and Placentia were expected there, the reserves of Andalusia were in movement, and the pass of Baños which had been before retrenched and broken up was now repaired; that the English soldiers were paid their arrears, and every body said a grand movement would commence on the 12th. All this was extremely accurate, but with the exception of the march to Zamora, which seemed to be only a blind, the information obtained indicated the principal movement as against the Tormes, and threw no light upon the English general’s real design.
On the other flank Reille’s cavalry under Boyer, having made an exploring sweep round by Astorga, La Baneza and Benevente, brought intelligence that a Gallician expedition was embarking for America, that another was to follow, and that several English divisions were also embarking in Portugal. The 23d of May a report from the same quarter gave notice that Salazar and Manzo were with seven hundred horsemen on the Upper Esla, that Porlier was coming from the Asturias to join them with two thousand five hundred men, and Giron with six thousand Gallicians had reached Astorga; but it was uncertain if Sylveira’s cavalry would come from Braganza to connect the left of the English with the Gallicians as it had done the year before.
Thus on the 24th of May the French were still entirely in the dark with respect to Graham’s movement, and although it was known the 26th at Valladolid, that Wellington had troops in the country beyond the Esla, it was not considered a decisive movement because the head-quarters were still at Freneda. However on the 29th Reille united his cavalry at Valderas, passed the Esla, entered Benevente and sent patroles towards Tobara and Carvajales; from their reports and other sources he understood the whole allied army was on the Esla, and as his detachments were closely followed by the British scouting parties, he recrossed the Esla and broke the bridge of Castro Gonzalo, leaving his light horsemen to watch it. But the delay in the passage of the Esla, after Graham had reached Carvajales, made Reille doubt both the strength of the allies and their inclination to cross that river. He expected the main attack on the Tormes, and proposed in conjunction with Daricau’s infantry, and Digeon’s dragoons, then at Toro and Zamora, to defend the Duero and the Lower Esla, leaving the Gallicians, whose force he despised, to pass the Upper Esla at their peril.
D’Armagnac’s division was now at Rio Seco, and Maucune’s division, which had been spread along the road to Burgos, was ordered to concentrate at Palencia on the Carion, but meanwhile Gazan on the other flank of the French position was equally deceived by the movements of the English general. The 7th of May he heard from the Tormes that the allies’ preparations indicated a movement towards that river. Leval wrote from Madrid that he had abandoned Toledo because fifteen thousand English and ten thousand Spaniards were to advance by the valley of the Tagus, that rations had been ordered at Escalona for Long’s English cavalry, and that magazines were formed at Bejar. At the same time from a third quarter came news that three divisions would pass the Duero to join the Gallicians and march upon Valladolid.
Gazan rightly judging that the magazines at Bejar were to supply Hill and the Spaniards, in their movement to join Wellington, expected at first that the whole would operate by the Esla, but on the 14th fresh reports changed this opinion; he then judged Hill would advance by the Puente Congosto upon Avila, to cut Leval off from the army, while Wellington attacked Salamanca. On the 24th however his doubts vanished. Villatte told him that Wellington was over the Agueda, Graham over the Lower Douro, and at the same time Daricau, writing from Zamora, told him that Graham’s cavalry had already reached Alcanizas, only one march from the Esla. Conroux was instantly directed to march from Avila to Arevalo, Tilly to move with the cavalry of the army of the south, from Madrigal towards the Trabancos, Daricau to send a brigade to Toro, and Leval to come over the Guadarama pass and join D’Erlon at Segovia.
On the 26th, Gazan thinking Wellington slow and crediting a report that he was sick and travelling in a carriage, relapsed into doubt. He now judged the passage of the Agueda a feint, thought the allies’ operations would be in mass towards the Esla, and was positively assured by his emissaries that Hill would move by the Puente Congosto against Segovia. However on the 27th he heard of the passage of the Tormes and of Villatte’s retreat, whereupon evacuating Arevalo he fixed his head-quarters at Rueda, and directed Conroux who was marching upon Arevalo, and so hastily that he left a moveable column behind him on the Upper Tormes, to come to the Trabancos.
Gazan at first designed to take post behind that river but there was no good position there, and the 28th he rallied Conroux’s, Rey’s, and Villatte’s infantry and Tilly’s cavalry behind the Zapardiel. Daricau’s division was meanwhile concentrated at Toro, and Digeon’s at Zamora; a bridge-head was commenced at Tordesillas, which was the point of retreat, and guards were placed at Pollos where the fords of the Duero were very low though as yet impracticable. These movements were made in tranquillity, for Hill had no desire by driving the French over the Duero to increase the number of their troops on the Esla. However on the 30th Gazan, hearing that Hill was advancing and that the troops on the Esla were likely to attempt the passage of that river, crossed the Duero in the night and took post at Tordesillas, intending to concentrate the whole army of the south on the right of that river; but Leval, though he had quitted Madrid on the 27th, was not yet arrived and a large artillery convoy, the ministers and Spanish families, and the pictures from the palace of Madrid were likewise on the road from that capital by the Segovia passes.
At this time the army of Portugal and D’Armagnac’s division was extended from the Esla to the Carion, the king’s guards were at Valladolid, and D’Erlon was in march to the Puente Duero, from Segovia and Sepulveda, yet slowly and apparently not aware of the crisis. Meanwhile the passage of the Esla had been effected, and hence if that river had been crossed at the time fore-calculated by Wellington, and a rapid push made upon Placentia and Valladolid, while Hill marched upon Rueda, the whole French army might have been caught in what Napoleon calls “flagrante delicto” and destroyed. And even now it would seem that Wellington could have profited more by marching, than by halting at Toro on the 3d, for though Leval’s troops and part of the army of the centre were then between the Puente Duero and Valladolid, D’Erlon had left a large division at Tudela de Duero to protect the arrival of the convoy from Madrid, which had not yet crossed the Duero; another great convoy was still on the left bank of the lower Pisuerga, and the parcs of the armies of Portugal and of the south were waiting on the right bank of that river, until the first convoy had passed over the Carion. Nevertheless it was prudent to gather well to a head first, and the general combinations had been so profoundly made that the evil day for the French was only deferred.
On the 30th Joseph’s design was to oppose Wellington’s principal force with the army of the south, while the army of the centre held the rest in check, the army of Portugal to aid either as the case might be; and such was his infatuation as to his real position, that even now, from the Duero, he was pressing upon his brother the immediate establishment of a civil Spanish administration for the provinces behind the Ebro, as the only remedy for the insurrection, and for the rendering of the army of the north disposable. He even demanded an order from the emperor to draw Clauzel’s troops away from the Ebro, that he might drive the allies back to the Coa, and take the long-urged offensive position towards Portugal, Napoleon being then at Dresden and Wellington on the Duero!
On the 2d when the allies had passed the Esla, the king, who expected them at Toro the 1st, became disturbed to find his front unmolested, and concluded, as he had received no letter from Reille, that Wellington had cut his communication, turned his right, and was marching towards the Carion. His alarm was considerable and with reason, but in the evening of the 2d he heard from Reille, who had retired unmolested to Rio Seco and there rallied D’Armagnac’s troops, but Maucune’s division was still in march from different parts to concentrate at Palencia. The halt of the 3d was therefore to the profit of the French, for during that time they received the Madrid convoy and insured the concentration of all their troops, recovering even Conroux’s moveable column which joined Leval near Olmedo. They also destroyed the bridges of Tudela and Puente Duero on the Duero, and that of Simancas and Cabeçon on the Pisuerga, and they passed their convoys over the Carion, directing them, under escort of Casa Palacios’ Spanish division, upon Burgos.
The army of the south now moved upon Torrelobaton and Penaflor, the army of the centre upon Duenas, the army of Portugal upon Palencia; and the spirits of all were raised by intelligence of the emperor’s victory at Lutzen, and by a report that the Toulon fleet had made a successful descent on Sicily. It would appear that Napoleon certainly contemplated an attack upon that island, and lord William Bentinck thought it would be successful, but it was prevented by Murat’s discontent, who instead of attacking fell off from Napoleon and opened a negociation with the British.
The 4th Wellington moved in advance, his bridge of communication was established at Pollos, and considerable stores of ammunition were formed at Valladolid; some had also been taken at Zamora, and the cavalry flankers captured large magazines of grain at Arevalo. Towards the Carion the allies marched rapidly by parallel roads, and in compact order, the Gallicians on the extreme left, Morillo and Julian Sanchez on the extreme right, and the English general expected the enemy would make a stand behind that river, but the report of the prisoners and the hasty movement of the French columns soon convinced him that they were in full retreat for Burgos. On the 6th all the French armies were over the Carion, Reille had even reached Palencia on the 4th and there rallied Maucune’s division, and a brigade of light cavalry which had been employed on the communications.
Although the king’s force was now about fifty-five thousand fighting men, exclusive of his Spanish division, which was escorting the convoys and baggage, he did not judge the Carion a good position and retired behind the upper Pisuerga, desiring if possible to give battle there. He sent Jourdan to examine the state of Burgos castle, and expedited fresh letters, for he had already written from Valladolid on the 27th and 30th of May, to Foy, Sarrut, and Clauzel, calling them towards the plains of Burgos; and others to Suchet directing him to march immediately upon Zaragoza and hoping he was already on his way there; but Suchet was then engaged in Catalonia, Clauzel’s troops were on the borders of Aragon, Foy and Palombini’s Italians were on the coast of Guipuscoa, and Sarrut’s division was pursuing Longa in the Montaña.
Joseph was still unacquainted with his enemy. Higher than seventy or eighty thousand he did not estimate the allied forces, and he was desirous of fighting them on the elevated plains of Burgos. But more than one hundred thousand men were before and around him. For all the Partidas of the Asturias and the Montaña were drawing together on his right, Julian Sanchez and the Partidas of Castile were closing on his left, and Abispal with the reserve and Frere’s cavalry had already passed the Gredos mountains and were in full march for Valladolid. Nevertheless the king was sanguine of success if he could rally Clauzel’s and Foy’s divisions in time, and his despatches to the former were frequent and urgent. Come with the infantry of the army of Portugal! Come with the army of the north and we shall drive the allies over the Duero! Such was his cry to Clauzel, and again he urged his political schemes upon his brother; but he was not a statesman to advise Napoleon nor a general to contend with Wellington, his was not the military genius, nor were his the arrangements that could recover the initiatory movement at such a crisis and against such an adversary.
While the king was on the Pisuerga he received Jourdan’s report. The castle of Burgos was untenable, there were no magazines of provisions, the new works were quite unfinished, and they commanded the old which were unable to hold out a day; of Clauzel’s and Foy’s divisions nothing had been heard. It was resolved to retire behind the Ebro. All the French outposts in the Bureba and Montaña were immediately withdrawn, and the great dépôt of Burgos was evacuated upon Vittoria, which was thus encumbered with the artillery dépôts of Madrid, of Valladolid, and of Burgos, and with the baggage and stores of so many armies and so many fugitive families; and at this moment also arrived from France a convoy of treasure which had long waited for escort at Bayonne.
Meanwhile the tide of war flowed onwards with terrible power. The allies had crossed the Carion on the 7th, and Joseph quitting Torquemada had retired by the high road to Burgos with his left wing composed of the army of the south and centre, while Reille with that of Portugal forming the right wing moved by Castro Xerez. But Wellington following hard, and conducting his operations continually on the same principle, pushed his left wing and the Gallicians along bye-roads, and passed the upper Pisuerga on the 8th, 9th, and 10th. Having thus turned the line of the Pisuerga entirely, and outflanked Reille, he made a short journey the 11th and halted the 12th with his left wing, for he had outmarched his supplies, and had to arrange the farther feeding of his troops in a country wide of his line of communication. Nevertheless he pushed his right wing under general Hill along the main road to Burgos, resolved to make the French yield the castle or fight for the possession, and meanwhile Julian Sanchez acting beyond the Arlanzan cut off small posts and straggling detachments.
Reille had regained the great road to Burgos on the 9th, and was strongly posted behind the Hormaza stream, his right near Hormillas, his left on the Arlanzan, barring the way to Burgos; the other two armies were in reserve behind Estepar, and in this situation they had remained for three days and were again cheered by intelligence of Napoleon’s victory at Bautzen and the consequent armistice. But on the 12th Wellington’s columns came up and the light division preceded by Grant’s hussars and Ponsonby’s dragoons, immediately turned the French right, while the rest of the troops attacked the whole range of heights from Hormillas to Estepar. Reille, whose object was to make the allies shew their force, seeing their horsemen in rear of his right flank while his front was so strongly menaced, made for the bridge of Baniel on the Arlanzan; then Gardiner’s horse artillery raked his columns, and captain Milles of the fourteenth dragoons charging, took some prisoners and one of his guns which had been disabled. Meanwhile the right of the allies pressing forward towards the bridge of Baniel endeavoured to cut off the retreat, but the French repelled the minor attacks with the utmost firmness, bore the fire of the artillery without shrinking, and evading the serious attacks by their rapid yet orderly movement, finally passed the river with a loss of only thirty men killed and a few taken.
The three French armies being now covered by the Urbel and Arlanzan rivers, which were swelled by the rain, could not be easily attacked, and the stores of Burgos were removed; but in the night Joseph again retreated along the high road by Briviesca to Pancorbo, into which place he threw a garrison of six hundred men. The castle of Burgos was prepared also for destruction, and whether from hurry, or negligence, or want of skill, the mines exploded outwards, and at the very moment when a column of infantry was defiling under the castle. Several streets were laid in ruins, thousands of shells and other combustibles which had been left in the place were ignited and driven upwards with a horrible crash, the hills rocked above the devoted column, and a shower of iron, timber, and stony fragments falling on it, in an instant destroyed more than three hundred men! Fewer deaths might have sufficed to determine the crisis of a great battle!
But such an art is war! So fearful is the consequence of error, so terrible the responsibility of a general. Strongly and wisely did Napoleon speak when he told Joseph, that if he would command, he must give himself up entirely to the business, labouring day and night, thinking of nothing else. Here was a noble army driven like sheep before prowling wolves, yet in every action the inferior generals had been prompt and skilful, the soldiers brave, ready and daring, firm and obedient in the most trying circumstances of battle. Infantry, artillery, and cavalry, all were excellent and numerous, and the country strong and favourable for defence; but that soul of armies, the mind of a great commander was wanting, and the Esla, the Tormes, the Duero, the Carion, the Pisuerga, the Arlanzan, seemed to be dried up, the rocks, the mountains, the deep ravines to be levelled. Clauzel’s strong positions, Dubreton’s thundering castle, had disappeared like a dream, and sixty thousand veteran soldiers though willing to fight at every step, were hurried with all the tumult and confusion of defeat across the Ebro. Nor was that barrier found of more avail to mitigate the rushing violence of their formidable enemy.
Joseph having possession of the impregnable rocks, and the defile and forts of Pancorbo, now thought he could safely await for his reinforcements, and extended his wings for the sake of subsistence. On the 16th D’Erlon marched to Aro on the left, leaving small posts of communication between that place and Miranda, and sending detachments towards Domingo Calçada to watch the road leading from Burgos to Logroño. Gazan remained in the centre with a strong advanced guard beyond Pancorbo, for as the king’s hope was to retake the offensive, he retained the power of issuing beyond the defiles, and his scouting parties were pushed forward towards Briviesca in front, to Zerezo on the left and to Poya do Sal on the right. The rest of the army of the south was cantoned by divisions as far as Armiñion behind the Ebro, and Reille, who had occupied Busto marched to Espejo, also behind the Ebro and on the great road to Bilbao. There being joined by Sarrut’s division from Orduña he took post, placing Maucune at Frias, Sarrut at Osma, and La Martiniere at Espejo; guarding also the Puente Lara, and sending strong scouting parties towards Medina de Pomar and Villarcayo on one side and towards Orduña on the other.
While these movements were in progress, all the encumbrances of the armies were assembled in the basin of Vittoria, and many small garrisons of the army of the north came in; for Clauzel having received the king’s first letter on the 15th of June had stopped the pursuit of Mina, and proceeded to gather up his scattered columns, intending to move by the way of Logroño to the Ebro. He had with him Taupin’s and Barbout’s divisions of the army of Portugal, but after providing for his garrisons, only five thousand men of the army of the north were disposable, so that he could not bring more than fourteen thousand men to aid the king; nevertheless the latter confident in the strength of his front was still buoyant with the hope of assembling an army powerful enough to retake the offensive. His dream was short-lived.
The 13th, while the echoes of the explosion at Burgos were still ringing in the hills, Wellington’s whole army was in motion by its left towards the country about the sources of the Ebro. The Gallicians moved from Aguilar de Campo high up on the Pisuerga, Graham with the British left wing moved from Villa Diego, and in one march reaching the river, passed it on the 14th at the bridges of Rocamunde and San Martin. The centre of the army followed on the 15th, and the same day the right wing under Hill marched through the Bureba and crossed at the Puente Arenas. This general movement was masked by the cavalry and by the Spanish irregulars who infested the rear of the French on the roads to Briviesca and Domingo Calçada, and the allies being thus suddenly placed between the sources of the Ebro and the great mountains of Reynosa, cut the French entirely off from the sea-coast. All the ports except Santona and Bilbao, were immediately evacuated by the enemy; Santona was invested by Mendizabel, Porlier, Barceña, and Campillo, and the English vessels entered Sant Andero, where a dépôt and hospital station was established, because the royal road from thence through Reynosa to Burgos furnished a free communication with the army. This single blow severed the connection of the English force with Portugal. That country was cast off by the army as a heavy tender is cast from its towing rope, and all the British military establishments were broken up and transferred by sea to the coast of Biscay.
The English general had now his choice of two modes of action. The one to march bodily down the left bank of the Ebro, and fall upon the enemy wherever he could meet with them; the other to advance, still turning the king’s right, and by entering Guipuscoa, to place the army on the great communication with France, while the fleet keeping pace with this movement furnished fresh dépôts at Bilbao and other ports. The first plan was a delicate and uncertain operation, because of the many narrow and dangerous defiles which were to be passed, but the second which could scarcely be contravened, was secure even if the first should fail; both were compatible to a certain point, inasmuch as to gain the great road leading from Burgos by Orduña to Bilbao, was a good step for either, and failing in that the road leading by Valmaceda to Bilbao was still in reserve. Wherefore with an eagle’s sweep Wellington brought his left wing round, and pouring his numerous columns through all the deep narrow valleys and rugged defiles descended towards the great road of Bilbao between Frias and Orduña. At Modina de Pomar a central point, he left the sixth division to guard his stores and supplies, but the march of the other divisions was unmitigated; neither the winter gullies nor the ravines, nor the precipitate passes amongst the rocks, retarded the march even of the artillery; where horses could not draw men hauled, and when the wheels would not roll the guns were let down or lifted up with ropes; and strongly did the rough veteran infantry work their way through those wild but beautiful regions; six days they toiled unceasingly; on the seventh, swelled by the junction of Longa’s division and all the smaller bands which came trickling from the mountains, they burst like raging streams from every defile, and went foaming into the basin of Vittoria.
General Thouvenot’s Correspondence, MSS. During this time many reports reached the French, some absurdly exaggerated, as that Wellington had one hundred and ninety thousand men, but all indicating more or less distinctly the true line and direction of his march. As early as theMarshal Jourdan’s correspondence, MSS. 15th Jourdan had warned Joseph that the allies would probably turn his right, and as the reports of Maucune’s scouts told of the presence of English troops, that day, on the side of Puente Arenas, he pressed the king to send the army of Portugal to Valmaceda, and to close the other armies towards the same quarter. Joseph yielded so far, that Reille was ordered to concentrate his troops at Osma on the morning of the 18th, with the view of gaining Valmaceda by Orduña, if it was still possible; if not he was to descend rapidly from Lodio upon Bilbao, and to rally Foy’s division and the garrisons of Biscay upon the army of Portugal. At the same time Gazan was directed to send a division of infantry and a regiment of dragoons from the army of the south, to relieve Reille’s troops at Puente Lara and Espejo, but no general and decided dispositions were made.
Reille immediately ordered Maucune to quit Frias, and join him at Osma with his division, yet having some fears for his safety gave him the choice of coming by the direct road across the hills, or by the circuitous route of Puente Lara. Maucune started late in the night of the 17th by the direct road, and when Reille himself reached Osma, with La Martiniere’s and Sarrut’s divisions, on the morning of the 18th, he found a strong English column issuing from the defiles in his front, and the head of it was already at Barbarena in possession of the high road to Orduña. This was general Graham with the first, third, and fifth divisions, and a considerable body of cavalry. The French general who had about eight thousand infantry and fourteen guns, at first made a demonstration with Sarrut’s division in the view of forcing the BritishOfficial Journal of the chief of the staff, General Boyer, MSS. to shew their whole force, and a sharp skirmish and heavy cannonade ensued, wherein fifty men fell on the side of the allies, above a hundred on that of the enemy. But at half-past two o’clock, Maucune had not arrived, and beyond the mountains, on the left of the French, the sound of a battle arose which seemed to advance along the valley of Boveda into the rear of Osma; Reille, suspecting what had happened, instantly retired fighting, towards Espejo, where the mouths of the valleys opened on each other, and from that of Boveda, and the hills on the left, Maucune’s troops rushed forth begrimed with dust and powder, breathless, and broken into confused masses.
That general, proverbially daring, marched over the Araçena ridge instead of going by the Puente Lara, and his leading brigade, after clearing the defiles, had halted on the bank of a rivulet near the village of San Millan in the valley of Boveda. In this situation, without planting picquets, they were waiting for their other brigade and the baggage, when suddenly the light division which had been moving by a line parallel with Graham’s march, appeared on some rising ground in their front; the surprise was equal on both sides, but the British riflemen instantly dashed down the hill with loud cries and a bickering fire, the fifty-second followed in support, and the French retreated fighting as they best could. The rest of the English regiments having remained in reserve, were watching this combat and thinking all their enemies were before them, when the second French brigade, followed by the baggage, came hastily out from a narrow cleft in some perpendicular rocks on the right hand. A very confused action now commenced, for the reserve scrambled over some rough intervening ground to attack this new enemy, and the French to avoid them made for a hill a little way in their front, whereupon the fifty-second, whose rear was thus menaced, wheeled round and running at full speed up the hill met them on the summit. However, the French soldiers without losing their presence of mind threw off their packs, and half flying, half fighting, escaped along the side of the mountains towards Miranda, while the first brigade still retreating on the road towards Espejo were pursued by the riflemen. Meanwhile the sumpter animals being affrighted, run wildly about the rocks with a wonderful clamour, and though the escort huddled together fought desperately, all the baggage became the spoil of the victors, and four hundred of the French fell or were taken; the rest, thanks to their unyielding resolution and activity, escaped, though pursued through the mountains by some Spanish irregulars, and Reille being still pressed by Graham then retreated behind Salinas de Añara.
A knowledge of these events reached the king that night, yet neither Reille nor the few prisoners he had made could account for more than six Anglo-Portuguese divisions at the defiles; hence as no troops had been felt on the great road from Burgos, it was judged that Hill was marching with the others by Valmaceda into Guipuscoa, to menace the great communication with France. However it was clear that six divisions were concentrated on the right and rear of the French armies, and no time was to be lost in extricating the latter from its critical situation; wherefore Gazan and D’Erlon marched in the night to unite at Armiñon, a central point behind the Zadora river, up the left bank of which it was necessary to file in order to gain the basin of Vittoria. But the latter could only be entered, at that side, through the pass of Puebla de Arganzan which was two miles long, and so narrow as scarcely to furnish room for the great road; Reille therefore, to cover this dangerous movement, fell back during the night to Subijana Morillas, on the Bayas river. His orders were to dispute the ground vigorously, for by that route Wellington could enter the basin before Gazan, and D’Erlon could thread the pass of Puebla; he could also send a corps from Frias to attack their rear on the Miranda side, while they were engaged in the defile. One of these things by all means he should have endeavoured to accomplish, but the troops had made very long marches on the 18th, and it was dark before the fourth division had reached Espejo. D’Erlon and Gazan, therefore, united at Armiñon without difficulty about ten o’clock in the morning of the 19th, and immediately commenced the passage of the defile of Puebla, and the head of their column appeared on the other side at the moment when Wellington was driving Reille back upon the Zadora.
The allies had reached Bayas before mid-day of the 19th, and if they could have forced the passage at once, the armies of the centre and of the south would have been cut off from Vittoria and destroyed; but the army of Portugal was strongly posted, the front covered by the river, the right by the village of Subijana de Morillas, which was occupied as a bridge-head, and the left secured by some very rugged heights opposite the village of Pobes. This position was turned by the light division while the fourth division attacked it in front, and after a skirmish in which about eighty of the French fell, Reille was forced over the Zadora; but the army of the centre had then passed the defile of Puebla and was in position behind that river, the army of the south was coming rapidly into second line, the crisis had passed, the combat ceased, and the allies pitched their tents on the Bayas. The French armies now formed three lines behind the Zadora, and the king hearing that Clauzel was at Logroño, eleven leagues distant, expedited orders to him to march upon Vittoria; general Foy also, who was in march for Bilbao, was directed to halt at Durango, to rally all the garrisons of Biscay and Guipuscoa there, and then to come down on Vittoria. These orders were received too late.