The English armies, unlike the French, always took with them a comparatively small proportion of artillery, seldom so much as two guns to the thousand men, as Foy remarks. But what there was was excellent, from its high discipline and the accuracy of its fire. The Duke preferred to work with small and movable units, placed in well-chosen spots, and kept dark till the critical moment, rather than with the enormous lines of guns that Bonaparte believed in. His horse artillery was often pushed to the front in the most daring way, in reliance on its admirable power of manœuvring and its complete steadiness. At Fuentes d’Oñoro, for example, it was made to cover the retreat of the right wing before the masses of French cavalry, in a way that would have seemed impossible to any one who was not personally acquainted with Norman Ramsay and his gunners. Hence came the astounding fact that during the whole war the Duke never in the open field lost an English gun. Several times cannon were taken and retaken; once or twice guns not belonging to the horse or field batteries were left behind in a retreat, when transport failed. But in the whole six years of his command Wellington lost no guns in battle. Foy gives an unmistakable testimony to the English artillery in his history, by remarking that in its material it was undoubtedly superior to the French[96]: the same fact may be verified from the evidence of our own officers, several of whom have left their opinion on record, that after having inspected captured French cannon, limbers, and caissons they much preferred their own.
This statement, it must be remembered, only applies to the field and horse artillery. The English siege artillery, all through the war, was notably inferior to the French. Wellington never possessed a satisfactory battering train, and the awful cost at which his sieges were turned into successes is a testimony to the inadequacy of his resources. The infantry were sent in to win, by sheer courage and at terrible expense of life, the places that could not be reduced by the ill-equipped siege artillery. There can be no doubt that in poliorcetics the enemy was our superior: but with a very small number of artillery officers trained to siege work, an insignificant body of Royal Engineers[97], and practically no provision of trained sappers[98], what was to be expected? It was not strange that the French showed themselves our masters in this respect. But the fault lay with the organization at head quarters, not with the artillery and engineer officers of the Peninsular army, who had to learn their trade by experience without having received any proper training at home.
SECTION III
SARAGOSSA AND BAYLEN
CHAPTER I
OPENING OF HOSTILITIES: THE FRENCH INVASIONS OF ANDALUSIA AND VALENCIA
While the provinces of Spain were bursting out, one after another, into open insurrection, Murat at Madrid and Bonaparte at Bayonne were still enjoying the fools’ paradise in which they had dwelt since the formal abdication of Ferdinand VII. The former was busy in forcing the Junta of Regency to perform the action which he elegantly styled ‘swallowing the pill,’ i.e. in compelling it to do homage to Napoleon and humbly crave for the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. He imagined that his only serious trouble lay in the lamentable emptiness of the treasury at Madrid, and kept announcing smooth things to his master—‘The country was tranquil, the state of public opinion in the capital was far happier than could have been hoped: the native soldiery were showing an excellent disposition, the captains-general kept sending in good reports: the new dynasty was likely to be popular, and the only desire expressed by the people was to see their newly designated king arrive promptly in their midst[99].’ Letters of this kind continued to flow from the pen of the Duke of Berg till almost the end of the month. Even after details of the insurrection of Aragon and the Asturias began to reach him, he could write on May 31 that a strong flying column would suffice to put everything right. About this time he was seized by a violent fever and took to his bed, just as things were commencing to grow serious. On his convalescence he left for France, after putting everything in charge of Savary, the man who of all Frenchmen most deserved the hatred of Spain. About the middle of June he recrossed the French frontier, and after a few weeks went off to Naples to take up his new kingship there. Spain was never to see him again: the catastrophe which he had, by his master’s orders, brought about, was to be conducted to its end by other hands.
While Murat lay sick at the suburban palace of Chamartin, and while Napoleon was drafting acts and constitutions which the assembly of notables at Bayonne were to accept and publish, the first acts of war between the insurgents and the French army of occupation took place.
We have already had occasion to point out that the main military strength of the insurrection lay in Galicia and Andalusia, the two districts in which large bodies of regular troops had placed themselves at the disposition of the newly organized juntas. In Valencia, Catalonia, and Murcia the movement was much weaker: in Old Castile, Aragon, and the Asturias it had hardly any other forces at its disposal than hordes of half-armed peasants. Clearly then Galicia and Andalusia were the dangerous points for the French, and the former more than the latter, since an army descending from its hills, and falling on the long line of communications between France and Madrid, might cause the gravest inconvenience. If there had been any organized Spanish forces in Aragon, there would have been an equal danger of an attack directed from Saragossa against the eastern flank of the French communications. But while Galicia was possessed of a numerous army of regular troops, Aragon had nothing to show but a mass of hastily assembled peasants, who were not yet fully provided with arms and were only just beginning to be told off into battalions.