The moment that the Catalan insurrection grew serious, Duhesme had sent repeated appeals for help to the Emperor: the land route to Perpignan being cut, he had to use small vessels which put out to sea at night, risked capture by the English ships lying off the coast, and when fortunate reached the harbours of Collioure or Port-Vendres, just beyond the Pyrenees. Napoleon looked upon the Catalonian war as a very small matter, but he was fully resolved that Duhesme must be succoured. Accordingly he determined to concentrate a division at Perpignan, but he refused to allot to it any of his veteran French troops. He swept together from the Southern Alps and Piedmont a most heterogeneous body of 7,000 or 8,000 men, even worse in quality than the motley army which he had entrusted to Duhesme. The command was entrusted to a capable officer, General Reille, one of the Emperor’s aides-de-camp, who was told to advance and relieve Figueras, after which he was to stretch out his hand to Duhesme, who would push northward to meet him. His improvised army consisted of two battalions of recruits just levied in the lately annexed duchy of Tuscany, and constituting the nucleus of a new regiment with the number 113, of a battalion of national guards, some mobilized gendarmerie, a battalion of the ‘Legion of Reserve of the Alps’ from Grenoble, five ‘battalions of detachments,’ and the single battalion which formed the contingent of the little republic of the Valais[306]. The cavalry comprised two squadrons of Tuscan dragoons, and two escadrons de marche of French cuirassiers and chasseurs. There seem to have been no more than two batteries of artillery allotted to the force[307]. Reille was informed that other troops from Italy would ultimately arrive at Perpignan, but that they were not to be expected till the end of July or the beginning of August. For the relief of Figueras and the opening up of communications with Duhesme he must depend on his own forces.
Travelling with commendable rapidity, Reille arrived at Perpignan on July 3. Of all the detachments that were marching to join him he found that nothing had yet reached the frontier but the local national guards and gendarmerie, the two Tuscan battalions, a company of the 2nd Swiss Regiment, and artillerymen enough to serve a couple of guns. With no more than the Tuscans and the Swiss, less than 1,600 men in all, he marched on Figueras on July 5, dispersing on the way some bands of somatenes, who tried to oppose him at the passage of the Muga. He threw a convoy into the place and strengthened its garrison, but could do no more, for all the country beyond Figueras was up in arms, and his raw Italian recruits could hardly be kept to their colours. Indeed he was forced to make them march in solid columns whenever he moved them, for when ordered to deploy they always fell into disorder, and tried to make off to the rear[308].
But by July 11 Reille had begun to receive many of the drafts and detachments which the Emperor was pouring into Perpignan, and having now three or four thousand men disposable, he resolved to strike a blow at Rosas, the small seaport town which blocks the coast-road from Perpignan to Barcelona. Marching through the plains of the Ampurdam he reached his objective, an insignificant place with a dilapidated outer entrenchment and a citadel of some small strength. It was defended by no more than 400 miqueletes, and had but five guns on its land-front. But the little garrison showed a bold face, and when Reille proceeded to invest Rosas he found himself attacked from the rear by four or five thousand somatenes levied by Don Juan Claros, a retired infantry captain who had called to arms the peasantry of the coast. They beset the besiegers so fiercely that Reille resolved to abandon the investment, a determination which was assisted by the sight of a British line-of-battle ship[309] landing marines to strengthen the garrison. Accordingly he cut his way back to Figueras on the twelfth, harassed all the way by the bands of Claros, who killed or took no less than 200 of his men[310]. Rosas was to defy capture for some months more, for Reille’s next effort was, by his master’s direction, devoted to a more important object—the clearing of the great road from Perpignan to Barcelona, and the opening up of communications with Duhesme.
SECTION V: CHAPTER II
THE STRUGGLE IN CATALONIA (JULY-AUGUST, 1808): THE SECOND SIEGE OF GERONA
For the first six weeks of the war in Catalonia Duhesme and Reille had been opposed only by the gallant somatenes. Of the handful of regular troops who had been stationed in the principality when the insurrection broke out, the greater part had drifted off to the siege of Saragossa, or to the struggle in the south. Only the Irish regiment at Gerona, and certain fragments of the disbanded battalions of the Guards from Barcelona had aided the peasantry in resisting the invader. The success of the Catalans, in hemming in Duhesme and checking Reille’s advance, is all the more notable when we reflect that their levies had not been guided by any central organization, nor placed under the command of any single general. The Junta at Lerida had done little more than issue proclamations and serve out to the somatenes the moderate amount of munitions of war that was at its disposition. It had indeed drawn out a scheme for the raising of a provincial army—forty tercios of miqueletes, each 1,000 strong, were to be levied and kept permanently in the field. But this scheme existed only on paper, and there were no means of officering or arming such a mass of men. Even as late as August 1, there were only 6,000 of them embodied in organized corps: the mass of the men of military age were still at their own firesides, prepared to turn out at the sound of the somaten, whenever a French column appeared in their neighbourhood, but not ready to keep the field for more than a few days, or to transfer their service to the more distant regions of the principality. The direction of these irregular bands was still in the hands of local leaders like Claros, Milans, and Baget, who aided each other in a sufficiently loyal fashion when they had the chance, but did not obey any single commander-in-chief, or act on any settled military plan. Their successes had been due to their own untutored intelligence and courage, not to the carrying out of any regular policy.
This period of patriotic anarchy was now drawing to an end; regular troops were beginning to appear on the scene in considerable numbers, and the direction of the military resources of Catalonia was about to be confided to their generals. The change was not all for the better: during the whole struggle the Spaniards showed themselves admirable insurgents but indifferent soldiers. After one more short but brilliant period of success, the balance of fortune was about to turn against the Catalans, and a long series of disasters was to try, but never to subdue, their indomitable and persevering courage.
We have already shown that the only body of regular troops available for the succour of Catalonia was the corps of 10,000 men which lay in the Balearic Islands. That these thirteen battalions of veterans had not yet been thrown ashore in the principality was mainly due to the over-caution of the aged General Vives, the Captain-General at Palma, to whom the charge of the garrisons of Majorca and Minorca was committed[311]. He had a deeply rooted idea that if he left Port Mahon unguarded, the English would find some excuse for once more making themselves masters of that ancient stronghold, where the Union Jack had waved for the greater part of the eighteenth century. Even the transparent honesty of Lord Collingwood, the veteran admiral of the Mediterranean fleet, could not reassure him. It was only when strong pressure was applied to him by his second in command, the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Minorca, and when he had received the most explicit pledges from Collingwood concerning the disinterested views of Great Britain, that he consented to disgarnish Port Mahon. His mind was only finally made up, when the Aragonese and Catalan battalions of his army burst out into open mutiny, threatening to seize shipping and transport themselves to the mainland without his leave, if any further delay was made [June 30]. A fortnight later Vives permitted Del Palacio, with the greater part of the Balearic garrisons, to set sail for the seat of war. The Aragonese regiment landed near Tortosa, and marched for Saragossa: but the bulk of the expeditionary force, nearly 5,000 strong, was put ashore in Catalonia between July 19 and 23.
Meanwhile affairs in the principality had taken a new turn. Duhesme had remained quiet for six days after Chabran’s check at Granollers, though his position at Barcelona grew daily more uncomfortable, owing to the constant activity of the somatenes. But when he learnt that Reille’s vanguard had reached Figueras, and that he might expect ere long to be aided by a whole division of fresh troops from the north, he resolved to renew his attack on Gerona, the fortress which so completely blocked his communications with France. Sending messages by sea to bid his colleague meet him under the walls of that place, he sallied out from Barcelona, on July 10, with the larger half of his army. This time he took with him the French brigades of Goulas and Nicolas only, leaving Barcelona to the care of Lecchi and the foreign troops. He felt that the situation was too grave for him to trust the fate of Catalonia to the steadiness of Lombard or Neapolitan regiments. So leaving four Italian and one Swiss battalion, 3,500 men in all, in the Barcelona forts, he marched for Gerona with seven French battalions, a regiment of Italian cavalry, and twenty-two guns, of which ten were heavy siege-artillery. At Mataro he picked up Chabran, who had been resting there since his check at Granollers on July 4, and incorporated with his expedition the Italian battalions which that officer had with him, as well as a regiment of French cavalry. This gave him a total force of some 7,000 men[312]; yet his march was slow and difficult. Milans with the somatenes of the upland was always hanging upon his left flank, and Lord Cochrane with two British frigates followed him along the coast, bombarding his columns whenever the road came within cannon-shot of the sea. At Arens de Mar Duhesme halted for no less than five days, either from sheer indecision as to the advisability of proceeding with his project, or because he was waiting for definite news of Reille. At last he made up his mind: two routes meet at Arens, the main chaussée from Barcelona to Gerona via Tordera, and a cross-road which seeks the same end by a detour through the small hill-fortress of Hostalrich. The three battalions of Goulas’s brigade were sent by this latter path, with orders to endeavour to seize the place if they could. The main column, with the battering-train, followed the high-road. Goulas found Hostalrich too strong for him: it was garrisoned by 500 miqueletes under Manuel O’Sullivan, a captain of the Regiment of Ultonia, who gallantly held their own against an attempt at escalade. The French brigadier thereupon abandoned the attack, crossed the mountains, and joined his chief before Gerona on July 22. Duhesme meanwhile had been harassed for three days by the somatenes of Milans, and, though he always drove them off in the end, had lost much of his baggage, and an appreciable number of men, before he reached the banks of the Ter. On the day after he was rejoined by Goulas he forced the passage of that river and took post before Gerona. On the next morning [July 24] he was rejoiced to meet with the vanguard of Reille’s division descending from the north. That general had started from Figueras two days before, with all the fractions of his motley force that had reached the front, two Tuscan battalions, the Swiss from the Valais, three French bataillons de marche, the two ‘Provisional Battalions of Perpignan,’ and some other improvised units, with a total strength of some 6,500 men. He established his head quarters at Puente Mayor to the north of the city, on the right bank of the Ter, while Duhesme placed his at Santa Eugenia on the left bank. There were good and easy communications between them by means of two fords, and the bridge of Salt, a little further from Gerona, was also available.