A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809

by Charles Oman

The two British notes brought the replies from St. Petersburg and Paris that Canning expected. Count Romanzoff, writing for the Czar, could only state that his master had acknowledged Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, and could not recognize the existence of any other legal authority in that kingdom. But if this point (the only really important one) could be got over, the Russian Government was ready to treat on a basis of Uti Possidetis, or any other just and honourable terms. The French reply was, as was natural, couched in very different language. Napoleon had been irritated by Canning’s sarcastic allusions to the failure of the Continental System: he thought the tone of the British note most improper and insulting—‘it comes from the same pen which the English ministry employs to fabricate the swarm of libels with which it inundates the Continent. Such language is despicable, and unworthy of the imperial attention[392].’

Considering the offensive and bullying tone which Bonaparte was wont to use to other powers—his note written to Austria a few days before was a fair example of it—he had little reason to be indignant at the epigrams of the English minister. Yet the latter might perhaps have done well to keep his pen under control, and to forget that he was not writing for the Anti-Jacobin, but composing an official document. Even though Napoleon’s offer was hollow and insincere, it should have been met with dry courtesy rather than with humorous irony.

Of course Bonaparte refused to treat the Spaniards as a free and equal belligerent power. He had declared his brother King of Spain, and had now reached that pitch of blind autolatry in which he regarded his own fiat as the sole source of legality. In common honour England could not abandon the insurgents; for the Emperor to allow his brother’s claim to be ignored was equally impossible. In his present state of mind he would have regarded such a concession to the enemy as an acknowledgement of disgraceful defeat. It was obvious that the war must go on, and when the Emperor suggested that England might treat with him without stipulating for the admission of the Junta as a party to the negotiations[393], he must have been perfectly well aware that he was proposing a dishonourable move which the ministry of Portland could not possibly make. His suggestions as to a separate treaty with England on the basis of Uti Possidetis were futile: he intended that they should be declined, and declined they were. But he had succeeded in his end of posing before the French nation and the European powers as a lover of peace, foiled in his devices by the unbending arrogance of Great Britain. This was all that he had desired, and so far his machinations attained their object[394].

Long before the English replies had been sent off to Champagny and Romanzoff, the much-delayed campaign on the Ebro had commenced. All through the months of August and September the French had behaved as if their adversaries were acting on proper military principles, and might be expected to throw their whole force on the true objective point. Jourdan and his colleagues had no reason to foresee that the Spanish Government would launch out into the hideous series of blunders which, as a matter of fact, were committed. That no commander-in-chief would be appointed, that the victorious troops of Baylen would be held back for weeks in Andalusia, that no strenuous effort would be made to raise new armies in Leon and the two Castiles, were chances that seemed so improbable that King Joseph and his advisers did not take them into consideration. They expected that the Spaniards would mass the armies of Andalusia, Estremadura, Castile, and Aragon, and endeavour to turn their left flank on the side of Sanguesa and Pampeluna, or that (the other rational course) they would send the Asturians, the Andalusians, and the Castilians to join Blake, and debouch down the line of the Upper Ebro, from Reynosa on to Vittoria and Miranda. In the first case 70,000, and in the latter case 80,000 men would be flung against one flank of the French position, and it would be necessary to concentrate in hot haste in order to hold them back. But, as a matter of fact, the Spanish forces did not even come up to the front for many weeks, and when they did appear it was, as we have seen, not in the form of one great army concentrated for a stroke on a single point, but as a number of weak and isolated columns, each threatening a different part of the long line that lay along the Ebro from Miranda to Milagro. When feeble demonstrations were made against so many separate sections of his front, Jourdan supposed that they were skilful feints, intended to cover some serious attack on a weak spot, and acted accordingly, holding back till the enemy should develop his real plan, and refusing to commit himself meanwhile to offensive operations on a serious scale. It must be confessed that the chaotic and inconsequent movements of the Spaniards bore, to the eye of the observer from the outside, something like the appearance of a deep plan. On August 27 the Conde de Montijo, with a column of the Aragonese army, felt his way up the Ebro as far as the bridge of Alfaro, nearly opposite the extreme left flank of the French at Milagro. When attacked by Lefebvre-Desnouettes at the head of a few cavalry and a horse-battery, the Spanish general refused to stand, and retreated on Tudela. Marshal Moncey then pressed him with an infantry division, but Montijo again gave back. The French thought that this move must be a mere diversion, intended to attract their attention to the side of Aragon, for Montijo had acted with such extreme feebleness that it was unnatural to suppose that he was making anything but a feint. They were quite wrong however: Palafox had told the count to push as far up the Ebro as he could, without any thought of favouring operations by Blake or Castaños, the former of whom was at this moment not far in front of Astorga, while the latter was still at Madrid. Montijo had given way simply because his troops were raw levies, and because there were no supports behind him nearer than Saragossa. It was to no effect, therefore, that King Joseph, after the fighting in front of Alfaro and Tudela, moved his reserves up the river to Miranda, thinking that the real attack must be coming from that side. There was no real attack intended, for the enemy had not as yet brought any considerable force up to the front.

It was not till nearly three weeks later that the Spaniards made another offensive move. This time Blake was the assailant. On September 10 he had at last concentrated the greater part of his army at Reynosa—the centre of roads at the source of the Ebro, of which we have already had to speak on several occasions. He had with him four divisions of the army of Galicia, as well as a ‘vanguard brigade’ and a ‘reserve brigade’ of picked troops from the same quarter. Close behind him were 8,000 Asturians under General Acevedo. The whole came to 32,000 men, but there were no more than 400 cavalry with the corps—a fact which made Blake very anxious to keep to the mountains and to avoid the plains of Old Castile[395]. He had left behind him in Galicia and about Astorga more than 10,000 men of new levies, not yet fit to take the field. There were also some 9,000 Asturians in similar case, held back within the limits of their own principality[396].

In the elaborate plan of operations which had been sketched out at Madrid on September 5, it will be remembered that Blake’s army was intended to co-operate with those of Castaños and of Eguia. But he paid no attention whatever to the promises which his representative, Infantado, had made in his name, and executed an entirely different movement: there was no commander-in-chief to compel him to act in unison with his colleagues. The Castilian and Estremaduran armies were not ready, and Castaños had as yet only a feeble vanguard facing the enemy on the Central Ebro, his rear divisions being still far back, on the road from Andalusia. Blake neither asked for nor received any assistance whatever from his colleagues, and set out in the most light-hearted way to attack 70,000 French with his 32,000 Galicians and Asturians.

His plan was to threaten Burgos with a small portion of his army, while with the main body he marched on Bilbao, in order to rouse Biscay to a second revolt, and to turn the right flank of the French along the sea-shore. Accordingly he sent his ‘vanguard’ and ‘reserve’ brigades towards Burgos, by the road that passes by Oña and Briviesca, while with four complete divisions he moved on Bilbao. On the twentieth his leading column turned out of that town General Monthion, who was in garrison there with a weak brigade of details and detachments.

Here at last, as it seemed to Joseph Bonaparte and to Jourdan, was the long-expected main attack of the Spaniards. Accordingly they concentrated to their right, with the object of meeting it. Bessières evacuated Burgos and drew back to the line of the Upper Ebro. He there replaced the King’s reserve, and the incomplete corps that was forming at Miranda and Vittoria under the command of Marshal Ney: thus these troops became available for operations in Biscay. Ney, with two small infantry divisions, marched on Bilbao by way of Durango: Joseph, with the reserve, followed him. But when the Marshal reached the Biscayan capital, the division of Blake’s army[397], which had occupied it for the last six days, retired and took up a defensive attitude in the hills above Valmaceda, twenty miles to the west. Here it was joined by a second division of the Galician army[398], and stood fast in a very difficult country abounding in strong positions. Ney therefore held back, unwilling to attack a force that might be 30,000 strong (for all that he knew) with the 10,000 men that he had brought. Clearly he must wait for King Joseph and the reserve, in case he should find that Blake’s whole army was in front of him.

But the King and his corps failed to appear: Bessières had sent to inform him that Blake, far from having moved his whole army on to Bilbao, had still got the bulk of it in positions from which he could march down the Ebro and attack Miranda and Vittoria. This was to a certain extent true, for the first and second divisions of the Galician army were now at Villarcayo, on the southern side of the Cantabrian hills, a spot from which they could march either northward to Bilbao or eastward to Miranda. Moreover, Blake’s ‘reserve’ and ‘vanguard’ brigades were still about Frias and Oña, whither they had been pushed before the French evacuated Burgos. Bessières, therefore, had much to say in favour of his view, that the point of danger was in the Ebro valley and not in Biscay. King Joseph, convinced by his arguments, left Ney unreinforced, and took post with the 6,000 men of the central reserve at Vittoria. His conclusion that Bilbao was not the true objective of the Spaniards was soon confirmed by other movements of the enemy. The feeble columns of Castaños were at last showing on the Central Ebro, and Palafox was on the move on the side of Aragon.

Under the idea that all Blake’s Biscayan expedition had been no more than a feint and a diversion, and that the real blow would be struck on the Ebro, Jourdan and the King now directed Ney to come back from Bilbao and to take up his old positions. The Marshal obeyed: leaving General Merlin with 3,000 men in the Biscayan capital, he returned with 7,000 bayonets to La Guardia, on the borders of Alava and Navarre. His old head quarters at Logroño, beyond the Ebro, had been occupied by the head of one of Castaños’s columns. He did not attack this force, but merely encamped opposite it, on the northern bank of the river [October 5][399].