It is now time to review the position and forces of the Spanish armies, which were at last up in the fighting line. Blake’s 32,000 Asturians[400] and Galicians were divided into two masses, at Valmaceda and Villarcayo, on the two sides of the Cantabrian hills. They were within three marches of each other, and the whole could be turned either against Biscay or against Vittoria, as the opportunity might demand. But between Blake and the central divisions of the Spanish army there was a vast gap. This, at a later period of the campaign, was filled up by bringing forward the 12,000 men of the Estremaduran army to Burgos: but this force, insufficient as it was for the purpose, had not reached the front: in the middle of October it had not even arrived at Madrid[401]. There seems to have been at Burgos nothing more than a detached battalion or two, which had occupied the place when Bessières drew back towards the Ebro[402]. Of all the Spanish forces, the nearest organized corps on Blake’s right consisted of the main body of this same army of Castile. This division, for it was no more, consisted of about 10,000 or 11,000 men: it contained a few regular corps (Regiment of Cantabria, a battalion of Grenadiers, the Leon Militia) which had been lent to it by the army of Andalusia, and twelve raw Leonese and Castilian battalions, of the new levy which Cuesta had raised. There were also some 800 cavalry with it. The commander was now Pignatelli, for Eguia (who had originally been told off to the post) had fallen sick. This small and inefficient force was at Logroño on the Central Ebro, having taken possession of that place when it was evacuated by Marshal Ney in the last week of September. A little further down the river lay the 2nd Division of the army of Andalusia, which, under the orders of Coupigny, had taken a creditable part in the battle of Baylen. Released by the Junta of Seville in September, it had at last gone forward and joined Castaños. But it was somewhat changed in composition, for three of its original fourteen battalions had been withdrawn[403] and sent to Catalonia, while three new Andalusian corps had replaced them. Its commander was now General Grimarest, Coupigny having been told off to another sphere of duty. The division numbered about 6,000 bayonets, with 400 or 500 cavalry, and a single battery. It occupied Lodosa, on the north bank of the Ebro, some twelve miles down-stream from Logroño. Quite close to its right there lay at Calahorra the 4th Division of the army of Andalusia, under La Peña—a somewhat stronger force—about 7,500 foot, with 400 horse and two batteries. The only remaining division of Castaños’ ‘Army of the Centre’ consisted of the Murcian and Valencian corps under Llamas. This had entered Madrid 8,000 strong on August 13, but one of its regiments had been left behind at Aranjuez to guard the Junta. It now consisted of no more than 7,000 men, and lay at Tudela, in close touch with La Peña’s Andalusians. The total, therefore, of Castaños’ army in the second half of October did not amount to more than 31,000 foot and 3,000 horse. The 1st and 3rd divisions of the Andalusian army, long detained beyond the Morena by the Junta of Seville, were but just commencing to arrive at Madrid: of their 15,000 men less than half reached the front in November, in time to take their share in the rout of Tudela. Even these were not yet at Castaños’ disposition in October[404].
The right wing of the Spanish army of the Ebro consisted of the raw and half-organized masses composing the army of Aragon. Palafox had succeeded in getting together a great body of men from that loyal province, but he had not been able to form them into a force fit to take the field. Owing to the way in which Aragon had been stripped of regular troops before the commencement of the war, there was no solid body round which the new levies could be organized, and no supply of trained officers to drill or discipline the thousands of eager recruits. It would seem that in all no less than 32,000 were raised, but no force in any degree approaching these numbers took the field. Every village and every mountain valley had contributed its partida or its company, but with the best of wills Palafox had not yet succeeded in incorporating all these small and scattered units into regiments and brigades. Many of them had not even been armed: very few had been properly clothed and equipped. Nevertheless no fewer than thirty-nine battalions in a state of greater or less organization were in existence by the end of October. They varied in strength to the most extraordinary degree: many were no more than 300 strong[405], one or two were enormous and ran up to 1,300 or 1,400 bayonets. Of the whole thirty-nine battalions only three belonged to the old regular army, and these corps—whose total numbers only reached 2,350 men—had been largely diluted with raw recruits[406]. Of the remainder some belonged to the tercios who had taken arms in June, and had served through the first siege of Saragossa, but a large number had only been raised after Verdier had retired from before the city in August. It would seem that the total of Palafox’s Aragonese, who went to the front for the campaign of October and November, was about 12,000 men. The rest were left behind at Saragossa, being not yet organized or equipped for field service.
But Palafox had also in his army troops which did not belong to his native kingdom. These were the Murcians and Valencians of Saint March and O’Neille, who after taking part in the campaign against Moncey, had not marched with Llamas to Madrid, but had turned off to aid in raising the siege of Saragossa. Saint March had brought with him fourteen battalions and a cavalry regiment, O’Neille had with him three more infantry corps. The total of their force reached 11,200 bayonets and 620 sabres. Adding these to the best of his own Aragonese levies, Palafox sent out 23,000 men: of these only about 800 were cavalry[407]. A force such as this, backed by the mass of unorganized levies at Saragossa, was barely sufficient to maintain a defensive position on the frontiers of Aragon. But the Junta, with great unwisdom, came to the conclusion that Palafox was strong enough not only to hold his own against the French in his immediate front, but to spare some troops to reinforce the army of Catalonia. By their orders he told off six battalions—some 4,000 men—who were placed under the command of his brother, the Marquis of Lazan, and dispatched to Lerida with the object of aiding the Captain-General of Catalonia to besiege Duhesme in Barcelona.
Nor was this the only force that was drawn off from the main theatre of the war in order to take part in helping the Catalans, who had hitherto proved quite strong enough to help themselves. The Junta directed Reding, the victor of Baylen, to take command of all the Granadan troops in the army of Andalusia, and lead them to Tortosa with the object of joining Lazan. With Reding there marched nearly 15,000 men[408]: to raise this force all the regiments belonging to the kingdom of Granada had been drafted out from the 1st and 2nd Divisions of Castaños’ army, which were thus mutilated before they reached the Ebro. To those comparatively veteran troops were added eight new battalions of raw levies—the regiments of Baza, Almeria, Loxa, and Santa Fé. Starting on their long march from Granada on October 8, the head of Reding’s column had only reached Murcia on October 22, and was thus hopelessly distant from any point where it could have been useful when the campaign began[409]. Nor was this the last detachment which the Junta directed on Catalonia: it sent thither part of the prisoners from Lisbon, whom the Convention of Cintra had delivered—3,500 of the men who had once formed the division of Caraffa. Laguna, who now held the command, landed from English transports at La Rapita near Tortosa on October 25, and marched from thence on Tarragona[410].
It is safe to say that of these 23,000 men transferred to Catalonia from Aragon, Granada, and Portugal, every man ought to have been pushed forward to help Castaños on the Ebro, and not distracted to the side-issue at Barcelona. It was mad to send them thither when the main force facing Jourdan and King Joseph did not yet amount to 75,000 men. Catalonia, with such small aid as the Balearic Islands could give, was strong enough to defend herself against the motley hordes of Duhesme and Reille.
At the moment when the feeble offensive of Castaños and Palafox began, on the line of the Ebro, the French had some 65,000 men ranged opposite them[411], while a reserve of 10,000 was formed at Bayonne, and the leading columns of the ‘Grand Army’ from Germany were only ten or twelve marches away. Napoleon had, by a decree issued on September 7, recast the form of his army of Spain. It was in the future to consist of seven army corps. The 1st, 4th, and 5th were to be composed of old divisions from the Rhine and the Elbe. Of the forces already on the spot Bessières’ troops were to form the 2nd Corps, Moncey’s the 3rd, the still incomplete divisions under Ney the 6th. The army of Catalonia, where St. Cyr was superseding Reille, formed the 7th Corps[412]. Junot’s army from Portugal, when it once more appeared upon the scene, made the 8th, but in September Napoleon did not yet know of its fate, and it only received its number and its place in the host at a much later date. Many alterations of detail were made in the brigades and divisions that formed the new 2nd and 3rd Corps. All the bataillons de marche were abolished, and their men drafted into the old regiments. The fifteen ‘provisional regiments,’ which had composed the whole of Moncey’s and a considerable part of Bessières’ strength, were taken into the regular establishment of the army, and renumbered as the 114th-120th of the Line and the 33rd Léger, two provisional regiments being told off to form each of the new bodies[413]. There was a certain amount of shifting of units, but in the main the brigades and divisions of these two corps remained intact.
On or about October 8-10 Bessières lay at Miranda and Murguia, guarding against any possible descent of Blake from Villarcayo upon the Upper Ebro. Ney was at La Guardia, facing Pignatelli’s Castilians, who occupied his old head quarters at Logroño. Moncey had thrown back his left to guard against a possible descent of Palafox upon Navarre, and was behind the line of the river Aragon, with his right at Estella, his centre at Falces and Tafalla, and his left facing Sanguesa, where it was opposed by the advanced division of the army of Palafox under O’Neille. For the Captain-General of Aragon, pleased with a plan proposed to him by Colonel Doyle, the English military attaché in his camp, had resolved to make a long turning movement under the roots of the Pyrenees, exactly parallel to that which Blake was executing at the other end of the line. With this object he sent out from Saragossa, on September 29, O’Neille with a division of Aragonese strengthened by a few Murcian and Valencian battalions, and numbering some 9,000 bayonets. This detachment, marching in a leisurely way, reached Sanguesa on the Upper Aragon, but there stopped short, on getting information that Moncey’s corps lay before it in some strength. Palafox then sent up in support a second division, Saint March’s Murcians and Valencians, who advanced to Egea and there halted. There was considerable bickering all through the second half of October on this line, but Sanguesa remained in the hands of the Spaniards, Moncey being too much distracted by the movements of Castaños in the direction of Tudela to dare to concentrate his whole force for a blow at Saint March and O’Neille. The latter, on the other hand, had realized that if they pressed further forward towards Pampeluna, as their commander-in-chief had originally intended, they would leave Moncey so much in their rear that he could cut them off both from Saragossa and from the Army of the Centre. Here then matters had come to a deadlock; but the position was all in favour of the French, who lay compactly in the centre, while O’Neille and Saint March were separated from Castaños by a gap of sixty miles, and Blake on the other wing was about seventy (as the crow flies) from the army of Castile.