While the movements of Soult and Ney were developing, Napoleon remained at Burgos. He stayed there in all for ten days, while his army passed by, each corps that arrived pressing forward along the high-road to Madrid by Lerma as far as Aranda. His advance on the Spanish capital was not to begin till he was certain how Blake and Castaños had fared, and whether there was any considerable body of the enemy interposed between him and the point at which he was about to strike. Meanwhile his correspondence shows a feverish activity devoted to subjects of the most varied kind. A good many hours were devoted to drawing up a scheme for the restoration of the citadel of Burgos: it was the Emperor’s own brain which planned the fortifications that proved such an obstacle to Wellington four years later in September, 1812. It was in these days also that Napoleon dictated the last reply sent to Canning with regard to the peace negotiations that had been started at Erfurt. At the same moment he was commenting on the Code Napoléon, organizing the grand-duchy of Berg, ordering the assembly of Neapolitan troops for a descent on Sicily, regulating the university of Pisa, and drawing up notes on the internal government of Spain for the benefit of his brother Joseph[464]. But the most characteristic of all his actions was a huge piece of ‘commandeering’ of private property. Burgos was the great distributing centre for the wool-trade of Spain: here lay the warehouses of the flock-masters, who owned the great herds of merino sheep that feed upon the central plateaux of Castile. There were 20,000 bales of wool in the city, not government stores but purely private accumulations. The Emperor seized it all and sold it in France, gloating over the fact that it was worth more than 15,000,000 francs[465].
Neither of the flanking expeditions which the Emperor sent out quite fulfilled his expectations, but that of Soult was worked far more successfully than that of Ney. The Duke of Dalmatia’s corps marched sixty miles over bad Spanish roads in three days—a great feat for infantry—and reached Canduelas close to Reynosa on November 13. If Blake had not already been flying for his life before Victor, he must have been intercepted. But he had made such headlong speed that he had already reached Reynosa only twenty-four hours after his defeat at Espinosa. He had hoped to refit and reorganize his army by means of the vast accumulation of stores collected there, for he had left both Victor and Lefebvre far behind, and calculated on getting several days’ rest. His first act was to begin to evacuate his artillery, baggage, and wounded on to Leon by the road of Aguilar del Campo and Saldaña. He intended to follow with the infantry[466], but on the morning of November 14 Soult’s advanced cavalry came upon the flank of the great slow-moving convoy, and captured a considerable part of it. The Asturian general, Acevedo, lying wounded in his carriage, was slain, it is said, by Debelle’s dragoons, along with many other unfortunates. Much of the artillery and all the baggage was taken. The news of this disaster showed Blake that his only road into the plain was cut: no retreat on Leon was any longer possible. At the same moment the approach of Victor along the Espinosa road and of Lefebvre along the Villarcayo road was reported to him. It seemed as if he was doomed to destruction or capture, for all the practicable roads were cut, and the army, though a little heartened up by two days of regular rations at Reynosa, was in the most disorganized condition. But making a desperate appeal to the patriotism of his men, Blake abandoned all his stores, all his wheeled vehicles, even his horses, and struck up by a wild mountain track into the heart of the Asturian hills. He went by the gorge of Cabuerniga, along the rocky edge of the Saja torrent, and finally reached the sea near Santillana. This forced march was accomplished in two days of drenching rain, and without food of any kind save a few chestnuts and heads of maize obtained in the villages of this remote upland. If anything was needed to make Blake’s misery complete it was to be met, at Renedo[467] [November 15], by the news that he was superseded by La Romana, who came with a commission from the Junta to take command of the army of Galicia. After the receipt of the intelligence of Zornoza, the Government had disgraced the Irish general, and given his place to the worthy Marquis. But the latter did not assume the command for some days, and it was left to Blake to get his army out of the terrible straits in which it now lay. On nearing the coast he obtained a little more food for his men from the English vessels that had escaped from Santander[468], waited for his stragglers to come up, and, when he had 7,000 men collected, resumed his march. He sent the wrecks of the Asturian division back to their own province, but resolved to return with the rest of his army to the southern side of the Cantabrian Mountains, so as to cover the direct road from Burgos to Galicia. He had quite shaken off his pursuers, and had nothing to fear save physical difficulties in his retreat. But these were severe enough to try the best troops, and Blake’s men, under-fed, destitute of great-coats and shoes, and harassed by endless marching, were in a piteous state: although they had not thrown away their muskets, very few had a dry cartridge left in their boxes[469]. An English officer who accompanied them described them as ‘a half-starved and straggling mob, without officers, and all mixed in utter confusion[470].’ The snow was now lying deep on the mountains, and the road back to the plains of Leon by Potes and Pedrosa was almost as bare and rough as that by which the troops had saved themselves from the snare at Reynosa. Nevertheless Blake’s miserable army straggled over the defile across the Peñas de Europa, reached the upper valley of the Esla, and at last got a few days of rest in cantonments around Leon. Here La Romana took up the command, and by December 4 was at the head of 15,000 men. This total was only reached by the junction of outlying troops, for there had come into Leon a few detachments from the rear, and that part of the artillery and its escort which had escaped Soult’s cavalry at Aguilar del Campo. Of Blake’s original force, even after stragglers had come up, there were not 10,000 left: that so many survived is astonishing when we consider the awful march that they had accomplished[471]. Between November 1 and 23 they had trudged for three hundred miles over some of the roughest country in Europe, had crossed the watershed of the Cantabrian Mountains thrice[472] (twice by mere mule-tracks), wading through rain and snow for the greater part of the time, for the weather had been abominable. For mere physical difficulty this retreat far exceeded Moore’s celebrated march to Corunna, but it is fair to remember that Blake had shaken off his pursuers at Reynosa, while the English general was chased by an active enemy from first to last.
While the unhappy army of Galicia was working out its salvation over these rough paths, Soult’s corps had fared comparatively well. On reaching Reynosa on November 14 the Duke of Dalmatia had come into possession of an enormous mass of plunder, the whole of the stores and munitions of Blake’s army. Among the trophies were no less than 15,000 new English muskets and thirty-five unhorsed field-guns. The food secured maintained the 2nd Corps for many days: it included, as an appreciative French consumer informs us, an enormous consignment of excellent Cheshire cheese, newly landed at Santander[473]. At Reynosa Soult’s arrival was followed by that of Victor and Lefebvre, who rode in at the head of their corps the day after the place had been occupied [November 15]. There was no longer any chance of catching Blake, and the assembly of 50,000 men in this quarter was clearly unnecessary. The Emperor sent orders to Victor to march on Burgos and join the main army, and to Lefebvre to drop down into the plains as far as Carrion, from whence he could threaten Benavente and Leon[474]. Soult, whose men were much less exhausted than those of the other two corps, was charged with the occupation of Santander and the pursuit of Blake. He marched by the high-road to the sea, just in time to see seventeen British ships laden with munitions of war sailing out of the harbour[475]. But he captured, nevertheless, a large quantity of valuable stores, which were too heavy to be removed in a hurry [November 16].
The Marshal left Bonnet’s division at Santander, with orders to clear the surrounding district and to keep open the road to Burgos. With the rest of his troops he marched eastward along the coast, trying to get information about Blake’s movements. At San Vincente de la Barquera he came upon the wrecks of the Asturian division which Blake had left behind him when he turned south again into the mountains. They fled in disorder the moment that they were attacked, and the principality seemed exposed without any defence to the Marshal’s advance. But Soult did not intend to lose touch with his master, or to embark on any unauthorized expedition. When he learnt that the Galician army had returned to the plains he followed their example, and crossed the Cantabrian Mountains by a track over the Sierras Albas from Potes to Cervera, almost as impracticable as the parallel defile over which Blake had escaped. Coming down on to the upper valley of the Pisuerga he reached Saldaña, where he was again in close communication with Lefebvre.
Blake and his army might now be considered as being out of the game; they were so dispersed and demoralized that they required no more attention. But there was as yet no news of Ney, who had been sent to execute the turning movement against Castaños, which corresponded to the one that Soult had carried out against the Galicians. Meanwhile more troops continued to come up to Burgos, ready for the Emperor’s great central march on Madrid. King Joseph and his Guards had arrived there as early as the twelfth; Victor came down from Reynosa on the twenty-first[476], and on the same day appeared the division of dragoons commanded by Lahoussaye[477]. The belated corps of Mortier and Junot were reported to be nearing Bayonne: both generals received orders to march on Burgos, after equipping their men for a serious winter campaign. Independent of the large bodies of men which were still kept out on the two flanks under Soult and Lefebvre, Moncey and Ney, there would soon be 100,000 bayonets and sabres ready for the decisive blow at the Spanish capital.
SECTION VII: CHAPTER V
TUDELA
Having narrated the misfortunes of Blake and of Belvedere, we must now turn to the eastern end of the Spanish line, where Castaños and Palafox had been enjoying a brief and treacherous interval of safety, while their friends were being hunted over the Cantabrian Mountains and the plains of Old Castile. From October 26-27—the days when Ney and Moncey drove Castaños’ advanced troops back over the Ebro—down to November 21, the French in Navarre made no further movement. We have seen that it was essential to Napoleon’s plan of campaign that the armies of Andalusia and Aragon should be left unmolested in the dangerous advanced position which they were occupying, till measures should have been taken to cut them off from Madrid and to drive them back against the roots of the Pyrenees. The Emperor had left opposite to them the whole of Moncey’s corps, one division of Ney’s corps (that of Lagrange), and the cavalry of Colbert and Digeon[478]—in all about 27,000 bayonets and 4,500 sabres. They had strict orders to act merely as a containing force: to repel any attack that the Spaniards might make on the line of the Ebro or the Aragon, but not to advance till they should receive the orders from head quarters.
The initiative therefore had passed back to the Spanish generals: it was open to them to advance once more against the enemy, if they chose to be so foolish. Their troops were in very bad order for an offensive campaign. Many of them (like Blake’s men) had never received great-coats or winter clothing, and were facing the November frosts and the incessant rain with the light linen garments in which they had marched up from the south. An English observer, who passed through the camps of Palafox and Castaños at this moment, reports that while the regulars and the Valencian troops seemed fairly well clad, the Aragonese, the Castilians, and the Murcians were suffering terribly from exposure. The Murcians in especial were shivering in light linen shirts and pantaloons, with nothing but a striped poncho to cover them against the rain[479]. Hence came a terrible epidemic of dysentery, which thinned the ranks when once the autumn began to melt into winter. The armies of Castaños and Palafox should have counted 53,000 men at least when the fighting at last began. It seems doubtful whether they actually could put much over 40,000 into the field. Castaños claims that at Tudela his own ‘Army of the Centre’ had only 26,000 men in line, and the Aragonese about 16,000. It is probable that the figures are almost correct.