But his plans for the reorganization of Spain only formed a part of the Emperor’s work at Chamartin. He was also busied in the reconcentration of his armies, for the purpose of overrunning those parts of the Peninsula which still remained unconquered. On the very morrow of the fall of Madrid he had pushed out detachments in all directions, to cover all the approaches to the capital, and to hunt down any remnants of the Spanish armies which might still be within reach[537]. He was particularly hopeful that he might catch the army of the Centre, which, with Ney and Maurice Mathieu at its heels, was coming in from the direction of Siguenza and Calatayud. To intercept it the fusiliers of the Guard marched for Alcala, one of Victor’s divisions for Guadalajara, and another for Aranjuez; while Bessières with the Guard cavalry, and one of Latour-Maubourg’s brigades of dragoons, swept all the country around the Tajuna and the Tagus. But, as we have already seen, La Peña’s famishing men ultimately got away in the direction of Cuenca. When it was certain that they had escaped from the net, Napoleon rearranged his forces on the eastern side of Madrid. Bessières, with Latour-Maubourg’s whole division of dragoons[538], occupied cantonments facing at once towards Cuenca and towards La Mancha: the Marshal’s head quarters, on December 11, were at Tarancon. Of Victor’s infantry, one division (Ruffin) marched on Toledo, which opened its gates without resistance; another, that of Villatte, remained at Aranjuez with an advanced guard at Ocaña, a few miles further south. The third division of the 1st Corps, that of Lapisse, remained at Madrid. Ney’s troops were also at hand in this quarter: when La Peña had finally escaped from him, he was told to leave the division of Dessolles at Guadalajara and Siguenza. These forces were destined to keep open the communications between Madrid and Aragon, where the siege of Saragossa was just about to begin. With his other two divisions, those of Marchand and Maurice Mathieu[539], Ney was directed to march into Madrid: he was to form part of the mass of troops which the Emperor was collecting, in and about the capital, for new offensive operations. For this same purpose the 4th Corps, that of Lefebvre, was brought up from Old Castile: the Marshal with his two leading divisions, those of Sebastiani and Leval, arrived in Madrid on December 9: his third division, that of Valence, composed of Poles, was some way to the rear, having only reached Burgos on December 1. But by the thirteenth the whole corps was concentrated at Madrid. A few days later the divisions of Sebastiani and Valence were pushed on to Talavera, as if to form the advanced guard of an expedition against Estremadura, while that of Leval remained in Madrid[540]. Talavera had been occupied, before the Duke of Dantzig’s arrival, by the cavalry of Lasalle and Milhaud, who drove out of it without difficulty the demoralized troops that had murdered San Juan. This mob, now under the orders of Galluzzo, the Captain-General of Estremadura, fled behind the Tagus and barricaded the bridges of Arzobispo and Almaraz, to cover its front.
It will thus be seen that the troops of Victor, Lefebvre, and Dessolles, with the cavalry of Latour-Maubourg, Lasalle, and Milhaud thrown out in front of them, formed a semicircle protecting Madrid to the east, the south, and the south-west. On the north-west, in the direction of the Guadarrama and the roads towards the kingdom of Leon, the circle was completed by a brigade of Lahoussaye’s division of dragoons, who lay in and about Avila[541]. In the centre, available for a blow in any direction, were the whole of the Imperial Guard (horse and foot), Ney’s corps, Lapisse’s division of Victor’s corps, and Leval’s division of Lefebvre’s corps, besides King Joseph’s Guards—a total of at least 40,000 men. It only needed the word to be given, and these troops (after deducting a garrison for Madrid) could march forward, either to join Lefebvre for a blow at Lisbon, or Victor for a blow at Seville.
Meanwhile there were still reinforcements coming up from the rear: the belated corps of Mortier, the last great instalment of the army of Germany, had at last reached Vittoria, accompanied by the division of dragoons of Lorges. The Marshal was directed to take his corps to Saragossa, in order to assist Lannes and Moncey in the siege of that city; but the dragoons were sent to Burgos on the road to Madrid. Moreover Junot’s corps, after having been refitted and reorganized since its return from Portugal, was also available. Its leading division, that of Delaborde, had crossed the Bidassoa on December 4, and had now reached Burgos. The other two divisions, those of Loison and Heudelet (who had replaced Travot at the head of the 3rd Division) were not far behind. They could all be brought up to Madrid by the first day of January. The last division of reserve cavalry, Millet’s four regiments of dragoons, was due a little later, and had not yet crossed the frontier.
That the Emperor believed that there was no serious danger to be apprehended from the side of Leon and Old Castile, is shown by the fact that he allotted to these regions only the single corps of Soult. Nor had the Duke of Dalmatia even the whole of his troops in hand, for the division of Bonnet was immobilized in Santander, and only those of Merle and Mermet were near his head quarters at Carrion. The cavalry that properly belonged to his corps were detached, under Lasalle, in New Castile. Instead of them he had been assigned the four regiments forming the division of Franceschi[542]. He was promised the aid of Millet’s dragoons when they should arrive, but this would not be for some three weeks at the least. Nevertheless, with the 15,000 foot and 1,800 or 2,000 light cavalry at his disposal, Soult was told that he commanded everything from the Douro to the Bay of Biscay, and that he might advance at once into Leon, as there was nothing in his way that could withstand him[543]. As far as the Emperor knew, the only hostile force in this direction was the miserable wreck of Blake’s army, which had been rallied by La Romana on the Esla. In making this supposition he was gravely mistaken, and if Soult had obeyed his orders without delay, and advanced westward from Carrion, he would have found himself in serious trouble; for, as we shall presently see, the English from Salamanca were in full march against him at the moment when the Emperor dispatched these instructions. It was in the valley of the Douro, and not (as Bonaparte intended) in that of the Tagus that the next developments of the winter campaign of 1808 were to take place.
It remains only to speak of the north-east. The Emperor was determined that Saragossa should pay dearly for the renown that it had won during its first siege. He directed against it not only Moncey’s force, the troops which had won Tudela, but the whole of Mortier’s 5th Corps. One of its divisions was to take post at Calatayud, relieving Musnier’s eight battalions at that point, and to keep open (with the aid of Dessolles) the road from Saragossa to Madrid: but the rest would be available to aid in the siege. More than 40,000 men were to be turned against Palafox and the stubborn Aragonese. With Catalonia we need not deal in this place: the operations in the principality had little or no connexion with those in the rest of Spain. St. Cyr and Duhesme, with the 7th Corps, had to work out their own salvation. They were not to expect help from the Emperor, nor on the other hand were they expected to assist him for the present, though it was hoped that some day they might invade Aragon from the side of Lerida.
Looking at the disposition of the French troops on December 15-20, we can see that the Emperor had it in his power to push the central mass at Madrid, supported by the oncoming reserves under Junot and Lorges, either to support Lefebvre on the road to Lisbon, or Victor on the road to Seville. As a matter of fact there can be no doubt that the former was his intention. He was fully under the impression that the English army was at this moment executing a hasty retreat upon Portugal, and he had announced that his next move was to hurl them into the sea. ‘Tout porte à penser que les Anglais sont en pleine marche rétrograde,’ he wrote to Soult on December 10. On December 12 he issued in his Bulletin the statement that the ‘English are in full flight towards Lisbon, and if they do not make good speed the French army may enter that capital before them[544].’ If anything was wanted to confirm the Emperor in his idea that the English were not likely to be heard of in the north, it was the capture by Lasalle’s cavalry of eight stragglers belonging to the King’s German Legion near Talavera. ‘When we catch Hanoverians the English cannot be far off,’ he observed[545], and made all his arrangements on the hypothesis that Moore would be met in the valley of the Tagus, and not in that of the Douro. In so doing he was breaking one of his own precepts, that censuring generals ‘qui se font des tableaux’ concerning their enemy’s position and intentions, before they have sufficient data upon which to form a sound conclusion. All that he really knew about Moore and his army was that they had reached Salamanca in the middle of November, and had been joined towards the end of the month by Hope’s column that marched—as we shall presently relate—via Badajoz and the Escurial. Of the existence of this last division we have clear proof that Bonaparte was aware, for he inserted a silly taunt in the Bulletin of December 5 to the effect that ‘the conduct of the British had been dishonourable. Six thousand of them were at the Escurial on November 20: the Spaniards hoped that they would aid in the defence of the capital of their allies. But they did not know the English: as soon as the latter heard that the Emperor was at the Somosierra they beat a retreat, joined the division at Salamanca, and retired towards the sea-coast.’ There is also no doubt that the Emperor had received intelligence of a more or less definite sort concerning the landing of Baird’s division at Corunna. It is vaguely alluded to in the 10th Bulletin, and clearly spoken of in the Madrid Gazette of December 17[546]. But though aware of the existence of all the three fractions of the British army, Bonaparte could draw no other deduction from the facts at his disposal than that the whole of them would promptly retreat to Portugal, when the passage of the Somosierra and the fall of Madrid became known to their commander-in-chief. Lisbon, he thought, must be their base of operations, and on it they must retire: he had forgotten that one of the advantages of sea-power is that the combatant who possesses it can transfer his base to any port that he may choose. So far from being tied to Lisbon was Moore, that he at one moment contemplated making Cadiz his base, and finally moved it to Corunna.
With pre-conceived ideas of this sort in his head, the Emperor was preparing to push on his main body in support of the advanced troops under Lefebvre and Lasalle on the road to Estremadura and Portugal. Victor meanwhile was to guard against the unlikely chance of any move being made on Madrid by the shattered ‘Army of the Centre’ from Cuenca, or by new Andalusian levies. Already Lasalle’s horsemen were pushing on to Truxillo and Plasencia, almost to the gates of Badajoz and to the Portuguese frontier, when unexpected news arrived, and the whole plan of campaign was upset.
Instead of retiring on Lisbon, Sir John Moore had pushed forward into the plains of Old Castile, and was advancing by forced marches to attack the isolated corps of Marshal Soult. Bonaparte was keenly alive, now as always, to the danger of a defeat in the valley of the Douro. Moreover the sight of a British army in the field, and within striking distance, acted on him as the red rag acts upon the bull. No toil or trouble would be too great that ended in its destruction, and looking at his maps the Emperor thought that he saw the way to surround and annihilate Moore’s host. Throwing up without a moment’s delay the whole plan for the invasion of Portugal, he marched for the passes of the Guadarrama with every man that was disposable at Madrid. His spirits were high, and the event seemed to him certain. He sent back to his brother Joseph the command to put in the Madrid newspapers and circulate everywhere the news that 36,000 English troops were surrounded and doomed to destruction[547]. Meanwhile, with 50,000 men at his back, he was marching hard for Arevalo and Benavente.