A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809

by Charles Oman

On March 10, when he was left to his own resources, Ney had concentrated the greater part of his corps in the north-western corner of Galicia. He had placed one brigade at Lugo, a second with Fournier’s dragoons at Mondonedo, in observation of the Asturias, a third at Santiago, the remainder at Corunna and Ferrol. The outlying posts had been called in, save a garrison at Villafranca, the important half-way stage between Lugo and Astorga, where the Marshal had left a battalion of the 26th regiment, to keep open his communication with the plains of Leon. The insurgents were already so active that touch with this detachment was soon lost, the peasants having cut the road both east and west of Villafranca.

The whole month of March was spent in a ceaseless endeavour to keep down the rising in Northern Galicia: the southern parts of the kingdom had been practically abandoned, and the French had no hold there save through the garrisons of Tuy and Vigo, both of which (as we have seen in an earlier chapter) were blockaded by the local levies the moment that Soult had passed on into Portugal.

Ney’s object was to crush and cow the insurgents of Northern Galicia by the constant movement of flying columns, which marched out from the towns when his brigades were established, and made descents on every district where the peasantry had assembled in strength. This policy had little success: it was easy to rout the Galicians and to burn their villages, but the moment that the column had passed on the enemy returned to occupy his old positions. The campaign was endless and inconclusive: it was of little use to kill so many scores or hundreds of peasants, if no attempt was made to hold down the districts through which the expedition had passed. This could not be done for sheer want of numbers: 16,000 men were not sufficient to garrison the whole of the mountain valleys and coast villages of this rugged land. The French columns went far afield, even as far as Corcubion on the headland of Cape Finisterre, and Ribadeo on the borders of Asturias: but though they scathed the whole region with fire and sword, they made no impression. Moreover, they suffered serious losses: every expedition lost a certain number of stragglers cut off by the peasantry, and of foragers who had wandered too far from the main body in search of food. All were murdered: for the populace, mad at the burning of their homes and the lifting of their cattle—their only wealth—never gave quarter to the unfortunate soldiers who fell into their hands.

It is curious and interesting to compare Ney’s actual operations with the orders which the Emperor had sent to him[460]. In these he was directed to establish his head quarters at Lugo, and to leave no more than a regiment at Ferrol and another regiment at Betanzos and Corunna. He was to keep a movable column of three battalions at work between Santiago and Tuy, to ‘make examples’ and prevent the English from landing munitions for the insurgents. With the rest of his corps, five regiments of infantry and a brigade of cavalry, he was to establish himself at Lugo, and from thence to send out punitive expeditions against rebellious villages, to seize hostages, to lend aid if necessary to Soult’s operations in Portugal, and finally ‘to utilize the months of March and April, when there is nothing to fear on the Galician coasts, for an expedition to conquer the Asturias.’ Here we have all Napoleon’s illusions concerning the character of the Peninsular War very clearly displayed. He supposes that a movable column of one regiment can hold down a rugged coast region one hundred miles long, where 20,000 insurgents are in arms. He thinks that punitive expeditions, and the taking of hostages, will keep a province quiet without there being any need to establish garrisons in it. ‘Organize Galicia,’ he writes, ‘make examples, for severe examples well applied are much more effective than garrisons.... Leave the policing of the country to the Spanish authorities. If you cannot occupy every place, you can watch every place: if you cannot hold every shore-battery to prevent communication with the English, you can charge the natives with this duty. Your movable columns will punish any of the people of the coast who behave badly.’

To Ney, when he received this dispatch, many weeks after it had been written, all this elaborate advice must have appeared very futile. Considering the present attitude of the whole population of Galicia, he must have been much amused at the proposal that he should entrust them with the task of keeping off the British, should ‘organize’ them, and ‘make them police themselves.’ As to ‘severe examples’ he had now been burning villages and shooting monks and alcaldes for two months and more: but the only result was that the insurrection flared up more fiercely, and that his own stragglers and foragers were being hung and tortured every day. As to the idea of movable columns, he had (on his own inspiration) sent Maucune to carry out precisely the operations that the Emperor desired in the country between Santiago and Tuy. The column had to fight every day, and held down not one foot of territory beyond the outskirts of its own camp. And now, in the midst of all his troubles, he was ordered to attempt the conquest of the Asturias, no small undertaking in itself. The Emperor’s letter ended with the disquieting note that ‘no further reinforcements can be sent to Galicia. It is much more likely that it may be necessary to transfer to some other point one of the two divisions of the Sixth Corps[461].’

We have hitherto had little occasion to mention the two Spanish regular armies on which Ney, in addition to all his troubles with the insurgents, had to keep a watchful eye. The first was the force in the principality of Asturias, which had been lost to sight since the day on which it fled homeward after the battle of Espinosa. The second consisted of the much-tried troops of La Romana, who since their escape from Monterey had enjoyed some weeks of comparative rest, and were once more ready to move.

The Asturian force was far the larger in point of numbers, and ought to have made its influence felt long ere now. But even more than the other Spaniards, the Asturians were given over to particularism and provincial selfishness. In 1808 they had done nothing for the common cause save that they had lent the single division of Acevedo—comprising about half their provincial levy[462]—to the army which Blake led to defeat in Biscay. After Espinosa this corps had not retired with La Romana to Leon, but had fallen back within the frontier of its native principality, and had joined the large reserve which had never gone forward from Oviedo. During the three winter months, the Asturians had contented themselves with reorganizing and increasing the numbers of their battalions, and with guarding the passes of the Cantabrian chain. They had refused to send either men or money to La Romana, thereby provoking his righteous indignation, and furnishing him with a grudge which he repaid in due season. When he was driven away from their neighbourhood, and forced to retire towards Portugal, they still kept quiet behind their hills, and made but the weakest of attempts to distract the attention of the enemy. There were at first no French forces near them save Bonnet’s single division at Santander, which was fully occupied in holding down the Montaña, and a provisional brigade at Leon consisting of some stray battalions of the dissolved Eighth Corps[463]. As neither of these forces had any considerable reserves behind them[464], when once Ney and Soult had passed on into Galicia, it is clear that a demonstration in force against Santander or Leon would have thrown dismay along the whole line of the French communications, and have disarranged all the Emperor’s plans for further advance.

The only operation, however, which the Asturians undertook was a petty raid into Galicia with 3,000 or 4,000 men, who went to beat up Ney’s detachment at Mondonedo on April 10, and were driven off with ease[465]. The Junta had fully 20,000 men under arms, but they contrived to be weak at every point by trying to guard every point. They had sent, to observe Bonnet, the largest body of their troops, nearly 10,000 men, under General Ballasteros: he had taken up the line of the Deba, and lay with his head quarters at Colombres, skirmishing occasionally with the French outposts. At the pass of Pajares, watching the main road that descends into the plain of Leon, were 3,000 men, and 2,000 more at La Mesa guarded a minor defile. Another division of 4,000 bayonets was at Castropol, facing Ney’s detachment which had occupied Mondonedo: this was the column which had made the feeble advance in April to which we have already alluded. Finally, a Swiss Lieutenant-General named Worster lay at Oviedo, the capital of the principality, with a small reserve of 2,000 men[466]. It does not seem that Cienfuegos, the Captain-General of Asturias, exercised any real authority, as the Junta took upon itself the settling of every detail of military affairs[467]. Thus a whole army was wasted by being distributed all along the narrow province, awaiting an attack from an enemy who was far too weak to dream of advancing, and who, as a matter of fact, did not move till May. La Romana might well be indignant that the Asturians had done practically nothing for the cause of Spain from December to March, especially since they had obtained more than their share of the British arms and money[468] which had been distributed in the autumn of 1808.

Ney’s new troubles in April did not spring from the activity of the Asturian troops, but from that of the much-battered army of Galicia, which was destined in this month to achieve the first success that had cheered its depleted ranks since the combat of Guenes. When La Romana, on March 8, had found himself free from the pursuit of Franceschi’s cavalry, he had marched by leisurely stages to Puebla de Senabria on the borders of Leon. He doubted for a moment whether he should not turn southward and drop down, along the edge of Portugal, to Ciudad Rodrigo, the nearest place of strength in Spanish hands. But, after much consideration, he resolved to leave behind him the weakest of his battalions and his numerous sick, together with his small provision of artillery, and to strike back into Galicia with the best of his men. It would seem that he was inspired partly by the desire of cutting Ney’s communications, partly by the wish to get into touch with the Asturians, whose torpidity he was determined to stir up into action. Accordingly he left at Puebla de Senabria his guns and about 2,000 men, the skeletons of many ruined regiments, under General Martin La Carrera, while with the 6,000 infantry that remained he resolved to cross the Sierra Negra and throw himself into the upper valley of the Sil. The road by Corporales and the sources of the Cabrera torrent proved to be abominable; if the army had possessed cannon or baggage it could not have reached its goal. But after several hard marches La Romana descended to Ponferrada on March 16. He learnt that the insurrection had compelled the French to concentrate all their small posts, and that there was no enemy nearer than Villafranca on the one hand and Astorga on the other. Thus he found himself able to take possession of the high-road from Astorga to Lugo, and to make use of all the resources of the Vierzo, and of Eastern Galicia. He might have passed on undisturbed, if he had chosen, to join the Asturians. But learning that the French garrison at Villafranca was completely isolated, he resolved to risk a blow at it, in the hopes that he might reduce it before Ney could learn of his arrival and come down from Lugo to its aid. He was ill prepared for a siege, for he had but one gun with him—a 12-pounder which he had abandoned in January when retreating from Ponferrada to Orense, and which he now picked up intact, with its store of ammunition, at a mountain hermitage, where it had been safely hidden for two months.

Marching on Villafranca next day he fell upon the French before they had any conception that there was a hostile force in their neighbourhood. He beat them out of the town into the citadel after a sharp skirmish, and then surrounded them in their refuge, and began to batter its gates with his single gun. If the garrison could have held out for a few days they would probably have been relieved, for Ney was but three marches distant. But the governor, regarding the old castle as untenable against artillery, surrendered at the first summons. Thus La Romana captured a whole battalion of the 6th Léger, 600 strong[469], together with several hundreds more of convalescents and stragglers who had been halted at Villafranca, owing to the impossibility of sending small detachments through the mountains[470] when the insurgents were abroad[471].