The full results of the disaster were only developed next day: the troops which had defended the central passes escaped, though in dreadful disorder. But those further to their right were destined to a worse fate. While Mortier and the King were forcing the great defiles, Sebastiani had been fighting all day with Vigodet, in the defiles about Montizon and St. Esteban del Puerto. He had no such superiority in numbers over his enemy as had the King on the main field of operations[134], hence his progress was slower, and his victory, though complete, was not so prompt and crushing. Vigodet and his 6,000 men were dispersed by the afternoon, and fled down the valley of the Guadalen towards the plains, with Sebastiani’s cavalry in pursuit. Having fought much longer than Lacy and Giron, their losses were heavier than those of the central division—probably 1,000 killed, wounded, or taken. Shortly after, there appeared on the scene, moving along the steep hill-path from La Carolina, the Spanish division of Castejon, which had been sent off on the previous night to support Vigodet. It found the St. Esteban position in the possession of the French, and turned hastily back to rejoin Areizaga. But, while it had been on the march, the Commander-in-Chief and his army had been routed, and La Carolina was in the hands of the French. Castejon found himself enclosed between Sebastiani and the King, in a most perilous position. On the morning of the 21st, he tried to escape by the by-path to Linares, but on arriving near that place found that Mortier’s troops were already across his road. A brigade of Sebastiani’s corps was in hot pursuit in his rear, and Castejon, seeing himself thus enclosed, surrendered at Arquillos, with his whole intact division of over 4,000 men and ten guns.
Already, before the capture of this Spanish corps, the King and Sebastiani had joined hands, their reconnoitring parties having met in the valley of the Guadalen. On learning of the complete success of both columns, Joseph and Soult resolved to urge the pursuit in two separate directions. Sebastiani was told to push forward by way of Ubeda and Baeza to Jaen, while the main column marched by Baylen on Andujar and Cordova. It was hoped that news of Victor would soon be received: if all had gone well, he would have reached the Guadalquivir somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cordova, so as to be in the rear of any Spanish force that might have retreated from La Carolina in the direction of Seville.
As a matter of fact, however, both Vigodet and also Areizaga with the wreck of the troops from the central passes, had abandoned any hope of covering Seville, and had retreated southwards on Jaen. There was no force whatever left upon the Cordova road, and the King met no resistance upon the 22nd or the 23rd. On the latter day Sebastiani, arriving in front of Jaen, found the Spanish commander-in-chief with some 7,000 or 8,000 men prepared to defend the town. He attacked at once, and routed these dispirited troops, who made little or no show of resistance. Practically the whole force went to pieces: the French captured forty-six guns, mostly those of the reserve-park of the Army of Andalusia, which had been deposited in Jaen. Of the wrecks of that unhappy force, Areizaga carried off a small remnant to Guadix in the eastern mountains, near the borders of Murcia. Lacy, with another fraction, retired on Granada. But the large majority had left their colours, and dispersed to their homes.
King Joseph and Soult meanwhile, advancing unopposed along the high-road to Cordova and Seville, got into touch at Andujar with the advanced cavalry of Victor on the night of the 22nd of January. The march of the 1st Corps had been toilsome in the extreme, but almost unopposed save by the difficulties of the road. After driving Zerain’s little detachment out of Almaden on the 15th, they had hardly seen an enemy. Zerain and his colleague Copons had retired by the road towards Seville south-westward. Victor, though he sent out flying parties of cavalry to threaten Benalcazar and Hinojosa, to his right, had really pushed further to the left, on the easternmost of the two rough passes which lead to Cordova. The day after leaving Almaden he had sent his artillery back to La Mancha, the dilapidated and abandoned road to which he had committed himself proving absolutely impracticable for anything that travelled on wheels. But he pushed on with his infantry and horsemen, and passing Santa Eufemia, Torrecampo and Villanueva de la Jara, came down into the plain of the Guadalquivir at Adamuz, fifteen miles to the east of Cordova, on January 21st, the day after Soult and King Joseph had forced the Despeña Perros and the Puerto del Rey. Wishing to get into touch with them before attacking Cordova, he halted his infantry, but sent out his cavalry to the gates of that city on the one side, and on the other to Montoro and Andujar, where they met the vedettes of the main army on the evening of the 22nd. Thus the French host was once more concentrated: the march on Seville could be continued without delay. Victor now became the advanced guard: he entered Cordova, which opened its gates without resistance, on the 24th. There was no Spanish force in front of the French army, since Zerain and Copons had retired towards Seville by a road far to the west, while the wrecks of Areizaga’s army had been driven off in a south-easterly direction.
Soult and King Joseph, therefore, had leisure to plan out the remainder of their campaign without any disturbance from the enemy. On the 25th[135] they resolved to detach Sebastiani and his 10,000 men for the conquest of Granada, to leave Dessolles’ division at Cordova and Andujar, but to march on Seville in a single mass with the remaining 50,000 sabres and bayonets of the Army of Andalusia. The desire to seize the capital from which the Junta had so long defied him, seems to have mastered every other idea in the mind of the intrusive King. The rebel government should be captured, or at least forced to take refuge in Portugal or the sea. Then at last the provinces would submit, the regular armies would lay down their arms, the guerrillero bands would disperse to their homes, and he might reign as a real king, not as the mere tool of his imperious brother. The capture of Seville would be the last act but one of the drama: after that he would become the national monarch of a submissive people, and carry out all the schemes of vague benevolence on which his mind was wont to dwell in his more hopeful hours. That the resistance would continue, even if Seville were his own and the Junta were scattered and discredited, he did not dream. And Seville, he knew, must fall; to defend it there could be, as he concluded, nothing but a half-armed mob, backed by the few thousand dispirited soldiers who had fled before Victor from the western section of the Sierra Morena. Even if the rebel capital made itself a second Saragossa, he had at his disposal an army double the strength of that which had reduced the obstinate Aragonese city.
In subsequent years critics, wise after the event, never tired of declaiming against the policy which Joseph and Soult approved on January 25, 1810. It was easy in 1811 or 1812 to point out that a division or two might have been spared from the victorious army to execute a march upon Cadiz, while the main force was dealing with Seville. The island-fortress, which was to defy the French during the next three years, might have been caught while it was still ungarrisoned and panic-stricken, if only the invaders had detached a column from Carmona, where the road from Cordova bifurcates to Seville on the right and Cadiz on the left. It is certain that, if any suggestion to that effect was made at the time, Soult, Mortier, and the other generals present at the council of war passed it over[136]. The fact was that Seville loomed large before the imaginations of them all: Cadiz seemed but a secondary affair at the moment. It appeared probable that the whole of the scattered forces of the enemy would mass themselves to defend the insurgent capital. On January 25th, when the original plan was drawn up, no one realized that there was a Spanish army approaching, whose presence in Andalusia had not yet become known, or that the general of that army would deliberately leave Seville to its fate, as incapable of defence and doomed to destruction, and hasten by forced marches to throw himself into the island-city which was destined to become the new capital of insurgent Spain. Unable to foresee such a development, Joseph wrote to his brother on January 27 that Seville would probably submit without fighting, and that he would then enter Cadiz ‘sans coup férir.’
Albuquerque’s operations, which ultimately turned out to be the most important section of the Andalusian campaign, need a word of explanation. It will be remembered that, early in January, he had assembled, at Don Benito and Medellin, the small field-force that he could command, after providing the garrison of Badajoz and leaving a detachment above Almaraz to watch the French 2nd Corps. It did not amount to more than 8,000 men, of which some 1,000 were cavalry. His position at Don Benito was intended to protect the flank of Zerain and Copons, who lay to his right, covering the passes that lead from Almaden on to Cordova. On January 15th he received from Zerain the news that he was about to be attacked at Almaden by a French column of at least 20,000 men. The Duke promptly began to march eastward to join his colleague, and reached Campanario on January 16th. Here he was met by the information that Zerain had been driven out of Almaden on the preceding day, and had drawn back by Benalcazar and Hinojosa on to the Seville road. Copons from Pozo Blanco was retiring in the same direction. The Duke thereupon concluded that his duty was to fall back by a route parallel to that of Victor’s advance, and to draw nearer to Seville, strengthening himself as he approached that city by Zerain’s and Copons’ small corps.
Accordingly he sent off three of his weakest battalions to strengthen the garrison of Badajoz, which was very small at the moment, directed his artillery (with a cavalry escort) to take the good but circuitous high-road to Seville by Merida, Los Santos, and Santa Olalla, and started off across the mountains with his infantry and 500 horse. Marching very rapidly, though the roads were bad and the days short, he moved by Zalamea and Maguilla to Guadalcanal, on the borders of Andalusia, which he reached on January 18th. Here he received from the Central Junta an absurd order, apparently based on the idea that he was still at Campanario, which bade him stop Victor’s advance, by falling on his flank and rear by the road to Agudo and Almaden. But since the marshal had seized Almaden on the 15th, and was known to have moved southward from thence, it was clear that he must now be more than half-way to Cordova: if the Army of Estremadura plunged back into the mountains to seek Agudo and Almaden, it would only reach them on the 22nd or 23rd, and Victor would be at the gates of Cordova on the 21st. The Junta’s order was so hopelessly impracticable that the Duke took upon himself to disobey it, and wrote in reply that he should move so as to place himself between Victor and Seville, and would cover the Andalusian capital ‘so far as was possible with the small force at his disposition.’
Accordingly Albuquerque, instead of returning northward into the Estremaduran mountains, moved a stage further south, to El Pedroso, on the road from Guadalcanal to Seville, and sent orders to Copons and Zerain to join him with their small divisions. Two days later he received the order which should have been sent him on the 18th, instead of the insane directions that were actually given; by it he was directed to march on Seville with all speed. On the 23rd, therefore, he arrived at the ferry of Cantillana, twenty miles north of Seville: here he received news that his artillery and its escort had safely completed its round, and were about to cross the Guadalquivir at Rinconada, fifteen miles to the south. At Cantillana, however, the Duke got the last dispatch which the Central Junta ever issued; it was dated on the 23rd, a few hours before the members dispersed and fled. By this he was directed to march not on Seville but on Cordova, which at the moment the document came to hand—the morning of the 24th—had just been occupied by Victor.
That day Albuquerque crossed the Guadalquivir and occupied Carmona, where he was joined by his artillery, and by part of Copons’ division, but not (apparently) by Zerain’s, which had retired into Seville. He had now about 10,000 men, of whom 1,000 were horsemen, and 20 guns. From Carmona he threw out a cavalry screen on all sides: his vedettes on the 27th struck French cavalry at Ecija, and were driven in; they reported that the enemy was advancing in enormous force from Cordova—as was indeed the case. Meanwhile news had come up from Seville that the Junta had fled on the night of the 23rd-24th, that anarchy reigned in the city, and that a new revolutionary government had been installed. There was no longer any legitimate executive from which orders could be received. Albuquerque had to make up his mind whether he would retire into Seville, and put himself at the disposition of the mob and its leaders, or whether he should seek some safer base of operations. Without a moment’s hesitation he resolved to leave the Andalusian capital to itself, and to retire on Cadiz, which he knew to be ungarrisoned, yet to be absolutely impregnable if it were properly held. This wise resolution, it may be said without hesitation, saved the cause of Spain in the south. If Cadiz had been left unoccupied there would have been no further resistance in Andalusia.