The very last military event of the year 1810 on the Andalusian side was a disaster far worse than that of Lord Blayney—suffered by a general whose almost unbroken series of defeats from Medina de Rio Seco down to Belchite ought to have taught him by this time the advantages of caution, and the doubtful policy of risking a demoralized army in a fight upon open ground. When Sebastiani retired from the kingdom of Murcia in the first days of September, Blake had brought back his army to its old positions on the frontier of that realm. Seven weeks later, finding the French line in front of him very weak, he resolved to try a demonstration in force, or perhaps even a serious stroke against the force of the enemy in Granada. On November 2 he crossed the Murcian border, with 8,000 foot and 1,000 horse, and occupied Cullar.
On the next day he was at the gates of Baza, where there were four battalions of the French force which covered Granada[388]. But on the next morning General Milhaud rode up with a powerful body of horsemen, the greater part of his own division of Dragoons and the Polish Lancers from Sebastiani’s corps-cavalry, some 1,300 men in all. Though he had only 2,000 infantry to back him, Milhaud determined to fight at once. Blake’s army invited an attack; it was advancing down the high-road with the cavalry deployed in front, one division of infantry supporting it, while a second division was some miles to the rear, on the hills which separate the plain of Baza from the upland of the Sierra de Oria. A rearguard of 2,000 men was still at Cullar, ten miles from the scene of action. The situation much resembled that of Suchet’s combat of Margalef, and led to the same results. For Milhaud’s squadrons, charging fiercely along and on each side of the road, completely routed Blake’s cavalry, and drove it back on to the leading infantry division, which broke, and was badly cut up before its remnants could take shelter with the other division in reserve on the hill behind. Blake gave the order for an instant retreat, and Milhaud could not follow far among the rocks and defiles. But he had captured a battery of artillery and a thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded some 500 men more, in the few minutes during which the engagement lasted. The French cavalry lost no more than 200 men. The infantry had hardly fired a shot. Blake, not being pursued, retired only as far as the Venta de Bahul on the other side of Cullar, and remained on the Murcian border, cured for a time of his mania for taking the offensive at the head of a demoralized army.
Thus ended the inconclusive campaign of 1810 in Andalusia—the French on the last day of the year held almost precisely the same limits of territory that they had occupied on the 1st of March. They had beaten the enemy in four or five considerable actions, yet had gained nothing thereby. They were beginning to understand that Cadiz was impregnable, and that the complete subjection of the mountains of the South and East was a far more serious task than had been at first supposed. Things indeed had come to a deadlock, and Soult kept reporting to his master that another 25,000 men would be required to enable him to complete his task. Almost as many battalions belonging to the 1st, 4th, and 5th Corps as would have made up that force had been sent by the Emperor into Spain. They were intended to join their regiments in the end, but meanwhile they had been distracted into the 8th and 9th Corps, and were marching in the direction of Portugal, when Soult wished to see them on the Guadalquivir[389]. Very little of the mass of reinforcements which had been poured into the Peninsula in the spring of 1810 had come his way. While the whole battalions had been sent away with Junot or Drouet, the drafts in smaller units had been largely intercepted by the generals along the line of communication. There were 4,000 of such recruits detained in New Castile alone, and formed into ‘provisional battalions’ to garrison Madrid and its neighbourhood. King Joseph must not be blamed too much for thus stopping them on their way: he had been left with an utterly inadequate force, when the Emperor turned off everything on to the direction of Portugal. During the summer and autumn of 1810 there were with him only two French infantry regiments[390], the same number of light cavalry regiments[391], Lahoussaye’s weak division of dragoons[392], and the German division of the 4th Corps less than 4,000 strong, over and above his own guard and untrustworthy ‘juramentado’ battalions[393]. The royal troops numbered about 7,000 men, the other units, including Soult’s detained drafts, about 12,000: with them Joseph had to garrison Madrid, Avila, Segovia, Toledo, and Almaraz, and hold down all New Castile and La Mancha—which last province was described at the time as ‘populated solely by beggars and brigands’. He had the duty of maintaining the sole and very circuitous line of communication between Soult and Masséna, which, after Reynier went north in July, had to be worked via Almaraz. He was frequently annoyed not only by the Empecinado and other guerrilleros, but by Villacampa, who descended from higher Aragon into the Cuenca region, and by Blake’s cavalry, which often raided La Mancha. But his great fear was lest La Romana or Wellington should send troops up the vast gap left between Reynier at Zarza and Coria and Mortier in the Sierra Morena; there was nothing but Lahoussaye’s dragoons and two infantry battalions in the whole district about Almaraz and Talavera, where such a blow would have fallen. It was small wonder that he felt uncomfortable.
But military sources of disquietude formed only the smaller half of King Joseph’s troubles at this date. His political vexations, which engrossed a much larger portion of his time and energy, must be dealt with elsewhere. They will be relegated to the same chapter which treats of the new development of Spanish politics consequent on the long-delayed meeting of the Cortes in the winter of 1810-11.
SECTION XXI
BUSSACO AND TORRES VEDRAS (SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 1810)
CHAPTER I
MASSÉNA’S ADVANCE TO BUSSACO (SEPTEMBER 1810)
After the fall of Almeida Masséna waited much longer than Wellington had anticipated. The reasons for his delay were the usual ones that were always forthcoming when a French army had to advance in the Peninsula—want of transport and penury of supplies. The Marshal had just discovered that the country-side in front of him had already been depopulated by Wellington’s orders, and that the only inhabitants that were to be met would be the armed Ordenança, who were already shooting at his vedettes and attacking his foraging parties. He was inclined to treat them as brigands; his Provost-marshal, Colonel Pavetti, having been surprised and captured along with five gendarmes of his escort by the villagers of Nava d’Avel on September 5, he caused the place to be burned, shot the one or two male inhabitants who could be caught, and issued a proclamation stating that no quarter would be given to combatants without uniforms. This provoked two stiff letters from Wellington[394], who wrote to say that the Ordenança were an integral part of the Portuguese military forces, and that, if they wore no uniforms, the Marshal should remember that many of the revolutionary bands which he had commanded in the old war of 1792-7 were no better equipped: ‘vous devez vous souvenir que vous-même vous avez augmenté la gloire de l’armée Française en commandant des soldats qui n’avaient pas d’uniforme.’ If Ordenança were shot as ‘brigands and highway robbers’ in obedience to the proclamation of September 7, it was certain that French stragglers and foragers would be knocked on the head, and not taken prisoners, by the enraged peasantry. At present the number of them sent in to the British head quarters by the Portuguese irregulars proved that the laws of war were being observed. Masséna replied that Pavetti had been ambushed by men who hid their arms, and ran in upon him and his escort while he was peaceably asking his way. His letter then went off at a tangent, to discuss high politics, and to declare that he was not the enemy of the Portuguese but of the perfidious British government, &c., &c. Finally he complained that the Arganil and Trancoso militia, whom he had sent home after the fall of Almeida, had taken up arms again; if caught, ‘leur sort sera funeste’[395]. The last statement Wellington denied; he said that the capitulation had been annulled by the French themselves, when they debauched the 24th regiment, and detained 600 of the militia to form a battalion of pioneers, but stated that as a matter of fact the militia battalions had not been re-embodied. The French continued to shoot the Ordenança, and the Ordenança soon began to reply by torturing as well as hanging French stragglers; Wellington forbade but could not prevent retaliation.