The capture of this dispatch coincided with the news that Drouet had pushed Daricau and a large body of cavalry towards Zalamea. Hill drew the natural deduction that the French opposite him were at last about to obey the King’s orders, and to march to the Tagus, via Zalamea, Medellin, and Truxillo. ‘The intelligence that I have of the enemy’s movements’ (he wrote to Wellington) ‘indicates his intention of carrying Joseph’s instructions into execution.... I have received information [false as it chanced] that Drouet was yesterday at Zalamea, with his main body, having sent troops by Berlanga and Azuaga. I shall move immediately in the direction of Zalamea.’ That is to say that if Drouet was going off northward towards the King, Hill was prepared to carry out the original instructions which Wellington had left him, and if he could not stop the enemy, would move parallel to him, so as to join his chief before Drouet could transfer himself to the northern sphere of operations. His route would be by Badajoz or Merida and the newly-restored bridge of Alcantara on Ciudad Rodrigo, a much shorter one than that of his opponent. He had just begun to move his left wing in the direction of Merida, when he received a letter from Wellington exactly conforming to his own ideas. If Drouet is making for the Tagus in full force, wrote Wellington, you must take all the cavalry except one English regiment and Campbell’s Portuguese, along with Byng’s and Howard’s brigades of the 2nd Division, and Hamilton’s division, and send orders to have all preparations made at Alcantara to lay down the bridge: your route across the mountains will be by the pass of Perales: you will find elaborate instructions for the further movement at Ciudad Rodrigo. If Drouet only takes a small force, more allied troops may be left in Estremadura; Zafra had better be their head-quarters. Hill would conduct the marching column as far as Perales, and then return to take charge of whatever is left in the South to watch Soult[691].
A few days later it became evident that no general movement of the French towards the Tagus was in progress. Daricau’s infantry and the attached cavalry settled down at and about Zalamea, and pushed nothing but reconnaissances in the direction of the Guadiana—parties of horse appeared about Don Benito and Medellin, but no solid columns in support[692]. Hill therefore halted, with his head-quarters at Zafra and his rearguard (which had but a moment before been his advanced guard) at Llerena: only a few of J. Campbell’s Portuguese squadrons moved to Merida, though some Spanish infantry came up to the same direction[693]. Things then remained very quiet till July 24th, when Drouet at last appeared to be on the move with some definite purpose. On that day Lallemand’s dragoons appeared at Hinojosa, pressed in a Portuguese cavalry regiment, and seemed inclined to push towards Ribera, but retired when Long’s brigade came up against them: the losses on both sides were trifling. Three days later (July 27) a brigade of Daricau’s infantry advanced to Medellin and drove off the observing force of the Spanish infantry, while Vinot’s cavalry executed a raid on Merida, expelled the Portuguese detachment there, and exacted a requisition of food from the town. They then retired in haste; but Hill thought it well for the future to strengthen his left, and moved up Byng’s British and A. Campbell’s Portuguese infantry brigades to Merida. But Drouet was only feinting, and had no serious intentions of drawing up to the Guadiana, or crossing that river northward. His main purpose was simply the raising of requisitions; for his detachments in the mountains of the Serena were living on the edge of famine, and could only feed themselves by keeping constantly on the move. It is curious to find from the dispatches of the two opposing generals at this time that both were fairly satisfied with themselves: each thought that he was ‘containing’ a somewhat superior force of the enemy, and was doing his duty by keeping it from interfering in the more important theatre of war. Hill knew that he was detaining Drouet, when he was much wanted at Madrid: Drouet knew that he was preventing Hill from joining Wellington on the Douro. But the real balance of advantage was on the side of the allies: Hill, with only 8,000 British and 11,000 Portuguese was claiming the attention of three veteran divisions of the infantry of the Army of the South, and of the major part of Soult’s cavalry. The French in Andalusia were left so weak by the absence of 18,000 men beyond the Sierra Morena, that they could neither molest Cadiz nor the Army of Murcia. Indeed, Ballasteros, though his forces were less than they had been at the time of his defeat at Bornos, was able to provide employment for all the troops that Soult could spare for operations in the open field.
Six weeks after his disaster of June 1st, that enterprising, if irresponsible, general started out again from the lines of San Roque with between 5,000 and 6,000 men. Keeping to mountain roads and concealing his march, he surprised, on July 14, the great harbour-city of Malaga, though he failed to capture its citadel, Gibalfaro, into which the wrecks of the garrison escaped. Ballasteros got money, stores, and recruits from the captured town, but knew that he dare not tarry there for long. For Soult, naturally enraged at such a bold and successful raid, turned troops toward him from all sides. Leval, the governor of Granada, marched against him with every spare battalion that could be got together from the eastern side of Andalusia, some 5,000 bayonets. Villatte, in command before Cadiz, came from the other quarter with 6,000 men; they had orders to catch Ballasteros between them, to intercept his retreat upon Gibraltar, and annihilate him.
In order to cut off the Spaniard from his usual place of refuge, Villatte took a turn to the south, appeared in sight of Gibraltar on July 20, and then, keeping himself between the British fortress and Ballasteros, advanced northward to wait for him. Leval was to have driven him into Villatte’s arms, advancing from Antequera and pressing the hunt southward. But the raider, instead of retreating in the expected direction, slipped unseen across Villatte’s front by Alora, and made off into the plains of central Andalusia. On the 25th at dawn he appeared, most unexpectedly, at Osuna and surprised the small French garrison there. The governor, Colonel Beauvais, cut his way through the streets to a fortified convent, where he held out. But Ballasteros, satisfied with having captured a quantity of stores, mules, and baggage, and a few prisoners, vanished. Leval was on his track, and he had to evade his pursuer by a flank march, first to Grazalema and then to Ubrique. This was bringing him dangerously near to Villatte’s position. But that general had no accurate knowledge of what was going on to the north, and having waited for ten days in the mountains beyond Gibraltar for a prey that never appeared, found himself starved out. On the 30th he started on his enforced return towards the Cadiz Lines, and had reached Medina Sidonia when Ballasteros, who had quite outmarched Leval, came down in safety to Ximena on August 1, and placed himself in touch with Gibraltar once more. Thereupon Leval, seeing that it was no use to push the Spaniard (for about the tenth time) under the guns of the British fortress, and finding his column utterly worn out, went home to Granada[694].
Thus Ballasteros gave no small help to the allied cause by distracting some 11,000 or 12,000 French troops for a long fortnight, while Hill was detaining Drouet in Estremadura. By the time that the hunt after the evasive Spaniard had come to an end, the battle of Salamanca had been fought, and the aspect of affairs in the Peninsula had been completely changed. Even Soult, who had so long shut his eyes to the obvious, had at last to acknowledge that a new situation had arisen.
The news of Salamanca had reached Hill on July 29th, and caused a general expectation that the French in Estremadura would retreat at once, and that Soult would be retiring from Andalusia also in a few days. No such results followed—the intelligence was late in penetrating to the French camps; and Soult, still hoping to induce King Joseph to join him, lingered for many days in his old posture. On August 4 Hill wrote that the ‘recent glorious event’ appeared to have had very little effect on his immediate opponent, who continued in a strong position in his front. ‘Therefore for the present I shall remain where I am, and watch for a favourable opportunity of acting[695].’ Soult at Seville had, as late as August 8, no official news of Marmont’s defeat, and only knew of it by Spanish rumours, which he—of set purpose—discounted. ‘Les relations qu’ils ont publiées exagèrent sans doute les avantages: mais il paraît que quelque grand événement s’est passé en Castille[696].’ He continued to urge King Joseph to come to Seville, join him, and attack Hill with such superior forces that Wellington would be forced to fly to the aid of his subordinate. It was only on August 12th that certain information regarding the battle of July 22nd reached the head-quarters of the Duke of Dalmatia, in the form of Joseph’s Segovia dispatch of July 29th, containing the orders for the complete evacuation of Andalusia, and the march of the whole Army of the South upon Toledo. Even then Soult did not think it too late to make a final appeal to the King: ‘the loss of a battle by the Army of Portugal was nothing more than a great duel, which can be undone by another similar duel. But the loss of Andalusia and the raising of the siege of Cadiz would be events whose effects would be felt all round Europe and the New World.... What does it matter if the enemy is left in possession of the whole space between Burgos and the Sierra Morena, until the moment when great reinforcements come from France, and the Emperor has been able to make his arrangements? But this sacrifice of Andalusia once made, there is no way of remedying it. The imperial armies in Spain will have to repass the Ebro—famine perhaps will drive them still farther[697],’ &c.
On reflection, however, Soult did not venture to disobey, and, before his last appeal could possibly have reached the King’s hands, began to issue orders for evacuation. But so great was his rage that he wrote an extraordinary letter to Clarke, the Minister of War at Paris, in which he made the preposterous insinuation that Joseph was about to betray his brother the Emperor, and to come to an agreement with the Cadiz Cortes. The evidence which he cited for this strange charge was flimsy in the extreme. ‘I have read in the Cadiz newspapers the statement that His Majesty’s Ambassador in Russia has joined the Russian army: that the King has opened intrigues with the Insurrectional Government[698]. Sweden has made peace with England, and the Hereditary Prince (Bernadotte) has begun to treat with the Regency at Cadiz[699].... I draw no deduction from all these facts, but I am all the more attentive to them. I have thought it necessary to lay my fears before six generals of my army, after having made them take an oath not to reveal what I told them save to the Emperor himself, or to some one specially commissioned by him. But it is my duty to inform your Excellency that I have a fear that all the bad arrangements made [by the King] and all the intrigues that have been going on, have the object of forcing the imperial armies to retreat to the Ebro, or farther, and then of representing this event as the “last possible resource” (an expression used by the King himself in a letter of July 20), in the hope of profiting by it to come to some compromise[700].
This letter, as obscurely worded as it was malicious, was not sent to France by the usual channels, lest the King should get wind of it, but consigned to the captain of a French privateer, who was about to sail from Malaga to Marseilles. By an ill chance for Soult, the vessel was chased by a British ship, and compelled to run for shelter into the harbour of Valencia. There the King had recently arrived, on his retreat from Madrid. The privateer-captain, who did not know what he was carrying, sent the letter in to the royal head-quarters. Hence came an explosion of wrath, and a series of recriminations with which we shall have to deal in their proper place.
The evacuation of Andalusia commenced from the western end, because the retreat of the army was to be directed eastwards. The evacuation of the Castle of Niebla on August 12th was its first sign—the troops in the Condado had retired to San Lucar near Seville by the 15th. A little later the garrisons in the extreme south, at Ronda and Medina Sidonia, blew up their fortifications and retired. These were small movements, but the dismantling of the Cadiz Lines was a formidable business, and took several days. Soult covered it by ordering a furious bombardment of the city and the Puntales fort from his batteries across the bay; during each salvo of the heavy guns one or two of them were disabled, others being fired at an angle against their muzzles, so as to split them. More were burst by intentional over-loading, others had their trunnions knocked off, but a good many were only spiked or thrown into the water. The ammunition remaining after two days of reckless bombardment was blown up; the stores set on fire; the flotilla of gunboats was sunk, but so carelessly that thirty of them were afterwards raised with no difficulty and found still seaworthy. This orgy of destruction continued for the whole of the 24th: at night the sky was red all round the bay, from Rota to Chiclana, with burning huts and magazines, and the explosions were frequent.
This was the moment when the large allied force in Cadiz might well have made a general sortie, for the purpose of cutting up the enemy while he was engrossed in the work of destruction. Wellington had written a week before, to General Cooke, then in command of the British contingent in the Isla de Leon, to bid him fall upon the enemy when opportunity should offer, considering that the French troops in the Lines were reduced to a minimum by the detachment of the division that had gone out to hunt Ballasteros. He suggested that the allies should cross the Santi Petri river and attack Chiclana, taking care, however, not to be cut off from their retreat. Unfortunately this letter of August 16th came too late, for Cooke (after conferring with the Spanish authorities) had committed himself to another and a more circuitous expedition to molest the French. General Cruz Murgeon, with a Spanish division of 4,000 men (which had originally been intended for the reinforcing of Ballasteros) had landed at the port of Huelva, in the Condado de Niebla, on August 11th. Cooke reinforced him with the pick of the British contingent—six companies of Guards, half of the 2/87th[701], two companies of Rifles[702], part of the 20th Portuguese, and the squadron of the 2nd Hussars K.G.L., which was the only cavalry at his disposition. These, placed under the charge of Colonel Skerrett, made up 1,600 men in all[703]; they landed at Huelva, joined Cruz Murgeon, and advanced with him against Seville. On the 24th they discovered the French outposts at San Lucar la Mayor, and drove them out of that town. But they hesitated over the idea of attacking Seville, where French troops were collecting from all quarters, though the divisions of Conroux and Villatte from the Cadiz Lines had not yet come up.