A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 5, Oct. 1811-Aug. 31, 1812

by Charles Oman

On the night of August 26th-27th, however, Soult, apprised of the near approach of his column from the Lines, evacuated Seville with the main part of his force, escorting a vast horde of Spanish refugees, who feared to remain behind to face their countrymen, and a long train of wagons and carriages loaded with the accumulated spoils of three years of tyrannous misrule in Andalusia. He left a rearguard to occupy the outworks of the city, which was to be picked up and taken on by Villatte when he should appear on the next day.

On hearing of the departure of the Marshal, Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett resolved to attack Seville, knowing that the troops left behind to guard it were insufficient to man effectively all its long line of defences. Being on the western side of the Guadalquivir, they had first to win the large transpontine suburb of Triana, the home of potters and gipsies, through which alone access could be got to the city. It was attacked at several points and stormed, but the enemy then held to the great bridge over the river linking Triana and Seville, and made a long resistance there. The bridge had been barricaded, part of its planks had been pulled up, and artillery had been trained on it from the farther side. Notwithstanding these obstacles the Spaniards attacked it; the well-known Irish adventurer Colonel Downie charged three times at the head of his Estremaduran Legion. Repelled twice by the heavy fire, he reached the barricade at the third assault, and leaped his horse over the cut which the French had made in front of it, but found himself alone within the work, and was bayoneted and made prisoner[704]. But soon after the allies brought up guns through the streets of Triana, and so battered the barricade that the French were compelled to evacuate it. Skerrett sent the Guards across: they passed by the beams which had been left unbroken, and many Spanish troops followed. After a running fight in the streets of the city, in which some of the inhabitants took part, the garrison was completely driven out, and fled by the Carmona Gate towards Alcala. The victors captured two field-pieces, about 200 prisoners[705], and a rich convoy of plunder, which was to have been escorted by the French rearguard[706]. Villatte’s column, approaching the city in its march from the Cadiz Lines and Xeres, found it in the hands of the allies, so swerved off eastward and followed Soult, picking up the expelled garrison by the way.

Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett did not pursue, not thinking themselves strong enough to meddle with the French, but only sent their cavalry forward to watch their retreat. They stayed in Seville, where the Cadiz Constitution was proclaimed with great enthusiasm on August 29th. On the other flank of the French Ballasteros was trying at this moment to molest the column formed by the garrisons retiring from Ronda, Malaga, and Antequera on Granada. He followed them for ten days, and fought their rearguard at Antequera on September 3rd, and at Loja on September 5th; but though he captured many stragglers and some baggage, as also three guns, he was unable to do any material harm to the main body, which General Sémélé brought in to join Leval at Granada on September 6th.

Soult, meanwhile, with the troops from Cadiz and Seville, had to halt at Cordova for some days, to allow of the junction of Drouet from Estremadura; for that general had to collect his troops and to bring down detachments from places so far away as Don Benito and Zalamea, before he could concentrate and march across the Sierra Morena to join his chief. Drouet had kept up a bold countenance in front of Hill to the last moment, even after he had received orders from Soult to prepare for a sudden retreat. Indeed one of the most lively of the many cavalry affairs fought in Estremadura during the summer of 1812 took place in August. On the 1st of that month, when Hill was already expecting that the news of Salamanca would have driven his opponent away, Pierre Soult tried a raid upon Ribera, with two regiments of cavalry and two battalions, and drove in the 2nd Hussars of the Legion, who maintained a long and gallant skirmishing fight, till General Erskine came up with Long’s brigade, when the French retreated. Erskine was thought to have missed a fine opportunity of cutting up the raiding detachment by his slow and tentative pursuit[707]. On the 18th Soult made another reconnaissance in force, with four regiments, in the same direction, on a false report that Hill had moved from Ribera and Almendralejo. This brought on another long day of bickering, with no definite result: it was mainly remembered afterwards for the courteous behaviour of Drouet in sending back unharmed Erskine’s aide-de-camp Strenowitz, the most daring officer for raids and reconnaissance work in the German Legion. He had been captured while scouting, and a general fear prevailed that he would be shot, for he had served for a short time in the French army, and might have been treated as a deserter. Drouet most handsomely dispatched him to the British camp on parole, with a request that he might be exchanged for an officer of his own, who had been taken a few days before. ‘A most courteous and liberal enemy!’ wrote a diarist in Hill’s camp, ‘Strenowitz’s exploits are well known: certainly in strict law he might have been hung[708].’

It was not till August 26th that all the French troops in front of Hill suddenly vanished, Drouet having had orders to keep his position till Seville was ready to be evacuated; for Soult feared that if he withdrew his forces in Estremadura too early, in the direction of Cordova, the allied troops might make a forced march on Seville, and arrive there before the divisions from the Cadiz Lines had gone by. Wherefore Drouet was in evidence before Hill till the precise day when Soult left Seville. He then retired through the Sierra Morena, going by the remote mountain road by Belalcazar with such speed that he reached Cordova on the fourth day (August 30). He was not pursued by Hill, whose orders from Wellington were to come up to the Tagus and join the main army, and not to involve himself in operations in Andalusia. Only some of Penne Villemur’s Spanish horse, under the German colonel Schepeler—one of the best historians of the war—followed on Drouet’s track, and saw him join Soult at Cordova[709]. The united French force then marched on Granada, where the garrisons of eastern Andalusia, under Leval, had concentrated to meet the Marshal. Up to this moment Soult had been uncertain whether he should retreat by way of La Mancha, or across the kingdom of Murcia. His decision was settled for him by news brought by Drouet, who had heard in Estremadura of King Joseph’s evacuation of Madrid and Toledo. Since the Army of the Centre was now known to be on the road for Valencia, to join Suchet, it would be too dangerous to cross La Mancha in search of it. Wellington might descend from Madrid in force, upon an enemy who dared to march across his front. Wherefore Soult resolved that his retreat must be made across the kingdom of Murcia. It was true that O’Donnell’s army was in occupation of the inland in that direction, but it was weak and disorganized. Moreover, Suchet had lately inflicted a severe defeat upon it at Castalla (on July 21st), and O’Donnell was practically a negligible quantity in the problem. A far more important factor in determining Soult’s exact route was the news that the yellow fever had broken out at Cartagena and was spreading inland: it had reached the city of Murcia. Wherefore the French army avoided the coast, and took the inferior roads across the northern part of the province.

Soult, when once he had concentrated 45,000 men at Granada, had nothing to fear from any enemy. The gloomy picture of ‘a retreat harrassed by 60,000 foes,’ with which he had tried to scare King Joseph a month before, turned out to be a work of pure imagination. Hill had turned off towards the Tagus: Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett remained at Seville, awaiting the appearance of the 10,000 men left in Cadiz. But these were slow to move, because they had been on garrison duty for long years, and had to provide themselves with transport. Only Ballasteros hung about Granada, bickering with the outposts of the French army, and as he had no more than 5,000 or 6,000 men he was not dangerous, but only tiresome.

Soult therefore was able to spend many days at Granada, making deliberate preparations for the toilsome march that was before him. He only started out, after destroying the fortifications of the Alhambra and other posts, on September 16th. His route was by Baza, Huescar, Caravaca, and Hellin, through a mountainous and thinly-peopled country, where his troops suffered considerable privations. But these were nothing compared to the misery of the immense convoy of Afrancesados of all ages and both sexes, who had joined themselves to his train, and had to be brought through to a place of safety. Nor did the 6,000 sick and wounded whom he was dragging with him enjoy a pleasant journey. Yet it was only the September heat and the mountain roads that harassed the army and its train: Ballasteros did not pursue farther than the borders of Andalusia: the Murcians were cowed by the approach of a force which could have destroyed them with ease if it had lingered within their borders. Some of them shifted north toward Madrid, others south toward Alicante: none did anything to attract the notice of such a formidable enemy. Touch with Suchet’s outposts was secured before September was quite ended, and by the appearance of the whole Army of Andalusia near Valencia, a new military situation was produced by October 1st. With this we shall have to deal in its proper place—the fortunes of Wellington and the main army of the allies have not been followed beyond the middle of August.

Summing up the events of June-July-August 1812 in southern Spain, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Soult’s personal interests wrecked any chance that the French might have had of retaining their dominant position in the Peninsula, when once Wellington had committed himself to his offensive campaign upon the Tormes and the Douro. If the Duke of Dalmatia had obeyed in June King Joseph’s peremptory orders to send Drouet to Toledo, he would have had, no doubt, to evacuate certain parts of Andalusia. But Joseph and Jourdan could have marched many weeks earlier, and with a doubled force, to interfere with Wellington’s campaign against Marmont. It is true that Hill would have made a corresponding movement by Alcantara, and would have joined the main allied army under his chief many days before the King and Drouet would have been able to link up with Marmont. But Hill, on leaving Estremadura, would have removed the larger and more efficient part of his corps from Soult’s vicinity, and the Marshal might easily have held Seville and the Cadiz Lines, when faced by no stronger enemies than Ballasteros and the garrison in the Isla. If Soult had made up his mind to sacrifice Andalusia, and had marched with his whole army on Toledo, in June or even early in July, Wellington’s whole game would have been wrecked. It was, perhaps, too much to expect that the Marshal would consent to such a disinterested policy. But if, without making this sacrifice, he had merely obeyed King Joseph, and reinforced the Army of the Centre at an early date, he would have made the Salamanca campaign impossible. Wellington would probably have retired behind the Agueda and abandoned his conquests in Leon, without risking a battle, if the French forces in contact with him had been 25,000 men stronger than they actually were. The junction of Hill and some 12,000 men of the best of his Estremaduran detachment would have given him the power to fight out a defensive campaign on the Portuguese frontier, but hardly to deliver an offensive battle like Salamanca. The net results of all his manœuvres in June would then have been no more than an indirect success—the delivery of eastern Andalusia from Soult. Seville and the Cadiz Lines might still have remained occupied by the French.

It is scarcely necessary to repeat once more that Soult’s counter-plan of inviting the King and the Army of the Centre to retire to Andalusia, throwing up all communication with France and the imperial armies beyond the Douro, was wrongheaded in the extreme, though Napier calls it ‘grand and vigorous[710].’ Joseph could have brought no more than the 15,000 men that he owned, and they, when added to the 50,000 men of the Army of the South, would not have provided a force large enough to make a decisive move. For, as we have already seen, half the French in Andalusia were necessarily pinned down to garrison duties, and the ‘containing’ of Ballasteros and other partisans. Soult could never bring more than 25,000 men of his own into Estremadura: if 15,000 more are added for King Joseph’s troops[711], only 40,000 in all would have been available for a demonstration (or a serious invasion) in the direction of Portugal. Such a force would have given Wellington no very great alarm. It would have had to begin by besieging Badajoz and Elvas, in face of the existing ‘containing’ army under Hill, a delicate business, and one that would have taken time. Meanwhile Wellington could have come down, with reinforcements strong enough to make up a total sufficient to fight and beat 40,000 men, since he had the advantage of a central position and the shorter roads. At the worst he would have blocked the French advance by taking up an unassailable position, as he had before on the Caya in June 1811. But now he would have had a far superior game in his hands, since Badajoz was his and not his enemy’s, and his total disposable force was considerably larger than it had been in 1811.

Thus, if Soult’s plan had been carried out, all central Spain, including the capital, would have been lost just as much as it was by the actual campaign of July-August 1812, and the disorganized Army of Portugal could have done nothing. For Wellington could have left not Clinton’s one division (as he actually did) but three at least to look after it—not to speak of the Galicians and the partidas. Isolated and cut off from all communication with other French armies, Soult and the King would have had to evacuate Andalusia in the end, if they did not suffer a worse fate—a crushing defeat in a position from which there would have been no retreat possible. Hypothetical reconstructions of campaigns which might have happened are proverbially futile—but it is hard to see how any final profit to the French could have come from Soult’s extraordinary plan.