Popham’s next blow was at Guetaria, a most important post, owing to its nearness to the great chaussée leading to Bayonne, which passes quite close to it between Tolosa and Ernani. If it had fallen, the main road from France to Spain would have been blocked for all practical purposes. But being far to the East and near the French border, it was remote from the haunts of the guerrilleros: few of them turned up: after a few days Popham had to re-embark guns and men, and to take his departure, owing to the arrival in his neighbourhood of a strong French flying column. He then sailed off to Castro Urdiales, where he had much better luck: Longa had left the Upper Ebro with his brigade and joined him there on July 6th, by Mendizabal’s orders. Their united force drove off on the 7th a small French column which came up from Laredo to raise the siege. The governor of Castro then surrendered with some 150 men, and 20 guns on his walls fell into Popham’s hands (July 8). The place seemed so strong that the commodore resolved to keep it as a temporary base, and garrisoned it with some of his marines.
Three days later Popham appeared before Portugalete, the fortified village at the mouth of the Bilbao river, and bombarded it from the side of the sea, while Longa (who had marched parallel with the squadron along the shore), demonstrated against its rear. But a French flying column happened just to have arrived at Bilbao, and the force which marched out against the assailants was so powerful that they made off, each on his own element [July 11th.] Popham now turned his attention for a second time to the important strategical post of Guetaria; he had enlisted the support of the Guipuzcoan bands under Jauregui, and the distant Mina had promised to send a battalion to his aid from Navarre. Popham got heavy guns on shore, and began to batter the place, while Jauregui blockaded it on the land side. This move drew the attention of D’Aussenac, commanding the flying column which belonged to the Bayonne reserve: he marched with 3,000 men towards Guetaria, and drove off Jauregui, whereupon Popham had to re-embark in haste, and lost two guns which could not be got off in time and thirty men [July 19], Mina’s battalion came up a day too late to help the discomfited besiegers.
This petty disaster was in the end more favourable than harmful to Popham’s general plan, for he had succeeded in drawing all the attention of the French to the eastern end of their chain of coast-fortresses, between Santoña and San Sebastian. But now he used his power of rapid movement to attack unexpectedly their most important western stronghold. On July 22nd he appeared in front of the harbour of Santander, while (by previous arrangement) Campillo—one of Porlier’s lieutenants—invested it on the land side. Porlier himself, with his main body, was blockading at the moment the not very distant and still stronger Santoña.
There was very heavy fighting round Santander between the 22nd July and August 2. Popham landed guns on the water-girt rock of Mouro, and bombarded from it the castle at the mouth of the port: when its fire was subdued, he ran his squadron in battle order past it, and entered the harbour, receiving little damage from the other French works (July 24). The enemy then evacuated the castle, which the marines occupied: but an attempt to storm the town with the aid of Campillo’s men failed, with a rather heavy casualty list of two British captains[720] and many marines and seamen disabled (July 27th). However, Popham and Campillo held on in front of Santander, and Mendizabal came up on August 2nd to join them, bringing a captured French dispatch, which proved that the enemy intended to evacuate the place, a strong relieving column under Caffarelli himself being at hand to bring off the garrison. And this indeed happened: the General-in-Chief of the Army of the North had marched with all the disposable troops at Vittoria to save his detachment. The governor Dubreton—the same man who afterwards defended Burgos so well—broke out of the place with his 1,600 men on the night of the 2nd-3rd and joined his chief in safety: he left eighteen guns spiked in his works. Caffarelli then drew off the garrison of the neighbouring small post of Torrelavega, but threw a convoy and some reinforcements into Santoña, which he had determined to hold as long as possible. He then hastened back to Vittoria, being under the impression at the moment that Wellington was in march against him from Valladolid, in pursuit of the routed host of Clausel. But the Anglo-Portuguese main army—as will be remembered—had really followed the retreating French no farther than Valladolid, and no longer than the 30th July. Instead of finding himself involved in the affairs of the Army of Portugal, Caffarelli had soon another problem in hand.
The capture of Santander by the allies was the most important event that had happened on the north coast of Spain since 1809, for it gave the squadron of Popham possession of the sole really good harbor—open to the largest ships, and safe at all times of the year—which lies between Ferrol and the French frontier. At last the Spanish ‘Seventh Army’ had a base behind it, and a free communication with England for the stores and munitions that it so much needed. It might be developed into a formidable force if so strengthened, and it lay in a position most inconvenient for the French, directly in the rear of Clausel and Caffarelli. Popham saw what might be made of Santander, and drew up for Wellington’s benefit a report on the possibilities of the harbour, in which he details, from the information given by Porlier and his staff, the state of the roads between it and Burgos, Valladolid, and other points. Six weeks before the siege of Burgos began, he wrote that by all accounts six or eight heavy guns would be required to take that fortress, and that he could manage that they should be got there—a distance of 115 miles—by ox-draught, if they were wanted[721]. But Wellington, at the moment that this useful information was being compiled, was turning away from Valladolid and Burgos toward Madrid; and when his attention was once more drawn back to Burgos, he made no use of Popham’s offers till it was too late. Of this more in its proper place.
Having brought all his squadron into Santander, and made himself a fixed base in addition to his floating one, Popham began to concert plans for further operations with Mendizabal, whom he described as a man of ‘vacillating councils,’ and hard to screw up to any fixed resolution. The scheme which the commodore most recommended to the general was one for a general concentration of all his scattered forces against Bilbao, in which the squadron should give its best help. But he suggested as an alternative the sending of Porlier to join Longa, who had already gone south to the Upper Ebro after the failure at Portugalete on July 11th. Porlier and Longa would together be strong enough to cut the road between Burgos and Vittoria, and so divide Clausel from Caffarelli. If the two French generals combined against them, they could always escape north-westward into their usual mountain refuges.
According to Popham’s notes Mendizabal first seemed to incline to the second scheme, and then decided for the first. He even in the end ordered up Longa—then very usefully employed against Clausel’s rear about Pancorbo and Cubo—to join in the attack upon Bilbao. But Longa came late, being busy in operations that he liked better than those which his chief imposed on him. After waiting a few days for him in vain, Mendizabal marched against Bilbao by land with two battalions belonging to Porlier and one recently raised in Alava, while Popham took three Biscayan battalions belonging to Renovales on board his squadron and sailed for Lequeitio, where he put them ashore. He himself then made for Portugalete, at the mouth of the Bilbao river. The triple attack, though made with no very great total force was successful. The officer commanding in Bilbao, went out to meet Mendizabal, and in order to collect as many men as possible, drew off the garrison of Portugalete. The British squadron, arriving in front of the port, found it undefended and threw the marines ashore. Hearing of this descent in his rear the French general, then indecisively engaged with Mendizabal and Renovales, thought that he was in danger of being surrounded, and retired hastily toward Durango, abandoning Bilbao altogether [August 13].
Learning next day that they had overrated the enemy’s force, the French returned and tried to reoccupy the Biscayan capital, but were met outside by all Mendizabal’s troops, arrayed on the position of Ollorgan. An attack entirely failed to move them, and the French fell back to Durango. General Rouget, the commanding officer in the province, then drew in all his minor garrisons, and sent Caffarelli notice that all Biscay was lost, unless something could be done at once to check Mendizabal’s progress [August 14]. Indeed the situation looked most threatening, for Longa had at last come up and joined his chief with 3,000 men, and the Biscayans were taking arms on every side. A general junta of the Basque provinces was summoned by Mendizabal to meet at Bilbao, and the French had for the moment no foothold left save in San Sebastian and Guetaria. Thereupon Caffarelli, collecting every man that he could at Vittoria, marched to join Rouget. Their united forces, making some 7,000 men, attacked Bilbao on August 27th-29th, and after much confused fighting drove Mendizabal and Longa out of the place, only a fortnight after it had come into Spanish hands. The defeated troops dispersed in all directions, each section seeking the region that it had come from—Porlier’s men retired towards Cantabria, Longa’s toward the Upper Ebro. Renovales and his Biscayan battalions were caught in their retreat, and badly cut up at Dima.
While this fighting was going on around Bilbao, Popham was trying a last attack on Guetaria, with his own resources only, as nearly all the Spaniards were engaged elsewhere. He had accomplished nothing decisive when he heard of Mendizabal’s defeat, and had to reship his guns and take his departure before the victorious Caffarelli came up. He retired to Santander, and heard there that Wellington was leaving Madrid, and once more marching on Burgos. He determined to open up communications with the British army without delay, and on August 31 sent off Lieutenant Macfarlane to seek for the head of the approaching columns. That officer, skirting the flank of Clausel’s retreating host, reached Valladolid betimes, and explained to Wellington that the Santander road would be open and available for the transport of ammunition, guns, and even food, so soon as he should have driven the French past Burgos. And—as will be seen—it was so used during the unlucky siege of that fortress again and again—but not (as Popham recommended) for the bringing up of the heavy artillery that Wellington so much lacked.
By September 1st Caffarelli had patched up matters for a time on the side of Biscay, but though he had recovered Bilbao and preserved Guetaria, all the other coast-towns were out of his power save Santoña, and that important place was cut off from the nearest French garrison by a gap of some sixty miles. Even now Popham’s useful diversion had not ceased to have its effect. But its further working belongs to a later chapter.