So much for the annals of the war in northern Spain from June to August. The diversion which Wellington had planned had been brilliantly successful. A very different story must be told of the equally important scheme that he had concerted for keeping his enemies distracted on the eastern side of the Peninsula, by means of the Anglo-Sicilian expedition and the Spanish Army of Murcia.
Suchet, it will be remembered[722], had been stayed from further conquests after the fall of Valencia partly by the indirect results of Wellington’s operations on the Portuguese frontier—starting with the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo—partly by Napoleon’s action in drawing back to the Ebro the two divisions of Reille, and calling out of Spain the numerous Polish battalions serving in the Army of Aragon. But not the least of the hindering causes was a purely personal one—the long illness which kept Suchet confined to his bed for ten weeks in February, March, and April. By the time that he was in the saddle again a notable change had come over the aspect of the war all over the Peninsula. During his sickness his lieutenants, Habert and Harispe, maintained their position in front of the Xucar river, and observed the wrecks of the Valencian and Murcian divisions that had escaped from Blake’s disaster in January. The whole force remaining under Suchet—excluding the troops left behind in Catalonia and Aragon—was not above 15,000 men, and of these nearly 4,000 were locked up in garrisons, at Valencia, Saguntum, Peniscola, Morella, and other places. It is not surprising, therefore, that no farther advance was made against the Spaniards. Joseph O’Donnell, the successor of the unlucky Mahy, was able during the spring to reorganize some 12,000 men on the cadres of his old battalions. In addition he had Roche’s reserve at Alicante, 4,000 strong, which had now been profiting for many months by the British subsidy and training, and was reckoned a solid corps. He had also Bassecourt’s few battalions in the inland—the troops that D’Armagnac had hunted in December and January in the district about Requeña[723]. Cartagena, the only fortress on the coast still in Spanish hands save Alicante, had been strengthened by the arrival of a British detachment[724]. Altogether there were some 20,000 enemies facing Suchet in April, and he regarded it as impossible to think of attacking Alicante, since he had not nearly enough men in hand to besiege a place of considerable size, and at the same time to provide a sufficient covering army against Joseph O’Donnell. So little was the Murcian army molested that General Freire, O’Donnell’s second-in-command, ignoring Suchet altogether, took advantage of Soult’s absence in Estremadura, at the time of the fall of Badajoz, to alarm eastern Andalusia. He occupied Baza on April 18th, and when driven away after a time by Leval, governor of Granada, turned instead against the coast-land of the South. On May 11th an expedition, aided by English war-ships from Alicante, landed near Almeria, and cleared out all the French garrisons from the small towns and shore batteries as far west as Almunecar. Already before this (on May 1-3) an English squadron had made a descent on Malaga, seized and destroyed the harbour-works, and carried off some privateers and merchant vessels from the port. But naught could be accomplished against the citadel of Gibalfaro. Soult did little or nothing to resent these insults, because he was at the time obsessed with his ever-recurring idea that Wellington was about to invade Andalusia, and his attention was entirely taken up with the movements of Hill and Ballasteros in the West and North, so that the East was neglected. Leval at Granada had a troublesome time, but was in no real danger, since Freire’s raids were executed with a trifling force.
Suchet was occupied at this time more with civil than with military affairs: for some time after his convalescence he was engaged in rearranging the administration of the kingdom of Valencia, and in raising the enormous war-contribution which Napoleon had directed him to exact—200,000,000 reals, or £2,800,000—in addition to the ordinary taxes. The Marshal in his Mémoires gives a most self-laudatory account of his rule; according to his rose-coloured narrative[725], the imposts were raised with wisdom and benevolence, the population became contented and even loyal, the roads were safe, and material prosperity commenced at once to revive. Napier has reproduced most of Suchet’s testimonials to his own wisdom and integrity, without any hint that the Spanish version of the story is different. The Marshal who drove the civil population of Lerida under the fire of the cannon[726], and who signalized his entry into Valencia by wholesale executions of combatants and non-combatants[727], was not the benevolent being of his own legend. Since that legend has been republished in many a later volume, it may be well to give as a fair balance the version of an enemy—not of a Spaniard, but of a Prussian, that Colonel Schepeler whose authority on the war of Valencia we have so often had occasion to quote.
‘Napoleon Bonaparte looked upon Valencia as the prey of France, and Suchet did not fall behind in his oppressive high-handedness. The long-desired goal, the wealthy city, now lay open to their rapacity, and the riches that the clergy had denied to the needs of the nation went to fill the plunder-bag of the conqueror. The miraculous statue of Our Lady of Pity was stripped of her ancient jewelled robe: only a light mantle now draped her, and showed the cut of the nineteenth century. The silver apostles of the cathedral took their way to France with many other objects of value, and the Chapter was forced to pay ransom for hidden treasures. The magnanimous marshal imposed on the new French province, as a sort of “benevolence,” six million dollars (ten had been spoken of at first), with an additional million for the city of Valencia. The churches had to buy off their bells with another 60,000 dollars. Suchet, in his moderation, contented himself with exacting 500 dollars a day for his own table and household expenses.
‘Political persecution began with a decree of March 11, which ordered the judges of the local Audiencia [Law Court] to meet as before, but to administer justice in the name of Napoleon Empereur et Roi. The patriots refused to serve and fled; whereupon their goods were confiscated, their families were harried, and when some of them were captured they were threatened with penal servitude or death. A decree drawn up in words of cold ferocity, declared every Spaniard who continued to oppose the French to be a rebel and a brigand, and therefore condemned to capital punishment. Several villages were punished with fire and sword, because they were too patriotic to arrest and deliver up insurgents. Contrary to the promise made at the capitulation in January[728], many patriots were arrested and executed, under the pretence that they had been concerned in the murder of Frenchmen in 1808, even though they might actually have saved the lives of certain of those unfortunates at that time.
‘Valencia produces little wheat: there was much lack of it, and the French would not accept rice. Their requisitions were exacted with cruel disregard of consequences, even from the poorest, and quickly brought back to the patriotic side the mutable Valencian people, who had already been sufficiently embittered when they found that they were annexed to France. All over the province there began to appear slaughter, rebellion, and finally guerrillero bands[729].’
The point which Schepeler makes as to Valencia being practically annexed to France—as shown by the administration of justice in the name of Napoleon, not of King Joseph—should be noted. It illustrates Suchet’s determination to consider himself as a French viceroy, rather than as the general of one of the armies recently placed by the Emperor under the King as Commander-in-Chief in the Peninsula. We have already noted the way in which he contrived to plead special orders from Paris, exempting him from the royal control, whenever Joseph tried to borrow some of his troops for use against Wellington[730]. At the same time it must be conceded that he had a much better excuse than Soult for his persistent disobedience to such orders—his whole available force was so small, that if he had sent 6,000 men to San Clemente or Ocaña, as Joseph directed, there would have been little or nothing left in Valencia save the garrisons, and the Spaniards from Alicante and Murcia could have taken their revenge for the disasters of the past winter[731]. He represented to the King that to draw off such a body of troops to La Mancha implied the abandonment of all his recent conquests, and that if something had to be evacuated, it was better that Soult should begin the process, since Andalusia was a more outlying possession than Valencia—’les provinces du sud devaient être évacuées avant celles de l’est.’ And here he was no doubt right: as we have been remarking again and again, the only solution for the situation created by Wellington’s successes was to concentrate a great mass of troops at all costs, and the Army of the South could best provide that mass. It had 50,000 men under arms at the moment—Suchet had not in Valencia more than 15,000.
Hitherto we have spoken of those parts of the east coast of Spain which lie south of the Ebro. But if the situation in Valencia had not altered much between February and June, the same was also the case in Catalonia. Since Eroles’s victory over Bourke at Roda in March[732] there had been much marching and counter-marching in that principality, but nothing decisive. Lacy, the unpopular captain-general, was at odds with the Junta, and especially with Eroles, the best of his divisional officers, who was the most influential man in Catalonia, owing to his local connexions and his untiring energy. Lacy was a stranger, an enemy of the ‘Somaten’ system, and a pronounced Liberal. The political tendencies of the Catalans were distinctly favourable to the other or ‘Servile’ party. The captain-general was also accused of nourishing jealousy against Sarsfield, his second-in-command: and it is certain that both that officer and Eroles believed him capable of any mean trick toward them. But though divided counsels and mutual suspicions often hindered the co-operation of the commanders and the people, all were equally bitter enemies of the invader, and none of them showed any signs of slackening in their grim resolve to hold out to the end. The Catalan army did not now count more than 8,000 men in the field, but its central position in the mountains of the interior, round which the French garrisons were dispersed in a long semicircle, gave it advantages that compensated to a certain extent for its lack of numbers. It could strike out at any isolated point on the circumference, and, whether its blow failed or succeeded, generally got off before the enemy had concentrated in sufficient numbers to do it much harm. On the other hand, Decaen, now commanding in Catalonia, and Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, though they had some three times as many men under arms as Lacy, were reduced to a position that was little more than defensive. It is true that they occasionally collected a heavy column and struck into the inland: but the enemy avoided them, and replied by counter-attacks on depleted sections of the French circle of garrisons. On April 9th, for example, 4,800 men marched from Gerona against Olot: the local levies under Claros and Rovira skirmished with them, giving ground, and finally losing the town. But though they did not stop the advance of the enemy, Milans, with a larger force, moved on the important harbour of Mataro, and laid siege to the garrison there (April 22), a stroke which soon brought the bulk of French troops back from Olot to drive him off. At the same time Sarsfield’s division pressed in upon the garrison of Tarragona, and cut off its communications with Barcelona.
This forced Decaen to march to open the road, with all the men that Maurice Mathieu could spare from Barcelona (April 28). Letting them go by, Lacy at once renewed the attack on Mataro, bringing up the forces of Sarsfield and Milans, and borrowing four ship-guns from Commodore Codrington to batter the fort, in which the French had taken refuge after evacuating the town [May 3]. Decaen and Lamarque promptly turned back, and on the third day of the siege came hastily to break it up. The Spaniards dispersed in various directions, after burying the guns, which (much to Codrington’s regret) were discovered and exhumed by the enemy. The net result of all this marching and counter-marching was that much shoe-leather had been worn out, and a few hundred men killed or wounded on each side: but certainly no progress had been made in the conquest of Catalonia. Indeed, Manso, at the end of the campaign, established himself at Molins de Rey, quite close to Barcelona, and Sarsfield occupied Montserrat, so that between them they once more cut off the communications from Barcelona southward and westward. Both had to be driven off in June, in order that the roads might again be opened.
Early in July Lacy devised a scheme which made him more hated than ever in Catalonia. He concerted with some Spanish employés in the French commissariat service a plan for blowing up the powder magazine of the great fortress of Lerida, and arranged to be outside its walls on the day fixed for the explosion, and to storm it during the confusion that would follow. Eroles and Sarsfield both protested, pointing out that a whole quarter of the city must be destroyed, with great loss of life. Lacy replied that the results would justify the sacrifice, persisted in his scheme, and moved with every available man towards Lerida to be ready on the appointed day. He miscalculated his hours, however; and, though he left hundreds of stragglers behind from over-marching, his column arrived too late. The explosion took place on the 16th, with dreadful success; not only did a hundred of the garrison perish, but a much larger number of the citizens; many houses and one of the bastions fell. The governor Henriod, a very firm-handed man whose record in Lerida was most tyrannical[733], had been entirely unaware of the approach of the Spaniards, but proved equal to the occasion. He put his garrison under arms, manned the breach, and showed such a firm front, when Lacy appeared, that the captain-general, having tired troops and no cannon, refused to attempt the storm. He went off as quickly as he had come, having caused the death of several hundred of his countrymen with no profit whatever. If he was ready to adopt such terrible means, he should at least have had his plans correctly timed. The Catalans never forgave him the useless atrocity[734].