Operations in Catalonia and Valencia were thus dragging on with no great profit to one side or the other, when Wellington’s great scheme for the Anglo-Sicilian diversion on the east coast began at last to work, and—as he had expected—set a new face to affairs. Unfortunately the expedition was conducted very differently from his desire. We have already shown how, by Lord William Bentinck’s perversity, it started too late, and was far weaker than was originally intended[735]. But on July 15th General Maitland arrived at Port Mahon with a fleet carrying three English[736] and two German battalions, and parts of three foreign regiments, with a handful of cavalry, and two companies of artillery. He sent messengers across Spain to announce to Wellington his arrival, and his purpose of landing in Catalonia, as had been directed. At Majorca he picked up Whittingham’s newly-organized Balearic division, and after some delay he set sail on July 28 for Palamos, a central point on the Catalan coast, off which he arrived on the morning of July 31st with over 10,000 men on board.
Owing to Bentinck’s unhappy hesitation in May and June, after the expedition had been announced and the troops ordered to prepare for embarkation, French spies in Sicily had found the time to send warning to Paris, and Suchet had been advised by the Minister of War that a fleet from Palermo might appear in his neighbourhood at any moment. He received his warning in the end of June, a month before Maitland’s arrival[737], and this turned out in the end profitable to the allied cause; for, though the fleet never appeared, he was always expecting it, and used the argument that he was about to be attacked by an English force as his most effective reply to King Joseph’s constant demands for assistance in New Castile. The arrival at Alicante of transports intended to carry Roche’s division to Catalonia, and of some vessels bearing the battering-train which Wellington had sent round for Bentinck’s use, was duly reported to him: for some time he took this flotilla to be the Anglo-Sicilian squadron. Hence he was expecting all through June and July the attack which (through Bentinck’s perversity) was never delivered. The threat proved as effective as the actual descent might have been, and Wellington would have been much relieved if only he could have seen a few of Suchet’s many letters refusing to move a man to support the King[738].
Suchet’s great trouble was that he could not tell in the least whether the Sicilian expedition would land in Catalonia or in Valencia. It might come ashore anywhere between Alicante and Rosas. He prepared a small movable central reserve, with which he could march northward if the blow should fall between Valencia and Tortosa, or southward—to reinforce Habert and Harispe—if it should be struck in the South. Decaen was warned to have a strong force concentrated in central Catalonia, in case the descent came in his direction, and Suchet promised him such assistance as he could spare. On a rumour that the Sicilian fleet had turned northward—as a matter of fact it was not yet in Spanish waters—the Marshal thought it worth while to make a rapid visit to Catalonia, to concert matters with Decaen. He marched by Tortosa with a flying column, and on July 10th met Decaen at Reus. Here he learned that there were no signs of the enemy to be discovered, and after visiting Tarragona, inspecting its fortifications, and reinforcing its garrison, returned southward in a more leisurely fashion than he had gone forth.
During Suchet’s absence from his Valencian viceroyalty the captain-general of Murcia took measures which brought about one of the most needless and gratuitous disasters that ever befell the ever-unlucky army of which he was in charge. Joseph O’Donnell knew that the Sicilian expedition was due, and he had been warned that Roche’s division would be taken off to join it; he was aware that Maitland’s arrival would modify all Suchet’s arrangements, and would force him to draw troops away from his own front. He had been requested by Wellington to content himself with ‘containing’ the French force in his front, and to risk nothing. But on July 18th he marched out from his positions in front of Alicante with the design of surprising General Harispe. He knew that Suchet had gone north, and was not aware of his return; and he had been informed, quite truly, that Harispe’s cantonments were much scattered. Unfortunately he was as incapable as he was presumptuous, and he entirely lacked the fiery determination of his brother Henry, the hero of La Bispal. According to contemporary critics he was set, at this moment, on making what he thought would be a brilliant descent on an unprepared enemy, without any reference to his orders or to the general state of the war[739]. And he wished to fight before Roche’s troops were taken from him, as they must soon be.
Harispe had only some 5,000 men—his own division, with one stray battalion belonging to Habert[740], and Delort’s cavalry brigade[741]. He had one infantry regiment in reserve at Alcoy[742], another at Ibi[743], the third[744]—with the bulk of Delort’s horsemen—in and about Castalla, the nearest point in the French cantonments to Alicante. O’Donnell’s ambitious plan was to surround the troops in Castalla and Ibi by a concentric movement of several columns marching far apart, and to destroy them before Harispe himself could come up with his reserve from the rear. Bassecourt and his detachment from the northern hills was ordered to fall in at the same time on Alcoy, so as to distract Harispe and keep him engaged—a doubtful expedient since he lay many marches away, and it was obvious that the timing of his diversion would probably miscarry.
O’Donnell marched in three masses: on the right Roche’s division went by Xixona with the order to surprise the French troops in Ibi. The main body, three weak infantry brigades under Montijo, Mijares, and Michelena, with two squadrons of cavalry and a battery, moved straight upon Castalla. The main body of the horse, about 800 strong, under General Santesteban, went out on the left on the side of Villena, with orders to outflank the enemy and try to cut in upon his rear. The whole force made up 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, not taking into account the possible (but unlikely) advent of Bassecourt, so that Harispe was outnumbered by much more than two to one. As an extra precaution all the transports ready in Alicante were sent out—with only one battalion on board—along the coast, to demonstrate opposite Denia and the mouth of the Xucar, in order to call off the attention of Habert’s division, which lay in that direction.
Having marched all night on the 20th July, the Spanish columns found themselves—in a very fatigued condition—in front of the enemy at four o’clock on the morning of the 21st. They were out of touch with each other, Roche being separated from the centre by the mountain-spur called the Sierra de Cata, and the cavalry having been sent very far out on the flank. General Mesclop was opposed to Roche at Ibi, with four battalions and a squadron of cuirassiers—General Delort, at Castalla, had only one squadron of the cuirassiers, two battalions, and a battery, but was expecting the arrival of the 24th Dragoons from the neighbouring town of Biar, some way to his right, and of the remaining two squadrons of the 13th Cuirassiers from Onil on his left. Meanwhile he evacuated Castalla, but took up a position on a hillside covered by a stream and a ravine crossed by a narrow bridge, with his trifling force. He had already sent orders to Mesclop at Ibi to come in to his aid, leaving only a rearguard to hold off as long as possible the Spanish column in front of him. The latter did as he was bid; he threw into the Castle of Ibi a company of the 44th and two guns, and left the rest of that battalion and a troop of cuirassiers to support them. With the rest of his force, the three battalions of the 1st Léger and the remaining troop of cuirassiers, he set off in haste for Castalla.
O’Donnell assailed Delort in a very leisurely way after occupying the town of Castalla—his troops were tired, and four of his six guns had fallen behind. But Montijo’s brigade and the two pieces which had kept up with it were developing an attack on the bridge, and Michelena and Mijares had passed the ravine higher up, when the French detached troops began to appear from all directions. The first to get up were the 400 men of the 24th Dragoons, who—screened by an olive wood—came in with a tremendous impact, and quite unforeseen, upon Mijares’s flank, and completely broke up his three battalions. They then, after re-forming their ranks, formed in column and charged across the narrow bridge in front of O’Donnell’s centre, though it was commanded by his two guns. An attack delivered across such a defile, passable by only two horses abreast, looked like madness—but was successful! The guns only fired one round each before they were ridden over, and the brigade supporting them broke up. Delort then attacked, with his two battalions and with the cuirassiers who had just come up from Onil. Montijo’s brigade, the only intact Spanish unit left, was thus driven from the field and scattered. The 6,000 infantry of O’Donnell’s centre became a mass of fugitives—only one regiment out of the whole[745] kept its ranks and went off in decent order. Of the rest nearly half were hunted down and captured in droves by the French cuirassiers and dragoons. Mesclop with the three battalions from Ibi arrived too late to take any part in the rout. Delort sent him back at once to relieve the detachment that he had left in front of Roche. The latter had driven it out of the village of Ibi after some skirmishing, when he saw approaching him not only Mesclop’s column, but Harispe coming up from Alcoy with the 116th of the Line. He at once halted, turned to the rear, and retired in good order towards Xixona: the enemy’s cavalry tried to break his rearguard but failed, and the whole division got back to Alicante without loss. The same chance happened to Santesteban’s cavalry, which, marching from Villena at 7 o’clock, had reached Biar, in the enemy’s rear, only when the fighting—which had begun at 4—was all over. O’Donnell tried to throw blame on this officer; but the fact seems to be that his own calculation of time and distance was faulty: he had sent his cavalry on too wide a sweep, separated by hills from his main body, and had kept up no proper communication with it. Nor does it appear that if Santesteban had come up to Biar a little earlier he would have been able to accomplish anything very essential. Bassecourt’s diversion, as might have been expected, did not work: before he got near Alcoy the main body had been cut to pieces: he retired in haste to Almanza on hearing the news.
O’Donnell’s infantry was so shattered that his army was reduced to as bad a condition as it had shown in January, after Blake’s original disaster at Valencia. He had lost over 3,000 men, of whom 2,135 were unwounded prisoners, three flags, and the only two guns that had got to the front. The survivors of the three broken brigades had dispersed all over the countryside, and took weeks to collect. It was fortunate that Roche’s division had reached Alicante intact, or that city itself might have been in danger. The French had lost, according to their own account, no more than 200 men[746]: only the two cavalry regiments, two battalions of the 7th Line, and one of the 44th had been put into action. As Suchet truly remarks in his Mémoires[747] the total numbers engaged—3,000 men[748]—on his side were somewhat less than the casualty list of the enemy.
The rout of Castalla put the Murcian army out of action for months—a lucky thing for Suchet, since the force of the allies at Alicante was just about to be increased by the arrival there of Maitland’s expedition, and if O’Donnell’s army had been still intact, a very formidable body of troops would have been collected opposite him. It remains to explain the appearance of the Anglo-Sicilians in this direction, contrary to the orders of Wellington, who had expressed his wish that they should land in Catalonia, join Lacy, and lay siege to Tarragona—an operation which he thought would force Suchet to evacuate Valencia altogether, in order to bring help to Decaen.