Next morning Suchet sent in a summons to the garrison of Saguntum, and the governor, Andriani, after short haggling for terms, surrendered. He is not to be blamed: his garrison had seen the rout of Blake’s army with their own eyes, and knew that there was no more hope for them. They were, as we have seen, mainly raw troops, and their good bearing up to this moment, rather than their demoralization after the battle, should provoke notice. The French approaches were by this time within a few yards of the Dos Mayo redoubt and its hastily patched breaches. The artillery fire of the besiegers was rapidly levelling the whole work, and the next storm, made on a wide front of shattered curtain, must have succeeded. It is true that a governor of the type of Alvarez of Gerona would then have held out for some time in the castle of San Fernando. But Andriani’s troops were not like those of Alvarez, and he himself was a good soldier, but not a fanatical genius. Two thousand three hundred prisoners marched out on the 26th, leaving not quite 200 men in hospital behind them. The 17 guns of the fortress were many of them damaged, and the store of shot and shell was very low, though there were plenty of infantry cartridges left[39].
SECTION XXX: CHAPTER III
THE CAPTURE OF VALENCIA AND OF BLAKE’S ARMY. NOVEMBER 1811-JANUARY 1812
As the result of the disastrous battle of Saguntum Blake had lost the fortress which had served him so well as an outwork: while his field army was much decreased in numbers, and still more in self-confidence. It was obviously impossible that he should ever again attempt to take the offensive with it. But he was still in possession of Valencia and all its resources, and his carefully fortified lines along the Guadalaviar were so strong that even a defeated army could make some stand behind them. He had still, after all his losses, more than 22,000 men under arms[40]. Yet it is doubtful whether a resolute push on the part of the enemy would not have dislodged him, for more than half his army was in a state of complete demoralization.
Suchet, however, had made up his mind not to strike at once; and when a few days had passed, and the Spaniards had been granted time to settle down into the lines, it would undoubtedly have been hazardous to attack them with the very modest numbers that the Army of Aragon had still in line. The chance would have been to press the pursuit hard, on the very day after the battle. But when the Marshal had counted up his losses in the trenches and the field, had deducted a small garrison for Saguntum, and had detached a brigade to escort to Tortosa his numerous prisoners, he thought himself too weak for a decisive blow. He would not have had 15,000 men in hand, unless he should call up Ficatier’s brigade from Segorbe and Oropesa, and this he did not want to do, as he was entirely dependent for food and stores on the line of communication which Ficatier was guarding. Accordingly he resolved to defer his next blow at Blake, till he should have summoned from Aragon Severoli’s division, and Reille’s too, if the Emperor would give him leave to requisition that force. He could not utilize Reille without that leave; but Severoli’s troops belonged to his own army, and were at his disposition, if he should judge it possible to draw them southward without endangering the safety of Aragon. This he was prepared to do, if a sufficient garrison for that province could be provided from another source. And the only obvious source was the Army of the North: if the Emperor would consent to order Dorsenne to find troops to make Saragossa and the line of the Ebro secure, it would not be over rash to borrow both Severoli and Reille for operations against Valencia. But it was clear that it would take some weeks for the permission to be sent from Paris, and for the troops of the Army of the North to be moved, when and if the permission was granted. We shall see, as a matter of fact, that it was not till the end of December, two full months after the battle of Saguntum, that the two divisions were collected on the desired ground, and the final blow against Blake was delivered.
Meanwhile Suchet could do no more than place his divisions in the most favourable position for making the advance that would only be possible when Severoli, and perhaps Reille also, should arrive. With this object he pushed them forward on November 3 to the line of the Guadalaviar, close in front of Blake’s long series of entrenchments. Harispe on the right advanced to Paterna, Habert on the left to the close neighbourhood of Valencia. He drove the Spanish outposts from the outlying suburb of Serranos, which lay beyond the lines and on the north side of the river, and also from the Grao, or port and mole which forms the outlet of Valencia to the sea. It was most unlucky for Blake, in the end, that his natural line of communication with the Mediterranean and the English fleet lay north of the Guadalaviar, and outside his line of fortifications. Indeed it looks as if there was a cardinal fault in the planning of the defences when the Grao was left outside them, for though rather remote from the city (two miles) it would be of inestimable importance, supposing that the French were to succeed in crossing the Guadalaviar and investing Valencia. With the port safe, the defenders could receive succour and supplies to any extent, and if finally reduced to extremity could retreat by sea. Some of the energy which had been expended in throwing up the immense fortified camp which embraced all the southern suburbs, and in lining the river westward with batteries, might well have been diverted to the fortification of the Grao and its connexion with the works of the city. But probably Blake, in his looking forward to the possible events of the future, did not contemplate among the contingencies to be faced that of his being shut up with the greater part of his army within the walls of Valencia. If he were forced from the lines of the Guadalaviar, he must have intended to fall back inland or southward, and not to allow himself to be surrounded in the capital. Otherwise it would have been absolutely insane for him to leave unfortified, and abandon without a struggle, Valencia’s sole outlet to the sea.
Meanwhile finding himself for week after week unassailed in his lines, Blake had to take stock of his position, and see if there was anything that he could do to avert the attack which must come one day, and which would obviously be formidable. For it had become known to him, ere long, that Severoli’s division, and probably other troops, were working in towards Valencia, and would certainly join Suchet before the winter was over. The only expedients of which Blake made use were to keep masses of men continuously at work strengthening his lines, and to renew the attempt, which he had made fruitlessly in September, for loosing Suchet’s hold on Valencia by launching against his rear the irregulars of Aragon—the bands of the Empecinado, Duran, and the minor chiefs. To add some solidity to their hordes he detached from his army the Conde de Montijo, with one of the two brigades which Mahy had brought from Murcia. This turbulent nobleman, more noted for his intrigues than for his fighting power, was given a general command over all the bands, and marched to join them with three battalions[41] and a few guns—the latter provision was intended to obviate the difficulty which the irregulars had experienced in October from their want of artillery. Blake intended to call up Freire from Murcia with another draft from the depleted ‘Third Army,’ whose best troops Mahy had already led to Valencia. But, as we shall see, this detachment was presently distracted to another quarter, and never joined the main force. The nominal strength of the mass of troops along the Guadalaviar was, however, increased by degrees, owing to the filling of the ranks of the divisions cut up at Saguntum by men from the half-trained reserve and dépôts. Miranda’s division in particular, which had lost so many prisoners in the battle, was completed to more than its original strength by absorbing three raw ‘third battalions’ from the ‘Reserve Division,’ besides other drafts[42]. Blake also endeavoured to make use of ‘urban guards’ and other levies of irregular organization and more than doubtful value: the population in the north of the kingdom, behind Suchet’s lines, were invited to form guerrillero bands: but the Valencians never showed the zeal or energy of the Catalans and Aragonese. The bands that appeared were few in numbers, and accomplished nothing of note. Indeed, it appears that the patriotic spirit of the province had run low. Mahy, in a letter to Blake of this month, complains bitterly that the peasantry refuse to convey letters for him, or even to give him information as to the position and movements of the French, while he knew that hundreds of them were visiting Suchet’s camps daily in friendly fashion[43]. It appears that the people were sick of the war, and discontented with Blake, whose conduct to the local authorities was even more injurious to him than the uniform failure of all his military operations.
The diversion to be conducted by Montijo and the irregulars in Aragon constituted the only real hope of salvation for Blake and the city of Valencia. But it was, we may say, doomed from the first to failure, unless some favourable chance should intervene. A couple of thousand regulars, with the aid of guerrillero bands, hard to assemble, and not mustering at any time more than 6,000 or 7,000 men collected on one spot, were sent to paralyse the movements of more than 20,000 French. For to that figure Reille’s and Severoli’s divisions, together with the original garrison left in Aragon under Musnier, most certainly amounted. It cannot be denied that the diversion gave much trouble to the enemy, but it never prevented him from executing any operation of primary importance. On October 27th the Italian general, Mazzuchelli, with one of Severoli’s brigades, drove off the Empecinado, and relieved the long-besieged garrison of Molina, which he brought off, abandoning the castle. But as he was returning to his chief, who then lay at Daroca, the Empecinado fell on his marching column in the Pass of Cubillejo, and inflicted severe damage upon it[44]. Severoli then sent out a second column of 800 men, to relieve Almunia, on the road to Saragossa, another outlying garrison. But Duran surprised and scattered this party just as it reached its destination, and then captured the fort with its garrison of 140 men (October 31). This provoked the enemy to march against him in force, whereupon, after fighting an obstinate engagement with Mazzuchelli near Almunia, in which the Italians lost 220 men, he turned sideways, and descended upon Daroca, which his adversary had left weakly manned; he stormed the town and laid siege to the fort. This brought down upon him Pannetier, with one of Reille’s brigades: thereupon, wisely refusing to fight, Duran went up into the mountains of Molina (November 1811).
Here he was joined some weeks later by the regular brigade under the Conde de Montijo, which Blake had sent up from Valencia. This little detachment had threaded its way among Reille’s columns, and had narrowly escaped destruction near Albarracin. The Conde, assuming chief command at the high-lying village of Mulmarcos, informed the Aragonese guerrilleros that something desperate must be done, to relieve the pressure on Valencia; and after sending for the Empecinado, who was now beyond the mountains, in the province of Guadalajara, marched on Calatayud. Unfortunately the Partida chiefs, accustomed to conduct their expeditions on their own responsibility, viewed the advent of Montijo, a stranger of no great military reputation, with jealousy and dislike. Duran and the Conde having reached Ateca near Calatayud, committed themselves to a serious combat with a column of 2,000 men from its garrison, having every expectation of being succoured by the Empecinado, who had reached their neighbourhood. He did not appear, however, and they were repulsed. Thereupon the Spaniards parted, the Conde and the regulars retiring to Torrehermosa, Duran to Deza, in the province of Soria. The Empecinado, when all was over, sent in a letter in which he explained that he had held off ‘because his officers and soldiers had no confidence save in their own chief:’ but it was clear that he himself wrecked the expedition out of self-willed indiscipline.