The month of December was now far advanced, and nothing effective had been done to help Blake. The Aragonese bands had cost Reille and Severoli many toilsome marches, and had inflicted on them appreciable losses—Severoli’s division was now 2,000 men weaker than it had been in September. But they had failed entirely to stop the larger movements of the enemy, who was able to move wherever he pleased with a column of 3,000 men, though any lesser force was always in danger of being harried or even destroyed. When Suchet determined that he would again risk trouble in his rear, and would bring both the divisions from the Ebro down to Valencia, no one could prevent him from doing so. It is true that Severoli and Reille were leaving behind them a country-side still infested by an active and obstinate enemy. But if their generalissimo judged that he was prepared to take this risk, and was determined to crush Blake before he completed the subjugation of Upper Aragon, there was nothing that could hinder him from carrying out his intention. By the middle of December Severoli was on his way to the Guadalaviar by way of Teruel, and Reille followed not far behind, though one of his brigades (Bourke’s) had been distracted, by being ordered to conduct the prisoners from Saguntum to the French frontier, and the other (Pannetier’s) had been drawn so far northward in hunting Montijo and Duran that it was several marches behind the leading columns.
It was not, however, Reille and Severoli alone who were set in motion for the ruin of Blake and Valencia. Nor was Suchet’s mind the final controlling force of the operations which were to spread all over eastern Spain in the months of December 1811 and January 1812. The Emperor, when he hurried the Army of Aragon forward in September, had explained that this was the crucial point of the war, and repeated in November that ‘l’important, dans ce moment, est la prise de Valence.’ Portugal could wait—Wellington, with 18,000 men sick, and forced to remain on the defensive,—was a negligible quantity during the winter: he should be dealt with in the spring by a general combination of all the French armies[45]. Acting on this comfortable but erroneous hypothesis, Napoleon determined to shift eastward and southward not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops from the armies which were directly or indirectly opposed to Wellington, so as to alter for a time the general balance of forces on the Portuguese side of the Peninsula. On October 18th, before the battle of Saguntum had been fought and won, Berthier had been directed to write to Marmont that, for the support of the invasion of Valencia, King Joseph and the Army of the Centre would be ordered to send troops to Cuenca, to take Blake in the rear. In consequence the Army of Portugal must ‘facilitate the task of the King,’ i. e. find detachments to occupy those parts of New Castile from which Joseph would have to withdraw the normal garrison for his expedition to Cuenca. But presently it became evident that the Army of the Centre would have great difficulty in providing a column strong enough to make this diversion, even if it were relieved in La Mancha, or the province of Toledo, by units belonging to Marmont. Napoleon then made the all-important determination to borrow troops from the Army of Portugal for the Valencian expedition. By this time he knew of the battle of Saguntum, and had received Suchet’s appeals for reinforcements. His dispatch to Marmont of November 20th informs the Marshal that he must provide a division of 6,000 men of all arms, to join the disposable force which King Joseph can spare for the assistance of Suchet. The still more important dispatch of the next day varied the orders in an essential detail, by saying that the Marshal must send not ‘a detachment of 6,000 men’ but such a force as, united to the column supplied by King Joseph, would provide a total of 12,000 men for the diversion.’ And it was added that, in addition, the Army of Portugal would have to find 3,000 or 4,000 men more, to keep up the communications of the expeditionary force with its base in New Castile. The detachment might be made without any fear of adverse consequences, since Wellington had 20,000 men in hospital, and barely as many in a state to take the field, so no risk would be run in depleting the force opposed to him[46]. Napoleon, conveniently ignoring the exact wording of his own dispatch, reproached Marmont (when evil results had followed) for having detached ‘an army corps and thirty guns’ for the diversion, instead of ‘a light flying column.[47]’ But it will be seen that the Marshal was literally obeying the orders given him when he moved 12,000 men towards Valencia. For the Army of the Centre provided not much more than 3,000 men under General d’Armagnac for the Cuenca expedition[48], and Marmont had, therefore, to find 9,000 men to bring it up to the strength which the Emperor prescribed, as well as the 3,000-4,000 men to cover the line of communications.
All these dispatches reached Marmont’s head-quarters at Plasencia with the tardiness that was normal in Spain, where officers bearing orders had to be escorted by detachments many hundreds strong, supposing that their certain arrival at their destination was desired. If they travelled rapidly and unescorted, they became the inevitable prey of the guerrilleros. The dispatch of October 18th, saying that Marmont must replace King Joseph’s garrisons in La Mancha, came to hand on November 11, and the Marshal accordingly directed Foy’s division, then at Toledo, to break itself up and occupy the various posts which the German division of the Army of the Centre had been holding. Foy set out to fulfil these orders on November 22.
The Emperor’s second and third dispatches, those of November 20-21st, turned up on December 13th[49], and Marmont found himself under orders to find 9,000 men for the Cuenca expedition,—since d’Armagnac had only 3,000 men to contribute—and in addition 3,000-4,000 more for the line of communications. Now the Marshal was as fully convinced as his master that Wellington was not in a condition to move, or to do any serious harm, and under this impression, and being probably stirred (as Napoleon afterwards remarked)[50] by the desire to increase his own reputation by a dashing feat of arms, he resolved to take charge of the expedition in person. He ordered that the divisions of Foy and Sarrut—both weak units, the one of eight, the other of nine battalions[51]—and Montbrun’s light cavalry should prepare to march under his own charge to join d’Armagnac, and move on Valencia. Another division should come into La Mancha to take up the cantonments evacuated by Foy, and keep over the line of communications. Clausel should be left in charge of the remainder of the army, and observe Wellington.
This scheme was never carried out, for on December 20 Marmont received another dispatch, ordering him to transfer his head-quarters to Valladolid, and to move a large part of his army into Old Castile. Of this more hereafter. But being thus prevented (for his own good fortune as it turned out) from going on the expedition, he gave over Foy’s and Sarrut’s divisions to Montbrun, and bade him execute the diversion. He himself went, as ordered, to Valladolid. If he had received the last dispatch a little later, or had started a little earlier, he would have been put in the ignominious position of being absent from his own point of danger, when Wellington suddenly struck at Ciudad Rodrigo in the early days of January.
Montbrun, his substitute, had drawn together his forces in La Mancha by the 29th of December, but receiving from d’Armagnac, who was already on the move with 3,000 men, the assurance that the road from Cuenca to Valencia was practically impassable at midwinter, and that he could certainly get no guns along it, he resolved to take another route towards the scene of active operations. Accordingly he set out to march by the road San Clemente, Chinchilla, Almanza, which runs across the upland plain of La Mancha and Northern Murcia, and does not cross rough ground till it nears the descent to the sea-coast on the borders of Valencia. The column did not leave San Clemente and El Probencio till January 2, and (as we shall see) was too late to help Suchet, who had brought matters to a head long before it drew near him.
Meanwhile d’Armagnac, though his force was trifling[52], had been of far greater use. He had reoccupied Cuenca, but finding (as he had informed Montbrun) that the roads in that direction were impracticable, had swerved southward, avoiding the mountains, and getting to Tarazona in La Mancha, marched towards the passes of the Cabriel River, and the road on to Valencia by way of Requeña. His approach being reported to Blake, who had no troops in this direction save two battalions under Bassecourt, the Captain-General was seized with a natural disquietude as to his rear, for he had no accurate knowledge of the French strength. Wherefore he directed General Freire, with the succours which he had been intending to draw up from Murcia, to abandon the idea of reinforcing the main army, and to throw himself between d’Armagnac and Valencia [November 20]. The French general, beating the country on all sides, and thrusting before him Bassecourt’s small force and the local guerrilleros, marched as far as Yniesta, and forced the passage of the Cabriel at Valdecañas, but finding that he had got far away from Montbrun, who did not march till many days after he himself had started, and being informed that Freire, with a very large force, was coming in upon his rear, he stopped before reaching Requeña and turned back towards La Mancha[53]. He had succeeded, however, in preventing Freire from reinforcing Valencia, and the Murcian succours never got near to Blake. He even for a time distracted troops from the main Spanish army, for Zayas was sent for some days to Requeña, and only returned just in time for the operations that began on December 25th. The net outcome, therefore, of Montbrun’s and d’Armagnac’s operations was simply to distract Freire’s division from Valencia at the critical moment—an appreciable but not a decisive result.
Meanwhile Suchet found himself able to deliver his decisive blow on the Guadalaviar. By his orders Severoli and Reille had drawn southward by way of Teruel, deliberately abandoning most of Aragon to the mercy of the insurgent bands; for though Caffarelli had moved some battalions of the Army of the North to Saragossa and the posts along the Ebro, the rest of the province was left most inadequately guarded by the small force that had originally been committed to Musnier’s charge, when first Suchet marched on Valencia. Musnier himself accompanied Severoli’s division, leaving his detachments under Caffarelli’s orders, for he had been directed to come to the front and assume the command of his old brigades, those of Ficatier and Robert, both now with the main army. When Reille and the Italians marched south, Aragon was exposed to the inroads of Montijo, Duran, the Empecinado, and Mina, all of whom had been harried, but by no means crushed, by the late marches and countermarches of the French. That trouble would ensue both Napoleon and Suchet were well aware. But the Emperor had made up his mind that all other considerations were to be postponed to the capture of Valencia and the destruction of Blake’s army. When these ends were achieved, not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops as well, should be drawn northwards, to complete the pacification of Aragon, and to make an end of the lingering war in Catalonia.
Severoli had reached Teruel on November 30, but was ordered to await the junction of Reille’s troops, and these were still far off. Indeed Reille himself only started from Saragossa with Bourke’s brigade on December 10th, and Pannetier’s brigade (which had been hunting Duran in the mountains) was two long marches farther behind. Without waiting for its junction, Severoli and Reille marched from Teruel on December 20th, and reached Segorbe unopposed on the 24th. Here they were in close touch with Suchet, and received orders to make a forced march to join him, as he intended to attack the lines of the Guadalaviar on the 26th. To them was allotted the most important move in the game, for they were to cross the Guadalaviar high up, beyond the westernmost of Blake’s long string of batteries and earthworks, and to turn his flank and get in his rear, while the Army of Aragon assailed his front, and held him nailed to his positions by a series of vigorous attacks. The point on which Reille and Severoli were to march was Ribaroja, fifteen miles up-stream from Valencia.
When the two divisions from Aragon should have arrived, Suchet could count on 33,000 men in line, but as Pannetier was still labouring up two marches in the rear, it was really with 30,000 only that he struck his blow—a force exceeding that which Blake possessed by not more than 6,000 or 7,000 bayonets. Considering the strength of the Spanish fortifications the task looked hazardous: but Suchet was convinced, and rightly, that the greater part of the Army of Valencia was still so much demoralized that much might be dared against it: and the event proved him wise.