Reille’s start was much delayed by the fact that one of his French brigades had been told off to serve as escort to the mass of Blake’s prisoners from Valencia, and could not get quit of them till, marching by Teruel, it had handed them over for transference beyond the Pyrenees to the garrison of Saragossa. Of his two Italian divisions, Palombini’s was instructed to devote itself to the clearing of southern Aragon, and the opening up of the communications between the French garrisons of Daroca, Teruel, and Calatayud. The other, Severoli’s, called off from the siege of Peniscola, which had originally been entrusted to it[90], marched for Lerida in two columns, the one by the sea-coast and Tortosa, the other inland, by way of Morella and Mequinenza. When his troops had begun to concentrate on the borders of Aragon and Catalonia, in and about Lerida, Reille began operations by sending a column, one French brigade and one Italian regiment, to attack the ubiquitous Eroles, who, since his defeat at Altafulla a month before, had betaken himself to the inland, and the rough country along the valleys of the two Nogueras, with the object of covering Catalonia on its western front.
This expedition, entrusted to the French brigadier Bourke, ended in an unexpected check: Eroles offered battle with 3,000 men in a strong position at Roda, with a torrent bed covering his front (March 5). Bourke, having far superior numbers, and not aware of the tenacity of the Catalan troops, whom he had never before encountered, ordered a general frontal attack by battalions of the 60th French and 7th Italian line. It was handsomely repulsed, with such heavy loss—600 casualties it is said—that the French retreated as far as Barbastro, pursued for some distance by the troops of Eroles, who thus showed that their late disaster had not impaired their morale[91]. This was a most glorious day for the Baron, one of the few leaders of real capacity whom the war in Catalonia revealed. He had been a civilian in 1808, and had to learn the elements of military art under chiefs as incapable as Blake and Campoverde. From a miquelete chief he rose to be a general in the regular army, purely by the force of his unconquerable pertinacity and a courage which no disasters could break. As a local patriot he had an advantage in dealing with his Catalan countrymen, which strangers like Reding, Blake, Lacy, or Sarsfield never possessed, and their confidence was never betrayed. A little active man of great vivacity, generally with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and never long still, he was not only a good leader of irregular bands, but quite capable of understanding a strategical move, and of handling a division in a serious action. His self-abnegation during his service under chiefs whose plans were often unwise, and whose authority was often exercised in a galling fashion, was beyond all praise[92].
The check at Roda forced Reille to turn aside more troops against Eroles—practically the whole of Severoli’s division was added to the column which had just been defeated, and on March 13th such a force marched against him that he was compelled to retire, drawing his pursuers after him toward the upper course of the Noguera, and ultimately to seek refuge in the wilds of Talarn among the foot-hills of the higher Pyrenees. His operations with a trifling force paralysed nearly half Reille’s army during two critical months of the spring of 1812. Meanwhile, covered by his demonstration, Sarsfield executed a destructive raid across the French border, overran the valleys beyond Andorra, and exacted a ransom of 70,000 dollars from Foix, the chief town of the department of the Arriège (February 19). This was the best possible reply to Napoleon’s recent declaration that Catalonia had become French soil. The Emperor was naturally enraged; he reiterated his orders to Reille to ‘déloger les insurgents: il n’est que trop vrai qu’ils se nourrissent de France’—’il faut mettre un terme à ces insultes[93].’ But though Reille pushed his marches far into the remote mountainous districts where the borders of Aragon and Catalonia meet, he never succeeded in destroying the bands which he was set to hunt down: a trail of burnt villages marked his course, but it had no permanent result. The inhabitants descended from the hills, to reoccupy their fields and rebuild their huts, when he had passed by, and the insurgents were soon prowling again near the forts of Lerida, Barbastro, and Monzon.
Palombini in southern Aragon had equally unsatisfactory experiences. Coming up from Valencia by the high-road, he had reached Teruel on February 19th, and, after relieving and strengthening the garrison there, set out on a circular sweep, with the intention of hunting down Gayan and Duran—the Conde de Montijo had just returned to the Murcian army at this moment[94], while the Empecinado was out of the game for some weeks, being, as we shall presently see, busy in New Castile. But the movements of the Italian general were soon complicated by the fact that Villacampa, with the remnants of his division, had started from the neighbourhood of Alicante and Murcia much at the same time as himself, to seek once more his old haunts in Aragon. This division had given a very poor account of itself while serving as regular troops under Blake, but when it returned to its native mountains assumed a very different efficiency in the character of a large guerrilla band. Appearing at first only 2,000 strong, it recruited itself up to a much greater strength from local levies, and became no mean hindrance to Palombini’s operations.
On the 29th of February the Italian general relieved Daroca, and a few days later he occupied Calatayud, which had been left ungarrisoned since the disaster of the previous October[95]. After fortifying the convent of Nostra Señora de la Peña as a new citadel for this place, he split up his division into several small columns, which scoured the neighbourhood, partly to sweep in provisions for the post at Calatayud, partly to drive off the guerrilleros of the region. But to risk small detachments in Aragon was always a dangerous business; Villacampa, who had now come up from the south, cut off one body of 200 men at Campillo on March 5, and destroyed six companies at Pozohondon on the 28th of the same month. Taught prudence by these petty disasters, and by some less successful attacks on others of his flying columns, Palombini once more drew his men together, and concentrated them in the upland plain of Hused near Daroca. From thence he made another blow at Villacampa, who was at the same time attacked in the rear by a column sent up by Suchet from Valencia to Teruel. The Spaniard, however, easily avoided the attempt to surround him, and retired without much loss or difficulty into the wild Sierra de Albarracin (April 18th). Meanwhile, seeing Palombini occupied in hunting Villacampa, the guerrillero Gayan made a dash at the new garrison of Calatayud, and entering the city unexpectedly captured the governor and sixty men, but failed to reduce the fortified convent in which the rest of the Italians took refuge [April 29th]. He then sat down to besiege them, though he had no guns, and could work by mines alone: but Palombini soon sent a strong column under the brigadiers Saint Paul and Schiazzetti, who drove off Gayan and relieved Calatayud [May 9th].
Nevertheless three months had now gone by since the attempt to reduce southern Aragon began, and it was now obvious that it had been wholly unsuccessful. The hills and great part of the upland plains were still in the possession of the Spaniards, who had been often hunted but never caught nor seriously mishandled. Palombini owned nothing more than the towns which he had garrisoned, and the spot on which his head-quarters chanced for the moment to be placed. His strength was not sufficient to enable him to occupy every village, and without such occupation no conquest could take place. Moreover the time was at hand when Wellington’s operations in the West were to shake the fabric of French power all over Spain—even in the remote recesses of the Aragonese Sierras. Palombini was to be drawn off in July to join the Army of the Centre and to oppose the English. And with his departure such hold as the French possessed on the rugged region between Calatayud, Saragossa, and Teruel was to disappear.
It will be noted that during these operations of the spring no mention has been made of the Empecinado, who had been so prominent in this quarter during the preceding autumn and winter. This chief was now at the bottom of his fortunes: raiding in New Castile after his accustomed fashion, he had been completely defeated by General Guy and a column of King Joseph’s army near Siguenza (February 7). He lost 1,000 men, only saved his own person by throwing himself down an almost impracticable cliff, and saw his whole force dispersed. This affair is said to have been the result of treachery: one of the Empecinado’s lieutenants, a certain guerrillero leader named Albuir (better known as El Manco from having lost a hand) being taken prisoner a few days before, saved his neck by betraying his chief’s position and plans: hence the surprise. El Manco entered the King’s service and raised a ‘counter-guerrilla’ band, with which he did considerable harm for a space. The Empecinado had only collected 600 men even by April, when he joined Villacampa and aided him in a raid round Guadalajara[96].
Mina, on the other hand, the greatest of all the partisans, was doing some of his best service to the cause of liberty during the early months of 1812. This was the period when he was conducting his bloody campaign of reprisals against Abbé, the governor of Navarre, who had published in December 1811 the celebrated proclamation which not only prohibited any quarter for guerrilleros, but made their families and villages responsible for them, and authorized the execution of ‘hostages’ levied on them, as well as the infliction of crushing fines. Mina replied by the formal declaration of a ‘war of extermination against all French without distinction of rank,’ and started the system of shooting four prisoners for every Spaniard, soldier or civilian, executed by the enemy. This he actually carried out for some months, till the French proclamation was withdrawn. The most horrid incident of this reign of terror was the shooting by the French, on March 21, of the four members of the ‘insurrectional junta’ of the province of Burgos, all magistrates and civilians, whom they had captured in a raid, and the counter-execution of eighty French soldiers by the Curate Merino, one of Mina’s colleagues, a few days later. This time of atrocities ended shortly after, when Abbé withdrew his proclamation and Mina followed his example.
On the departure of Reille’s troops from Valencia it will be remembered that one of his French brigades, that of Pannetier, had been sent as escort to the captive Spaniards of Blake’s army. While the remainder of the new ‘Army of the Ebro’ went off in the direction of Lerida, as has already been seen, this brigade was turned aside against Mina. Dorsenne at the same time directed the greater part of his available field-force to join in the hunt, and all such of Caffarelli’s troops as were not shut up in garrisons were told off for the same purpose. These detachments, when added to the normal force of occupation in Navarre and Biscay, made up in all some 30,000 men. Divided into many columns, each of which was strong enough to face the 3,000 or 4,000 irregulars under Mina’s command, they endeavoured to converge upon him, and to enclose him within the net of their operations. The chase was very hot in March: on the first of that month Caffarelli invaded the remote Pyrenean valley of Roncal, where it had been discovered that Mina kept his dépôts, his ammunition factory, and his hospitals. The valley was swept clean, but no appreciable number of the guerrilleros were captured. On the 24th, however, it looked as if disaster was impending, as three columns under Abbé, Dumoustier (who had a brigade of the Young Guard), and Laferrière had succeeded in disposing themselves around Mina’s main body, between Sanguessa and Ochagavia. The guerrillero, however, saved himself by a night march of incredible difficulty across impracticable hills, and got away into Aragon. He was lost to sight, and was believed to have been too harassed to be formidable for many a day.
Such was not the true state of affairs. Mina at once came back to his old haunts, by a circuitous march through southern Navarre, and on April 9th performed one of his most notable exploits. On that day he surprised an immense convoy of convalescents, civilians, baggage, and food-stuffs, which was marching from Vittoria to Mondragon, in the Pass of Salinas (or Puerto de Arlaban). Though escorted by 2,000 men (including the whole of the 7th Polish regiment just drawn off from Soult for the Russian war), it was completely destroyed. Five hundred of the Poles were slain, 150 captured, and an enormous booty, including (it is said) several hundred thousand francs in cash, fell into Mina’s hands. He also delivered 450 Spanish prisoners, who were being conducted to captivity beyond the Pyrenees.