The long delay of the enemy was caused by the abominable condition of the roads of the district—the same that had given Graham and La Peña so much trouble in February 1811[110]: moreover, any considerable concentration of troops in southern Andalusia raised a food problem for Soult. The region round Tarifa is very thinly inhabited, and it was clear that, if a large army were collected, it would have to carry its provisions with it, and secure its communication with its base, under pain of falling into starvation within a few days. Heavy guns abounded in the Cadiz lines, and Soult had no trouble in selecting a siege-train of sixteen pieces from them: but their transport and that of their ammunition was a serious problem. To complete the train no less than 500 horses had to be requisitioned from the field artillery and military wagons of the 1st Corps. While it was being collected, Victor moved forward to Vejer, near the coast, half-way between Cadiz and Tarifa, with 2,000 men, in order to clear the country-side from the guerrillero bands, who made survey of the roads difficult and dangerous. Under cover of escorts furnished by him, several intelligence officers inspected the possible routes: there were two, both passing through the mountainous tract between the sea and the lagoon of La Janda (which had given Graham so much trouble in the last spring). One came down to the waterside at the chapel of Virgen de la Luz, only three miles from Tarifa, but was reported to be a mere mule-track. The other, somewhat more resembling a road, descended to the shore several miles farther to the north, and ran parallel with it for some distance. But in expectation of the siege, the Spaniards, with help from English ships, had blown up many yards of this road, where it was narrowest between the water and the mountain. Moreover, ships of war were always stationed off Tarifa, and their guns would make passage along this defile dangerous. Nevertheless General Garbé, the chief French engineer, held that this was the only route practicable for artillery, and reported that the road could be remade, and that the flotilla might be kept at a distance by building batteries on the shore, which would prevent any vessel from coming close enough to deliver an effective fire. It was determined, therefore, that the siege-train should take this path, which for the first half of its way passes close along the marshy borders of the lagoon of La Janda, and then enters the hills in order to descend to the sea at Torre Peña.
On December 8th the siege-train was concentrated at Vejer, and in the hope that it would in four days (or not much more) reach its destination before Tarifa, Victor gave orders for the movement of the troops which were to conduct the siege. Of this force the smaller part, six battalions[111] and two cavalry regiments, was drawn from Leval’s command, formerly the 4th Corps. These two divisions had also to provide other detachments to hold Malaga in strength, and watch Ballasteros. The troops from the blockade of Cadiz supplied eight battalions[112], and three more to keep up communications[113]; one additional regiment was borrowed from the brigade in the kingdom of Cordova, which was always drawn upon in times of special need[114]. The whole force put in motion was some 15,000 men, but only 10,000 actually came before Tarifa and took part in the siege.
The various columns, which were under orders to march, came from distant points, and had to concentrate. Barrois lay at Los Barrios, inland from Algeciras, with six battalions from the Cadiz lines, watching Ballasteros, who had once more fallen back under shelter of the guns of Gibraltar. To this point Leval came to join him, with the 3,000 men drawn from Malaga and Granada. The third column, under Victor himself, consisting of the siege-train and the battalions told off for its escort, came from the side of Vejer. All three were to meet before Tarifa: but from the first start difficulties began to arise owing to the bad weather.
The winter, which had hitherto been mild and equable, broke up into unending rain-storms on the day appointed for the start, and the sudden filling of the torrents in the mountains cut the communications between the columns. Leval, who had got as far as the pass of Ojen, in the range which separates the district about Algeciras and Los Barrios from the Tarifa region, was forced to halt there for some days: but his rear, a brigade under Cassagne, could not come forward to join him, nor did the convoy-column succeed in advancing far from Vejer. Victor sent three successive officers with escorts to try to get into touch with Cassagne, but each returned without having been able to push through. It was not till the 12th that a fourth succeeded in reaching the belated column, which only got under way that day and joined on the following afternoon. The siege-train was not less delayed, and was blocked for several days by the overflowing of the lagoon of La Janda, along whose shore its first stages lay. It only struggled through to the south end of the lagoon on the 14th, and took no less than four days more to cover the distance of sixteen miles across the hills to Torre Peña, where the road comes down to the sea. Forty horses, it is said, had to be harnessed to each heavy gun to pull it through[115]. Much of the ammunition was spoilt by the rain, which continued to fall intermittently, and more had to be requisitioned from the Cadiz lines, and to be brought forward by supplementary convoys.
These initial delays went far to wreck the whole scheme, because of the food problem. Each of the columns had to bring its own provisions with it, and, when stopped on the road, consumed stores that had been intended to serve it during the siege. The distance from Vejer to Tarifa is only thirty miles, and from Los Barrios to Tarifa even less: but the columns, which had been ordered to march on December 8th, did not reach their destination till December 20th, and the communications behind them were cut already, not by the enemy but by the vile weather, which had turned every mountain stream into a torrent, and every low-lying bottom into a marsh. The column with the siege artillery arrived two days later: it had got safely through the defile of Torre Peña: the sappers had repaired the road by the water, and had built a masked battery for four 12-pounders and two howitzers, whose fire kept off from the dangerous point several Spanish and English gunboats which came up to dispute the passage. The column from the pass of Ojen had been somewhat delayed in its march by a sally of Ballasteros, who came out from the Gibraltar lines on the 17th-18th and fell upon its rear with 2,000 men. He drove in the last battalion, but when Barrois turned back and attacked him with a whole brigade, the Spaniard gave way and retreated in haste to San Roque. Nevertheless, by issuing from his refuge and appearing in the open, he had cut the communications between the army destined for the siege and the troops at Malaga. At the same time that Ballasteros made this diversion, Skerrett, with his whole brigade and a few of Copons’s Spaniards, had issued from Tarifa to demonstrate against the head of the approaching French column, and advanced some distance on the road to Fascinas, where his handful of hussars bickered with the leading cavalry in the enemy’s front. Seeing infantry behind, he took his main body no farther forward than the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Luz, three miles from the fortress. On the 19th the French showed 4,000 men on the surrounding hills, and on the 20th advanced in force in two columns, and pushed the English and Spanish pickets into Tarifa, after a long skirmish in which the British had 31, the Spaniards about 40 casualties, while the French, according to Leval’s report, lost only 1 officer and 3 men killed and 27 wounded. By four in the afternoon the place was invested—the French pickets reaching from sea to sea, and their main body being encamped behind the hills which command the northern side of Tarifa. They could not place themselves near the water, owing to the fire of two British frigates and a swarm of gunboats, which lay in-shore, and shelled their flanks all day, though without great effect.
Copons and Skerrett had divided the manning of the town and island between their brigades on equal terms, each keeping two battalions in the town and a third in the island and the minor posts. Of the British the 47th and 87th had the former, King’s battalion of flank-companies (reinforced by 70 marines landed from the ships) the latter charge. The convent of San Francisco was held by a company of the 82nd, the redoubt of Santa Catalina on the isthmus by one of the 11th. Seeing the French inactive on the 21st—they were waiting for the siege-train which was not yet arrived—Skerrett sent out three companies to drive in their pickets, and shelled the heights behind which they were encamped. On the following day the sortie was repeated, by a somewhat larger force under Colonel Gough of the 87th, covered by a flanking fire from the gunboats. The right wing of the French pickets was driven in with some loss, and a house too near the Santa Catalina redoubt demolished. The besiegers lost 3 men killed and 4 officers and 19 men wounded, mainly from the 16th Léger. The sallying troops had only 1 man killed and 5 wounded (2 from the 11th, 4 from the 87th). That night the siege-train arrived, and was parked behind the right-hand hill of the three which face the northern side of Tarifa.
The engineer officers who had come up with the siege-train executed their survey of the fortress next morning, and reported (as might have been expected) that it would be best to attack the central portion of the north front, because the ground facing it was not exposed to any fire from the vessels in-shore, as was the west front, and could only be searched by the two or three guns which the besieged had mounted on the towers of Jesus and of Guzman, the one in the midst of the northern front, the other in a dominating position by the castle, at the southern corner. However, the 24-pounders on the island, shooting over the town, could throw shells on to the hillside where the French were about to work, though without being able to judge of their effect.
On the night of the 23rd the French began their first parallel, on their right flank of the central hill, at a distance of 300 yards from the walls: the approaches to it needed no spadework, being completely screened by a ravine and a thick aloe hedge. The besieged shelled it on the succeeding day, but with small effect—only 3 workers were killed and 4 wounded. On the 24th a minor front of attack was developed on the left-hand hill, where a first parallel was thrown up about 250 yards from the walls. The gunboats on the southern shore fired on this work when it was discovered, but as it was invisible to them, and as they could only shoot at haphazard, by directions signalled from the town, they generally failed to hit the mark, and did little to prevent the progress of the digging. The besiegers only lost 4 killed and 25 wounded this day, and on the original point of attack were able to commence a second parallel, in which there was marked out the place for the battery which was destined to breach the town wall at the lowest point of its circuit, just south of the bed of the Retiro torrent.
On the two following days the French continued to push forward with no great difficulty; they completed the second parallel on the centre hill, parts of which were only 180 yards from the town. On the left or eastern hill the trenches were continued down the inner slope, as far as the bottom of the ravine, so as almost to join those of the right attack. On the 26th a violent south-east gale began to blow, which compelled the British and Spanish gunboats to quit their station to the right of Tarifa, lest they should be driven ashore, and to run round to the west side of the island which gave them shelter from wind coming from such a quarter. The French works were, therefore, only molested for the future by the little 6-pounders on the north-east (or Corchuela) tower, and the heavy guns firing at a high trajectory from the island and the tower of Guzman.
But the gale was accompanied by rain, and this, beginning with moderate showers on the 26th, developed into a steady downpour on the 27th and 28th, and commenced to make the spadework in the trenches more laborious, as the sappers were up to their ankles in mud, and the excavated earth did not bind easily into parapets owing to its semi-liquid condition. Nevertheless the plans of the engineers were carried out, and two batteries were finished and armed on the central hill, one lower down to batter the walls, the other higher up, to deal with the guns of the besieged and silence them if possible. The French lined all the advanced parallel with sharpshooters, who kept up a heavy fire on the ramparts, and would have made it difficult for the garrison to maintain a reply, if a large consignment of sandbags had not been received from Gibraltar, with which cover was contrived for the men on the curtain, and the artillery in the towers.