SECTION XXXII: CHAPTER II
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL OF CIUDAD RODRIGO
The extraordinary speed with which Wellington had in twelve days reduced Ciudad Rodrigo, a fortress that had held out for twenty-four days of open trenches when besieged by Ney in 1810, surprised the captor himself, who had reckoned on taking no shorter time in its leaguer than had the French. But it absolutely appalled his two adversaries, Marmont and Dorsenne, whose whole scheme of operations had rested on the idea that they could count on some three weeks or more for preparation, when the news that the place was invested got to their hands.
Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, had been warning both the commander of the Army of the North and the commander of the Army of Portugal for some weeks that Wellington might move at any moment[201]. But his reports to the effect that the British were making gabions and fascines, preparing a bridge over the Agueda, and bringing up siege-guns to Almeida, made little or no impression on his superiors, because they had come to the conclusion that it was unlikely that Wellington would undertake a siege at midwinter. His preparations, they thought, were probably intended to force his enemies to concentrate, at a time when roads were bad and food unprocurable: ‘ils n’ont d’autre but que de nous faire faire de faux mouvements,’ said one of Marmont’s aides-de-camp. It was only in the spring that the allied army would become really enterprising and dangerous.
Astonishing as it may appear, though Wellington’s troops started on January 2nd, and though Rodrigo was invested and the Redout Renaud stormed on January 8th, the definitive news that the siege had actually begun only reached Salamanca on January 13th. No better proof could be given of the precarious nature of the French hold on the kingdom of Leon. The fact was that the guerrilleros of Julian Sanchez so obsessed all the roads from Salamanca to Rodrigo, that no messenger could pass without a very large escort. Barrié only got the news that he was attacked to Thiébault by entrusting it to a Spanish emissary, who carried his note in disguise, and by a long détour. Marmont and Dorsenne only received it on the 14th: King Joseph at Madrid only on the 25th. On the 13th Marmont was in such a state of blindness as to the actual situation that he was writing to Berthier that ‘si l’armée anglaise passait l’Agueda j’attendrais sur la Tormès la division du Tage et les troupes que le Général Dorsenne pourrait m’amener, mais sans doute ce cas n’arrivera pas. Ciudad Rodrigo sera approvisionné jusqu’à la récolte, et à moins d’un siège il ne doit pas être l’objet d’aucune sollicitude[202].’ Wellington, when this was written, had already passed troops over the Agueda some ten days back, and had been beleaguering Ciudad Rodrigo for five. Yet Marmont was dating from Valladolid, which was not much over 100 miles from the hard-pressed fortress. Truly, thanks to the guerrilleros, the ‘fog of war’ was lying heavily round the Marshal.
Owing to a circumstance of which Wellington could have no knowledge, the moment which he chose for his advance was even more propitious than he guessed. He knew of the march of Montbrun towards Valencia, and had made it the determining factor in his operations. But he was not, and could not be, aware of another fact of high importance. On December 29th Marmont, then at Talavera, had received a dispatch from Paris, dated on the 13th of the same month, informing him that the Emperor had resolved on making a sweeping change with regard to the respective duties and stations of the Armies of the North and of Portugal. Hitherto Dorsenne had been in charge of the whole kingdom of Leon: the troops stationed in it belonged to his army, and on him depended the garrisons of Ciudad Rodrigo, Astorga, and its other fortresses. He was, therefore, responsible for the keeping back of Wellington from all the ground north of the Sierra de Gata. Marmont, with his Army of Portugal, had to ‘contain’ the Anglo-Portuguese army south of that range, and had charge of the valley of the Tagus—northern Estremadura and those parts of New Castile which had been taken away from King Joseph’s direct control. From this central position the Duke of Ragusa had hitherto been supposed to be able to stretch out a hand to Dorsenne, in case of Wellington’s making a move in the valley of the Douro, to Soult in case of his showing himself opposite Badajoz. This indeed Marmont had done: he had brought up his army to Dorsenne’s aid in September, at the time of El Bodon and Aldea da Ponte: he had carried it down to the Guadiana and assisted Soult to relieve Badajoz in June.
Berthier’s dispatch[203], received on December 29th—it had taken sixteen days to reach its destination—informed Marmont that the Emperor had resolved to place the task of ‘containing’ Wellington, when he should operate north of the Tagus, in the hands of one instead of two commanders-in-chief. ‘Considering the importance of placing the command on the whole frontier of Portugal under a single general, His Majesty has decided that the provinces of Avila, Salamanca, Plasencia, Ciudad Rodrigo, the kingdom of Leon, Palencia, and the Asturias, shall belong to the Army of Portugal.’ Along with them were to be handed over to Marmont Souham’s division, then lying in the direction of Zamora, Benavente, and La Baneza, and Bonnet’s division, then in the Asturias—whose central parts (as it will be remembered[204]) that general had reconquered in November 1811. The district of the Army of the North was for the future to be limited to the eastern parts of Old Castile, Santander, Biscay, and Navarre. The real cause of this change, though Berthier’s dispatch lays no stress upon it, was the order recently sent to Dorsenne, which bade him return to France the two strong divisions of the Imperial Guard, which had hitherto formed the most important and effective section of the Army of the North. They were wanted for the probable Russian war, and without them Napoleon rightly judged that Dorsenne would be too weak to ‘contain’ Wellington, hold down all Leon, and observe the Galicians, in addition to hunting Mina and curbing the incursions of Longa and Porlier. Wherefore he resolved to confine the activity of the Army of the North to the lands east and north of Burgos, where its main task would be the crushing of Mina and his compatriots. Marmont should take upon his shoulders the entire responsibility for holding back the Anglo-Portuguese.
But, by the Emperor’s orders, the Army of Portugal, though now charged with a much heavier task than before, was not to get any appreciable increase in numbers. It is true that Marmont was to take over the divisions of Souham and Bonnet, along with the regions that they were occupying. These were strong units, and would have increased his total strength by 16,000 men. But at the same time he was told that Thiébault’s division[205], the other force in the kingdom of Leon, was not to be given him, but to be withdrawn eastward and to remain under Dorsenne. With it were to go other details belonging to the Army of the North, employed in garrison duty in the valley of the Douro, such as the Swiss battalions long garrisoning the city of Leon, Benavente, and Valladolid[206]. Now it was clear that if these garrisons were withdrawn, Marmont would have to find other troops from his own divisions to replace them. Moreover, he was in addition instructed that Bonnet’s division, though now to be regarded as under his command, was not on any excuse to be moved out of the Asturias. ‘It is indispensable that he should remain there, because in that position he menaces Galicia, and keeps down the people of the mountains. You would have to use more troops to guard all the edge of the plain from Leon to St. Sebastian than are required for the Asturias. It is demonstrable in theory, and clearly proved by experience, that of all operations the most important is the occupation of the Asturias, which makes the right of the army rest upon the sea, and continually threatens Galicia.’
If, therefore, Marmont was forbidden to use Bonnet, and had to replace all the existing garrisons of Leon (including that of Ciudad Rodrigo, as he was specially informed) by troops drawn from his own force, he was given a vast increase of territory to watch, but no appreciable increase of numbers to hold it—no more in fact than the difference between the strength of Souham’s division (placed on the side of gain) and that of the new garrisons (placed on the side of loss). The net profit would be no more than 3,000 or 4,000 men at the most.