‘I have the honour to enclose herewith two letters dated on the 1st and 3rd instant from General Thiébault at Salamanca. I attach no credence to their contents, for during the last six months I have been receiving perpetually similar reports.... If, contrary to my opinion, the English have really made some tentative movements on Ciudad Rodrigo, and if Julian Sanchez has tried to cut our communication with that place, I can only attribute it to your recent movement on Valencia. In that case, the unforeseen reappearance of your Excellency here may make the enemy change his plan of operations, and may prove harmful to him.’
Thiébault had cried ‘Wolf!’ too often to please Dorsenne, and the latter had no real apprehension that Wellington was already on the move. No more had Marmont. On arriving at Valladolid on January 13th he wrote to Berthier (five days after the trenches were opened at Rodrigo!), ‘It is probable that the English may be on the move at the end of February, and then I shall have need of all my troops: I have, therefore, told Montbrun to start on his backward march towards me before the end of January[208].’ By the end of January Rodrigo had already been for twelve days in the hands of the British army.
And if Dorsenne and Marmont were blind to the actual situation, so, most of all, was their master. The dispatch which gave over the charge of the kingdom of Leon to Marmont contains the following paragraph:
‘If General Wellington (sic) after the rainy season is over (i. e. after February) should determine to take the offensive, you can then unite all your eight divisions for a battle: General Dorsenne from Burgos would support you, by marching up from Burgos to your assistance. But such a move is not to be expected (n’est pas présumable). The English, having suffered heavy losses, and experiencing great difficulties in recruiting their army, all considerations tend to make us suppose that they will simply confine themselves to the defence of Portugal.... Your various dispatches seem to prove that it is at present no longer possible for us to take the offensive against Portugal, Badajoz being barely provisioned, and Salamanca having no magazines. It is necessary, therefore, to wait till the crops of the present year are ripe [June!], and till the clouds which now darken the political situation to the North have disappeared. His Majesty has no doubt that you will profit by the delay, to organize and administer the provinces under your control with justice and integrity, and to form large magazines.... The conquest of Portugal and the immortal glory of defeating the English are reserved for you. Use therefore all possible means to get yourselves into good condition for commencing this campaign, when circumstances permit that the order for it should be given.... Suggestions have been made that Ciudad Rodrigo should be dismantled. The Emperor considers that this would be a great mistake: the enemy, establishing himself in that position, would be able to intercept the communications between Salamanca and Plasencia, and that would be deplorable. The English know quite well that if they press in upon Rodrigo, or invest it, they expose themselves to be forced to deliver a battle—that is the last thing they want: however, if they did so expose themselves, it would be your duty to assemble your whole army and march straight at them[209].’
Such being Napoleon’s views at midwinter, it is strange to find Napier asserting that the disasters of the French at this time were caused partly by the jealousies of his lieutenants, partly by their failing to understand his orders in their true spirit, so that they neglected them, or executed them without vigour[210]. Without denying that Marmont, Dorsenne, and Soult were jealous of each other, we may assert that the real fundamental origin of all their disasters was that their master persisted in directing the details of the war from Paris, founding his orders on data three weeks old, and sending those orders to arrive another fortnight or three weeks after they had been written. As a fair example of what was perpetually happening we may cite the following dates. Wellington started to move on January 1st, 1812, as Thiébault wrote to Dorsenne (on the report of a Spanish spy) on January 3rd: on January 27 the general information that the Anglo-Portuguese army had crossed the Agueda, without any details, reached the Emperor, and caused him to dictate a dispatch for Dorsenne, giving him leave to detain the two divisions of the Imperial Guard under orders for France, and to support Marmont with them: the Emperor added that he hoped that by January 18th Montbrun would be nearing Madrid, and that by the end of the month his column would have joined the Army of Portugal. Eight days before this dispatch was written Ciudad Rodrigo was already in Wellington’s hands: the news of its fall on January 19th seems to have reached Paris on February 11th[211], whereupon, as we shall presently see, the Emperor dictated another dispatch to Marmont, giving elaborate instructions on the new condition of affairs. This (travelling quicker than most correspondence) reached Marmont at Valladolid on February 26[212]: but of what use to the Marshal on that day were orders dictated upon the basis of the state of affairs in Leon on January 19th? ‘On ne dirige pas la guerre à trois ou quatre cents lieues de distance,’ as Thiébault very truly observed[213].
It was precisely Napoleon’s determination to dictate such operations as Montbrun’s Alicante expedition, or the transference of Marmont’s head-quarters from the valley of the Tagus to Valladolid, without any possible knowledge of the circumstances of his lieutenants at the moment when his orders would come to hand, that was the fatal thing. With wireless telegraphy in the modern style he might have received prompt intelligence, and sent directions that suited the situation. But under the conditions of Spain in 1812 such a system was pure madness.
‘The Emperor chose,’ as Marmont very truly observes, ‘to cut down the numbers of his troops in Spain [by withdrawing the Guards and Poles] and to order a grand movement which dislocated them for a time, precisely at the instant when he had increased the dispersion of the Army of Portugal, by sending a detachment of 12,000 men against Valencia. He was undoubtedly aware that the English army was cantoned in a fairly concentrated position on the Agueda, the Coa, and the Mondego. But he had made up his mind—I cannot make out why—that the English were not in a condition to take the field: in every dispatch he repeated this statement.’ In fairness to his master, Marmont should have added that he was of the same opinion himself, that Dorsenne shared it, and that both of them agreed to treat the Cassandra-like prophecies which Thiébault kept sending from Salamanca as ‘wild and whirling words.’
Marmont reached Valladolid, marching ahead of the divisions of Clausel and Maucune, on the 11th or 12th of January. He found Dorsenne waiting for him, and they proceeded to concert measures for the exchange of territory and troops which the Emperor had imposed upon them. After dinner on the evening of the 14th arrived Thiébault’s definite and startling news that Wellington, with at least five divisions in hand, had invested Rodrigo on the 8th, and was bringing up a heavy battering-train. The siege had already been six days in progress.
This was very alarming intelligence. The only troops actually in hand for the relief of Rodrigo were Thiébault’s small division at Salamanca, Souham’s much larger division about La Baneza and Benavente, and Clausel’s and Maucune’s divisions, now approaching Valladolid from the side of Avila. The whole did not make much more than 20,000 men, a force obviously insufficient to attack Wellington, if he were in such strength as Thiébault reported. Dorsenne at once sent for Roguet’s division of the Imperial Guard from Burgos: Marmont ordered Bonnet to evacuate the Asturias and come down by the route of Leon to join him: he also directed Brennier to come up from the Tagus, and Ferey to hurry his march from La Mancha. Aides-de-camp were sent to hunt for Foy, who was known to be on the borders of the Murcian regions, where Montbrun had dropped him on his march to Alicante. Montbrun himself, with the rest of his column, was also to turn back as soon as the orders should reach him.
By this concentration Marmont calculated[214] that he would have 32,000 men in line opposite Wellington by January 26 or 27th, as Bonnet, Brennier, and Dorsenne’s Guards should have arrived by then. And by February 1 Ferey and Foy ought also to be up, and more than 40,000 men would be collected. Vain dates! For Wellington captured Rodrigo on the 19th, seven days before the Marshal and Dorsenne could collect even 32,000 men.