The orders were feasible, and (as we shall see) were duly executed: but Napoleon had committed his usual mistake of undervaluing the tenacity of the Spanish enemy, whom he so deeply despised. Suchet set his troops in motion on September 15th; he took Murviedro—but only after a desperate siege of two months—he beat the army of Valencia in a very decisive pitched battle, but the city by no means fulfilled the Emperor’s prophecy by a prompt surrender. Fighting round its walls went on for five weeks after Murviedro fell: and it was not till troops had been brought to aid Suchet from very remote provinces, that he at last compelled the capitulation of Valencia after the New Year of 1812 had passed. Before the city yielded Wellington was on the move, far away on the Portuguese frontier, and it was not many days after Suchet’s aide-de-camp brought the glorious news of the capitulation of Valencia, that Marmont’s aide-de-camp followed, with the wholly unexpected and unwelcome tidings that the British had stormed Ciudad Rodrigo, and that the hold of the French army on Leon and Castile had been shaken. The one piece of information was the complement and consequence of the other.
Suchet’s invasion of Valencia, in short, was a much harder and more venturesome enterprise than his master had calculated. It was true that the Spanish forces in front of him seemed in September wholly incapable of holding him back. The Army of Catalonia had been reduced by a series of disasters, culminating in the falls of Tarragona and Figueras, to a mere remnant of 8,000 men, lurking in the high hills of the interior. The Army of Valencia had made a miserable exhibition of itself during the last year: it had brought no effective help to the Catalans, and whenever any of its detachments came into contact with the French, they had invariably suffered discreditable defeats, even when their numbers were far greater than those of the invaders. Of all the armies of Spain this was undoubtedly the one with the worst fighting reputation. It was to small profit that the Captain-General was raising yet newer and rawer battalions than those which already existed, to swell the numbers, but not the efficiency, of his command. In July the nominal total of the Valencian army, including the irregulars of the ‘flying column’ of the Empecinado, had been just 30,000 men. By October there were 36,000 under arms, including the new ‘Reserve Division[2],’ whose six battalions of recruits had only 135 officers to 6,000 men—an allowance of one officer to 45 men, not much more than half of the proportion that is necessary even among good veteran troops. But in truth the only valuable fighting force that was present in the kingdom in September was the infantry of the two weak divisions of the old Albuera army, under Zayas and Lardizabal, whom Blake had brought round from Cadiz with him, when he assumed command of the Eastern provinces. They did not between them muster more than 6,000 bayonets, but were good old troops, who were to distinguish themselves in the oncoming campaign.
In addition, it was possible that Valencia might be able to draw a few thousand men to her aid from the depleted army of Murcia, which had suffered so severely at Soult’s hands during the short campaign of the previous August[3]. But such assistance was purely problematical; if Soult should stir again from the side of Andalusia, it would be impossible for General Mahy to bring a single Murcian battalion to the succour of Blake. If, by good fortune, he should not, only a fraction of Mahy’s small army would be free, since the greater part of it would be required to watch the Andalusian frontier, and to protect the great naval arsenal and fortress of Cartagena.
If the regular troops only in eastern Spain had to be counted, it was certain that Suchet could dispose of numbers superior to his adversaries. The gross total of the French Army of Catalonia, where General Decaen had now taken Macdonald’s place, was 30,000 men. That of Suchet’s own ‘Army of Aragon’ was nearly 50,000, if garrisons, sick, and drafts on the march are reckoned in it. With these deducted, it could still supply about 31,000 men of all arms for the field. But these were not the only resources available. On the upper Ebro, in Navarre and western Aragon, were the two newly arrived divisions of Reille and Severoli, which had entered Spain during the summer, and had hitherto had no occupation save a little hunting of Mina’s guerrilleros. These two divisions counted 15,000 fresh troops of good quality, and Suchet reckoned on their assistance to cover his rear, when he should begin his march on Valencia. Technically they belonged to Dorsenne’s ‘Army of the North,’ but Severoli’s Italians had been promised as a reinforcement for Aragon already, and when Suchet asked for the grant of Reille’s division also it was not denied him. There were 70,000 men in all to be taken into consideration when the attack on Valencia was planned out.
No such force, of course, could be set aside for the actual invasion. The reason why not half so many thousands could be utilized for the projected stroke was that the Spanish War, as we have already had to point out on many occasions, was not a normal struggle between regular armies. The French had not only to conquer but to occupy every province that they overrun. Wherever an adequate garrison was not left, the guerrilleros and miqueletes inundated the country-side, cut all communications, and blockaded such small detachments as had been left far apart from the main army. Suchet’s 70,000 men had to hold down Aragon and Catalonia, at the same time that they undertook the further extension of their master’s power on the Valencian side.
Decaen in Catalonia had 23,000 men fit for service, not including sick and drafts on the march. Lacy’s little army was not more than 8,000 strong in September: yet Suchet dared not take away a man from Catalonia. The large garrison of Barcelona, a whole division, and the smaller garrisons of Gerona, Rosas, and Mont Louis absorbed nearly half the effective total. The remainder were, as it turned out, not strong enough to keep the Catalans in check, much less to prosecute active offensive operations against them. It was in October, after Suchet had started against Valencia, that Lacy carried out the series of small successful raids against Igualada, Cervera, and Montserrat, which have been spoken of in an earlier chapter[4]. We need not wonder, then, that not a Frenchman was drawn from Catalonia: they were all wanted on the spot to keep a tight hold on the turbulent principality. The example of the surprise of Figueras in the last spring was sufficient to prove the necessity of keeping every point strongly garrisoned, on pain of possible disaster.
As to the Army of Aragon, it was far stronger than the Army of Catalonia, but on the other hand it had even more fortresses to garrison. Saragossa, Tortosa, Tarragona, Lerida, were large places, each absorbing several battalions. In addition there were the smaller strongholds of Jaca, Mequinenza, Monzon, Morella, requiring care. All these were regular fortresses, but they did not exhaust the list of points that must be firmly held, if the communications of Suchet’s field-force with its distant base were to be kept free and unhampered. Southern Aragon and the mountain-ganglion where the borders of that kingdom and of Valencia and New Castile meet, in the roughest country of the whole Spanish peninsula, had to be guarded. For in this region lay the chosen hunting-ground of the guerrillero bands of the Empecinado, Duran, and many other lesser chiefs: and Mina himself, from his usual haunts in Navarre, not unfrequently led a raid far to the south of the Ebro. Suchet had therefore to place garrisons in Teruel, Daroca, Alcañiz, Calatayud, and Molina, none of which possessed modern fortifications. The detachments left to hold them had to utilize a large convent, a mediaeval castle, or some such post of defence, in case they were attacked by the roving hordes of the enemy. Able to protect themselves with ease against small parties, and to keep the roads open under ordinary circumstances, they were exposed to serious danger if the guerrilleros should mass themselves in force against any one garrison—more especially if the bands should have been lent a few cannon and gunners from the regular Spanish armies. For convents or old castles could not resist artillery fire.
To cover his rear Suchet was forced to set aside one whole division, that of Frère, thirteen battalions strong[5], and mustering over 7,000 men, and immense detachments of the three other French divisions of the Army of Aragon. The units told off for the field army left no less than 6,800 able-bodied men (besides sick and convalescents) behind them, while they took 22,000 to the front. Frère’s division remained on the side of Western Catalonia, holding Lerida and Tortosa in force, and the intermediate places with small posts. The detachments from Musnier’s, Harispe’s, and Habert’s French, and from Palombini’s Italian divisions, took charge of Southern Aragon, leaving a company here and a battalion there. But the Marshal selected with great care the men who were to march on the Valencian expedition: each regiment drafted its most effective soldiers into the marching units, and left the recruits and the old or sickly men in the garrisons. Thus the battalions used in the oncoming campaign were rather weak, averaging not much over 450 men, but were composed entirely of selected veterans. The only doubtful element taken forward was the so-called ‘Neapolitan Division’ of General Compère, which was only 1,500 strong—in reality a weak brigade—and had no great reputation. But what was left of this corps was its best part—the numerous men who wanted to desert had already done so, and its weaklings were dead by this time. Of his cavalry Suchet took forward almost the whole, leaving behind only two squadrons of the 4th Hussars for the service between the garrisons, and of the other regiments only the weakly men and horses[6]. Practically all his horse and field artillery also went forward with him.
Of his own Army of Aragon, Suchet, as we have thus seen, left nearly 14,000 men ‘present under arms’ to cover his rear. But this was not enough to make matters wholly secure, so untameable were the Aragonese and Catalans with whom he had to deal. Indeed, if this force only had been left to discharge the appointed task, it is clear, from subsequent happenings, that he would have suffered a disaster during his absence in Valencia. He asked from the Emperor the loan of half Reille’s division from Navarre, as well as the prompt sending to the front of Severoli’s Italians, who had been promised him as a reinforcement when first they entered Spain. The petition was granted, and these troops entered northern Aragon, and took charge of the places along the Ebro, while the expeditionary army was on its way to Valencia. Most of them were ultimately brought forward to the siege of the great city, and without them neither could Aragon have been maintained nor Valencia captured. Practically we may say that Suchet, at his original start, took 26,000 men to beat the Valencians and capture their city, but that he left nearly 30,000 more behind him, to hold down the provinces already conquered and to deal with the guerrilleros.
Two main roads lead from the north to Valencia: the one, coming from Tortosa and Catalonia, hugs the coast of the Mediterranean, from which it is never more than a few miles distant. The other, far inland, and starting from Saragossa, follows the valley of the Xiloca among the hills of Southern Aragon, crosses the watershed beyond Teruel, and descends to the sea near Murviedro, where it joins the coast-road only a few miles north of Valencia. There is a third, and much inferior, route between these two, which starts from Mequinenza on the Lower Ebro, crosses the mountainous Valencian frontier near Morella, and comes down to the coast at Castellon de la Plana, twenty miles north of Murviedro. Of these roads the first was as good as any in Spain, and was suitable for all manner of traffic: but it had the disadvantage of being flanked at a distance of only two miles by the small but impregnable fortress of Peniscola, which lies on a rocky headland thirty miles beyond Tortosa, and of being absolutely blocked by the little town of Oropesa, twenty miles further south. Oropesa was no more than a ruinous mediaeval place, with two castles hastily repaired, without any modern works: but since the road passed through it, no heavy guns or wagons starting from Tortosa could get further south till its forts had been captured.