THE SALAMANCA CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER I
KING JOSEPH AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
On March 16, 1812, the day on which Wellington opened his trenches before Badajoz, the Emperor Napoleon took a step of no small importance with regard to the control of his armies in Spain. He had now made up his mind that the long-threatened war with Russia must begin within a few months, and that he must leave Paris ere long, and move forward to some central point in Germany, from which he could superintend the preparations for a campaign, the greatest in scale of any which he had hitherto undertaken. He was persuaded that war was inevitable: the Czar Alexander had dared to dispute his will; and in the state of megalomania, to which his mind had now accustomed itself, he could tolerate no opposition. Yet he was aware, in his more lucid moments, that he was taking a great risk. On March 7th Colonel Jardet, Marmont’s confidential aide-de-camp, was granted an interview, in which he set forth all the difficulties of the Army of Portugal. The Emperor heard him out, and began, ‘Marmont complains that he is short of many resources—food, money, means, &c.... Well, here am I, about to plunge with an immense army into the heart of a great country which produces absolutely nothing.’ And then he stopped, and after a long silence seemed suddenly to rouse himself from a sombre reverie, and looking the colonel in the face asked, ‘How will it all end?’ Jardet, thrown off his balance by such a searching query, stammered that it would of course end in the best possible fashion. But he went out filled with gloomy forebodings, inspired by his master’s evident lack of confidence in the future[334].
Some weeks were yet to elapse before the Emperor’s actual departure from France; but, ere he went, he had to set in good working order the conduct of his policy during his absence, and of all its complicated machinery the Spanish section was one of the most puzzling and the most apt to get out of order. It was clearly impossible that he should continue to send from Dresden or Wilna elaborate orders every five or ten days, as he had been wont to do from Paris. If it took three weeks to get an order to Seville in February, it might take five or six in July, when the imperial head-quarters might be in some obscure Lithuanian hamlet. Something must be done to solve the problem of continuous policy, and of co-operation between the five armies of Spain, and after much consideration the Emperor dictated to Berthier the solution which he thought least bad—’Send by special messenger a dispatch to the King of Spain, informing him that I confide to him the command of all my Spanish armies, and that Marshal Jourdan will serve as his Chief-of-the-Staff. You will send, at the same time, a similar intimation to that marshal. You will inform the King that I shall keep him advised of my political intentions through my ambassador at Madrid. You will write to Marshal Suchet, to the Duke of Dalmatia, and the Duke of Ragusa that I have entrusted the King with the charge of all my armies in his realm, and that they will have to conform to all the orders which they may receive from the King, to secure the co-operation of their armies. You will write, in particular, to the Duke of Ragusa that the necessity for obtaining common action between the Armies of the South, of Valencia, and of Portugal, has determined me to give the King of Spain control over all of them, and that he will have to regulate his operations by the instructions which he will receive. To-morrow you will write in greater detail to the King, but the special messenger must start this very night for Bayonne[335].’
Of the bundle of dispatches that for the King was delivered at Madrid on March 28th, after twelve days of travel. Marmont got his a little later, as he had started on his Portuguese expedition when it reached Salamanca. Communication between his field-force and his base being difficult, owing to the activity of Julian Sanchez, it appears to have been on March 30, when before Ciudad Rodrigo, that he became aware that he had a new commander-in-chief[336]. Soult was apprised of the situation much later, because, when preparing for his expedition to relieve Badajoz, he had ordered his posts in the Sierra Morena to be evacuated, and the communication with La Mancha to be broken off for the moment. It seems that he must have got Berthier’s dispatch quite late in April, as on the 17th of that month he was only acknowledging Paris letters of February 23rd[337], and the first courier from Madrid got through only some time later. Suchet would appear also to have been advised of the change of command very late—he published the imperial decree in his official gazette at Valencia only on May 10, giving as its date the 29th instead of the 16th of March[338], which looks as if the first copy sent to him had miscarried, and the repetition made thirteen days later had alone reached him. These dates are only worth giving as illustrations of the extreme difficulty of getting orders from point to point in Spain during the French occupation, even when Andalusia and Valencia were supposed to be thoroughly subdued.
It will be noted that in Napoleon’s instructions to Berthier no mention is made of either the Army of Catalonia or the Army of the North[339]; and it might have been thought that, clinging to the theory of his paper annexation of Spain north of the Ebro, he was deliberately exempting from the King’s control the troops in the districts on which he had resolved to lay hands for his own benefit. But a supplementary dispatch of April 23rd placed Decaen and the garrison of Catalonia under the general charge of Suchet, and as that marshal had been directed to obey King Joseph’s military instructions, the four new ‘French’ departments on the Ebro were now theoretically under the same general command as the rest of Spain. As to the Army of the North, Dorsenne wrote (April 19th), with evident glee, to say that he was exempted from obedience to the King, by not being included in the list of recipients of the dispatch of March 16, and that he regretted his inability to carry out a series of orders which Jourdan had sent him. But he had not many more days to serve in his present capacity, and his successor, Caffarelli, though equally recalcitrant in spirit, presently received a formal notice that he was under King Joseph’s command.
Napoleon’s general policy in placing the supreme control of all the Spanish armies in the hands of one chief, and bringing to an end (in theory at least) the system of separate viceroyalties was undoubtedly the right one. And it cannot be disputed that one second-rate commander-in-chief is more effective than four good ones, working each for his own private and local profit and glory. But in this particular case the new arrangement was not likely to bring about any great change for the better, owing to the personal equation. During the last three years Napoleon had been inflicting affronts at short intervals upon his brother, had annexed integral portions of his realm, had disregarded most of his complaints and suggestions, and had allowed him to become the butt of the viceroys, whose insults and injuries he had never been allowed to resent. They had raided the districts assigned to his personal governance[340], had plundered his magazines, imprisoned his officials, and set up courts of justice of their own to supersede the regular magistracy of the land. The Emperor had never punished such proceedings; at the most he had ordered that they should cease, when they were injurious to the progress of the French arms in Spain. It was useless to issue a sudden order that for the future the marshals were under Joseph’s control, and that ‘he must make them obey him,’ as the phrase ran in one letter to Madrid. As the King’s minister, Miot de Melito, wrote, ‘What chance was there of success when all the individuals concerned were at variance with each other? The marshals had been accustomed for three years to absolute independence. The new Chief-of-the-Staff, in spite of his acknowledged capacity, was known to be out of favour with the Emperor, and in consequence could exercise no moral authority over the masters of the armies. The apparent testimonial of confidence which was given to the King, by making him Commander-in-Chief, was a matter to cause disquietude rather than satisfaction[341].’ The plain fact was that Napoleon was over-busy, worried with other problems, and he merely took the easiest and simplest method of throwing the burden of the Spanish war on to the shoulders of another. The consequences, be they what they might be, were now of little importance, compared with the success or failure of the impending Russian campaign.
Jourdan sums up the situation in much the same terms. ‘The King for two years had been allowed to have no direct relations with the generals-in-chief: he had no exact knowledge of the military situation in each of their spheres of command, nor was he better informed as to the strength, organization, and distribution of the troops under their orders. Unable to use his new authority till he had got together detailed statements as to these data, he directed his chief-of-the-staff to ask for reports. Dorsenne replied that he should not send any at present, because Berthier, when announcing to him that the Armies of the South, of Portugal, and of Aragon had been put under the King’s orders, had informed him that the Emperor would let him know in due course what was to be done with the Army of the North. Marshal Suchet demonstrated that he had received special instructions from the Emperor, which presently were seen to make the King’s authority over the Army of Aragon quite illusory. Soult had removed all the posts on the lines of communication when he marched to relieve Badajoz, and showed so little zeal in reopening them, that even in May it was not known at Madrid whether he was yet aware that he was under the King’s orders. Marmont was the only one who sent without delay the report which had been asked for—but he announced at the same time that, in obedience to the Emperor’s earlier orders, he was already operating beyond the Agueda, to make a diversion for the relief of Badajoz[342].’
Of what use was it to send orders to the marshals, when they could plead that the execution of them was rendered impossible by instructions received directly from the Emperor, which prescribed a different policy? Unfortunately for King Joseph each commander-in-chief still preserved his direct communication with the Minister of War at Paris: even after the Emperor had started for Poland in May, each continued to send in his own plans, and to demonstrate how far superior they were to those prescribed by King Joseph. Soult, in particular, generally commenced a dispatch by demonstrating that the directions received from Madrid could not possibly be executed, and then produced an elaborate scheme of his own, which would be beneficial for the Army of Andalusia, but impracticable for those of Portugal, Valencia, and the Centre. When his suggestions were rejected, he wrote privately to Paris, declaring that Joseph and Jourdan were absolutely incapable, and sometimes adding that the King was trying to serve his private interests rather than those of his brother and suzerain. It was the accidental receipt by Joseph of an intercepted letter of Soult’s to the Minister of War, in which he was accused of absolute treason to the Emperor, that brought about the final rupture between the King and the Marshal, and led to the recall of the latter to France[343].