The second road, that from Aragon by Teruel and Murviedro, is marked on contemporary maps as a post-route fit for all vehicles: but it passed through a very mountainous country, and was much inferior as a line of advance to the coast-road. It was not blocked by any fortress in the hands of the Spaniards, but between Teruel and Segorbe it was crossed by many ridges and ravines highly suitable for defence. The third track, that by Morella, was unsuitable for wheeled traffic, and could only be used by infantry and cavalry. Its one advantage was that Morella, its central point, had been already for some time in French hands, and contained a garrison and stores, which made it a good starting-point for a marching column.
Suchet determined to use all three of these roads, though such a plan would have been most hazardous against a wary and vigorous enemy: for though they all converge in the end on the same point, Murviedro, they are separated from each other by long stretches of mountain, and have no cross-communications. In especial, the road by Teruel was very distant from the other two, and any isolated column taking it might find itself opposed by immensely superior forces, during the last days of its march; since Valencia, the enemy’s base and headquarters, where he would naturally concentrate, lies quite close to the concluding stages of the route Teruel-Murviedro. It must have been in sheer contempt for his opponent—a contempt which turned out to be justified—that the Marshal sent a detachment of eleven battalions by this road, for such a force of 5,000 men might have been beset by the whole Valencian army, 30,000 strong, and the other columns could not have helped it.
Suchet’s arrangements were governed by a single fact—his siege artillery and heavy stores were parked at Tortosa, and from thence, therefore, along the coast road, must be his main line of advance, though it would be necessary to mask Peniscola and to capture Oropesa, before he could get forward to his objective—the city of Valencia. It might have seemed rational to move the whole field army by this route: but some of the troops destined for it were coming from distant points, and to march them down the Ebro bank to Tortosa would have taken much time. Moreover if the whole force concentrated there, it would all have to be fed from the magazines at Tortosa, and those lying in Aragon would be of no use. The Marshal started himself from this point, on September 15, with the division of Habert, and an infantry reserve formed of Robert’s brigade of the division of Musnier, together with the whole of the cavalry and field artillery of the army. The siege-train guarded by the other brigade of Musnier’s division—that of Ficatier—followed: but Musnier himself did not accompany the expedition, having been left in general charge of the detachments placed in garrison on the Ebro and in Upper Aragon. The whole column made up about 11,000 combatants.
The second column, consisting of the two auxiliary divisions—Palombini’s eleven Italian battalions and Compère’s 1,500 Neapolitans—took (without any artillery to hamper them) the mountain road by Alcañiz and Morella: they were slightly over 7,000 strong, and, if all went well, were destined to unite with the main body somewhere near Oropesa or Castellon de la Plana. It was not likely that this column would meet with much opposition.
But the third detachment, Harispe’s 5,000 men from Upper Aragon, who were to take the inland and western road by Teruel, were essaying a very dangerous task, if the enemy should prove active and enterprising, more especially as they had no artillery and hardly any cavalry with them. Blake might have taken the offensive with 20,000 men against them, while still leaving something to contain—or at least to observe—Suchet’s main column.
The Spanish Commander-in-Chief, however, did nothing of the sort, and met the invasion with a tame and spiritless defensive on all its points. When Suchet’s advance was reported, Blake had his forces in a very scattered situation. Of the 36,000 men of whom he could nominally dispose, the Empecinado’s ‘flying column’ was as usual detached in the mountains of Molina and Guadalajara, harassing small French garrisons. Zayas’s division had been left far to the south at Villena, near Alicante, to work off the contagion of yellow fever which it had contracted while passing by Cartagena. For in that port the disease was raging terribly at the time. Obispo’s division was in the high hills on the borders of Aragon. In the neighbourhood of Valencia were only the troops of Lardizabal and Miranda, with the main body of the cavalry. The Army of Murcia, which was destined to send succour if it should not find itself beset by Soult on the other side, was lying cantoned at various points in that province. As the French were at this time making no demonstration from the side of Granada, it now became clear that it would be able to send certain succours to Blake. But they were not yet designated for marching, much less assembled, and it was clear that they would come up very late.
This dispersion of the available troops did not, in the end, make much difference to the fate of the campaign, for Blake had from the first made up his mind to accept the defensive, to draw in his outlying detachments, and to stand at bay in the neighbourhood of Valencia, without attempting to make any serious resistance on the frontier. Since his arrival he had been urging on the construction of a line of earthworks, forming fortified camps, around the provincial capital. The ancient walls of Valencia itself were incapable of any serious resistance to modern artillery, but outside them, all along the banks of the Guadalaviar river, for some miles inland to the West, and as far as the sea on the East, batteries, têtes-de-pont, trenches, and even closed works of considerable size had been constructed. It was by holding them in force and with great numbers that Blake intended to check the invasion. In front of his chosen position, at a distance of twenty miles, there was a great advanced work—a newly restored fortress of crucial importance—the fastness of Saguntum, or ‘San Fernando de Sagunto’ as it had just been re-christened. This was the acropolis of one of the most ancient towns of Spain, the Saguntum which had detained Hannibal so long before its walls at the opening of the Third Punic War. In the age of the Iberians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, and even down to the days of the Ommeyad califs, there had been a large and flourishing city on this site. But in the later middle ages Saguntum had declined in prosperity and population, and the modern town—which had changed its name to Murviedro (muri veteres) had shrunk down to the foot of the hill. It was now a small open place of 6,000 souls, quite indefensible. But above it towered the steep line of rock which had formed the citadel in ancient days: its narrow summit was crowned with many ruins of various ages—from cyclopean foundations of walls, going back to the time of the ancient Iberians, to Moorish watch-towers and palaces. The empty space of steep slope, from the acropolis down to the modern town, was also sprinkled with decaying walls and substructures of all sorts, among which were cisterns and broken roadways, besides the remains of a large Roman theatre, partly hewn out of the live rock.
There had been no fortifications by Murviedro when Suchet last passed near Valencia, in his abortive raid of March 1810[7]. On that occasion he had scaled the citadel to enjoy the view and to take a casual survey of the picturesque ruins upon it[8]. But since then a great change had taken place. On the advice, as it is said, of the English general, Charles Doyle[9], Blake had determined to restore the citadel as a place of strength. This was when he last held command in Valencia, and before he joined the Cadiz Regency. But his idea had been carried out after his departure by the Valencian Junta and the successive Captains-General who had come after him. By means of more than a year’s work the citadel had been made a tenable fortress, though one of an irregular and unscientific sort. The old Iberian and Moorish walls had been repaired and run together in a new enceinte, with material taken from the other ruins all around. In especial the Roman theatre, hitherto one of the most perfect in Southern Europe, had been completely gutted, and its big blocks had proved most useful for building the foundations of weak points of the circuit of fortification. This was strong at some points, from the toughness and height of the old ramparts, but very sketchy at others. Where the slope was absolutely precipitous, a rough wall of dry stone without mortar alone had been carried along the edge of the cliff. The narrow summit of the rock formed a most irregular enclosure, varying much in height from one point to another. It was divided into four separate sections cut off from each other by cross-walls. The westernmost and lowest, facing the only point from which there is a comparatively gentle ascent to the summit, was crowned by a new battery called by the name of Dos de Mayo, to commemorate the Madrid Insurrection of 1808. Rising high in the centre of this work was an ancient bastion named the Tower of San Pedro. Much higher, on the extreme peak of the summit, was the citadel tower, called San Fernando, where the governor’s flag flew, and from whence the whole fortress could be best surveyed. From this point the rock descended rapidly, and its long irregular eastern crest was surrounded by weakly-repaired walls, ending in two batteries called by the names of Menacho, the gallant governor of Badajoz[10], and Doyle, the English general who had suggested the fortification of the place. But the greater part of this eastern end of the works lay above slopes so precipitous that it seemed unlikely that they would ever be attacked. The western end, by the Dos Mayo battery, was the obvious point of assault by an enemy who intended to use regular methods.