It will be remembered that Bonnet had been directed to reoccupy the Asturias by Napoleon’s special command, and by no means to Marmont’s liking[388]. He marched from Leon on May 15, by the road across the pass of Pajares, which he had so often taken before on similar expeditions. The Asturians made no serious resistance, and on May 17-18 Bonnet seized Oviedo and its port of Gijon. But, as in 1811, when he had accomplished this much, and planted some detachments in the coast towns, his division of 6,000 men was mainly immobilized, and became a string of garrisons rather than a field-force. It was observed by Porlier’s Cantabrian bands on its right hand, and by Castañon’s division of the Army of Galicia on its left, and was not strong enough to hunt them down, though it could prevent them from showing themselves anywhere in the neighbourhood of Oviedo.
But if the Galicians should lay siege to Astorga, and push advanced guards beyond it, in the direction of the city of Leon, it was clear that Bonnet’s position would be threatened, and his communications with his chief, Marmont, imperilled. Wellington, who knew from intercepted dispatches the importance attached by the Emperor to the retention of the Asturias, judged that Bonnet would not evacuate it, but would spend his energy in an attempt to hold back the Galicians and keep open his connexion with Leon. He thus hoped that the French division at Oviedo would never appear near Salamanca—an expectation in which he was to be deceived, for Marmont (disregarding his master’s instructions) ordered the evacuation of the Asturias the moment that he discovered the strength of the attack that was being directed against his front on the Tormes. Hence Wellington’s advance cleared the Asturias of the enemy, and enabled the Galicians to besiege Astorga unmolested for two months—good results in themselves, but not the precise benefits that he had hoped to secure by putting the Galician army in motion.
No item of assistance being too small to be taken into consideration, Wellington also directed Silveira to advance from the Tras-os-Montes, with the four militia regiments of that province[389], to cross the Spanish frontier and blockade Zamora, the outlying French garrison on the Douro, which covered Marmont’s flank, as Astorga did his rear. To enable this not too trustworthy irregular force to guard itself from sudden attacks, Wellington lent it a full brigade of regular cavalry[390], which was entrusted to General D’Urban, who dropped the post of Chief-of-the-Staff to Beresford to take up this small but responsible charge. His duty was to watch the country on each side of the Douro in Silveira’s front, so as to prevent him from being surprised, and generally to keep Wellington informed about Marmont’s right wing, when he should begin to concentrate. Toro, only 20 miles farther up the Douro than Zamora, was another French garrison, and a likely place for the Marshal to use as one of his minor bases. Silveira being as rash as he was enterprising, it was D’Urban’s task to see that he should be warned betimes, and not allowed to get into trouble. He was to retreat on Carvajales and the mountains beyond the Esla if he were attacked by a superior force.
A much more serious diversion was prepared to distract the free movement of the French Army of the North, from which Caffarelli might naturally be expected to send heavy detachments for Marmont’s assistance, when the British striking-force should advance on Salamanca. Caffarelli’s old enemies were the patriot bands of Cantabria and Navarre, who had given his predecessor, Dorsenne, so much trouble earlier in the year. Mina, on the borders of Navarre, Aragon, and Old Castile, was very far away, and not easy to communicate with or to bring into the general plan, though his spirit was excellent. But the so-called ‘Seventh Army,’ under Mendizabal, was near enough to be treated as a serious factor in the general scheme. This force consisted of the two large bands under Porlier in Cantabria, and Longa in the mountains above Santander, each of which was several thousands strong: these were supposed to be regular divisions, though their training left much to be desired: in addition there were several considerable guerrilla ‘partidas’ under Merino, Salazar, Saornil, and other chiefs, who lived a hunted life in the provinces of Burgos, Palencia, and Avila, and were in theory more or less dependent on Mendizabal. The chief of the Seventh Army was requested to do all that he could to keep Caffarelli employed during the month of June—a task that quite fell in with his ideas—he executed several very daring raids into Old Castile, one of which put the garrison of Burgos in great terror, as it was surprised at a moment when all its better items chanced to be absent, and nothing was left in the place but dépôts and convalescents[391].
But the main distraction contrived to occupy the French Army of the North was one for which Wellington was not primarily responsible, though he approved of it when the scheme was laid before him. This was a naval expedition to attack the coast-forts of Cantabria and Biscay, and open up direct communication with Mendizabal’s bands from the side of the sea. The idea was apparently started by Sir Howard Douglas and Sir Home Popham, the former of whom was a great believer in the guerrilleros, and the latter a strong advocate of the striking power of the navy. Nothing serious had been done on the Biscay coast since the two expeditions of 1810, of which the former had been very successful, but the latter had ended in the disastrous tempest which wrecked Renovales’s flotilla on that rocky shore[392]. Lord Liverpool consented to give Popham two battalions of marines and a company of artillery, to add to the force provided by the crews of the Venerable, his flagship, five frigates (Surveillante, Rhin, Isis, Diadem, Medusa), and several smaller vessels. The plan was to proceed eastward along the coast from Gijon, to call down Longa and Porlier to blockade each isolated French garrison from the land side, and to batter it with heavy ship guns from the water. The opportunity was to be taken at the same time of making over to the Cantabrian bands a large store of muskets and munitions which had been prepared for them. The arrangements were made in May, and Popham’s squadron was ready to move precisely at the same moment that Wellington crossed the Agueda. Its first descent was made on June 17th, a day exactly suitable for alarming the Army of the North at the same time that Marmont’s first appeals for help were likely to reach Caffarelli. The plan, as we shall see, worked exceedingly well, and the fact that the Army of Portugal got no reinforcements from Burgos or Biscay was due entirely to the dismay caused to Caffarelli by this unexpected descent on his rear. He conceived that the squadron carried a large landing force, and that he was about to see Biscay slip out of his hands. The tale of this useful diversion will be told in its due place.
There was yet one more item in the long list of outlying distractions on which Wellington relied for the vexing of the French. He was strongly of opinion that Suchet would spare troops to reinforce King Joseph at Madrid, if his own invasion of Leon had a prosperous start. Indeed, he somewhat overvalued the Duke of Albufera’s will and power to interfere in central Spain, his idea being that King Joseph had a much more direct control over the Valencian and Aragonese armies than was really the case. One of the king’s intercepted dispatches, directing Suchet to send troops into La Mancha, had fallen into his hands, and he was unaware that the Marshal had refused to obey it, and had found plausible reasons to cloak his disobedience[393].
The opportunity of finding means to harass Suchet depended on the general posture of affairs in the Mediterranean caused by the outbreak of the Russian war. As long as Napoleon kept a large army in Italy, there was always a possibility that he might some day try a descent on Sicily, where the authority of King Ferdinand rested on the bayonets of a strong British garrison. There were a dozen red-coated battalions always ready in Sicily, beside the rather inefficient forces of King Ferdinand. In September 1810 Murat had massed a Franco-Neapolitan army at Reggio, and tried an actual invasion, which ended ignominiously in the capture of the only two battalions that succeeded in landing. But by the early spring of 1812 it was known that nearly all the French troops in Italy had been moved northward, and a great part of Murat’s Neapolitan army with them. By April, indeed, there was only one French division left in the whole Peninsula, nearly all the old ‘Army of Italy’ having marched across the Alps. Lord William Bentinck, the commander of the British forces in Sicily, had early notice of these movements, and being a man of action and enterprising mind, though too much given to wavering councils and rapid changes of purpose, was anxious to turn the new situation to account. He was divided between two ideas—the one which appealed to him most was to make a bold descent on the under-garrisoned Italian peninsula, either to stir up trouble in Calabria—where the ruthless government of Murat’s military satraps had barely succeeded in keeping down rebellion, but had not crushed its spirit—or, farther away, in the former dominions of the Pope and the small dukes of the Austrian connexion. But the memory of the fruitless attempt against the Italian mainland in 1809 under Sir John Stuart survived as a warning: it was doubtful whether the occasional adventurers who came to Palermo to promise insurrection in northern Italy had any backing[394], and though Calabria was a more promising field, it was to be remembered that such troops as the enemy still retained were mainly concentrated there. Thus it came to pass that Lord William Bentinck at times despaired of all Italian expeditions, and thought of sending a force to Catalonia or Valencia to harass Suchet. ‘I cannot but imagine,’ he wrote, ‘that the occasional disembarkation at different points of a large regular force must considerably annoy the enemy, and create an important diversion for other Spanish operations[395].’ But when he wrote this, early in the year, he was hankering after descents on Elba and Corsica—the latter a most wild inspiration! These schemes the ministry very wisely condemned: Lord Liverpool wrote in reply that ‘though there might be a considerable degree of dissatisfaction, and even of ferment, pervading the greater part of Italy,’ there was no evidence of any systematic conspiracy to shake off the yoke of France. Corsica and Elba, even if conquered, would only be of secondary importance. A diversion to be made upon the east coast of Spain would be far the best way in which the disposable force in Sicily could be employed. Wellington had been informed of the proposal, and might probably be able to lend part of the garrison of Cadiz, to make the expedition more formidable. Sir Edward Pellew, the admiral commanding on the Mediterranean station, would be able to give advice, and arrange for the co-operation of the fleet[396]. Lord Liverpool wrote on the next day (March 4) to inform Wellington of the answer that had been made to Bentinck, but pointed out that probably the aid could only be given from May to October, as the expedition would depend on the fleet, and naval men thought that it would be impossible to keep a large squadron in attendance on the Sicilian force during the winter months. The troops would probably have to return to their old quarters at the close of autumn[397].
Wellington, as it chanced, was already in communication with Bentinck, for the latter had sent his brother, Lord Frederick, to Lisbon, with a dispatch for the Commander-in-Chief in Portugal, in which he stated that he leaned himself to the Corsican scheme, but that if the home government disliked it, he would be prepared to send in April or May an expedition of 10,000 men to operate against Suchet[398]. The letter from London reached Wellington first, about March 20th[399], and was a source of great joy to him, as he saw that the Cabinet intended to prohibit the Italian diversion, and wished to direct Bentinck’s men towards Spain. He wrote to London and to Palermo, to state that a descent upon the coast of Catalonia seemed to him ‘the most essential object.’ It should be aimed at Barcelona or Tarragona: it might not succeed so far as its immediate object was concerned, but it would have the infallible result of forcing Suchet to come up with all his available forces from Valencia, and would prevent him from interfering in the affairs of western and central Spain during the next campaign. Ten thousand men, even with such aid as Lacy and the Catalan army might give, were probably insufficient to deal with a place of such strength as Barcelona; but Tarragona, which was weakly garrisoned, might well be taken. Even if it were not, a great point would be gained in opening up communication with the Catalans, and throwing all the affairs of the French in eastern Spain into confusion. Bentinck was advised in the strongest terms to land north of the Ebro, and not in Valencia: an attack on Catalonia would draw Suchet out of Valencia, which would then fall of its own accord. Wellington added, writing to Lord Liverpool only, not to Bentinck, that he did not see how any appreciable aid could be got from the Cadiz garrison, or those of Tarifa or Cartagena[400]: the British regiments there had been cut down to a necessary minimum, but there were 1,400 Portuguese and two foreign regiments, of whom some might possibly be spared. The government must give him a definite order to detach such and such battalions, and it should be done—the responsibility being their own. Lord Frederick Bentinck arrived from Palermo at Badajoz just after that place fell: Wellington charged him with additional advices for his brother, to the effect that he would send him a siege-train and officers and gunners to work it, which might serve to batter Tarragona, if that proved possible. Though he could himself spare no British troops, the Spanish Regency should be urged to lend, for an expedition to Catalonia, two divisions, one under Roche at Alicante, the other under Whittingham in Majorca, which consisted each of 3,000 men recently entrusted for training to those British officers. Their aid was hardly likely to be refused, and they had been better trained, fed, and clothed of late than other Spanish troops. Wellington was not deceived in this expectation, the Regency very handsomely offered to place both divisions at Bentinck’s disposition[401], and they turned out to have swelled in numbers of late, owing to vigorous recruiting of dispersed men from Blake’s defunct army. The available figure was far over the 6,000 of which Wellington had spoken.
There seemed, therefore, in May to be every probability that a force of some 17,000 men might be available for the descent on Catalonia which Wellington advised: and both Admiral Pellew and Roche and Whittingham made active preparations to be found in perfect readiness when Lord William Bentinck should start off the nucleus of the expeditionary force from Palermo[402]. Wellington had fixed the third week in June as the date at which the appearance of the diversion would be most effective[403]. On June 5th he was able to state that two separate divisions of transports had already been sent off from Lisbon, one to Alicante and one to Majorca, to pick up the two Spanish divisions.
Now, however, came a deplorable check to the plan, which only became known to Wellington when he had already committed himself to his campaign against Marmont. Bentinck could never get out of his head the original idea of Italian conquest which he had laid before the Cabinet in January. There was no doubt that it had been discouraged by the home government, and that he had received very distinct instructions that Spain was to be the sphere of his activity, and that he was to take Wellington into his councils. But Lord Liverpool’s dispatch had contained the unfortunate phrase that ‘unless the project of resistance to the French power in Italy should appear to rest upon much better grounds than those of which we are at present apprised,’ the diversion to Catalonia was the obvious course[404].’ This gave a discretionary power to Bentinck, if he should judge that evidence of discontent in Italy had cropped up in unexpected quantity and quality since March. It does not appear, to the unprejudiced observer, that such evidence was forthcoming in May. But Bentinck, with his original prejudice in favour of a descent on Italy running in his brain, chose to take certain secret correspondence received from the Austrian general Nugent, and other sources, as justification for holding back from the immediate action in eastern Spain, on which Wellington had been led to rely. No troops sailed from Palermo or Messina till the very end of June, and then the numbers sent were much less than had been promised, and the directions given to Maitland, the general entrusted with the command, were by no means satisfactory[405]. The underlying fact would appear to be that, since March, Bentinck had begun to be alarmed at the intrigues of the Queen of Sicily, and feared to send away British troops so far afield as Spain. That notorious princess and her incapable spouse had been deprived in the preceding autumn of their ancient status as absolute sovereigns, and a Sicilian constitution and parliament, somewhat on the British model, had been called into being. For some time it had been supposed that Caroline, though incensed, was powerless to do harm, and the native Sicilians were undoubtedly gratified by the change. But Bentinck presently detected traces of a conspiracy fostered by the Queen among the Italian and mercenary troops employed by the Sicilian government: and, what was more surprising, it was suspected (and proved later on) that the court had actually opened up negotiations with Napoleon and even with Murat, in order to get rid of the English from Sicily at all costs[406]. In view of the fact that there were 8,000 Italian and foreign troops of doubtful disposition quartered in Sicily, Bentinck was seized with qualms at the idea of sending away a large expedition, mainly composed of British regiments. In the end he compromised, by detaching only three British and two German Legion battalions, along with a miscellaneous collection of fractions of several foreign corps, making 7,000 men in all[407]. They only arrived off the coast of Catalonia on July 31st, and Maitland’s freedom of operations was hampered by instructions to the effect that ‘the division of the Sicilian army detached has for its first object the safety of Sicily; its employment on the Spanish coast is temporary.’ He was told that he was liable to be withdrawn at any moment, if complications arose in Sicily or Italy, and was not to consider himself a permanent part of the British army in Spain. Yet at the same time that Bentinck had given these orders, the home government had told Wellington to regard the expeditionary force as placed at his disposal, and authorized him to send directions to it.