Of the Army of the Centre, Darmagnac’s Division, as also the Royal Guard, was at Madrid, Cassagne’s Division at Arganda (twenty miles farther east), the Franco-Spanish Division of Casapalacios at Segovia, the cavalry dispersed at various points in a circle round Madrid. This army had just lost Palombini’s Italian Division, which had served with it during the autumn campaign of 1812. It was on its way to Burgos, to join the Army of the North, to which it properly belonged. With this deduction the Army of the Centre had still 12,000 French troops, plus Joseph’s Guards and Spaniards, who must have made up at least 5,000 more.
The Army of Portugal was much more widely dispersed. It showed the 1st Division (Foy) at Avila, 2nd Division (Barbot) at Valladolid, 3rd Division (Sarrut) at Leon, 4th Division (Fririon) at Saldaña, 5th Division (Maucune) and 8th Division (Chauvel) at Salamanca, with detachments at Ledesma and Zamora. The 6th and 7th Divisions, both weak, were in process of being cut up to strengthen the others, as will be explained later, when reorganization is in question. Of the two cavalry divisions of the Army of Portugal both Boyer’s dragoons, with head-quarters at Mayorga, and Curto’s light horse, with head-quarters at Medina de Rio Seco, were keeping a line of advanced posts on the Esla, to watch the Spanish army of Galicia. The total effective strength, omitting sick, was 42,000 men.
The three armies had thus about 95,000 men under arms to cover the enormous block of territory which they occupied. The distance from Salamanca to San Clemente is 250 miles; that from Leon to Daymiel 280 miles. It is clear that a concentration on Madrid or Valladolid would be comparatively easy. On the other hand there would be an intolerable distance for the Army of the South to cover, if Salamanca were the point chosen by an enemy for assault, or for the remoter divisions of the Army of Portugal to traverse, if Talavera were selected. But, as was obvious, there was no chance of any such blow being delivered at present, since Wellington could not possibly stir till the spring, while the Spanish regular forces in Andalusia and Murcia were negligible quantities until the Anglo-Portuguese army should be able to move.
All round the position of the French there was at this moment a broad ‘no man’s land’; for their farthest outposts were nowhere in direct touch with the enemy, but separated from him by many miles of unoccupied ground, in which neither party kept permanent posts. Between Astorga—the farthest advanced post of the Galicians—and the line of the Esla, between Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo, between Avila and Bejar, between Talavera and Coria, between Daymiel and San Clemente and the northern foot-hills of the Sierra Morena, this broad debatable land was in possession neither of the French nor of the regular armies of their enemy, but of the guerrillero bands, under a score of leaders small and great. And the difficulty of the situation for King Joseph was that, while Wellington and Castaños and Del Parque and Elio were quiet perforce at midwinter, the guerrilleros were not. Having ample spaces of unoccupied border, in which they could take refuge when pursued, and many mountain recesses, even within the zone of French occupation, where they could lie safe against anything less than a considerable flying column, they seemed to defy extermination. Even in King Joseph’s most prosperous days, when the final triumph of the French seemed probable, there had always been guerrilleros; but since Wellington’s march to Madrid and Soult’s evacuation of Andalusia, it no longer looked as if the national cause was hopeless. To collect the army which drove Wellington back to Portugal in November every district in Spain, from Biscay to La Mancha, had been stripped for a time of its army of occupation. Regions long tamed had been out of hand for four or five months, enjoying an unruly and uncomfortable freedom, in which local juntas and guerrillero chiefs, who took the pose of military governors, contended for authority. And when the French came back they found that their old prestige was gone and that it could only be restored, if it could be restored at all, by ceaseless acts of repression of the most drastic sort. For if any town or village showed any signs of willing submission, the guerrilleros descended upon it when its garrison was absent, and hung or arrested ‘Afrancesados’: while if the population (as was more usual) showed ill-will and offered passive resistance, the French imprisoned or shot the magistrates, and imposed heavy fines for disloyalty[262].
But while the whole of northern and central Spain was full of punitory raids and executions, there was one region where the trouble passed the limit of unrest, and could only be called insurrection, where the French garrisons were practically blockaded in their cantonments, and where the open country was completely out of hand. This was the sub-Pyrenean district comprising Navarre, the three Basque provinces, and the mountainous lands between Santander and Burgos. And from the strategical point of view this was the most important tract in all Spain, since the main communication with France lay through its midst, by the great road from Madrid to Bayonne through Valladolid, Vittoria, and Tolosa. We have seen in earlier pages that trouble had been endemic in these lands ever since Mina’s appearance in 1810, and the permanent establishment of those active partisans, Porlier and Longa, on the Cantabrian coast-line. The creation of Reille’s ‘Army of the Ebro’ in 1811 for the special purpose of making an end of the northern bands had failed in its purpose. But things only came to a crisis in the summer of 1812, when Sir Home Popham’s operations on the Biscay coast cleared the French out of most of the smaller ports, and gave the insurgents for the first time free communication with the sea, and the inexhaustible supplies of Britain. We have seen in the last volume[263] how the co-operation of Caffarelli with Marmont in the Salamanca campaign was completely prevented by this diversion, how Longa and Mendizabal retook Santander and for a space Bilbao, and how Mina held the Governor of Pampeluna blockaded in the strongest fortress of northern Spain. Caffarelli had recovered Bilbao in August; but when Wellington marched on Burgos in September, and the Army of the North was compelled to abandon all other operations, in order to succour the retreating Army of Portugal, the capital of Biscay and all the surrounding district passed back into the power of the Spaniards. In the whole region nothing remained in the hands of the French save the ports of Santoña, Guetaria, and San Sebastian, and a line of fortified posts along the high road from the Bidassoa to the Ebro. And in Navarre Mina held full possession of the open country, raised the taxes, established courts of justice, and (what appears more strange) set up custom-houses on the French frontier, at which he allowed non-military goods to pass into Spain on the payment of regular dues[264]. He had raised his original partida to a strength of nine battalions of infantry and two regiments of cavalry, possessed cannon, and had a munition factory working at the head of the Pyrenean valley of Roncal.
Before Wellington commenced his retreat from the Douro to the Portuguese frontier, or the armies of Soult and of Souham had joined, to bring their overpowering force against the Anglo-Portuguese, Souham, as we have already seen, had released the troops of the Army of the North, and sent them back by Burgos to the Ebro, in order that Caffarelli might reoccupy the lost districts, and make safe once more the high road from Bayonne to Miranda, and the almost equally important route along the Ebro from Miranda to Saragossa, by which he had to keep up his connexion with Suchet and the East Coast. Turning back from Valladolid on November 1st, the commander of the Army of the North spent some time in opening up the high road, on which many convoys were lying blockaded in the garrisons and unable to move, and not till December was come did he clear Bilbao, and drive the coast-land guerrilleros out of all the Biscayan harbour towns save Castro-Urdiales, which had been fortified and was firmly held. Putting off its siege for a time, he then pushed along the coast to relieve Santoña, which had been blockaded for many months by Mendizabal and Longa. He cut his way thither, and threw in a convoy and reinforcements; but as soon as he was gone the Cantabrians came back and resumed their former positions around the place. By the end of the year Caffarelli had done nothing conclusive—some shadow of occupation had been restored in Biscay, but when this was completed the new garrisons had reduced his troops available for active service to a very modest figure. And on January 7 he had to part with the best unit of them—the brigade of the Young Guard under Dumoustier, which had been left in Spain when all the rest of the Guards went off for the Russian campaign in the preceding year. He was also directed to give up to their proper owners three provisional regiments composed of drafts for the armies of Portugal and the South, which had been intercepted on their way to Valladolid, and used to stop gaps in the line of communication. In return for these deductions he was told that he should be given Palombini’s Italian Division, taken from the Army of the Centre, three depleted regiments from the Army of Portugal,[265] and one from Soult’s Army,[266] which he might fill up with drafts from the Bayonne reserve. But it took some time to move these units northward, and meanwhile Caffarelli was left with no more than 10,000 movable troops—though the Army of the North was theoretically about 40,000 strong. The Bayonne chaussée was again out of control—so much so that in January and February there were two complete breaks of some weeks, during which neither convoys nor couriers could get through from Tolosa to Burgos. Bitter complaints about this interruption of communications are to be found in the correspondence of Napoleon and King Joseph. The famous ‘29th Bulletin’ sent off from Paris on December 4th only reached Madrid on January 6th—the Emperor’s order for the reorganization of the Spanish armies, dispatched on January 4th, came to hand only on February 16th; and the reply acknowledging its receipt was not received in Paris till March 18th![267] It had travelled by the circuitous route of Valencia and Barcelona.
This was intolerable to both parties, and they joined in placing the blame for delay on the shoulders of Caffarelli, who was denounced as dilatory and wanting in energy. Jourdan accused him of deliberate disregard of all military obedience. ‘He was ostensibly under the orders of the King, but rarely corresponded with Madrid. When he did send a report, he seemed to do so rather as a matter of politeness than as the duty of a subordinate towards his hierarchical superior[268].’ On January 14th the Emperor ordered him to quit the command of the Army of the North and return to Paris. Transmitting this welcome piece of news to Joseph, the Minister of War remarked that Caffarelli had insufficient numbers, but that ‘with more activity, continuity, and method in his operations he might have been much more successful[269].’ In his place the Emperor nominated Clausel, who was on sick-leave in France, but was able to rejoin almost at once. This choice was generally approved, as his operations with the Army of Portugal after the battle of Salamanca had won him a well-deserved reputation. But all concerned, from Paris to Madrid, were destined to discover that it was not Caffarelli’s incapacity, but the difficulty of the problem, that was responsible for the unsatisfactory condition of affairs in Biscay and Navarre. The capable Clausel made little more of the game than the short-sighted and mediocre officer whom he superseded. But this could hardly have been foreseen at midwinter; the fact was not obvious till May, when (as we shall see) Clausel, though he had been lent many thousands of troops much wanted elsewhere, had to confess that his task was not completed, despite of four months of energetic effort, countless marches and counter-marches, and a dozen bloody but inconclusive defeats inflicted on the Northern insurgents.
SECTION XXXV: CHAPTER II
THE TROUBLES OF A GENERALISSIMO.
WELLINGTON AT CADIZ AND FRENEDA
Having sent his war-worn divisions into winter quarters, where they were to remain with little change of billets till the next April, Wellington could turn to the consideration of many political and military problems for which he had been granted little leisure during the long stress of the autumn campaign. He fixed himself down at his old frontier head-quarters of 1811 and 1812, the village of Freneda near the Coa, between Almeida and Fuentes de Oñoro. It was a small and bleak place: observers often wondered why, with the whole of Portugal before him, he chose it for month-long residence in the worst time of the year. But in the winter of 1812-13 he remained stationary there from the end of November to the latter half of May—save for one rapid excursion to Cadiz and Lisbon, which took him away from December 12th to January 25th—an odd time for cross-country travelling in the Peninsula. Freneda had no amenities of any kind—save indeed that it was in the midst of a good fox-hunting country, a rare thing in Portugal. The Commander-in-Chief, on returning to his old base of operations, picked up his pack of hounds, and treated himself not infrequently to the one sort of field-sport in which he had a real delight. In other respects the village was dull and inconvenient—it could only just house his very small general staff; it was by no means a central point among the cantonments of his army; and its remoteness from Lisbon caused a delay of two or three days in all his correspondence to and from home. The only things to be said in its favour were that it was so close to the front line of the army on the Agueda that there would be no possibility of missing any information as to hostile movements, and that its remoteness and inaccessibility preserved the Commander-in-Chief from many interviews with useless and inconvenient visitors, who would have thronged around him if he had lodged in Lisbon. The intriguer, the man with a grievance, or the man with a job in hand, could not easily get to windy Freneda.