In addition, the small number of foreign auxiliary troops still left in Spain were ordered back to France, save the remnant of Palombini’s and Severoli’s Italians and the Rheinbund units[369] in the Army of the Centre, viz. the 7th Polish Lancers (the last regiment of troops of this nationality left south of the Pyrenees), the Westphalian horse in the Army of the Centre, and the Berg and Westphalian infantry in Catalonia. Moreover, the brigade of the Young Guard in the Army of the North (that of Dumoustier) and the three naval battalions from Cadiz, which had served so long in the Army of the South, were to come home, also four batteries of French horse-artillery and two of Westphalian field artillery. Lastly, cadres being as necessary for the military train as for any other branch of the service, all the armies were to send home every dismounted man of this corps. The same rule was applied to the Équipages militaires and the Artillery Park. This whole deduction from the Army of Spain under these heads came to nearly 12,000 soldiers of all arms, over and above these cadres.
There was an elaborate clause as to reorganizing the Army of the North: in return for giving up four provisional regiments of drafts to the Armies of Portugal and the South, it was to get three regiments made over to it from the former, and one from the latter. Napoleon calculated that it would lose nothing in numbers from the exchange, but as a matter of fact it did. The drafts to be returned to their proper corps ran to over 8,000 men. But General Reille, being told to contribute three regiments to the Army of the North, selected the three depleted units which had composed Thomières’ unlucky division at the battle of Salamanca (the 1st, 62nd, and 101st), which together did not make up 3,000 bayonets[370], though Gazan chose to make over the 64th, a three-battalion regiment with 1,600 men. The Army of the North, therefore, lost nearly 3,000 men on the balance of the exchange, though the Emperor was aware that it was already too weak for the task set it. But he probably considered that Palombini’s Italians, detached (as we have already seen[371]) from the Army of the Centre, would make up the difference.
In addition to the squadron-cadres which he requisitioned on January 4th, the Emperor had a further intention of bringing back to Central Europe some complete units of heavy cavalry, to furnish the host now collecting in Germany with the horsemen in which it was so notoriously deficient. The whole of the dragoon-division of Boyer in the Army of Portugal is marked in the March returns with ordre de rentrer en France; so are several dragoon regiments in the Army of the South. But as a matter of fact hardly one of them had started for the Pyrenees by May[372], so that both in the Army of Portugal and the Army of the South the cavalry total was only a few hundreds smaller at the time of the opening of the campaign of Vittoria than it had been at the New Year—the shrinkage amounting to no more than the squadron-cadres and the few men for the Imperial Guard.
The Emperor’s intentions, therefore, as they became known to King Joseph and Jourdan on February 16th, left the three armies opposed to Wellington some 15,000 men smaller than they had been at the time of the Burgos retreat; but this was a very modest deduction considering their size, and still kept nearly 100,000 men in Castile and Leon, over and above the Army of the North, which might be considered as tied down to its own duty of suppressing the rising in Biscay and Navarre, and incapable of sparing any help to its neighbours. When we reflect on the scale of the Russian disaster, the demand made upon the Army of Spain seems very moderate. But there were two ominous doubts. Would the Emperor be content with his original requisitions in men and horses from the armies of Spain? And what exactly did he mean by the phrase that the King would have to lend appui et secours to the Army of the North, for the destruction of the rebels beyond the Ebro? If this signified the distraction of any large body of men from the forces left opposed to Wellington, the situation would be uncomfortable. Both these doubts soon developed into sinister certainties.
On receiving the Emperor’s original orders King Joseph hastened to obey, though the removal of his court from Madrid to Valladolid looked to him like the abandonment of his pose as King of Spain. He ordered Soult’s successor, Gazan, to evacuate La Mancha, and to draw back to the neighbourhood of Madrid, leaving a small detachment of light troops about Toledo. The Army of the South also took over the province of Avila from the Army of Portugal, and it was intended that it should soon relieve the Army of the Centre in the province of Segovia. For Joseph had made up his mind that any help which he must give against the northern rebels should be furnished by D’Erlon’s little army, which he would stretch out from Segovia towards Burgos and the Ebro[373], and so take Mina and the insurgents of Navarre in the rear. Early in March all these movements were in progress, and (as we have seen in the last chapter) were beginning to be reported to Wellington, who made many deductions from them. Joseph himself transferred his head-quarters to Valladolid on March 23rd, by which time the greater part of the other changes had been carried out. The Emperor afterwards criticized his brother’s delay of a whole month between the receipt of his orders to decamp and his actual arrival at Valladolid. To this Jourdan made the reply that it was useless to move the head-quarters till the drawing in of the Army of the South had been completed, and that the bringing in of such outlying units as Daricau’s division from the province of Cuenca, and the transference of the Army of the Centre northward, took much time[374]. Evacuations cannot be carried out at a day’s notice, when they involve the moving of magazines and the calling in of a civil administration.
On March 12th, while all the movements were in progress, another batch of orders from Paris came to hand. They contained details which upset the arrangements which the King was carrying out, for the Emperor decided that the succour which was to be given to the Army of the North was to be drawn from Reille’s Army, and not from D’Erlon’s, so that a new series of counter-marches would have to be carried out. And—what was more ominous for the future—Napoleon had dropped once more into his old habit of sending orders directly to subordinate generals, without passing them through the head-quarters of the Army of Spain. For Clarke, in his dispatch of February 3rd, informed the King that the Emperor had sent Reille directions to detach a division to Navarre at once, ‘a disposition which cannot conflict with any orders which your Majesty may give to the Army of Portugal, for the common end of reducing to submission the provinces of the North[375].’ Unfortunately this was precisely what such an order did accomplish, for Joseph had sent D’Erlon in the direction to which he now found that Reille had simultaneously detached Barbot’s division of the Army of Portugal, without any knowledge that D’Erlon had already been detailed for the job.
The Emperor was falling back into the practice by which he had in the preceding year ruined Marmont—the issuing of detailed orders for the movement of troops, based on information a month old, it being certain that the execution of these orders would take place an additional three weeks after they had been formulated. As we shall presently see, the initial successes of Wellington in his Vittoria campaign were entirely due to the position in which the Army of Portugal had placed itself, in obedience to Napoleon’s direct instructions.
Meanwhile Clarke’s dispatch of February 2nd, conveying these orders, arrived at the same moment as two others dated ten days later[376], which were most unpleasant reading. The first contained an absolutely insulting message to the King from his brother: ‘his Imperial Majesty bids me say,’ wrote Clarke, ‘with regard to the money for which you have asked in several recent letters, that all funds necessary for the armies of Spain could have been got out of the rich and fertile provinces which are being devastated by the insurgent bands. By employing the activity and vigour needed to establish order and tranquillity, the resources which they still possess can be utilized. This is an additional motive for inducing your Majesty to put an end to this war in the interior, which troubles peaceful inhabitants, ruins the countryside, exhausts your armies, and deprives them of the resources which they could enjoy if these fine regions were in a peaceful state. Aragon and Navarre are to-day under Mina’s law, and maintain this disastrous struggle with their food and money. It is time to put an end to this state of affairs.’
Written apparently a few hours later than the dispatch quoted above came another[377], setting forth the policy which was to be the ruin of the French cause in Spain three months later. It is composed of a series of wild miscalculations. When the head-quarters of the Army of Spain should have been moved to Valladolid, it would be possible to send the whole Army of Portugal to help the Army of the North beyond the Ebro. ‘The Armies of the Centre and South, occupying Salamanca and Valladolid, have sufficient strength to keep the English in check, while waiting on events. Madrid and even Valencia are of secondary importance. Valladolid and Salamanca have become the essential points, between which there should be distributed forces ready to take the offensive against the English, and to wreck their plans. The Emperor is informed that they have been reinforced in Portugal, and that they seem to have two alternative schemes—either to make a push into Spain, or to send out from the port of Lisbon an expedition of 25,000 men, partly English, partly Spanish, which is to land somewhere on the French coast, when the campaign shall have begun in Germany. To prevent them engaging in this expedition, you must always be in a position to march forward and to threaten to overrun Portugal and take Lisbon. At the same time you must make the communications with France safe and easy, by using the time of the English inactivity to subdue Biscay and Navarre.... If the French armies in Spain remain idle, and permit the English to send expeditions against our coast, the tranquillity of France will be compromised, and the ruin of our cause in Spain will infallibly follow.’
A supplementary letter to Jourdan of the same day recapitulates all the above points, adding that the Army of Portugal must send to Clausel, now Caffarelli’s successor in the North, as many troops as are needed there, but that the King at the same time must menace Portugal, so that Wellington shall not be able to detach men from his Peninsular Army.