Nor was Mina destitute of the power to call in help for one of his greater raids—he sometimes shifted towards the coast, and got in touch with the Guipuzcoans and Biscayans, while he had also communication with Duran, south of the Ebro. This officer who was theoretically a division-commander in the Valencian Army, was really the leader of a band of four or five thousand irregulars, who hung about the mountains of Soria, and kept the roads from Madrid to Saragossa and the Ebro blocked. And Duran was again in touch with the Empecinado, whose beat lay on the east side of New Castile, and whose main object was to molest the French garrisons of Guadalajara, Segovia, and Alcalá. Temporary combinations of formidable strength could be made, when several of these irregular forces joined for a common raid: but the chiefs generally worked apart, each disliking to move very far from his own district, where he was acquainted with the roads and the inhabitants. For in a country of chaotic sierras, like Northern Spain, local knowledge was all-important: to be aware of exactly what paths and passes were practicable in January snow, or what torrents were fordable in March rain, was the advantage which the guerrillero had over his enemy. It is probable that in March or April 1813 the total force of all the insurgent bands was no greater than that of the French garrisons and movable columns with which they had to contend. But the Army of the North was forced to tie down the larger half of its strength to holding strategical points and long lines of communication, while the guerrilleros could evacuate one whole region for weeks at a time, in order to mass in another. They could be unexpectedly strong in one district, yet lose nothing by temporary abandonment of another. They were admirably served for intelligence, since the whole population was by goodwill or by fear at their service: the French could only depend on afrancesados for information, and these were timid and few; they grew fewer as Mina gradually discovered and hanged traitors. When the French columns had gone by, it was easily to be guessed who had guided them or given them news—and such people perished, or had to migrate to the nearest garrison. But local knowledge was the real strength of the guerrilleros: a French column-commander, guiding his steps from the abominable maps of Lopez—the atlas which was universally used for want of a better—was always finding his enemy escape by a path unindicated on the map, or appear in his rear over some unknown cross-road, which could not have been suspected to exist. Hence the local Spanish traitor was absolutely necessary as a guide, and often he could not be found—treachery having been discovered to be a path that led inevitably to the gallows. The Army of the North had acquired, from old and painful experience of counter-marches, some general knowledge of the cross-roads between the Ebro and the Pyrenees. But when troops from a distance—sections of the Bayonne Reserve, or reinforcements from the Army of Portugal—were turned on to the game of guerrillero-hunting, they found themselves very helpless. As a rule, the most promising march ended in finding the lair still warm, but the quarry invisible.
Napoleon and his mouthpiece, the War Minister Clarke, refused to the end, as Marshal Marmont remarked[383], to see that the War of Spain was unlike any other war that the French armies had waged since 1792. The nearest parallels to it were the fighting in Switzerland in 1798 and against Hofer’s Tyrolese in 1809. But both of these earlier insurrectionary wars had been fought on a very limited area, against an enemy of no great numerical strength, practically unhelped from without. In Spain the distances were very great, the mountains—if less high than the Alps—were almost as tiresome, for in the Alps there were vast tracts completely inaccessible to both sides, but the Sierras, if rugged, are less lofty and better furnished with goat-tracks and smugglers’ by-ways, where the heavily laden infantryman cannot follow the evasive mountaineer. Moreover, the English cruisers continued to drop in the arms and munitions without which the insurgents could not have kept the field.
There can be no doubt that Napoleon undervalued the power of the Spanish guerrilleros, just as he undervalued the resources and the enterprise of Wellington. From the first moment of his return from Russia he had continued to impress on Joseph and Jourdan the necessity for pacifying the North, before the season for regular campaigning should have arrived, and Wellington should have taken the field. But his theory that the winter was the best time for dealing with the bands was rather specious than correct. For although the short days, the snow in the passes, and the swollen torrents were, no doubt, great hindrances to that freedom of movement which was the main strength of the guerrilleros, they were even greater hindrances to combined operations by bodies of regular troops. Rapid marches are impossible off the high roads in Northern Spain, during the midwinter months; and it was only by combined operations and the use of large forces that the insurgents could be dealt with. Indeed, the country roads were practically impassable for any regular troops in many regions. What officer would risk detachments in upland valleys that might be found to be blocked with snow, or cut off from their usual communication by furious streams that had overflowed the roads and made fords impracticable? Winter marches in unexplored hills are the most deadly expedients: all the weakly soldiers fall by the way—had not Drouet lost 150 men in passing the Guadarrama during the early days of December—and the Guadarrama was crossed by one of the few great royal roads of Spain? What would be the losses of columns sent out on cross-roads and caught in blizzards, or in those weeks of continuous rain which are not uncommon in the sub-Pyrenean region?
The Emperor’s view was that Caffarelli had failed in his task from want of resourcefulness. He was always trying to parry blows rather than to strike himself: he allowed the insurgents to take the initiative, and when they had executed some tiresome raid would set out in a pursuit which was seldom useful, since they naturally outran him[384]. He was always marching to deliver or revictual some threatened garrison, anywhere between Santoña and Pampeluna, instead of setting himself to destroy the main agglomeration of hostile forces. Now Caffarelli, it is true, was no great general, and may have been on occasion wanting in vigour. But the best reply to the criticism of him sent from Paris is to observe that his successor, Clausel, universally acknowledged to be the most active officer in Spain, failed in exactly the same way as his predecessor, even when he had been lent 20,000 veteran troops to aid him in his task.
Napoleon wanted a great general movement pour balayer tout le Nord. He granted that Caffarelli had not enough troops both to furnish garrisons for every important point, and to hunt down the guerrilleros with a large field-force. Therefore he ordered Reille to furnish Caffarelli’s successor with every man that he asked for. If necessary, the whole Army of Portugal might be requisitioned, since those of the South and Centre would be enough to keep Wellington in check. The letter of instructions which Clarke was directed to give to Clausel, when the latter took up his appointment, explains the Emperor’s views. ‘By a continual taking of the offensive it ought to be possible to reach a prompt and happy result. The moment that the reinforcements to be furnished by General Reille arrive (and possibly they have already put themselves at your disposition) in Navarre and Biscay, I am convinced that your usual activity will change the face of affairs. Rapid pursuits, well directed, and above all properly adapted to the topographical configuration of the district; raids made without warning on the insurgents’ dépôts of provisions, their hospitals, their stores of arms, and in general on all their magazines, will infallibly carry confusion into their operations. After you have had some successful engagements with them, it will only require politic measures to complete their disorganization. When you have scattered their juntas, all the young men they have enrolled by compulsion will melt home. If you leave them no rest, and surprise them in their remotest places of refuge, the matter should end by their going wholly to pieces.... As to the keeping open your communication with France, one particular device, to whose utility all the generals who have served in that region bear witness, is to establish at regular distances and in well chosen positions, especially where roads meet, small palisaded forts, or blockhouses, which will form a chain of posts and support each other. Owing to the wooded nature of the country they will not cost much to build—the estimate for such a system of blockhouses has been calculated to me at no more than 300,000 francs.
‘Santoña and Pampeluna must be held—the latter because its capture is Mina’s main ambition, the former because it is a terror to the English, who recently tried to have it besieged: General Caffarelli had to lead an expedition to relieve it. Pampeluna is the more important for the moment: when a division of the Army of Portugal reaches Navarre you ought to be able to make Mina change his tone. Santoña can wait—it may be reprovisioned by sea from the small ports of Biscay. As General Caffarelli has inconsiderately evacuated most of them, you should reoccupy them all, especially Bermeo and Castro-Urdiales. The latter is said to have been fortified with the help of the English. For the sake of the safety of Santoña all these places must be retaken at once: from the mouth of the Bidassoa to Santander every maritime position should be in French hands. Santander especially is, by the Emperor’s express orders, to be permanently occupied by an adequate garrison.
‘It is necessary that all these operations should be carried out simultaneously. The pursuit of Mina in Navarre should synchronize with the operations in Biscay. The insurgents should be hunted in the inland, at the same time that they are attacked on the coast. This is the only way to disorganize them, to make them weak and divided at all points.... It seems preferable to use every available man for a general simultaneous attack, than to undertake each necessary operation in succession, with a smaller force and more leisure—all the more so because the reinforcements, which are to co-operate in your scheme, may be called elsewhere by some unforeseen development of affairs[385].’
Clausel, in obedience to his instructions, tried to carry out the whole of this scheme, and had small luck therewith. He built the chain of blockhouses from Irun to Burgos, thereby tying up many battalions to sedentary duty. He hunted Mina right and left, drove the insurrectionary Junta of Biscay from its abode, occupied all the little ports from Santander to San Sebastian, stormed the well-fortified Castro-Urdiales, revictualled Pampeluna and Santoña, and at the end of three months had to report that his task was unfinished, that the insurrection was still unsubdued, and that although he had borrowed 20,000 infantry from the Army of Portugal, he must ask for another 20,000 men [where were they to be got?] in order to finish the campaign. And by this time—the end of May—Wellington was loose, and the King was falling back on the Ebro, vainly calling for the five divisions that his brother had made over to the Army of the North. But we must resume the chronicle of the Northern campaign, before commenting on its inadequate and unhappy conclusion.
The operations may be said to have begun in January, when Palombini’s Italian division marched from Old Castile to join the Army of the North, in order to replace Dumoustier’s brigade of the Young Guard, which was being recalled to France. After crossing the Guadarrama Pass in a blizzard, which cost some lives, they got to Burgos on the 28th, driving away the Cura Merino and his band, who had been blocking the road from Valladolid. From Burgos Palombini marched to Vittoria, escorting a convoy of drafts returning to France, couriers, officials, and convalescents. There he heard that Longa and Mendizabal had cut in behind him, and had again stopped communications. Wherefore he turned back, and swept the Bureba, where they were reported to be. Not finding them, he marched as far as Poza de la Sal, not far from Briviesca, but some leagues off the great chaussée. In this town his head-quarters were fixed, while the bulk of his division was sent out in flying columns to collect food. He had only 500 men with him, when on the night of February 10-11 he found himself surrounded by three Spanish columns, which had slipped through the intervals of the outlying Italian regiments, and ran in on the town from different quarters. The surprise, contrived by Longa, was complete; but Palombini, collecting his men in a clump, held out till daylight, when his battalions came flocking in to the sound of the musketry and relieved him. The Spaniards disappeared, taking with them some baggage and prisoners captured in the first rush, and were soon lost to sight in the mountains.
The Italians, lucky to have escaped so cheaply, marched back to the Ebro by way of Domingo Calzada, where there was a French garrison in imminent danger of starvation, as it had long been blockaded by local bands[386]. Palombini took it on with him, and blew up the castle, as the place was inconveniently remote from any other French post. He then returned to Vittoria by way of Haro (February 18) and next pushed on to Bilbao, where he relieved Dumoustier’s brigade of the Imperial Guard, which was at last able to obey the Emperor’s order to return to France (February 21). Caffarelli used this force as his escort back to Bayonne, and returned in some disgrace to Paris. Clausel assumed command in his stead on the next day.