It was with no light heart that Wellington faced the strategical problem. In outline it stood as follows. Soult was now known to be evacuating Andalusia, and it was practically certain that he would retire on Valencia, where he would join King Joseph and Suchet. Their three armies would produce a mass of veteran troops so great that even if every division of the Anglo-Portuguese army were concentrated, if Hill came up from Estremadura and Skerrett’s small force from Cadiz, it would be eminently doubtful whether Madrid could be held and the enemy thrust back. The French might advance 85,000 strong, and Wellington could only rely on 60,000 men of his own to face them—though he might scrape together three or four divisions of Spanish troops in addition[2]. It was true that Suchet might probably refuse to evacuate his Valencian viceroyalty, and that occupation for him might be found by utilizing Maitland’s expeditionary force at Alicante, and Elio’s Murcian army. But even if he did not join Soult and King Joseph in a march on Madrid, the armies of the South and Centre might put 65,000 men into the field.
But this was only half the problem. There was Clausel’s Army of Portugal, not to speak of Caffarelli’s Army of the North, to be taken into consideration. Clausel had some 40,000 men behind the Douro—troops recently beaten it is true, and known to be in bad order. But they had not been pursued since the Allied army turned aside for the march on Madrid, and had now been granted a month in which to pull themselves together. Nothing had been left in front of them save Clinton’s 6th Division at Cuellar, and a division of the Galicians at Valladolid. And now the vexatious news had come that Clausel was on the move, had chased the Galicians out of Valladolid, and was sending flying columns into the plains of Leon. It was clear that he must be dealt with at once, and there was no way to stop his annoying activity, save by detaching a considerable force from Madrid. If unopposed, he might overrun all the reconquered lands along the Douro, and even imperil the British line of communication with Salamanca and Portugal. If, as was possible, Caffarelli should lend him a couple of divisions from the Army of the North, he might become a real danger instead of a mere nuisance.
This was the reason why Wellington departed from Madrid on August 31st, and marched with the 1st, 5th and 7th Divisions, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, and Bock’s and Ponsonby’s dragoons—21,000 sabres and bayonets—to join Clinton, and thrust back Clausel to the North, before he should have leisure to do further mischief. There was, as he conceived, just time enough to inflict a sharp check on the Army of Portugal before the danger from the side of Valencia would become pressing. It must be pushed out of the way, disabled again if possible, and then he would return to Madrid for the greater game, leaving as small a containing force as possible in front of the Northern army. He summed up his plan in a confidential letter in the following terms: ‘All the world [the French world] seems to be intending to mass itself in Valencia; while I am waiting for their plans to develop, for General Hill to march up from Estremadura, and for the Spanish armies to get together, I shall hunt away the elements of Marmont’s [i. e. Clausel’s] army from the Douro. I shall push them as far off as I can, I shall try to establish proper co-operation between the Anglo-Portuguese detachment which I must leave on this side and the Galician Army, and so I shall assure my left flank, when I shall be engaged on the Valencian side[3].’
Here then, we have a time-problem set. Will it be possible to deal handsomely with the Army of Portugal, to put it completely out of power to do harm, before Soult shall have reached Valencia, reorganized his army, and joined King Joseph in what Wellington considered the inevitable scheme of a march on Madrid? The British general judged that there would be sufficient time—and probably there might have been, if everything had worked out in the best possible way. But he was quite conscious that events might prove perverse—and he shuddered at the thought—as he wrote to his brother in Cadiz.
The last precautions taken before departing for the Douro were to draw up three sets of instructions. One was for Charles Alten, left in command of the four divisions which remained in and about Madrid[4], foreseeing the chance of Soult’s marching on the capital without turning aside to Valencia—‘not at all probable, but it is necessary to provide for all events.’ The second was for Hill, who was due to arrive at Toledo in about three weeks. The third was for General Maitland at Alicante, whose position would obviously be very unpleasant, now that Soult was known to be evacuating Andalusia and marching on Valencia to join Suchet and King Joseph. Soult’s march altered the whole situation on the East Coast: if 50,000 more French were concentrated in that direction, the Alicante force must be in some danger, and would have to observe great caution, and if necessary to shut itself up in the maritime fortresses. ‘As the allied forces in Valencia and Murcia’—wrote Wellington to Maitland—‘will necessarily be thrown upon the defensive for a moment, while the enemy will be in great strength in those parts, I conclude that the greater part of those forces will be collected in Alicante, and it would be desirable to strengthen our posts at Cartagena during this crisis, which I hope will be only momentary[5].’ Another dispatch, dated four days later, adverts to the possibility that Soult may fall upon Alicante on his arrival in the kingdom of Valencia. Maitland is to defend the place, but to take care that all precautions as to the embarking his troops in the event of ill-success are made. He is expected to maintain it as long as possible; and with the sea open to him, and a safe harbour, the defence should be long and stubborn, however great the numbers of the besiegers[6].
With these instructions drawn out for Maitland, Wellington finally marched for the North. His conception of the situation in Valencia seems to have been that Soult, on his arrival, would not meddle with Alicante: it was more probable that he and King Joseph would rather take up the much more important task of endeavouring to reconquer Madrid and New Castile. They would leave Suchet behind them to contain Maitland, Elio and Ballasteros. It would be impossible for him to lend them any troops for a march on Madrid, while such a large expeditionary force was watching his flank. The net result would be that ‘by keeping this detachment at Alicante, with Whittingham’s and Roche’s Spaniards, I shall prevent too many of the gentlemen now assembled in Valencia from troubling me in the Upper Country [New Castile][7].’
Travelling with his usual celerity, Wellington left Madrid on August 31st, was at Villa Castin on the northern side of the Guadarrama pass on September 2nd, and had reached Arevalo, where he joined Clinton and the 6th Division on September 3rd. The divisions which he was bringing up from Madrid had been started off some days before he himself left the capital. He passed them between the Escurial and Villa Castin, but they caught him up again at Arevalo early on the 4th, so that he had his fighting force concentrated on that day, and was prepared to deal with Clausel.
The situation of affairs on the Douro requires a word of explanation. Clausel, it will be remembered, had retired from Valladolid on July 30, unpursued. He was prepared to retreat for any length—even as far as Burgos—if he were pressed. But no one followed him save Julian Sanchez’s lancers and some patrols of Anson’s Light Cavalry brigade. Wherefore he halted his main body on the line of the Arlanza, with two divisions at Torquemada and two at Lerma; some way to his left Foy, with two divisions more, was at Aranda, on the Upper Douro, where he had maintained his forward position, because not even a cavalry patrol from the side of the Allies had come forward to disquiet him. In front of Clausel himself there was soon nothing left but the lightest of cavalry screens, for Julian Sanchez was called off by Wellington to New Castile: when he was gone, there remained Marquinez’s guerrilleros at Palencia, and outposts of the 16th Light Dragoons at Valtanas: the main body of G. Anson’s squadrons lay at Villavanez, twenty miles behind[8]. The only infantry force which the Allies had north of the Douro was one of the divisions of the Army of Galicia, which (with Santocildes himself in command) came up to Valladolid on August 6th, not much over 3,000 bayonets strong. The second of the Galician divisions which had descended into the plain of Leon was now blockading Toro. The third and most numerous was still engaged in the interminable siege of Astorga, which showed at last some signs of drawing to its close—not because the battering of the place had been effective, but simply because the garrison was growing famished. They had been provisioned only as far as August 1, and after that date had been forced upon half and then quarter rations. But the news of the disaster of Salamanca had not, as many had hoped among the Allies, scared their commander into capitulation.
Clausel on August 1 had not supposed it possible that he would be tempted to take the offensive again within a fortnight. His army was in a most dilapidated condition, and he was prepared to give way whenever pressed. It was not that his numbers were so very low, for on August 1st the Army of Portugal only counted 10,000 less effectives than on July 15th. Though it had lost some 14,000 men in the Salamanca campaign, it had picked up some 4,000 others from the dépôt at Valladolid, from the many small garrisons which it had drawn in during its retreat, and from drafts found at Burgos.[9] Its loss in cavalry had been fully repaired by the arrival of Chauvel’s two regiments from the Army of the North, and most of the fugitives and marauders who had been scattered over the countryside after the battle of July 22nd gradually drifted back to their colours. It was not so much numbers as spirit that was wanting in the Army of Portugal. On August 6 Clausel wrote to the Minister of War at Paris that he had halted in a position where he could feed the troops, give them some days of repose, and above all re-establish their morale[10]. ‘I must punish some of the men, who are breaking out in the most frightful outrages, and so frighten the others by an example of severity; above all I must put an end to a desire, which they display too manifestly, to recross the Ebro, and get back nearer to the French frontier. It is usual to see an army disheartened after a check: but it would be hard to find one whose discouragement is greater than that of these troops: and I cannot, and ought not, to conceal from you that there has been prevailing among them for some time a very bad spirit. Disorders and revolting excesses have marked every step of our retreat. I shall employ all the means in my power to transform the dispositions of the soldiers, and to put an end to the deplorable actions which daily take place under the very eyes of officers of all grades—actions which the latter fail to repress.’
Clausel was as good as his word, and made many and severe examples, shooting (so he says) as many as fifty soldiers found guilty of murders, assaults on officers, and other excesses[11]. It is probable, however, that it was not so much his strong punitive measures which brought about an improved discipline in the regiments, as the fortnight of absolutely undisturbed repose which they enjoyed from the 1st to the 14th of August. The feeling of demoralization caused by the headlong and disorderly retreat from Salamanca died down, as it became more and more certain that the pursuit was over, and that there was no serious hostile force left within many miles of the line of the Arlanza. The obsession of being hunted by superior forces had been the ruinous thing: when this terror was withdrawn, and when the more shattered regiments had been re-formed into a smaller number of battalions, and provided in this fashion with their proper proportion of officers[12], the troops began to realize that they still formed a considerable army, and that they had been routed, but not absolutely put out of action, by the Salamanca disaster.