A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 6, September 1, 1812-August 5, 1813

by Charles Oman

Here the first half of the great movement is accurately set forth, just as it was executed, though owing to the delays spoken of above, the general orders for the marching out of all the allied divisions were issued on May 13th instead of on May 1st-2nd. But in all other respects we have the exact analysis of the scheme: the ‘Left’—Graham with the equivalent of six divisions—crossed the Douro far inside Portugal at various points, and was in and about Braganza and Miranda by May 21st-24th: meanwhile the ‘Right’—Hill with three divisions—moved forward from the Agueda to the Tormes, attracting the main attention of the French between the 20th and the 26th, till it reached Salamanca, from whence it swerved off to the left, and joined Graham’s wing by the bridge of Toro, thus establishing the whole army in one mass north of the Douro, and completely turning the western flank of the entire French front of defence. On May 12 only, three weeks after he had communicated the secret to Beresford, did Wellington divulge it to the Ministers at home: evidently he dreaded leakage somewhere in London, such as he had discovered in the preceding autumn[451]. For Lord Bathurst’s benefit he descends a little more into detail:

‘I propose to commence our operations by turning the enemy’s position on the Douro, by passing the left of our army over that river within the Portuguese frontier. I should cross the Right in the same manner, only that I have been obliged to throw the Right very forward during the winter, in order to cover and connect our cantonments, and I could not well draw them back without exposing a good deal of country, and risking a counter-movement on the part of the enemy. I therefore propose to strengthen the Right, and move with it myself across the Tormes, and to establish a bridge on the Douro below Zamora. The two wings of the army will thus be connected, and the enemy’s position on the Douro will be turned. The Spanish Army of Galicia will be on the Esla, to the left of our army, at the same time that our army reaches that river.

‘Having turned the enemy’s position on the Douro, and established our communications across it, our next operation will depend on circumstances. I do not know whether I am now stronger than the enemy, even including the Army of Galicia. But of this I am very certain, that I shall never be stronger throughout the campaign, or more efficient, than I am now: and the enemy will never be weaker. I cannot have a better opportunity for trying the fate of a battle, which if the enemy should be unsuccessful, must oblige him to withdraw entirely. We have been sadly delayed by the pontoon bridge, without which it is obvious we can do nothing[452].’

Neither in the letter to Beresford nor in that to Bathurst does Wellington make a forecast beyond the first stage of his advance—obviously it would be impossible to do so till it was seen how the French would act. If they should be tempted to fight—say in front of Valladolid—when their flank was turned, in order to keep their hold on Castile, Wellington would welcome the decisive engagement. But of course they might refuse to fight, as indeed did they. They retired on Burgos, as we shall see, without taking any risks.

But that Wellington already foresaw the possibility of a victorious march to the Pyrenees is, I think, proved not only by his letter of February 10th concerning the siege of fortresses in Northern Spain, quoted above, but by similar hints on May 6 concerning the absolute necessity for naval co-operation in the North. He asks Lord Bathurst to insist on the presence of a squadron under an admiral in the Bay of Biscay, and for careful supervision of the whole coast from Bayonne to Corunna, which must absolutely stop French enterprise at sea, and ‘simplify arrangements for convoy and naval operations in concert with the army during the ensuing campaign[453].’ Taking this in conjunction with the letter of February 10, it seems certain that Wellington was thinking of stores to be landed at Santander, and a battering train to destroy San Sebastian—which was to look forward some way! There was, however, a secondary reason for requiring more naval supervision in the Bay of Biscay: American privateers had been putting in an appearance in these waters, and had captured several small transports.

A plan of campaign that contemplated the driving back of the French to the Pyrenees must, of course, embrace a good deal more than the mere reorganization of the Anglo-Portuguese army for a great push north of the Douro. There were many minor factors to be taken into consideration and utilized. First and foremost came the question as to how far the position of Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies could be turned to account. After his experiences in 1812 Wellington was determined to entrust to his Allies no crucial part of the operations, whose failure could wreck the whole scheme. With his own striking-force he intended to take only one Spanish army, that which was under the sole Spanish general whom he could trust for willing co-operation, even though he knew him to be no great military genius. Castaños had, by his influence at Cadiz, been nominated as Captain-General alike in Galicia, Castile, and Estremadura, and all the troops in those provinces now formed part of the new ‘4th Army.’ They included Morillo’s division, now cantoned about Caçeres, Carlos de España’s in the mountains between Ciudad Rodrigo and the pass of Perales, the lancers of Julian Sanchez—now counted a brigade of regular cavalry and not a partida—on the front between the Agueda and the Douro, and the two Galician divisions of Losada and Barcena, with their weak attendant cavalry brigade: to bring this up to strength two extra regiments[454] had filed up the Portuguese frontier during the winter from Estremadura. All these were in touch with the Anglo-Portuguese army, and were intended to move with it. They made up 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse. In addition there were many other troops theoretically belonging to the 4th Army, but at present cut off from it by the intervening zone of French occupation—viz. Porlier’s division in the Eastern Asturias, and Mendizabal’s irregular forces in Biscay and Cantabria—the troops of Longa and the Biscayan volunteers with other smaller bands. These scattered units, which could only come under Wellington’s real control when he should have beaten the French back to the Ebro, might make up 10,000 or 12,000 men. But they could not be counted upon for the first month of the campaign.

In addition, Castaños had a number of immovable troops—the garrisons of Rodrigo and Badajoz, a dépôt of unhorsed cavalry in Estremadura, and a sedentary unit called the ‘Army of Reserve of Galicia,’ consisting of all the most depleted corps of the old Galician army: its six battalions only made up 2,000 men, and it stopped at Vigo or Corunna all through the year 1813. Two other Galician battalions[455] had been sent round by sea during the winter, to join the much-tried Army of Catalonia. This small transference of troops had reached the knowledge of the French in an exaggerated shape, and caused much speculation at Madrid.

Beside the 21,000 men of the 4th Army, who marched in the Anglo-Portuguese line under Castaños’s nephew General Giron[456], there was only one other Spanish force which Wellington intended to employ in his own operations. This was the so-called ‘Army of Reserve of Andalusia,’ which had to come up all the way from Seville, and was far too late to join in the campaign of Vittoria: it did not get to the front till July: even later than the Generalissimo expected. The origin of this corps was that, when Soult evacuated Andalusia in September 1812, the best-equipped of the Cadiz garrison troops joined the field-army of Ballasteros, and advanced with him to Granada. This body was in April 1813 known as the ‘Third Army’ and was now commanded by the Duque del Parque, the successor of the cashiered Ballasteros. But the remainder of the Cadiz garrison, which had not gone to the front, was organized during the winter into a separate unit, under Henry O’Donnell, the Conde d’Abispal. It was rather a miscellaneous assembly—seven of its fourteen battalions having been regiments which did not march in October 1812 because they were low in numbers or equipment, and three more newly-raised units, formed to replace in the Army List old regiments which had perished in previous campaigns. However, they were filled up with recruits, re-clothed and re-equipped, and Wellington intended to use them with his own army, as étape and blockade troops. He preferred to take them with him rather than the 3rd Army, which was suspected of having many officers who had been devoted to Ballasteros, and who had resented the appointment of the new British generalissimo[457]. Moreover, O’Donnell was in every way a better officer than Del Parque, and had a good fighting reputation, though he was noted as impetuous and quarrelsome. The Army of Reserve of Andalusia was 14,000 strong, in two infantry divisions under Generals Echevari and Creagh and a weak cavalry brigade under Freire—late second in command of the Murcian army. The slow equipment of this corps, its late start, and its frequent halts for want of provisions, formed a perpetual source of dispute between Wellington and the Minister of War at Cadiz. But as it was not destined to form part of the original striking-force at the opening of the campaign, or to discharge any essential duty in the general scheme, its absence was not much felt. When it did appear, after Vittoria, it was usefully employed in blockading Pampeluna.

But in the summer campaign of 1813 it must be remembered that Wellington employed no Spanish troops save the original 21,000 Galicians and Estremadurans under Giron, and Longa’s 4,000 Cantabrians, who joined in from the North ten days before Vittoria, and took a creditable share in that battle.

It remains to be explained how Wellington intended to get an indirect profit out of the existence of the other Spanish corps—the re-named First, Second, and Third Armies, as well as out of the Anglo-Sicilian expeditionary force at Alicante, whose conduct had given him so many just causes of complaint during the autumn of 1812.