Yet their morale had been seriously shaken; there was still a want of officers; a number of the rejoining fugitives had come in without arms or equipment; while others had been heard of, but had not yet reported themselves at their regimental head-quarters. It therefore required considerable hardihood on Clausel’s part to try an offensive move, even against a skeleton enemy. His object was primarily to bring pressure upon the allied rear, in order to relieve King Joseph from Wellington’s attentions. He had heard that the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese army, save a negligible remnant, had marched on Madrid; but he was not sure that the Army of the Centre might not make some endeavour to save the capital, especially if it had been reinforced from Estremadura by Drouet. Clausel knew that the King had repeatedly called for succours from the South; it was possible that they might have been sent at the last moment. If they had come up, and if Wellington could be induced to send back two or three divisions to the Douro, Madrid might yet be saved. The experiment was worth risking, but it must take the form of a demonstration rather than a genuine attack upon Wellington’s rear. The Army of Portugal was still too fragile an instrument to be applied to heavy work. Indeed, when he moved, Clausel left many shattered regiments behind, and only brought 25,000 men to the front.
There was a second object in Clausel’s advance: he hoped to save the garrisons of Astorga, Toro, and Zamora, which amounted in all to over 3,000 men. Each of the first two was being besieged by a Spanish division, the third by Silveira’s Portuguese militia. The French general judged that none of the investing forces was equal to a fight in the open with a strong flying column of his best troops. Even if all three could get together, he doubted if they dared face two French divisions. His scheme was to march on Valladolid with his main body, and drive out of it the small Spanish force in possession, while Foy—his senior division-commander—should move rapidly across country with some 8,000 men, and relieve by a circular sweep first Toro, then Astorga, then Zamora. The garrisons were to be brought off, the places blown up: it was useless to dream of holding them, for Wellington would probably come to the Douro again in force, the sieges would recommence, and no second relief would be possible in face of the main British army.
On August 13th a strong French cavalry reconnaissance crossed the Arlanza and drove in the guerrilleros from Zevico: on the following day infantry was coming up from the rear, pushing forward on the high-road from Torquemada to Valladolid. Thereupon Anson, on that evening, sent back the main body of his light dragoons beyond the Douro, leaving only two squadrons as a rearguard at Villavanez. The Galician division in Valladolid also retired by the road of Torrelobaton and Castronuevo on Benavente. Santocildes—to Wellington’s disgust when it reached his ears—abandoned in Valladolid not only 400 French convalescents in hospital, but many hundred stand of small arms, which had been collected there from the prisoners taken during the retreat of Clausel in the preceding month. This was inexcusable carelessness, as there was ample time to destroy them, if not to carry them off. French infantry entered Valladolid on the 14th and 15th, apparently about 12,000 strong: their cavalry, a day’s march ahead, had explored the line of the Douro from Simancas to Tudela, and found it watched by G. Anson’s pickets all along that front.
The orders left behind by Wellington on August 5th, had been that if Clausel came forward—which he had not thought likely—G. Anson was to fall back to the Douro, and if pressed again to join Clinton’s division at Cuellar. The retreat of both of them was to be on Segovia in the event of absolute necessity. On the other hand, if the French should try to raise the sieges of Astorga or Zamora, Santocildes and Silveira were to go behind the Esla[13]. Clausel tried both these moves at once, for on the same day that he entered Valladolid he had turned off Foy with two divisions—his own and Taupin’s (late Ferey’s)—and a brigade of Curto’s chasseurs, to march on Toro by the road through Torrelobaton. The troops in Valladolid served to cover this movement: they showed a division of infantry and 800 horse in front of Tudela on the 16th, and pushed back Anson’s light dragoons to Montemayor, a few miles beyond the Douro. But this was only a demonstration: their cavalry retired in the evening, and Anson reoccupied Tudela on the 20th. It soon became clear that Clausel was not about to cross the Douro in force, and was only showing troops in front of Valladolid in order to keep Anson and Clinton anxious. He remained there with some 12,000 or 15,000 men from August 14th till September 7th, keeping very quiet, and making no second attempt to reconnoitre beyond the Douro. Anson, therefore, watched the line of the river, with his head-quarters at Valdestillas, for all that time, while the guerrilleros of Saornil and Principe went over to the northern bank and hung around Clausel’s flank. Clinton, on his own initiative, moved his division from Cuellar to Arevalo, which placed him on the line of the road to Madrid via the Guadarrama, instead of that by Segovia. This Wellington afterwards declared to be a mistake: he had intended to keep the 6th Division more to the right, apparently in order that it might cross the Douro above Valladolid if required[14]. It should not have moved farther southward than Olmedo.
Foy meanwhile, thus covered by Clausel, made a march of surprising celerity. On the 17th he arrived at Toro, and learned that the Galicians blockading that place had cleared off as early as the 15th, and had taken the road for Benavente. He blew up the fort, and took on with him the garrison of 800 men. At Toro he was much nearer to Zamora than to Astorga, but he resolved to march first on the remoter place—it was known to be hard pressed, and the French force there blockaded was double that in Zamora. He therefore moved on Benavente with all possible speed, and crossed the Esla there, driving away a detachment of the Galician division (Cabrera’s) which had come from Valladolid, when it made an ineffectual attempt to hold the fords. On the 20th August he reached La Baneza, some sixteen miles from Astorga, and there received the tiresome news that the garrison had surrendered only thirty-six hours before to Castaños. The three battalions there, worn down by famine to 1,200 men, had capitulated, because they had no suspicion that any help was near. The Spanish general had succeeded in concealing from them all knowledge of Foy’s march. They laid down their arms on the 18th, and were at once marched off to Galicia: Castaños himself accompanied them with all his force, being fully determined not to fight Foy, even though his numbers were superior.
The French cavalry pushed on to Astorga on the 21st, and found the gates open and the place empty, save for seventy sick of the late garrison, who had been left behind under the charge of a surgeon. It was useless to think of pursuing Castaños, who had now two days’ start, wherefore Foy turned his attention to Zamora. Here Silveira, though warned to make off when the enemy reached Toro, had held on to the last moment, thinking that he was safe when Foy swerved away toward Astorga. He only drew off when he got news on the 22nd, from Sir Howard Douglas, the British Commissioner with the Galician army, to the effect that Foy, having failed to save Astorga, was marching against him. He retired to Carvajales behind the Esla, but was not safe there, for the French general, turning west from Benavente, had executed a forced march for Tabara, and was hastening westward to cut in between Carvajales and the road to Miranda de Douro on the Portuguese frontier. Warned only just in time of this move, Silveira hurried off towards his own country, and was within one mile of its border when Foy’s advanced cavalry came up with his rearguard near Constantin, the last village in Spain. They captured his baggage and some stragglers, but made no serious endeavour to charge his infantry, which escaped unharmed to Miranda. Foy attributed this failure to Curto, the commander of the light horse: ‘le défaut de décision et l’inertie coupable du général commandant la cavalerie font perdre les fruits d’une opération bien combinée’ (August 23rd)[15]. This pursuit had drawn Foy very far westward; his column turning back, only reached Zamora on August 26th: here he drew off the garrison and destroyed the works. He states that his next move would have been a raid on Salamanca, where lay not only the British base hospital, but a vast accumulation of stores, unprotected by any troops whatever. But he received at Zamora, on the 27th, urgent orders from Clausel to return to Valladolid, as Wellington was coming up against him from Madrid with his whole army. Accordingly Foy abandoned his plan, and reached Tordesillas, with his troops in a very exhausted condition from hard marching, on August 28th. Clausel had miscalculated dates—warned of the first start of the 1st and 7th Divisions from Madrid, he had supposed that they would be at Arevalo some days before they actually reached it on September 4th. Foy was never in any real danger, and there had been time to spare. His excursion undoubtedly raised the spirit of the Army of Portugal: it was comforting to find that the whole of the Galicians would not face 8,000 French troops, and that the plains of Leon could be overrun without opposition by such a small force. On his return to join the main body Foy noted in his diary that Clausel had been very inert in face of Anson and Clinton, and wrote that he himself would have tried a more dashing policy—and might possibly have failed in it, owing to the discouragement and apathy still prevailing among many of the senior officers of the Army of Portugal[16].
Wellington had received the news of Clausel’s advance on Valladolid as early as August 18th, and was little moved by it. Indeed he expressed some pleasure at the fact. ‘I think,’ he wrote to Lord Bathurst, ‘that the French mean to carry off the garrisons from Zamora and Toro, which I hope they will effect, as otherwise I must go and take them. If I do not, nobody else will, as is evident from what has been passing for the last two months at Astorga[17].’ He expressed his pleasure on hearing that Santocildes had retired behind the Esla without fighting, for he had feared that he might try to stop Foy and get beaten. It was only, as we have already seen, after he obtained practical certainty that Soult had evacuated Andalusia, so that no expedition to the South would be necessary, that he turned his mind to Clausel‘s doings. And his march to Arevalo and Valladolid was intended to be a mere excursion for a few weeks, preparatory to a return to New Castile to face Soult and King Joseph, when they should become dangerous. From Arevalo he wrote to Castaños to say that ‘it was necessary to drive off Marmont’s (i.e. Clausel’s) army without loss of time, so as to make it possible to turn the whole of his forces eventually against Soult.’ He should press the movement so far forward as he could; perhaps he might even lay siege to Burgos. But the Army of Galicia must come eastward again without delay, and link up its operations with the Anglo-Portuguese. He hoped to have retaken Valladolid by September 6th, and wished to see Castaños there, with the largest possible force that he could gather, on that date[18]. The Galician army had returned to Astorga on August 27th, and so far as distances went, there was nothing to prevent it from being at Valladolid eleven days after, if it took the obvious route by Benavente and Villalpando.
The troops from Madrid having joined Clinton and the 6th Division at Arevalo, Wellington had there some 28,000 men collected for the discomfiture of Clausel, a force not much more numerous than that which the French general had concentrated behind the Douro, for Foy was now back at Tordesillas, and the whole Army of Portugal was in hand, save certain depleted and disorganized regiments which had been left behind in the province of Burgos. But having the advantage of confidence, and knowing that his enemy must still be suffering from the moral effects of Salamanca, the British general pushed on at once, not waiting for the arrival on the scene of the Galicians. On the 4th the army marched to Olmedo, on the 5th to Valdestillas, on the 6th to Boecillo, from whence it advanced to the Douro and crossed it by various fords between Tudela and Puente de Duero—the main body taking that of Herrera. The French made no attempt to defend the line of the river, but—rather to Wellington’s surprise—were found drawn up as if for battle a few miles beyond it, their right wing holding the city of Valladolid, whose outskirts had been put in a state of defence, their left extending to the ground about the village of La Cisterniga. No attempt was made to dislodge them with the first divisions that came up: Wellington preferred to wait for his artillery and his reserves; the process of filing across the fords had been tedious, and occupied the whole afternoon.
On this Clausel had calculated: he was only showing a front in order to give his train time to move to the rear, and to allow his right wing (Foy) at Simancas and Tordesillas to get away. A prompt evacuation of Valladolid would have exposed it to be cut off. On the following morning the French had disappeared from La Cisterniga, but Valladolid was discovered to be still held by an infantry rearguard. This, when pushed, retired and blew up the bridge over the Pisuerga on the opposite side of the city, before the British cavalry could seize it. The critics thought that Clausel might have been hustled with advantage, both on the 6th and on the morning of the 7th, and that Foy might have been cut off from the main body by rapid action on the first day[19]. Wellington’s cautious movements may probably be explained by the fact that an attack on Clausel on the 6th would have involved fighting among the suburbs and houses of Valladolid, which would have been costly, and he had no wish to lose men at a moment when the battalion-strengths were very low all through the army. Moreover, the capture of Valladolid would not have intercepted the retreat of the French at Simancas, but only have forced them to retire by parallel roads northward. At the same time it must be owned that any loss of life involved in giving Clausel a thorough beating on this day would have been justified later on. He had only some 15,000 men in line, not having his right-wing troops with him that day. If the Army of Portugal had been once more attacked and scattered, it would not have been able to interfere in the siege of Burgos, where Wellington was, during the next few weeks, to lose as many men as a general action would have cost. But this no prophet could have foreseen on September 6th.
It cannot be said that Wellington’s pursuit of Clausel was pressed with any earnestness. On the 8th his advanced cavalry were no farther forward than Cabezon, seven miles in front of Valladolid, and it was not till the 9th that the 6th Division, leading the infantry, passed that same point. Wellington himself, with the main body of his infantry, remained at Valladolid till the 10th. His dispatches give no further explanation for this delay than that the troops which had come from Madrid were fatigued, and sickly, from long travel in the hot weather, and that he wished to have assurance of the near approach of the Army of Galicia, which was unaccountably slow in moving forward from Astorga[20]. Meanwhile he took the opportunity of his stay in Valladolid to command, and be present at, a solemn proclamation of the March Constitution. This was a prudent act; for though the ceremony provoked no enthusiasm whatever in the city[21], where there were few Liberals in existence, it was a useful demonstration against calumnies current in Cadiz, to the effect that he so much disliked the Constitution that he was conspiring with the serviles, and especially with Castaños, to ignore or even to overthrow it.