The dispatch was hopelessly out of date, and Maurice Mathieu had no means of knowing whether Suchet had carried out his original intentions. But his first impression was that he must seek for the Marshal at Reus, according to the directions given. Accordingly on June 12 he pushed his vanguard as far as Arbos, six miles in advance of Villafranca, and some 24 miles from Tarragona. But nothing could be heard of the Marshal’s approach, and Copons’ troops were gathering in from all sides to block the road, while Murray was only one march away. Seized with sudden misgivings at finding himself close to 20,000 enemies with such a trilling force, Mathieu made up his mind that it would be madness to push on. At 10 o’clock on the night of the 12th-13th[689] he evacuated both Arbos and Villafranca, and retreated in haste to Barcelona, to await the arrival of Decaen and the reserve.
Murray’s miserable timidity now intervened, to save Tarragona, just when both the French forces had found themselves foiled, and had given up the relief of the fortress as impossible. The story reads like the plot of a stupid theatrical farce, where every character does the wrong thing, in order to produce absurd complications in the situation. On the 12th Pannetier, on the hills above Monroig, heard no bombardment, because the bombardment had ceased. And Maurice Mathieu on the night of that same day was running away from an enemy who had already absconded that very afternoon. So, after coming within 35 miles of each other, the two French generals had turned back in despair and given up the game. But Murray had given it up also.
The bombardment had gone on very successfully throughout the 11th June, and the engineers reported at noon that the Fuerte Real could be stormed at any moment, and that the works of the Upper City were crumbling in many places. Orders were issued that Mackenzie’s division should storm the Fuerte Real at 10 p.m., while Clinton’s was to make a demonstration against the Upper City. All arrangements were made, and after dark the troops designated for the assault filed into the advanced trenches: the signal was to be by a flight of rockets[690]. But the rockets never went up.
For some days Murray had been in a state of agonized indecision. On the 9th he had received information from a trusted secret agent in Valencia that Suchet had marched for Tortosa on the 7th with 9,000 men—this was absolutely certain and showed that all the previous rumours from the South had been false. On the same day a dispatch came in from Eroles at Vich to say that a French column (Beurmann’s brigade) had left Gerona on the 8th, marching for Barcelona, and that he intended to follow it with his own detachment, and would join Copons before the enemy could concentrate. The French then were on the move on both flanks—but still far off. On the night of the 10th General Manso, commanding on Copons’ right flank, reported the approaching departure of Maurice Mathieu from Barcelona, but overrated his force at 10,000 men. He undertook to detain them in the defiles beyond Villafranca for at least one day. This news was corroborated next evening by an officer of Whittingham’s staff, who had seen the column, estimated it at 7,000 to 8,000 infantry, and reported that it had entered Villafranca at 4 p.m. on the 11th[691]. But it was the movements of Suchet which gave Murray the greater alarm: by ingenious miscalculations[692] he had arrived at the statistical conclusion that the Marshal had got 12,000 or 13,000 men of all arms with him, instead of the real 8,000[693]. And when the arrival of Pannetier’s brigade at Perello on the 10th was reported to him on the following day, he proceeded to assume that the French column was all closed up: ‘the Marshal with 13,000 men was within two long marches of Tarragona[694].’ Many generals would have asked for no better opportunity than that of being placed in a central position with some 23,000 men—the Anglo-Sicilian troops and those of Copons exceeded that figure—while two hostile columns, one of 13,000 men and the other of 10,000, 35 miles apart, were trying to join each other across a difficult country by bad roads. (As a matter of fact, of course, the French force was much smaller—no more than 8,000 men on the West, and 6,000 on the East, though Murray must not be too much blamed for the over-estimate.) But the two governing ideas that ruled in the brain of the unfortunate general were firstly the memory of Wellington’s warning that ‘the one thing that could not be forgiven would be that the corps should be beaten or dispersed’, and secondly the fact that his army was composed of heterogeneous material, some of which might be found wanting at a crisis. But he concealed his downheartedness till the last moment, both from his own lieutenants and from the Spaniards. On the 10th he rode out to meet General Copons at Torre dem Barra, to which place the Catalan head-quarters had just been moved, and agreed with him to defend the line of the Gaya river against the column coming from Barcelona. He promised to send up all his cavalry, 8,000 infantry, and two field batteries to join the Spanish army, which was now concentrated across the two roads by which Tarragona could be approached from Villafranca. Five battalions were on the northern road, by the Col de Santa Cristina, four and the three squadrons of horse on the southern route, nearer the sea. Warnings were issued to Clinton’s and Whittingham’s divisions, and also to Lord Frederick Bentinck, the cavalry brigadier, to be ready to march to the line of the Gaya[695]. This looked like business, and the spirits of the Anglo-Sicilians were high that night.
On the morning of the 11th, while the bombardment of Tarragona was going on in a very satisfactory way, Murray rode out again, met Copons at Vendrils, behind the Gaya, and spent much time in inspecting the chosen positions. He disliked them; the river was fordable in many places, and a very long front would have to be guarded: it was considered that the French might break through by one of the roads before the troops guarding the other could arrive. However, adhering to his promise of the 10th, Murray ordered up Bentinck with two squadrons of hussars and two guns to the mouth of the Gaya, where they took over the outposts on the coast-road. The infantry was not brought up—as the assault on Tarragona was to take place that evening. The only news from the front received in the afternoon were rumours that Maurice Mathieu had actually reached Villafranca[696].
At seven o’clock Murray started home, and reached his head-quarters before Tarragona two hours later. There he found a batch of reports awaiting him, which finally broke down his resolution to fight, and drove him to the ignominious flight which he had already contemplated on more than one day during the preceding week. Two Spanish officers had come in from the Col de Santa Cristina, to report that the Barcelona column had certainly occupied Villafranca, and was apparently pushing on beyond it: this was discouraging. But the document which Murray regarded as all-important was a note from his adjutant-general, Donkin, to the effect that peasants, who had just come in from Perello, reported that Suchet’s column had continued its advance: ‘This corps of infantry may be at Reus to-morrow, if they think proper to march by Perello without artillery. And Decaen (i. e. Mathieu), if he marched this day to Villafranca, can also reach Reus to-morrow. This possibility may, perhaps, make some change in your arrangements[697].’ As a matter of fact, we have already seen that it was only Pannetier’s brigade which had gone across the hills from Perello towards Monroig, and that this was a mere reconnaissance.
But Donkin’s picture of Suchet and the Barcelona column joining at Reus, in his rear, on the 12th, with forces which Murray’s imagination raised to 25,000 men, was so much in consonance with the fears which had been obsessing the brains of the Commander-in-Chief throughout the last ten days, that he felt that his nightmare was coming true. There could be no doubt that he was on the brink of a disaster like the Ostend catastrophe of 1798[698]. Of course Suchet’s active brain had planned his complete destruction. He tells us in his defence[699] that he asked himself whether it was probable that an officer of the Marshal’s activity and reputation would have left a man more than he could help in Valencia. ‘Was it the character of a French general to act with inadequate means when ample means were within his reach? Was it probable that he would have brought a small force only from the Xucar by the fatiguing march to Tortosa? Would he have left a man idle in the south when in danger of losing his communication with France? Every disposable corps, many more than what might be calculated to be fairly disposable, must be with the Marshal.’ He might have not 13,000 men but many more. And the Barcelona column might be not 10,000 men but 13,000.
Rather than take the risk of waiting one day longer in his present position, Murray resolved to abscond by sea, while the enemy was still twenty miles away from Tarragona. By 9.30 p.m. he had sent his staff officers with messages to his divisional generals to stop the projected assault, to order all guns, horses, and stores to be got on shipboard, and the infantry after them. He calculated, in his panic, that he had only eighteen hours in hand: the re-embarkation must be over by dusk on the 12th. But the most disgraceful part of his scheme was that he had resolved to leave Copons and the Catalans to their fate, after having brought them to the Gaya by definite promises of assistance, without which they would never have taken up their fighting position, and this though he had renewed his pledges that same morning. He sent no warning of his real intentions to his colleague, but only told him that recent information had made it necessary for him to re-embark his battering train; but six Anglo-Sicilian battalions should be sent out next morning, to strengthen the force behind the Gaya.
There followed a night and a morning of confusion. No one in the expeditionary force had hitherto suspected Murray’s wavering confidence, except Admiral Hallowell, to whom he had on June 9th made the remark that he imagined that they ought to be thinking about getting away in safety rather than about prolonging the siege, and the Quartermaster-General, Donkin, to whom on the same day Murray had said that he suspected that they would have ere long to depart, whereupon that officer had drawn up a secret scheme for the details of re-embarkation[700]. But since nothing more had been heard about such a move on the 10th or the 11th, Hallowell and Donkin had supposed that the idea was abandoned. Clinton and the other senior officers had been kept entirely in the dark, till the sudden orders of 9.30 p.m. were delivered to them. At midnight Admiral Hallowell came in to Murray’s quarters to protest against the hasty departure, which would cause all manner of confusion and ensure the loss of much valuable material: they parted after an angry altercation. Colonel Williamson (commanding the artillery) also appeared, to say that in the time given him he could get off the guns in the batteries near the shore, but not those on the distant Olivo. He understood the general to reply that he might be granted some extra hours, and that the Olivo guns might be brought down after dark on the 12th[701].
But in the morning Murray’s apprehension grew progressively worse. He had at first intended to do something to cover Copons’ inevitable retreat, and ordered Clinton to throw out six battalions towards the Gaya. But he soon cancelled this order, and directed Bentinck to bring back his cavalry and guns from Altafulla without delay. At 9 a.m. a message was sent to Williamson, to say that the guns on the Olivo must be spiked or destroyed, as it would be perilous to wait till night[702]. Half an hour later Murray’s notions of retreat flickered round to a new scheme—the troops on the shore should embark there; but those on the northern heights—the divisions of Clinton and Whittingham—should march to the Col de Balaguer via Constanti, and take ship in the much better harbourage behind Cape Salou. Half an hour later he abandoned this scheme, and ordered them down to the beach by the Francoli, there to embark without delay.