This dispatch reduced Clinton to a state of cold rage: at the court martial in 1814 he produced seven separate orders which he had received between dawn and 1.30 that day: they were all contradictory, and deserve record as showing Murray’s state of mind during the critical hours. (1) The first, received early, directed him to take six battalions towards the Gaya, to cover the retreat of Copons from Altafulla. (2) The second, sent off at 9 o’clock, told him not to execute this march, but to wait till the Spaniards had cleared off, and then to move, not with six battalions but with the whole of his own and Whittingham’s divisions, to Constanti[703]. (3) The third was to the effect that the baggage should be sent to the Col de Balaguer, to which the whole army would now proceed[704]. (4) Half an hour later Clinton was told to cancel the last two dispatches, and to come down to head-quarters on the nearest beach. (5) A supplementary verbal order directed that the guns in the Olivo batteries should be spiked. (6) Twenty minutes later Clinton was told that the guns might still be saved: Whittingham’s Spaniards should remain on the Olivo and guard them till dusk, when the artillery would try to get them down to the shore. (7) Lastly, at 1.30, the final order cancelled the sixth, it directed (once more) that Whittingham’s troops must follow Clinton’s for instant embarkation, and that the guns should be spiked without delay. This was done, to the intense disgust of the gunners, who had been getting everything ready for an orderly retreat after dusk. Seventeen heavy pieces in good condition, and one more which had been disabled, were spiked and left in the Olivo batteries, while the infantry hurried down to the shore.
The momentary wavering in Murray’s orders during the early morning, when he seemed inclined to risk a longer stay, and to march Clinton’s division and the baggage by land to the anchorage by the Col de Balaguer, was apparently caused partly by new remonstrances from Hallowell, partly by an interview with some of his subordinates, somewhere between 8 and 9 a.m., Mackenzie, Adam, Donkin, and Thackeray, the chief engineer, entered the house of the Commander-in-Chief together, and Adam, as their spokesman, urged him with great heat not to embark, but to advance, join Copons, and attack the French on the Gaya with every available man. Murray replied that if he did so, the French would refuse to fight and give back toward Barcelona; while Suchet, coming from the other direction, would cut him off from the fleet and relieve Tarragona. But if, on the other hand, he were to march against Suchet, and stop him, then the Barcelona column would relieve Tarragona and get the expeditionary force separated from its transports. Either course would be equally ruinous. He also said that Wellington had told him ‘not to commit the army’. The generals withdrew—further insistence would have amounted to military insubordination. The final hurry-scurry order, to destroy the guns and embark pell-mell, was caused by news from Copons that the French at Villafranca had advanced as far as Arbos, only ten miles from the Gaya, and seemed still to be coming on.
During the night and the morning that followed all the guns from the lower batteries, much valuable material, some of the cavalry, and the infantry of Adam, were got aboard. The shipment of artillery stores was still proceeding at 10 o’clock, when Murray ordered that nothing but men should now be embarked—all else must be abandoned. Admiral Hallowell, who was superintending the work on the beach in person, was much incensed with this resolve, and took it upon himself to direct the sailors in the boats to refuse infantry, and to go on lading stores. Then came a deadlock—Hallowell said that there was plenty of time to take off everything: Donkin, coming down from Murray’s quarters, maintained that the French were only two and a half hours’ march away, and that the infantry must be got off at all costs: horses and mules might have to be shot, and food and ammunition abandoned[705]. There was much disputing, but the naval men, obeying the admiral, continued to embark horses and artillery material till midday, when Mackenzie’s infantry began to pour down to the beaches, followed by Clinton’s and Whittingham’s battalions[706]. All through the afternoon the shipping off of troops continued without any interruption, till only a rearguard of 500 of Clinton’s men was left on shore. No news of the French coming to hand, there was a relaxation of the wild hurry which had prevailed between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Murray permitted Bentinck to take that part of the cavalry which had not yet embarked round to the anchorage by the Col de Balaguer by land[707], and sent on behind them twelve field-guns escorted by a half battalion of the 2/27th. Meanwhile, the troops having all got off, the boats began to load again with transport mules, entrenching tools, spare shot, platform timbers, sand bags, and biscuit. The rear guard was not taken off till late at night; and, even after it was gone and dawn had come, the sailors continued to find and take off various valuable leavings[708]. No molestation whatever was suffered from the garrison, who regarded the whole movement as inexplicable, and only crept out with caution after the last British troops had disappeared, to find 18 spiked guns and some artillery stores in the Olivo batteries, and a certain amount of flour and beef barrels left on the shore. The most distressing part of the chronicle of this wretched day’s work is Murray’s dealings with Copons. He had induced the Captain-General to bring his army to the line of the Gaya, by the promise of supporting him with 8,000 men, renewed on the morning of the 11th. At dawn on the 12th the message was sent that six battalions only could be spared. An hour or two later Copons received the crushing news that the whole expeditionary army was about to re-embark, abandoning him to his own resources. If Murray’s view of the situation had been correct, the Spaniards must have been caught between Suchet advancing on Reus and Mathieu converging on the same point from Villafranca. His moral guilt, therefore, was very great. But, as a matter of fact, nothing disastrous happened. On hearing that he had been left in the lurch, Copons withdrew the troops which he had at Altafulla on the coast-road, to join those at the Col de Santa Cristina, leaving the way to Tarragona open to Maurice Mathieu, and preparing to retreat into the mountains if necessary. He kept a close look-out upon the French column, and was astonished on the morning of the 13th to learn that, after sending a vanguard to Arbos on the previous day, six miles down the southern road, it had turned back at ten o’clock at night, and was now in full retreat on Barcelona. The crisis was over for the moment. Copons returned to his old head-quarters at Reus, threw out a slight screen of troops to the line of Gaya, and reoccupied Villafranca with a few cavalry. He was quite ready to retreat into the mountains once more if any untoward developments should supervene.
On June 13th Murray had all his army on shipboard,[709] save Prevost’s two battalions at the Col de Balaguer, and the guns and cavalry with Bentinck, which had marched by land to that same pass. Wellington’s orders told him that if he failed at Tarragona he was to return to Valencia, join Elio and Del Parque, and fall upon the diminished French force on the Xucar before Suchet could get back. It was his obvious duty to pick up Prevost’s and Bentinck’s detachments, and to depart at once. He did nothing of the kind, but proceeded to employ himself for several days in minor operations, in the vain hope of redeeming the disgrace of June 12th.
On the morning of the 13th Murray received news from Colonel Prevost at San Felipe to the effect that the French column in front of him (Pannetier’s brigade), about 3,000 strong, had marched from Perello by mountain paths eastward, but had not been followed by Suchet’s main body. Prevost thought that it might be intending to cut him off from the rest of the army by dropping down into the coast-road in his rear. Pannetier’s movement was also reported by Bentinck, whose flank patrols had run against similar parties of the French while on their way to the Col de Balaguer. It was necessary to bring off Prevost, the cavalry, and the guns by sea, if the French were trying to get round them. So Murray asked Admiral Hallowell to send ships in-shore to the Col, and with them part of Mackenzie’s division[710], to act as a covering force for the re-embarkation of Prevost’s detachment. These troops—apparently three battalions—were landed near the fort late on the evening of the 13th.
Now during that day Pannetier, conscious that he was too far away from his chief, and quite ‘in the air,’ had drawn back from near Monroig to Valdellos, ten miles nearer to Perello. The same idea had occurred to Suchet, who simultaneously brought up his main body from Tortosa to Perello, though he knew that the coast-road was blocked by the British force holding Fort San Felipe. But on the morning of the 14th the Marshal, exploring toward the Col, sighted not only Mackenzie’s infantry on shore, but the whole transport fleet lying off the coast from opposite the fort as far as Cape Salou—180 ships small and great, as he counted. A frigate and two brigs took a number of long shots at the Marshal and his large escort, which had to retire in haste. Suchet saw the whole expeditionary force before him, and recognized that he was too weak to tackle it. Wherefore he sent orders to Pannetier to fall back and rejoin him—and came to a halt. Early on the morning of the 15th he wrote to Decaen:
‘The loss of the Col de Balaguer has foiled all my plans. The English fleet fired more than a thousand shot at us. Menaced by forces of four times my own strength, I wish to know what you propose to do. The enemy [Del Parque] has attacked my lines on the Xucar[711].’
This last fact, at the moment, was worrying Suchet even more than the unknown fate of Tarragona, for Harispe had just reported that the two Spanish armies in Valencia had advanced against him in force, and on a long front. Now, while the Marshal halted in indecision, Murray was seized with a spasmodic fit of energy—he knew that Maurice Mathieu was for the moment out of the game; he saw that Suchet was blocked, and that Pannetier was in a dangerously advanced position. He conceived the idea that he might land more troops at the Col, and strike in between the French main body and the brigade at Valdellos. To the astonishment of his subordinates he ordered the rest of Mackenzie’s troops and all Clinton’s to be landed, as also the remainder of the cavalry, and instructed Mackenzie to make a forced march on Valdellos and beat up Pannetier’s camp. The General did so, but arrived only just in time to see the French rearguard absconding on the 15th[712]. This demonstration of energy having failed, as it was pretty certain to do (for events like the surprise of Arroyo dos Molinos are not common), Murray had another inspiration. On the evening of the 15th[713] he suggested to Admiral Hallowell that the garrison of Tarragona must now be quite off their guard, that they had not been strengthened, and that it might be possible to re-embark 5,000 men secretly at Fort Balaguer, land them at Cambrils, and make a sudden dash at Tarragona by escalade or surprise. The Admiral answered that as Murray had not felt himself equal to storming Tarragona when the whole army was with him, and the batteries playing on the place, he (Hallowell) did not think him equal to it now with 5,000 men[714]. The idea was dropped: it was not without its merits, but though Picton or Craufurd might have succeeded in such a desperate stroke, Murray would certainly have failed from lack of nerve at the decisive moment, as the Admiral meant to insinuate.
This wretched campaign was now nearing its end—but still reserved two extraordinary surprises for its last days. On the 16th Suchet, much impressed with the strength which Murray had shown, judging from the stroke at Valdellos that he was thinking of taking the offensive, and harassed by fresh news of Del Parque’s advance on Valencia, retired from Perello, and took his main body back across the Ebro to Amposta, which he reached on the 17th. He left only Pannetier’s brigade and the hussar regiment to watch Murray. Thus the Anglo-Sicilians had opposite them on the south only 3,000 men, from whom no possible danger could be apprehended. But their General had no idea as yet that only a rearguard lay before him, and imagined that the Marshal and his main body were close in Pannetier’s rear.
The second surprise took place on the other front. Maurice Mathieu had got back to Barcelona by a forced march on the 13th. On the next day spies brought him the news that Murray had raised the siege of Tarragona, and gone away with his whole army by sea. There was nothing to prevent him from relieving Bertoletti’s garrison, save Copons’ troops holding the line of the Gaya. Therefore, although Decaen had not yet arrived from the North, and indeed had written that he could not start from Gerona until the 17th, Mathieu resolved to make a second attempt to reach Tarragona. He could still count on no greater force than the 6,000 men with which he had made his first fruitless expedition, but he thought this sufficient to deal with the Catalans. He moved once more upon Villafranca early on the 15th, and reached that place the same night. Next day a forced march of twenty-four miles brought him to Tarragona unopposed; for Copons would not fight when unsupported by Murray, and had withdrawn his troops to Valls. At Tarragona Mathieu learned that the Anglo-Sicilians had not disappeared entirely from Catalonia, as he had hitherto believed, but were concentrated at and about the Col de Balaguer. Though no news had been received from Suchet, it might be conjectured that Murray had landed at the Col in order to hold back the Marshal, who could not be very far off. On the morning of the 17th Mathieu resolved to take the risky step of advancing by the coast-road to feel for Murray’s rear, and marched out to Cambrils six miles west of Tarragona, hoping to hear that Suchet was simultaneously attacking the front of the Anglo-Sicilians. He was thereby exposing himself to fearful danger, for Murray had his whole 15,000 men in hand, and quite disposable, since Suchet had withdrawn southward on the 16th. And Copons at Valls was in a position to cut in upon the rear of the Barcelona column with 6,000 men more: each of them was only ten miles from Cambrils, and they were in full communication with each other. Indeed, Murray had sent to Copons late on the 16th, imploring him to fall upon the flank of the enemy, though he spoilt the effect of the appeal by explaining that he was going to be attacked by Suchet and the Barcelona column simultaneously, and expected to be outnumbered—the Marshal had 24,000 men (!), while 8,000 men were coming via Tarragona against his rear. Startled by these astounding figures, the Spanish General did not actually attack Maurice Mathieu, but contented himself with bringing forward his infantry to La Selva and feeling for the French column by cavalry patrols sent out from Reus.