World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

By a chance which prudent minds might have anticipated, but which astonished and confounded the inexperience of the insurgent leaders, the national rising, which lately was universal, irresistible, and triumphant, lost all its power and energy immediately after the victory of Baylen. The hesitation and inaction of King Joseph, his government, and his army, had met with an unexpected counterpart in their adversaries.

It is often a difficult undertaking, even when desired and concerted beforehand, to stir up an entire nation and animate them for war; and when their rising is spontaneous, brought on by the same patriotic and revolutionary idea, it is a still more difficult undertaking to organize their efforts and direct aright their impassioned impulses. After the first shock, which had agitated Spain from one extremity to the other, after the formation of provincial or municipal Juntas, after the success of some of the insurgent generals, the trial of government suddenly presented itself to the leaders of the national movement. It was necessary to command all those proud and independent men, intoxicated with a new liberty and an ancient self-respect; it was necessary at any cost to get from them obedience, for Napoleon was at hand—he, the master of so many armies waiting for his bidding, and who at his will had made princes and kings bend down. The Spanish alone had resisted him successfully; how were they to keep up and continue the resistance?

With considerable difficulty, a central Junta was formed at Aranjuez, composed of delegates from the local Juntas, too numerous to be a council of government, and too restricted to possess, or even claim, the rights of a representative assembly. The new Junta wished to exercise absolute authority. The Council of Castile had proposed that the Cortes be assembled, but most of the generals were opposed to a measure which necessarily tended to diminish their power. The Cortes were not assembled, and the Junta called all the Spaniards to arms.

Though the patriotic ardor in Spain was undoubtedly great, and the patriotic uneasiness profound, the results of the general rising were insufficient, and came greatly short of the hopes of the insurrectional government. About 100,000 men were mustered when the military organization was decided upon by the Junta. Three main armies—that of the left, under the orders of General Blake; that of the centre, under General Castanos; that of the right, under Palafox—were to combine their operations in order to surround the French army. A fourth army, called the reserve, was to be afterwards formed; and the troops scattered over Catalonia were ordered to defend that province against General Duhesme. In spite of the repugnance inspired by foreign assistance to Spanish pride, the Junta had accepted the assistance of an English army, which had already collected at Lisbon, under the orders of Sir John Moore. He had marched across Portugal, and his lieutenant, Sir David Baird, was bringing him reinforcements from England, which afterwards joined him at Corunna. These forces and resources were sufficient to harass the French army, and make an easy occupation of Spain impossible; but not sufficient to keep up a regular war against the first troops in the world. The Spanish, as well as the English, soon found the truth of this.

Before Napoleon arrived at Vittoria, several battles had already taken place, generally favorable to the French army, though it was badly led, and had its forces scattered, instead of concentrated, as the emperor wished them to be, for his ready use. He bitterly blamed Marshals Lefebvre and Victor, and already the presence of the general who had been everywhere victorious was being promptly felt in the management of the army and the vigor of the operations. Marshal Soult had been sent to attack Burgos, then protected by 12,000 men of the Estremadura army; and on the 10th November, on the charge of Mouton's division alone, the Spanish wavered and took to flight, delivering up Burgos and its castle to the French army. The cavalry eagerly pursued the retreating enemy, who quickly formed again, and were as quickly scattered: many of the prisoners were killed. Napoleon at once set out for Burgos. "I start at one in the morning," he wrote to Joseph, "in order to reach Burgos incognito before daybreak, and shall make my arrangements for the day, because to win is nothing if no advantage is taken of the success. I think you ought to go to-morrow to Briviesca. The less ceremony I wish made on my own account, the more I wish made on yours. As for me, it does not suit well with the business of war; besides, I have no wish for it. On arriving, I shall give the necessary orders for disarming, and for burning the standard used for Ferdinand's proclamation. Use every endeavor that it may be felt to be no idle form."

Burgos already felt all the weight of the conqueror's anger. The town was pitilessly sacked. "A sad sight," say the memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, who accompanied King Joseph as he entered the town; "the houses nearly all deserted and pillaged; the furniture, smashed in pieces, scattered in the mud of the streets; one quarter, on the other side of the Arlanzen, on fire; the soldiers madly forcing in doors and windows, breaking everything that came in their way, using little and destroying much; the churches stripped; the streets crowded with the dead and dying—in a word, all the horrors of an assault, although the town had offered no defence!" The emperor ordered all the wool to be seized which was found in the town: it belonged to the great Spanish nobles, and he had resolved to confiscate their property everywhere. "The Duke of Infantado and Spanish great lords," he wrote a few days afterwards to Cretet, the Minister of the Interior (on the 19th November), "are sole proprietors of half the kingdom of Naples, and in this kingdom they are worth not less than 200,000,000. They have, besides, possessions in Belgium, Piedmont, and Italy, which I intend to sequestrate. That is only the first rough draft of my plans". A decree of proscription had already been published, and a capital condemnation pronounced (12th November) against ten of the principal Spanish nobles. At that price, pardon was promised to all who made haste to make submission.

Marshal Soult, the conqueror of Burgos, had already been despatched by the emperor in the direction of Reinosa, in order to complete the destruction of General Blake's army, already partially defeated, on the 11th and 12th by General Victor, near the small town of Espinosa, at the spot where the road from the Biscayan mountains crosses the road of the plain. Soult was late in arriving; but, after a vigorous resistance, the overthrow of Blake's army was so complete that there was no fear that the army of the left could soon rally. Napoleon ordered Lannes and Ney to crush the armies of the right and the centre, commanded by Palafox and Castanos. Ney failing to keep his appointment at Tudela on the 23rd November, owing to a mistake on the march, Lannes made the attack alone, taking by surprise the Spanish generals, who were undecided as to their course of action, disagreeing as to the place for meeting the enemy, and yet urged on to the engagement by the popular cries, already accusing them of treason. The battle was a serious one; and for a short time Lannes, reduced to his own troops, found himself in a difficult position. He was, moreover, ill from a fall from his horse, but succeeded in winning the battle, and drove before him, one after another, all the divisions of the enemy's army. With the cruel and heedless fickleness of revolutionary governments, the Junta of Aranjuez hurriedly cashiered Generals Blake and Castanos. The Marquis of Romana's soldiers having distinguished themselves at Espinosa, he was appointed general of the united armies. Already, in spite of the consternation which reigned in the national party in Spain, small bodies of troops collected in various parts. Napoleon soon understood that the masterly-strokes of his usual tactics were not sufficient to conquer men who were as prompt in again taking up arms as in throwing them down on the roads in order to run away. He hurried in pursuit everywhere, and multiplied his modes of attack. Junot, scarcely returned to France, received orders to go into Spain. Napoleon resolved to march upon Madrid.

The resources left at the disposition of the Junta for the defence of the capital were obviously insufficient. A body of 10,000 to 12,000 men, under the command of Benito San Juan, occupied the height Somo-Sierra, and on the 30th November Napoleon in person appeared before the small Spanish army. The passage being quickly forced by a charge of General Montbrun, the French cavalry rode to the gates of Madrid, causing indignation and alarm. The Junta had already left Aranjuez to meet in Badajoz, and the capital, entrusted to a small detachment of troops of the line under the Marquis of Castellar, at one time supported, at another hindered by the populace, corregidor of Madrid, the Marquis of Perales, was massacred by a handful of madmen, on the charge of having mixed sand with the powder of their cartridges. Thomas de Morla, the tribune of Cadiz, commanded the defence. Barricades were raised at every point, and ramparts improvised, Madrid never having been surrounded with fortifications.

On the morning of the 2nd December the emperor arrived at the gates of the capital, and at once had a summons sent to those in command of the place. His messenger had great difficulty in obtaining admission to the town; and the Spanish general appointed to convey the refusal of surrender was accompanied and watched by a band of insurgents, who dictated to him his reply. A second summons producing no result, the firing at the walls and the town began; and in a few hours the palace Buen Retiro and all the northern and eastern gates were in the power of the French. At several points the resistance was most obstinate. The emperor again summoning the Junta of Defence to spare the capital the horrors of a general assault, Thomas de Morla soon presented himself before him, in the name of the insurrectional government.

The emperor's features clearly expressed his anger at the sight of the governor of Andalusia, who had recently retained the troops taken prisoners, in defiance of the capitulation of Baylen. Napoleon had more than once violated treaties: he attached always an extreme importance to military conventions. On this occasion, his natural sense of wrong and offended vanity alone had the mastery in his soul. Thomas de Morla, generally arrogant and bold, seemed troubled and confused. "The people," said he, "are ungovernable in their patriotic passion; the Junta ask for one day to bring them back to reason."