A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The armistice of Zmaim was entered into on the 12th of July. On the 27th of that month, the very day on which the news of the armistice reached England, a great expedition left for the mouth of the Scheldt, for the English ministry had not deceived the hopes of The Walcheren expedition. July 1809. the Austrians, and were determined to undertake what they hoped would prove a diversion in their favour. For this purpose all the strength of England was to be employed. 40,000 soldiers were to be carried across in 400 transports under the charge of no less than 245 ships of war. Yet, great as was the effort, the commonest precautions were neglected. Although it was well known that the climate of the islands at the mouth of the Scheldt was pestiferous, the medical officers were not consulted, none of the proper medicines were sent, and the force was accompanied, in spite of the protest of the surgeon-general, by only one hospital ship. Moreover, the pomp and publicity with which the expedition, which was intended to be secret, was prepared deprived it of much of its value; and lastly, Court and ministerial favour secured the command for Lord Chatham, Master-General of the Ordnance, a man wholly unfitted for an important command. At length, after much delay caused by the want of harmony between the two branches of the service, the fleet set sail. It was the opinion of the best officers of the army that Antwerp might have been at once secured by a coup de main, yet it was determined to proceed more regularly and with deliberation; and Flushing (which, as the dykes had been cut, was Flushing taken. Aug. 15. regarded as impregnable) was taken in two days after the arrangements for the attack had been completed. It was not till the 21st of August that Lord Chatham began to think of moving towards Antwerp. But, as by that time the enemy's squadron had been withdrawn up the river to the city, and the intermediate fortresses had been so strengthened as to render the advance difficult, absolutely nothing further was even attempted. The army was kept lying in the plague-stricken swamps of Walcheren. Fever began to make fearful ravages. On the 29th Chatham wrote home that he could do no more—that already 3000 of the troops were sick. By September 11,000 men were stricken, and the great bulk of the army was ordered home. Lord Chatham, taking with him as many of the sick as he could, accompanied it. 15,000 men were left to occupy the island. Though the fever still spread with fearful rapidity, the only remedy supplied was a quantity of Thames water, which was constantly sent out. The roofs of the huts had fallen in, the men were removed to the churches, and the churches proved damp and worse than the roofless huts. At last 100 bricklayers were sent from England to repair the huts; the bricklayers were speedily themselves in hospital. The death rate was now 200 or 300 a week; and so terrible was the effect of the fever, that before the next June, of the 40,000 troops sent out 35,000 had been in hospital. Nor did this great folly produce the smallest effect on the general war. Even had the expedition not been so delayed that the Austrian armistice was already signed when it sailed, it could have done no good. Napoleon himself wrote of it, "Before six weeks, of the 15,000 troops which are in the Isle of Walcheren not 1500 will be left, the rest will be in hospital. The expedition has been undertaken under false expectations and planned in ignorance."

While wasting their strength in this idle display, the ministry were being taught, had they been willing to learn, where English forces might have been wisely employed. In Portugal, Wellesley, on taking Wellesley victorious in Portugal. the command, had marched against Soult in the north, had brought his army across the Douro in face of the French, who were occupying Oporto, had recaptured that city, and driven Soult to a desperate retreat. By extraordinary vigour and good fortune, Soult, though there were traitors in his camp, contrived to extricate his army, but Portugal was free. And Wellesley, victorious in the north, and deceived by the constant false information of the Spaniards as to the weakness of his enemies, determined to turn his arms against the other French army which was threatening Portugal in the valley of the Tagus. He was there to act with the Spanish army under Cuesta, an old man of crabbed temper and of great self-conceit. Victor's army fell back before the advancing English from Talavera behind the Alberche river.

Wellesley marches towards Madrid.

By this march Madrid was threatened, and Joseph collected for its defence the troops of Victor, Sebastiani, and his own guard, amounting to about 50,000 men. As Wellesley had with him less than 20,000 English troops, and as he could place no reliance upon the Spaniards of Cuesta though they were nearly 40,000 in number, it was a bold resolve to march against Victor. But Wellesley was ignorant of the extreme danger of his movement. Constantly misinformed by the Spaniards, he believed Soult's army in Castile and the plain of the Douro to consist of about 15,000 men; in reality it was more than 50,000 strong. With these it was possible, collecting them at Salamanca, to cross the mountains separating the plains of the Douro and the Tagus, to pass between Wellesley's troops and Portugal, and thus placing him between two armies, each virtually superior to his own, entirely ruin him. Ignorant as yet of the character of the Spaniards, Wellesley could not believe that he should be kept uninformed, nor could he believe that the Spanish troops supplied to occupy the passes of the mountains, and restrain, or at least check, Soult's movements, would give ground without striking a blow; nor, before entering on his enterprise, could he have conceived that his army would have been systematically kept without food. It is nevertheless true that the greatest difficulty was found in procuring rations, which often consisted merely of a few handfuls of grain, while the Spanish troops were very fairly fed. Victor and the King had taken up a position beyond the Alberche stream, a little river flowing from the north into the Tagus above Talavera. Beyond that stream, Wellesley, when he found how he was treated, positively refused to move. Beginning to appreciate the character of the Spanish troops, he urged Cuesta not to venture on a forward movement without him; but the obstinate old man persisting in passing the Alberche, was roughly handled by Victor, and only saved from the consequences of his rashness by English assistance.

Soult had informed Joseph of his great plan. All the King had to do was to remain quiet, and check the advance of the English till Wellesley was caught in the trap. But there was a second Spanish army apparently threatening Madrid from the south. It might well be that before Soult's arrival the capital would be lost, although, if Soult's plan answered, it would be immediately regained. The King could not bring himself to bear even the temporary loss of his capital, especially as the hospitals and supplies for his army were there. He therefore rashly listened to the advice of Victor, which was contrary Battle of Talavera. July 28, 1809. to that of Jourdan, his proper military adviser, and determined to attack the English. The position of Talavera is about two miles in length, crossing the plain from the river Tagus to a small range of hills which bounds the valley; beyond this range is a second valley of about half a mile in extent, and then come the mountains. The key of the position is the highest of the secondary hills, and this Wellesley occupied. The Spaniards he placed behind entrenchments in Talavera. Victor made a second error in making two preliminary attacks upon the key hill. Though these attacks failed, he still believed he could carry the position, and Joseph yielded to his desire for a general engagement. This was fought on the 28th of July. The advance of the French light dragoons so frightened the Spaniards that many regiments at once turned and fled, carrying the news down the valley that the English army was destroyed. Such as remained in their strong position proved sufficient to hold it, and were not seriously molested. The whole brunt of the battle fell upon the English in the centre and left wing. At one moment the centre was broken through, and disaster might have followed had not Wellesley at once seen what was wanted, and sent the 48th regiment down from the hill, though the fighting there was severe, and re-established the battle in the centre. An extraordinary and reckless charge of the 23rd light dragoons across an apparently impassable ravine, though carried out with the loss of almost half their number, had the effect of paralyzing a whole division of the French army, which was attempting to turn the English left by the valley between the hills and the mountains. When the evening closed the French had been defeated at all points, and the English remained masters of their position.

But by that time Soult had come almost unopposed through the mountains from Salamanca to Placentia and the direct road to Portugal was closed. All hopes of rendering the victory useful were therefore gone, and Wellesley was compelled to cross to the south of the Tagus, and take refuge among the mountains. After considerable loss and much suffering from the abominable usage he endured from the hands of the Spaniards, he came to a fixed determination that he would never again act in concert with them, that henceforward his first duty lay in saving Portugal, from which, if events favoured him, he might ultimately advance with an English and Portuguese army, and do for the Spaniards what they were totally unable to do for themselves.

Effect of the victory in England.

The victory of Talavera was a great one, and the English ministry recognized it as such by raising Wellesley to the Peerage as Viscount Wellington. Nevertheless it was open to the cavils of the Opposition, for it could be truly urged that it had not produced any permanent advantage, and had been followed by a somewhat disastrous retreat. In Parliament some Opposition speakers even went so far as to urge that the name of the commander should be omitted from the vote of thanks to be given to the army. But it was in fact the weak war administration in England which rendered it useless. Our resources had been wasted in the pompous and ridiculous Walcheren expedition, and in a second expedition, almost as useless, which was despatched to Italy, where it was unable to effect anything, and had to withdraw to Sicily.

French victories. Nov. 1809.

When Wellington withdrew from Talavera, after waiting some time on the Guadiana, he took up his position in the more northern part of Portugal, near Almeida, preparing for the defence of the country. During his inactivity there the advance of the French was nearly unchecked. They marched into Aragon and Catalonia, and defeated an army of 50,000 Spaniards at Ocana (Nov. 20), thus throwing open the province of La Mancha, and obtaining an opportunity for further advance into Andalusia. This province was also overrun, with the exception of Cadiz, which was saved by General Albuquerque. The invasion thus formed itself into three defined divisions; an army for the invasion of Portugal, an army for the completion of the conquest of Andalusia, and an army in Catalonia, while the King and his Imperial Guards formed an army in the centre. Having thus borne down all opposition in Spain, Napoleon's intention was to overrun Portugal in the following year. His army for the purpose was placed under the command of Massena, while Soult was intrusted with the operations next in importance, and directed against Cadiz.