Apparently Joseph came off victor from the campaign of 1812; but the withdrawal of French troops towards Madrid and the valley of the Douro had fatal consequences. The south was at once lost to the French; and the sturdy mountaineers of Biscay, Navarre, and Arragon formed large bands whose persistent daring showed that the north was far from conquered. Encouraged by the presence of a small British force, they seized on most of the northern ports; and their chief, Mina, was able to meet the French northern army on almost equal terms. In the east, Suchet held his own against the Spaniards and an Anglo-Sicilian expedition. But in regard to the rest of Spain, Soult's gloomy prophecy was fulfilled: "The loss of Andalusia and the raising of the siege of Cadiz are events whose results will be felt throughout the whole of Europe."
The Spanish Cortes, or Parliament, long cooped up in Cadiz, now sought to put in force the recently devised democratic constitution. It was hailed with joy by advanced thinkers in the cities, and with loathing by the clergy, the nobles, the wealthy, and the peasants. But, though the Cortes sowed the seeds of political discord, they took one very commendable step. They appointed Wellington generalissimo of all the Spanish armies; and, in a visit which he paid to the Cortes at Christmastide, he prepared for a real co-operation of Spanish forces in the next campaign.
At that time Napoleon was uneasily looking into the state of Spanish affairs. As soon as he mastered the contents of the despatches from Madrid he counselled a course of action that promised, at any rate, to postpone the overthrow of his power. The advice is set forth in letters written on January 4th and February 12th by the Minister of War, General Clarke; for Napoleon had practically ceased to correspond with his brother. In the latter of these despatches Clarke explained in some detail the urgent need of acting at once, while the English were inactive, so as to stamp out the ever-spreading flame of revolt in the northern provinces. Two French armies, that of the North and the so-called "Army of Portugal," were to be told off for this duty; and Joseph was informed that his armies of the south and of the centre would for the present suffice to hold the British in check. As to Joseph's general course of action, it was thus prescribed:
"The Emperor commands me to reiterate to your Majesty that the use of Valladolid as a residence and as headquarters is an indispensable preliminary. From that place must be sent out on the Burgos road, and on other fit points, the troops which are to strengthen or to second the army of the north. Madrid, and even Valencia, form parts of this system only as posts to be held by your extreme left, not as places to be kept by a concentration of forces…. To occupy Valladolid and Salamanca, to use the utmost exertion to pacify Navarre and Arragon to keep the communication with France rapid and safe, to be always ready to take the offensive—these are the Emperor's instructions for the campaign, and the principles on which all its operations ought to be founded…."[309]
A fortnight later, Clarke bade the King threaten Ciudad Rodrigo so as to make Wellington believe that the French would invade Portugal. He was also to lay heavy contributions on Madrid and Toledo. In fact, the capital was to be held only as long as it could be squeezed.
Such were the plans. They show clearly that the Emperor was impressed with the need of crushing the rising in the north of Spain; for he ordered as great a force against Mina and his troublesome bands as he deemed necessary to watch the Portuguese frontier. Clausel was charged to stamp out the northern rising, and Napoleon seems to have judged that this hardy fighter would end this tedious task before Wellington dealt any serious blows. The miscalculation was to be fatal. Mina was not speedily to be beaten, nor was the British general the slow unenterprising leader that the Emperor took him to be. And then again, in spite of all the experiences of the past, Napoleon failed to allow for the delays caused by the capture of his couriers, or by their long detours. Yet, never were these more serious. Clarke's first urgent despatch, that of January 4th, did not reach the King until February 16th.[310] When its directions were being doubtfully obeyed, those quoted above arrived on March 12th, and led to changes in the disposition of the troops. Thus the forces opposed to Wellington were weakened in order to crush the northern revolt, and yet these detachments were only sent north at the close of March for a difficult enterprise which was not to be completed before the British leader threw his sword decisively into the scales of war.
Joseph has been severely blamed for his tardy action: but, in truth, he was in a hopeless impasse: on all sides he saw the walls of his royal prison house closing in. The rebels in the north cut off the French despatches, thus forestalling his movements and delaying by some weeks his execution of Napoleon's plans. Worst of all, the Emperor withdrew the pith and marrow of his forces: 1,200 officers, 6,000 non-commissioned officers, and some 24,000 of the most seasoned soldiers filed away towards France to put strength and firmness into the new levies of the line, or to fill out again the skeleton battalions and squadrons of the Imperial Guard.[311]
It is strange that Napoleon did not withdraw all his troops from Spain. They still exceeded 150,000 men; and yet, after he had flung away army after army, the Spaniards were everywhere in arms, except in Valencia. The north defied all the efforts of Clausel for several weeks, until he declared that it would take 50,000 men three months to crush the mountaineers.[312] Above all, Wellington was known to be mustering a formidable force on the Portuguese borders. In truth, Napoleon seems long to have been afflicted with political colour blindness in Spanish affairs. Even now he only dimly saw the ridiculous falsity of his brother's position—a parvenu among the proudest nobility in the world, a bankrupt King called upon to keep up regal pomp before a ceremonious race, a benevolent ruler forced to levy heavy loans and contributions on a sensitive populace whose goodwill he earnestly strove to gain, an easy-going epicure spurred on to impetuous action by orders from Paris which he dared not disregard and could not execute, a peace-loving valetudinarian upon whom was thrust the task of controlling testy French Marshals, and of holding a nation in check and Wellington at bay.
The concentration on which Napoleon laid such stress would doubtless have proved a most effective step had the French forces on the Douro been marshalled by an able leader. But here, again, the situation had been fatally compromised by the recall of the ablest of the French commanders in Spain. Wellington afterwards said that Soult was second only to Masséna among the French Marshals pitted against him. He had some defects. "He did not quite understand a field of battle: he was an excellent tactician, knew very well how to bring his troops up to the field, but not so well how to use them when he had brought them up."[313] But the fact remains that, with the exception of his Oporto failure, Soult came with credit, if not glory, out of every campaign waged against Wellington. Yet he was now recalled.
Indeed, this vain and ambitious man had mortally offended King Joseph. After Salamanca he had treated him with gross disrespect. Not only did he, at first, refuse to move from Andalusia, but he secretly revealed to six French generals his fears that Joseph was betraying the French cause by treating with the Spanish national government at Cadiz. He even warned Clarke of the King's supposed intentions, in a letter which by chance fell into Joseph's hands.[314] The hot blood of the Bonapartes boiled at this underhand dealing, and he at once despatched Colonel Desprez to Napoleon to demand Soult's instant recall. The Emperor, who was then at Moscow, temporized. Perhaps he was not sorry to have in Spain so vigilant an informer; and he made the guarded reply that Soult's suspicions did not much surprise him, that they were shared by many other French generals, who thought King Joseph preferred Spain to France, and that he could not recall Soult, as he had "the only military head in Spain." The threatening war-cloud in Central Europe led Napoleon to change his resolve. Soult was recalled, but not disgraced, and, after the death of Bessières, he received the command of the Imperial Guard.