Napoleon had returned from the triumphant campaign of Wagram. Again he had shattered the coalition in the north, and was upon the pinnacle of his greatness. The total failure of Wellington's campaign had greatly disappointed the British people. The Common Council of London petitioned Parliament for an inquiry into the circumstances connected with this failure.
"Admitting the valor of Lord Wellington," they said in their address, "the petitioners can see no reason why any recompense should be bestowed on him for his military conduct. After a useless display of British valor, and a frightful carnage, that army, like the preceding one, was compelled to seek safety in a precipitous flight before an enemy who we were told had been conquered, abandoning many thousands of our wounded countrymen into the hands of the French. That calamity, like the others, has passed without any inquiry, and, as if their long-experienced impunity had put the servants of the Crown above the reach of justice, ministers have actually gone the length of advising your majesty to confer honorable distinctions on a general who has thus exhibited, with equal rashness and ostentation, nothing but a useless valor."
Persistent Hostility of the British Government.
Still, after an angry debate, in which there was very strong opposition presented against carrying on the war in Spain, it was finally decided to prosecute hostilities against Napoleon in the Peninsula with renewed vigor. The advocates of the measure urged that there was no other point in Europe where they could gain a foothold to attack Napoleon, and that by protracting the war there, and drawing down the French armies, they might afford an opportunity for the Northern powers again to rise in a coalition against the new régime. These views were very strenuously urged in the House of Lords by Lord Wellesley, Lord Castlereagh, and Lord Liverpool. The vote stood sixty-five for the war, thirty-three against it. It was resolved to concentrate the whole force of England for a new campaign in the Peninsula. One hundred millions of dollars were voted to the navy, one hundred and five millions to the army, and twenty-five millions for the ordnance. The British navy engaged in the enterprise consisted of a thousand and nineteen vessels of war. In addition to these forces, the English were to raise all the troops they could from Spain and Portugal, offering them the most liberal pay, and encouraging them to all those acts of guerrilla warfare for which they were remarkably adapted, and which might prove most annoying to the French communications.
The Conflict renewed.
Causes of the Strife.
Napoleon, to meet the emergency, had in the Peninsula an army of two hundred and eighty thousand men ready for service. Slowly the months of the year 1810 rolled away over that wretched land. There were battles on the plains and among the hills, sieges, bombardments, conflicts hand to hand in the blood-stained streets, outrages innumerable, pestilence, famine, conflagration, misery, death. The causes of the conflict were clearly defined and distinctly understood by the leading men on each side. Never was there a more momentous question to be decided by the fate of armies. England was fighting to perpetuate in England and on the Continent the old régime of aristocratic privilege. France was fighting to defend and maintain in France and among the other regenerated nations of Europe, the new régime of equal rights for all men. The intelligent community everywhere distinctly comprehended the nature of the conflict, and chose their sides. The unintelligent masses, often blinded by ignorance, deluded by fanaticism, or controlled by power, were bewildered, and swayed to and fro, as controlled by circumstances.
Conscientiousness of the Antagonists.
The year 1811 opened sadly upon this war-deluged land. It would only lacerate the heart of the reader to give an honest recital of the miseries which were endured. No one can read with pleasure the account of these scenes of blood, misery, and death. Equal bravery and equal determination were displayed by the French and by the English, and, alas for man, there was probably much conscientiousness on both sides. There were religious men in each army, men who went from their knees in prayer into the battle. There were men who honestly believed that the interests of humanity required that the government of the nations should be in the hands of the rich and the noble. There were others who as truly believed that the old feudal system was a curse to the nations, and that a new era of reform was demanded, at whatever expense of treasure and blood. And thus these children of a common father, during the twelve long months of another year, contended with each other in the death-struggle upon more battle-fields than history can record.
Painful Position of Joseph.