“Spaniards, your native country, your property, your laws, your liberty, your King, your religion, nay, your hopes in a better world, which that religion can alone devise to you and your descendants, are at stake, ... are in great and imminent danger!”
♦Directions for conducting the war.♦
Admirable as this address is, one grievous error was committed in it, the precursor of others, and in itself of the most dangerous and fatal tendency. It was said, “that the number of the enemy’s troops was not so great as the French stated with a view of intimidating the Spaniards; and that the positions which they had taken were exactly those in which they could be conquered and defeated in the easiest manner.” Whatever momentary advantage might be hoped for by thus deceiving the people as to the extent of their danger, was sure to be counterbalanced tenfold whenever they were undeceived, as inevitably they would be. This error was the more remarkable, because they were well aware of the enemy’s strength, and perceived also in what manner it was to be opposed with the greatest probability of success. For this purpose they strenuously recommended in an address concerning the conduct of the war, that all general actions should be avoided as perfectly hopeless, and in the highest degree dangerous. A war of partizans was the system which suited them; their business should be incessantly to harass the enemy; for which species of warfare the nature of the country was particularly favourable. It was indispensable, they said, that each province should have its general; but, as nothing could be done without a combined plan, it was equally indispensable that there should be three generalissimos, one commanding in Andalusia, Murcia, and Lower Estremadura; one in Gallicia, Upper Estremadura, the Castilles, and Leon; one in Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia. These generalissimos should keep up a frequent communication with each other, and with the provincial generals, that they might act by common accord, and assist each other. A particular general was required for the provinces of Madrid and La Mancha, whose only object should be to distress the enemy, to cut off their provisions, to harass them in flank and in rear, and not leave them a moment of repose. Another generalissimo was necessary for Navarre, the Biscayan provinces, Asturias, Rioja, and the north of Old Castille; this being the most important station of all. His whole business should be to prevent the entrance of French troops into Spain, and to cut off the retreat of those who were flying out of it. It was recommended that frequent proclamations should be issued, showing the people that it was better to die in defence of their liberties than to give themselves up like sheep, as their late infamous government would have done. “France,” said they, “has never domineered over us, nor set foot in our territory. We have many times mastered her, not by deceit but by force of arms. We have made her kings prisoners, and we have made the nation tremble. We are the same Spaniards; and France, and Europe, and the world, shall see that we have not degenerated from our ancestors.” They were also exhorted watchfully to confute the falsehoods which the French circulated, and particularly those which the baseness of the late government still permitted to be published in Madrid. And care was to be taken to convince the nation, that when they had freed themselves from this intestine war, the Cortes would be assembled, abuses reformed, and such laws enacted as the circumstances of the times required and experience might dictate for the public good: “Things,” said they, “which we Spaniards know how to do, and which we have done, as well as other nations, without any necessity that the vile French should come to instruct us, and, according to their custom, under the mask of friendship, and wishes for our happiness, contrive (for this alone they are contriving) to plunder us, to violate our women, to assassinate us, to deprive us of our liberty, our laws, and our King; to scoff at and destroy our holy religion, as they have hitherto done, and will always continue to do, so long as that spirit of perfidy and ambition, which oppresses and tyrannizes over them, shall endure.”
♦Measures for enrolling the people.♦
A general enrolment of men from the age of sixteen to that of forty-five was ordered by this Junta in the name of Ferdinand. They were to be divided into three classes; the first consisted of volunteers, who were to march wherever their respective Juntas, or Ayuntamientos, by the direction of the Supreme Junta, might order them; and were then either to be embodied with the regular troops, or formed into separate corps, and act with them, being in all things subject to the same duties. The second class consisted of unmarried men, and those who, whether married or widowers, had no children; these were to hold themselves ready for service in the second instance. The third class included fathers of families, persons in minor orders, and others who were employed in those offices of the church which were not indispensably necessary for public worship: this class was not to be called upon till the last extremity, when it became the duty of all to offer their lives in defence of the country. But this being the time of harvest, and it having pleased the Almighty to bless the land with an abundant one, all persons included in the second and third classes were enjoined, whatever their rank and property might be, to lend their personal service in collecting it, and this was required from those who were above the age of forty-five as well as from others: so would they deserve well of the country, and the Junta expressed their confidence that no persons would so far derogate from the generosity of the Spanish character, as to take advantage of the times, and demand an exorbitant price for day labour. There were many villages where the women reaped and performed other agricultural offices; this they might do every where, and in so doing the Junta would consider them as rendering the greatest service to their country; the clergy also, secular and regular, were invited to set a generous example, by taking their part in this important duty. Women, who from age, weakness, or other causes, were not capable of working in the fields, were intreated to occupy themselves in working for the hospitals, and to send their contributions to the Commissariat Office in Seville. The names of all persons who exerted themselves in this or any other manner in behalf of the general weal, should at a future time be published by the Supreme Junta, and each would then receive that praise and reward which their patriotism had deserved.
♦Appeal to the French soldiers.♦
The Spaniards, confiding in the indisputable justice of their cause, and being, according to the enthusiasm of the national character, warm in their expectations of splendid success, reckoned upon a great desertion from the French armies, not only of the Netherlanders, Germans, and other foreigners, who, under various forms of compulsion, had been brought into the tyrant’s service, but also of the French themselves. An outrage so unprovoked and monstrous, so flagrant a breach of faith, an act of usurpation effected with such unparalleled perfidiousness, and then with such matchless effrontery avowed, must, they thought, even among the French themselves, excite a sense of honour and of indignation which would prevent them from becoming the instruments of so infamous an injustice. In many of their proclamations therefore they distinguished between Buonaparte and the people over whom he ruled, calling the French an enlightened, a generous, and an honourable nation, and declaring a belief that they as well as the Spaniards desired the destruction of the tyrant by whom they were at once oppressed and disgraced. They expressed a hope that the success of the Spaniards might encourage the French people for their own sakes, and for the sake of universal justice, to offer him up as a victim, and by that sacrifice expiate the shame which he through his acts of treachery and blood had brought upon France. “Let it not be supposed,” they said, “that all Frenchmen participate in his iniquities! Even in the armies of this barbarian we know that there are some individuals, worthy of compassion, who, amidst all the evil wherewith they are surrounded, still cherish in their hearts the seeds of virtue.” The Junta of Seville published an address to the French army, inviting the soldiers, whether French or of any other nation, to join with them, and promising them, at the end of the war, each an allotment of land as the reward for his services.
♦Movements of the French against the insurgents.♦
As the Spaniards were too sanguine in relying upon the general enthusiasm which was displayed throughout the nation, so the French, on the other hand, more unreasonably regarded it with contempt. Having defeated and humbled the greatest military powers in Europe, they looked upon the Spanish insurgents as a rabble whom it was rather their business to punish than to contend with. It was fortunate for the Spaniards that they had no force at this time considerable enough to be called an army; the enemy knew not where to strike an effective blow, when the people were in commotion and in arms every where, but nowhere in the field. Their object therefore was to get possession of the provincial capitals, that the authority every where might be in their hands as it was in the metropolis. With this intent General Dupont with a considerable force was sent from Madrid to Andalusia, there to occupy Seville and Cadiz, and thereby crush the insurrection where it appeared to be gaining most strength. Marshal Moncey with his corps marched upon Valencia. General Lefebvre Desnouettes was sent from Pamplona against Zaragoza. Marshal Bessieres dispatched detachments against Logroño, Santander, Segovia, and Valladolid. And Duhesme in Catalonia sent General Schwartz against Manresa, and General Chabron against Tarragona, while he himself prepared to march against the armed Catalans.
♦Murat leaves Spain.♦