History of the Peninsular War, Volume 1 (of 6)

by Robert Southey

The approach to the Puerta del Quarte was by a broad street leading straight for the gate. The Spanish commander, by a bold stratagem, ordered the gate to be opened; and when the French hastened forward, thinking either that their agents had done this, or that it was a mark of submission, a fire of grape was opened upon them, with effect equal to the most sanguine hopes of the defenders. The enemy drew back, leaving the ground covered with their dead. They then directed their efforts against the weakest point of the whole weak circuit of the walls, ... so well were they always acquainted with whatever local circumstances might contribute to the success of their military operations. It was where the old gate of S. Lucia had been built up; but the battery which they erected against it had scarcely begun to play, before a well-directed fire from the Puerta de S. Vicente dismounted the guns, and killed the men who were employed there. It was now manifest from the determined spirit of the Valencians, that if Moncey could have forced his way within the walls, his army was not numerous enough for the civic war which it would have been compelled to wage from house to house, and from street to street. After persevering in vain attempts from one till eight in the evening, he became convinced of this unwelcome truth, and withdrew for the night to his head-quarters between Mislate and Quarte, about a league from the city. ♦Moncey retreats into Castille.♦ To maintain his position there was impossible: he retreated, leaving part of his artillery, and suffering from the peasantry, and the parties who harassed his retreat, that vengeance which Murat had provoked, and which the conduct of the French wherever they were successful had exasperated. An attempt was made to intercept him on his way, and inclose him between the Valencian and Murcian forces: the plan was well conceived, and he had twice to attack and defeat the enemy, who had taken post in his rear, before he could reach Almanza. He had now effected his retreat out of the kingdom of Valencia, but his position was still so insecure, that it was deemed necessary to fall back from Almanza to S. Clemente, nearer the main force of the French in the two Castilles; there while the Valencians were exulting in the deliverance which they had obtained, he collected artillery and stores, and waited for reinforcements which would enable him to renew the attack with means that might ensure success.

♦Movements of the French in Andalusia.♦

The failure of the French in Valencia would have been amply compensated if they could have reduced Andalusia to obedience, and for this more important object greater and more commensurate efforts were made. One of the first acts of Murat after he reached Madrid had been to prepare for securing Cadiz. General Dupont was appointed governor of that city soon after the abdications at Bayonne had been effected; and he had commenced his march towards the south, when he was diverted to Toledo, to repress some tumults by which the people there had manifested their temper, before the insurrection in the capital kindled the whole kingdom. The apprehension of that insurrection, or the determined intention of provoking some such crisis, made Murat deem it expedient to keep the whole of his force within call. Dupont, therefore, was detained at Toledo; but when the disposition of the Andalusians was known, and fears were entertained for the French squadron at Cadiz, he was dispatched thither with a force esteemed fully equal to a service which, momentous as it was, was not thought difficult to be performed. He began his march at the end of May, and crossing the Sierra Morena without opposition, arrived on the third of June at Andujar. There he obtained the unwelcome intelligence that a Junta had been formed at Seville, and that not that province alone, but Granada, Cordoba, and Jaen also had declared against the French. Proceeding, therefore, now, as in an enemy’s country, he occupied Montoro, El Carpio, and Bujalance, and throwing a bridge over the Guadalquivir at El Carpio, passed some of his corps to the right bank, and proceeded with the main body along the left to the bridge of Alcolea, where the Spaniards had taken a strong position. ♦G. Dupont defeats the Spaniards at the bridge of Alcolea.♦ The bridge is very long, consisting of twenty arches, constructed of black marble; and the Spaniards had erected a redoubt to command the approach. They had planted some batteries upon an eminence, and confiding in these defences, had not thought it necessary to destroy the bridge. Want of skill, rather than of courage, rendered these preparations ineffectual: the tête-du-pont and the village were carried after a brave resistance. The way was now open; but when the French began to pass, a fire was opened which swept the bridge, and made the bravest of the assailants for a moment hesitate. A lieutenant of grenadiers, by name Ratelot, whose courage was worthy of a better cause, advanced to the middle of the bridge alone, and placing his hat upon his sword, waved it over his head, crying Vive L’Empereur! and calling his comrades to follow him. His example roused a brave spirit, which was only the more excited by the sight of his death. They crossed, and attacked the Spaniards with all the advantages which discipline gives to courage; and at the same time the division which had passed the river at El Carpio came up, and falling upon their left, completed their defeat. The French without delay advanced against Cordoba. A camp had been formed before that city with the intention of defending it; but the routed troops brought dismay with them; and the Cordobans, at the approach of danger, chose rather to rely upon their walls than their lines. Among the arms which they abandoned there were many of English manufacture, and others which, for their antiquity and unusual form, became objects of curiosity to the conquerors. ♦Cordoba entered and pillaged by the French.♦ Resolute men might have defended weaker walls than those of Cordoba, which were partly the work of the Romans, partly of the Moors; but stronger fortifications would not have afforded security unless they had been better defended. In two hours the gates were forced, the troops and the new levies retreated or fled towards Ecija, and the city was at Dupont’s mercy.

♦Dupont unable to advance.♦

Though by this easy conquest the French were enabled to enrich themselves with pillage, they were far from feeling themselves at ease. The news from Cadiz was of the worst kind; their squadron had been captured there, and the Spaniards were in communication with the English. The only considerable body of Spanish troops in the peninsula, under D. Francisco Xavier Castaños, which had been stationed in the camp of S. Roque, had heartily entered into the national cause; and the English from Gibraltar (which in the hands of England was now more serviceable to Spain than it had ever been made injurious to her) had assisted him with money, and with arms for the new levies. The alliance with England enabled the Spaniards also to bring over troops from Ceuta, who had been sent to garrison that place early in the year, because of a rumour that the English were intending to attack it. On all sides the insurrection was spreading; and the armed peasantry had occupied the passes of the Sierra, to cut him off from retreat and from reinforcements. He had looked for co-operation from the side of Portugal. A detachment of Junot’s army was to have proceeded along the coast of Algarve, and have crossed the Guadiana; a body of English troops from Gibraltar, sent under General Spencer to Ayamonte, had defeated this intention. ♦He is disappointed of succours from Portugal.♦ Junot, therefore, was fain to send them by the circuitous way of Elvas; but his own situation was now becoming perilous. The Spaniards under his command contributed to his danger at this time rather than to his strength. An English squadron off the Tagus kept him upon the alarm, while it encouraged the hopes of the Portugueze; and when General Kellerman was ordered to Elvas, the insurrection at Badajoz made it doubtful whether he would be able to proceed and effect his march to Cadiz with so small a force as could be spared from Portugal, and a detachment from Madrid was sent to join with him, and quell the people of Extremadura. Dupont could not be placed in a condition to effect the object for which he entered Andalusia, unless he received strong reinforcements; and Savary, therefore, ordered two divisions under Generals Vedel and Gobert, a force which was deemed more than sufficient to secure him against all danger, even if it should not be equal to the subjugation of the whole province.

♦Reinforcements from Madrid join him.♦

These troops did not effect their junction without experiencing proofs of the national feeling, which might have taught them in how severe as well as hateful a contest the insatiable ambition of Buonaparte had wantonly engaged them. In passing through La Mancha they found that the sick, whom Dupont had left at Manzanares, had been killed; and they did not enter the little town of Valdepe as without a severe contest: the inhabitants embarrassed the invader’s cavalry by chains, which they stretched across the streets, and kept up a brisk fire from the houses, from which they were not dislodged till the French set the town in flames. When the advanced guard attempted to pass the Sierra Morena, they found an irregular force well posted and entrenched in the tremendous defiles of that great line of mountains, and they were compelled to fall back upon the main body. Notwithstanding this warning, the French entered upon the pass without precaution, in full confidence that even the strength of the situation would not enable the Spaniards to withstand them; and this presumption cost them many lives which might well have been spared. The first brigade and the cavalry were allowed to pass an ambush, which was laid among the trees and rocks, in advance of the entrenchment; a fire was then opened upon the second, and the French suffered three discharges before they were ready to act in return. Their Voltigeurs then dislodged the enemy from their vantage ground; the works were forced with a loss, according to the French account, of 900 on the part of the defendants; and the invaders leaving a detachment to secure the defiles, crossed the mountains, and entered Andalusia. Vedel, with his division, was stationed at Carolina; Gobert occupied the large and ancient village of Baylen, about four leagues farther on, nearly half way between Vedel and Dupont, who had his head-quarters at Andujar. A tête-du-pont was constructed to command the passage of the river there, and another at the village of Manjibar, between Baylen and Jaen.

♦Cuesta and Blake advance against the French.♦

While the intrusive government believed that by this junction its army in Andalusia was so strengthened, that the defeat of the Spaniards was certain if they could be brought to action, an opportunity was afforded it of striking a great blow in Castille, by which the way to the capital was laid open. A force considerable in numbers had been raised in Galicia, and arms and stores in abundance had now been supplied by Great Britain. Filangieri exerted himself in training these new levies, and gave orders for forming entrenchments at Manzanal; a position of extraordinary strength on the heights above Astorga. Whether this preparation for defensive war, when the people were too eager to be led against the enemy, renewed the suspicions which his conduct on St. Ferdinand’s day had excited; or whether private malice, as has been asserted, was at work for his destruction; he was murdered by some of his soldiers at Villa Franca, in the Bierzo, and the command of the Galician army then devolved upon D. Joaquin Blake, an officer of Irish parentage. Advancing to Benevente he formed a junction with the army of Castille and Leon, which Cuesta, with that characteristic energy which on such occasions he was capable of exerting, had collected after his defeat at Cabezon. The two generals disagreed in opinion; Blake dreaded the discipline of the French, and would therefore have avoided a general action; Cuesta relied upon the courage of his countrymen, and was eager to engage: he took the command, as being superior in rank, and they proceeded, in no good understanding with each other, in a direction which threatened Burgos. Nothing could have been more conformable to the wishes of the enemy; and Marshal Bessieres, in the expectation of sure victory, marched against them with the divisions of Generals Mouton and Merle, and General Lasalles’ division of cavalry, in all 12,000 men.

♦M. Bessieres defeats them at Rio Seco.