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

by Robert Southey

This was the point at which the Council had determined to make their stand. Many and great concessions they had previously made, yielding to compulsion, and trusting or hoping that political considerations, if worthier motives failed, might even yet prevent Buonaparte from effecting his designs of usurpation. But all temporizing was now at an end. The oath was to supply the invalidities of the forced abdications, to cover all the injustice and villany by which the Royal Family had been ensnared, to sanction the insolent intrusion of a stranger upon the throne, and bind the nation in honour and in conscience to support him there. It had already been ordered that no person in any public employ should receive his salary, or enjoy any of the emoluments of his office, till he had taken the oath. The Council therefore resolved now to stand forward, and give an example to those, who, like themselves, were within the power of the intrusive government, of the resistance which it was their duty to oppose. Their written memorial was laid before Joseph Buonaparte, who, upon hearing that the oath had not been taken, refused to read it, and directed Azanza to demand of them an immediate compliance with his decree; requiring that if the Council would not unanimously obey, as many as were obedient, though they should be the minority, should, without delay, subscribe the written oath. ♦July 26.♦ This order was twice repeated on the following day; and on the day after, the Council returned a dilatory reply, stating that it was a matter of conscience, and advising that as such it should be propounded to the chief universities, or other bodies or communities, as the Kings of Spain were wont to do in arduous points, which were to be decided not upon legal reasons alone, but upon theological considerations also; or that a Junta of the most approved Canonists and Theologians should be appointed, before whom the Council would send ministers to dispute the case. When this demand was delivered strong measures were meditated in return: an example, it was said, must be made of the Council, which might operate as a warning to all minor bodies and individuals; and it was generally believed that they would not escape death or banishment into France. But the policy of gaining time and trusting to events proved fortunate in this instance; and they were delivered from danger when all further arts of procrastination would have failed, by the splendid success of their countrymen in Andalusia, which compelled the Intruder and his ministers to consult their own safety by immediate flight.

♦G. Cassagne enters Jaen.♦

When Vedel and Gobert had effected their junction with Dupont, it was thought proper, for the security of his position at Andujar, to occupy the old city of Jaen, the Aurigi, Oringe, or Oningis of the ancient Spaniards, in latter ages the capital of a Moorish kingdom, taken from the Mahommedans by King St. Ferdinand, famous afterwards for its silk manufactories; and still, though its trade and population had declined, containing some 12,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the skirts of the Sierra, and at the foot of Mount Jabaluez, in one of the happiest parts of a delightful country. The French had already made one of their plundering visits there; ♦July 1.♦ and when General Cassagne was now sent with a brigade consisting of 1300 men to take possession of the city and maintain it, a number of armed peasants awaited his approach among the fields and gardens without the walls. Their defence was ill planned and ill conducted; they fired their musquets repeatedly before the enemy were within shot, and took flight at the first discharge of the French artillery, many of them throwing away their cartridges to disencumber themselves of any thing which might impede their escape. The city was entered without any resistance from the inhabitants; and while one party of the assailants, singing the song of Roland, scaled the heights to attack an old castle, the others found an easier way to it through the town: it was abandoned at their approach, and they placed a garrison there.

♦He is compelled to evacuate it, and returns to Baylen.♦

The French, conformably to the system upon which they began this wicked war, put to death the peasants who fell into their hands. One of these victims excited admiration even in his murderers; he asked for life in a manner not unbecoming a Spaniard in such a cause: finding that no mercy was to be expected, he wrapt his cloak around his head and began his prayers; and when the bullet cut them short, fell and expired without a cry, or groan, or struggle. These military murders were not unrevenged. On the first day after the arrival of the French, the Spaniards increased in number, regular troops came to their assistance, and some smart skirmishes took place at the outposts. Early on the ensuing morning they surprised the castle; most of the garrison chose rather to leap from a high crag, at the imminent hazard of life or limbs, than to fall into the hands of an enemy to whom they had given such provocation; the others were put to death, and some of them barbarously tortured before that relief was given. Encouraged by this success, the Spaniards entered the city; a terrible fire was kept up upon the enemy from roofs and windows; the French were driven out, they formed upon some level ground in front of the town, where the Spanish cavalry charged them, and their guns were taken and retaken. The French occupied the same ground from which they had first driven the peasantry, and which was covered with stubble and with sheaves of corn, for there had been no time to carry in the harvest when these invaders approached. The sheaves took fire during the action, the cartridges which had been left there by the Spaniards exploded, threw the French into disorder, and killed and scorched many of them; and the whole field was presently in flames, out of which the wounded in vain endeavoured to crawl upon their broken limbs.

This action continued from an early hour in the morning till four or five in the afternoon, when the French again forced their way into the city; they pillaged it, they committed the foulest enormities upon the nuns and other women who had not taken flight in time; and in many places they set the houses and convents on fire. But the invaders had now learnt in what kind of war they were engaged; that they had provoked a national resistance, and that victory brought with it so little advantage, that when they had won the field, they were masters only of the ground on which they stood. The Spaniards were preparing for another attack, to avoid which General Cassagne ordered a retreat under cover of the night. The French families who resided in Jaen, suffering now for the crimes of their countrymen, abandoned their property and their homes to save their lives, and put themselves under the protection of the retreating troops. They had been thrown into prison on the morning when the invaders were first expelled, and that precautionary measure on the part of the magistrate might probably have failed to save them from the fury of an unreasoning multitude. As many of the wounded as could be carried by the dragoons’ horses were removed, the rest were left to their fate, for the French had no other means of transport; but most of those who were removed died on the way from the heat of the ensuing day’s journey and the pain of their wounds. ♦Memoires d’un Soldat, t. i. 145–168.♦ Their whole loss, as stated by themselves, amounted to a fourth part of their number. They were not pursued, and they effected their retreat to Baylen.

♦Preparations of G. Castaños.♦

Dupont’s situation became now every day more insecure, for at this time neither men nor means were wanting to the Spaniards in Andalusia, nor prudence to direct their efforts in the wisest way. ♦Conde de Maule, t. xiii. p. 9.♦ The city of Cadiz alone supplied a donative of more than a million dollars and 5000 men; and as the men were mostly employed in filling up old regiments, the army was not weakened by having great part of its ostensible force consisting in raw levies. The general, Castaños, acted steadily upon the principles which the Junta of Seville had laid down; he harassed the enemy by detachments on all sides, cut them off from supplies, and allowed them no opportunity of coming to a regular engagement; and thus, while the difficulties and distresses of the French were continually increasing, the Spaniards acquired habits of discipline, and obtained confidence in themselves and in their officers. Castaños even attempted to reform the Spanish army, and introduce among them that moral and religious discipline by which Cromwell, and the great Gustavus before him, made their soldiers invincible. He issued an order for banishing all strumpets from the camp and sending them to a place of correction and penitence; he called upon the officers to set their men an example, by putting away the plague from themselves, and dismissing all suspicious persons; he charged the chaplains to do their duty zealously, and threatened condign punishment to any person, of what rank soever, who should act in contempt of these orders. Such irregularities, he said, would draw down the divine anger, and make the soldiers resemble in licentiousness the French, who for their foul abominations were justly hated by God and man; and it would be in vain to gather together armies, if at the same time they gathered together sins, and thereby averted from themselves the protection of the Almighty, which alone could ensure them the victory over their enemies. Happy would it have been for Spain if this principle had been steadily pursued; the foundations of that moral reformation might then have been laid, without which neither the strength nor the prosperity of any country can be stable.

♦Dupont’s dispatches intercepted.♦

Dupont might have secured his retreat across the Sierra Morena, if he had not relied too confidently upon his actual strength and the reputation of the French arms, and if he had not still hoped for succours from Junot. His force, though reduced by sickness, and the harassing service in which it was engaged, amounted to 16,000 effective men, enough to have defeated the Spaniards if they had been rash enough to engage in a general action, and more than he could well provide for. A large convoy from Toledo, together with all his hospital stores, was intercepted in the mountains. His men were fain to reap the standing corn, and make it into bread for themselves; the peasantry, whom they would otherwise have compelled to perform this work, having left the harvest to take arms against them, and bear a part in the defence of their country. He wrote pressingly for reinforcements; it was now, he said, nearly a month that he had occupied the position at Andujar; the country was exhausted, it was with extreme difficulty that he could obtain the scantiest subsistence for his army; the enemy were acquiring strength and courage to act upon the offensive: the anniversary of their great victory at the Navas de Tolosa was at hand, and to this the Spaniards, from religious, national, and local feelings, attached great importance. Every moment which he was compelled to waste in inaction increased the evil. Surely at such a crisis it would be prudent to neglect all partial movements of the insurgents for the purpose of enabling him to act in Andalusia with a sufficient force; if the enemy were permitted to acquire strength so as to keep the field, their example would be followed by all the provinces, and by all the Spanish troops throughout the kingdom; whereas one victory obtained over them here would go far towards the subjugation of Spain. These letters fell into the hands of the Spaniards; but if they had reached their destination, it was not in Savary’s power to have reinforced him.