♦He attacks the enemy’s batteries with success.♦
This was on the night of the 15th; Duhesme had been so harassed in his operations, and so slow in them, that though he arrived before Gerona on the 19th of July, it was not till the morning of August 13 that his batteries began their fire. It was directed chiefly against the Castle, which, like that at Barcelona, bears the name of Monjuich, and which, with all the other forts around Gerona, had been neglected, and was in a state of great dilapidation. On the 15th a considerable breach had been made. The garrison was then strengthened with 900 men, who were ordered to be ready at daybreak, and to sally as soon as the relieving troops should be ascending the hill of Monjuich; but instead of waiting for this, they sallied as soon as they saw them marching down the distant heights of St. Miguel and Los Angeles. The execution therefore was as rash as the plan, and certainly few attempts in war have ever been made in which there was so little reasonable prospect of success. The besieging army consisted of 11,000 men, of which 1000 were cavalry, all disciplined soldiers, upon whom their officers could rely. There were 4700 regular troops in Gerona, who, for want of discipline, were not to be relied on in the field; and of the force which Caldagues had now collected, amounting to 6000, there were but 300 regulars. But Duhesme was at this time too much dispirited by the general prospect of affairs in Spain, and the reverses which he himself had suffered, to be sensible of his own superiority, or to profit by the errors of his opponents. One battery was taken at the point of the bayonet in this premature sally, and presently set on fire. A second also was stormed; the French, who had been driven from it, recovered it, being reinforced by a Swiss battalion; but a column of the Spaniards arrived in time to assist their countrymen, and it was again taken, and the carriages burnt. D. Henrique O’Donell, who held the rank of Sargento Mayor in the regiment of Ultonia, distinguished himself greatly in this part of the action. The destruction of these batteries was the object for which Caldagues had hazarded an attack upon an enemy so greatly superior in strength. His own troops, meantime, drove the French from the heights of S. Miguel to the village of Camp-Dura; from thence they, in their turn, were driven back to the heights, and being ♦Cabañes, ii. 55–62.♦ there reinforced, made the enemy again give way before them, dislodged them from Camp-Dura, and pursued them till they crossed the river Ter to Sarria.
♦Duhesme raises the siege.♦
Caldagues dispatched news of his victory from the field of battle to Tarragona, saying that the enemy’s batteries were demolished, and all the artillery taken with which they had battered Monjuich in breach. All that he had hoped, and more than he could reasonably have expected, had been obtained; and when his troops, flushed with success, would have exposed themselves in the plain to the French cavalry, he restrained them, ordered them to fortify themselves upon the heights, and exerted himself to repair the breach in Monjuich, lest it should be attacked in the morning. Duhesme indeed might have recovered in the night the positions which he had lost, so little discipline was there among the Spaniards, and so little watch or order was observed, notwithstanding the strict injunctions of the Commander. But Duhesme appears to have been one of those men who lose their powers of mind when good fortune forsakes them; and Caldagues, when day broke, and he was expecting a formidable attack, discovered, to his astonishment, that the enemy had disappeared. They had fled, rather than retreated, in the night, and in such haste, that they left several hundred barrels of powder which they might with ease have rolled into the river. Reille returned to Figueras with little loss, there being no impediment in that direction; but Duhesme, who did not venture a second time upon the coast road, when he reached Calella took a line between the high ♦Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, Pieces Justif. No. 3. Cabañes, ii. 62–81.♦ mountains and the sea, throwing his artillery down the precipices, and abandoning great part of the baggage and stores, and even leaving the sick and wounded who were not able to sit on horseback. The retreat was made with such precipitation, that Milans, who pursued, did not come up with them till they were within seven miles of Barcelona, on the heights of Mongat. But Lechi being, fortunately for them, apprised by a spy of their approach, met them there with part of the garrison, at a time when a small Spanish force might have completed their destruction.
♦Unpopularity of the commander in Catalonia.♦
An outcry was raised against Palacio because he had not intercepted the enemy in their retreat, nor was he ever forgiven by the unreasonable people for not having done what it was impossible to do. When the account from the field of battle reached him at Tarragona, the French were half way to Barcelona; and before he was apprised that they had broken up the siege, they were already in that city. The command which he had ♦Cabañes, ii. 101.♦ undertaken was no enviable one. The repulse of the enemy at Valencia, their losses in Andalusia, and the heroic defence of Zaragoza, had ♦Difficulties of the service.♦ raised hopes which nothing but the most brilliant success could satisfy; the service in which he was engaged required great steadiness and military skill; the best of his troops were wanting in both, and the great body of them fit only for irregular war. The Junta of Catalonia had decreed that an army of 40,000 men should be raised; and because there were no officers to command, and no time for disciplining them, they determined that the whole force should consist ♦D. Fr. Manoel Hist. de Catalaña, l. iv. p. 90.♦ of Miquelets. This class of irregular troops was originally called[34]Almogavares; but when they began to alter their savage appearance and barbarous mode of warfare, they took their present name from one of their favourite commanders, Miquelot de Prats, a notable partizan who attached himself to Cæsar Borgia. The name was popular among the Catalans, the Miquelets having distinguished themselves whenever the country was invaded, and especially in the succession war. It was intended to raise forty tercios of a thousand men each, and this might have been done in a few days, such was the national spirit, if equipments of every kind had not been wanting. A great bounty was given to these Miquelets, but this prevented recruiting for the line, and the regular troops were disgusted at seeing that men received larger pay for engaging in a service where they had more ♦Cabañes, i. 90–93.♦ liberty, and were subject to less discipline. On the other hand, the Miquelet officers received less pay than those of the army, and were less esteemed, their rank being only during the war. The force which was thus defective in its constitution, was also ill armed. Sir Hew Dalrymple, upon whom pressing demands for arms were made from all that side of the peninsula, could allot but few to Catalonia; and the abundant supplies which had been sent out by England were dispatched to other parts, where they were neither so much wanted nor so well bestowed; for Barcelona was the great arsenal of the province: 50,000 firelocks had there fallen into the enemy’s hands, whereas the manufactory at Ripoll could furnish the Catalans with not more than 150 per week. Palacio therefore ordered pikes or partisans to be made, with which he armed the two foremost ranks of the Miquelets, who, as upon the old system, were drawn up three deep. In hands that can be trusted with the bayonet the pike would be a weapon hardly less efficient; but for these raw troops the want of fire-arms lessened the little confidence which they felt in themselves when they were brought to encounter soldiers as well disciplined as armed. ♦Cabañes, ii. 130–132.♦ Even the regular troops knew their own inferiority in the art of war. They were incapable of manœuvring in the face of an enemy; for so greatly had their discipline been neglected while no danger was apprehended, that they had gone through none of the rehearsals by which soldiers ♦Cabañes, i. 78.♦ are prepared for real action; mere drilling seems to have been all the instruction they had received.
♦The Marquis approaches Barcelona. Sept. 1.♦
With this force, as ill officered as it was ill provided in all other respects, the Marques removed his head-quarters to Villa-franca, to maintain the line of the Llobregat, and take advantage of any opportunity for recovering Barcelona while the blockade was kept up. An expectation that something would be attempted by the inhabitants seems to have influenced the Spaniards to this measure, otherwise ill judged. The recovery of Barcelona was indeed an object of the greatest importance; but weakened as Duhesme then was, a few thousand Miquelets, with the armed population, would have sufficed to prevent the incursions of the garrison, and the Spaniards should have taken their post on the Pluvia instead of the Llobregat, with the Ter for their second position, and Gerona and Hostalrich to ♦Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, 280.♦ support them, ... there they could best have impeded the efforts which the French would make for relieving and securing to themselves the strongest place in Spain. A British force might here have rendered the most essential service. Deputies from the Junta of Catalonia were sent to Madrid, to consult with the Council of Generals there upon the affairs of the province; and in the hope of obtaining British aid one of them proceeded to Lisbon to confer with Sir Hew Dalrymple. All that could be done in that quarter was effected; the Spanish troops in Lisbon were embarked for Catalonia; and the British Government, sensible of what might be effected there by timely measures, ordered thither 10,000 men from the army at that time stationed ♦British troops ordered from Sicily, but detained there by the commander.♦ in Sicily. But a feint of invading Sicily was made by Murat, who had succeeded Joseph Buonaparte as Intrusive King of Naples; and the troops were detained in an inactive and unworthy service, when they ought to have been co-operating for the most important ends with one of the finest and bravest people in the world. At no other time or place during the whole war could such a body of English troops have been employed to so much effect as at this time in Catalonia. Some petty jealousies or idle forms had hitherto deprived the Catalans also of cavalry when it might have been most useful. There was a regiment of hussars in Majorca, for which the Junta repeatedly applied, and its applications were earnestly enforced by the British officers who were in communication with that island; but it was ♦Cabañes, ii. 129.♦ not till after a series of frivolous and vexatious delays that they were embarked at length in the beginning of October; and a detachment of them had not reached the Llobregat more than twenty-four hours before they were led to intercept the enemy at S. Culgat, on their return to Barcelona from a marauding expedition. Not expecting to be attacked by cavalry, the French were taken by surprise; they suffered a considerable loss, and from that time confined their incursions within narrower bounds. The troops from Portugal soon afterwards arrived; reinforcements also came from Valencia and Majorca; Palacio ♦Cabañes, ii. 161.♦ was removed from the command, because of the unpopularity which he had incurred, and was succeeded by D. Juan Miguel de Vives.
♦Bilbao occupied by the French.♦
The want of military knowledge and military talent was never more severely felt in any country than in Spain at this momentous crisis. It could not be doubted that Buonaparte was preparing to bring against the Spaniards that tremendous force which none of the continental powers had hitherto been able to withstand. If he seemed to delay, it was only that the preparations might be more complete; sure, meantime, that neither Spain nor England knew at that time how to profit by the interval, and that very probably disunion might arise among the Spaniards themselves, of which he might take advantage. The French had paid dearly for the error of dividing their forces, and advancing where they had no point of support; they were now in strong positions, receiving reinforcements from time to time, and waiting in security till Buonaparte should come in person to complete the subjugation of Spain, which they, as well as the tyrant himself, believed could not be averted by any human interference. About the middle of August they sent a detachment to take possession of Bilbao, a beautiful but defenceless city, commanded on every side by its hanging gardens. The inhabitants, inferior in number, ill armed, and without any works to protect them, made a brave resistance, in revenge for which the French committed great enormities when they entered the town: had they arrived a few hours later, they would have got possession of arms, ammunition, and money from England, which were just entering the harbour.