♦Movements against Blake’s army.♦
By the latter end of October not less than 100,000 troops had crossed the Pyrenees from the side of Bayonne, to reinforce their countrymen. The head-quarters were at Vitoria, where they had continued since Joseph arrived there on his flight from Madrid. The left wing, under Marshal Moncey, Duke of Cornegliano, was posted along the banks of the Aragon and the Ebro, having its head-quarters at Tafalla; Marshal Ney, Duke of Elchingen, had his head-quarters at Guardia; Marshal Bessieres, Duke of Istria, at Miranda, with a garrison at Pancorbo; Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Dantzic, occupied the heights of Durango, and defended the heights of Mondragon from the threatened attack of the Spaniards. Blake had posted the main body of his army in front of Lefebvre’s force, and occupied with the rest the debouches of Villarcayo, Orduña, and Munguia. He hoped that the Asturian General, Azevedo, would cut off the communication between Durango and Vitoria by Ochandiano, and that, by possessing himself of the heights of Mondragon, and thus getting in the rear of the enemy’s advanced guard, he might be enabled to strike a great blow. The plan was good, if it could have been executed in time; but Blake persisted in it after he knew that the French had received strong reinforcements. Some trifling advantages, and the confidence of the Spanish character, encouraged him to this imprudence, by which he exposed himself to be entirely cut off. It was Buonaparte’s intention to take the advantage which was thus offered him; and Lefebvre therefore had been ordered to content himself with keeping the Spaniards in check till the Emperor should arrive; but his flanks were so much annoyed by Blake, that this delay became inconvenient, and on the last day of October the French attacked him. After a long and well-contested action of nine hours the Spaniards retreated in good order by Bilbao and Valmaseda to Nava, without losing colours or prisoners. No artillery had been used, the country being too mountainous for it. The enemy entered Bilbao the next day; and the corps of Marshal Victor, Duke of Belluno, arriving at this time, was directed by Munguia and Amurrio to Valmaseda, to fall upon the flank of the Galician army.
♦Blake falls back to Espinosa.
Blake’s intention had been to fall back till he could concentrate his whole force; but the second division, and a part of the Asturians under Azevedo, had their communication cut off; and as the French were strengthening themselves at Arancadiaga and Orrantia to prevent the junction, he prepared to attack them. They retreated during the night of the 4th; but on the following day a division of his army came up with 7000 of the enemy near Valmaseda, and drove them from thence with considerable loss. Having thus effected the junction, he attacked the enemy again on the 7th at Gueñes, and turned their left wing, but his own centre was unable to advance; and perceiving that the French had received very considerable reinforcements that day from Bilbao, his own men too being exhausted by hunger and fatigue, he deemed it prudent to retire to Espinosa de los Monteros, where he hoped to refresh and feed his men, and draw artillery and supplies from Reynosa. Seldom indeed have any troops endured greater hardships. From the 23rd of October they had been continually in the open air, among the mountains of Biscay, during rainy nights and the most inclement weather: they were all without hats, great part of them half clothed, and barefooted, and they had been six days without bread, wine, or spirits; indeed, without any other supply of food than the sheep and cattle which were to be found among the mountains. There had been a considerable desertion among the young recruits; but from those who remained not a murmur was heard under all these privations: they manifested no other wish than that the sacrifice of their lives might contribute to the destruction of the enemy, and the deliverance of Spain.
♦Battle of Espinosa.♦
The system of the French was to beat this army down, as their increasing numbers enabled them to do, by repeated attacks. Blake intended to remain some days at Espinosa, for the purpose of giving his men some rest. But having arrived on the 9th, his rear-guard, under the Conde de San Roman, one of the officers who had escaped from the Baltic, was attacked on the following day, by a far superior force. He immediately posted his army in front of the town; Azevedo, with the Asturians and the first division, on a height to the left, covering the road to S. Andero; the second division on a hill to the right; the third and the reserve in the centre. The van-guard was posted on a little hill close in the rear of the centre, with six four-pounders. The enemy were successful in their first attack, and drove the Spaniards from a wood which they had occupied; they returned, however, to the charge, being reinforced with the third division, and the action became general, except on the left of the Spanish position. It continued for three hours, till evening closed in; and Blake thought the advantage was on his side, though the enemy had gained possession of a wood and ridge of hill in front of his centre and right. The contest had been very severe, and a very great proportion of the Spanish officers had fallen, San Roman among them, and the Galician General Riquelme, both mortally wounded. The men lay on their arms that night, and Victor, who commanded in this battle, brought up fresh troops from his rear to the ridge. At daybreak, when the main attention of the Spaniards was drawn towards this point, he made his great attack upon their left, commencing it with a strong body of sharp-shooters; they were twice repulsed; meantime one of their large columns, under General Maison, came up and formed in line; the sharp-shooters, being reinforced, returned to the charge, and General Ruffin, with his division, attacked the centre. There the enemy were well resisted; but on the left they succeeded, owing, in great part, it appears, to the system which on this and the preceding day was practised, of marking out the officers. Azevedo, and the two Asturian Generals who were next in command, fell; this threw the men into confusion, and when they saw themselves cut off from the road to S. Andero, and that the French were advancing to occupy a height in rear of the town which commands the road to Reynosa, they gave way, and nothing remained but to order a general retreat. They had to retire by a bridge over the Trueba and a defile; and instead of attempting to save the guns, which would necessarily have impeded the retreat of the army, Blake thought it better to employ them till the last moment; this was done with great effect, and they were spiked when the enemy was close to them.
Blake was one of those men who would have been thought worthy of the chief command if they had never been trusted with it. His talents were considerable; he understood the theory of his profession well, and could plan an action or a campaign with great ability; but he was deficient in that promptitude and presence of mind which are the first qualifications of a commander. His own game he could play skilfully, but when the adversary disconcerted it by some unexpected movement, he was incapable of forming new dispositions to meet the altered circumstances. By persisting against a superior and continually increasing force in operations which had been calculated against an inferior one, he exposed himself to the imminent hazard of being entirely cut off; and by advancing so far into a country which had been stripped of its provisions, and with no commissariat to follow him, he exhausted his men. Under every privation he indeed set them an example of cheerfulness, and let them see that he fared as hardly as themselves; but this could not counteract the effects of inanition. They were in a state of famine when they arrived at Espinosa, and would have found nothing there to relieve them if 250 mules, laden with biscuits, had not most opportunely arrived, sent by Major-General Leith, who was forwarding partial supplies toward them by every possible way. But men thus hungered, and enfeebled also by long continued exposure to cold and rain, were ill fitted for close action, in which much depended upon personal strength. Another and more lamentable error was, that the troops from the Baltic, the only thoroughly disciplined part of his force, were brought into action after the first defeat, and exposed by single battalions to bear the brunt of every conflict; and thus they were sacrificed in detail, giving melancholy proof, by the devoted courage with which they stood their ground, of what they could have effected, if, as a body, they had been brought into some fair field of battle.
♦Dispersion of Blake’s army at Reynosa.♦
Blake attempted with the remains of his army to make a stand at Reynosa; his principal magazine and his park of artillery were there; it is one of the strongest positions in that strong country, and had it been occupied in time, the event of the campaign might have been different. But the forlorn hope of collecting his scattered forces there was soon defeated. Victor was pursuing him closely from Espinosa; Lefebvre from the side of Villarcayo. And from the side of Burgos, where a fatal blow had now been struck, Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, marched upon Reynosa. No alternative was left him but to retreat toward S. Andero, and the dispersion was so complete, that there no longer remained any force on this side to oppose the enemy. Yet in justice to this ill-fated army it should be said, that no men ever behaved more gallantly, nor with more devoted patriotism. Without cavalry, half clothed, almost without food, they fought battle after battle against troops always superior in number, and whose losses were always filled up with reinforcements. Nor did any circumstance of disgrace attend their defeat; there was no capitulation, no surrender of large bodies, or of strong places; the ground on which they fought was won by the French, and that was all, as long as any body of the Spaniards remained together. The magazines at Reynosa now fell into their hands, and they entered S. Andero. ♦Nov. 16.♦ The Bishop saved himself in an English ship, and General Riquelme expired as his men were lifting him on board. They had borne him thither from Espinosa; for, routed as they were, they would not leave him to die in the hands of the enemy. Here, and in some of the smaller ports, the French found a considerable booty of English goods.