Buonaparte now addressed a proclamation to the Spaniards. What possible result, he asked them, could attend even the success of some campaigns? Nothing but an endless war upon their own soil. It had cost him only a few marches to defeat their armies, and he would soon drive the English from the peninsula. Thus, to the rights which had been ceded him by the princes of the last dynasty, he had added the right of conquest: that, however, should not make any alteration in his intentions. His wish was to be their regenerator. All that obstructed their prosperity and their greatness, he had destroyed; he had broken the chains which bore the people down; and, instead of an absolute monarchy, had given them a limited one, with a free constitution. The conclusion of this proclamation was in a spirit of blasphemy, hitherto confined to the barbarous countries of Africa or the East. “Should all my efforts,” said he, “prove fruitless, and should you not merit my confidence, nothing will remain for me but to treat you as conquered provinces, and to place my brother upon another throne. I shall then set the crown of Spain upon my own head, and cause it to be respected by the guilty; for God has given me power and inclination to surmount all obstacles.”
But though Buonaparte had thus easily dispersed the Spanish armies, and made himself master of Madrid, his triumph was not without alloy. He now perceived with what utter ignorance ♦Change in Buonaparte’s views concerning Spain.♦ of the national character he had formed the scheme of this usurpation, and he complained of having been deceived, when, in reality, he had turned a deaf ear to all who would have dissuaded him from his purpose. Till he arrived at Madrid, ♦De Pradt, 180.♦ the people, as well as the armies, had disappeared before him; the towns and cities were abandoned ♦Rocca, 24, 55.♦ as his troops approached. Twelve months before there was no other country wherein his exploits were regarded with such unmingled admiration; they had a character of exaggerated greatness which suited the Spanish mind, and as he had always been the ally of Spain, no feeling of hostility or humiliation existed to abate this sentiment: now, it was not to be disguised from himself that he was universally detested there as a perfidious tyrant. But policy, as well as pride, withheld him from receding; unless he went through with what he had begun, he must confess himself fallible, and let the world see that his power was not equal to his will, and then the talisman of his fortune would have been broken. He had committed the crime and incurred the odium; wherefore then should he not reap the benefit, and secure the prize, not for a brother, whom he began to regard with contempt as the mere puppet of his pleasure, but for himself? This was a feeling which he did not conceal from those who possessed his confidence; and Joseph, and the unworthy ministers who had abased themselves to serve him, were made to perceive it, by the manner in which Napoleon, regardless even of appearances, issued edicts in his own name, as in a kingdom of his ♦De Pradt, 222, 225.♦ own. The obstinacy of the Spaniards in refusing to acknowledge his brother, he thought, would give him ere long a pretext for treating the country as his own by right of conquest. Meantime no interval was to be allowed them for collecting the wreck of their forces to make another stand.
♦Retreat of the central army.♦
Three days before the battle of Somosierra, Castaños, with his broken army, recommenced their retreat from Calatayud. Some ten miles west of that city, near the village of Buvierca, the high road to Madrid passes through a narrow gorge, where the river Xalon has forced or found its way between two great mountain ridges. When D. Francisco Xavier Venegas, with the rear-guard, consisting of 5000 men, reached this place, he found instructions from the Commander-in-chief, requesting him to suspend his march, and take measures for defending the pass, on which, he said, the safety of the other divisions depended; and he desired him to place the troops whom he selected for this purpose under such officers as would volunteer their services, promising to reward them in proportion to the importance and danger of the duty. Venegas was too well aware of its importance to trust the command to any but himself, and he replied, that he would halt there till the rest of the army was beyond the reach of pursuit. Early on the 29th the French came up, 8000 in number, under Mathieu. They commenced an attack at eight o’clock, which continued for eight hours: the Spaniards suffered severely; but they maintained the pass, and they effectually disabled this part of the French army from pursuing. On the evening of the following day the army reached Siguenza with all the artillery which they took with them from Tarazona, notwithstanding the bad state of the roads and the fatigue of the men, who had been allowed no rest upon this last march. Here Castaños received a summons from the Central Junta, and resigned the command to Don Manuel de Lapeña.
♦Lapeña succeeds to the command.♦
The situation to which this general succeeded was deplorable. The artillery had indeed been saved, and the pass of Buvierca most gallantly maintained; nevertheless the army had suffered during its retreat from all the accumulated evils of disorder, insubordination, nakedness, and cold, and hunger, and fatigue. Sometimes when the rear-guard had been on the point of taking food, the enemy came in sight, and the ready meal was abandoned to the pursuers; this, though it was the effect as much of panic in the soldiers as of any want of conduct in their commanders, gave new cause for dissatisfaction and distrust. The men themselves were ready to fly at sight of the French, because they suspected their leaders, yet they accused their leaders of treachery for not always turning and making head against the enemy, ... not reflecting, that the officers in like manner, though from a different motive, could place no confidence in their men. Many dropped on the way, overmarched, or foundered for want of shoes; others turned aside because they considered the army as entirely broken up: they were ready to die for their country, but it was folly, they thought, to squander their lives, and, under the present circumstances, their duty was to preserve themselves, and recover strength for future service. The loss at Buvierca, too, had been considerable. Before they reached Siguenza the four divisions had thus been wasted down to 8000 men.
♦They arrive at Guadalaxara.♦
It was on the evening of the last day of November that they reached this point. Here message after message arrived, requiring them to hasten with all possible speed to Somosierra. They set forward again the following day, the infantry by Atienza and Jadraque, the horse and artillery by Guadalaxara, in order to avoid the bad roads, leaving the river Henares on their right. This plan was soon changed; advices reached them in the middle of the night at Jadraque, that the pass of Somosierra had been lost. It was now determined that the whole army should march for Guadalaxara, for the defence of Madrid; information of this movement was dispatched to the Marques de Castelar, in that city; and persons were sent, some to ascertain the position of the enemy, others to learn whither San Juan had retreated, in order that some operations might be concerted with him. ♦Dec. 2.♦ The next day, when the foremost troops entered Guadalaxara, they found some detached parties of the enemy in the town, whom they drove out: the first and fourth divisions, the horse and the artillery, arrived there that night; here the news was, that Madrid was attacked, and the continual firing which was heard confirmed it. Poor as the numbers were which they could carry to the capital, they were eager to be there; and if Madrid had been protected, as it might have been, by a British army, or defended as the inhabitants, had it not been for treachery, would have defended it, 8000 men, who stood by their colours under so many hopeless circumstances, would have brought an important succour. The inhabitants relied with great confidence upon this reinforcement; ... they expected hourly that these brave men would appear, and take post beside them at their gates, and in their streets; and one of the most successful artifices by which the traitors who made the capitulation depressed their zeal, was by reporting that a second battle had been fought, in which the army of the centre had been entirely defeated by Marshal Ney, so that no possible succour could be expected from it. At the very time when this falsehood was reported, a part of this brave army was only nine leagues from Madrid, impatient to proceed to its assistance. They were, however, compelled to remain inactive the whole of the next day, waiting for the second and third divisions and the van, which did not come up till the day following.
♦The Duque del Infantado joins them.♦
On that day the Duque del Infantado joined them, having passed safely through the advanced posts of the French by favour of a thick fog. A council of war was held; the urgent danger of the capital was represented by the Duke, and low as his hopes had fallen, when he saw the deplorable state to which the remains of the army were reduced by fatigue and hunger, it was nevertheless determined that an effort should be made, not to attack the besiegers, for this would have been madness, but to collect as large a convoy of provisions as they could, and endeavour to enter with it under cover of the night by the Atocha gate. The Duke, however, knew but too well the situation of the metropolis; and at his suggestion a letter was sent to the French General who commanded before the walls, reminding him that a great number of French were in the hands of the Spaniards, and would be held responsible with their lives for any ill treatment which might be offered to the inhabitants of Madrid. Both the officer and the trumpet were detained prisoners by Buonaparte’s orders.