Never indeed did any men heap upon themselves more guilt and infamy than those by whom this easy conquest was obtained. The inhabitants of Ucles had taken no part in the action; from necessity they could only be passive spectators of the scene. But they had soon cause to lament that they had not rather immolated their wives and children with their own hands, like the Numantians of old, and then rushed upon the invaders to sweeten death with vengeance, instead of submitting to the mercy of such enemies. Plunder was the first object of the French, and in order to make the townspeople discover where their valuables were secreted, they tortured them. When they had thus obtained all the portable wealth of the place, they yoked the inhabitants like beasts, choosing especially the clergy for this outrage, loaded them with their own furniture, and made them carry it to the Castle Hill, and pile it in heaps, where they set fire to it, and consumed the whole. They then in mere wantonness murdered above threescore persons, dragging them to the shambles, that this butchery might be committed in its proper scene. Several women were among these sufferers, and they might be regarded as happy in being thus delivered from the worse horrors that ensued: for the French laid hands on the surviving women of the place, amounting to some three hundred, ... they tore the nun from the altar, the wife from her husband’s corpse, the virgin from her mother’s arms, and they abused these victims of the foulest brutality, till many of them expired on the spot. This was not all, ... but the farther atrocities which these monsters perpetrated cannot even be hinted at without violating the decencies of language and the reverence which is due to humanity. These unutterable things were committed in open day, and the officers made not the slightest attempt at restraining the wretches under their command; they were employed in securing the best part of the plunder for themselves. The Spanish government published the details of this wickedness, in order ♦Gazeta del Gobierno, April 24, 1809.♦ that if the criminals escaped earthly punishment, they might not escape perpetual infamy.
♦Infantado collects the fugitives.♦
Infantado was severely censured for exposing his advanced guard fourteen leagues from his head-quarters, so that support was impossible; and an equal want of judgement had been shown by Venegas in not falling back upon the main body, which he knew was actually on the way to join him. The Duke left Cuenca on the morning preceding the action, and took up his quarters that night at Horcajada. Desirous to know for what reason Venegas had retreated from Tarancon, he rode forward on the 13th with his aides-de-camp, and when he reached Carrascosa, which is a league and half from Ucles, some carriers informed him that as they were leaving that town they heard firing at the outposts. Part of his troops were at Carrascosa; they had heard nothing; and the Duke was preparing to sit down to table with their general, the Conde de Orgaz, when news came that horse and foot were approaching in disorder. Immediately he mounted and rode forward; the first person whom he met was the commandant of the light troops, D. Francisco Copons y Navia, an officer in whom he had great confidence: seeing him without his battalion, he knew that some fatal blow must have been sustained, and asking what had happened, was told that the troops at Ucles were all either killed or taken. His first impulse was to rush forward, and throw himself upon the enemy’s bayonets. A timely thought of duty withheld him from this act of desperation. The troops under Giron, who had fought their way through the French, came up now in good order; with these and with such fugitives as could be brought together, he made dispositions which checked the pursuit in this direction, and retired when the evening was ♦Infantado, 119–132.♦ closing to Horcajada. They rested there during the early part of the night, and setting forward at three in the morning, reached the Venta de las Cabrejas before daybreak.
♦Retreat from Cuenca.♦
Here, while the troops were receiving their rations, the generals held a council whether they should retreat to the borders of Valencia, and take up a position for the defence of that kingdom, which was threatened on the side of Daroca; or join the Marques del Palacio in La Mancha, and if compelled, fall back to La Carolina or Despeña-Perros; or march for Zaragoza, to attack the besiegers, and raise the siege. This was gravely proposed; but the madness of making such an attempt with an unprovided, undisciplined, routed army, dispirited by a long series of disasters, and above all, by the scandalous defeat of the preceding day, was universally acknowledged. The scheme of joining Palacio, and making for the Sierra Morena, was likewise rejected, because in the plains of La Mancha they would be exposed to the enemy’s cavalry; and it was resolved without a dissentient voice to retreat into Valencia, where there were great resources for refitting and increasing the troops. This being determined, the army reached Cuenca that night, and continued its retreat on the following morning, the artillery being sent off in the middle of the night by a better road, to join them at Almodovar del Pinar. But four-and-twenty hours of the heaviest rain rendered this road also impassable; and in spite of every exertion the greater number of the guns could not be got farther than Olmedilla, one league from Cuenca, by the following midnight, and there the escort left them. The Duke, who was with the artillery himself, in hope of expediting the most difficult part of their movements, had preceded them to Tortola, where a few of the guns had arrived, and whither the rest were to be brought next day, the worst part of the road being past. He sent orders therefore that one regiment of horse and another of foot should be dispatched to Tortola, for the purpose of escorting the artillery when it should be thus brought together, and went himself to join the army at ♦Loss of the artillery.♦ Valera de arriba. On his arrival there on the evening of the 16th he found that no infantry had been sent; being barefooted and exhausted by marching in such weather, they had been deemed actually incapable of the service. Presently advice arrived that a company of the Ordenes Militares, which he had left at Tortola, had thought proper to leave the place immediately after his departure: that a party of enemy’s cavalry had come up, and that the regiment of dragoons at the very sound of the French trumpets had taken flight, abandoning the guns to them. He now ordered a battalion of infantry and the Farnese regiment of dragoons to hasten and retake them: the night was dark, the distance considerable, the roads in the worst imaginable state; and when at daybreak they came to Tortola, scarcely an hundred infantry could be mustered, the rest having lost the way, or dispersed. The dragoons behaved well, and twice made themselves masters of the guns, but to no purpose; they were embedded in the soil too deeply to be removed at once; and while they were vainly labouring there, reinforcements came up to the enemy, and many brave men were sacrificed before the regiment desisted from the attempt at saving these guns, which with such exertions had been brought thither from Tudela. Infantado knew that any farther effort, considering the state of his army, must be hopeless, and would moreover expose him to the imminent danger of having his retreat cut off, for one column of the enemy appeared to be taking the direction of Almodovar; and in fact when the Duke reached that place, it was ascertained that they were within three leagues of it. After a few hours’ rest therefore he ordered the retreat to be continued to La Motilla del Palancar, near Alarcon; and being, however unfortunate as a commander, willing to perform a soldier’s part to the last, took his station with his own family and his orderly dragoons, as an outpost, within three miles of the enemy. This had an excellent effect upon the troops; so many indeed had deserted since the rout at Ucles, that few perhaps remained except those who acted upon a sense of duty, and their movements were now conducted with more composure. Infantado remained at La Motilla till he was assured that the French had turned aside from the pursuit; removing then to Albacete and Chinchilla, he gave his troops a few days’ necessary ♦Infantado, 133–141.♦ rest, and issued directions for the better observance of discipline and order.
♦Infantado frustrates a movement of the enemy against the Carolina army.♦
On the 25th the army moved to Hellin and Tobarra, the object being to cover Murcia, call off the attention of the enemy from Valencia, and receive reinforcements from both those kingdoms and from Andalusia. Infantado was more enterprising and more hopeful than some of the generals under his command, who would have had him retreat to the city of Murcia, there to refit his troops, or take shelter even at Carthagena. The minister at war submitted to his consideration whether it would not be advisable to take up a position between the Peñas de S. Pedro and Carcelen, for the purpose of communicating with the Sierra Morena by the Sierra de Alcaraz. This the Duke thought a bad position in itself, even if it were not in a desert, and without water; and as he had ascertained that Victor was moving upon Villarrobledo with the intention of cutting off the vanguard of the Carolina army at Villarta, he took measures for averting a blow, which, if it had succeeded, would have left the passes of the Sierra Morena open to the enemy. It had been intended that this detachment, consisting of 5000 men, should have co-operated with him in his projected movement upon Toledo, which had been so fatally frustrated at Ucles; they were therefore under his command. He now ♦1809.
February.♦ sent orders that they should instantly retire to S. Cruz de Mudela, or to El Viso; and while he hastened thither himself to join them, sent off 500 horse, divided into four parties, to act as guerillas in the rear of the French. They did this with great success, imposing upon them by their rapidity and boldness: and the Duke by forced marches reached S. Cruz de Mudela in time to save the Carolina troops, the enemy having just arrived in front of them. The French, seeing a force which they had not expected, and were not in strength to attack, retired toward Toledo, leaving the open country to the Spaniards: and Infantado then communicated ♦Infantado, 180–189.♦ with General Cuesta, that he might act in concert with the army of Extremadura.
♦Infantado superseded by Cartaojal.♦
The troops had now recovered heart; the advanced guard, under the Duque del Alburquerque, gained some advantage at Mora, where, ♦Feb. 18.♦ by a well-planned expedition, he surprised the French; and Infantado thought that he had performed no inconsiderable service to his country, in having gathered up the wreck of the central army, and brought it into an efficient state, when he received an order from the Supreme Junta to give up the command to the ♦Feb. 6.♦ Conde de Cartaojal. He obeyed reluctantly, and with the feelings of an injured man. The government at that time perhaps, like the people, attributed too large a part of their disasters to the generals, and therefore appointed and displaced them upon no better ground than that of complying with public opinion. The soldiers appear to have been well satisfied with the Duke; they indeed had seen the incessant exertions which he had made for supporting them when the government could send them no supplies: but the officers were divided into cabals, and there was a strong party against him. His offended pride did not however abate his desire of continuing to serve his country in the field, and he requested permission to remain with the army as Colonel of the Royal Spanish Guards; but he was informed that this was incompatible with his elevated rank, and therefore he was ♦Feb. 12.♦ called to Seville. No inquiry concerning the rout at Ucles was instituted; the opinion prevailed that it was imputable to his error in exposing the advanced guard at such a distance from the body of his army; but the faults with which he charged Venegas were overlooked, and the government continued to place a confidence in that General, to which, in any other capacity than that of a commander, his honourable character and personal qualities entitled him.
♦Calumnies against Castaños.♦