CHAPTER XX.
OPERATIONS IN LA MANCHA AND EXTREMADURA. BATTLES OF CIUDAD REAL AND MEDELLIN.

♦1809.
March.♦

Marshal Soult imputed the failure of his expedition to a deviation from the plan which Buonaparte had prescribed, in not taking possession of Ciudad Rodrigo. Lapisse had been prevented from doing this when it might have been done without difficulty, by the unexpected appearance of Sir Robert Wilson in that quarter; and Victor, who might have taken the place in spite of any resistance which could then have been opposed, was employed in operations more likely to gratify the pride of the French, but of much less importance to the iniquitous cause in which they were engaged.

♦Plans of the intrusive government.♦

Reasons, however, were not wanting for this change of plan. The danger from the spirit of the people in Galicia and in Portugal had either not been foreseen, or disregarded; while the French, well knowing in how short a time men of any nation may be made efficient soldiers by good discipline, and seeing with what celerity, after so many severe defeats, the armies of La Carolina and Extremadura had been brought into the field, deemed it necessary to attack those armies before they should become formidable, and destroy them, as far as their destruction could be effected by the most merciless carnage, ... for such Buonaparte’s generals, to whose pleasure the government of Spain was in fact entrusted, were determined to make. They had been trained in the school of the Revolution, and the temper which they had acquired there fitted them for the service of such a master; and Joseph’s miserable ministers, who had penned their edicts of extermination in the hope of intimidating their countrymen, had the misery of knowing that those edicts were acted upon to the letter. Wrung with compunction their hearts were, for some of them had begun life with good hearts, generous feelings, and upright intentions; but having allowed themselves to be engaged in an evil cause, they were now so far in blood, that one deadly sin drew on another, in dreadful and necessary series.

♦Effect of the war upon the French soldiery.♦

By the letters which were intercepted at this time it appeared that mothers and wives in France congratulated themselves if the objects of their affection were employed in Spain, rather than in the Austrian war, so little did they apprehend the real and dreadful character of such a service. The armies in La Mancha were not better supplied than those in Galicia; weeks sometimes elapsed in which they received neither bread for themselves nor barley for their horses, having to subsist as they could by chance and by plunder. This mode of life had given them the ferocity and the temper of banditti, and would have led to the total subversion of discipline among any soldiers less apt for discipline than the French. The infantry sometimes murmured under their privations, delivered their opinions freely, and held sometimes towards their officers a language which might be deemed insolent; but a jest produced more effect upon them than a reprimand, a good-humoured reply brought them into good humour; and the prospect of action giving them a hope of discharging their ill feelings upon the Spaniards, always animated them, and made them alert in obedience. The cavalry had better means of providing for themselves, and more opportunities of plunder; they therefore were always respectful as well as submissive to their officers, lest they should be dismounted and deprived of these advantages. The character of the service in which they were incessantly employed gave both to men and horse a sort of Tartar-like sagacity which perhaps had never before been seen among the troops of a highly civilized people. Savages could scarcely have been more quick-sighted in discovering a pass, detecting an ambush, or descrying a distant enemy. And the attachment between horse and rider became such, that if a trooper waking from sleep saw by the condition of his beast that in a fit of drunkenness he had over-ridden or any ways abused it, he would in the first emotions of self-reproach abjure wine and shed tears, with imprecations upon himself, go on foot whenever he could to spare the horse, and give him the bread which should have been his own portion. And yet this humanizing feeling did not render them more humane toward their enemies. Since the religious wars in France no contest had been carried on with so ferocious a spirit on both sides. That cruelty which in the middle ages was common to all nations had been continued among the Spaniards by the effects of the Inquisition, and by their bull-fights, ... among the French by the inhuman character of their old laws, and afterwards by the Revolution; on both sides it was called into full action, retaliation provoking retaliation, and revenge. Even the cheerfulness of the French, which is their peculiar and happy characteristic, which if not a virtue itself, is connected with many virtues, and without which no virtue can have its proper grace, ... even that quality was corrupted by the dreadful warfare in which they were engaged. Light minds go beyond the point of fortitude in that disregard of death which the continual presence of danger necessarily induces. That which the wise and good regard with silent composure is to them a theme for bravados and heart-hardening mockery. It became common ♦Rocca, 84, 87.♦ for the French, when they recognised a comrade among the slain, to notice him not by any expression of natural feeling, but by some coarse and unfeeling jest. The evil here was to themselves alone; but their oppressions were rendered more intolerable, and their cruelties more devilish, because they were exercised mirthfully.

♦Temper of the Spanish generals in La Mancha and Extremadura.♦

The armies under Cartaojal and Cuesta were at this time in such a state that they deserved to have been better commanded, if the government had known where to look for better commanders. With all Cuesta’s good qualities, his popularity among the troops, his sure integrity, his courage, and the enterprising energy which in spite of age and infirmities he was capable of exerting, caprice, obstinacy, and a desperate rashness which no experience could correct, made him a most unfit man to be trusted with such a stake in such times. All his desire was to meet the enemy in fair battle, where he could draw out his men in full display; and if all his men had been as thoroughly brave as himself, the old man’s system would not have been erroneous. Cartaojal, on the contrary, was so convinced that discipline was every thing, and that the best thing which could be done with his troops was to drill them, that he let slip fair opportunities of exercising them in successful enterprise. It seems almost as if a fatality overruled the councils of the Spaniards, both in the cabinet and in the field; and that if these generals had merely been interchanged, Cartaojal’s caution might have saved the Extremaduran army, and Cuesta’s enterprise have seized the advantages which were presented to that of La Carolina.