♦Alarm at Tortosa.♦
The enemy now occupied Villaseca and the port of Salon, and thus cut off Tarragona from all communication by land with the rest of Spain. They profited by their success with their wonted alacrity; and yet they might have improved it farther, and gained a far more important advantage than the victory itself, had they been aware of the alarm which prevailed at Tortosa, and of the condition in which that fortress had been left. The Governor and the Junta sent for General Doyle, who, as far as personal influence and example could go, possessed in an extraordinary degree the talent of exciting activity and creating confidence. He found the fortifications in such a state that they could not have resisted a coup-de-main; and the city so ill provided, that if the works could have resisted an enemy, it must presently have been reduced by famine. Provisions were now collected by requisition from the neighbourhood, receipts being given for the amount (for the public money had been constantly ordered to Tarragona), and the citizens were called out to work upon the ramparts; so that the place was put in a state for resisting any sudden attack. There were but two roads by which artillery could be brought against it: one was defended by the fort at Col de Balaguer; but from that post the troops at this important crisis were deserting for want of provisions. By General Doyle’s exertions it was immediately stored, and the other road, through Falcat, which, there had been no attempt to guard, was occupied according to his directions by 600 Somatenes. This was a position which could well be maintained by a small force, and this timely occupation prevented the advance of a French detachment which had been ordered thither. The Tortosans were soon encouraged by the arrival of the Marques de Lazan, who brought his army there when they might better have kept the field. The want of cordiality between ♦Lazan separates his army from Reding’s command.♦ this General and Reding had been sufficiently manifested to be known even by the enemy; and Lazan now formally announced, that having previously been appointed second in the Aragonese army by the Cortes of that kingdom, he had upon the loss of his brother succeeded to the command in chief; and considering himself as independent of the commander in Catalonia, should thenceforth look upon the protection of Aragon as his proper business: but he would do whatever he could consistently with this object, for covering Catalonia on that side. Reding represented this to the war-minister as an act by which Lazan crippled the Catalan army, and exposed his own troops to certain destruction, without the possibility of effecting any service; and instructions were accordingly dispatched from Seville that he should obey Reding’s orders. The same spirit of provincialism was prevailing in Valencia; a corps of 6000 men ♦1809.
May.♦ from that kingdom was stationed at Morela, with orders to remain there, though neither this place not that part of the country were threatened, but because that position covers Valencia on the side of Aragon. There was neither unity in counsel nor in command; ... each of these three provinces had its own army, acting upon its own views, and of course all acting without effect.
♦Mortality in Tarragona.♦
And yet St. Cyr had mistaken the character of the Spaniards when he supposed that the battle of Valls would convince them of their moral inferiority to the conquerors. Far from it; it had even raised the spirit of the Catalans; and the Central Junta spake of it in their proclamations as one of those defeats in which ill fortune brought with it no dishonour, but rather hope and confidence. It proved to the Spanish army far more disastrous in its consequences than in itself; they were crowded into Tarragona, and the French commander, by sending thither several thousand sick and wounded from the hospitals at Reus, increased or perhaps occasioned an infectious disease which broke out among them, and was aggravated by the uncleanliness arising from want of linen, the neglect of those precautions, and the destitution of all those means without which armies cannot be kept in health. We reconcile ourselves to the slaughter of a battle or a siege, because such destruction is the business of war, and the men engaged in it take their chance bravely for the evils which they are inflicting upon others; ... ♦1809.
March.♦ but there is somewhat at which the heart revolts in making a league with pestilence or famine, however much the system of war may require and justify it. St. Cyr knew that disease was doing his work in Tarragona; officers as well as men were dying in such numbers, that if he could have kept them thus shut up within the seat of the contagion, more would perish in a month than he could have hoped to destroy in four pitched battles. He determined therefore ♦St. Cyr, 133.♦ to remain in the plain of Tarragona as long as his army could be supplied with a quarter of a ration.
♦St. Cyr removes to the plain of Vicq.♦
But the Spaniards were not idle. The Somatenes were once more in force and in activity; and the left of the Catalan army, which had not been engaged in the defeat, harassed the enemy on their right and in the rear. When Reding had formed his unfortunate plan of operation, 10,000 Miquelets and Somatenes, under Wimpffen, had been sent beyond the Llobregat to take advantage of any insurrection that might be attempted in Barcelona. These irregular troops, when they had no longer to depend upon the combinations of the Commander-in-chief, but were left to themselves to carry on their own kind of warfare in their own way, began again to acquire that superiority which such warfare assured them; Chabran’s division, harassed by repeated assaults, fell back successively from Igualada upon Llacuna, S. Quinto, and Villa Franca; and the Spaniards in that quarter, full of hope as ever, resumed the blockade of Barcelona. For a time they cut off St. Cyr’s communication with that city, and their position excited no trifling uneasiness in Duhesme and Lechi, who well knew the disposition of the inhabitants. But the English squadron, the sight of which always afforded hope to the Barcelonans, was compelled by a heavy gale to stand out to sea: and Chabran’s division, recovering the ground and the reputation which it had lost, once more broke up the irregular blockade. St. Cyr meantime maintained his position as long as it was possible to feed his army there; he then determined upon moving it into the little plain of Vicq, where he expected to find corn, and to remain till the harvest should be ripe in the environs of Gerona, where he foresaw that in the course of the siege his army must be established. The battle of Valls had not given that army the confidence which their General was so desirous they should possess; there was in fact an impression upon them which they had never felt in any other service; they knew that they were not the objects of mere military hostility, in which there is neither enmity nor ill will between man and man, but that they had the hatred and the curses of the whole country. Their removal now they looked upon as a retreat, and they knew what were the dangers of a retrograde movement in Catalonia. St. Cyr better understood how little able Reding was to take advantage of such a movement at that time; and for the purpose of showing his men that he could defy the Spaniards, while at the same time he was careful not to wound the feelings of a General whom he respected, he sent an officer to Tarragona with a flag of truce, and a letter stating that, as circumstances rendered it necessary for him to draw nearer the French frontier, he should depart from Valls the following day at noon, and if General Reding would send a detachment thither at that time, the hospital which had been formed in that town, and which it was of such consequence for him to preserve, considering the number of his sick, should be consigned to him as it stood. It was well furnished from ♦St. Cyr, 134, 145–7.♦ the houses which the inhabitants of Valls had abandoned on the entrance of the enemy. The French commander left only a very few wounded men, who were not in a state to bear removal; because he doubted whether Reding would be able to make the Spaniards observe the agreement which had been concluded upon that subject. As far, however, as opportunity was given, it was properly performed.
This done, after having remained something more than three weeks in the plain of Tarragona, the French retreated toward the Llobregat. Chabot’s division occupied at this time Montblanch, for the double purpose of rendering it more difficult for Reding to communicate with Wimpffen, and of preventing the latter from holding any communication with Lerida. A brisk firing in a quarter where no alarm was looked for, occasioned this General to send out a reconnoissance. It was in time to save a detachment of 600 horse and foot, with two pieces of cannon, which Marshal Mortier had sent from Fraga to communicate with St. Cyr’s army, and bring him back intelligence of the state of things from Catalonia. A smaller party would have had no chance of succeeding in this service; and if this had been four-and-twenty hours later, it would have been cut off. They were fortunate enough to find a division of their countrymen here, but only half their object was accomplished; for though the army delayed its ♦St. Cyr, 138.♦ movements two days in the hope of facilitating their return, and escorted them to some distance, the attempt was found to be so hopeless, that they were fain to continue with St. Cyr.
♦Vicq deserted by its inhabitants.♦
The troops in Tarragona were not in a condition to harass the French on their retreat; but the retreat was most important to them. They obtained room to distribute their sick, and the progress of the contagion was stopped as soon as its main cause was thus removed. Some affairs took place beyond the Llobregat with Wimpffen’s division, which dispersed, as it became irregular troops to do, when they were not acting at advantage. When the enemy reached Vicq, they found that that city had not been infected by the ill example of Reus; the Bishop, five or six old men, and the sick who were unable to remove, were the only inhabitants of that populous city who remained. The others, with a spirit worthy of their country and their cause, upon the unexpected approach of the invaders abandoned all that they could not carry with them in their instant removal, and went to seek shelter where they could; many of them actually lived among the mountains during the whole three months that the French continued there, though at the time of their flight the weather was severe, and the snow daily falling. ♦St. Cyr, 156.♦ There had been no time to destroy the provisions, much less to remove them; if St. Cyr had not succeeded in effectually concealing his intention of quartering the troops there, this would have been done, and his army could then have derived no advantage from their change of position. As it was, they found corn enough to last till the harvest, lard for a month, and wine for a fortnight: but the change of diet, air, and climate (for they had moved into a higher region), and the want of wine as soon as the stock was exhausted, produced disease among the soldiers; and it was well for them that neither Reding nor his army was in a state to resume offensive operations; so that they were enabled to rest.
♦Arrest of the persons in office at Barcelona for refusing the oath.♦