♦Areizaga advances from the Sierra Morena.♦
On the 3d of November, Areizaga’s army, consisting of 43,000 foot, 6600 cavalry, and sixty pieces of cannon, began their march from the foot of the Sierra Morena into the plains, taking with them eight days’ provision. The advanced guard, of 2000 cavalry under Freire, were one day’s march in front; the infantry followed in seven divisions, then the rest of the cavalry in reserve, and the head-quarters last, marching from twenty to thirty miles a day; they had no tents, and took up their quarters at night in the towns upon the road. They advanced forces by Daymiel on the left, others along the high road to Madrid, by Valdepeñas and Manzanares. The French retired before them, and in several skirmishes of cavalry the Spaniards were successful. Latour Maubourg escaped with a considerable body of horse from Madrilejos by the treachery of a deserter, who apprised him of his danger just in time for him to get out of the town as the Spaniards entered it. They continued their way through Tembleque to Dos Barrios; then, by a flank march, reached S. Cruz de la Zarza; threw bridges across the Tagus, and passed a division over. Here they took a position; the French pushed their patroles of cavalry near the town, and Areizaga drew out his army in order of battle. An action upon that ground did not suit the enemy, and the Spanish general was frantic enough to determine upon leaving the mountains, and giving them battle in the plain.
♦The Austrian commissioner remonstrates against his purpose. Nov. 16.♦
Baron Crossand, who was employed in Spain on a mission from Austria, was with the army, and, dreading the unavoidable consequences of such a determination, presented a memorial to Areizaga, reminding him, that only the preceding day he had admitted how dangerous it would be thus to hazard the welfare of his country. None of the motives, he said, which should induce a prudent general to risk a battle were applicable in the present case; he had nothing to urge him forward, and the most fertile provinces of Spain were in his rear: by meeting the enemy upon their own ground, the advantage of position was voluntarily given them, and the superiority of numbers which the Spaniards possessed was not to be considered as an advantage, in their state of discipline; so far indeed was it otherwise that the French founded part of their hopes upon the disorder into which the Spaniards would fall in consequence of their own multitude. A victory might procure the evacuation of Madrid and of the two Castilles, but these results were light in the balance when weighed against the consequences of defeat. The wisest plan of operations was to entrench himself upon the strong ground which the left bank of the Tagus afforded; from thence he might send out detachments toward Madrid and in all directions, and act in concert with the Dukes of Parque and Alburquerque, patience and caution rendering certain their ultimate success.
♦Battle of Ocaña.♦
These representations were lost upon Areizaga; he marched back to Dos Barrios, and then advanced upon Ocaña into the open country. About 800 French and Polish cavalry were in the town; they were driven out by the Spanish horse; a skirmish ensued, in which four or five hundred men fell on both sides. In this affair the French general Paris was borne out of the saddle by a lancer, and laid dead on the field. He was an old officer, whom the Spaniards represent as a humane and honourable man, regretting that he should have perished in such a cause. Areizaga bivouacqued that night; and the French, who had now collected the corps of Sebastiani and Mortier, under command of the latter, crossed the Tagus before morning. At daybreak Areizaga ascended the church tower of Ocaña, and seeing the array and number of the enemy, it is said that he perceived, when too late, what would be the result of his blind temerity. He arrayed his army in two equal parts, one on each side the town; and his second line was placed so near the first, that, if the first were thrown into disorder, there was not room for it to rally. Most of the cavalry were stationed in four lines upon the right flank, a disposition neither imposing in appearance nor strong in reality. The artillery was upon the two flanks.
About seven in the morning, Zayas, who had often distinguished himself, attacked the French cavalry with the advanced guard, and drove them back. Between eight and nine the cannonade began. The Spanish artillery was well served; it dismounted two of the French guns, and blew up some of their ammunition-carts. Mortier having reconnoitred the ground, determined to make his chief attack upon the right, and, after having cannonaded it for a while from a battery in his centre, he ordered Leval, with the Polish and German troops, to advance, and turn a ravine which extended from the town nearly to the end of this wing of the Spanish army. Leval formed his line in compact columns; the Spaniards met them along the whole of their right wing, and their first line wavered. It was speedily reinforced; the right wing was broken, and a charge of cavalry completed the confusion on this side. The left stood firm, and cheered Areizaga as he passed; an able general might yet have secured a retreat, but he was confounded, and quitted the field, ordering this part of the army to follow him. Lord Macduff, who was with the Spaniards, then requested the second in command to assume the direction; but while he was exerting himself to the utmost, the French cavalry broke through the centre, and the rout was complete. The Spaniards were upon an immense plain, every where open to the cavalry, by whom they were followed and cut down on all sides. Victor, who crossed the Tagus at Villa Mensiger, pursued all night. All their baggage was taken, almost all their artillery; according to the French account, 4000 were killed, and 26,000 made prisoners: on no occasion have the French had so little temptation to exaggerate. Their own loss was about 1700.
This miserable defeat was the more mournful, because the troops that day gave proof enough both of capacity and courage to show how surely, under good discipline and good command, they might have retrieved the military character of their country. No artillery could have been better served. The first battalion of guards, which was 900 strong, left upon the field fourteen officers, and half its men. Four hundred and fifty of a Seville regiment, which had distinguished itself with Wilson at Puerto de Baños, entered the action, and only eighty of them were accounted for when the day was over. Miserably commanded as the Spaniards were, there was a moment when the French, in attempting to deploy, were thrown into disorder, by their well-supported fire, and success was at that moment doubtful. The error of exposing the army in such a situation must not be ascribed wholly to incapacity in Areizaga, who had distinguished himself not less for conduct than courage at Alcañiz; it was another manifestation of the national character, of that obstinacy which no experience could correct, of that spirit which no disasters could subdue.
♦Treatment of the prisoners.♦
There was none of that butchery in the pursuit by which the French had disgraced themselves at Medellin. The intrusive government had at that time acted with the cruelty which fear inspires; feeling itself secure now, its object was to take prisoners, and force them into its own service; and for this purpose a different sort of cruelty was employed. While the Madrid Gazette proclaimed that the French soldiers behaved with more than humanity to the captured Spaniards, that they might gratify their Emperor’s brother by treating his misled subjects with this kindness, the treatment which those prisoners received was in reality so brutal, that if the people of Madrid had had no other provocation, it would have sufficed for making them hate and execrate the Intruder, and those by whom his councils were directed. They were plundered without shame or mercy by the French troops, and any who were recognized as having been taken before, or as having belonged to Joseph’s levies, were hurried before a military tribunal, and shot in presence of their fellows. Even an attempt to escape was punished with death by these tribunals, whose sentence was without appeal! They were imprisoned in the Retiro, and in the buildings attached to the Museum, where they were ill fed and worse used; and they who had friends, relations, or even parents, in Madrid, were neither allowed to communicate with, nor to receive the slightest assistance from them. By such usage about 8000 were forced into a service, from which they took the first opportunity ♦Rigel, 2. 406.♦ to desert, most of them in the course of a few months having joined the guerillas.