CHAPTER XXXIII.
CATALONIA. MEQUINENZA AND TORTOSA TAKEN. EXPEDITIONS ON THE COASTS OF BISCAY AND OF ANDALUSIA. GUERRILLAS.
♦1810.♦
While Lord Wellington detained in Portugal the most numerous of the French armies, defied their strength and baffled their combinations, events of great importance, both military and civil, were taking place in Spain.
♦Marshal Macdonald succeeds Augereau.♦
The command in Catalonia had devolved upon Camp-Marshal Juan Manuel de Villena, during the time that O’Donell was invalided by his wound. He had to oppose in Marshal Macdonald a general of higher reputation and of a better stamp than Augereau. Augereau had passed through the revolutionary war without obtaining any worse character than that of rapacity; but in Catalonia he manifested a ferocious and cruel temper, of which he had not before been suspected. Every armed Catalan who fell alive into his hand was sent to the gibbet: the people were not slow at reprisals, and war became truly dreadful when cruelty appeared on both sides to be only the exercise of vindictive justice: it was made so hateful to the better part of the German soldiers, and to the younger French also, whose hearts had not yet been seared, that they sought eagerly for every opportunity of fighting, in the hope of receiving wounds ♦Von Staff, 296.♦ which should entitle them to their dismission, or, at the worst, of speedily terminating a life which was rendered odious by the service wherein they were engaged.
♦Siege of Mequinenza.♦
The force under Macdonald’s command consisted of 21,000 men, including 2000 cavalry, and of 16,500 employed in garrisons and in the points of communication; the army of Aragon also, which Suchet commanded, was under his direction. They could not in Catalonia, as they had done in other parts of Spain, press forward, and leave defensible towns behind them: it was necessary to take every place that could be defended by a resolute people, and to secure it when taken. After Lerida had been villanously betrayed by Garcia Conde, Tortosa became the next point of importance for the French to gain, for while that city was held by the Spaniards, the communication between Valencia and Catalonia could not be cut off. Tarragona and Valencia were then successively to be attacked, but Mequinenza was to be taken before Tortosa was besieged. This town, which was called Octogesa when the Romans became masters of Spain, which by the corrupted name of Ictosa was the seat of a bishop’s see under the Wisigoths, and which obtained its present appellation from the Moors, was at the present juncture a point of considerable importance, because it commanded the navigation of the Ebro, being situated where that river receives the Segre. It was now a decayed town with a fortified castle: the works never had been strong, and since the Succession-war had received only such hasty repairs as had been made, at the urgent representations of General Doyle, during the second siege of Zaragoza. These preparations had enabled it to repulse the enemy in three several attempts after the fall of that city. It had now, by Doyle s exertions, been well supplied with provisions, but every thing else was wanting; the garrison consisted of 700 men, upon whose discipline or subordination the commander, D. Manuel Carbon, could but ill rely. He himself was disposed to do his duty, and was well supported by some of his officers.
♦May 18.♦
Six days after the betrayal of Lerida the French Colonel Robert was sent with three battalions to commence operations against this poor fortress; he tried to force the passage of a bridge over the Cinca, which was so well defended, that it cost him 400 men. Between that river and the Ebro, Mousnier’s division approached so as to straiten the place, and a bridge of boats was thrown across the Ebro, and a tête-du-pont constructed to cut off the besieged from succour on that side. The operations were conducted with little skill or success, till at the expiration of a fortnight Colonel Rogniat came to direct them. Carbon then found it necessary to abandon the place, and retire into the Castle; to this he was compelled less by the efforts of the enemy than by distrust of his own men, who now becoming hopeless of relief, took every opportunity of deserting. His only armourer had fled, so had his masons, his carpenters, and his medical staff, the latter taking with them their stores. Four of the iron guns had burst, ... two brazen ones were rendered useless; and the Castle, which the people looked upon as impregnable, was not only weak in itself, but incapable of long resistance, had it been stronger, for want of water: there was none within the works; it was to be brought from a distance, and by a difficult ♦June.♦ road. The governor represented to the captain-general that his situation was truly miserable; that the best thing he could do, were it possible, would be to bring off the remains of the garrison; but they were between the Ebro and the Segre, and the banks of both rivers were occupied by the enemy. A force of at least 3000 men would be required to relieve him ... whereas 500 might have sufficed if they had been sent from Tortosa in time.