History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)

by Robert Southey

It was part of this plan to surprise the French in Cuenca, and thus cut off Suchet’s communication with Madrid: this expedition was committed to General Mahy, with whom the Conde de Montijo was to co-operate. The attempt proved ineffectual, and Mahy returned with his division to join the commander-in-chief. In Aragon the Spaniards were led by men of a different stamp, and their movements would have led to very different results, if the spirit of provincialism, and that insubordination which long habits of military independence can scarcely fail to produce, had not frustrated fair beginnings, and bright prospects of success. A decree of the Cortes had attached the guerrilla parties to the armies of their respective districts, and given rank to their leaders, leaving them to pursue their own system of warfare at their own discretion, but subjecting them thus to a military superior whenever they should be called upon. By virtue of this decree, Duran and the Empecinado, who commanded, the one in Soria, the other in Guadalaxara, each with the rank of brigadier, had been ordered by Blake to unite and enter Aragon, which Suchet had drained of troops for his expedition against Valencia. It was not easy to bring these irregular companies under any restraint of discipline: the Junta of Guadalaxara were not willing to part with the Empecinado’s band; the men themselves were not willing to leave what they considered as their own district; disputes broke out ♦Dispersion of the Empecinado’s troops.♦ among them when their leader was not present; they turned their arms upon each other at Villaconejos: after an affray in which some were killed and many wounded, the rest dispersed, were overtaken by the French, and suffered great loss; and ♦M. del Palacio, Traslado a la Nacion Espanolo, p. 19.♦ Cuenca was in consequence again entered by the enemy, who committed their usual enormities there. The Empecinado, however, was soon heard of again: he formed a junction with Duran, and their collected force was computed at about ♦His subsequent successes in conjunction with Duran.♦ 4000 men. With the greater part of this force they appeared before the city of Calatayud, where the enemy had a garrison of between 800 ♦Sept. 26.♦ and 900 men. Not expecting so bold a measure on the part of the guerrillas, the French upon sight of them sent out a detachment, who took post upon an eminence before the city, where there was a ruined castle. Of that detachment about fifty were killed, and as many made prisoners, not a man escaping. The garrison then, and all the persons connected with them, took shelter in the convent of the Mercenarios. This edifice had been fortified, and was one of those posts which gave them military possession of the country. The Spaniards had no artillery, and having in vain attempted to burn it, began to mine. This was a branch of warfare in which they had little skill and less experience: ... on the third day the mine was ready; it was exploded, and produced no effect; two others were immediately commenced. Meantime a reinforcement of 200 foot and fifty horse, the precursors of a larger force from Zaragoza, came to relieve the besieged; ... the Empecinado hastened to meet them, routed them, and chased them as far as Almunia, taking the colonel who commanded, and more than 200 of their muskets and knapsacks, which they threw away to disencumber ♦Oct. 3.♦ themselves in flight. On the sixth day of the siege, the match was laid to the second mine, which produced little more effect than the first: the third, however, was more successful; it brought down part of the wall of the church, and the French then capitulated, on condition that the officers should be sent to France on their parole. Five hundred men were made prisoners, and about 150 killed and wounded were found in the convent. There were found here provisions and money which had been collected by the intrusive government: the grain was sold at a fair price to the inhabitants of the district for seed: this Duran and the Empecinado thought necessary, that they might lessen as much as possible the evils arising from the state of waste to which that part of the country was abandoned. Soon afterwards more than 3000 French arrived, hoping to recover the plunder; but the Guerrilla chiefs gave them no opportunity of effecting this, and the next day the enemy returned into Navarre, whither they were recalled to resist Espoz y Mina.

♦A price set upon the heads of Mina and his officers.♦

General Reille, with two divisions, had used his utmost endeavours to destroy this most enterprising of the Guerrilla chiefs; and Mina, compelled once more to break up his little army into small bodies, had for three and fifty days eluded the enemy, by continual marches and countermarches among the mountains, suffering hunger, nakedness, and every kind of fatigue and privation, with that unconquerable spirit of endurance which is the characteristic virtue of the Spaniards. To effectuate his long-desired object, the French general, in the spirit of ♦Aug. 21.♦ the wicked government which he served, set a price upon the heads of these gallant men, offering 6000 dollars for that of Mina, 4000 for Cruchaga’s, and 2000 each for those of Gorriz, Ulzurrun, and Cholin. This detestable expedient failed also. A traitor, by name D. Joaquin Geronimo Navarro, then offered to treat with the Guerrilla chief, and win him over to the intruder’s cause; or, if he failed in this, to seize him at a conference. Mina obtained intelligence of this second part of the plot, and when he was invited to confer with Navarro upon matters which, it was said, nearly concerned his own interest, and that of his men, and the welfare of the kingdom, he replied, that Navarro must come and treat with him in person. The traitor accordingly appointed a meeting at the village of ♦Sept. 14.♦ Leoz, whither he came, accompanied by D. Francisco Aguirre Echechuri, D. Jose Pelon, and Sebastian Irujo de Irocin. Mina, with his adjutant Castillo, met them, partook of a supper which they had prepared, listened to their proposals; then, being beforehand in the intended surprisal, seized them, called in his assistants, and delivered them over to a council of war, by whose sentence they were put to death.

Lord Wellington’s movement upon Ciudad Rodrigo at this time compelled Marmont to withdraw his troops from Navarre. Immediately Mina reunited his men, and occupied Sanguesa. “Vengeance,” he cried, “for the victims who have been sacrificed because they performed their duty to their country! While some of these are at rest in the grave, others in dungeons, or led away into captivity in France, I will take vengeance for their wrongs. Arms and ammunition, arms and ammunition, ... I ask arms and ammunition of the nation and of all Europe, for public and for private vengeance. My division will carry on the war as long as a single individual belonging to it shall exist.” From Sanguesa he looked about him where to annoy the enemy with most effect: while Duran and the Empecinado were employed on the right bank of the Ebro, he thought he might act upon the left, by cutting off the French garrisons. The first which he assailed consisted of forty foot and seventy horse, at Egoa de los Caballeros, who kept close within their fort, in fear of such a visit. While he was mining the fort, the enemy during the night broke through the wall on the opposite side, and fled. The sudden cessation of their fire gave cause for suspecting what they had done: they were pursued, and twenty of the cavalry were all who effected their escape to Zaragoza. ♦Mina’s success at Ayerbe.
Oct. 16.♦ He then marched against Ayerbe, and began to mine a convent which the French had fortified there. While he was thus employed, 1100 French, with forty horse, came from Zaragoza to relieve the besieged, and cut off the Navarrese, who were only 900. Mina drew off his men as soon as he heard of their approach, and posted the infantry upon a height above the road; sending out parties to harass the enemy, and then fall back upon the main body. The French advanced, mocking the brigands, as they called them, and telling them to go to Valencia for bayonets, and they encouraged each other to attack with the bayonet, saying the brigands were without that weapon: but they were repulsed in their attempt to win the height, leaving nineteen dead and forty-nine wounded upon the field. They then proceeded to Ayerbe, received a supply of ammunition there, and being joined by twenty horse from the garrison, took the road to Huesca. Mina, though inferior in numbers, was superior in cavalry, having 200 horse, and of this superiority he made full use. With 160 horse he followed close upon the rear of the enemy, and impeded their march in the plain till his infantry came up. Part under Cruchaga got upon their left flank, another column under Barena menaced them in the rear, a flank company supported this movement, and on the right and in front Mina brought his cavalry. Unlike the French generals, who, whenever they boasted of victory, showed the baseness of their own nature by depreciating and vilifying their opponents, Mina bestowed the highest praise upon the courage and discipline of the enemy in this action. They formed themselves into a square, closing their files with the utmost coolness as fast as the men fell. Three times the Spaniards broke them, pouring in their fire within pistol-shot. They formed a fourth time; Cruchaga then, after pouring in a volley, attacked them with the bayonet; at the same moment they were assailed in the same manner by the rest of the infantry; they were again broken, and the cavalry began to cut them down. The commander, seventeen officers, and 640 men laid down their arms and were made prisoners. The French cavalry also surrendered; but thinking that they saw a favourable opportunity for escaping, they wounded some of the unsuspecting Spaniards, and rode off. This conduct met with its merited punishment; they were so closely pursued, that five only reached Huesca, and two of those were cut down at the gates; the remaining three were all who escaped of the whole detachment. Among the Spaniards Lizarraga fell, who commanded the cavalry that day. Mina, whose horse had been shot under him, immediately advanced to Huesca; the garrison had fled, leaving behind them some of their effects, and five Spanish officers, who thus received their liberty from the hero of Navarre.

♦Cruchaga carries off the enemy’s stores from Tafalla.♦

Mina was now embarrassed with his prisoners: he marched them to the coast, in hopes there to find means of embarking them for Coruña, and fortunately the Iris, Captain Christian, was in sight, and took 400 of them on board. While he was thus employed, Cruchaga learnt that the French had collected considerable stores of grain in Tafalla, relying in perfect security upon the fortifications, where they had mounted four pieces of cannon, and upon the situation of that city on the road to Zaragoza, within reach of succour from Pamplona and Caparrosa. From Sanguesa he watched the motions of the French. By a rapid march he reached S. Martin de Ujue, two short hours distant from the city, and he took such effectual means for keeping his movements secret, that no intelligence could be given to the enemy. At daybreak, he approached Tafalla with that silence which he said was peculiar to his troops: they surprised the guard, the French retired within their fort, Cruchaga entered with music before him, as in triumph, and loaded the grain upon beasts which he had brought with him for the purpose. It had not been his intention to attempt any thing against the enemy’s works: but his men heard that a priest, a number of peasants, and about thirty women, were confined in a fortified convent, because they had relations in the service of their country, or were suspected of favouring their country’s cause; and they attacked the convent. The French abandoned it, and fled to their other works, leaving good spoil behind them to the conquerors. They, however, rejoiced more in having delivered their countrymen from these oppressors, than in the important stores which they obtained by the day’s expedition; and before they left Tafalla, they drew up in the centre of the city, and the band played, to comfort, Cruchaga said, the hearts of the Spaniards!

♦Mina’s object in soliciting for military rank.♦

Mina had obtained military rank for himself and his officers, and was now colonel and commandant-general of the division of Navarre, under which appellation his troops were considered as attached to the seventh army under Mendizabal. Pre-eminent as were the services of this chief and his followers, they did not obtain this rank without repeated solicitations, and the direct interference of the Cortes; for the Regency at first would only concede them the title of urbanos[31], or local militia. The fitness of this designation was well exposed by Sr. Terreros: “They,” said he, “who go among the mountains hunting the wild beasts of France, and bathing their weapons in French blood, are local militia! and they who live at home and drag their sabres at their heels in coffeehouses, are regulars and veterans!” ... Mina’s object in soliciting rank in the regular army was, that his men when they fell into the hands of the enemy might not be put to death as insurgents; but, like the Empecinado, and Manso, and Ballasteros, he found that men who were equally destitute of honour and humanity could only be made to observe the ordinary usages of war by the law of retaliation. Repeatedly and earnestly had he applied to the French generals, conjuring them to respect the laws of war; nor did he cease to remonstrate till farther forbearance would have been a crime. In the course of two days twelve peasants were shot by the French in Estella, sixteen in Pamplona, and thirty-eight of his soldiers, and four officers, were put to death: Mina then issued a decree for reprisals, exclaiming, ♦His decree for reprisals.♦ that the measure was full. He began his manifesto by contrasting his own conduct with that of these ferocious invaders; then declared war to the death and without quarter, without distinction of officers or soldiers, and especially including by name Napoleon Buonaparte. Wherever the French might be taken, with or without arms, in action or out of it, they were to be hung, and their bodies exposed along the highways, in their regimentals, and with a ticket upon each specifying his name. Every house in which a Frenchman should have been hidden should be burnt, and its inhabitants put to death. If from any village information were given to the enemy that there were volunteers there, such volunteers not amounting to eight in number, five hundred ducats should be levied upon that village, for the information; and if any volunteer in consequence should have fallen into the hands of the French, four of that village should be chosen by lot and put to death. Mina’s anxiety not to bring the inhabitants into danger is apparent in this decree; he seems to have thought that if as many as eight volunteers were in one village, the imminent hazard of concealing them might exempt the people from punishment for informing against them. He declared Pamplona in a state of siege, and the villages and buildings within a mile round the walls; within this line no person was to pass on pain of death; the parties who should be stationed to observe it were ordered to fire upon any one who trespassed beyond the bounds assigned, and if they apprehended him, wounded or unwounded, to hang him instantly upon the nearest tree. All persons who wished to leave that city should be received with the humanity of the Navarrese character; they were to present themselves to him in person; ... if a whole family came out, it was sufficient that the head should appear. Deserters of all ranks were invited by a promise that they might, at their own choice, either serve with him or go to England, or return to their own country; in either of which latter cases, he undertook to convey them to one of the ports on the coast; and he decreed the punishment of death against all who should kill or betray a deserter, or refuse him shelter and assistance. All persons were forbidden to go beyond the limits of their respective villages without a passport from the Alcalde or Regidor, signed by the parochial priest, or by some other inhabitant in places where no priest resided: whoever should be apprehended without one was to be shot: the innkeepers were charged to demand the passport from all their guests, and seize every person who could not produce one, and deliver him over to the first Guerrilla party. If any village should pay, or influence the payment of the forty pesatas per week, which the enemy had imposed upon the parents and relations of the volunteers, (the name by which Mina always designated his followers,) the property of the magistrates, priests, and influential persons of that village should be confiscated at discretion. And in requital for this imposition of the Intrusive Government, he imposed a weekly mulct of twice that sum upon the parents, brothers, and kinsmen, of those persons who were in the employ of the French at Pamplona. This decree was to be circulated in all the cities, towns, valleys, and cendeas (parochial, or district meetings) of Navarre; it was to be proclaimed every fifteen days, and to be read by the officiating priest in every church on the first and third Sundays of every month: wherever this duty was omitted, the magistrates, priests, escribanos, or town-clerks, and two of the influential inhabitants, were declared subject to military ♦Dec. 14.♦ punishment. He dated this decree from the field of honour in Navarre, and the Government ratified it by inserting it in the Regency’s Gazette.

♦Duran and the Empecinado separate.♦

The movements of the Guerrilla leaders on the Ebro, as well as in Navarre and Upper Aragon, made Suchet feel that he had placed himself in a situation in which every day that deferred his success increased his danger; nor was he without uneasiness on the side of Catalonia, where the Catalans carried on their warfare with such vigour, that the French could aim at nothing more than preserving and provisioning their fortified posts. His communication with Tortosa was interrupted by the armed peasantry; scarcity began to be felt in his camp, and he was obliged to detach 4000 men to protect a convoy going from Zaragoza. It was Blake’s hope that Duran, the Empecinado, and Mina, might threaten that city, and perhaps succeed in delivering it from its oppressors. The plan was well concerted, and if it had been executed, Suchet would hardly have ventured to maintain his ground in the kingdom of Valencia. The attempt, however, was not made; for some difference arose between Duran and the Empecinado, and instead of forming a junction with Mina, they separated from each other. By this time Murviedro was closely pressed, a battery of eight four-and-twenty pounders had been constructed, and the governor made signals of distress. The ♦Blake determines to give battle.♦ Spaniards were eager for battle; and Blake, foregoing his first and better resolution, consented to gratify them, in the hope that one victory, when victory certainly appeared attainable, and would be of such immense importance, might repay him for the many disasters which he had sustained. He advanced, therefore, on the 24th about noon, and took post for that night on the height of El Puig, his right resting on the sea, and his left upon Liria.