During the siege of S. Sebastian’s, some few hundred men, the remains of Romana’s army, who had not been able to effect their escape from the North, when their magnanimous general and their comrades went to take part in their country’s struggle, and most of them to perish in it, returned to Spain. The resistance to Buonaparte’s tyranny, which the Spaniards and Portugueze had begun, had prepared the way for the deliverance of the continent, and thus eventually restored them to their native land.
♦Lord W. Bentinck invests Tarragona.♦
The Anglo-Sicilian army had no sooner returned to Alicante from its ill-conducted expedition against Tarragona, than every exertion was used for enabling it to take the field, and profit by the retreat of the enemy from Valencia. Lord William Bentinck entered that capital on the 9th of July, and leaving General Elio to observe Murviedro, proceeded with his own troops, and such of the Spaniards as he could ♦August.♦ find means of providing with subsistence, for in this essential point there was the greatest difficulty. Having arrived at Vinaroz, he detached a corps under Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton by sea to Tarragona, in the hope of preventing the enemy from dismantling that fortress, if such should be their intention. When the fleet arrived off Tarragona, a French force was discovered in its vicinity; but there were no indications of any such purpose. The detachment, therefore, landed at the Col de Balaguer; and there, Lord William, having crossed the Ebro at Amposta on flying bridges, joined him with the advance of the army, some cavalry, and artillery; the whole then moved forward to the village of Cambrils, and on the first of August they invested Tarragona: that operation was well performed, and cover was obtained three hundred yards nearer than the most advanced point which had been occupied during the previous attack. Preparations were now observable in the place for its destruction; but it was evident that the ♦Col. Jones’s account, V. 2. 201.♦ garrison could not effect this in the presence of the allied army, unless Marshal Suchet came in force to cover the operation. That general was at Barcelona; his troops were at Villafranca and at Villanova de Sitges, being thus divided to lessen the difficulty of subsisting them; and his advance was at Arbos and at Vendrell: sometimes he seemed to be menacing a movement against the allies, and sometimes preparing for a farther retreat. Lord William, with such an enemy in such force so near, would not expose himself to a failure like that of Sir John Murray; and he deferred beginning the siege and landing his heavy artillery, till the Duque del Parque’s army should come up, and Sarsfield with his Catalan troops. The Duque joined on the third; the Catalans were actively employed upon the right flank of Suchet’s divisions, cutting off his supplies; and on the 7th they surprised a battalion who were guarding the mills at S. Sadurni, and occasioned them a loss of 200 men. Sarsfield joined on the 11th. But as the appearance of the allies before Tarragona prevented the garrison from demolishing the works, so on the other hand it gave Marshal Suchet time for bringing together as large a force as he thought the occasion required. The British general, like Generals Maitland and Murray before him, felt all the difficulties of his situation; he was conscious that his ill-composed army was far from being efficient in proportion to its numerical strength; he had no means of feeding the Spanish part of that army if the enemy should manœuvre upon his flank, so as to cut off the supplies which they obtained from the country; he had found it impracticable to throw a bridge over the Ebro; and should he be compelled in his present situation to retreat, the ships could not take off more than a third of his forces. But while the prudence of remaining in that situation became a serious question, preparations for breaking ground were carried on.
♦Suchet raises the siege.♦
Suchet meantime acting as if he were opposed to a much greater force, had waited till Generals Decaen, Maurice Mathieu, and Maximien Lamarque could join him with 8000 men belonging to the army of Catalonia; with this accession his numbers were estimated at from 27,000 to 30,000. They effected their junction at Villafranca on the 14th. The first attempt was by the coast road; but Admiral Hallowell effectually checked this movement, by stationing his troops as close as possible to the low sandy shore in front of the Torre del Barra. On the ensuing morning Lord William was informed that a large body of the French were advancing through the inland country by the Col de Santa Christina; and in the evening a sharp skirmish took place between the advance of hussars and the cavalry under Colonel Lord Frederick Bentinck, which he sent forward to observe their motions: in this the Brunswick hussars distinguished themselves, repulsing the enemy and making several prisoners. Suchet advanced rapidly beyond the Gaya that day, while Decaen advanced upon Valls and the Francoli. Lord William did not deem it prudent to risk a general action before Tarragona; at nightfall, therefore, he commenced his retreat, and when day broke the whole army was out of sight of the city; the British, Germans, and Sicilians, covering the road towards Tortosa, took up a position near Cambrils. Sarsfield occupied Reus; and the Duque del Parque was directed to proceed to the Col de Balaguer, where, if Suchet should push the retreating army so as to make a general action necessary, it was intended to await his attack. But the French commander had no such ♦The French abandon Tarragona.♦ purpose; his present object was to bring off the garrison from Tarragona, and to demolish its fortifications, so that they might afford no support to the allies. On the night of the 18th the works were blown up; and Marshal Suchet then withdrew for ever from a place where, by the premeditated atrocities which were committed at its capture, he has fixed upon his memory an indelible stain. The demolition was effectual: the artillery consisted of about 200 pieces of brass ordnance and 46 iron mortars; 50 of the former were left uninjured; and he did not tarry long enough to destroy the quantity of warlike stores which he had not the means of removing. Sarsfield on the following day took possession of the city.
♦Plans proposed to Suchet by Marshal Soult.♦
Suchet soon fell back upon the line of the Llobregat, having drained the plain of Villafranca of its resources. In a country thus exhausted, General Copons declared it was not possible to provide for the whole Spanish force under Lord William’s command; and in consequence of this, and upon erroneous information that part of the French troops had been detached to aid Marshal Soult, the British general, conformably to an arrangement made with Lord Wellington, sent the Duque del Parque, with the 4th Spanish army, to Zaragoza; and he reinforced the corps, then employed under Elio, in the blockade of Tortosa. Early in September he concentrated the greater part of his remaining force at Villafranca. At this time Marshal Soult had proposed to Suchet that he should cross the Pyrenees with the whole disposable force of the armies of Aragon and Catalonia, and unite with him at Tarbes and at Pau, for the purpose of re-entering Spain together by Oleron and Jaca, and making another effort for the relief of Pamplona. A different project was offered to his consideration by the minister at war, ... that he should as much as possible occupy the enemy upon the Ebro: in either case a reinforcement of conscripts was to be counted on. The difficulties in the way of the first plan were soon perceived by Soult himself to be insurmountable; and Suchet represented the danger of drawing after him the Anglo-Sicilian army into the southern departments of France, which were defenceless. But as a practicable though a perilous operation, he offered to advance between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, with 70 pieces of field and 30 of mountain artillery, to meet Soult, who might debouche from Jaca with his infantry and cavalry, but without cannon. But for this two things were necessary, ... that he should have conscripts to place in the garrisons, and that before he marched from Catalonia he should defeat the Anglo-Sicilians.
Lord William’s numbers were not equal to those which could be brought against him, the want both of provisions and means of transport having obliged him to leave Whittingham’s division at Reus and Valls; but he had no suspicion that Suchet would advance against him. His army was posted at Villafranca and in the villages in its front, as far as the mountains on the Llobregat; the advance, under Colonel Adams, consisting of the 27th British regiment, one Calabrian and three Spanish battalions, with four mountain guns, occupied the pass of Ordal, on the main road, about ten miles in their front, and the same distance from the enemy’s posts on the Llobregat. The pass was so strong that Lord William was without any apprehension of its being forced, especially as he thought the probable point of attack ♦Suchet surprises the allies at the pass of Ordal.♦ would be by turning his left at Martorell and San Sadurni, where Copons was posted. Nor, indeed, was it likely Suchet would have confined himself to the front attack of a position which was strong there, but open on both flanks, unless, because such an attack was improbable, he thought the enemy might be taken there by surprise, before they had strengthened the post.
Accordingly, having concerted his plans with General Decaen, he collected the divisions of Harispe and Habert, with his cavalry at the bridge of Molins del Rey, and at eight o’clock on the night of the 12th moved for the pass. The allies were reposing in position, when about midnight their piquets were rapidly driven in, and they were presently attacked in force. An old work which commanded the main road was well defended by the Calabrians, till they were driven from it by the repeated attacks of superior numbers; they rallied then about sixty paces in rear of it, behind some old ruins, and there, in conjunction with the Spaniards, who were close on their left, stood their ground some time longer. But in a night attack the assailants, acting upon ground with which they were well acquainted, and on a concerted plan, had greatly the advantage over a very inferior force who were taken by surprise. Colonel Adams and the two officers next in succession to him were badly wounded, and obliged to quit the field; owing to the changes this occasioned, the regular directions were interrupted, and the ground in consequence was disputed much longer than it ought to have been against a force so greatly superior, both British and Spaniards maintaining it so resolutely that the right and the centre were nearly destroyed in their position. The Calabrian corps on the left fell back along the hills, and endeavoured to reach San Sadurni, which Manso occupied with his brigade. Their hope was to rejoin the army by the road leading from thence to Villafranca; but after crossing the river Noya, in front of San Sadurni, they were attacked by a considerable column, and forced back toward the Barcelona road: they succeeded, however, in making their way to Sitges, and there effected their embarkation on the following night. The guns were taken by the enemy, but most of the fugitives joined Manso.
♦The Anglo-Sicilians retreat.♦