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

by Robert Southey

♦November.Proceedings of the French government.♦

Accordingly the obsequious senate placed, in official form and phrase, 300,000 conscripts at the disposal of the minister of war: they were to be taken from the men who had been liable to the conscription in former years, as far back as 1806, with an exception however in favour of those who should have been married prior to the publication of this decree; half this number were immediately to take the field, the others to be held in reserve, and brought forward in case the eastern frontier should be invaded. Comte Dejean, who ♦Comte Dejean.♦ addressed the senate upon this measure, said that painful as it was thus to call upon classes who had formerly been free from the conscription, circumstances now required such a measure: by this means men would be ranged under the French eagles, who united strength with courage, and could support the fatigues of war; while the younger conscripts would have time in garrisons and in armies of reserve to acquire vigour for seconding the sentiments which inspired them. “The cry of alarm,” said Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely, ♦Regnaud de S. Jean d’Angely.♦ “and of succour, sent forth by our sons and brethren in arms, still gloriously combating upon the banks of the Rhine, has resounded upon the Seine and the Rhone, the Doubs and the Gironde, the Moselle and the Loire, the mountains of Jura and of the Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. All true Frenchmen are already prepared to meet the wants of their country, ... to meet the dangers and sacrifices which must prevent other dangers and sacrifices far more frightful, both for their extent and for the humiliation which must accompany them. If the coalesced armies could penetrate beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps, or the Rhine, then the day of peace could not shine upon France; there could be no peace till we should repulse the enemy, and drive him far from our territory. Noble sons of our dear France! generous defenders of our glorious country! you, who close the entrance of France against the English, the Russians, and their allies, you shall not be left without support in the holy and honourable struggle to which you have devoted yourselves. A little while, and numerous battalions of men, mighty in strength and in courage, will come to aid you in again seizing upon victory, and in delivering the French soil.”

♦Comte Lacepède.♦

“Your Majesty,” said Comte Lacepède, “who knows better than any one the wants and the sentiments of your subjects, know that we desire peace. But all the nations of the continent are in greater need of it than we are; and if, notwithstanding the wishes and interest of more than 150 millions of souls, our enemies should think of presenting to us a sort of capitulation, their expectations will be deceived; the French people show by their devotement and their sacrifices that no nation ever better understood their duties toward their country, their honour, and their sovereign.” To this Buonaparte made answer, ... “It is but a year since all Europe was with us; all Europe marches against us now: this is because the opinion of the world is directed by France or by England. We should have every thing to fear, were it not for the energy and the power of the nation. Posterity will say that if great and critical circumstances offered themselves, they were not superior to France and to me.” His heart was hardened, or he might now have made peace upon terms which would speedily have enabled him again to disturb the world; but his spirit was unbroken; and his abilities were never at any time so signally displayed, as in making head against the dangers which were about to beset him on all sides. It was no longer possible to keep the people in ignorance of the real state of things: the press, which hitherto under his tyranny had been employed in deceiving them, was made use of now to excite them, by declaring the whole truth as respected the danger, but suppressing it upon all other points: the allies were charged with breach of faith and inordinate ambition, they were represented as all seeking their own aggrandizement; and the Emperor Napoleon as struggling alone against them, for the honour and the interests ♦Buonaparte’s speech to the Legislative Assembly.♦ of France. He himself addressed the legislature to the same effect, ... “Brilliant victories,” said he, “have illustrified the French arms in this campaign; unexampled defections have rendered those victories useless. Every thing has turned against us. France itself would be in danger were it not for the energy and unanimity of the French. I have never been seduced by prosperity; adversity will find me superior to its attacks. Often have I given peace to nations when they had lost all.... From part of my conquests I have erected thrones for kings who have abandoned me. I had conceived and executed great designs for the prosperity and happiness of the world. A monarch and a father, I know what peace adds to the security of thrones and of families. Negotiations have been set on foot. I hoped that the congress would by this time have met; but delays, which are not attributable to France, have deferred the moment which is called for by the wishes of the world.” When Buonaparte said this, he had no hope of peace, no desire for it, no intention of making any such concessions as would render it possible.

♦British regulations for trading with the captured French ports.♦

As yet none of the other allied armies had passed the frontier; but Lord Wellington was established in France, where, taking into consideration the necessity of fixing the bases upon which the trade with the ports of French Navarre to the south of the Adour should be regulated, he published a proclamation, declaring that those ports were ♦Dec. 18.♦ open to all nations who were not at war with any of the allied powers, and fixing a duty of five per ♦Dec. 31.♦ cent. ad valorem upon all articles, except grain and salt, and stores for the use of the army. An order of council was also published in England, permitting British ♦Jan. 14.♦ vessels to trade with these and such other French ports as might be under the protection, or in the military occupation of his Majesty’s arms. To this then were the decrees of Berlin and Milan come at last! The tyrant who had endeavoured to shut the ports of all Europe against British ships and British merchandise, and at one time had well nigh accomplished his barbarous and barbarizing purpose, saw England now regulating the commerce of his own ports, and levying duties in France, ... not after his example, with blind and merciless rapacity, but upon those principles of moderation and equity, on which her power has been raised, and by which her prosperity is supported. Three years had not elapsed since the official journal of Buonaparte’s government had said, that instead of defending Portugal and Cadiz, Great Britain’s efforts would soon be required for the defence of Gibraltar; that Spain having been conquered foot by foot was on the point of being entirely subjected; that Wellington’s mode of defending Portugal had been by abandoning the fortresses and laying waste the country, and God grant, said the Moniteur, that he may one day defend England in the same manner! “Our continental system,” said the official journalist, “is completed; it diminishes your receipts by crippling your commerce, and increases your expenses by obliging you to keep armies in Lisbon and Sicily. In the meantime the French army, according to our fundamental law, lives on the country in which it is making war, and only costs us the pay which it would do at home.”

“The credit which sustained the colossal power of Great Britain,” said Buonaparte to his Legislative Body in the summer of 1811, “is no more. Her allies are either lost or destroyed. She ruins all whom she would subsidize; she exhausts her own people in useless efforts. But the struggle against this modern Carthage will now be decided on the plains of Spain; the peace of the continent will not be disturbed; England herself shall feel the evils which during twenty years she has inflicted on the continental nations. A clap of thunder shall put an end to the affairs of the Peninsula, seal the fate of her armies, and avenge Europe and Asia by terminating this second Punic ♦December.♦ war.” With what feelings must Buonaparte now have reflected upon these bootless boasts!

With as little satisfaction too could he reflect upon the result of that fundamental principle of his military system, by which his armies were made to live on the countries wherein they were making war. The principle of the British commander was to demand nothing from the inhabitants, and to seize nothing; not a single ration was required from them; they were paid on the spot for every thing which they brought, while Soult’s army drained the adjoining provinces by its requisitions, and his soldiers were rendered at once formidable and odious to their own countrymen by the insolent and lawless habits which they had acquired in the Peninsula. The passage of the Nive had put the allies in possession of a large tract of country singularly fertile; they obtained great part of their forage from it; and the right wing by its position on the left of the Adour, commanded the navigation of that river, and often intercepted the enemy’s supplies. In that deep soil, and in a season of continued rain, it was not possible for the army to advance, an individual indeed could with difficulty make his way any where but on the paved road; ... it was hardly thought bad walking if the waters were not more than knee-deep. ♦Injury done by destroying the woods in this part of the Pyrenees.♦ One of those unforeseen effects which frequently arise when man interferes upon a large scale with the works of nature, has rendered this country liable to inundations in winter and spring, and to drought in summer. About the middle of the seventeenth century a speculator[4] undertook to supply the French government with ship timber from the Pyrenees; to effect this it was necessary for him to increase the waters of the two rivers, or, as they are there called, Gaves of Pau and Oleron; and by turning into them the course of numerous rivulets, he doubled the volume of the latter stream, and increased the current of the Adour so much that a 50-gun ship could cross the bar of Bayonne with less difficulty than before that time was experienced by a vessel with ten guns. He expended 300,000 crowns upon this scheme, succeeded in it, and ruined his family. But permanent evil was occasioned to the country: for when the mountains were clothed with woods, the snow which was collected there melted gradually under their shade, and fed the streams during the whole year; afterwards, when the snow was exposed to the sun and rain, the streams poured down in torrents, rendering the rivers destructive during the winter and spring, and scarcely supplying water enough in summer for navigation.

While the allies waited in their cantonments till the season should allow them to recommence their operations, telegraphic signal stations, to guard against surprise, were formed on the churches of Guethary, Arcangues, and Vieux Monguerre, and these communicated with one upon a high sand-hill, on the north side of St. Jean de Luz, near the entrance from the Bayonne road: so that notice of any hostile movement might almost instantaneously be communicated to the head-quarters. Works were thrown up in front of the left, as the most assailable part of the line, at Bidaut, at Arcangues, and almost on every knoll. On such occasions it was that unavoidable injury was done to the inhabitants. If a chateau unfortunately stood where it was deemed expedient to fortify it, every part was pulled down that did not serve for the purposes of defence; and all the noble trees around it were felled, while the owner looked on, a sad and helpless spectator of the ruin. These were cases of individual hardship; nothing could be more honourable to the British character than the extreme care which was taken to prevent all avoidable injury, and this was acknowledged by the people with equal surprise and thankfulness. No army ever behaved better even in its own country than the British army at this time in France, and this was owing to Lord Wellington’s regulations. There was another part of the British general’s conduct which attracted the notice and commanded the respect of the French people; he regularly attended divine service, with all his staff, not in the church, but on the sandy beach, the brigade of guards forming a square there. The service of Christmas-day[5] was performed there, on a bright frosty day, not a breath of wind stirring, and no extraneous sound but that of a high surf breaking at least half a mile from the shore, and flashing in the sunshine.

♦Movements in the month of January. 1814.♦