Neither did Buonaparte suspect, when halting on the confines of the Galician mountains, and leaving to Soult the easy task of "driving the leopard into the sea," that his legions were soon to be checked and defeated; or that his vaunted representation of the broken-hearted and dismayed state of the British army, should, by the repulse of his troops within a few days after in a set battle, become a severe reflection on the conduct of his own soldiery. Neither Soult nor the Frenchmen under his command could have supposed, at the same period, how early the fate of war would create a total reverse in their hitherto prosperous campaigns; or that their corps, which had led the advance to Corunna, should soon become the pursued, and in a retreat not less disastrous than that they had just witnessed. But Buonaparte ever miscalculated, and at this time was wholly unacquainted with, the perseverance of our national character, or the power of England; and when he compared her apparent means with those of France, by showing she had not a million of infantry or one hundred thousand cavalry to oppose her rival, he had to learn the extent of her vast and boundless resources, and the determined character of her people.[25]
When this boastful and triumphant comparison was made, the ruler of France little feared that the refutation of England's inadequacy to cope with his power would be proved within seven years, by her hurling him from the throne, and leading him a captive at her chariot wheels, or that he should end his days in one of her distant colonies, in confinement and obscurity! Buonaparte thus considering the army expelled from Spain as the utmost extent of the means and exertion of the English as a military people, hastily concluded that they could not again appear on the continent. He naturally deduced from this, that the subjection of both Spain and Portugal was the inevitable consequence of his success in Galicia, and that it only required the time necessary for their occupation to secure them under Gallic sway.[26]
But how uncertain are the results of human calculation! At the moment when Buonaparte thought the Peninsula at his feet, the seeds of discontent sown by that restless ambition, which was urging him on to his ruin, began to develope themselves in a distant nation. Their growth to maturity was as rapid as opportune, and created a powerful diversion in favour of those countries to the southward suffering under his yoke.
The perhaps necessary employment of the French nation, and of the military feeling and spirit grown up since the revolution, which Napoleon fostered, had twice, previously to his invasion of Spain, caused him to direct his conquests against his most powerful military neighbour,—Austria.
The last campaign of 1806 left the family of Hapsburg indignant at their reverses, and on their vanquisher becoming entangled by his unjust aggression of Spain, they hoped a fit opportunity was offered for redeeming their character and importance in Europe. If the bold advance of Sir J. Moore into the heart of Spain, and his demonstration on Carrion, had made Buonaparte direct the most considerable portion of his armies on the front or flanks of the English, thus interrupting for a time, in other quarters, the rapidity of conquest, not less did the Austrian declaration of war, drawing off a portion of the resources of France, tend materially to the ultimate advantage of the rightful cause. Buonaparte was not only personally arrested from overrunning Spain by his return to France, but from directing a just combination among his dispersed marshals, which circumstance fortunately allowed England to regain a firm footing in the Peninsula, and, by the events of the succeeding campaign, an opportunity of renewing a good feeling and confidence in the people. Considering the reorganized Austrian as a more dangerous enemy than the broken Spaniards or expelled English, Buonaparte, on withdrawing from Astorga, only passed through Madrid, and returned to Paris. He, however, left (with the exception of the Imperial Guard, about 15,000 of whom had accompanied him across the Pyrenees,) his armies entire, under the command of his various marshals, to complete the subjugation of Spain.
Of these eight corps d'armée, (each equal to the whole British army in Spain in 1809,) which had crossed the frontier, five had co-operated directly or otherwise against Sir J. Moore. The sixth, commanded by the gallant Ney, was ordered to remain in and reduce to control Galicia and the Asturias. The fourth, under Mortier, with a vast body of cavalry commanded by Kellerman, was to overawe Leon and Castille; while Victor, with the first corps, was at once to complete the ruin of the beaten Spanish armies, and to threaten the line of the Tagus, the south of Portugal, and eventually its capital. The eighth corps, which had, under Junot, served in 1807–8 in Portugal, and according to the convention of Cintra been carried to Rochelle, and subsequently recrossed Spain, and met their old antagonists before Corunna, was broken up, and its débris added to the second corps under Soult.[27]
This force was intended to take the active part of the campaign against Portugal, which country was to be immediately attacked, the orders to that effect being received within ten days after the embarkation of the British. So certain was Buonaparte of Soult's conquest, that he fixed the 5th of February for the arrival of his troops at Oporto—and the 16th of the same month for his triumphant entrance into Lisbon!
The army under Soult consisted of 23,500 men, of which 4,000 were cavalry, divided into ten regiments. It was accompanied by fifty-six pieces of cannon. Besides these troops, a division under Gen. Lapisse was to be pushed south from Salamanca to invade Portugal, by the way of Almeida, at the same time becoming a point of communication between the corps of Victor and Soult.