In the autumn of 1809, the British government despatched an army of 100,000 men, for the purpose of securing a station which should command the navigation of the Sheldt. The expedition was placed under the command of the Earl of Chatham, elder brother of Mr. Pitt, a nobleman totally unacquainted with military affairs on such a scale. The army, having disembarked on the insalubrious island of Walcheren, was swept off in thousands by disease. The survivors returned in December without having done anything towards the object for which they set out. This tragical affair became the subject of inquiry in the House of Commons, which by a majority of 272 against 232, vindicated the manner in which the expedition had been managed.
SUCCESSES OF WELLINGTON IN SPAIN.
A new expedition in Spain was attended with better success. Taking advantage of the absence of Napoleon in Austria, a considerable army was landed, April 23, 1809, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who immediately drove Soult out of Portugal, and then made a rapid move upon Madrid. King Joseph advanced with a considerable force under the command of Marshal Victor; and on the 28th of July, attacked the British and Spanish troops in a strong position at Talavera. The contest was obstinate and sanguinary; and though the French did not retreat, the advantage lay with the British. As this was almost the first success which Britain experienced by land in the course of the war, Sir Arthur Wellesley became the theme of universal praise, and he was elevated to a peerage, under the title of Viscount Wellington of Talavera. He was obliged immediately to fall back upon Portugal, where he occupied a strong position near Santarem.
Early in 1810, Napoleon reinforced the army in Spain and gave orders to Massena to ‘drive the British out of the Peninsula.’ Wellington posted his troops on the heights of Busaco—eighty thousand in number, including Portuguese—and there, on the 27th of September, was attacked by an equal number of French. Both British and Portuguese behaved well: the French were repulsed with great loss, and for the first time in the war, conceived a respectful notion of the British troops. Wellington now retired to the lines of Torres Vedras, causing the whole country to be desolated as he went, for the purpose of embarrassing the French. When Massena observed the strength of the British position, he hesitated; and ultimately, in the spring of 1811, performed a disastrous and harassing retreat into the Spanish territory.
It now became an object of importance with Wellington to obtain possession of the Spanish fortresses which had been seized by the French. On the 22d of April, he reconnoitered Badajos, and soon after laid siege to Almeida. Massena, advancing to raise the siege, was met on fair terms at Fuentes d’Onoro, May 5, and repulsed. Almeida consequently fell into the hands of the British. General Beresford, at the head of another body of British forces, gained the bloody battle of Albuera over Soult, and thereby protected the siege of Badajos, which, however, was soon after abandoned. During the same season, General Graham, in command of a third body of troops, gained the battle of Barossa. At the end of a campaign, in which the French were upon the whole unsuccessful, Wellington retired once more into Portugal.
EVENTS OF 1811, 1812, AND 1813.
The year 1811 was regarded as the period of greatest depression and distress which the British empire had known for several ages. At this time, with the exception of an uncertain footing gained in Spain, the influence of England was unknown on the continent. Bonaparte seemed as firmly seated on the throne of France as any of her former monarchs, while every other civilized European kingdom either owned a monarch of his express appointment, or was in some other way subservient to him. By the Berlin and Milan decrees, he had shut the ports of the continent against British goods, so that they could only be smuggled into the usual markets. By British orders in council, which, though intended to be retaliatory, only increased the evil, no vessel belonging to a neutral power—such, for instance, as the United States—was permitted to carry goods to those ports, unless they should previously land and pay a duty in Britain. Thus the nation at once suffered from the shortsighted despotism of the French emperor, and from its own narrow and imperfect views of commerce; for, by embarrassing America, it only deprived itself of one of its best and almost sole remaining customers.
The power of Bonaparte, though sudden in its rise, might have been permanent if managed with discretion. It was used, however, in such a way as to produce a powerful reaction throughout Europe in favor of those ancient institutions, which, twenty years before, had been threatened with ruin. The exclusion of British goods—a measure which he had dictated in resentment against England—proved the source of great distress, oppression, and hardship throughout the continent, and was greatly instrumental in exciting a spirit of hostility against him. The very circumstance of a foreign power domineering over their native princes, raised a feeling in favor of those personages, which, being identified with the cause of national independence, acted as a very powerful stimulant. On the other hand, a sense of the grasping ambition of Napoleon—of his hostility to real freedom—of his unscrupulousness in throwing away the lives of his subjects for his own personal aggrandizement—had for some time been gaining ground in France itself.
In 1812, when the transactions in Spain had already somewhat impaired Napoleon’s reputation, Alexander, Emperor of Russia, ventured upon a defiance of his decrees against British merchandise, and provoked him to a renewal of the war. With upwards of half a million of troops, appointed in the best manner, he set out for that remote country, determined to reduce it into perfect subjection. An unexpected accident defeated all his plans. The city of Moscow, after being possessed by the French troops in September, was destroyed by incendiaries, so that no shelter remained for them during the ensuing winter. Napoleon was obliged to retreat; but, overtaken by the direst inclemency of the season, his men perished by thousands in the snow. Of his splendid army, a mere skeleton regained central Europe. Returning almost alone to Paris, he contrived with great exertions to reinforce his army, though there was no replacing the veterans lost in Russia.
Early in 1813, he opened a campaign in northern Germany, where the emperor of Russia, now joined by the king of Prussia and various minor powers, appeared in the open field against him. After various successes on both sides, an armistice was agreed to on the 1st of June, and Bonaparte was offered peace on condition of restoring only that part of his dominions which he had acquired since 1805. Inspired with an overweening confidence in his resources and military genius, he refused these terms, and lost all. In August, when the armistice was at an end, his father-in-law, the emperor of Austria, joined the allies, whose forces now numbered 500,000 men, while an army of 300,000 was the largest which Napoleon could at present bring into the field. Henceforth he might be considered as overpowered by numbers. By steady, though cautious movements, the allies advanced to France, driving him reluctantly before them, and increasing their own force as the various states became emancipated by their presence. At the close of 1813, they rested upon the frontiers of France, while Lord Wellington, after two successful campaigns in Spain, had advanced in like manner to the Pyrenees.