Masséna, having refreshed, re-equipped, and reorganised his army in Spain, marched to relieve Almeida. His advance produced the battle of Fuentes de Onoro, fought on the 5th of May, in which, after an obstinate and sanguinary contest, they were repulsed, and again retreated. Brennier, the governor of Almeida, then despairing of relief, blew up the fortifications of the place, made his way, with little loss, through the British lines, and rejoined Masséna. Ciudad Rodrigo was next blockaded, but the French easily introduced convoys, and the blockade was abandoned. Little progress was made in the south. Some smaller places Marshal Beresford recovered; but he had scarcely invested Badajoz when the approach of Soult, with a powerful army, obliged him to raise the siege. He fought a battle at Albuera on the 16th of May. But the victory was purchased by the loss of forty-five hundred British, killed and wounded, out of six thousand, and twenty-six hundred Germans, Spaniards, and Portuguese. Lord Wellington arrived in Beresford’s camp soon after the battle, and Badajoz was besieged a second time under his own direction.
On the night of the 5th of June an attempt was made to storm. It failed; was repeated two nights later, and again failed, both times with heavy loss. Upon this second repulse, as the combined French armies, to the amount of seventy thousand men, were approaching, Lord Wellington, who had but fifty-six thousand, and was particularly inferior to his adversaries in cavalry, raised the siege, and withdrew the troops to a strong position, limiting himself, for the present, to the defence of Portugal. No other war raged now to distract the attention of the French emperor; but he did not again take the command of the peninsular armies, and it is difficult to assign a valid reason for his conduct. He contented himself with sending reinforcements to the extent of fifty thousand men, naming Marmont, duke of Ragusa, to supersede Masséna, whose conduct of the invasion of Portugal he of course blamed; and placing Catalonia, like Aragon, under Suchet’s command, and also Valencia when he should have conquered that province.
[1811-1812 A.D.]
Suchet had deserved this confidence: he had done more than any other French general both to conquer Spain and to bend her to the yoke. Aragon was tolerably submissive; Tarragona, the last fortress of Catalonia, fell in June. Considering his work done in Catalonia, although guerilla bands still occupied the mountain fastnesses, and the bold and able Sarsfield watched every opportunity of directing them upon the French, Suchet next invaded Valencia. He defeated several detachments of the Spanish army, and on the 16th of October laid siege to Murviedro. Blake gave battle on the 25th of October, and was defeated. Upon this disaster, Murviedro capitulated, and Blake took another strong position to protect the capital, Valencia, where Suchet, on the 26th of December, again defeated him, driving him into Valencia. There Suchet besieged him, and compelled him to capitulate on the 8th of January, 1812. This campaign, the most successful the French had made in Spain since the first, Napoleon rewarded by creating Suchet duke of Albuféra, and granting him the royal domain of that name in Valencia, as an inalienable fief of the French empire.
The dissensions with the colonies likewise diverted both the attention and the resources of the Spanish government from the vigorous prosecution of the war. In every American province insurrection now raged. In Mexico, after a severe struggle, the Spaniards regained the ascendency. In South America the insurgents everywhere prevailed, as will be described later in the histories of Spanish America.
The year 1812 opened with an exploit, the brilliant rapidity of which seems equally to have confounded the French and enraptured the Spaniards. Lord Wellington had long been silently forwarding every preparation for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. On the 8th of January, 1812, he suddenly appeared before the place, invested it, and on the 19th the town was stormed.[c] But throwing off the restraints of discipline, the British troops committed frightful excesses; the town was fired in three or four places, the soldiers menaced their officers and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place, intoxication soon increased the tumult, and at last, the fury rising to absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, by which the town would have been blown to atoms but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses.
To recompense an exploit so boldly undertaken and so gloriously finished, Lord Wellington was created duke of Ciudad Rodrigo by the Spaniards, earl of Wellington by the English, marquis of Torres Vedras by the Portuguese.[b]
By disguising his designs, Lord Wellington hoped to master Badajoz like Ciudad Rodrigo, before Soult and Marmont should have time to hear of the siege, and unite their forces to raise it. On the 16th of March, 1812, Badajoz was invested. The works were hurried on with the diligence already practised, and on the 24th an important fort was carried by assault. On the 30th information was received that Soult was advancing with his whole disposable force to raise the siege; that Graham and Hill were retreating before him towards Albuera; that Marmont, taking advantage of the allied army’s removal, had crossed the frontier, blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo, masked Almeida, and marched southwards, plundering and ravaging the country, as far as Castello Branco; and that the cavalry and militia, left to observe him, had fallen back, the latter upon the mountains, the former towards the Tagus. In consequence of this threatening intelligence, the siege was pressed with increased ardour; on the 6th of April three sufficient breaches were made; and on the night of that day they were stormed.[c]
The account of this desperate attack is perhaps the most dramatic, and is certainly the most famous, portion of Napier’s History of the War in the Peninsula, which, as we have already stated, is regarded as the most eminent military history in the English language. We quote herewith the greater part of what is a masterwork of literature describing a masterwork of heroism.[a]