AFFAIRS OF 1812-1813
[1812-1813 A.D.]
The year 1812 saw everywhere the beginning of the reverses which overthrew the colossal empire of Bonaparte. There was nothing to counterbalance the exultation excited in Spain by these frightful reverses of her unrelenting foe, except the continuance of the dissensions with the colonies. The prince of Brazil, who had previously created Lord Wellington count of Vimeiro and marquis of Torres Vedras, now conferred upon him the title of duke of Victoria, in commemoration of his many victories; and it might also have seemed in anticipation of the most decisive of his peninsular battles. The allied armies were now, for the first time, about to take the field under favourable circumstances; and he, whose genius had hitherto been severely tried in contending with and surmounting every species of obstacle, might hope to pursue that more dazzling career of glory which silences the cavils of envy and of ignorance. The resources of the peninsula, such as they were, were placed at his disposal. What was of more consequence, the French emperor, instead of constantly pouring reinforcements into Spain in numbers that almost seemed to render Lord Wellington’s victories barren triumphs, was compelled to withdraw thence many troops. Soult, with thirty thousand veterans, was recalled from Spain.
The complicated arrangements requisite to bring so variously composed an army into activity, delayed Lord Wellington’s opening the campaign until the middle of May; when he took the field at the head of nearly seventy thousand men, English and Portuguese, independently of the Spanish army of Galicia under Castaños on his left, and another on his right under Don Carlos de España. The French had still 160,000 men in Spain; and as many of these as were not engaged in the eastern provinces under Suchet, or employed in garrison duty, were stationed around Madrid and between the capital and the Douro.
Lord Wellington ordered General Murray to remove his troops by sea to Catalonia, in order both to relieve Valencia by drawing Suchet northwards, and to be nearer the scene of the principal operations, and sent Sir Thomas Graham, with the left wing of the army, to cross the Douro within the limits of Portugal, and thus turn a perhaps impregnable position, whilst he himself with the centre, and Sir Rowland Hill with the right, advanced towards it in front, driving before them all detachments from the army of Portugal, as it was still termed, that were stationed south of the Douro. The manœuvre seems to have confounded the enemy. The army of Portugal retreated. Joseph and Jourdan collected the army of the centre, and evacuating Madrid, hastened to join the army of Portugal near Burgos. Joseph fell back to Vitoria, the principal depot of the French in the northern provinces; there he halted, drew up his army in battle array, and prepared to make a last struggle for his crown. It is said that the French occupied the very ground on which, in the fourteenth century, the Black Prince had defeated Du Guesclin and recovered the Castilian crown for Don Pedro.
Lord Wellington on the 21st of June, 1813, attacked. The Spaniards fought with a courage that proved their former panics and failures to have been mainly attributable to want of confidence in their commanders and their comrades. The French wings were first assailed and driven back. Then, when their formidably posted centre had been weakened to support the wings, and was, besides, threatened on the flanks, that too was assailed and carried. The French had never before been so utterly routed. The whole army dispersed and fled; Joseph narrowly escaped being taken prisoner; artillery, baggage, everything upon which the existence of an army depends fell into the hands of the victors, as well as the wives of many of the French superior officers, and the marshal’s staff of Jourdan. The victory was actively followed up; most of the French garrisons were taken, or surrendered upon being summoned; the remaining French detachments, by a series of nearly bloodless manœuvres, were driven across the Pyrenees; and by the 7th of July no part of Joseph’s army remained in Spain except the garrisons of Pamplona and San Sebastian.
Suchet’s was now the only French army in Spain, and his force remained unbroken in the eastern provinces, opposed to Sir John Murray. That general was conveyed with his troops by a British fleet from Alicante to the Catalan coast, and landing, on the 3rd of June, near Tarragona, immediately invested that town. He had made little progress with the siege when Suchet’s advance from Valencia was announced. Murray re-embarked his troops with such precipitation, although Suchet was some marches distant, that he left his artillery and stores behind. But the news of the battle of Vitoria and its consequences determined Suchet to abandon that province and concentrate his troops in Catalonia. Aragon was freed, and Mina had the gratification of recovering the heroic Saragossa from her conquerors.
When Napoleon received the tidings of the battle of Vitoria and its disastrous results to his brother’s hopes, he sent back Soult to resume the command from which he had taken him; to collect reinforcements, reorganise the fugitive army, raise the sieges of Pamplona and San Sebastian, and, in conjunction with Suchet, drive the British out of Spain. To enable him to effect these objects, he named him imperial lieutenant in Spain, giving him authority far beyond what had ever before been intrusted to any marshal. Soult took the field at the head of nearly one hundred thousand men, endeavouring to break through the extremity of the British line, in order to relieve Pamplona. The French marshal’s first measures seemed to promise him success. On the 25th of July, 1813, with about fifty thousand men, he attacked two separate posts held by divisions of the right wing under Sir Rowland Hill. The allies fought obstinately, but were obliged to give way. On the 26th Lord Wellington arrived on the scene of action, immediately resolving to give battle for the protection of the blockade of Pamplona. The French were defeated in two successive engagements on the 30th and 31st, after which Soult retreated into France. On the 1st of August the allied troops resumed their former positions amidst the Pyrenees.
The two sieges proceeded; but the provisions in Pamplona still held out: the fortifications of San Sebastian were admirable, the approaches difficult, and the garrison defended itself pertinaciously. When the town was taken (August 31), the siege, and especially the assault, had cost great numbers of lives—nearly four thousand; and the troops, infuriated by the loss of their comrades and their own danger, could not be restrained by the few surviving officers of the storming party, or even taught to discriminate between friends and foes, Spaniards and French. Greater outrages are said to have been committed upon the inhabitants of San Sebastian than in any other town taken by the allies; and it was longer ere the generals could restore order.[123]