The conqueror, after those magnificent exploits, which realised to M. Lery's eye something supernatural—the work of a destiny determined on smiting France—might have indulged his passiveness, without much fear even of French blame. He had baffled the two favourite marshals of France—he had torn the two chief fortresses of Spain out of French hands. There was now no enemy in the field. Soult had halted, chagrined at the fall of Badajoz. Marmont had retired to the Tormes. Wellington determined to continue their sense of defeat, by cutting off the possibility of their future communication. The bridge of Almarez was the only passage over the Tagus in that quarter. It was strongly fortified and garrisoned. On this expedition he despatched his second in command, General Hill, an officer who never failed, and whose name is still held in merited honour by the British army. The tête-du-pont, a strong fortification, was taken by escalade. The garrison were made prisoners; the forts were destroyed, (May 19.) The action was sharp, and cost, in killed and wounded, nearly 200 officers and men.
Wellington now advanced to Salamanca, the headquarters of Marmont during the winter; and pursued him out of it, to the Arapeiles, on the 22d of July. In this battle Marmont was outmanœuvred and totally defeated, with the loss of 6000 killed and wounded, 7000 prisoners, 20 guns, and several eagles and ammunition waggons. The British army now moved on Madrid. King Joseph fled; Madrid surrendered, with 181 guns; and the government of Ferdinand and the Cortes was restored.
But a still more striking enterprise was to come, the march to Vitoria,—the brilliant commencement of the campaign of 1813. Wellington had now determined to drive the French out of Spain. They still had a force of 160,000 men, including the army of Suchet, 35,000. Joseph, with Jourdan, fearing to be outflanked, moved with 70,000 men towards the Pyrenees. On the 16th of May, Wellington crossed the Douro. On the 21st of June he fought the battle of Vittoria, with the loss of 6000 to the enemy, 150 guns, all their baggage, and the plunder of Madrid. For this great victory Wellington was appointed field-marshal.
The march itself was a memorable instance of "enterprise." It was a movement of four hundred miles, through one of the most difficult portions of the Peninsula, by a route never before attempted by an army, and which, probably, no other general in Europe would have attempted. Its conduct was so admirable, that it was scarcely suspected by the French; its movement was so rapid, that it outstripped them; and its direction was so skilful, that King Joseph and his marshal had scarcely encamped, and thought themselves out of the reach of attack, when they saw the English columns overtopping the heights surrounding the valley of the Zadora.
In his last Spanish battle, the victory of the Pyrenees, where he had to defend a frontier of sixty miles, he drove Soult over the mountains, and was the first of all the generals engaged in Continental hostilities, to plant his columns on French ground!
Those are the facts of seven years of the most perilous war, against the most powerful monarch whom Europe had seen for a thousand years. The French army in the Peninsula had varied from 150,000 to 300,000 men. It was constantly recruited from a national force of 600,000. It was under the authority of a great military sovereign, wholly irresponsible, and commanding the entire resources of the most populous, warlike, and powerful of Continental states. The British general, on the other hand, was exposed to every difficulty which could embarrass the highest military skill. He had to guide the councils of the two most self-willed nations in existence. He had to train native armies, which scoffed at English discipline; he had the scarcely less difficult task of contending with the fluctuating opinions of public men in England: yet he never shrank; he never was shaken in council, and he never was defeated in the field.
But by what means were all this succession of unbroken victories achieved? Who can listen to the French babbling, which tells us that it was done, simply by standing still to be beaten? The very nature of the war, with an army composed of the raw battalions of England, which had not seen a shot fired since the invasion of Holland in 1794, a period of fourteen years; his political anxieties from his position with the suspicious governments of Spain and Portugal, and not less with his own fluctuating Legislature; his encounters with a force quadruple his own, commanded by the most practised generals in Europe, and under the supreme direction of the conqueror of the Continent—A condition of things so new, perplexing, and exposed to perpetual hazard, in itself implies enterprise, a character of sleepless activity, unwearied resource, and unhesitating intrepidity—all the very reverse of passiveness.
That this illustrious warrior did not plunge into conflict on every fruitless caprice; that he was not for ever fighting for the Gazette; that he valued the lives of his brave men; that he never made a march without a rational object, nor ever fought a battle without a rational calculation of victory—all this is only to say, that he fulfilled the duties of a great officer, and deserved the character of a great man. But, that he made more difficult campaigns, fought against a greater inequality of force, held out against more defective means, and accomplished more decisive successes, than any general on record, is mere matter of history.
His last and greatest triumph was Waterloo,—a victory less over an army than an empire,—a triumph gained less for England than for Europe,—the glorious termination of a contest for the welfare of mankind. Waterloo was a defensive battle. But it was not the rule, but the exception. The object of the enemy was Brussels: "To-night you shall sleep in Brussels," was the address of the French Emperor to his troops. Wellington's was but the wing of a great army spread over leagues to meet the march of the French to Brussels. His force consisted of scarcely more than 40,000 British and Hanoverians, chiefly new troops; the rest were foreigners, who could scarcely be relied on. The enemy in front of him were 80,000 veterans, commanded by Napoleon in person. The left wing of the Allied force—the Prussians—could not arrive till seven in the evening; after the battle had continued eight hours. The British general, under those circumstances, could not move; but he was not to be beaten. If he had 80,000 British troops, he would have finished the battle in an hour. On seeing the Prussian troops in a position to follow up success, he gave the order to advance; and in a single charge swept the French army, the Emperor, and his fortunes, from the field! Thus closed the 18th of June 1815.