“But theirs was a combat of extermination,—none of those courtesies, which render modern warfare endurable, were granted to their opponents,—the deadliest hostility was unmitigated by success,—and, when vanquished, expecting no quarter from the French, they never thought of extending it to those who unfortunately became their prisoners. A sanguinary struggle was waging, and væ victis seemed, with ‘war to the knife,’ to be the only mottos of the guerilla.
“The strange exploits of many of these daring partisans,[75] though true to the letter, are perfectly romantic; and their patient endurance, and the deep artifice with which their objects were affected, appear to be almost incredible. Persons, whose ages and professions were best calculated to evade suspicion, were invariably their chosen agents. The village priest was commonly a confederate of the neighbouring guerilla,—the postmaster betrayed the intelligence that reached him in his office,—the fairest peasant of Estremadura would tempt the thoughtless soldier with her beauty, and decoy him within range of the bullet; even childhood was frequently and successfully employed in leading the unsuspecting victim into some pass or ambuscade, where the knife or musket closed his earthly career.”[76]
In every community, however fierce and lawless, different gradations of good and evil will be discovered, and nothing could be more opposite than the feelings and actions of some of the guerillas and their leaders.
Many of these desperate bands were actuated in every enterprise by a love of bloodshed and spoliation, and their own countrymen suffered as heavily from their rapacity, as their enemies from their swords. Others took the field from nobler motives; an enthusiastic attachment to their country and religion roused them to vengeance against a tyranny which had now become insufferable,—every feeling but ardent patriotism was forgotten—private and dearer ties were snapped asunder,—homes, and wives, and children, were abandoned,—privations, that appear almost incredible, were patiently endured, until treachery delivered them to the executioner, or in some wild attempt they were overpowered by numbers, and died resisting to the last.
Dreadful as the retaliation was which French cruelty and oppression had provoked, the guerilla vengeance against domestic treachery was neither less certain nor less severe.[77] To collect money or supplies for the invaders, convey any information, conceal their motions, and not betray them when opportunity occurred, was certain death to the offender. Sometimes the delinquent was brought, with considerable difficulty and risk, before a neighbouring tribunal, and executed with all the formalities of justice; but, generally, a more summary vengeance was exacted, and the traitor executed upon the spot. In these cases, neither calling nor age were respected—and, if found false to his country, the sanctity of his order was no protection to the priest.
The daughter of the collector of Almagro, for professing attachment to the usurper, was stabbed by Urena to the heart,—and a secret correspondence between the wife of the Alcalde of Birhueda and the French general in the next command, having been detected by an intercepted despatch, the wretched woman, by order of Juan Martin Diez, “the Empecinado,”[78] was dragged by a guerilla party from her house, her hair shaven, her denuded person tarred and feathered, and disgracefully exhibited in the public market-place,—and she was then put to death amid the execrations of her tormentors. Nor was there any security for a traitor, even were his residence in the capital, or almost within the camp of the enemy. One of the favourites of Joseph Buonaparte, Don Jose Riego, was torn from his home in the suburbs of Madrid, while celebrating his wedding, by the Empecinado, and hanged in the square of Cadiz. The usurper himself, on two occasions, narrowly escaped from this desperate partisan. Dining at Almeida, some two leagues distance from the capital, with one of the generals of division, their hilarity was suddenly interrupted by the unwelcome intelligence that the Empecinado was at hand, and nothing but a hasty retreat preserved the pseudo-king from capture. On another occasion, he was surprised upon the Guadalaxara-road, and so rapid was the guerilla movement, so determined the pursuit, that before the French could be succoured by the garrison of Madrid, forty of the royal escort were sabred between Torrejon and El Molar.
A war of extermination raged, and on both sides blood flowed in torrents. One act of cruelty was as promptly answered by another; and a French decree, ordering that every Spaniard taken in arms should be executed, appeared to be a signal to the guerillas to exclude from mercy every enemy who fell into their hands. The French had shown the example; the Junta were denounced, their houses burned, and their wives and children driven to the woods. If prisoners received quarter in the field,—if they fell lame upon the march, or the remotest chance of a rescue appeared, they were shot like dogs. Others were butchered in the towns, their bodies left rotting on the highways, and their heads exhibited on poles. That respect, which even the most depraved of men usually pay to female honour, was shamefully disregarded,—and more than one Spaniard, like the postmaster of Medina, was driven to the most desperate courses, by the violation of a wife and the murder of a child.[79]
It would be sickening to describe the horrid scenes which mutual retaliation produced. Several of the Empecinado’s followers, who were surprised in the mountains of Guadarama, were nailed to the trees, and left there to expire slowly by hunger and thirst. To the same trees, before a week elapsed, a similar number of French soldiers were affixed by the guerillas. Two of the inhabitants of Madrid, who were suspected of communicating with the brigands, as the French termed the armed Spaniards, were tried by court-martial, and executed at their own door. The next morning, six of the garrison were seen hanging from walls besides the high road. Some females related to Palarea, surnamed the Medico, had been abused most scandalously by the escort of a convoy, who had seized them in a wood; and in return the guerilla general drove into an Ermida eighty Frenchmen and their officers, set fire to the thatch, and burned them to death, or shot them in their endeavours to leave the blazing chapel. Such were the dreadful enormities a system of retaliation caused.
These desperate adventurers were commanded by men of the most dissimilar professions. All were distinguished by some sobriquet, and these were of the most opposite descriptions. Among the leaders were friars and physicians, cooks and artisans; while some were characterized by a deformity, and others named after the form of their waistcoat or hat. Worse epithets described many of the minor chiefs,—truculence and spoliation obtained them titles; and, strange as it may appear, the most ferocious band that infested Biscay was commanded by a woman named Martina. So indiscriminating and unrelenting was this female monster in her murder of friends and foes, that Mina was obliged to direct his force against her. She was surprised, with the greater part of her banditti, and the whole were shot upon the spot.
Of all the guerilla leaders the two Minas were the most remarkable for their daring, their talents, and their successes. The younger, Xavier, had a short career—but nothing could be more chivalrous and romantic than many of the incidents that marked it. His band amounted to a thousand—and with this force he kept Navarre, Biscay, and Aragon in confusion; intercepted convoys, levied contributions, plundered the custom-houses, and harassed the enemy incessantly. The villages were obliged to furnish rations for his troops, and the French convoys supplied him with money and ammunition. His escapes were often marvellous.[80] He swam flooded rivers deemed impassable, and climbed precipices hitherto untraversed by a human foot. Near Estella he was forced by numbers to take refuge on a lofty rock; the only accessible side he defended till nightfall, when, lowering himself and followers by a rope, he brought his party off without the loss of a man.