Vedel having heard the cannonade as early as three o’clock in the morning, quitted Carolina at five o’clock, Foy. and marched in the direction of Baylen. The continued sound of artillery became more distinct as he Dupont’s Journal. MSS. advanced, and left no doubt of the fact of Dupont’s division being seriously engaged, notwithstanding which he halted at Guarroman, two Spanish leagues from Baylen, and remained inactive for seven hours. At three o’clock in the evening, when the firing had long ceased, he put himself in motion again, and coming upon the rear of Reding’s troops, enveloped and made prisoners a battalion of the detached corps which was posted by that general to watch the road leading from Carolina. These troops relying upon the faith of the armistice just agreed upon with Dupont, made no resistance; and Vedel being informed of what was passing, released them, and awaited the result of this singular crisis.
One Villontreys, an officer of the emperor’s staff, opened the negotiation with Reding, by whom he was referred to Castaños then at Andujar; thither generals Chabert and Marescot repaired on the 20th. They demanded permission for the whole army to retire peaceably upon Madrid; and Castaños was at first inclined to grant this as the most certain and ready mode of freeing Andalusia from the French, and gaining time for further preparations; but Savary’s letter to Dupont, written just before the battle of Whittingham’s Correspondence. Rio Seco, to recall him to the defence of the capital, being intercepted, was brought at this moment to the Spanish head-quarters, and changed the aspect of affairs. A convention was no longer in question; Victoires et Conquêtes. Dupont’s troops were required to lay down their arms and to become prisoners of war, on condition of being sent to France by sea. Vedel’s troops were likewise required to surrender on condition of being sent to France with the others, but not to be considered as prisoners of war: and these terms were accepted.
Meanwhile Vedel, informed, in the night of the 20th, by Dupont, of this unexpected change, had retreated to Carolina. Castaños hearing of it, menaced Dupont with death if Vedel did not return; and the latter understanding that he was included in the capitulation, came back to Baylen and surrendered.
Thus, above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid down their arms on the 22d, before a raw army incapable of resisting half that number if the latter had been led by an able man. Nor did this end the disgraceful affair; but, as if to show to what extent folly and fear combined will carry men, captain Villontrey’s, Foy’s History. with a Spanish escort, passed the Sierra Morena, and traversing La Mancha to within a short distance of Toledo, gathered up the escorts, the hospital attendants, and the detachments left by Dupont in that province, and constituting them prisoners under the capitulation, sent them to Andujar; and this unheard of proceeding was quietly submitted to by men who belonged to that army which for fifteen years had been the terror of Europe—a proof how much the firmness of soldiers depends upon the character of their immediate chief.
click here for larger image.
Explanatory Sketch
of the
BATTLE OF BAYLEN.
London. Published March 1828, by John Murray, Albermarle Street.
The capitulation, shameful in itself, was shamefully broken. The French troops, instead of being sent to France, were maltreated, and numbers of them murdered in cold blood, especially at Lebrixa, where above eighty officers were massacred in the most cowardly manner. Although armed only with their swords, they kept the assassins for some time at bay, and gathering in a company, upon an open space in the town, endeavoured to save their lives, but a fire from the neighbouring houses was kept up until the last of those unfortunate gentlemen fell.
No distinction was made between Dupont’s and Vedel’s troops; all who survived the march to Cadiz, after being exposed to every species of indignity, were cast into some hulks, where the greatest number perished in lingering torments: a few hundreds, rendered desperate by their situation, contrived to escape, some years afterwards, by cutting the cables of their prison-ship, and drifting, under a heavy fire, and in the midst of a storm, upon a lee-shore, where two-thirds of them were picked up by their countrymen at that time blockading Cadiz. Dupont himself was permitted to return to France, and to take with him all the generals; and it is curious that Victoires et Conquêtes. general Privé, who had remonstrated strongly against the capitulation, and pressed Dupont on the field to force a passage through Reding’s army, was the only one left behind.
Don Thomas Morla, after a vain attempt to involve lord Collingwood and sir Hew Dalrymple in the disgraceful transaction, formally defended the conduct of the junta in breaking the capitulation; his reasoning was worthy of the man who so soon afterwards betrayed his own country with the same indifference to honour that he displayed on this occasion.