OBSERVATIONS.
Return of the French army. [Appendix.]
1º. The gross amount of Dupont’s corps when it first entered Spain was about twenty-four thousand men, with three thousand five hundred horses; of these twenty-one thousand were fit for duty. It was afterwards strengthened by a provisionary regiment of cuirassiers, a marine battalion of the guard, and the two Swiss regiments of Preux and Reding. It could not therefore have been less than twenty-four thousand fighting men when Dupont arrived in Andalusia, and as the whole of Vedel’s, and the greatest part of Gobert’s division, had joined before the capitulation, and that eighteen thousand men laid down their arms at Baylen, Dupont must have lost by wounds, desertion, and deaths in hospital or the field, above four thousand men.
2º. The order which directed this corps upon Cadiz was despatched from Bayonne before the Spanish insurrection broke out; it was therefore strange that Dupont should have persevered in his march when he found affairs in such a different state from that contemplated by Napoleon at the time the instructions for this expedition were framed. If the emperor considered it necessary to reinforce the division which marched under Dupont’s own command, with a detachment from the army in Portugal before the insurrection broke out, it was evident that he never could have intended that that general should blindly follow the letter of his orders, when a great and unexpected resistance was opposed to him, and that the detachment of Portugal was unable to effect a junction. The march to Cordoba was therefore an error, and it was a great error, because Dupont confesses in his memoir that he advanced under the conviction that his force was too weak to obtain success, and, consequently, having no object, his operations could only lead to a waste of lives.
3º. At Cordoba, Dupont remained in a state of torpor for ten days; this was the second error of a series which led to his ruin: he should either have followed up his victory and attacked Seville in the first moment of consternation, or he should have retired to Andujar while he might do so without the appearance of being compelled to it. If he had followed the first plan, the city would inevitably have fallen before him, and thus time would have been gained for the arrival of the 2d and 3d division of his corps.
4º. It may be objected that ten thousand men durst not penetrate so far into a hostile country; but Dupont’s Journal of Operations. at Alcolea, Dupont boasts of having defeated forty thousand men without any loss to himself; from such armies then he had nothing to fear, and the very fact of his having pushed his small force between the multitudes that he defeated upon the 7th, proves that he despised them. “He retired from Cordoba,” he says in his memoir, “because to fight a battle when victory can be of no use is against all discretion;” but to make no use of a victory when it is gained comes to the same thing; and he should never have moved from Andujar unless with the determination of taking Seville.
5º. Those errors were, however, redeemable; the position behind the Guadalquivir, the checks given to the patriots at Jaen after the arrival of Vedel at Carolina upon the 27th, and above all the opportune junction of Gobert at the moment when Castaños and Reding appeared in front of the French line, proved that it was not fortune but common sense that deserted Dupont on this occasion, for the Spanish forces being divided and extended from Andujar to Mengibar were exposed to be beaten in detail; but their adversary was indulgent to them, and amidst the mass of errors committed upon both sides, this false disposition appeared like an act of wisdom, and being successful was stamped accordingly.
6º. At Mengibar a variety of roads branch off leading to Jaen, to Linhares, to Baylen and other places. From Andujar, a road nearly parallel to the Guadalquivir runs to the ferry of Mengibar and forms the base of a triangle, of which Baylen may be taken as the apex. From this latter town to the ferry is about six miles, from the ferry to Andujar is about eighteen, from the latter to Baylen the distance may be sixteen miles. Fifteen miles above Baylen the town of Carolina, situated in the gorge of the Sierra Morena, was the point of communication with La Mancha, and the line of retreat for the French in the event of a defeat, hence Baylen, not Andujar, was the pivot of operations.
7º. The French force was inferior in number to that under Castaños, yet Dupont disseminated his divisions upon several points. The natural results followed. The Spaniards, although the most unwieldy body, took the lead and became the assailants; the French divisions were worn out by useless marches; the orders of their chief were mistaken or disobeyed; one position being forced, another was of necessity Dupont’s Journal. MS. abandoned; confusion ensued, and finally Dupont says he surrendered with eighteen thousand men, because his fighting force was reduced to two thousand: such an avowal saves the honour of his soldiers, but destroys his own reputation as a general. The first question to ask is, what became of the remainder? Why had he so few when ten thousand of his army never fired a shot? It must be confessed that Dupont, unless a worse explanation can be given of his conduct, was incapable to the last degree.