General Broderick’s Correspondence.
General Blake, reinforced by eight thousand Asturians, established his base of operations at Reynosa, opened a communication with the English vessels off the port of St. Andero, and directed his views towards Biscay.
The Castillian army, conducted by general Pignatelli, resumed its march upon Burgo del Osma and Logroña.
Capt. Whittingham’s.
The two divisions of the Andalusian troops under Lapeña, and the Murcian division of general Llamas, advanced to Taranzona and Tudela.
Colonel Doyle’s.
Palafox, with the Aragonese and Valencian divisions of St. Marc, operated from the side of Zaragoza.
Fourteen or fifteen thousand of the Estremaduran troops were drafted, and placed under the conduct of the conde de Belvedere, a weak youth, not twenty Castaños’s Vindication. years of age. They were at first directed upon Logroña, as forming part of Castaños’s command, but finally, as we shall find, received another destination.
Between these armies there was neither concert nor connexion; their movements were regulated by some partial view of affairs, or by the silly caprices of the generals, who were ignorant of each other’s plans, and little solicitous to combine operations. The weak characters of many of the chiefs, the inexperience of all, and the total want of system, opened a field for intriguing men, and invited unqualified persons to interfere in the direction of affairs. Thus we find colonel Doyle making a journey to Zaragoza, and priding himself upon having prevailed with Palafox to detach seven thousand men to Sanguessa; and captain Whittingham, without any knowledge of Doyle’s interference, earnestly dissuading the Spaniards from such an enterprise. The first affirmed, that the movement would “turn the enemy’s left flank, threaten his rear, and have the appearance of cutting off his retreat.” The second argued, that Sanguessa, being seventy miles from Zaragoza, and only a few leagues from Pampeluna, the detachment would itself be cut off. Doyle judged that it would draw the French from Caparosa and Milagro, and expose those points to Llamas and La-Peña; that it would force the enemy to recall the reinforcements said to be marching against Blake, and enable that general to form a junction with the Asturians, when he might, with forty thousand men, possess himself of the Pyrenees; and if the French army, estimated at thirty-five thousand men, did not fly, cut it off from France, or by moving on Miranda, sweep clear Biscay and Castille. Palafox, pleased with this plan, sent Whittingham to inform Llamas and La-Peña, that O’Neil would, with six thousand men, march on Whittingham’s Correspondence. the 15th of September to Sanguessa. Those generals disapproved of the movement as dangerous, premature, and at variance with the plan arranged in the council of war held at Madrid. Palafox, regardless of their opinion, persisted. O’Neil occupied Sanguessa, drew the attention of the enemy, and was immediately driven across the Alagon river.
In this manner all their projects, characterized by a profound ignorance of war, were lightly adopted and as lightly abandoned, or ended in disasters; yet victory was more confidently anticipated, than if consummate skill had presided over the arrangements; and this vain-glorious feeling, extending to the military agents, was by them propagated in England, where the fore-boasting was nearly as loud, and as absurd, as in the Peninsula. The delusion was universal; even lord William Bentinck and Mr. Stuart, deceived by the curious consistency of the Spanish falsehoods, doubted if the French army was able to maintain its position, Ld. W. Bentinck’s Correspondce. MS.
Doyle’s Correspondence. MS. and believed that the Spaniards had obtained a moral ascendancy in the field. Drunk with vanity and folly, the leading Spaniards in the capital, feeling certain that the “remnants,” as they were called, of the French army on the Ebro, estimated at from thirty-five to forty thousand men, would be immediately destroyed, proposed that the British army should be directed upon Catalonia, and when they found that this proposal was not acceded to, they withdrew ten thousand men from the Murcian division, and sent them to the neighbourhood of Lerida.