Of all these projects the last was the favourite with the king, who strongly recommended it, and asserted, that if it was followed, affairs would be more prosperous when the emperor arrived than could be expected from any other plan. Marshal Ney and general Jourdan approved of it; but it would appear that Napoleon had other views, and too little confidence in his brother’s military judgment, to intrust so great a matter to his guidance.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. It is undoubted, that there must always be some sympathy of genius in the man who is to execute another’s conception in military affairs. Without that species of harmony between their minds, the thousand accidental occurrences and minor combinations which must happen contrary to expectation, will inevitably embarrass the executor to such a degree, that he will be unable to see the most obvious advantages, and in striving to unite the plan he has received with his own views, he will adopt neither, but steer an unsteady reeling course between both, and fail of success. The reason of this appears to be, that a strong, and, if the term may be used, inveterate attention must be fixed upon certain great principles of action in war, to enable a general to disregard the minor events and inconveniences which cross his purpose; minor they are to the great object, but in themselves sufficient to break down the firmness and self-possession of any but extraordinary men.
2º. The original memoir from which Joseph’s projects have been extracted is so blotted and interlined, that it would be unfair to consider it as a matured production. The great error which pervades it, is the conjectural data upon which he founds his plans, and the little real information which he appears to have had relative to the Spanish forces, views, or interior policy. Thus he was prepared to act upon the idea, that the central junta would be able and provident; the parties united, and the armies strong and well administered; none of which things really took place. Again, he estimated Cuesta and Blake’s armies at eighty thousand, and considered them as one body; but they were never united at all, and if they had, they would scarcely have amounted to sixty thousand. The bold idea of throwing himself into the interior came too late; he should have thought of that before he quitted Madrid, or at least before the central government was established at that capital. His operations might have been successful against the miserable armies opposed to him; against good and moveable troops they would not, as the emperor’s admirable notes prove.
The first project, wanting those offensive combinations discussed by Napoleon, was open to all his objections, as being timid and incomplete. The second was crude and ill-considered, for, according to the king’s estimate of the Spanish force, thirty thousand men on each wing might oppose the heads of his columns, sixty thousand could still have been united at Logroña, pass the Ebro, excite an insurrection in Navarre, Guipuscoa, and Biscay, seize Tolosa and Miranda, and fall upon the rear of the French army, which thus cut in two, and its communications intercepted, would have been extremely embarrassed. The third was not better judged. Burgos as an offensive post, protecting the line of defence, was very valuable, and to unite a large force there was so far prudent; but if the Spaniards retired, and refused battle with their left, while the centre and right operated by Logroña and Sanguessa, what would have been the result? the French right must without any definite object either have continued to advance, or remained stationary without communication, or returned to fight a battle for those very positions which they had just quitted. The fourth depended entirely upon accident, and is not worth argument. The fifth was an undisguised retreat. The sixth was not applicable to the actual situation of affairs. The king’s force was no longer an independent body, it was become the advanced guard of the great army, marching under Napoleon. It was absurd, therefore, to contemplate a decisive movement, without having first matured a plan suitable to the whole mass that was to be engaged in the execution. In short, to permit an advanced guard to determine the operations of the main body, was to reverse the order of military affairs, and to trust to accident instead of design. It is curious, that while Joseph was proposing this irruption into Spain, the Spaniards and the military agents of Great Britain were trembling lest he should escape their power by a precipitate flight. “War is not a conjectural art!”
CHAPTER V.
The emperor overruled the offensive projects of the king, and the latter was forced to distribute the centre and right wing in a manner more consonant to the spirit of Napoleon’s instructions; but he still neglected to occupy Tudela, and covered his left wing by the Aragon river.
Journal of the king’s operations, MS.