English vessels hovering on the coast were prepared to supply the Biscayans with arms and ammunition, and general Blake thought himself in a situation to revive the insurrection in that province, and to extend it to Guipuscoa. With this view he detached his 4th division, and five guns, under the command of the Correspce. of general Leith. marquis of Portazgo, to attack general Monthion at Bilbao. The king getting knowledge of the march of this division, ordered a brigade from his right wing to fall on its flank by the valley of Orduña, and caused general Merlin to reinforce Monthion by the valley of Durango. Bessieres aided these dispositions by a demonstration on the side of Frias, but the combination was made too late. Portazgo was already Journal of the king’s operations, MS. master of Bilbao. Monthion retired on the 20th to Durango, and Bessieres fell back with his corps to Miranda, Haro, and Puente Lara, having first injured the defences of Burgos.
The king took post with the reserve at Vittoria. Marshal Ney immediately abandoned his position on the Ebro, and carried his whole force by a rapid march to Bilbao, where he arrived on the evening of the 26th. At the same time, general Merle’s division executed a combined movement from Miranda upon Osma and Barbaceña. Portazgo being overmatched, occupied the heights above Bilbao, until nightfall, and then retreated to Valmaceda, where he found the third division, for Blake had changed his position, and now occupied Frias with his right, Quincoes with his centre, and Valmaceda with his left. In this Correspondence of gen. Leith. situation, holding the passes of the mountain, he awaited the arrival of the Asturians, who were marching by the valley of Villarcayo. All the Spanish artillery remained in the town of that name, being guarded by a division of infantry. Thus the second effort to raise Biscay failed of success.
In the mean time, O’Neil, following colonel Doyle’s plan before mentioned, entered Sanguessa, and was beaten out of it again, with the loss of two guns. However, the Castillian army approached the Ebro Journal of the king’s operations. MS. by the road of Soria. General La-Peña occupied Logroña, Nalda, and Najera. Llamas and Caro occupied Corella, Cascante, and Calahorra, and O’Neil took post in the mountains, on the left bank of the Aragon facing Sanguessa. The peasantry of the valleys assembled in considerable numbers, and the country between Zaragoza and the Aragon river appeared to be filled with troops. Marshal Moncey withdrew from the Ebro, and took a position, with his left flank at the pass of Sanguessa, his centre at Falces, and his right at Estella. Ney, leaving Merlin with three thousand men at Bilbao, returned to the Ebro; Ibid. but finding that Logroña was occupied in force by the Spaniards, halted at Guardia on the 5th of October, and remained in observation.
On the 4th the king and Bessieres, at the head of Mouton’s and Merle’s divisions, quitted Miranda, and advanced along the road of Osma, with the intention of feeling for Blake on the side of Frias and Medina, but the Spaniards were in force at Valmaceda. Joseph, deceived by false information, imagined that they were again in march towards Bilbao, and pushed on to Lodio, with the intention of attacking Blake during his movement. At Lodio the king ascertained the truth and halted. He was uneasy about Moncey, and therefore returned to Murquia on the 7th. In that town he left Merle to protect the rear of the troops at Bilbao, and proceeded to Miranda with the division Journal of the king’s operations. MS. of Mouton. On the 12th, Blake, still intent upon the insurrection of Biscay, placed a division at Orduña, and attacked Bilbao with fifteen thousand men. Merlin retired fighting up the valley of Durango as far as Zornosa, but being joined there by general Verdier, at the head of six battalions, he turned and checked the pursuit. At this time the leading columns of the great French army were passing the Spanish frontier, and Laval’s division advanced to Durango. Sebastiani, with six thousand men, relieved Merle at Murquia; the latter repaired to Miranda, and Verdier returned to Vittoria. Marshal Lefebre, duke of Dantzic, assumed the command of the three divisions posted at Durango.
On the Spanish side, the marquis of Romana’s division disembarked on the 9th at St. Ander, and being completely equipped and provided from the English stores, the infantry, eight thousand in number, proceeded by slow marches to join Blake. The Asturians halted at Villarcayo; but the Estremaduran army, under the conde de Belvedere, was put in motion, and the Castillian forces arrived upon the Ebro. The first and third divisions of the Andalusian army were on the march from La Mancha, and Castaños, quitting Madrid, proceeded towards Tudela. All things announced the approach of a great crisis. Yet such was the apathy of the supreme junta, that the best friends of Spain hoped for a defeat, as the only mode of exciting sufficient energy in the government to save the state, and by some it was thought, that even that sharp remedy would be insufficient. A momentary excitement was, however, caused by the intercepted letter to Jourdan before spoken of. The troops in the second line were ordered to proceed to the Ebro by forced marches, letters were written pressing for the advance of the British army, and Castaños was enjoined to drive the enemy, without delay, beyond the frontier; but this sudden fury of action ended with those orders. Sir David Baird’s corps was detained in the transports at Coruña, waiting for permission to Parliamentary Papers. land; no assistance was afforded to sir John Moore, and although the subsidies already paid by England amounted to ten millions of dollars, and that Madrid was rich, and willing to contribute to the exigencies of the moment, the central junta, although complaining Vindication of Castaños. of the want of money, would not be at the trouble of collecting patriotic gifts, and left the armies “to all the horrors of famine, nakedness, and misery.” The natural consequence of such folly and wickedness ensued; the people ceased to be enthusiastic, and the soldiers deserted in crowds.
The conduct of the generals was scarcely less extraordinary. Blake had voluntarily commenced the campaign without magazines, and without any plan, except that of raising the provinces of Biscay and Guipuscoa. With the usual blind confidence of a Spaniard, he pressed forward, ignorant of the force or situation of his adversaries, never dreaming of a defeat, and so little experienced in the detail of command, that he calculated upon the ordinary quantity General Broderick’s Letter.
Pary. Paps. of provision contained in an English frigate, which cruised off the coast, as a resource for his army, if the country should fail to supply him with subsistence. Birch’s Letters to Leith. MS. His artillery had only seventy rounds for each gun, his men were without great coats, many without shoes, and the snow was beginning to fall in the mountains. That he was able to make any impression is a proof that king Joseph possessed little military talent: the French marshals, from the habitude of war, were able to baffle Blake without difficulty, but the stratagetical importance of the valley of Orduña they did not appreciate, or he would have been destroyed. The lesson given by Napoleon, when he defeated Wurmser in the valley of the Brenta, might have been repeated, under more favourable circumstances, at Orduña and Durango; but if genius was asleep with the French, it was dead with the Spaniards.
As long as Blake remained between Frias and Valmaceda his position was tolerably secure from an attack, because the Montagna St. Ander is exceedingly rugged, and the line of retreat by Villacayo was open; but he was cooped up in a corner, and ill-placed for offensive movements, which were the only operations he thought of. Instead of occupying Burgos, and repairing the citadel, he descended on Bilbao with the bulk of his army, thereby discovering his total ignorance of war; for several great valleys, the upper parts of which were possessed by the French, met near that town, and it was untenable. The flank of his army was exposed to an attack from the side of Orduña, and his line of retreat was always in the power of Bessieres. To protect his flank and rear, Blake detached largely, but that weakened the main body without obviating the danger, nor did he make amends for his bad dispositions by diligence, for his movements were slow, his attacks without vigour, and his whole conduct displayed temerity without decision, and rashness without enterprise.
The armies of the centre and right were not better conducted. Castaños, having quitted Madrid on the 8th of October, arrived at Tudela on the 17th, and on the 20th held a conference with Palafox at Zaragoza. [Appendix, No. 27.] The aggregate of their forces did not much exceed forty-five thousand men, of which from two to three thousand were cavalry. Sixty pieces of artillery followed the divisions, and the whole was posted in the following manner:
ARMY OF THE CENTRE,
27,000.
General Pignatelli, with ten thousand Castillian infantry, one thousand five hundred cavalry, and fourteen guns, at Logroña.