Ten days had now elapsed since Napoleon, breaking forth from Vittoria, had deluged the country with his troops, and each day was marked by some advantage gained over the Spaniards; but these misfortunes were still unknown at Tudela and disregarded at the capital. The remnants of Belvedere’s army having rallied in Mr. Stuart. Lord W. Bentinck. MSS. the pass of the Somosierra and on the side of Segovia, the troops belonging to the army of the centre, which had been detained in Madrid, were forwarded to the former place, and those left behind from Cuesta’s levies were ordered to the latter. General St. Juan, an officer of high reputation, took the command at the Ibid. Somosierra, general Heredia repaired to Segovia, and an intermediate camp of detachments being formed at Sepulveda, the men thus collected were, by the junta, magnified into a great army sufficient to protect Madrid.
That the left wing of the French army was still upon the Ebro, the central junta attributed, not to the enemy’s strength, but to the dilatory proceedings of Castaños, and depriving him of the command, they Ibid. gave it to Romana, precisely at the moment when it was impossible for the latter to reach the army he was to lead. The junta wanted a battle, and, uncorrected by Blake’s destruction, doubted not of victory.
The proceedings at Tudela were also worthy of the times; there the madness of the generals, and the folly of the deputy, increased rather than abated. The freaks of Francisco Palafox, and their ridiculous termination on the 12th of November, I have already related. A few days sufficed to give birth to new plans equally absurd, but more dangerous, as the crisis approached nearer. This time Castaños took the lead. He knew upon the 10th that the Estremaduran army was at Burgos, and that the French Castaños’ Vindication. were marching on that town; from that moment, despairing of the junction of the British army, and likewise of his own first and third divisions, which were in Madrid, he sent orders to Belvedere to unite himself with Blake; but his letters never reached that officer, who was defeated before they were written, and Castaños, feeling that he himself was in a dangerous position, and that some decided measure was required, conceived so extraordinary a plan, that it would be difficult to credit it upon any authority but his own. He proposed to carry the army of the centre, reduced in numbers and ill-disciplined as it was, by the Concha de Haro and Soria, towards Burgos, and to fall upon the emperor’s rear guard; and, as a preliminary Ibid. step, he determined to beat the army in his front; but Palafox had also a plan, of attacking Moncey on the side of Sanguessa, and the first measure necessary was to combine these double operations. It was agreed that Caparosa should be garrisoned by four thousand infantry, that the bridge head at that place should be fortified, and that O’Neil should be reinforced at Sanguessa by detachments Colonel Graham’s Correspce. MSS. from the centre until his force amounted to nineteen thousand infantry and twelve hundred cavalry. He was then to break down the bridge, place guards at all the passages on the Aragon, and by a flank march gain Caparosa, cross the river, and threaten Peraltes and Olite on the 17th; but on the 18th turning suddenly to the left to get in rear of Lodosa, while general La-Peña and Coupigny, marching from Centruenigo, should attack Moncey in front.
This great movement was openly talked of at the head-quarters of the Spanish generals for several days Ibid. before its execution, and these extraordinary commanders, who were ignorant of Blake’s disasters, announced their intention of afterwards marching towards Vittoria to lighten the pressure on that officer if he should be in difficulty, or if (as his despatches of the 5th had assured them) he was successful, then to join in a general pursuit. Castaños, however, concealed his real project, which was to move by the Concha de Haro towards Burgos.
It was found impossible to procure a sufficient number of boats to lay a bridge over the Ebro at Ibid. Alfaro: thus the reinforcements intended for O’Neil were forced to make a circuit by Tudela, and lost three or four days. On the 14th O’Neil arrived at Caparosa, after breaking the bridge of Sanguessa; the 15th the reinforcements joined him. On the 17th, the day appointed for the execution of the plan, Castaños received notice of his own dismissal from the command, but he persevered in his project; La-Peña and Coupigny were put in motion to pass the bridges of Logroña and Lodosa, and the fords between them; but general O’Neil, instead of executing his part, first refused to stir without an order from Joseph Castaños’ Vindication. Palafox who was at Zaragoza, and then changing his ground, complained that he was without bread. Castaños besought him to move upon the 18th, urging the necessity of the measure, and the danger of delay. But the deputy, Palafox, who had hitherto approved of the project, suddenly quitted the head-quarters, and went to Caparosa, from whence, in concert with O’Neil, he wrote to demand a farther reinforcement from the centre, of six thousand infantry and some more cavalry, without which, they affirmed, that it would be dangerous to pass the Aragon river. Castaños preserved his temper, invited the deputy to return to the right bank of the Ebro, and opposed the demand for more troops on the ground of the delay it would cause; but now the captain-general Palafox, agreeing with neither side, proposed a new plan. It is difficult to say how long these strange disputes would have continued if an umpire had not interposed, whose award was too strongly enforced to be disregarded.
Castaños’ Vindication.
Castaños was with the divisions of Coupigny and La-Peña at Calahorra on the 19th, when he received information that a French corps was advancing upon Logroña. It was Lasnes’, with Lagrange’s and Colbert’s troops, but the Spaniard concluded it to be Ney, for he was ignorant of the changes which had taken place since the 8th of the month. It was likewise reported, that Moncey, whose force he estimated at twelve thousand, when it really was above twenty thousand, had concentrated at Lodosa, and, at the same time, the bishop of Osma announced that twelve thousand men, under Dessolles, were marching from Castaños’ Account of the Battle of Tudela. the side of Aranda de Douero. On the 21st, the intelligence that Dessolles had passed Almazan, and that Moncey was in motion, was confirmed. Then Castaños, relinquishing his offensive projects, prepared to retire, and it was full time. For marshal Ney, who left Aranda on the 19th, had passed Almazan on the 20th, dispersed several small bands of insurgents, and entered Soria on the 21st, so that when Castaños determined to fall back on the 21st, his flank was already turned, and his retreat upon Madrid in the enemy’s power. His artillery was at Centruenigo, and a large detachment of his army was with O’Neil at Caparosa.
Castaños’ Official Account of the Battle of Tudela.
During the night of the 21st and 22d he retired to the heights which extend from Tudela by Cascante, Novellas, Taranzona, and Monteguda. The advanced guard of Lasnes was in sight of the Spanish rear-guard at Calahorra on the morning of the 22d. At this moment the only supply of money which the central junta had yet transmitted for the use of the army arrived at Tudela, and, to complete the picture of distracted councils, O’Neil refused to fall back from Caparosa without the orders of the captain-general. The latter, however, fortunately arrived at Tudela in person, and a conference taking place between him and Castaños the same day, they agreed that the Aragonese army should cross the Ebro, and occupy the heights over Tudela, while the rest of the troops should stretch away in line as far as Taranzona; but in defiance of all orders, entreaties, or reasoning, the obstinate O’Neil remained in an olive wood on the right bank of the river during the night of the 22d, leaving the key of the position open to the enemy.