Colonel Mayne, as I have already observed, had been again entrusted with that post; but, unfortunately, his first orders to blow up the bridge, if the enemy advanced, were not rescinded, although the return of the army from the north rendered such a proceeding unnecessary. Mayne did not keep his instructions secret; and Victor, hearing of them, sent a detachment to the bridge with no other view than to cause its destruction. He succeeded; and this noble monument of Trajan’s genius was overturned. But such is the nature of war that, not long afterwards, each army found its fall injurious to their interests, and, as a matter of taste and of military advantage, both sides alike sighed over the ruins of Alcantara.
Having completed this operation, Victor passed the Tagus, at Almaraz, on the 19th, without being molested by Cuesta, and, removing his boat-bridge, proceeded to take post at Plasencia. Meanwhile Beresford was obliged to return to the defence of the northern provinces of Portugal, which Soult was again menacing, for, during the forced inactivity of the British, at Abrantes, the cause of which I shall explain in another place, changes in the relative positions of the hostile armies were taking place; and it is important that these changes should be well understood, because on them the fate of the succeeding campaign hinged.
When Ney and Soult met at Lugo, they, although still on bad terms, agreed, after some discussion, that the first should march from Coruña, by the route of St. Jago and Vigo, against Carrera and the Conde de Noroña; and that the second, entering the valley of the Syl, should attack Romana, and drive him upon Orense, at which place it was expected that Ney, after taking or blocking Vigo, would be able to reach him, and thus the whole force of Gallicia be crushed at once. Soult was then to menace the Tras os Montes, by the side of Bragança, with the view of obliging sir Arthur Wellesley to remain in that province, while the second corps opened a direct communication with Madrid and with the first corps.
Ney returned to Coruña; and, on the 1st of June, two divisions of infantry and a brigade of dragoons, of the second corps, marched upon Monforte: they were followed, the next day, by two other divisions of infantry; and, at the same time, Franceschi, who was on the Fereira river, supported by La Houssaye’s dragoons, was directed, after scouring the road to St. Jago, to fall down the right bank of the Tambuga, towards Orense.
From the 2d to the 9th the main body halted at Monforte, to get up stores from Lugo, and to scour the country on the flanks; for Romana, in his passage, had again raised the peasantry of all the valleys. Loison also, with a division, entered the Val des Orres, having orders to feign a movement towards Villa Franca and Puente Ferrada, as if for the purpose of meeting a French column in that direction.
The 10th, Loison passed the Syl, and took post at the Puente de Bibey.
S.
Journal of Operations MSS.
The 12th, Franceschi, reinforced with a division of infantry, arrived at Monte Furada on the Syl, and, sending a detachment to Laronco, connected his division with Loison’s. The remainder of the infantry followed this movement, and detachments were sent up the course of the Syl, and towards Dancos, on the road from Villa Franca to Lugo. Loison also forced the passage of the Puente de Bibey, and drove the insurgents to Puebla de Tribes. The French army thus cleared all the valleys opening on the course of the Upper Minho, and Romana was confined to the lower part of that river.
The 13th, Franceschi, ascending the valley of the Bibey, took post at Bollo and the bridge of the Hermitage, and then pushed his patroles even to Gudina and Monterey on one side, and into the Sierra de Porto on the other, as far as the sources of the Bibey, with a view of ascertaining, first, the exact direction which Romana would take to avoid Loison’s column; secondly, to prevent the Spanish general from passing the left of the French army, and gaining the Asturias by the route of Puebla de Senabria. These precautions occupied the duke of Dalmatia till the 19th, when, being assured that Romana had fallen back to Monterey, he judged that the latter would attempt the same march towards Puebla de Senabria, by which he had escaped after the action in the month of March. The French army was therefore directed up the valley of the Bibey, upon Viana, where there was a bridge, and where many of the mountain roads united. The same day Franceschi fell in with the head of Romana’s army, and repulsed it; and the evening of the 20th the whole of the French troops were concentrated near Viana, intending to give battle to the Spaniards the next morning; but the latter retreated precipitately during the night, and many of the men dispersed.
Soult continued his movement by the left until he reached the great road running from Castile to Orense, and from thence, having sent Heudelet’s division to Villa Vieja to threaten the Tras os Montes frontier, and Mermet’s division and Lorge’s dragoons towards La Canda to observe the road of Puebla de Senabria, he marched himself, with an advanced guard, to La Gudina, leaving Laborde and La Houssaye in reserve between Gudina and Villa Vieja. These divers movements, through the rugged passes of Gallicia, led to a variety of slight skirmishes, the most important of which took place at the Puente de Bibey, a place of such prodigious strength that it is scarcely conceivable how men, with arms, could be brought to abandon such a post.