Sketch Explanatory of
NEY & SOULT’S,
OPERATIONS IN GALLICIA,
in June 1809.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.
To effect this, Ney formed a camp near Betanzos; and, on the 22d of July, withdrew his garrisons from Coruña and Ferrol, having previously destroyed all the stores and arsenals and disabled the land defences. Nevertheless, his influence was still so powerful that captain Hotham, commanding the English squadron, off Coruña, seeing the hostile attitude maintained by the inhabitants, landed his seamen on the 24th, and spiked the guns on the sea-line; and, in like manner, compelled a Spanish garrison, left by Ney in the forts of Ferrol, to surrender on the 26th. The marshal, however, marched, unmolested, by the high road to Astorga, where he arrived on the 30th, having brought off all his own sick and those of the second corps also, who had been left in Lugo. Thus Gallicia was finally delivered.
This important event has been erroneously attributed to the exertions of the Spaniards. Those exertions were creditable to the Gallicians, although the most powerful motive of action was to protect their personal property; and, when the French withdrew, this same motive led them to repair their losses by resisting the payment of tithes and rents, a compensation by no means relished by the proprietors or the church. But it is certain that their efforts were only secondary causes in themselves, and chiefly supported by the aid of England, whose ships, and arms, and stores were constantly on the coast.
How can the operations of the Spaniards be said to have driven the sixth corps from Gallicia, when Ney retained every important post in that province to the last; when single divisions of his army, at two different periods, traversed the country, from Coruña to Tuy, without let or hindrance; and when the Spaniards could not prevent him from over-running the Asturias without losing his hold of Gallicia? It is true, Soult, writing to Joseph, affirmed that the Gallicians would wear out the strongest army; that is, if a wrong system was pursued by the French, but he pointed out the right method of Intercepted Despatches, Parl. Pap. 1810. subduing them, namely, in pursuance of Napoleon’s views, to fortify some principal central points, from whence the moveable columns could overrun the country; and this, he estimated, would only require fifty thousand pounds and six weeks’ labour. It is plain the real causes of the deliverance were—First, The quarrels between the marshals, which saved Romana and Noroña from destruction.—Secondly, The movements of sir Arthur Wellesley on the Tagus; for, in an intercepted letter from Soult to Joseph, that marshal expressly assigns the danger hanging over Madrid and the first corps as the reason of his refusing to remain in Gallicia. Now, although Soult’s views were undoubtedly just, and his march provident, the latter necessarily drew after it the evacuation of Gallicia; because, it would have been absurd to keep the sixth corps cooped up in that corner of the Peninsula, deprived of communication, and estranged from the general operations.
The movement of the second corps, after quitting Monforte, being along the edge of the Portuguese frontier, and constantly threatening the northern provinces, drew marshal Beresford, as I have before stated, from Castello Branco; and all the regular Portuguese forces capable of taking the field were immediately collected by him round Almeida. The duke del Parque was at Ciudad Rodrigo; and as that part of Romana’s force, which had been cut off by Soult’s movement upon Gudina, fell back upon Ciudad Rodrigo, not less than twenty-five thousand men, Portuguese and Spaniards, were assembled, or assembling, round those two fortresses: and the change of situation thus brought about in the armies on the northern line was rendered more important by the events which were simultaneously taking place in other parts, especially in Aragon, where general Blake, whose army had been augmented to more than twenty thousand men, inflated with his success at Alcanitz, advanced to Ixar and Samper.
Suchet, himself, remained close to Zaragoza, but kept a detachment, under general Faber, at Longares and Villa Muel, near the mountains on the side of Daroca. Blake, hoping to cut off this detachment, marched, himself, through Carineña, and sent general Arisaga, with a column, to Bottorita; the latter captured a convoy of provisions on the Huerba; but Faber retired to Plasencia, on the Xalon.
The 14th of June, the advanced guards skirmished at Bottorita; and Blake, endeavouring to surround the enemy, pushed a detachment to Maria, in the plain of Zaragoza.
The excitement produced in that city, and in Aragon generally, by this march, was so great, that Suchet doubted if he should not abandon Zaragoza, and return towards Navarre. The peasantry had assembled on many points in the mountains around, and it required great vigilance to keep down the spirit of insurrection in the city itself. The importance of that place, however, made him resolve to fight a battle, for which the near approach of Blake, who came on in the full confidence that the French general would retreat, furnished an opportunity which was not neglected.