That the guerilla system could never seriously affect the progress of the French, is proved by the fact, that the constant aim of the principal chiefs was to introduce the customs of regular troops; and their success against the enemy was proportionate to their progress in discipline and organization. There were not less than fifty thousand of these irregular soldiers, at one time, in Spain; and so severely did they press upon the country that it may be assumed as a truth that if the English army had abandoned the contest, one of the surest means by which the French could have gained the good will of the nation would have been the extirpating of the partidas. Nevertheless, one great and unquestionable advantage was derived by the regular armies, and especially by the British, from the existence of these bands. The French corps could never communicate with each other, nor combine their movements, except by the slow method of sending officers with strong escorts; whereas, their adversaries could correspond by post, and even by telegraph, an advantage equal to a reinforcement of thirty thousand men.
PORTUGUESE POWER.
The Portuguese military system has been already explained. The ranks of the regular army, and of the militia, were filling; the arms and equipments were supplied by England; and means were taking to give effect to the authority of the captans mor, or chiefs of districts, under whom the ordenanzas were to be gathered for the defence of the country. The people having been a second time relieved from an invasion, by the intervention of a British army, were disposed to submit implicitly to the guidance of their deliverers; but the effect of former misgovernment pervaded every branch of administration, political and municipal, and impeded the efforts made to draw forth the military resources of the kingdom. It is a curious fact that, not only at this period, but until the end of the war, such was the reluctance of the people to become soldiers, that, notwithstanding their undoubted hatred of the French, their natural docility, and the visible superiority of the soldiers’ condition over that of the peasant or artisan, the recruiting was always difficult; and the odious spectacle was constantly exhibited, of men marched in chains, to reinforce armies, which were fighting in what was a popular, and ought to have been a sacred cause.
The actual number of regular troops, armed and organized, was not above fifteen thousand, and, notwithstanding the courage displayed by those employed in the late operations, marshal Beresford was doubtful of their military qualities, and reluctant to act separately from the British troops. The most important fortresses in a condition for defence were Elvas, Albuquerque, and Almeida, in the first line; Abrantes and Peniché, in the second; the citadel, and forts of Lisbon and Palmela, in the third. But there were many other walled places, capable, if armed, of standing a siege, and presenting a variety of strong points for the irregular force of the country to assemble upon; and hence, Portugal offered, not only great resources in men, but a base of operations solid in itself; central with respect to the French armies, and enabling the English general to act, without reference to the Spanish government or Spanish commanders; an advantage more justly appreciated at the end of the campaign than at the commencement. Such were the relative situations of the contending hosts in the Peninsula; yet, to take an enlarged view of affairs, it is necessary to look beyond the actual field of battle; for the contest in Spain, no longer isolated, was become an integral part of the great European struggle against France.
Napoleon, after his first successes near Ratisbon, entered Vienna, and attempted to carry the war to the left bank of the Danube; but a severe check, received at the battle of Esling on the 21st of May, so shook his moral ascendancy in Europe, that he deemed it necessary to concentrate all the disposable strength of his empire for one gigantic effort, which should restore the terror of his name. The appearance of inactivity assumed by him, while thus mightily gathering his forces, deceived his enemies; and, as their hopes rose, their boasts became extravagant, more especially in England, where, to express a doubt of his immediate overthrow was regarded as a heinous offence; and where the government, buoyed up with foolish expectations, thought less of supporting a noble and effectual warfare in Portugal than of nourishing and aiding the secondary and rather degrading hostility of conspirators, malcontents, and military adventurers in Germany.
While sir Arthur Wellesley was waiting impatiently on the Tagus for the scanty reinforcements afforded him, two other armies were simultaneously preparing to act against the extremities of the French empire; the one, consisting of about twelve thousand men, drawn from Sicily, was destined to invade Italy, the southern parts of which had been denuded of troops to oppose the Austrians on the Adjutant-general’s Returns. Tagliamento. The other was assembled on the coast of England, where above forty thousand of the finest troops the nation could boast of, and a fleet of power to overthrow all the other navies of the world combined, composed an armament, intended to destroy the great marine establishment which the French emperor had so suddenly and so portentously created at Antwerp. So vast an expedition had never before left the British shores; neither any one so meanly conceived, so improvidently arranged, so calamitously conducted, for the marine and land forces, combined, numbered more than eighty thousand fighting men, and those of the bravest; yet the object in view was comparatively insignificant, and even that was not obtained. Delivered over to the leading of a man, whose military incapacity has caused the glorious title of Chatham to be scorned, this ill-fated army, with spirit, and strength, and zeal to have spread the fame of England to the extremities of the earth, perished, without a blow, in the pestilent marshes of Walcheren! And so utterly had party spirit stifled the feeling of national honour that public men were found base enough to reprobate the convention of Cintra, to sneer at sir John Moore’s operations, and yet to declare the Walcheren expedition wise, profitable, and even glorious!
The operation against Italy was less unfortunate rather than more ably conducted, and it was equally abortive. What with slow preparations, the voyage, and the taking of the petty islands of Ischia and Procida, thirteen weeks were wasted; and yet, during that period, Murat, conscious of his inability to resist, was only restrained from abandoning Naples by the firmness of his queen, and the energy of Sallicetti, the minister of police. We have seen that it was the wish of the ministers to have the troops in Sicily employed in the south of Spain, but, yielding to the representations of sir John Stuart, they permitted him to make this display of military foolery: yet it is not with the bad or good success of these expeditions that this history has to deal, but with that palpable and direful ministerial incapacity which suffered two men, notoriously unfitted for war, to waste and dissipate the military strength of England on secondary objects, while a renowned commander, placed at the most important point, was left without an adequate force.
For the first time since the commencement of the Peninsula war, sixty thousand Spanish troops, well armed and clothed, were collected in a mass, and in the right place, communicating with a British force. For the first time since Napoleon swayed the destiny of France, the principal army of that country had met with an important check: the great conqueror’s fortune seemed to waver, and the moment had arrived when the British government was called to display all its wisdom and energy. The duke of York had performed his duty; he had placed above ninety thousand superb soldiers, all disposable for offensive operations, in the hands of the ministers; but the latter knew not their value, and, instead of concentrating them upon one, scattered them upon many points. Sir Arthur Wellesley might have had above eighty thousand British troops on the frontiers of Portugal, and he was a general capable of wielding them. He was forced to commence a campaign, upon which the fate of the Peninsula, a quick triumph or a long-protracted agony of twelve millions of people depended, with only twenty-two thousand; while sixty thousand fighting men, and ships numerous enough to darken all the coasts of Spain, were waiting, in Sicily and England, for orders which were to doom them, one part to scorn, and the other to an inglorious and miserable fate. Shall the deliverance of the Peninsula, then, be attributed to the firmness and long-sighted policy of ministers who gave these glaring proofs of improvidence, or shall the glory of that great exploit lighten round the head of him who so manfully maintained the fierce struggle, even under the burden of their folly?