That sir Arthur Wellesley’s error was not fatal is to be attributed to three causes:—
1º. The reluctance of marshal Ney to quit Astorga;—2º. The march of the fifth corps upon Villa Castin instead of Salamanca;—3º. The vehemence with which Victor advised the battle of Talavera: in short, jealousy among the marshals, and the undecided temper of the king.
If Soult had not been thwarted, he would have concentrated the three corps near Salamanca before the 20th, and he would have reached Plasencia before the 28th of July. The allies must then have forced their way into La Mancha, or been crushed; but could they have done the former without another battle? without the loss of all the wounded men? could they have done it at all? The British, including Robert Craufurd’s brigade, were seventeen thousand fighting men on the 29th, but wasted with fatigue and hunger. The Spaniards were above thirty thousand: but in them no trust could be placed for an effort requiring fine discipline and courage of the highest order. The intrusive king was at the head of forty thousand good troops. Venegas, at once ignorant and hampered by the intrigues of the junta, was as nought in the operations; but Soult’s step, stealthy while the situation of affairs was obscure, would have been impetuous when a light broke on the field of battle; and it is scarcely possible to conceive that the allies could have forced their way in front before that marshal would have fallen on their rear.
FRENCH OPERATIONS.
The intrusive monarch was finally successful; yet it may be safely affirmed that, with the exception of uniting his three corps behind the Guadarama, on the evening of the 25th, his proceedings were an uninterrupted series of errors. First, he would not suffer Soult to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo with seventy thousand men, in the end of July. To protect Madrid from the army of Venegas overbalanced, in his mind, the advantages of this bold and grand project, which would inevitably have drawn sir Arthur Wellesley from the Tagus, and which, interrupting all military communication between the northern and southern provinces, and ensuring possession of Castile and Leon, would, by its success, have opened a broad way to Lisbon. But Cuesta and Venegas, meanwhile, would have marched against Madrid! Cuesta and Venegas, acting on external lines, and whose united force did not exceed sixty-five thousand men! And the king, holding a central position, with fifty thousand French veterans, was alarmed at this prospect, and, rejecting Soult’s plan, drew Mortier, with the fifth corps, to Villa Castin. Truly, this was to neglect the bearing fruit-tree from fear of the nettle at its stem!
Sir Arthur Wellesley’s advance to Talavera was the result of this great error; but he having thus incautiously afforded Soult an opportunity of striking a fatal blow, a fresh combination was concerted. The king, with equal judgement and activity, then united all his own forces near Toledo, separated Venegas from Cuesta, pushed back the latter upon the English army, and obliged both to stand on the defensive, with eyes attentively directed to their front, when the real point of danger was in the rear. This was skilful; but the battle of Talavera which followed was a palpable, an enormous, fault. The allies could neither move forward nor backward, without being infinitely worse situated for success than in that strong position, which seemed marked out by fortune herself for their security. Until the 31st, the operations of Venegas were not even felt; hence, till the 31st, the position on the Alberche might have been maintained without danger; and, on the first of August, the head of Soult’s column was at Plasencia.
Let us suppose that the French had merely made demonstrations on the 28th, and had retired behind the Alberche the 29th, would the allies have dared to attack them in that position? The conduct of the Spaniards, on the evening of the 27th, answers the question; and, moreover, Joseph, with an army compact, active, and experienced, could, with ease, have baffled any efforts of the combined forces to bring him to action; he might have covered himself by the Guadarama and by the Tagus, in succession, and the farther he led his opponents from Talavera, without uncovering the line of La Mancha, the more certain the effect of Soult’s operation: but here we have another proof that double external lines are essentially vicious.
The combined movement of the French was desirable, from the greatness of the object to be gained, and safe, from the powerful force on each point. The occasion was so favourable that, notwithstanding the imprudent heat of Victor, the reluctance of Ney, and the unsteady temper of the king, the fate of the allies was, up to the evening of the 3d, heavy in the scale. Nevertheless, as the central position held by the allies, cut the line of correspondence between Joseph and Soult, the king’s despatches were intercepted, and the whole operation, even at the last hour, was baffled. The first element of success in war is, that every thing should emanate from a single head; and it would have been preferable that the king, drawing the second and fifth corps to him by the pass of the Guadarama, or by that of Avila, should, with the eighty thousand men thus united, have fallen upon the allies in front. Such a combination, although of less brilliant promise than the one adopted, would have been more sure; and the less a general trusts to fortune the better:—she is capricious!
When one Spanish army was surprised at Arzobispo, another completely beaten at Almonacid, and when Wilson’s Portuguese corps was dispersed at Baños, the junta had just completed the measure of their folly by quarrelling with the only force left that could protect them. The French were, in truth, therefore, the masters of the Peninsula; but they terminated their operations at the very moment when they should have pursued them with redoubled activity; for the general aspect of affairs and the particular circumstances of the campaign were alike favourable.
Napoleon was victorious in Germany; and of the British expeditions against Italy and Holland, the former had scarcely struggled into life,—the latter was already corrupting in death. Hence, Joseph might have been assured that he would receive reinforcements, but that none, of any consequence, could reach his adversaries; and, in the Peninsula, there was nothing to oppose him. Navarre, Biscay, Aragon, and the Castiles were subdued; Gerona closely beleaguered; and the rest of Catalonia, if not quiescent, totally unable to succour that noble city. Valencia was inert; the Asturias still trembling; and in Gallicia there was nothing but confusion. Romana, commanding fifteen thousand infantry, but neither cavalry nor artillery, was still at Coruña, and durst not quit the mountains. The duke del Parque held Ciudad Rodrigo, but was in no condition to make head against more than a French division. The battle of Almonacid had cleared La Mancha of troops. Estremadura and Andalusia were, as we have seen, weak, distracted, and incapable of solid resistance. There remained only the English and Portuguese armies, the one being at Jaraceijo, the other at Moraleja.