History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 2

by William Francis Patrick Napier

As soon as the line of my operations in Spain was decided, I sent a commissary to Ciudad Rodrigo, to endeavour to procure mules to attend the army, in concert with don Lozano des Torres, that city and its neighbourhood being the places in which the army commanded by the late sir John Moore had been most largely supplied. M. de Garay expresses the astonishment of the government that the British army should have entered Spain unprovided with the means of transport, notwithstanding that a few paragraphs preceding this expression of astonishment, he informs your excellency, in the name of the government, that they had given orders to the provincial juntas of Badajos and Castile (at Ciudad Rodrigo) and the magistrates, to provide and supply us with the means which, of course, they must have been aware that we should require. No army can carry on its operations if unprovided with means of transport; and the British army was, from circumstances, particularly in want at that moment.

The means of transport, commonly used in Portugal, are carts, drawn by bullocks, which are unable, without great distress, to move more than twelve miles in a day, a distance much shorter than that which the state of the country in which the army was to carry on operations in Spain, and the nature of the country, would oblige the army to march. The number of carts which we had been able to bring from Portugal was not sufficient to draw our ammunition, and there were none to carry provisions.

Having failed in procuring, at Ciudad Rodrigo and in the neighbourhood, the means of transport which I required, I wrote to general O’Donaghue, on the 16th of July, a letter, in which, after stating our wants and the failure of the country in supplying them, I gave notice that if they were not supplied I should discontinue my co-operation with general Cuesta, after I should have performed my part in the first operation which we had concerted, viz. the removal of the enemy from the Alberche; and, if not supplied as I required, I should eventually withdraw from Spain altogether. From this letter of the 16th July, it will appear that I called for the supplies, and gave notice that I should withdraw from Spain if they were not furnished, not only long previous to the retreat across the Tagus of the 4th of August, but even previous to the commencement of the operations of the campaign.

Notwithstanding that this letter of the 16th of July was communicated to the central junta, both by Mr. Frere and general Cuesta, the British army has, to this day, received no assistance of this description from Spain, excepting twenty carts, which joined at Merida, ten on the 30th of August, and ten on the 2d of September; and about three hundred mules of about five hundred which were hired at Bejar, and joined at a subsequent period. None of the mules stated to have been hired and despatched to the army from Seville, or by Igea or Cevallos, or the two brigades of forty each, or the horses, have ever joined the British army; and I conclude that they are with the Spanish army of Estremadura, as are the remainder of the (one hundred) ten brigades of carts which were intended and are marked for the British army. But none of these mules or carts, supposing them to have been sent from Seville for our use, reached Estremadura till after the 21st of August, the day on which, after five weeks’ notice, I was obliged to separate from the Spanish army.

It is not true, therefore, that my resolution to withdraw from Spain, as then carried into execution, was “sudden,” or ought to have surprised the government: nor does it appear to have been perilous from what has since appeared in this part of Spain.

I ought, probably, on the 16th of July, to have determined to suspend all operations till the army should be supplied with the means required; but having, on the 11th of July, settled with general Cuesta a plan of operations to be carried into execution by the armies under the command of general Venegas, general Cuesta, and myself, respectively, I did not think it proper to disappoint general Cuesta. I believed that general Venegas would have carried into execution that part of the plan of operations allotted to his army, although I was afterwards disappointed in that expectation; and I preferred that the British army should suffer inconvenience than that general Venegas’s corps should be exposed alone to the attack of the enemy; and, above all, I was induced to hope that I should be supplied.

Accordingly, I marched, on the 18th of July, from Plasencia, the soldiers carrying on their backs their provisions to the 21st, on which day a junction was formed with general Cuesta’s army; and, from that day to the 24th of August, the troops or their horses did not receive one regular ration. The irregularity and deficiency, both in quality and quantity, were so great that I considered it a matter of justice to the troops to remit to them, during that period, half of the sum usually stopped from their pay for rations.

The forage for the horses was picked up for them by their riders wherever they could find it, and was generally wheat or rye, which are considered unwholesome food; and the consequence was that, exclusive of the loss by engaging with the enemy, the army lost, in the short period of five weeks, not less than one thousand five hundred horses.

I have no knowledge of what passed between general Cuesta and don Lozano des Torres and the intendant of provisions of the Spanish army. I never saw the latter gentleman excepting twice; the first time on the 22d of July, when he waited upon me to claim, for the Spanish army, sixteen thousand rations of bread which had been brought into Talavera, and had been sent to my quarters, and which were delivered over to him, notwithstanding that the British troops were in want; and the second time, on the 25th of July, when he waited upon me, also at Talavera, to desire that the ovens of that town might be delivered over for the use of the Spanish army, they having moved to St. Ollalla, and the British army being still at Talavera. This request, which was not complied with, is an example of the preference which was given to the British troops while they were in Spain.