CHAPTER IV.
OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA.
It will be remembered, that when the second siege of Gerona was raised, in August, 1808, general Duhesme returned to Barcelona, and general Reille to Figueras; after which, the state of affairs obliged those generals to remain on the defensive. Napoleon’s measures to aid them were as prompt as the occasion required. While the siege of Gerona was yet in progress, he had directed troops to assemble at Perpignan in such numbers, as to form with those already in Catalonia, an army of more than forty thousand men, to be called the “7th corps.” St. Cyr’s Journal of Operations. Then appointing general Gouvion St. Cyr to command it, he gave him this short but emphatic order: “Preserve Barcelona for me. If that place be lost, I cannot retake it with 80,000 men.”
The troops assembled at Perpignan were the greatest part but raw levies; Neapolitans, Etruscans, Romans, and Swiss: there were, however, some old regiments; but as the preparations for the grand army under the emperor absorbed the principal attention of the administration in France, general St. Cyr was straightened in the means necessary to take the field; and his undisciplined troops, suffering severe privations, were depressed in spirit, and inclined to desert.
The 1st of November, Napoleon, who was at Bayonne, sent orders to the “7th corps” to commence its operations; and St. Cyr, having put his divisions in motion on the 3d, crossed the frontier, and established his head-quarters at Figueras on the 5th.
In Catalonia, as in other parts of Spain, lethargic vanity, and abuses of the most fatal kind, had succeeded to the first enthusiasm, and withered the energy of the people. The local junta issued, indeed, abundance of decrees, and despatched agents to the supreme junta, and to the English commanders in the Mediterranean, and in Portugal, all charged with the same instructions, namely, to demand arms, ammunition, and money. And although the central junta treated their demands with contempt, the English authorities answered them generously and freely. Lord Collingwood lent the assistance of his fleet. From Malta and Sicily arms were obtained; and sir Hew Dalrymple having completely equipped the Spanish regiments released by the convention of Cintra, despatched them to Catalonia in British transports. Yet it may be doubted if the conduct of the central junta were not the wisest; for the local government established at Tarragona had already become so negligent, or so corrupt, that the arms thus supplied were, instead Lord Collingwood’s Correspondence. of being used in defence of the country, sold to foreign merchants! and such being the political state of Catalonia, it naturally followed that the military affairs should be ill conducted.
The count of Caldagues, who had relieved Gerona, returned by Hostalrich, and resumed the line of the Llobregat; and fifteen hundred men, drawn from Cabanes. the garrison of Carthagena, having reached Taragona, the marquis of Palacios, accompanied by the junta, quitted the latter town, and fixed his head-quarters at Villa Franca, within twenty miles of Caldagues. The latter disposed his troops, five thousand in number, at different points between Martorel and San Boy, covering a line of eighteen miles, along the left bank of the river.
General Duhesme rested a few days, and then marching from Barcelona with six thousand men in the night, arrived the 2d of September at day-break on the Llobregat, and immediately attacked Caldagues’ line in several points, but principally at San Boy and Molino del Rey. The former fort was carried, some guns and stores were captured, and the Spaniards were pursued to Vegas, a distance of seven or eight miles; but at Molino del Rey the French were repulsed, and Duhesme then returned to Barcelona.
It was the intention of the British ministers, that an auxiliary force should have sailed from Sicily about this period, to aid the Catalans; and doubtless it would have been a wise and timely effort: but Napoleon’s foresight prevented the execution; for he directed Murat to menace Sicily with a descent; and that prince, feigning to collect forces on the coast of Calabria, spread many reports of armaments being in preparation, and, as a preliminary measure, attacked and carried the island of Capri; upon which occasion sir Hudson Lowe first became known to history, by losing in a few days a post that, without any pretensions to celebrity, might have been defended for as many years. Murat’s demonstrations sufficed to impose upon sir John Stuart, and from ten to twelve thousand British troops were thus paralyzed at a most critical period: but such will always be the result of a policy which has no fixed and definite object in view. When statesmen cannot see their own way clearly, the executive officers will seldom act with vigour.