St. Cyr remained in Barcelona for a considerable period, during which he endeavoured to remedy the evils of Duhesme’s government, and to make himself acquainted with the political disposition of the inhabitants. He filled the magazines with three months’ provisions; and, as the prisoners within the walls were an incumbrance, on account of their subsistence, and a source of uneasiness from their numbers, he resolved to send them to France. The 15th of April, having transferred his sick and weakly men to the charge of Duhesme, and exchanged Chabran’s for Lecchi’s division, he recommenced his march, and reached Granollers, giving out that he was returning to the frontier of France, lest the Catalans should remove their provisions from Vich, and thus frustrate his principal object.
The Migueletes, under the two Milans and Claros, were, however, on the watch to harass the army, and had taken post beyond Garriga on each side of a long and narrow defile in the valley of the Congosto. This pass of surprising natural strength was barricadoed with trees and pieces of rock, and mined in several places; and Wimpfen also held his corps at a little distance, ready to join Claros at the first alarm. The 16th Lecchi’s division, escorting two thousand prisoners, appeared at the head of this defile, and an action commenced, but in an hour the Migueletes fled on all sides; for St. Cyr, fully aware of the strength of the position, had secretly detached Pino to attack Wimpfen; and, while Lecchi was engaged at the entrance, Souham and Chabot, traversing the mountain, arrived, the one upon the flank, and the other at the further end of this formidable pass.
The 18th the army was established in the valley and town of Vich; but the inhabitants, with the exception of the bishop and a few old men, fled to the mountains with their effects, leaving, however, their provisions behind. St. Cyr then posted Chabot’s and Pino’s divisions at Centellas, San Martin, Tona, and Collespino, to guard the entrance into the valley. Souham remained at Vich, his right being at Roda and Manlieu on the Ter, and his advanced posts at Gurp, St. Sebastian, and St. Eularia. The 24th Lecchi marched, with the prisoners, by Filieu de Pallerols to Besalu on the Fluvia; he was attacked several times on the route, but succeeded in delivering his charge to general Reille, and then returned with the first information received by St. Cyr of Napoleon’s arrival in Paris, and the certainty of a war with Austria. To balance this, a moveable column sent to Barcelona brought back the pleasing intelligence that rear-admiral Comaso, with a French squadron, having baffled the extreme vigilance of lord Collingwood, had reached that city with ample supplies. Thus what may be called the irregular movements in Catalonia terminated, and the more methodical warfare of sieges commenced; but this part was committed to other hands. General Verdier had succeeded Reille in the Ampurdan, and marshal Augereau was on the road to supersede St. Cyr.
Plate 2. to face Pa. 102.
Sketch Explanatory of the
OPERATIONS IN CATALONIA
in 1808 and 1809.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.
Observations.—1º. General St. Cyr’s marches were hardy, his battles vigorous and delivered in right time and place; but his campaign, as a whole, may be characterised as one of great efforts without corresponding advantages. He himself attributes this to the condition of the seventh corps, destitute and neglected, because the emperor disliked and wished to ruin its chief; a strange accusation, and unsustained by reason or facts. What! Napoleon wilfully destroy his own armies! sacrifice forty thousand men, that a general, who he was not obliged to employ at all, might be disgraced! General St. Cyr acknowledges, that when he received his instructions from the emperor, he observed the affliction of the latter at the recent loss of Dupont’s force; yet he would have it believed, that, in the midst of this regret, that monarch, with a singular malice, was preparing greater disasters for himself, merely to disgrace the general commanding the seventh corps, and why? because the latter had formerly served with the army of the Rhine! Yet St. Cyr met with no reverses in Catalonia, and was afterwards made a marshal by this implacable enemy.
2º.—That the seventh corps was not well supplied, and that its commander was thereby placed in a difficult situation, is not to be disputed in the face of the facts stated by general St. Cyr; but if war were a state of ease and smoothness, the fame which attends successful generals would be less. Napoleon selected general St. Cyr because he thought him a capable commander; in feeble hands, he knew the seventh corps would be weak, but, with St. Cyr at its head, he judged it sufficient to overcome the Catalonians; nor was he much mistaken. Barcelona, the great object of solicitude, was saved; Rosas was taken; and if Tarragona and Tortosa did not also fall, the one after the battle of Molino del Rey, the other after that of Valls, it was because the French general did not choose to attack them. Those towns were without the slightest preparation for defence, moral or physical, and must have surrendered; nor can the unexpected and stubborn resistance of Gerona, Zaragoza, and Valencia be cited against this opinion. The latter cities were previously prepared and expectant of a siege; and yet, in every instance, except Valencia, there was a moment of dismay and confusion, not fatal, only because the besieging generals wanted that ready vigour which is the characteristic of great commanders.
3º.—General St. Cyr, aware that a mere calculation of numbers and equipment is but a poor measure of the strength of armies, exalts the enthusiasm and the courage of the Catalans, and seems to tremble at the danger which, owing to Napoleon’s suicidal jealousy, menaced, at that period, not only the seventh corps but even the south of France. In answer to this, it may be observed that M. de St. Cyr did not hesitate, with eighteen thousand men having no artillery, and carrying only sixty rounds of musket-ammunition, to plunge into the midst of those terrible armies, to march through the mountains for whole weeks, to attack the strongest positions with the bayonet alone, nay, even to dispense with the use of his artillery, when he did bring it into action, lest his men should not have a sufficient contempt for their enemies. And who were these undaunted soldiers, so high in courage, so confident, so regardless of the great weapon of modern warfare? Not the select of the imperial guards, the conquerors in a hundred battles, but raw levies, the dregs and scrapings of Italy, the refuse of Naples and of Rome, states which to name as military was to ridicule.