“Your ‘corps d’armée,’ composed of seventeen regiments of infantry and ten regiments of cavalry, is destined for the expedition of Portugal, in combination with a movement the duke of Belluno is going to effect. General Loison, some engineers, staff and commissiarat officers, and thirteen Portuguese, all of whom belonged to the army formerly in Portugal, under the duke of Abrantes, have received instructions to join you immediately, and you can transmit your orders for them to Lugo. This is the 21st of January, and it is supposed you cannot be at Oporto before the 5th of February, or at Lisbon before the 16th. Thus, at that time, namely, when you shall be near Lisbon, the ‘corps d’armée’ of the duke of Belluno, composed of his own three divisions, of the division Leval, and of ten or twelve regiments of cavalry, forming a body of thirty thousand men, will be at Merida to make a strong diversion in favour of your movement, and in such a mode as that he can push the head of a column upon Lisbon, if you find any great obstacles to your entrance, which it is, however, presumed will not be the case.”
“General Lapisse’s division of infantry, which is at this moment in Salamanca, and general Maupetit’s brigade of cavalry, will, when you shall be at Oporto, receive the duke of Istria’s orders to march upon Ciudad Rodrigo and Abrantes, where this division will again be under the command of the duke of Belluno, who will send it instructions to join him at Merida, and I let you know this that you may be aware of the march of Lapisse, on your left flank, as far as Abrantes. Such are the last orders I am charged to give you in the name of the emperor; you will have to report to the king and to receive his orders for your ulterior operations. The emperor has unlimited confidence in your talents for the fine expedition that he has charged you with.”
ALEXANDER,
Prince of Neufchatel, &c.
It was further intended, by Napoleon, that when Lisbon fell, marshal Victor should invade Andalusia, upon the same line as Dupont had moved the year before, and like him, also, he was to have been assisted by a division of the second corps, which was to cross the Guadiana and march on Seville. Meanwhile, the duke of Elchingen, whose corps, reinforced by two regiments of cavalry and the arrival of stragglers, amounted to near twenty thousand men, was to maintain Gallicia, confine the Asturians within their own frontier line, and keep open the communication with the second corps.
Thus, nominally, eighty thousand, and in reality sixty thousand men, were disposed for the conquest of Lisbon, and in such a manner that forty thousand would, after that had been accomplished, have poured down upon Seville and Cadiz, and at a time when neither Portugal nor Andalusia were capable of making any resistance. It remains to shew from what causes this mighty preparation failed.
Muster-rolls of the French army, MSS.
The gross numbers of the second corps amounted to forty-seven thousand, but general Bonnet’s division remained always at St. Ander, in observation of the eastern Asturian frontier; eight thousand were detached for the service of the general communications, and the remainder had, since the 9th of November, been fighting and marching incessantly among barren and snowy mountains; hence, stragglers were numerous, and twelve thousand men were in hospital. The force, actually under arms, did not exceed twenty-five thousand men, worn S.
Journal of Operations of the second corps, MSS. down with fatigue, barefooted, and without ammunition. They had outstripped their commissariat, the military chest was not come up, the draft animals were reduced in number, and extenuated by fatigue, the gun-carriages were shaken by continual usage, and the artillery parc was still in the rear; and as the sixth corps had not yet passed Lugo, two divisions of the second were required to hold Coruña and Ferrol. Literally to obey the emperor’s orders was consequently impossible, and Soult fixing his head-quarters at St. Jago di Compostella, proceeded to re-organize his army.
Ammunition was fabricated from the loose powder found in Coruña; shoes were obtained partly by requisition, partly from the Spanish magazines, filled as they were with stores supplied by England. The artillery was soon refitted, and, the greatest part of the stragglers being rallied, in six days, the marshal thought himself in a condition to obey his orders, and, although his troops were still suffering from fatigue and privation, he marched, on the 1st of February, with nineteen thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, and fifty-eight pieces of artillery. But, before I narrate his operations, it is necessary to give some account of the state of Gallicia at this period, and to trace the movements of the marquis de Romana.
When the Spanish army, on the 2d of January, crossed the line of sir John Moore’s march, it was already in a state of disorganization. Romana, with the cavalry, plunged at once into the deep valleys of the Syl and the Minho; but the artillery and a part of his infantry were overtaken and cut up by Franceschi’s cavalry. The remainder wandered in bands from one place to another, or dispersed to seek food and shelter among the villages in the [Appendix, No. 6]. mountains. General Mendizabel, with a small body, halted in the Val des Orres, and, placing guards at the Puente de Bibey, a point of singular strength for defence, proposed to cover the approaches to Orense on that side; but Romana himself, after wandering for a time, collected two or three thousand men, and took post, on the 15th, at Toabado, a village about twenty miles from Lugo.
Marshal Ney, while following the route of the 2d corps to Lugo with the main body of his troops, detached some cavalry from Villa Franca to scour the valleys on his left, and ordered a division of infantry to march by the road of Orense and St. Jago to Coruña. General Marchand, who commanded it, overthrew and dispersed Mendizabel’s troops on the 17th, and, having halted some days at Orense, to patrole the neighbourhood for information and to establish an hospital, continued his march to St. Jago.