1º.—To defend a river, on a long line, is generally hopeless, and especially when the defenders have not the means of passing freely, in several places, to the opposite bank. Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus, Turenne, Napoleon, Wellington, and hundreds of others have shown how the passage of rivers may be won. Umenes, who prevented Antigonus from passing the Coprates, is, perhaps, the only example of a general baffling the efforts of a skilful and enterprising enemy in such an attempt.
2º.—The defence of rivers having always proved fruitless, it follows that no general should calculate upon success, and that he should exert the greatest energy, activity, and vigilance to avoid a heavy disaster; that all his lines of retreat should be kept free and open, and be concentric; and that to bring his magazines and depôts close up to the army, in such a situation, is rashness itself. Now Cuesta was inactive, and, disregarding the maxim which forbids the establishment of magazines in the first line of defence, brought up the whole of his to Deleyton and Truxillo. His combinations were ill-arranged; he abandoned Mirabete without an effort, his depôts fell into the hands of the enemy, and his retreat was confused and eccentric, inasmuch as part of his army retired into the Guadalupe, while others went to Merida, and he himself to Medellin.
3º.—The line of retreat upon Medellin and Campanarios, instead of Badajos, being determined by the necessity of uniting with Albuquerque, cannot be blamed, and the immediate return to Medellin was bold and worthy of praise, but its merit consisted in recovering the offensive immediately after a defeat; wherefore, Cuesta should not have halted at Medellin, thus giving the lead again to the French general; he should have continued to advance, and have fallen upon the scattered divisions of the French army, endeavouring to beat them in detail, and to rally his own detachments in the Sierra de Guadalupe. The error of stopping short at Medellin would have been apparent, if Victor, placing a rear-guard to amuse the Spanish general, had taken the road to Seville by Almendralejos and Zafra.
4º. Cuesta’s general design for the battle of Medellin was well imagined, that is, it was right to hide his army behind the ridge, and to defer the attack until the enemy had developed his force and order of battle in the plain, but the execution was on the lowest scale. If, instead of advancing in one long and weak line, without a reserve, Cuesta had held the greatest part of his troops in solid columns, and thrust them between Lassalle and Latour Maubourg’s divisions, which were pushed out like horns from the main body of the French, those generals would have been cut off, and the battle commenced by dividing the French army into three unconnected masses, while the Spaniards would have been compact, well in hand, and masters of the general movements. Nothing could then have saved Victor, except hard fighting; but Cuesta’s actual dispositions rendered it impossible for the Spaniards to win the battle by courage, or to escape the pursuit by swiftness.
5º. It is remarkable that the Spanish general seems never to have thought of putting Truxillo, Guadalupe, Merida, Estrella, or Medellin in a state of defence, although most if not all those places had some castle or walls capable of resisting a sudden assault. There was time to do it, for Cuesta remained unmolested, on the Tagus, from January to the middle of March; and every additional point of support thus obtained for an undisciplined army would have diminished the advantages derived by the French from their superior facility of movement. The places themselves might have been garrisoned by the citizens and peasantry, and a week’s, a day’s, nay, even an hour’s, delay was of importance to a force like Cuesta’s, which, from its inexperience, must have always been liable to confusion.
SOULT.
1º. The march of this general in one column, upon Tuy, was made under the impression that resistance would not be offered; otherwise, it is probable that a division of infantry and a brigade of cavalry would have been sent from St. Jago or Mellid direct upon Orense, to insure the passage of the Minho; and it seems to have been an error in Ney, arising, probably, from the same cause, not to have kept Marchand’s division of the sixth corps at Orense until the second corps had effected an entrance into Portugal.
2º. Soult’s resolution to place the artillery and stores in Tuy, and march into Portugal, trusting to victory for re-opening the communication, would increase the reputation of any general. Three times before he reached Oporto he was obliged to halt, in order to fabricate cartridges for the infantry, from the powder taken in battle; and his whole progress from Tuy to that city was energetic and able in the extreme.
3º. The military proceedings, after the taking of Oporto, do not all bear the same stamp. The administration of the civil affairs appears to have engrossed the marshal’s attention; and his absence from the immediate scene of action sensibly affected the operations. Franceschi shewed too much respect for Trant’s corps. Loison’s movements were timid and slow; and even Laborde’s genius seems to have been asleep. The importance of crushing Sylveira was obvious. Now, there is nothing more necessary in war than to strike with all the force you can at once; but here Caulaincourt was first sent, and being too weak, Loison reinforced him, and Laborde reinforced Loison; and all were scarcely sufficient at last to do that which half would have done at first; but the whole of these transactions are obscure. The great delay that took place before the bridge of Amarante; the hesitation and frequent recurrence for orders to the marshal, indicate want of zeal, and a desire to procrastinate, in opposition to Soult’s wishes. Judging from Mr. Noble’s history of the campaign, this must be traced to a conspiracy in the French army, which shall be touched upon hereafter.
4º. The resistance made by the Portuguese peasantry was infinitely creditable to their courage; but there cannot be a stronger proof of the inefficacy of a like defence, when unsupported by good troops. No country is more favourable to such a warfare than the northern provinces of Portugal; the people were brave, and they had the assistance of the organized forces under Romana, Sylveira, Eben, and the bishop: yet we find, that Soult, in the very worst season of the year, overcame all resistance, and penetrated to Oporto, without an actual loss, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of more than two thousand five hundred men, including the twelve hundred sick, captured at Chaves.