1809.
When Gallicia was delivered by the campaign of Talavera, the Asturias became the head of a new line of operation threatening the enemy’s principal communication with France. But this advantage was feebly used. Kellerman’s division at Valladolid, and Bonet’s at San Andero, sufficed to hold both Asturians and Gallicians in check; and the sanguinary operations in the valley of the Tagus, were colaterally, as well as directly, unprofitable to the allies. In other parts the war was steadily progressive in favour of the French; yet their career was one of pains and difficulties.
Hitherto Biscay had been tranquil, and Navarre so submissive, that the artillery employed against Zaragoza, was conveyed by the country people, without an escort, from Pampeluna to Tudela. But when the battle of Belchite terminated the regular warfare in Aragon, the Guerilla system commenced in those parts; and as the chiefs acquired reputation at the moment when Blake was losing credit by defeats, the dispersed soldiers flocked to their standards; hoping thus to cover past disgrace, and to live with a greater license, because the regular armies suffered under the restraints without enjoying the benefits of discipline, while the irregulars purveyed for themselves.
Zaragoza is surrounded by rugged mountains, and every range became the mother of a Guerilla brood; nor were the regular Partizan corps less numerous than the Partidas. On the left of the Ebro, the Catalonian colonels, Baget, Perena, Pedroza, and the chief Theobaldo, brought their Migueletes to the Sierra de Guara, overhanging Huesca and Barbastro. In this position, commanding the sources of the Cinca and operating on both sides of that river, they harassed the communication between Zaragoza and the French outposts; and maintained an intercourse with the governor of Lerida, who directed the movements and supplied the wants of all the bands in Aragon.
On the right of the Ebro, troops raised in the district of Molina, were united to the corps of Gayan, and that officer, taking possession of the mountains of Montalvan, the valley of the Xiloca, and the town of Daroca, pushed his advanced guards even to the plain of Zaragoza, and occupied Nuestra Senora del Aguilar. This convent, situated on the top of a high rock, near Cariñena, he made a depôt of provisions and ammunition, and surrounded the building with an entrenched camp for three thousand men.
On Gayan’s left, general Villa Campa, a man of talent and energy, established himself at Calatayud, with the regular regiments of Soria and La Princessa, and making fresh levies, rapidly formed a large force, with which he cut the direct line of communication between Zaragoza and Madrid.
Beyond Villa Campa’s positions the circle of war was continued by other bands; which, descending from the Moncayo mountains, infested the districts of Taranzona and Borja, and intercepted the communications between Tudela and Zaragoza.
The younger Mina, called the student, vexed all the country between Tudela and Pampeluna; and the inhabitants of the high Pyrennean valleys of Roncal, Salazar, Anso, and Echo, were also in arms, and commanded by Renovalles. This general officer, taken at Zaragoza, was, by the French, said to have broken his parole; but he, pleading a previous breach of the capitulation, fled to Lerida, and from thence passing with some regular officers into the valleys, took the command of the insurrection, and succeeded in surprising several French detachments. His principal post was at the convent of San Juan de la Pena, which is built on a rock, remarkable in Spanish history as a place of refuge maintained with success against the Moorish conquerors. The bodies of twenty-two kings of Aragon rested in the church, and the whole rock was held in veneration by the Aragonese, and supposed to be invulnerable. From this post Saraza, acting under Renovalles, continually menaced Jaca, and communicating with Baget, Pedroza, and Father Theobaldo, completed, as it were, the investment of the third corps.
All these bands, amounting to, at least, twenty thousand armed men, commenced their operations at once, cutting off isolated men, intercepting convoys and couriers, and attacking the weakest parts of the French army. Meanwhile Blake having rallied his fugitives at Tortoza, abandoned Aragon to its fate, and proceeding to Taragona, endeavoured to keep the war alive in Catalonia.
Suchet, in following up his victory at Belchite, had sent detachments as far as Morella, on the borders of Valencia, and pushed his scouting parties close up to Tortoza; but finding the dispersion of Blake’s troops complete, he posted Meusnier’s division on the line of the Guadalupe, with orders to repair the castle of Alcanitz, so as to form a head of cantonments on the right bank of the Ebro. Then crossing that river at Caspe with the rest of the army, he made demonstrations against Mequinenza, and even menaced Lerida, obliging the governor to draw in his detachments, and close the gates. Suchet, however, continued his march by Fraga, recrossed the Cinca, and leaving Habert’s division to guard that line, returned himself in the latter end of June to Zaragoza by the road of Monzon.