This skirmish proved that, while the Agueda was swollen, the enemy could gain nothing by slight operations; but it was difficult to keep in advance of the Coa: the want of money had reduced the whole army to straits, and Crawfurd, notwithstanding his prodigious activity, being unable to feed his division, gave the reins to his fiery temper, and seized some church-plate, with a view to the purchasing of corn. For this impolitic act he was immediately rebuked, and such redress granted that no mischief followed; and the proceeding itself had some effect in procuring supplies, as it convinced the priests that the distress was not feigned.
When the sixth corps again approached Ciudad Rodrigo in the latter end of April, lord Wellington, as I have before said, moved his head-quarters to Celerico, and Carrera took post at St. Martin Trebeja, occupying the pass of Perales; being, however, menaced there by Kellerman’s troops, he came down, in May, from the hills to Ituero on the Azava river, and connected his left with the light division, which was then posted at Gallegos Espeja and Barba del Puerco. Crawfurd and he then agreed that, if attacked, the British should concentrate in the wood behind Espeja, and, if unable to maintain themselves there, unite with the Spaniards at Nava d’Aver, and finally retire to Villa Mayor, a village covering the passage of the Coa by the bridge of Seceira, from whence there was a sure retreat to Guarda.
It was at this period that Massena’s arrival in Spain became known to the allies; the deserters, for the first time, ceased to speak of the emperor’s commanding in person; yet all agreed that serious operations would soon commence. Howbeit, as the river continued unfordable, Crawfurd maintained his position; but, towards the end of May, certain advice of the march of the French battering-train was received through Andreas Herrasti: and, the 1st of June, Ney, descending upon Ciudad Rodrigo, threw a bridge, on trestles, over the Agueda at the convent of Caridad, two miles above; and, a few days afterwards, a second at Carboneras, four miles below the fortress. As this concentration of the French relieved the northern provinces of Portugal from danger, sixteen regiments of militia were brought down from Braganza to the Lower Douro; provisions came by water to Lamego, and the army was enabled to subsist.
The 8th of June four thousand French cavalry crossed the Agueda, Crawfurd concentrated his forces at Gallegos and Espeja, and the Spaniards occupied the wood behind the last-named village. It was at this moment, when Spain was overwhelmed, and when the eye could scarcely command the interminable lines of French in his immediate front, that Martin Carrera thought fit to invite marshal Ney to desert!
Nothing could be more critical than Crawfurd’s position. From the Agueda to the Coa the whole country, although studded with woods and scooped into hollows, was free for cavalry and artillery, and there were at least six thousand horsemen and fifty guns within an hour’s march of his position. His right was at Espeja, where thick woods in front rendered it impossible to discover an enemy until close upon the village; while wide plains behind, almost precluded hope, in a retreat before the multitude of French cavalry and artillery. The confluence of the Azava with the Agueda offered more security on his left, because the channel of the former river there became a chasm, and the ground rose high and rugged at each side of the bridge of Marialva, two miles in front of Gallegos. Nevertheless, the bank on the enemy’s side was highest, and, to obtain a good prospect, it was necessary to keep posts beyond the Azava; moreover the bridge of Marialva could be turned by a ford, below the confluence of the streams. The 10th, the Agueda became fordable in all parts, but, as the enemy occupied himself raising redoubts, to secure his bridge at Carboneras, and making preparations for the siege of Rodrigo, Crawfurd, trusting to his own admirable arrangements, and to the surprising discipline of his troops, still maintained his dangerous position: thus encouraging the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo, and protecting the villages in the plain between the Azava and the Coa from the enemy’s foraging parties.
On the 18th, the eighth corps was seen to take post at San Felices, and other points; and all the villages, from the Sierra de Francia to the Douro, were occupied by the French army. The 23d, Julian Sanchez, breaking out of Ciudad, came into Gallegos. On the 25th, the French batteries opened against the fortress, their cavalry closed upon the Azava, and Crawfurd withdrew his outposts to the left bank. The 26th, it was known that Herrasti had lost one hundred and fifty killed, and five hundred wounded; and, the 29th, a Spaniard, passing the French posts, brought Carrera a note, containing these words: “O venir luego! luego! luego! a socorrer esta plaza.” (“Oh! come, now! now! now! to the succour of this place.”) And, on the 1st of July, the gallant old man repeated his “Luego, luego, luego, por ultimo vez.”
Meanwhile, lord Wellington (hoping that the enemy, by detaching troops, would furnish an opportunity of relieving Ciudad Rodrigo) transferred his quarters to Alverca, a village half-way between Almeida and Celerico. The Spaniards supposed he would attack; and Romana, quitting Badajos, came to propose a combined movement for carrying off the garrison. This was a trying moment! The English general had come from the Guadiana with the avowed purpose of securing Rodrigo; he had, in a manner, pledged himself to make it a point in his operations; his army was close at hand; the garrison brave and distressed; the governor honourably fulfilling his part. To permit such a place to fall without a stroke struck, would be a grievous disaster, and a more grievous dishonour to the British arms; the troops desired the enterprise; the Spaniards demanded it, as a proof of good faith; the Portuguese to keep the war away from their own country: finally, policy seemed to call for an effort, lest the world might deem the promised defence of Portugal a heartless and a hollow boast. Nevertheless, Romana returned without his object. Lord Wellington absolutely refused to venture even a brigade; and thus proved himself a truly great commander, and of a steadfast mind.
It was not a single campaign but a terrible war that he had undertaken. If he lost but five thousand men, his own government would abandon the contest; if he lost fifteen, he must abandon it himself. His whole disposable force did not exceed fifty-six thousand men: of these, twelve thousand were with Hill, and one-half of the remainder were untried and raw. But this included all, even to the Portuguese cavalry and garrisons. All could not, however, be brought into line, because Reynier, acting in concert with Massena, had, at this period, collected boats, and made demonstrations to pass the Tagus and move upon Coria; French troops were also crossing the Morena, in march towards Estremadura, which obliged lord Wellington to detach eight thousand Portuguese to Thomar, as a reserve, and these and Hill’s corps being deducted, not quite twenty-five thousand men were available to carry off the garrison in the face of sixty thousand French veterans. This enterprise would also take the army two marches from Guarda, and Coria was scarcely more distant from that place, hence, a division must have been left at Guarda, lest Reynier, deceiving Hill, should reach it first.
Twenty thousand men of all arms remained, and there were two modes of using them. 1º. In an open advance and battle. 2º. In a secret movement and surprise. To effect the last, the army might have assembled in the night upon the Azava, and filed over the single bridge of Ciudad Rodrigo, with a view of capturing the battering train, by a sally, or of bringing off the garrison. But, without Appendix, [No. VII.] Section I.dwelling on the fact that Massena’s information was so good that he knew, in two days after it occurred, the object of Romana’s visit, such a movement could scarcely have been made unobserved, even in the early part of the siege, and, certainly, not towards the end, when the enemy were on the Azava.
An open battle a madman only would have ventured. The army, passing over a plain, in the face of nearly three times its own numbers, must have exposed its flanks to the enemy’s bridges on the Agueda, because the fortress was situated in the bottom of a deep bend of the river, and the French were on the convex side. What hope then for twenty thousand mixed soldiers cooped up between two rivers, when eight thousand cavalry and eighty guns should come pouring over the bridges on their flanks, and fifty thousand infantry followed to the attack? What would even a momentary success avail? Five thousand undisciplined men brought off from Ciudad Rodrigo, would have ill supplied the ten or twelve thousand good troops lost in the battle, and the temporary relief of the fortress would have been a poor compensation for the loss of Portugal. For what was the actual state of affairs in that country?—The militia deserting in crowds to the harvest, the Regency in full opposition to the general, the measures for laying waste the country not perfected, and the public mind desponding! The enemy would soon have united his whole force and advanced to retrieve his honour, and who was to have withstood him?