History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 4

by William Francis Patrick Napier

To feed Barcelona, Maurice Mathieu at times occupied the head-lands from St. Filieu, to Blanes, with troops, and thus small convoys crept along shore; a fleet loaded with provisions and powder, escorted by three frigates, entered it in February, and a continual stream of supply was also kept up by sailing-boats and other small vessels, which could not be easily detected amidst the numerous craft belonging to the people along the coast. And besides these channels, as the claims of hunger are paramount to all others, it was necessary, for the sake of the inhabitants, to permit provision sometimes to reach Barcelona by land; the Spanish generals winked at it, and Milans and Lacy, have even been charged with permitting corn to pass into that city for private profit, as well as from consideration for the citizens. By these, and like expedients, the war was sustained.

No important event occurred after the skirmish1811. March. in which Eugenio fell, until the 3d of March, when the Spaniards having observed that the garrison of Tortoza was weakened by the detachment at Perillo, endeavoured to cut the latter off, intending if successful to assault Tortoza itself. At the same timeOfficial Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches. MSS. they also attacked the fort of San Filippe, but failed, and the French at Perillo effected their retreat although with considerable loss. This attempt was however followed by a more important effort. On the 19th of March, Campo Verde having assembled eight thousand men at Molinos del Rey, four thousand at Guisols, and three thousand at Igualada, prepared to surprise the city and forts of Barcelona, for he had, as he thought, corrupted the town-major of Monjuic. Trusting to this treason, he first sent eight hundred chosen grenadiers in the night by the hills of Hospitalette, to enter that place, and they descended into the ditch in expectation of having the gate opened; but Maurice Mathieu, apprized of the plan, had prepared every thing to receive this unfortunate column, which was in an instant overwhelmed with fire.

Napoleon now changed the system of the war. All that part of Catalonia west of the Upper Llobregat, and from Igualada by Ordal to the sea, including the district of Tortoza, was placed under Suchet’s government, and seventeen thousand of Macdonald’s troops were united to the third corps, which was thus augmented to forty-two thousand men, and took the title of the “Army of Aragon.” It was destined to besiege Taragona, while Macdonald, whose force was thus reduced to twenty-seven thousand under arms, including fifteen thousand in garrison and in the Ampurdan, was restricted to the upper part of Catalonia. His orders were to attack Cardona, Berga, Seu d’Urgel, and Montserrat, and to wear down Martinez, Manso, Rovira, and other chiefs, who kept in the mountains between Olot and the Cerdaña: and a division of five thousand men, chiefly composed of national guards, was also ordered to assemble at Mont Louis, for the purpose of acting in the Cerdaña, and on the rear of the partizans in the high valleys. By these means the line of operations for the invasion of Catalonia was altered from France to Aragon, the difficulties were lessened, the seventh corps reduced in numbers, became, instead of the principal, the secondary army; and Macdonald’s formal method was thus exchanged for the lively vigorous talent of Suchet. But the delay already caused in the siege of Tortoza, could never be compensated; Suchet had been kept on the Ebro, when he should have been on the Guadalaviar, and this enabled the Murcians to keep the fourth corps in Grenada, when it should have been on the Tagus aiding Massena.

CHAPTER IV.

When the troops of the seventh corps were incorporated1811. March. with the army of Aragon, the preparations for the siege of Taragona, were pushed forward with Suchet’s usual activity; but previous to touching upon that subject it is necessary to notice the guerilla warfare, which Villa Campa, and others, had carried on against Aragon during the siege of Tortoza. This warfare was stimulated by the appointment of the secret juntas, and by the supplies which England furnished, especially along the northern coast, from Coruña to Bilbao, where experience had also produced a better application of them than heretofore. The movements of the English squadrons, in that sea, being from the same cause better combined with the operations of the Partidas, rendered the latter more formidable, and they became more harassing to the enemy as they acquired something of the consistency of regular troops in their organization, although irregular in their mode of operations: for it must not be supposed, that because the guerilla system was in itself unequal to the deliverance of the country, and was necessarily accompanied with great evils, that as an auxiliary it was altogether useless. The interruption of the French correspondence was, as I have already said, tantamount to a diminution on their side of thirty thousand regular troops, without reckoning those who were necessarily employed to watch and pursue the Partidas; this estimate may even be considered too low, and it is certain that the moral effect produced over Europe by the struggle thus maintained, was very considerable.

Nevertheless the same number of men under a good discipline would have been more efficacious, less onerous to the country people, and less subversive of social order. When the regular army is completed, all that remains in a country may be turned to advantage as irregulars, yet they are to be valued as their degree of organization approaches that of the regular troops: thus militia are better than armed bodies of peasantry, and these last, if directed by regular officers, better than sudden insurrections of villagers. But the Spanish armies were never completed, never well organized; and when they were dispersed, which happened nearly as often as they took the field, the war must have ceased in Spain, had it not been kept alive by the Partidas, and it is there we find their moral value. Again, when the British armies kept the field, the Partidas harassed the enemy’s communications, and this constituted their military value; yet it is certain[Appendix, No. I.] Section 2. that they never much exceeded thirty thousand in number; and they could not have long existed in any numbers without the supplies of England, unless a spirit of order and providence, very different from any thing witnessed during the war, had arisen in Spain. How absurd then to reverse the order of the resources possessed by an invaded country, to confound the moral with the military means, to place the irregular resistance of the peasants first, and that of the soldiers last in the scale of physical defence.

That many of the Partida chiefs became less active, after they received regular rank, is undeniable; but this was not so much a consequence of the change of denomination, as of the inveterate abuses which oppressed the vigour of the regular armies, and by which the Partidas were necessarily affected when they became a constituent part of those armies; many persons of weight have indeed ascribed entirely to this cause, the acknowledged diminution of their general activity at one period. It seems, however, more probable that a life of toil and danger, repeated defeats, the scarcity of plunder, and the discontent of the people at the exactions of the chiefs, had in reality abated the desire to continue the struggle; inactivity was rather the sign of subjection than the result of an injudicious interference by the government. But it is time to support this reasoning by facts.

During the siege of Tortoza, the concentration of the third and seventh corps exposed Aragon and Catalonia to desultory enterprises at a moment when the Partidas, rendered more numerous and powerful by the secret juntas, were also more ardent, from the assembly of the Cortez, by which the people’s importance in the struggle seemed at last to be acknowledged. Hence no better test of their real influence on the general operations can be found than their exploits during that period, when two French armies were fixed as it were to one spot, the supplies from France nearly cut off by natural difficulties, the district immediately around Tortoza completely sterile, Catalonia generally exhausted, and a project to create a fictitious scarcity in the fertile parts of Aragon diligently and in some sort successfully pursued by the secret juntas. The number of French foraging parties, and the distances to which they were sent were then greatly increased, and the facility of cutting them off proportionably augmented. Now the several operations of Villa Campa during the blockade have been already related, but, although sometimes successful, the results were mostly adverse to the Spaniards; and when that chief, after the siege was actually commenced, came down, on the 19th December 1810, towards the side of Daroca, his cavalry was surprised by colonel Kliski, who captured or killed one hundred and fifty in the village of Blancas. The Spanish chief then retired, but being soon after joined by the Empecinado from Cuença, he returned in January to the frontier of Aragon, and took post between Molina and Albaracin.