To restore and maintain Alcantara was beyond the means of the duke of Ragusa; he therefore repaired the bridge of Almaraz, and constructed two strong forts, one at each side, to protect it, and to serve as an intermediate field depôt; a third and more considerable fort was also built on the high ridge of Mirabete, to insure a passage over the hills from Almaraz to Truxillo. A free intercourse with the army of the south was thus secured on one side, and on the other, the passes of Baños and Bejar, and the Roman road of Puerto Pico, which had been restored in 1810, served for communication with the army of the north.
The French affairs had now assumed a very favourable aspect. There was indeed a want of money, but the generals were obeyed with scrupulous attention by the people of Spain, not only within the districts occupied by them, but even in those villages where the guerillas were posted. This obedience lord Wellington attributed entirely to fear, and hoped as the exactions were heavy, that the people would at last fight or fly from their habitations on the approach of a French soldier; but this did not happen generally, and to me it appears, that the obedience was rather a symptom of the subjection of the nation, and that with a judicious mixture of mildness and severity perfect submission would have followed if England had not kept the war alive.
On the other hand the weakness and anarchy of the Spaniards were daily increasing, and the disputes, between the British general and the Portuguese government, had arrived to such a height, that lord Wellington, having drawn up powerful and clear statements of his grievous situation, sent one to the Brazils and the other to his own government, with a positive intimation that if an entirely new system was not immediately adopted he would no longer attempt to carry on the contest. Lord Wellesley, taking his stand upon this ground, made strenuous exertions in both countries to prevent the ruin of the cause; but lord Wellington, while expecting the benefit of his brother’s interference, had to contend with the most surprising difficulties, and to seek in his own personal resources for the means of even defending Portugal. He had sent marshal Beresford to Lisbon, immediately after Albuera, to superintend the reorganization and restoration of the Portuguese forces, and Beresford had sent Mr. De Lemos, an officer of his own staff, to the Brazils, to represent the inconveniences arising from the interference of the regency in the military affairs. On the other hand the Souzas sent one Vasconcellos, who had been about the British head-quarters as their spy, to Rio Janeiro, and thus the political intrigues became more complicated than ever.
But with respect to the war Wellington had penetrated Napoleon’s object, when he saw Marmont’s position in the valley of the Tagus; he felt the full force of the emperor’s military reasoning, yet he did not despair, if he could overcome the political obstacles, to gain some advantage. He had now a powerful and experienced British force under his command, the different departments and the staff of the army were every day becoming more skilful and ready, and he had also seen enough of his adversaries to estimate their powers. The king he knew to be no general, and discontented with the marshals; Soult he had found able and vast in his plans, but too cautious in their execution; Marmont, with considerable vigour, had already shown some rashness in the manner he had pushed Reynier’s division forward, after passing the Tagus, and it was, therefore, easy to conceive that no very strict concert would be maintained in their combined operations.
Lord Wellington had also established some good channels of information. He had a number of spies amongst the Spaniards who were living within the French lines; a British officer in disguise, constantly visited the French armies in the field; a Spanish state-counsellor, living at the head-quarters of the first corps, gave intelligence from that side, and a guitar-player of celebrity, named Fuentes, repeatedly making his way to Madrid, brought advice from thence. Mr. Stuart, under cover of vessels licensed to fetch corn for France, kept chasse marées constantly plying along the Biscay coast, by which he not only acquired direct information, but facilitated the transmission of intelligence from the land spies, amongst whom the most remarkable was a cobbler, living in a little hutch at the end of the bridge of Irun. This man while plying his trade, continued for years, without being suspected, to count every French soldier, that passed in or out of Spain by that passage, and transmitted their numbers by the chasse marées to Lisbon.
With the exception of the state spy at Victor’s head-quarters, who being a double traitor was infamous, all the persons thus employed were very meritorious. The greater number, and the cleverest also, were Spanish gentlemen, alcaldes, or poor men, who disdaining rewards and disregarding danger, acted from a pure spirit of patriotism, and are to be lauded alike for their boldness, their talent, and their virtue. Many are dead. Fuentes was drowned in passing a river, on one of his expeditions; and the alcalde of Caceres, a man, of the clearest courage and patriotism, who expended his own property in the cause, and spurned at remuneration, was on Ferdinand’s restoration cast into a dungeon, where he perished; a victim to the unbounded ingratitude and baseness of the monarch he had served so well!
With such means lord Wellington did not despair of baffling the deep policy of the emperor in the field. He thought that the saying of Henry the Fourth of France, that “large armies would starve and small ones be beaten in Spain,” was still applicable. He felt that a solid possession of Portugal and her resources, which, through his brother’s aid, he hoped to have, would enable him either to strike partial blows against the French, or oblige them to concentrate in large masses, which, confident in his own martial genius he felt he could hold in check, while the Spaniards ruined the small posts, and disorganized the civil administrations in their rear. Hitherto, indeed, the Spaniards had not made any such efforts except by the partidas, which were insufficient; but time, his own remonstrances, and the palpable advantages of the system, he trusted would yet teach them what to do.
Having deeply meditated upon these matters and received his reinforcements from England, he resolved to leave Hill with ten thousand infantry, a division of cavalry, and four brigades of artillery, about Portalegre, Villa Viciosa, and Estremos. From these rich towns which were beyond the influence of the Guadiana fever, the troops could rapidly concentrate either for an advance or retreat; and the latter was secured upon Abrantes, or upon the communications with Beira, by Niza, and Vilha Velha, where a permanent boat-bridge had now been established. The front was protected by Elvas, Jerumenha, Campo Mayor, and Ouguella; and Castaños also remained in Estremadura with the fifth army, which by the return of the cavalry from Ayamonte and the formation of Downie’s legion now amounted to about a thousand infantry and nine hundred horse. This force placed on the side of Montijo, had Albuquerque and Valencia de Alcantara as posts of support, and a retreat either by the fords of the Tagus near the bridge of Alcantara, or upon Portugal by Marvão and Castello de Vide. Hill’s position was thus so well covered, that he could not be surprised, nor even pressed except by a very strong army; and he was always on the watch as we shall hereafter find, to make incursions against the division of the fifth corps, which remained in Estremadura. The rest of the army was then placed in quarters of refreshment at Castello de Vide, Marvão and other places near the Tagus, partly to avoid the Guadiana fever, partly to meet Marmont’s movement to that river.
When this disposition was made, the English general arranged his other measures of offence. The conduct of the Portuguese government and the new positions of the French armies had, as Napoleon had foreseen, left him no means of undertaking any sustained operation; but, as he was ignorant of the great strength of the army of the north, he hoped to find an opportunity of taking Ciudad Rodrigo before Marmont could come to its assistance. For this purpose he had caused a fine train of iron battering guns, and mortars, together with a reinforcement of British artillery-men, which had arrived at Lisbon from England, to be shipped in large vessels, and then with some ostentation made them sail as it were for Cadiz; at sea they were however shifted on board small craft, and while the original vessels actually arrived at Cadiz and Gibraltar, the guns were secretly brought first to Oporto and then in boats to Lamego. During this process, several engineer, artillery, and commissariat officers, were sent to meet and transport these guns, and the necessary stores for a siege, to Villaponte near Celerico; and as one of the principal magazines of the army was at Lamego, and a constant intercourse was kept up between it and Celerico, another great depôt, the arrival, and passage of the guns and stores to their destination was not likely to attract the attention of the French spies.
Other combinations were also employed, both to deceive the enemy and to prepare the means for a sudden attack, before the troops commenced their march for Beira; but the hiding of such extensive preparations from the French would have been scarcely possible, if the personal hatred borne to the invaders by the peninsulars, combined with the latter’s peculiar subtlety of character, had not prevented any information spreading abroad, beyond the fact that artillery had arrived at Oporto. The operation of bringing sixty-eight huge guns, with proportionate stores, across nearly fifty miles of mountain, was however one of no mean magnitude;[Appendix, No. V.] Section 1. five thousand draft bullocks were required for the train alone, and above a thousand militia were for several weeks employed merely to repair the road.