The allies broke up from the Caya the 21st of July, and they had received considerable reinforcements, especially in cavalry, but they were sickly and required a change of cantonments; hence when an intercepted despatch gave reason to believe that Ciudad Rodrigo was in want of provisions, Wellington suddenly crossed the Tagus at Vilha Velha, and marched in the beginning of August by Castello Branco and Penamacor towards Rodrigo, hoping to surprise it in a starving state, but giving out that his movement was for the sake of healthy quarters. His movement was unmolested save by some FrenchGeneral Harvey’s Journal. dragoons, from the side of Placentia, who captured a convoy of seventy mules loaded with wine near Pedrogoa, and getting drunk with their booty attacked some Portuguese infantry, who repulsed them and recovered the mules; but there were other ostensible objects besides the obvious one of removing from the well-known pestilence of the Guadiana, which contributed to blind the French as to the secret motives of the English general. We have seen that Dorsenne was menacing Gallicia, and that Soult was in full operation against the Murcians; it was supposed that he intended to invade Murcia itself, and therefore the march of the allies had the double object, of saving Gallicia, by menacing the rear of the invading army; and of relieving Murcia by forcing Marmont to look after Ciudad Rodrigo, and thus draw him away from the support of Soult, who would not, it was supposed, then quit Andalusia.
Gallicia was meanwhile in great danger, for the Partidas of the north had been vigorously repressed by Caffarelli and Reille, which enabled Dorsenne to collect about twenty thousand men on the Esla. Abadia, who had succeeded Santocildes,General Walker’s Correspondence, MSS. was posted with about seven thousand disciplined men behind this river, and he had a reserve of fifteen hundred at Foncebadon; but he could make no head, for to this number the GallicianAbadia’s ditto, MSS. army had again dwindled, and these were starving. The 25th the French, having passed the river in four columns, made a concentric march upon Astorga. Abadia, whose rear-guard sustained a sharp conflict near La Baneza, retreated, precisely by the same line as sir John Moore had done in 1809, and with about the same relative proportion of force; but as he only took the Foncebadon road[Appendix, No. V.] Section 1. and did not use the same diligence and skill as that general, the enemy forestalling him by Manzanal and Bembibre, cut him off from Villa Franca del Bierzo and from the road to Lugo, and on the 27th drove him into the Val des Orres. During this operation the division of the army of the north, which Bessieres had sent with the convoy to Ciudad Rodrigo, entered that place and returned to Salamanca.
The Spanish general having thus lost his line of communication with Lugo, and the few stores he possessed at Villa Franca, took post at Domingo Flores in the Val des Orres, where he entered aSir H. Douglas’s Correspondence, MSS. strong country, and, under the worst circumstances, could retire upon Portugal and save his troops if not his province. But his army which was in the utmost distress before, for shoes and clothing, was now ready to disband from misery, and the consternation in Gallicia was excessive. That province torn by faction, stood helpless before the invader, who could, and would, have taken both Coruña and Ferrol, but for the sudden arrival of the allies on the Coa, which obliged him, for his own safety, to return to the plains. Souham, also, who was coming from Burgos, by forced marches, to support Dorsenne, halted at Rio Seco, and Abadia did not fail to ascribe all this to the loss he had inflicted, but his vanity was laughed at.
To have thus saved Gallicia was a great thing. That kingdom was the base of all the operations against the line of communication with France; from thence went forth, those British squadrons which nourished the guerilla warfare in Biscay, in the Montaña, in Navarre, in the Rioja, and the Asturias; it was the chief resource for the supply of cattle to the allied army, it was the outwork of Portugal, and honestly and vigorously governed, would have been more important than Catalonia. But like the rest of Spain it was always weak from disorders, and, if the allies had remained in Alemtejo, there was nothing to prevent Dorsenne from conquering it; for though he should not have taken Ferrol and Coruña, the points of St. Jago, Lugo, Villa Franca, and Orense would have given him an entire command of the interior, and the Spaniards holding the ports only would not have been able to dislodge him.
Lord Wellington arrived upon the Coa about the1811. August. 8th of August, intending, as I have said, first a close blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, and finally a siege; it was however soon known that the French had on the 6th supplied the place for two months, and the first part of the design was therefore relinquished. The troops were then quartered near the sources of the Coa and Agueda, close to the line of communication between Marmont and Dorsenne, and in a country where there was still some corn. If the enemy advanced in superior numbers, the army could retire through a strong country to a position of battle near Sabugal, whence the communication with Hill was direct. Nor was the rest of Beira left unprotected, because the French would have exposed their left flank, by any advance in the direction of Almeida, and the allies could, by Guarda, send detachments to the valley of the Mondego in time to secure the magazines at Celerico. The line of supply from Lamego along which the battering-train was now moving, was however rather exposed.
While the army was in this position, the preparations for the siege went on briskly, until Wellington learned, contrary to his former belief, that the disposable force of the army of the north, was above twenty thousand good troops; and consequently, that Ciudad Rodrigo could not be attacked in face of that corps, and of Marmont’s army. Then changing his plan, he resolved to blockade the place, and wait for some opportunity to strike a sudden blow, either against the fortress, or against the enemy’s troops; for it was the foundation of his hopes, that as the French could not long remain in masses, for want of provisions, and that he could check those masses on the frontier of Portugal, so he could always force them to concentrate, or suffer the loss of some important post. But it is worthy of observation, that his plans were based on calculations which did not comprise the Gallician army. He had no expectation that it would act at all, or if it did, that it would act effectually. It had no cavalry, and the infantry being undisciplined dared not enter the plains in face of the enemy’s horsemen; yet this was in August 1811, and Gallicia had not seen the face of an enemy since June 1809!
Early in September, Marmont, pushing a detachment from Placencia through the passes, surprised a British cavalry piquet, at St. Martin de Trebejo, and opened his communications with Dorsenne. Nevertheless lord Wellington formed the blockade. His head-quarters were fixed at Guinaldo, the fifth division was placed at Perales, in observation of Marmont, and the first division, now commanded by general Graham, occupied Penamacor. A battery of artillery, was withdrawn from Hill, and three brigades of that general’s corps, reinforced by a Portuguese regiment, passed the Tagus, and were placed on the Ponçul, in advance of Castello Branco, to protect the magazines on that line of communication. Meanwhile the battering-train was collected at Villa de Ponte, the troops were employed to prepare gabions and fascines, and the engineers instructed two hundred men of the line, in the duties of sappers. The bridge over the Coa at Almeida which had been broken by Massena, was permanently repaired, and the works of Almeida itself, were ordered to be once more restored to form a place of arms for the battering-train and stores; Carlos d’España came also to Leon to form a new army under the protection of the allies, but he was without officers, arms, money, or stores, and his force was a mere name.
CHAPTER VIII.
During the first arrangements, for the blockade1811. Sept. of Ciudad Rodrigo, the garrison made some excursions, to beat up the quarters of the British cavalry, and to forage the villages; and some lancers from Salamanca drove Julian Sanchez from Ledesma. Meanwhile in Estremadura, Morillo chased the enemy from Caceres, and advancing to Montanches, menaced Truxillo, but being beaten there by general Foy, he returned to Montijo, where some French cavalry, arriving from Zafra, again defeated him and drove him to Albuquerque. Other military operations, worth relating, there were none, but the civil transactions in Portugal were very important.