In the night of the 31st a parallel five hundred yards long was built of fascines and gabions, and batteries were commenced on either flank.
In the night of the 2d of February the approaches1812. February. were pushed beyond the first parallel, and the breaching batteries being finished and armed were going to open when a privateer captured a despatch from the governor, who complained in it that the English wished to take the command of the place, and declared his resolution rather to surrender than suffer them to do so. On this hint Suchet opened negotiations which terminated in the capitulation of the fortress, the troops being allowed to go where they pleased. The French found sixty guns mounted, and the easy reduction of such a strong place, which secured their line of communication, produced a general disposition in the Valencians to submit to fortune. Such is Suchet’s account of this affair, but the colour which he thought it necessary to give to a transaction, full of shame and dishonour, to Navarro, can only be considered as part of the price paid for Peniscola. The true causes of its fall were treachery and cowardice. The garrison were from the first desponding and divided in opinion, and the British naval officers did but stimulate the troops and general to do their duty to their country.
After this capture, six thousand Poles quitted Suchet, for Napoleon required all the troops of that nation for his Russian expedition. These veterans marched by Jaca, taking with them the prisoners of Blake’s army, at the same time Reille’s two French divisions were ordered to form a separate corps of observation on the Lower Ebro, and Palombini’s Italian division was sent towards Soria and Calatayud to oppose Montijo, Villa Campa, and Bassecour, who were still in joint operation on that side. But Reille soon marched towards Aragon, and Severoli’s division took his place on the Lower Ebro; for the Partidas of Duran, Empecinado, and those numerous bands from the Asturias and La Montaña composing the seventh army, harassed Navarre and Aragon and were too powerful for Caffarelli. Mina’s also re-entered Aragon in January, surprised Huesca, and being attacked during his retreat at Lumbiar repulsed the enemy and carried off his prisoners.
Suchet’s field force in Valencia was thus reduced by twenty thousand men, he had only fifteen thousand left, and consequently could not push the invasion on the side of Murcia. The approaching departure of Napoleon from Paris also altered the situation of the French armies in the Peninsula. The king was again appointed the emperor’s lieutenant, and he extended the right wing of Suchet’s army to Cuença, and concentrated the army of the centre at Madrid; thus Valencia was made, as it were, a mere head of cantonments, in front of which fresh Spanish armies soon assembled, and Alicant then became an object of interest to the English government. Suchet, who had neglected the wound he received at the battle of Saguntum, now fell into a dangerous disorder, and that fierce flame of war which seemed destined to lick up all the remains of the Spanish power, was suddenly extinguished.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The events which led to the capitulation of Valencia, were but a continuation of those faults which had before ruined the Spanish cause in every part of the Peninsula, namely, the neglect of all good military usages, and the mania for fighting great battles with bad troops.
2º. Blake needed not to have fought a serious action during any part of the campaign. He might have succoured Saguntum without a dangerous battle, and might have retreated in safety behind the Guadalaviar; he might have defended that river without risking his whole army, and then have retreated behind the Xucar. He should never have shut up his army in Valencia, but having done so he should never have capitulated. Eighteen thousand men, well conducted, could always have broken through the thin circle of investment, drawn by Suchet, especially as the Spaniards had the power of operating on both banks of the river. But the campaign was one huge error throughout, and was pithily summed up in one sentence by the duke of Wellington. Being accused by the regency at Cadiz of having caused the catastrophe, by permitting the army of the north and that of Portugal to send reinforcements to Suchet, he replied thus—“The misfortunes of Valencia are to be attributed to Blake’s ignorance of his profession, and to Mahi’s cowardice and treachery!”