The king objected that such a force could only be fed in that country by the utter ruin of the people, which he would not consent to; but he was deceived by his ministers; the comfortable state of the houses, the immense plains of standing corn seen by the allies in their march from the Esla to the Carrion proved that the people were not much impoverished. Soult, well acquainted with the resources of the country and a better and more practised master of such operations, looked to the military question rather than to the king’s conciliatory policy, and positively affirmed that the armies could be subsisted; yet it does not appear that he had taken into his consideration how the insurrection in the northern provinces was to be suppressed, which was the principal object of Napoleon’s plan. He no doubt expected that the emperor would, from France send troops for that purpose, but Napoleon knowing the true state of his affairs foresaw that all the resources of France would be required in another quarter.
March. Hatred and suspicion would have made Joseph reject any plan suggested by Soult, and the more so that the latter now declared the armies could exist without assistance in money from France; yet his mind was evidently unsettled by that marshal’s proposal, and by the coincidence of his ideas as to holding Madrid, for even when the armies were in movement towards the northern parts, he vacillated in his resolutions, at one time thinking toMarshal Jourdan’s Official correspondence, MSS. stay at Madrid, at another to march with the army of the centre to Burgos, instead of Valladolid. However upon the 18th of March he quitted the capital leaving the Spanish ministers Angulo and Almenara to govern there in conjunction with Gazan. The army of the south then moved in two columns, one under Couroux across the Gredos mountains to Avila, the other under Gazan upon Madrid to relieve the army of the centre, which immediately marched to Aranda de Duero and Lerma, with orders to settle at Burgos. Meanwhile Villatte’s division and all the outposts withdrawn from La Mancha remained on the Alberche, and the army of the south was thus concentrated between that river, Madrid, and Avila.
North of the Tagus the troops were unmolested, save by the bands during these movements, which were not completed before April, but in La Mancha the retiring French posts had been followed by Del Parque’s advanced guard under Cruz Murgeon, as far as Yebenes, and at the bridge of Algobar the French cavalry checked the Spanish horsemen so roughly, that Cruz Murgeon retired again towards the Morena. At the same time on the Cuenca side, the Empecinado having attempted to cut off a party of French cavalry, escorting the marquis of Salices to collect his rents previous to quitting Madrid, was defeated with the loss of seventy troopers. Meanwhile the great dépôt at Madrid being partly removed, general Villatte marched upon Salamanca and Gazan fixed his head-quarters at Arevalo. The army of the south was thus cantoned between the Tormes, the Duero, and the Adaja, with exception of six chosen regiments of infantry and four of cavalry, in all about ten thousand men; these remained at Madrid under Leval, who was ordered to push advanced guards to Toledo, and the Alberche, lest the allies should suddenly march that way and turn the left of the French army. But beyond the Alberche there were roads leading from the valley of the Tagus over the Gredos mountains into the rear of the advanced positions which the French had on the Upper Tormes, wherefore these last were now withdrawn from Pedrahita and Puente Congosto.
In proportion as the troops arrived in Castile Reille sent men to the army of the north, and contracting his cantonments, concentrated his remaining forces about Medina de Rio Seco with his cavalry on the Esla. But the men recalled by the emperor were now in full march, the French were in a state of great confusion, the people urged by Wellington’s emissaries and expecting great events every where showed their dislike by withholding provisions, and the Partida warfare became as lively in the interior as on the coast, yet with worse fortune. Captain Giordano, a Spaniard of Joseph’s guard killed one hundred and fifty of Saornil’s people near Arevalo, and the indefatigable Florian defeated Morales’ band, seized a dépôt in the valley of the Tietar, beat the Medico there, and then crossing the Gredos mountains, destroyed near Segovia on the 28th the band of Purchas; the king’s Spanish guards also crushed some smaller Partidas, and Renovales with his whole staff was captured at Carvajales and carried to Valladolid. Meanwhile the Empecinado gained the hills above Sepulveda and joining with Merino obliged the people of the Segovia district, to abandon their houses and refuse the supplies demanded by the army of the centre. When D’Armagnac and Cassagne marched against them, Merino returned to his northern haunts, the Empecinado to the Tagus, and D’Erlon then removed his head-quarters to Cuellar.
April. During April Leval was very much disturbed, and gave false alarms, which extending to Valladolid caused an unseasonable concentration of the troops and D’Erlon abandoned Cuellar and Sepulveda. Del Parque and the Empecinado were saidFrench Papers captured at Vittoria, MSS. to have established the bridge of Aranjuez, Elio to be advancing in La Mancha, Hill to be in the valley of the Tagus and moving by Mombeltran with the intention of seizing the passes of the Guadarama. All of this was false. It was the Empecinado and Abuelo who were at Aranjuez, the Partidas of Firmin, Cuesta, Rivero, and El Medico who were collecting at Arzobispo, to mask the march of the Spanish divisions from Estremadura, and of the reserve from Andalusia; it was the prince of Anglona who was advancing in La Mancha to cover the movement of Del Parque upon Murcia. When disabused of his error, Leval easily drove away the Empecinado who had advanced to Alcala; afterwards chasing Firmin from Valdemoro into the valley of the Tagus, he re-established his advanced posts in Toledo and on the Alberche, and scoured the whole country around. But Joseph himself was anxious to abandon Madrid altogether, and was only restrained by the emperor’s orders and by the hope of still gathering some contributions there to support his court at Valladolid. With reluctance also he had obeyed his brother’s reiterated orders to bring the army of the centre over the Duero to replace the detached divisions of the army of Portugal. He wished D’Erlon rather than Reille, to reinforce the north, and nothing could more clearly show how entirely the subtle spirit of Napoleon’s instructions had escaped his perception. It was necessary that Madrid should be held, to watch the valley of the Tagus and if necessary to enable the French armies to fall back on Zaragoza, but principally to give force to the moral effect of the offensive movement towards Portugal. It was equally important and for the same reason, that the army of Portugal instead of the army of the centre should furnish reinforcements for the north.
In the contracted positions which the armies now occupied, the difficulty of subsisting was increased, and each general was dissatisfied with his district, disputes multiplied, and the court clashed with the army at every turn. Leval also inveighed against the conduct of the Spanish ministers and minor authorities left at Madrid, as being hurtful to both troops and people, and no doubt justly, since it appears to have been precisely like that of the Portuguese and Spanish authorities on the other side towards the allies. Joseph’s letters to his brother became daily more bitter. Napoleon’s regulations for the support of the troops were at variance with his, and when the king’s budget shewed a deficit of many millions, the emperor so little regarded it that he reduced the French subsidy to two millions per month, and strictly forbad the application of the money to any other purpose than the pay of the soldiers. When Joseph asked, how he was to find resources? his brother with a just sarcasm on his political and military blindness, desired him to seek what was necessary in those provinces of the north which were rich enough to nourish the Partidas and the insurrectional juntas. The king thus pushed to the wall prevailed upon Gazan secretly to lend him fifty thousand francs, for the support of his court, from the chest of the army of the south; but with the other generals he could by no means agree, and instead of the vigour and vigilance necessary to meet the coming campaign there was weakness, disunion, and ill blood.
All the movements and arrangements for concentrating the French forces, as made by Joseph, displeased Napoleon. The manner in which the army of the centre stole away from Madrid by the road of Lerma was, he said, only calculated to expose his real views and draw the allies upon the French before the communication with France was restored. But more than all his indignation was aroused by the conduct of the king after the concentration. The French armies were held on the defensive and the allies might without fear for Portugal embark troops to invade France, whereas a bold and confident offensive movement sustained by the formation of a battering train at Burgos, as if to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, would have imposed upon the English general, secured France from the danger of such an insult, and would at the same time have masked the necessary measures for suppressing the insurrection in the northern provinces. To quell that insurrection was of vital importance, but from the various circumstances already noticed it had now existed for seven months, five of which, the king, although at the head of ninety thousand men, and uninterrupted by Wellington, had wasted unprofitably, having done no more than chase a few inferior bands of the interior while this formidable warfare was consolidating in his rear; and while his great adversary was organizing the most powerful army which had yet taken the field in his front. It is thus kingdoms are lost. I shall now trace the progress of the northern insurrection so unaccountably neglected by the king, and to the last misunderstood by him; for when Wellington was actually in movement; when the dispersed French corps were rushing and crowding to the rear to avoid the ponderous mass which the English general was pushing forward; even then, the king, who had done every thing possible to render defeat certain, was urging upon Napoleon the propriety of first beating the allies and afterwards reducing the insurrection by the establishment of a Spanish civil government beyond the Ebro!
NORTHERN INSURRECTION.
1813. It has been already shewn how the old Partidas had been strengthened and new corps organized on a better footing in Biscay and Navarre; how in the latter end of 1812 Caffarelli marched to succour Santona, and how Longa taking advantage of his absence captured a convoy near Burgos while other bands menaced Logroño. All the littoral posts, with the exception of Santona and Gueteria were then in the possession of the Spaniards, and Mendizabel made an attempt on Bilbao the 6th of January. Repulsed by general Rouget he rejoined Longa and together they captured the little fort of Salinas de Anara, near the Ebro, and that of Cuba in the Bureba, while the bands of Logroño invested Domingo Calçada in the Rioja. On the 26th of January, Caffarelli, having returned from Santona, detached Vandermaesen and Dubreton to drive the Spaniards from Santander, and they seized many stores there, but neglected to make any movement to aid Santona which was again blockaded by the Partidas; meanwhile the convoy with all the emperor’s despatches was stopped at Burgos. Palombini re-opened the communications and enabled the convoy to reach Madrid, but his division did not muster more than three thousand men, and various detachments belonging to the other armies were now in march to the interior of Spain. The regiments recalled to France from all parts were also in full movement, together with many convoys and escorts for the marshals and generals quitting the Peninsula; thus the army of the north was reduced, as its duties increased, and the young French soldiers died fast of a peculiar malady which especially attacked them in small garrisons. Meanwhile the Spaniards’ forces increased. In February Mendizabel and Longa were again in the Bureba intercepting the communication between Burgos and Bilbao, and they menaced Pancorbo and Briviesca. This brought Caffarelli from Vittoria and Palombini from Burgos. The latter surprised by Longa, lost many men near Poza de Sal, and only saved himself by his courage and firmness yet he finally drove the Spaniards away. But now Mina returning from Aragon after his unsuccessful action near Huesca surprized and burned the castle of Fuenterrabia in a most daring manner on the 11th of March, after which, having assembled five thousand men in Guipuscoa, he obtained guns from the English fleet at Motrico, invested Villa Real within a few leagues of Vittoria, and repulsed six hundred men who came to relieve the fort. This brought Caffarelli back from Pancorbo. Mina then raised the siege, and Palombini marching into the Rioja, succoured the garrison of San Domingo Calçada and drove the Partidas towards Soria. The communication with Logroño was thus re-opened, and the Italians passing the Ebro marched by Vittoria towards Bilbao where they arrived the 21st of February; but the gens-d’armes and imperial guards immediately moved from Bilbao to France, Caffarelli went with them, and the Spanish chiefs remained masters of Navarre and Biscay. The people now refused war contributions both in money and kind, the harvest was not ripe, and the distress of the French increased in an alarming manner because the weather enabled the English fleets to keep upon the coast and intercept all supplies from France by sea. The communications were all broken; in front by Longa who was again at the defile of Pancorbo; in the rear by Mina who was in the hills of Arlaban; on the left by a collection of bands at Caroncal in Navarre. Abbé, governor of Pampeluna severely checked these last, but Mina soon restored affairs; for leaving the volunteers of Guipuscoa to watch the defiles of Arlaban, he assembled all the bands in Navarre, destroyed the bridges leading to Taffalla from Pampeluna and from Puente la Reyna, and though Abbé twice attacked him, he got stronger, and bringing up two English guns from the coast besieged Taffalla.
February.Napoleon, discontented with Caffarelli’s mode of conducting the war, now gave Clauzel the command in the north, with discretionary power to draw as many troops from the army of Portugal as he judged necessary. He was to correspond directly with the emperor to avoid loss of time, but was to obey the king in all things not clashing with Napoleon’s orders, which contained a complete review of what had passed and what was necessary to be done. “The Partidas,” the emperor said, “were strong, organized, exercised, and seconded by the exaltation of spirit which the battle of Salamanca had produced. The insurrectional juntas had been revived, the posts on the coast abandoned by the French and seized by the Spaniards gave free intercourse with the English; the bands enjoyed all the resources of the country, and the system of warfare hitherto followed had favoured their progress. Instead of forestalling their enterprises the French had waited for their attacks, and contrived to be always behind the event; they obeyed the enemy’s impulsion and the troops were fatigued without gaining their object. Clauzel was to adopt a contrary system, he was to attack suddenly, pursue rapidly, and combine his movements with reference to the features of the country. A few good strokes against the Spaniards’ magazines, hospitals, or dépôts of arms would inevitably trouble their operations, and after one or two military successes some political measures would suffice to disperse the authorities, disorganise the insurrection, and bring the young men who had been enrolled by force back to their homes. All the generals recommended, and the emperor approved of the construction of block-houses on well-chosen points, especially where many roads met; the forests would furnish the materials cheaply, and these posts should support each other and form chains of communication. With respect to the greater fortresses, Pampeluna and Santona were the most important, and the enemy knew it, for Mina was intent to famish the first and the English squadron to get hold of the second. To supply Pampeluna it was only necessary to clear the communications, the country around being rich and fertile. Santona required combinations. The emperor wished to supply it by sea from Bayonne and St. Sebastian, but the French marine officers would never attempt the passage, even with favourable winds and when the English squadron were away, unless all the intermediate ports were occupied by the land forces.