“Six months before, these ports had been in the hands of the French, but Caffarelli had lightly abandoned them, leaving the field open to the insurgents in his rear while he marched with Souham against Wellington. Since that period the English and Spaniards held them. For four months the emperor had unceasingly ordered the retaking of Bermeo and Castro, but whether from the difficulty of the operations or the necessity of answering more pressing calls, no effort had been made to obey, and the fine season now permitted the English ships to aid in the defence. Castro was said to be strongly fortified by the English, no wonder, Caffarelli had given them sufficient time, and they knew its value. In one month every post on the coast from the mouth of the Bidassoa to St. Ander should be again re-occupied by the French, and St. Ander itself should be garrisoned strongly. And simultaneous with the coast operations should be Clauzel’s attack on Mina in Navarre and the chasing of the Partidas in the interior of Biscay. The administration of the country also demanded reform, and still more the organization and discipline of the army of the north should be attended to. It was the pith and marrow of the French power in Spain, all would fail if that failed, whereas if the north was strong, its administration sound, its fortresses well provided and its state tranquil, no irreparable misfortune could happen in any other part.”
Clauzel assumed the command on the 22d of February, Abbé was then confined to Pampeluna, Mina, master of Navarre, was besieging Taffalla; Pastor, Longa, Campillo, Merino and others ranged through Biscay and Castile unmolested; and the spirit of the country was so changed that fathers now sent their sons to join Partidas which had hitherto been composed of robbers and deserters. Clauzel demanded a reinforcement of twenty thousand men from the army of Portugal, but Joseph was still in Madrid and proposed to send D’Erlon with the army of the centre instead, an arrangement to which Clauzel would not accede. Twenty thousand troops were, he said, wanted beyond the Ebro. Two independent chiefs, himself and D’Erlon, could not act together; and if the latter was only to remain quiet at Burgos his army would devour the resources without aiding the operations of the army of the north. The king might choose another commander, but the troops required must be sent. Joseph changed his plan, yet it was the end of March before Reille’s divisions moved, three upon Navarre, and one upon Burgos. Meanwhile Clauzel repaired with some troops to Bilbao, where general Rouget had eight hundred men in garrison besides Palombini’s Italians.
March. This place was in a manner blockaded by the Partidas. The Pastor with three thousand men was on the right of the Durango river, in the hills of Guernica, and Navarnis, between Bilbao and the fort of Bermeo. Mendizabal with from eight to ten thousand men was on the left of the Durango in the mountains, menacing at once Santoña and Bilbao and protecting Castro. However the French had a strong garrison in the town of Durango, the construction of new works round Bilbao was in progress, and on the 22d of March Clauzel moved with the Italians and a French regiment to assault Castro. Campillo and Mendizabel immediately appeared from different sides and the garrison made a sally; the Spaniards after some sharp fighting regained the high valleys in disorder, and the design of escalading Castro was resumed, but again interrupted by the return of Mendizabel to Trucios, only seven miles from the French camp, and by intelligence that the Pastor with the volunteers of Biscay and Guipuscoa was menacing Bilbao. Clauzel immediately marched with the French regiments to the latter place, leaving Palombini to oppose Mendizabel. Finding all safe at Bilbao, he sent Rouget with two French battalions to reinforce the Italians, who then drove Mendizabel from Trucios into the hills about Valmaceda. It being now necessary to attack Castro in form, Palombini occupied the heights of Ojeba and Ramales, from whence he communicated with the garrison of Santona, introduced a convoy of money and fresh provisions there, received ammunition in return, and directed the governor Lameth to prepare a battering train of six pieces for the siege. This done, the Italians who had lost many men returned hastily to Bilbao, for the Pastor was again menacing that city.
April. On the evening of the 31st Palombini marched against this new enemy and finding him too strong retreated, but being promised a reinforcement of two regiments from Durango he returned; Pastor was then with three thousand men in position at Navarnis, Palombini gave him battle on the 3d and was defeated with the loss of eighty men, but on the 5th being joined by the French regiments from Durango he beat the Spaniards. They dispersed and while some collected in the same positions behind him, and others under Pastor gained the interior, one column retired by the coast towards the Deba on the side of St. Sebastian. Palombini eagerly pursued these last, because he expected troops from that fortress to line the Deba, and hoped thus to surround the Spaniards, but the English squadron was at Lequitio and carried them off. Pastor meanwhile descending the Deba drove the French from that river to the very walls of St. Sebastian, and Palombini was forced to make for Bergara on the road to Vittoria.
At Bergara he left his wounded men with a garrison to protect them, and returning on the 9th of April attacked the volunteers of Guipuscoa at Ascoytia; repulsed in this attempt he retired again towards Bergara, and soon after took charge of a convoy of artillery going from St. Sebastian for the siege of Castro. Meanwhile Bilbao was in great danger, for the volunteers of Biscay coming from the Arlaban, made on the 10th a false attack at a bridge two miles above the entrenched camp, while Tapia, Dos Pelos, and Campillo fell on seriously from the side of Valmaceda. Mendizabel, who commanded, did not combine his movements well and was repulsed by Rouget although with difficulty; the noise of the action reached Palombini who hastened his march, and having deposited his convoy, followed the volunteers of Biscay to Guernica and drove them upon Bermeo where they got on board the English vessels.
During these events Clauzel was at Vittoria arranging the general plan of operations. Mina had on the 1st of April defeated one of his columns near Lerin with the loss of five or six hundred men. The four divisions sent from the army of Portugal, together with some unattached regiments furnished, according to Reille, the twenty thousand men demanded, yet only seventeen thousand reached Clauzel; and as the unattached regiments merely replaced a like number belonging to the other armies, and now recalled from the north, the French general found his expected reinforcements dwindled to thirteen thousand. Hence notwithstanding Palombini’s activity, the insurrection was in the beginning of April more formidable than ever; the line of correspondence from Torquemada to Burgos was quite unprotected for want of troops, neither was the line from Burgos to Irun so well guarded that couriers could pass without powerful escorts, nor always then. The fortifications of the castle of Burgos were to have been improved, but there was no money to pay for the works, the French, in default of transport, could not collect provisions for the magazines ordered to be formed there by the king, and two generals, La Martiniere and Rey, were disputing for the command. Nearly forty thousand irregular Spanish troops were in the field. The garrison of Taffalla, five hundred strong, had yielded to Mina, and that chief, in concert with Duran, Amor, Tabueca, the militia men of Logroña, and some minor guerillas occupied both sides of the Ebro, between Calahora, Logroño, Santa Cruz de Campero, and Guardia. They could in one day unite eighteen thousand infantry and a thousand horsemen. Mendizabel, Longa, Campillo, Herrera, El Pastor, and the volunteers of Biscay, Guipuscoa, and Alava, in all about sixteen thousand, were on the coast acting in conjunction with the English squadrons, Santander, Castro, and Bermeo were still in their hands, and maritime expeditions were preparing at Coruña and in the Asturias.
This Partizan war thus presented three distinct branches, that of Navarre, that of the coast, and that on the lines of communication. The last alone required above fifteen thousand men; namely ten thousand from Irun to Burgos, and the line between Tolosa and Pampeluna, which was destroyed, required fifteen hundred to restore it, while four thousand were necessary between Mondragon and Bilbao, comprising the garrison of the latter place; even then no post would be safe from a sudden attack. Nearly all the army of the north was appropriated to the garrisons and lines of communication, but the divisions of Abbé and Vandermaesen could be used on the side of Pampeluna, and there were besides, disposable, Palombini’s Italians and the divisions sent by Reille. But one of these, Sarrut’s, was still in march, and all the sick of the armies in Castile were now pouring into Navarre, when, from the loss of the contributions, there was no money to provide assistance for them. Clauzel had however ameliorated both the civil and the military administrations, improved the works of Gueteria, commenced the construction of block-houses between Irun and Vittoria, and as we have seen had shaken the bands about Bilbao. Now dividing his forces he destined Palombini to besiege Castro, ordering Foy and Sarrut’s divisions when the latter should arrive, to cover the operation and to oppose any disembarkation.
The field force thus appropriated, together with the troops in Bilbao under Rouget, was about ten thousand men, and in the middle of April, Clauzel, beating Mina from Taffalla and Estella, assembled the remainder of the active army, composed of Taupin and Barbout’s divisions of the army of Portugal, Vandermaesen’s and Abbé’s divisions of the army of the north, in all about thirteen thousand men, at Puenta La Reyna in Navarre. He urged general L’Huillier, who commanded the reserve at Bayonne, to reinforce St. Sebastian and Gueteria and to push forward his troops of observation into the valley of Bastan, and he also gave the commandant of Zaragoza notice of his arrival, that he might watch Mina on that side. From Puente la Reyna he made some excursions but he lost men uselessly, for the Spaniards would only fight at advantage, and to hunt Mina without first barring all his passages of flight was to destroy the French soldiers by fatigue. And here the king’s delay was most seriously felt because the winter season, when, the tops of the mountains being covered with snow, the Partidas could only move along the ordinary roads, was most favourable for the French operations, and it had passed away. Clauzel despairing to effect any thing with so few troops was even going to separate his forces and march to the coast, when in May Mina, who had taken post in the valley of Ronçal, furnished an occasion which did not escape the French general.
May. On the 13th Abbé’s and Vandermaesen’s divisions and the cavalry entered that valley at once by the upper and lower parts, and suddenly closing upon the Guerilla chief killed and wounded a thousand of his men and dispersed the rest; one part fled by the mountains to Navarquez, on the side of Sanguessa, with the wounded whom they dropped at different places in care of the country people. Chaplangarra, Cruchaga, and Carena, Mina’s lieutenants, went off, each with a column, in the opposite direction and by different routes to the valley of the Aragon, they passed that river at St. Gilla, and made their way towards the sacred mountain of La Pena near Jaeca. The French cavalry following them by Villa Real, entered that town the 14th on one side, while Mina with twelve men entered it on the other, but he escaped to Martes where another ineffectual attempt was made to surprise him. Abbé’s columns then descended the smaller valleys leading towards the upper valley of the Aragon, while Vandermaesen’s infantry and the cavalry entered the lower part of the same valley, and the former approaching Jacca sent his wounded men there and got fresh ammunition.
Meanwhile Mina and the insurgent junta making a push to regain Navarre by the left of the Aragon river were like to have been taken, but again escaped towards the valley of the Gallego, whither also the greater part of their troops now sought refuge. Clauzel was careful not to force them over that river, lest they should remain there and intercept the communication from Zaragoza by Jacca, which was the only free line the French now possessed and too far removed from Clauzel’s true theatre of operations to be watched. Abbé therefore returned to Roncal in search of the Spanish dépôts, and Vandermaesen entered Sos at one end just as Mina, who had now one hundred and fifty horsemen and was always intent upon regaining Navarre, passed out at the other; the light cavalry pursuing overtook him at Sos Fuentes and he fled to Carcastillo, but there unexpectedly meeting some of his own squadrons which had wandered over the mountains after the action at Roncal, he gave battle, was defeated with the loss of fifty men and fled once more to Aragon, whereupon the insurrectional junta dispersed, and dissentions arose between Mina and the minor chiefs under his command. Clauzel anxious to increase this discord sent troops into all the valleys to seek out the Spanish dépôts and to attack their scattered men, and he was well served by the Aragonese, for Suchet’s wise administration was still proof against the insurrectional juntas.