1813. During these events four battalions left by Mina at Santa Cruz de Campero in the Amescoas, were chased by Taupin, who had remained at Estella when the other divisions marched up the valley of Roncal. Mina, however, reassembled at Barbastro in Aragon a strong column, crowds of deserters from the other Spanish armies were daily increasing his power, and so completely had he organized Navarre that the presence of a single soldier of his in a village sufficed to have any courier without a strong escort stopped. Many bands also were still in the Rioja, and two French regiments rashly foraging towards Lerim were nearly all destroyed. In fine the losses were well balanced, and Clauzel demanded more troops, especially cavalry, to scour the Rioja. Nevertheless the dispersion of Mina’s troops lowered the reputation of that chief, and the French general taking up his quarters in Pampeluna so improved this advantage by address, that many townships withdrew from the insurrection, and recalling their young men from the bands commenced the formation of eight free Spanish companies to serve on the French side. Corps of this sort were raised with so much facility in every part of Spain, that it would seem nations, as well as individuals, have an idiosyncrasy, and in these changeable warriors we again see the Mandonius and Indibilis of ancient days.
Joseph, urged by Clauzel, now sent Maucune’s division and some light cavalry of the army of Portugal, to occupy Pampleiga, Burgos, and Briviesca, and to protect the great communication, which the diverging direction of Clauzel’s double operations had again exposed to the partidas. Meanwhile the French troops had not been less successful in Biscay than in Navarre. Foy reached Bilbao the 24th of April, and finding all things there ready for the siege of Castro marched to Santona to hasten the preparations at that place, and he attempted also to surprise the chiefs Campillo and Herrera in the hills above Santona, but was worsted in the combat. The two battering trains then endeavoured to proceed from Bilbao and Santona by sea to Castro, but the English vessels, coming to the mouth of the Durango, stopped those at Bilbao, and obliged them to proceed by land, but thus gave an opportunity for those at Santona to make the sea-run in safety.
SIEGE OF CASTRO.
May. This place situated on a promontory was garrisoned by twelve hundred men, under the command of Don Pedro Alvarez, three English sloops of war commanded by the captains Bloye, Bremen, and Tayler, were at hand, some gun-boats were in the harbour, and twenty-seven guns were mounted on the works. An outward wall with towers, extended from sea to sea on the low neck which connected the promontory with the main land; this line of defence was strengthened by some fortified convents, behind it came the town, and behind the town at the extremity of the promontory stood the castle.
On the 4th of May, Foy, Sarrut, and Palombini, took post at different points to cover the siege; the Italian general St. Paul invested the place; the engineer Vacani conducted the works, having twelve guns at his disposal. The defence was lively and vigorous, and captain Tayler with great labour landed a heavy ship-gun on a rocky island to the right of the town, looking from the sea, which he worked with effect against the French counter-batteries. On the 11th a second gun was mounted on this island, but that day the breaching batteries opened, and in a few hours broke the wall while the counter-batteries set fire to some houses with shells, wherefore the English guns were removed from the island. The assault was then ordered but delayed by a sudden accident, for a foraging party having been sent into the hills, came flying back, pursued by a column of Spaniards which had passed unperceived through the positions of the French; and the besiegers were for some time in confusion as thinking the covering army had been beaten; however they soon recovered, and the assault and escalade took place in the night.
The attack was rapid and fierce, the walls were carried, and the garrison driven through the town to the castle which was maintained by two companies, while the flying troops got on board the English vessels; finally the Italians stormed the castle, but every gun had been destroyed, and the two companies safely rejoined their countrymen on board the ships. The English had ten seamen wounded, the Spaniards lost about a hundred and eighty, and the remainder were immediately conveyed to Bermeo from whence they marched inland to join Longa. The besiegers lost only fifty men killed and wounded, and the Italian soldiers committed great excesses, setting fire to the town in many places. Foy and Sarrut, separating after the siege, marched, the former through the district of Incartaciones to Bilbao defeating a battalion of Biscay volunteers on his route; the latter to Orduña with the design of destroying Longa; but that chief crossed the Ebro at Puente Lara, and finding the additional troops sent by Joseph were beginning to arrive in the vicinity of Burgos, recrossed the river, and after a long chase escaped in the mountains of Espinosa. Sarrut having captured a few gun-carriages and one of Longa’s forest dépôts of ammunition, returned towards Bilbao, and Foy immediately marched from that place against the two remaining battalions of Biscay volunteers, which under the chiefs Mugartegui and Artola were now at Villaro and Guernica.
These battalions, each a thousand strong, raised by conscription, and officered from the best families, were the champions of Biscay; but though brave and well-equipped, the difficulty of crushing them and the volunteers of Guipuscoa, was not great, because neither would leave their own peculiar provinces. The third battalion had been already dispersed in the district of Incartaciones, and Foy having in the night of the 29th combined the march of several columns to surround Villaro, fell at day-break upon Mugartegui’s battalion and dispersed it with the loss of all its baggage. Two hundred of the volunteers immediately returned to their homes, and the French general marched rapidly, through Durango, against Artola, who was at Guernica. The Italians who were still at Bilbao, immediately turned Guernica on the west by Mungia, while a French column turned it eastward by Marquinez; then Artola fled to Lequitio, but the column from Marquinez, coming over the mountain, fell upon his right flank just as he was defiling by a narrow way along the sea-coast. Artola himself escaped, but two hundred Biscayens were killed or drowned, more than three hundred with twenty-seven officers were taken, and two companies which formed his rear-guard dispersed in the mountains, and some men finding a few boats rowed to an English vessel. The perfect success of this action, which did not cost the French a man killed or wounded, was attributed to the talents and vigour of captain Guinget, the daring officer who won the passage of the Douro at Tordesillas in Wellington’s retreat from Burgos.
When the three battalions of Biscay were thus disposed of, all their magazines, hospitals, and dépôts fell into Foy’s hands, the junta dispersed, the privateers quitted the coast for Santander, Pastor abandoned Guipuscoa, and the Italians recovered Bermeo from which the garrison fled to the English ships. They also destroyed the works of the little island of Isaro, which being situated three thousand yards from the shore, and having no access to the summit, save by a staircase cut in the rock, was deemed impregnable, and used as a dépôt for the English stores; but this was the last memorable exploit of Palombini’s division in the north. That general himself had already gone to Italy to join Napoleon’s reserves, and his troops being ordered to march by Aragon to join Suchet, were in movement, when new events caused them to remain in Guipuscoa, with the reputation of being brave and active but ferocious soldiers, barbarous and devastating, differing little from their Roman ancestors.
It has been already observed that, during these double operations of the French on the coast and in Navarre, the partidas had fallen upon the line of communication with France, thus working out the third branch of the insurrectional warfare. Their success went nigh to balance all their losses on each flank. For Mendizabel settled with Longa’s partida upon the line between Burgos and Miranda de Ebro; the volunteers of Alava and Biscay, and part of Pastor’s bands concentrated on the mountains of Arlaban above the defiles of Salinas and Descarga; Merino and Salazar came up from the country between the Ebro and the Duero; and the three battalions left by Mina in the Amescoa, after escaping from Taupin, reassembled close to Vittoria. Every convoy and every courier’s escort was attacked at one or other of these points without hindering Mendizabel from making sudden descents towards the coast when occasion offered. Thus, on the 11th of April, as we have seen, he attacked Bilbao. On the 25th of April Longa, who had four thousand men and several guns, was repulsed at Armiñion, between Miranda and Trevino, by some of the drafted men going to France; but on the 3d of May at the same place Longa met and obliged a large convoy, coming from Castile with an escort of eight hundred men, to return to Miranda, and even cannonaded that place on the 5th. Thouvenot the commandant of the government, immediately detached twelve hundred men and three guns from Vittoria to relieve the convoy; but then Mina’s battalions endeavoured to escalade Salvatierra, and they were repulsed with difficulty. Meanwhile the volunteers of Alava gathered above the pass of Salinas to intercept the rescued convoy, and finding that the latter would not stir from Vittoria, they went on the 10th to aid in a fresh attack on Salvatierra; being again repulsed they returned to the Arlaban, where they captured a courier with a strong escort in the pass of Descarga near Villa Real. A French regiment sent to succour Salvatierra finally drove these volunteers towards Bilbao where, as we have seen, Foy routed them, but Longa continued to infest the post of Armiñion until Sarrut arriving from the siege of Castro chased him also.