The generals complained that the king’s conduct was not military, and Napoleon told him if he would command an army he must give himself up entirely to it, thinking of nothing else; but Joseph was always demanding gold when he should have trusted to iron. His skill was unequal to the arrangements and combinations for taking an initiatory and offensive position, and he could neither discover nor force his adversary to show his real design. Hence the French armies were thrown upon a timid defensive system, and every movement of the allies necessarily produced alarm, and the dislocation of troops without an object. The march of Del Parque’s army towards Alcaraz, and that of the Spanish divisions from Estremadura, towards the Agueda, in the latter end of April were judged to be the commencement of a general movement against Madrid, because the first was covered by the advance of some cavalry into La Mancha, and the second by the concentration of the Partidas, in the valley of the Tagus. Thus the whole French army was shaken by the demonstration of a few horsemen, for when Leval took the alarm, Gazan marched towards the Guadarama with three divisions, and D’Erlon gathered the army of the centre around Segovia.
Early in May a fifth division of the army of Portugal was employed on the line of communication at Pampliega, Burgos, and Briviesca, and Reille remained at Valladolid with only one division of infantry and his guns, his cavalry being on the Esla. D’Erlon was then at Segovia and Gazan at Arevalo, Conroux’s division was at Avila, and Leval still at Madrid with outposts at Toledo. The king who was at Valladolid could not therefore concentrate more than thirty-five thousand infantry on the Duero. He had indeed nine thousand excellent cavalry and one hundred pieces of artillery, but with such dispositions to concentrate for a battle in advance was not to be thought of, and the first decided movement of the allies was sure to roll his scattered forces back in confusion. The lines of the Tormes and the Duero were effaced from the system of operations.
About the middle of May, D’Armagnac’s division of the army of the centre came to Valladolid, Villatte’s division of the army of the south reinforced by some cavalry occupied the line of the Tormes from Alba to Ledesma. Daricau’s, Digeon’s, and D’Armagnac’s divisions were at Zamora, Toro, and other places on both sides of the Duero, and Reille’s cavalry was still on the Esla. The front of the French was thus defined by these rivers, for the left was covered by the Tormes, the centre by the Duero, the right by the Esla. Gazan’s head-quarters were at Arevalo, D’Erlon’s at Segovia, and the point of concentration was at Valladolid; but Conroux was at Avila, and Leval being still at Madrid was thrown entirely out of the circle of operations. At this moment Wellington entered upon what has been in England called, not very appropriately, the march to Vittoria. That march was but one portion of the action. The concentration of the army on the banks of the Duero was the commencement, the movement towards the Ebro and the passage of that river was the middle, the battle of Vittoria was the catastrophe, and the crowning of the Pyrennees the end of the splendid drama.
CHAPTER VII.
1813. In the latter part of April the Spanish troops from Estremadura being assembled on the Tormes near Almada, Carlos d’España’s division moved to Miranda del Castanar, and every thing was ready to open the campaign when an unexpected and formidable danger menacing ruin arose. Some specie sent from England had enabled the general to pay up the British soldiers’ arrears to November 1812, but the Portuguese troops were still neglected by their government, a whole year’s pay was due to them, a suspicion that a systematic difference in this respect was to be established, pervaded their minds, and at the same time many regiments which had been raised for a limited period and whose term of service was now expired, murmured for their discharge, which could not be legally refused. The moment was critical, but Wellington applied suitable remedies. He immediately threatened to intercept the British subsidy for the payment of the troops which brought the Portuguese regency to its senses, and he then made an appeal to the honour and patriotism of the Portuguese soldiers whose time had expired. Such an appeal is never made in vain to the poorer classes of any nation; one and all those brave men remained in the service notwithstanding the shameful treatment they had endured from their government. This noble emotion would seem to prove that Beresford, whose system of military reform was chiefly founded upon severity, might have better attained his object in another manner; but harshness is the essence of the aristocratic principle of government, and the marshal only moved in the straight path marked out for him by the policy of the day.
May. When this dangerous affair was terminated Castaños returned to Gallicia, and the British cavalry, of the left wing, which had wintered about the Mondego crossed the Duero, some at Oporto some near Lamego, and entered the Tras os Montes. The Portuguese cavalry had been already quarteredFrench correspondence, MSS. all the winter in that province, and the enemy supposed that Sylveira would as formerly advance from Braganza to connect the Gallicians with the allies. But Sylveira was then commanding an infantry division on the Agueda, and a very different power was menacing the French on the side of Braganza. For about the middle of May the cavalry were followed by many divisions of infantry, and by the pontoon equipage, thus forming with the horsemen and artillery a mass of more than forty thousand men under general Graham. The infantry and guns being rapidly placed on the right of the Duero by means of large boats assembled between Lamego and Castelo de Alva, near the mouth of the Agueda, marched in several columns towards the lower Esla; the cavalry moved down to the same point by Braganza.
On the 20th Hill came to Bejar with the second division, and on the 22d of May, Graham being well advanced, Wellington quitted his head-quarters at Freneda and put his right wing in motion towards the Tormes. It consisted of five divisions of Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish infantry, and five brigades of cavalry, including Julian Sanchez’ horsemen, the whole forming with the artillery a mass of from twenty-five to thirty thousand men. The right under general Hill moved from Bejar upon Alba de Tormes, the left under Wellington himself by Matilla upon Salamanca.
On the 24th Villatte withdrew his detachment from Ledesma, and on the 26th at ten o’clock in the morning the heads of the allied columns with admirable concert appeared on all the different routes leading to the Tormes. Morillo’s and Long’s cavalry menaced Alba, Hill coming from Tamames bent towards the fords above Salamanca, and Wellington coming from Matilla marched straight against that city.
Villatte, a good officer, barricaded the bridge and the streets, sent his baggage to the rear, called in his detachment from Alba, and being resolved to discover the real force of his enemy waited for their approaching masses on the heights above the ford of Santa Marta. Too long he waited, for the ground on the left side of the river had enabled Wellington to conceal the movements, and already Fane’s horsemen with six guns were passing the ford at Santa Marta in Villatte’s rear, while Victor Alten’s cavalry removed the barricades on the bridge and pushed through the town to attack him in front. The French general being thus suddenly pressed gained the heights of Cabrerizos, marching towards Babila Fuente, before Fane got over the river; but he had still to pass the defiles of Aldea Lengua and was overtaken by both columns of cavalry.