The intrusive monarch was in no condition to stem or to evade a torrent of war, the depth and violence of which he was even now ignorant of, and a slight sketch of his previous operations willFrench Official correspondence, MSS. shew that all his dispositions were made in the dark and only calculated to bring him into trouble. Early in May he would have marched the army of the centre to the Upper Duero when Leval’s reports checked the movement. On the 15th of that month a spy sent to Bejar by D’Erlon, brought intelligence that a great number of country carts had been collected there and at Placentia, to follow the troops in a march upon Talavera, but after two days were sent back to their villages; that fifty mules had been purchased at Bejar and sent to Ciudad Rodrigo; that about the same time the first and fourth divisions and the German cavalry had moved from the interior towards the frontier, saying they were going, the first to Zamora, and the last to Fuente Guinaldo; that many troops were already gathered at Ciudad Rodrigo under Wellington and Castaños; that the divisions at Coria and Placentia were expected there, the reserves of Andalusia were in movement, and the pass of Baños which had been before retrenched and broken up was now repaired; that the English soldiers were paid their arrears, and every body said a grand movement would commence on the 12th. All this was extremely accurate, but with the exception of the march to Zamora, which seemed to be only a blind, the information obtained indicated the principal movement as against the Tormes, and threw no light upon the English general’s real design.
On the other flank Reille’s cavalry under Boyer, having made an exploring sweep round by Astorga, La Baneza and Benevente, brought intelligence that a Gallician expedition was embarking for America, that another was to follow, and that several English divisions were also embarking in Portugal. The 23d of May a report from the same quarter gave notice that Salazar and Manzo were with seven hundred horsemen on the Upper Esla, that Porlier was coming from the Asturias to join them with two thousand five hundred men, and Giron with six thousand Gallicians had reached Astorga; but it was uncertain if Sylveira’s cavalry would come from Braganza to connect the left of the English with the Gallicians as it had done the year before.
Thus on the 24th of May the French were still entirely in the dark with respect to Graham’s movement, and although it was known the 26th at Valladolid, that Wellington had troops in the country beyond the Esla, it was not considered a decisive movement because the head-quarters were still at Freneda. However on the 29th Reille united his cavalry at Valderas, passed the Esla, entered Benevente and sent patroles towards Tobara and Carvajales; from their reports and other sources he understood the whole allied army was on the Esla, and as his detachments were closely followed by the British scouting parties, he recrossed the Esla and broke the bridge of Castro Gonzalo, leaving his light horsemen to watch it. But the delay in the passage of the Esla, after Graham had reached Carvajales, made Reille doubt both the strength of the allies and their inclination to cross that river. He expected the main attack on the Tormes, and proposed in conjunction with Daricau’s infantry, and Digeon’s dragoons, then at Toro and Zamora, to defend the Duero and the Lower Esla, leaving the Gallicians, whose force he despised, to pass the Upper Esla at their peril.
D’Armagnac’s division was now at Rio Seco, and Maucune’s division, which had been spread along the road to Burgos, was ordered to concentrate at Palencia on the Carion, but meanwhile Gazan on the other flank of the French position was equally deceived by the movements of the English general. The 7th of May he heard from the Tormes that the allies’ preparations indicated a movement towards that river. Leval wrote from Madrid that he had abandoned Toledo because fifteen thousand English and ten thousand Spaniards were to advance by the valley of the Tagus, that rations had been ordered at Escalona for Long’s English cavalry, and that magazines were formed at Bejar. At the same time from a third quarter came news that three divisions would pass the Duero to join the Gallicians and march upon Valladolid.
Gazan rightly judging that the magazines at Bejar were to supply Hill and the Spaniards, in their movement to join Wellington, expected at first that the whole would operate by the Esla, but on the 14th fresh reports changed this opinion; he then judged Hill would advance by the Puente Congosto upon Avila, to cut Leval off from the army, while Wellington attacked Salamanca. On the 24th however his doubts vanished. Villatte told him that Wellington was over the Agueda, Graham over the Lower Douro, and at the same time Daricau, writing from Zamora, told him that Graham’s cavalry had already reached Alcanizas, only one march from the Esla. Conroux was instantly directed to march from Avila to Arevalo, Tilly to move with the cavalry of the army of the south, from Madrigal towards the Trabancos, Daricau to send a brigade to Toro, and Leval to come over the Guadarama pass and join D’Erlon at Segovia.
On the 26th, Gazan thinking Wellington slow and crediting a report that he was sick and travelling in a carriage, relapsed into doubt. He now judged the passage of the Agueda a feint, thought the allies’ operations would be in mass towards the Esla, and was positively assured by his emissaries that Hill would move by the Puente Congosto against Segovia. However on the 27th he heard of the passage of the Tormes and of Villatte’s retreat, whereupon evacuating Arevalo he fixed his head-quarters at Rueda, and directed Conroux who was marching upon Arevalo, and so hastily that he left a moveable column behind him on the Upper Tormes, to come to the Trabancos.
Gazan at first designed to take post behind that river but there was no good position there, and the 28th he rallied Conroux’s, Rey’s, and Villatte’s infantry and Tilly’s cavalry behind the Zapardiel. Daricau’s division was meanwhile concentrated at Toro, and Digeon’s at Zamora; a bridge-head was commenced at Tordesillas, which was the point of retreat, and guards were placed at Pollos where the fords of the Duero were very low though as yet impracticable. These movements were made in tranquillity, for Hill had no desire by driving the French over the Duero to increase the number of their troops on the Esla. However on the 30th Gazan, hearing that Hill was advancing and that the troops on the Esla were likely to attempt the passage of that river, crossed the Duero in the night and took post at Tordesillas, intending to concentrate the whole army of the south on the right of that river; but Leval, though he had quitted Madrid on the 27th, was not yet arrived and a large artillery convoy, the ministers and Spanish families, and the pictures from the palace of Madrid were likewise on the road from that capital by the Segovia passes.
At this time the army of Portugal and D’Armagnac’s division was extended from the Esla to the Carion, the king’s guards were at Valladolid, and D’Erlon was in march to the Puente Duero, from Segovia and Sepulveda, yet slowly and apparently not aware of the crisis. Meanwhile the passage of the Esla had been effected, and hence if that river had been crossed at the time fore-calculated by Wellington, and a rapid push made upon Placentia and Valladolid, while Hill marched upon Rueda, the whole French army might have been caught in what Napoleon calls “flagrante delicto” and destroyed. And even now it would seem that Wellington could have profited more by marching, than by halting at Toro on the 3d, for though Leval’s troops and part of the army of the centre were then between the Puente Duero and Valladolid, D’Erlon had left a large division at Tudela de Duero to protect the arrival of the convoy from Madrid, which had not yet crossed the Duero; another great convoy was still on the left bank of the lower Pisuerga, and the parcs of the armies of Portugal and of the south were waiting on the right bank of that river, until the first convoy had passed over the Carion. Nevertheless it was prudent to gather well to a head first, and the general combinations had been so profoundly made that the evil day for the French was only deferred.
On the 30th Joseph’s design was to oppose Wellington’s principal force with the army of the south, while the army of the centre held the rest in check, the army of Portugal to aid either as the case might be; and such was his infatuation as to his real position, that even now, from the Duero, he was pressing upon his brother the immediate establishment of a civil Spanish administration for the provinces behind the Ebro, as the only remedy for the insurrection, and for the rendering of the army of the north disposable. He even demanded an order from the emperor to draw Clauzel’s troops away from the Ebro, that he might drive the allies back to the Coa, and take the long-urged offensive position towards Portugal, Napoleon being then at Dresden and Wellington on the Duero!
On the 2d when the allies had passed the Esla, the king, who expected them at Toro the 1st, became disturbed to find his front unmolested, and concluded, as he had received no letter from Reille, that Wellington had cut his communication, turned his right, and was marching towards the Carion. His alarm was considerable and with reason, but in the evening of the 2d he heard from Reille, who had retired unmolested to Rio Seco and there rallied D’Armagnac’s troops, but Maucune’s division was still in march from different parts to concentrate at Palencia. The halt of the 3d was therefore to the profit of the French, for during that time they received the Madrid convoy and insured the concentration of all their troops, recovering even Conroux’s moveable column which joined Leval near Olmedo. They also destroyed the bridges of Tudela and Puente Duero on the Duero, and that of Simancas and Cabeçon on the Pisuerga, and they passed their convoys over the Carion, directing them, under escort of Casa Palacios’ Spanish division, upon Burgos.