On the 28th he captured another convoy going from Valencia to France, but general Abbé, who had been recently made governor of Navarre, now directed combined movements from Pampeluna, Jacca, and Sangüesa, against him. And so vigorously did this general, who I have heard Mina declare to be the most formidable of all his opponents, urge on the operations, that after a series of actions, on the 25th, 26th, and 28th of May, the Spanish chief, in bad plight, and with the utmost difficulty, escaped by Los Arcos to Guardia, in the Rioja. Marshal Victor seized this opportunity to pass into France, with the remains ofMay. the convoy shattered on the 7th, and all the bands in the north were discouraged. However, Wellington’s successes, and the confusion attending upon the departure of so many French troops for the Russian war, gave a powerful stimulus to the partizan chiefs in other directions. The Empecinado, ranging the mountains of Cuenca and Guadalaxara, pushed his parties close to Madrid; Duran entered Soria, and raised a contribution in the lower town; Villa Campa, Bassecour, and Montijo, coming from the mountains of Albarracin, occupied Molino and Orejuella, and invested Daroca; the Catalonian Gayan, taking post in the vicinity of Belchite, made excursions to the verySee [Plan, No. 6.] gates of Zaragoza; the Frayle, haunting the mountains of Alcañiz and the Sierra de Gudar, interrupted Suchet’s lines of communication by Morella and Teruel, and along the right bank of the Ebro towards Tortoza. Finally, Gay and Miralles infested the Garriga on the left bank.
It was to repress these bands that the army of the Ebro, containing twenty thousand men, of whom more than sixteen thousand were under arms, was formed by drafts from Suchet’s army, and given to general Reille. That commander immediately repaired to Lerida, occupied Upper Aragon with his own division, placed Severoli’s division between Lerida and Zaragoza, and general Frere’s between Lerida, Barcelona, and Taragona; but his fourth division, under Palombini, marched direct from Valencia towards the districts of Soria and Calatayud, to form the link of communication between Suchet and Caffarelli. The latter now commanded the army of the north, but the imperial guards, with the exception of one division, had quitted Spain, and hence, including the government’s and the reserve of Monthion, this army was reduced to forty-eight thousand under arms. The reserve at Bayonne was therefore increased to five thousand men, and Palombini was destined finally to reinforce Caffarelli, and even to march, if required, to the aid of Marmont in Leon. However the events of the war soon caused Reille to repair to Navarre, and broke up the army of the Ebro, wherefore it will be clearer to trace the operations of these divisions successively and separately, and in the order of the provinces towards which they were at first directed.
February. Palombini having left a brigade at the entrenched bridge of Teruel, relieved Daroca on the 23d of February, and then deceiving Villa Campa, Montijo, and Bassecour, who were waiting about the passes of Toralva to fall on his rear-guard, turned them by the Xiloca, and reached Calatayud. This effected, he fortified the convent of La Peña, which, as its name signifies, was a rocky eminence, commanding that city and forming a part of it. But on the 4th of March, having placed hisMarch. baggage and artillery in this post, under a guard of three hundred men, he dispersed his troops to scour the country and to collect provisions, and the partidas, seeing this, recommenced operations. Villa Campa cut off two companies at Campillo on the 8th, and made a fruitless attempt to destroy the Italian colonel Pisa at Ateca. Five hundred men were sent against him, but he drew them towards the mountains of Albarracin, and destroyed them at Pozonhonda on the 28th; then marching another way, he drove the Italians from their posts of communication as far as the town of Albarracin on the road to Teruel, nor did he regain the mountains until Palombini came up on his rear and killed some of his men. The Italian general then changing his plan, concentrated his division on the plains of Hused, where he suffered some privations, but remained unmolested until the 14th of April, when he again marched to co-operate with Suchet in a combined attempt to destroy Villa Campa. The Spanish chief evaded both by passing over to the southern slopes of the Albarracin mountains, and before the Italians could return to Hused, Gayan, in concert with the alcalde of Calatayud, had exploded a plot against the convent of La Peña.
April. Some of the Italian officers, including the commandant, having rashly accepted an invitation to a feast, were sitting at table, when Gayan appeared on a neighbouring height; the guests were immediately seized, and many armed citizens ran up to surprise the convent, and sixty soldiers were made prisoners, or killed in the tumult below; but the historian, Vacani, who had declined to attend the feast, made a vigorous defence, and on the 1st of May general St. Pol and colonel Schiazzetti, coming from Hused, and Daroca, raised the siege. Schiazzetti marched in pursuit, and as his advanced guard was surprised at Mochales by a deceit of the alcalde, he slew the latter, whereupon the Spaniards killed the officers taken at the feast of Calatayud.
May. Gayan soon baffled his pursuers, and then moved by Medina Celi and Soria to Navarre, thinking to surprise a money convoy going to Burgos for the army of Portugal, but being followed on one side by a detachment from Hused, and met on the other by Caffarelli, he was driven again to the hills above Daroca. Here he renewed his operations in concert with Villa Campa and the Empecinado, who came up to Medina Celi, while Duran descended from the Moncayo hills, and this menacing union of bands induced Reille, in May, to detach general Paris, with a French regiment and a troop of hussars, to the aid of Palombini. Paris moved by Calatayud, while Palombini briskly interposing between Duran and Villa Campa, drove the one towards Albarracin and the other towards Soria; and in June, after various marches, the two French generals uniting, dislodged the Empecinado from Siguenza, chasing him so sharply that his band dispersed and fled to the Somosierra.
During these operations, Mina was pressed by Abbé, but Duran entering Tudela by surprise, destroyed the artillery parc, and carried off a battering train of six guns. Palombini was only a few marches from Madrid, and the king, alarmed by lord Wellington’s preparations for opening the campaign, ordered him to join the army of the centre, but these orders were intercepted, and the Italian general retraced his steps, to pursue Duran. He soon recovered theJune. guns taken at Tudela, and drove the Spanish chief through the Rioja into the mountains beyond the sources of the Duero; then collecting boats, he would have passed the Ebro, for Caffarelli was on the Arga, with a division of the army of the north, and a brigade had been sent by Reille to the Aragon river with the view of destroying Mina. This chief, already defeated by Abbé, was in great danger, when a duplicate of the king’s orders having reached Palombini, he immediately recommenced his march for the capital, which saved Mina. Caffarelli returned to Vittoria, and the Italians reaching Madrid the 21st of July, became a part of the army of the centre, having marched one hundred and fifty miles in seven days without a halt. Returning now to the other divisions of the army of the Ebro, it is to be observed, that their movements being chiefly directed against the Catalans, belong to the relation of that warfare.
OPERATIONS IN ARAGON AND CATALONIA.
See Vol. IV Book XV. After the battle of Altafulla, the fall of Peniscola, and the arrival of Reille’s first division on the Ebro, Decaen, who had succeeded Macdonald in Upper Catalonia, spread his troops along the coast, with a view to cut off the communication between the British navy and the interior, where the Catalan army still held certain positions.
February. Lamarque, with a division of five thousand men, first seized and fortified Mataro, and then driving Milans from Blanes, occupied the intermediate space, while detachments from Barcelona fortified Moncada, Mongat, and Molino del Rey, thus securing the plain of Barcelona on every side.