On the 26th Clauzel, finding the pursuit had slackened, sent Colonel Fabvier to advise the king of it, and then sending his own right wing across the Duero, by the ford near Boecillo, to cover the evacuation of Valladolid, marched with the other wing towards the bridge of Tudela; he remained however still on the left bank, in the hope that Fabvier’s mission would bring the king back. Joseph who had already passed the Puerta de Guadarama immediately repassed it without delay and made a flank movement to Segovia, which he reached the 27th, and pushed his cavalry to Santa Maria de Nieva. Here he remained until the 31st expecting Clauzel would join him, for he resolved not to quit his hold of the passes over the Guadarama, nor to abandon his communication with Valencia and Andalusia. But Wellington brought Santo Cildes over the Duero to the Zapardiel, and crossing the Eresma and Ciga rivers himself, with the first and light divisions and the cavalry, had obliged Clauzel to retire over the Duero in the night of the 29th; and the next day the French general whose army was very much discouraged, fearing that Wellington would gain Aranda and Lerma while the Gallicians seized Dueñas and Torquemada, retreated in three columns by the valleys of the Arlanza, the Duero and the Esquiva towards Burgos.
The English general entered Valladolid amidst the rejoicings of the people and there captured seventeen pieces of artillery, considerable stores, and eight hundred sick and wounded men; three hundred other prisoners were taken by the Partida chief Marquinez, and a large French convoy intended for Andalusia returned to Burgos. While the left wing of the allies pursued the enemy up the Arlanza, Wellington, marching with the right wing against the king, reached Cuellar the 1st of August; on the same day the garrison of Tordesillas surrendered to the Gallicians, and Joseph having first dismantled the castle of Segovia and raised a contribution of money and church plate retreatedWellington’s despatch. through the Puerta de Guadarama, leaving a rear-guard of cavalry which escaped by the Ildefonso pass on the approach of the allied horsemen. Thus the army of the centre was irrevocably separated from the army of Portugal, the operations against the latter were terminated, and new combinations were made conformable to the altered state of affairs; but to understand these it is necessary to look at the transactions in other parts of the Peninsula.
See [Chap. IV. Book XVIII.] In Estremadura, after Drouet’s retreat to Azagua, Hill placed a strong division at Merida ready to cross the Tagus, but no military event occurred until the 24th of July, when general Lallemand, with three regiments of cavalry pushed back some Portuguese horsemen from Ribera to Villa Franca. He was attacked in front by general Long, while general Slade menaced his left, but he succeeded in repassing the defile of Ribera; Long then turned him by both flanks, and aided by Lefebre’s horse artillery, drove him with the loss of fifty men and many horses upon Llera, a distance of twenty miles. Drouet, desirous to retaliate, immediately executed a flank march towards Merida, and Hill fearing for his detachments there made a corresponding movement, whereupon the French generalIntercepted correspondence. returned to the Serena; but though he received positive orders from Soult to give battle no action followed and the affairs of that part of the Peninsula remained balanced.
August. In Andalusia, Ballesteros surprised colonel Beauvais, at Ossuna, took three hundred prisoners and destroyed the French dépôt there. After this he moved against Malaga, and was opposed by general Laval in front, while general Villatte, detached from the blockade of Cadiz, cut off his retreat to San Roque. The road to Murcia was still open to him, but his rashness, though of less consequence since the battle of Salamanca, gave Wellington great disquietude, and the more so that Joseph O’Donel had just sustained a serious defeat near Alicant. This disaster, which shall be described in a more fitting place, was however in some measure counterbalanced by the information, that the revived expedition from Sicily had reached Majorca, where it had been reinforced by Whittingham’s division, and by the stores and guns sent from Portugal to Gibraltar. It was known also, that in the northern provinces Popham’s armament had drawn all Caffarelli’s troops to the coast, and although the littoral warfare was not followed up the French were in confusion and the diversion complete.
In Castile the siege of Astorga still lingered, but the division of Santo Cildes, seven thousand strong, was in communication with Wellington, Silveira’s militia were on the Duero, Clauzel had retreated to Burgos, and the king joined by two thousand men from Suchet’s army, could concentrate twenty thousand to dispute the passes of the Guadarama. Hence Wellington, having nothing immediate to fear from Soult, nor from the army of Portugal, nor from the army of the north, nor from Suchet, menaced as that marshal was by the Sicilian expedition, resolved to attack the king in preference to following Clauzel. The latter general could not be pursued without exposing Salamanca and the Gallicians to Joseph, who was strong in cavalry; but the monarch could be assailed without risking much in other quarters, seeing that Clauzel could not be very soon ready to renew the campaign, and it was expected Castaños would reduce Astorga in a few days which would give eight thousand additional men to the field army. Moreover a strong British division could be spared to co-operate with Santo Cildes, Silveira, and the Partidas, in the watching of the beaten army of Portugal while Wellington gave the king a blow in the field, or forced him to abandon Madrid; and it appeared probable that the moral effect of regaining the capital would excite the Spaniards’ energy every where, and would prevent Soult from attacking Hill. If he did attack him, the allies by choosing this line of operations, would be at hand to give succour.
These reasons being weighed, Wellington posted general Clinton at Cuellar with the sixth division, which he increased to eight thousand men by the addition of some sickly regiments and by Anson’s cavalry; Santo Cildes also was put in communication with him, and the Partidas of Marquinez, Saornil, and El Principe agreed to act with Anson on a prescribed plan. Thus exclusive of Silveira’s militia, and of the Gallicians about Astorga, eighteen thousand men were left on the Duero, and the English general was still able to march against Joseph with twenty-eight thousand old troops, exclusive of Carlos D’España’s Spaniards. He had also assurance from lord Castlereagh, that a considerable sum in hard money, to be followed by other remittances, had been sent from England, a circumstance of the utmost importance because grain could be purchased in Spain at one-third the cost of bringing it up from Portugal.
Meanwhile the king, who had regained Madrid, expecting to hear that ten thousand of the army of the south were at Toledo, received letters from Soult positively refusing to send that detachment; and from Clausel, saying that the army of Portugal was in full retreat to Burgos. This retreat heKing’s correspondence, MSS. regarded as a breach of faith, because Clausel had promised to hold the line of the Duero if Wellington marched upon Madrid; but Joseph was unable to appreciate Wellington’s military combinations; he did not perceive, that, taking advantage of his central position, the English general, before he marched against Madrid, had forced Clausel to abandon the Duero to seek some safe and distant point to re-organize his army. Nor was the king’s perception of his own situation much clearer. He had the choice of several lines of operations; that is, he might defend the passes of the Guadarama while his court and enormous convoys evacuated Madrid and marched either upon Zaragoza, Valencia or Andalusia; or he might retire, army and convoy together, in one of those directions.
Rejecting the defence of the passes, lest the allies should then march by their right to the Tagus, and so intercept his communication with the south, he resolved to direct his march towards the Morena, and he had from Segovia sent Soult orders to evacuate Andalusia and meet him on the frontier of La Mancha; but to avoid the disgrace of flying before a detachment, he occupied the Escurial mountain, and placed his army across the roads leading from the passes of the Guadarama to Madrid. While in this position Wellington’s advanced guard, composed of D’Urban’s Portuguese a troop of horse artillery and a battalion of infantry, passed the Guadarama, and the 10th the whole army was over the mountains. Then the king, retaining only eight thousand men in position, sent the rest of his troops to protect the march of his court, which quitted Madrid the same day, with two or three thousand carriages of different kinds and nearly twenty thousand persons of all ages and sexes.
The 11th D’Urban drove back Trielhard’s cavalry posts, and entered Majadahonda, whilst some German infantry, Bock’s heavy cavalry, and a troop of horse artillery, occupied Las Rozas about a mile in his rear. In the evening, Trielhard, reinforced by Schiazzetti’s Italian dragoons and the lancers of Berg, returned, whereupon D’Urban called up the horse artillery and would have charged the enemy’s leading squadrons, but the Portuguese cavalry fled. The artillery officer thus abandoned, made a vigorous effort to save his guns, yet three of them being overturned on the rough ground were taken, and the victorious cavalry passed through Majadahonda in pursuit. The German dragoons, although surprised in their quarters, mounted and stopped the leading French squadrons until Schiazzetti’s Italians came up, when the fight was like to end badly; but Ponsonby’s cavalry and the seventh division arrived, and Trielhard immediately abandoned Majadahonda, leaving the captured guns behind him, yet carrying away prisoners, the Portuguese general Visconde de Barbacena, the colonel of the German cavalry, and others of less rank. The whole loss of the allies was above two hundred, and when the infantry passed through Rozas, a few hours after the combat, the German dead were lying thickly in the streets, many of them in their shirts and trousers, and thus stretched across the sills of the doors, they furnished proof at once of the suddenness of the action and of their own bravery. Had the king been prepared to follow up this blow with his whole force the allies must have suffered severely, for Wellington, trusting to the advanced guard, had not kept his divisions very close together.
After this combat the king retired to Valdemoro where he met his convoy from Madrid, and when the troops of the three different nations forming his army thus came together, a horrible confusion arose; the convoy was plundered, and the miserable people who followed the court, were made a prey by the licentious soldiers. Marshal Jourdan, a man at all times distinguished for the noblest sentiments, immediately threw himself into the midst of the disorderly troops, and aided by the other generals, with great personal risk arrested the mischief, and succeeded in making the multitude file over the bridge of Aranjues. The procession was however lugubrious and shocking, for the military line of march was broken by crowds of weeping women and children and by despairing men, and courtiers of the highest rank were to be seen in full dress, desperately struggling with savage soldiers for the possession of even the animals on which they were endeavouring to save their families. The cavalry of the allies could have driven the whole before them into the Tagus, yet Lord Wellington did not molest them. Either from ignorance of their situation, or what is more probable compassionating their misery, and knowing that the troops by abandoning the convoy could easily escape over the river, he would not strike where the blow could only fall on helpless people without affecting the military operations. Perhaps also he thought it wise to leave Joseph the burthen of his court.