In the evening of the 13th the whole multitude was over the Tagus, the garrisons of Aranjues and Toledo joined the army, order was restored, and the king received letters from Soult and Suchet. The first named marshal opposed the evacuation of Andalusia; the second gave notice, that the Sicilian expedition had landed at Alicant, and that a considerable army was forming there. Then irritated by Soult and alarmed for the safety of Suchet, the king relinquished his march towards the Morena and commenced his retreat to Valencia. The 15th the advanced guard moved with the sick and wounded, who were heaped on country cars, and the main body of the convoy followed under charge of the infantry, while the cavalry, spreading to the right and left, endeavoured to collect provisions. But the people, remembering the wanton devastation committed a few months before by Montbrun’s troops, on their return from Alicant, fled with their property; and as it was the hottest time of the year, and the deserted country was sandy and without shade, this march, of one hundred and fifty miles to Almanza, was one of continual suffering. The Partida chief Chaleco hovered constantly on the flanks and rear, killing without mercy all persons, civil or military, who straggled or sunk from exhaustion; and while this disastrous journey was in progress, another misfortune befel the French on the side of Requeña. For the hussars and infantry belonging to Suchet’s army, having left Madrid to succour Cuenca before the king returned from Segovia, carried off the garrison of that place in despite of the Empecinado, and made for Valencia; but Villa Campa crossing their march on the 25th of August, at the passage of a river, near Utiel, took all their baggage, their guns, and three hundred men. And after being driven away from Cuenca the Empecinado invested Guadalaxara where the enemy had left a garrison of seven hundred men.
Wellington seeing that the king had crossed the Tagus in retreat entered Madrid, a very memorable event were it only from the affecting circumstances attending it. He, a foreigner and marching at the head of a foreign army, was met and welcomed to the capital of Spain by the whole remaining population. The multitude who before that hour had never seen him, came forth to hail his approach, not with feigned enthusiasm, not with acclamations extorted by the fear of a conqueror’s power, nor yet excited by the natural proneness of human nature to laud the successful, for there was no tumultuous exultation; famine was amongst them, and long-endured misery had subdued their spirits, but with tears, and every other sign of deep emotion, they crowded around his horse, hung upon his stirrups, touched his clothes, or throwing themselves upon the earth, blessed him aloud as the friend of Spain. His triumph was as pure, and glorious, as it was uncommon, and he felt it to be so.
Madrid was however still disturbed by the presence of the enemy. The Retiro contained enormous stores, twenty thousand stand of arms, more than one hundred and eighty pieces of artillery, and the eagles of two French regiments, and it had a garrison of two thousand fighting men, besides invalids and followers, but its inherent weakness was soon made manifest. The works consisted of an interior fort called La China, with an exterior entrenchment; but the fort was too small, the entrenchment too large, and the latter could be easily deprived of water. In the lodgings of a French officer also was found an order, directing the commandant to confine his real defence to the fort, and accordingly, in the night of the 13th, being menaced, he abandoned the entrenchment, and the next day accepted honourable terms, because La China was so contracted and filled with combustible buildings, that his fine troops would with only a little firing have been smothered in the ruins; yet they were so dissatisfied that many broke their arms and their commander was like to have fallen a victim to their wrath. They were immediately sent to Portugal, and French writers with too much truth assert, that the escort basely robbed and murdered many of the prisoners. This disgraceful action was perpetrated, either at Avila or on the frontier of Portugal, wherefore the British troops, who furnished no escorts after the first day’s march from Madrid, are guiltless.
Coincident with the fall of the Retiro was that of Guadalaxara, which surrendered to the Empecinado. This mode of wasting an army, and its resources, was designated by Napoleon as the most glaring and extraordinary of all the errors committed by the king and by Marmont. And surely it was so. For including the garrisons of Toro, Tordesillas, Zamora and Astorga, which were now blockaded, six thousand men had been delivered, as it were bound, to the allies, and with them, stores and equipments sufficient for a new army. These forts had been designed by the emperor to resist the partidas, but his lieutenants exposed them to the British army, and thus the positive loss of men from the battle of Salamanca was doubled.
Napoleon had notice of Marmont’s defeat as early as the 2d of September, a week before the great battle of Borodino; the news was carried by colonel Fabvier, who made the journey from Valladolid in one course, and having fought on the 22d of July at the Arapiles, was wounded on the heights of Moskowa the 7th of September! However, the duke of Ragusa, suffering alike in body and in mind, had excused himself with so little strength, or clearness, that the emperor contemptuously remarking, that the despatch contained more complicate stuffing than a clock, desired his war minister to demand, why Marmont had delivered battle without the orders of the king? why he had not made his operations subservient to the general plan of the campaign? why he broke from defensive into offensive operations before the army of the centre joined him? why he would not even wait two days for Chauvel’s cavalry, which he knew were close at hand? “From personal vanity,” said the emperor, with seeming sternness, “the duke of Ragusa has sacrificed the interests of his country, and the good of my service, he is guilty of the crime of insubordination, and is the author of all this misfortune.”
September But Napoleon’s wrath so just, and apparently so dangerous, could not, even in its first violence, overpower his early friendship. With a kindness, the recollection of which must now pierce Marmont’s inmost soul, twice, in the same letter, he desired that these questions might not even be put to his unhappy lieutenant until his wounds were cured and his health re-established. Nor was this generous feeling shaken by the arrival of the king’s agent, colonel Desprez, who reached Moscow the 18th of October, just after Murat had lost a battle at the outposts and when all hopes of peace with Russia were at an end. Joseph’s dispatches bitter[Appendix, 4,] [5,] [6.] against all the generals, were especially so against Marmont and Soult; the former for having lost the battle, the latter because of his resistance to the royal plan. The recal of the duke of Dalmatia was demanded imperatively, because he had written a letter to the emperor, extremely offensive to the king; and it was also hinted, that Soult designed to make himself king of Andalusia. Idle stories of that marshal’s ambition seem always to have been resorted to, when his skilful plans were beyond the military judgement of ordinary generals; but Marmont was deeply sunk in culpable misfortune, and the king’s complaints against him were not unjust. Napoleon had however then seen Wellington’s dispatch, which was more favourable to the duke of Ragusa, than Joseph’s report; for the latter was founded on a belief, that the unfortunate general, knowing the army of the centre was close at hand, would not wait for it; whereas the partidas had intercepted so many of Joseph’s letters, it is doubtful if any reached Marmont previous to the battle. It was in vain therefore, that Desprez pressed the king’s discontent on the emperor; that great man, with unerring sagacity, had already disentangled the truth, and Desprez was thus roughly interrogated as to the conduct of his master.
Why was not the army of the centre in the field a month sooner to succour Marmont? Why was the emperor’s example, when, in a like case, he marched from Madrid against sir John Moore, forgotten? Why, after the battle, was not the Duero passed, and the beaten troops rallied on the army of the centre? Why were the passes of the Guadarama so early abandoned? Why was the Tagus crossed so soon? Finally, why were the stores and gun-carriages in the Retiro not burnt, the eagles and the garrison carried off?
To these questions the king’s agent could only reply by excuses which must have made the energetic emperor smile; but when, following his instructions, Desprez harped upon Soult’s demeanour, his designs in Andalusia, and still more upon the letter so personally offensive to the king, and which shall be noticed hereafter, Napoleon replied sharply, that he could not enter into such pitiful disputes while he was at the head of five hundred thousand men and occupied with such immense operations. With respect to Soult’s letter, he said he knew his brother’s real feelings, but those who judged Joseph by his language could only think with Soult, whose suspicions were natural and partaken by the other generals; wherefore he would not, by recalling him, deprive the armies in Spain of the only military head they possessed. And then in ridicule of Soult’s supposed treachery, he observed, that the king’s fears on that head must have subsided, as the English newspapers said the duke of Dalmatia was evacuating Andalusia, and he would of course unite with Suchet and with the army of the centre to retake the offensive.
The emperor, however, admitted all the evils arising from these disputes between the generals and the king, but said that at such a distance he could not give precise orders for their conduct. He had foreseen the mischief he observed, and regretted more than ever that Joseph had disregarded his counsel not to return to Spain in 1811, and thus saying he closed the conversation, but this expression about Joseph not returning to Spain is very remarkable. Napoleon spoke of it as of a well known fact, yet Joseph’s letters shew that he not only desired but repeatedly offered to resign the crown of Spain and live a private man in France! Did the emperor mean that he wished his brother to remain a crowned guest at Paris? or had some subtle intriguers misrepresented the brothers to each other? The noblest buildings are often defiled in secret by vile and creeping things.