History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 5

by William Francis Patrick Napier

The failure of the campaign was, by the king, attributed to Soult’s disobedience, inasmuch as the passage of the Tagus by Drouet would have enabled the army of the centre to act, before Palombini’s division arrived. But it has been shewn that Hill could have brought Wellington an equal, or superior reinforcement, in less time, whereby the latter could either have made head until the French dispersed for want of provisions, or, by a rapid counter-movement, he could have fallen upon Andalusia. And if the king had menaced Ciudad Rodrigo in return it would have been no diversion, for he had no battering train, still less could he have revenged himself by marching on Lisbon, because Wellington would have overpowered Soult and established a new base at Cadiz, before such an operation could become dangerous to the capital of Portugal. Oporto might indeed have been taken, yet Joseph would have hesitated to exchange Madrid for that city. But the ten thousand men required of Soult by the king, on the 19th of June, could have been at Madrid before August, and thus the passes of the Guadarama could have been defended until the army of Portugal was reorganized! Aye! but Hill could then have entered the valley of the Tagus, or, being reinforced, could have invaded Andalusia while Wellington kept the king’s army in check. It would appear therefore that Joseph’s plan of operations, if all its combinations had been exactly executed, might have prevented Wellington’s progress on some points, but to effect this the French must have been concentrated in large masses from distant places without striking any decisive blow, which was the very pith and marrow of the English general’s policy. Hence it follows that Soult made the true and Joseph the false application of the principle of concentration.

6º. If the king had judged his position truly he would have early merged the monarch in the general, exchanged the palace for the tent; he would have held only the Retiro and a few fortified posts in the vicinity of Madrid, he would have organized a good pontoon train and established his magazines in Segovia, Avila, Toledo, and Talavera; finally he would have kept his army constantly united in the field, and exercised his soldiers, either by opening good roads through the mountains, or in chasing the partidas, while Wellington remained quiet. Thus acting, he would have been always ready to march north or south, to succour any menaced point. By enforcing good order and discipline in his own army, he would also have given a useful example, and he could by vigilance and activity have ensured the preponderance of force in the field on whichever side he marched. He would thus have acquired the esteem of the French generals, and obtained their willing obedience, and the Spaniards would more readily have submitted to a warlike monarch. A weak man may safely wear an inherited crown, it is of gold and the people support it; but it requires the strength of a warrior to bear the weight of an usurped diadem, it is of iron.

7º. If Marmont and the king were at fault in the general plan of operations, they were not less so in the particular tactics of the campaign.

On the 18th of July the army of Portugal passed the Douro in advance. On the 30th it repassed that river in retreat, having, in twelve days, marched two hundred miles, fought three combats, and a general battle. One field-marshal, seven generals,[Appendix, Nos. 19], [20.] twelve thousand five hundred men and officers had been killed, wounded, or taken; and two eagles, besides those taken in the Retiro, several standards, twelve guns, and eight carriages, exclusive of the artillery and stores captured at Valladolid, fell into the victors’ hands. In the same period, the allies marched one hundred and sixty miles, and had one field-marshal, four generals, and somewhat less than six thousand officers and soldiers killed or wounded.

This comparison furnishes the proof of Wellington’s sagacity, when he determined not to fight except at great advantage. The French army, although surprised in the midst of an evolution and instantly swept from the field, killed and wounded six thousand of the allies; the eleventh and sixty-first regiments of the sixth division had not together more than one hundred and sixty men and officers left standing at the end of the battle; twice six thousand then would have fallen in a more equal contest, the blow would have been less decisive, and as Chauvel’s cavalry and the king’s army were both at hand, a retreat into Portugal would probably have followed a less perfect victory. Wherefore this battle ought not, and would not have been fought, but for Marmont’s false movement on the 22d. Yet it is certain that if Wellington had retired without fighting, the murmurs of his army, already louder than was seemly, would have been heard in England, and if an accidental shot had terminated his career all would have terminated. The cortez, ripe for a change, would have accepted the intrusive king, and the American war, just declared against England, would have rendered the complicated affairs of Portugal so extremely embarrassed that no new man could have continued the contest. Then the cries of disappointed politicians would have been raised. Wellington, it would have been said, Wellington, desponding, and distrusting his brave troops, dared not venture a battle on even terms, hence these misfortunes! His name would have been made, as sir John Moore’s was, a butt for the malice and falsehood of faction, and his military genius would have been measured by the ignorance of his detractors.

8º. In the battle Marmont had about forty-two thousand sabres and bayonets; Wellington who had received some detachments on the 19th had above forty-six thousand, but the excess was principally[Appendix, Nos. 19], [20.] Spanish. The French had seventy-four guns, the allies, including a Spanish battery, had only sixty pieces. Thus, Marmont, over-matched in cavalry and infantry, was superior in artillery, and the fight would have been most bloody, if the generals had been equal, for courage and strength were in even balance until Wellington’s genius struck the beam. Scarcely can a fault be detected in his conduct. It might indeed be asked why the cavalry reserves were not, after Le Marchant’s charge, brought up closer to sustain the fourth, fifth, and sixth divisions and to keep off Boyer’s dragoons, but it would seem ill to cavil at an action which was described at the time by a French officer, as the “beating of forty thousand men in forty minutes.”

9º. The battle of Salamanca remarkable in many points of view, was not least so in this that it was the first decided victory gained by the allies in the Peninsula. In former actions the French had been repulsed, here they were driven headlong as it were before a mighty wind, without help or stay, and the results were proportionate. Joseph’s secret negociations with the Cortez were crushed, his partizans in every part of the Peninsula were abashed, and the sinking spirit of the Catalans was revived; the clamours of the opposition in England were checked, the provisional government of France was dismayed, the secret plots against the French in Germany were resuscitated, and the shock, reaching even to Moscow, heaved and shook the colossal structure of Napoleon’s power to its very base.

Nevertheless Salamanca was as most great battles are, an accident; an accident seized upon with astonishing vigour and quickness, but still an accident. Even its results were accidental, for the French could never have repassed the Tormes as an army, if Carlos D’España had not withdrawn the garrison from Alba, and hidden the fact from Wellington; and this circumstance alone would probably have led to the ruin of the whole campaign, but for another of those chances, which, recurring so frequently in war, render bad generals timid, and make great generals trust their fortune under the most adverse circumstances. This is easily shewn. Joseph was at Blasco Sancho on the 24th, and notwithstanding his numerous cavalry, the army of Portugal passed in retreat across his front at the distance of only a few miles, without his knowledge; he thus missed one opportunity of effecting his junction with Clauzel. On the 25th this junction could still have been made at Arevalo, and Wellington, as if to mock the king’s generalship, halted that day behind the Zapardiel; yet Joseph retreated towards the Guadarama, wrathful that Clauzel made no effort to join him, and forgetful that as a beaten and pursued army must march, it was for him to join Clauzel. But the true cause of these errors was the different inclinations of the generals. The king wished to draw Clauzel to Madrid, Clauzel desired to have the king behind the Duero, and if he had succeeded the probable result may be thus traced.

Clauzel during the first confusion wrote that only twenty thousand men could be reorganised, but in this number he did not include the stragglers and marauders who always take advantage of a defeat to seek their own interest; a reference to the French loss proves that there were nearly thirty thousand fighting men left, and in fact Clauzel did in a fortnight reorganise twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry and fifty guns, besides gaining a knowledge of five thousand stragglers and marauders. In fine no soldiers rally quicker after a defeat, than the French, and hence as Joseph brought to Blasco Sancho thirty guns and fourteen thousand men of which above two thousand were horsemen, forty thousand infantry, and more than six thousand cavalry with a powerful artillery, might then have been rallied behind the Duero, exclusive of Caffarelli’s divisions. Nor would Madrid have been meanwhile exposed to an insurrection, nor to the operation of a weak detachment from Wellington’s army; for the two thousand men, sent by Suchet, had arrived in that capital on the 30th, and there were in the several fortified points of the vicinity, six or seven thousand other troops who could have been united at the Retiro, to protect that dépôt and the families attached to the intrusive court.