Previous to the sending of these instructions, Laval and Villatte had pursued Ballesteros to Malaga, which place, after a skirmish at Coin, he entered, and was in such danger of capture, that the maritime expedition already noticed was detached from Cadiz, by sea, to carry him off. However the news of the battle of Salamanca having arrested the French movements, the Spanish general regained San Roque, and the fleet went on to Valencia. Meanwhile Soult, hoping the king would transfer the seat of war to Andalusia had caused Drouet to shew a bold front against Hill, extending from the Serena to Monasterio, and to send scouting parties towards Merida; and large magazines were formed at Cordoba, a central point, equally suited for an advance by Estremadura, a march to La Mancha, or a retreat by Grenada. Wherefore Hill, who had not then received his orders to advance, remained on the defensive; nor would Wellington stir from Madrid, although his presence was urgently called for on the Duero, until he was satisfied that the duke of Dalmatia meant to abandon Andalusia. The king, as we have seen, finally forced this measure upon the marshal; but the execution required very extensive arrangements, for the quarters were distant, the convoys immense, the enemies numerous, the line of march wild, and the journey long. And it was most important to present the imposing appearance of a great and regular military movement and not the disgraceful scene of a confused flight.
The distant minor posts, in the Condado de Niebla and other places, were first called in, and then the lines before the Isla were abandoned; for Soult, in obedience to the king’s first order, designed to move upon La Mancha, and it was only by accident, and indirectly, that he heard of Joseph’s retreat to Valencia. At the same time he discovered that Drouet, who had received direct orders from the king, was going to Toledo, and it was not without difficulty, and only through the medium of his brother, who commanded Drouet’s cavalry, that he could prevent that destructive isolated movement. Murcia then became the line of retreat but every thing was hurried, because the works before the Isla were already broken up in the view of retreating towards La Mancha, and the troops were in march for Seville although the safe assembling of the army at Grenada required another arrangement.
On the 25th of August a thousand guns, stores in proportion, and all the immense works of Chiclana, St. Maria, and the Trocadero, were destroyed. Thus the long blockade of the Isla de Leon was broken up at the moment when the bombardment of Cadiz had become very serious, when the opposition to English influence was taking a dangerous direction, when the French intrigues were nearly ripe, the cortez becoming alienated from the cause of Ferdinand and the church; finally when the executive government was weaker than ever, because the count of Abispal, the only active person in the regency, had resigned, disgusted that his brother had been superseded by Elio and censured in the cortez for the defeat at Castalla. This siege or rather defence of Cadiz, for it was never, strictly speaking, besieged, was a curious episode in the war. Whether the Spaniards would or would not have effectually defended it without the aid of British troops is a matter of speculation; but it is certain that notwithstanding Graham’s glorious action at Barrosa, Cadiz was always a heavy burthen upon Lord Wellington; the forces, there employed, would have done better service under his immediate command, and many severe financial difficulties to say nothing of political crosses would have been spared.
In the night of the 26th Soult quitting Seville, commenced his march by Ossuna and Antequera, towards Grenada; but now Wellington’s orders had set all the allied troops of Andalusia and Estremadura in motion. Hill advanced against Drouet; Ballesteros moved by the Ronda mountains to hang on the retiring enemy’s flanks; the expedition sent by sea to succour him, returned from Valencia; colonel Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon disembarked with four thousand English and Spanish troops, at Huelva, and marching upon St. Lucar Mayor, drove the enemy from thence, on the 24th. The 27th they fell upon the French rear-guard at Seville, and the suburb of Triana, the bridge, and the streets beyond, were soon carried, by the English guards and Downie’s legion. Two hundred prisoners, several guns and many stores were taken, but Downie himself was wounded and made prisoner, and treated very harshly, because the populace rising in aid of the allies had mutilated the French soldiers who fell into their hands. Scarcely was Seville taken, when seven thousand French infantry came up from Chiclana, but thinking all Hill’s troops were before them, instead of attacking Skerrit hastily followed their own army, leaving the allies masters of the city. But this attack though successful, was isolated and contrary to lord Wellington’s desire. A direct and vigorous assault upon the lines of Chiclana by the whole of the Anglo-Spanish garrison was his plan, and such an assault, when the French were abandoning their works there, would have been a far heavier blow to Soult.
That commander was now too strong to be meddled with. He issued eight days’ bread to his army, marched very leisurely, picked up on his route the garrisons and troops who came into him at Antequera, from the Ronda and from the coast; and at Grenada he halted eleven days to give Drouet time to join him, for the latter quitting Estremadura the 25th by the Cordova passes, was marching by Jaen to Huescar. Ballesteros had harassed the march, but the French general had, with an insignificant loss, united seventy-two guns and forty-five thousand soldiers under arms, of which six thousand were cavalry. He was however still in the midst of enemies. On his left flank was Hill; on his right flank was Ballesteros; Wellington himself might come down by the Despenas Perros; the Murcians were in his front, Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon behind him, and he was clogged with enormous convoys; his sick and maimed men alone amounted to nearly nine thousand; his Spanish soldiers were deserting daily, and it was necessary to provide for several hundreds of Spanish families who were attached to the French interests. To march upon the city of Murcia was the direct, and the best route for Valencia; but the yellow fever raged there and at Carthagena; moreover, Don S. Bracco, the English consul at Murcia, a resolute man, declared his resolution to inundate the country if the French advanced. Wherefore again issuing eightSeptember days’ bread Soult marched by the mountain ways leading from Huescar to Cehejin, and Calasparra, and then moving by Hellin, gained Almanza on the great road to Madrid, his flank being covered by a detachment from Suchet’s army which skirmished with Maitland’s advanced posts at San Vicente close to Alicant. At Hellin he met the advanced guard of the army of Aragon, and on the 3rd of October the military junction of all the French forces was effected.
October. The task was thus completed, and in a manner worthy of so great a commander. For it must be recollected that besides the drawing together of the different divisions, the march itself was three hundred miles, great part through mountain roads, and the population was every where hostile. General Hill had menaced him with twenty-five thousand men, including Morillo and Penne Villemur’s forces; Ballesteros, reinforced from Cadiz, and by the deserters, had nearly twenty thousand; there were fourteen thousand soldiers still in the Isla; Skerrit and Cruz Murgeon had four thousand, and the Partidas were in all parts numerous: yet from the midst of these multitudes the duke of Dalmatia carried off his army his convoys and his sick without any disaster. In this manner Andalusia, which had once been saved by the indirect influence of a single march, made by Moore from Salamanca, was, such is the complexity of war, after three years’ subjection, recovered by the indirect effect of a single battle delivered by Wellington close to the same city.
During these transactions Maitland’s proceedings had been anxiously watched by Wellington; for though the recovery of Andalusia was, both politically and militarily, a great gain, the result, he saw, must necessarily be hurtful to the ultimate success of his campaign by bringing together such powerful forces. He still thought that regular operations would not so effectually occupy Suchet, as a littoral warfare, yet he was contented that Maitland should try his own plan, and he advised that general to march by the coast, and have constant communication with the fleet, referring to his own campaign against Junot in 1808 as an example to be followed. But, the coast roads were difficult, the access for the fleet uncertain; and though the same obstacles, and the latter perhaps in a greater degree, had occurred in Portugal, the different constitution of the armies, and still more of the generals, was an insuperable bar to a like proceeding in Valencia.
General Maitland only desired to quit his command, and the more so that the time appointed by lord William Bentinck for the return of the troops to Sicily was approaching. The moment was critical, but Wellington without hesitation forbade their departure, and even asked the ministers to place them under his own command. Meanwhile with the utmost gentleness and delicacy, he showed to Maitland, who was a man of high honour, courage, and feeling, although inexperienced in command, and now heavily oppressed with illness, that his situation was by no means dangerous;—that the entrenched camp of Alicant might be safely defended,—that he was comparatively better off than Wellington himself had been when in the lines of Torres Vedras, and that it was even desirable that the enemy should attack him on such strong ground, because the Spaniards when joined with English soldiers in a secure position would certainly fight. He also desired that Carthagena should be well looked to by general Ross lest Soult should turn aside to surprise it. Then taking advantage of Elio’s fear of Soult he drew him with the army that had been O’Donel’s towards Madrid and so got some controul over his operations.
If the English general had been well furnished with money at this time, and if the yellow fever had not raged in Murcia, it is probable he would have followed Joseph rapidly, and rallying all the scattered Spanish forces, and the Sicilian armament on his own army, have endeavoured to crush the king and Suchet before Soult could arrive; or he might have formed a junction with Hill at Despenas Perros and so have fallen on Soult himself, during his march, although such an operation would have endangered his line of communication on the Duero. But these obstacles induced him to avoid operations in the south, which would have involved him in new and immense combinations, until he had secured his northern line of operations by the capture of Burgos, meaning then with his whole army united to attack the enemy in the south.
However he could not stir from Madrid until he was certain that Soult would relinquish Andalusia, and this was not made clear before Cordoba was abandoned. Then Hill was ordered to advance on Zalamea de la Serena, where he commanded equally, the passes leading to Cordoba in front, those leading to La Mancha on the left, and those leading by Truxillo to the Tagus in the rear; so that he could at pleasure either join Wellington, follow Drouet towards Grenada, or interpose between Soult and Madrid, if he should turn towards the Despenas Perros: meanwhile Skerrit’s troops were marching to join him, and the rest of the Anglo-Portuguese garrison of Cadiz sailed to Lisbon, with intent to join Wellington by the regular line of operations.