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

August. During these transactions the affairs in Old Castile had become greatly deranged, for where Wellington was not, the French warfare generally assumed a severe and menacing aspect. Castaños had, in person, conducted the siege of Astorga, after the battle of Salamanca, yet with so little vigour, that it appeared rather a blockade than a siege. The forts at Toro and Zamora had also been invested, the first by the Partidas, the second by Silveira’s militia, who with great spirit had passed their own frontier, although well aware that they could not be legally compelled to do so. Thus all the French garrisons abandoned by Clauzel’s retreat were endangered, and though the slow progress of the Spaniards before Astorga was infinitely disgraceful to their military prowess, final success seemed certain.

General H. Clinton was at Cuellar, Santo Cildes occupied Valladolid, Anson’s cavalry was in the valley of the Esqueva, and the front looked fair enough. But in the rear the line of communication, as far as the frontier of Portugal, was in great disorder; the discipline of the army was deteriorating rapidly, and excesses were committed on all the routes. A detachment of Portuguese, not more than a thousand strong, either instigated by want or by their hatred of the Spaniards, had perpetrated such enormities on their march from Pinhel to Salamanca, that as an example, five were executed and many others severely punished by stripes, yet even this did not check the growing evil, the origin of which may be partly traced to the license at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, but principally to the sufferings of the soldiers.

All the hospitals in the rear were crowded, and Salamanca itself, in which there were six thousand sick and wounded, besides French prisoners, was the very abode of misery. The soldiers endured much during the first two or three days after the battle, and the inferior officers’ sufferings were still more heavy and protracted. They had no money, and many sold their horses and other property to sustain life; some actually died of want, and though Wellington, hearing of this, gave orders that they should be supplied from the purveyor’s stores in the same manner as the soldiers, the relief came late. It is a common, yet erroneous notion, that the English system of hospitals in the Peninsula was admirable, and that the French hospitals were neglected. Strenuous and unceasing exertions were made by lord Wellington and the chiefs of the medical staff to form good hospital establishments, but the want of money, and still more the want of previous institutions, foiled their utmost efforts. Now there was no point of warfare which more engaged Napoleon’s attention than the care of his sick and wounded; and he being monarch as well as general, furnished his hospitals with all things requisite, even with luxuries. Under his fostering care also, baron Larrey justly celebrated, were it for this alone, organized the establishment called the hospital “Ambulance;” that is to say, waggons of a peculiar construction, well horsed, served by men trained and incorporated as soldiers, and subject to a strict discipline. Rewarded for their courage and devotion like other soldiers they were always at hand, and whether in action or on a march, ready to pick up, to salve, and to carry off wounded men; and the astonishing rapidity with which the fallen French soldiers disappeared from a field of battle attested the excellence of the institution.

But in the British army, the carrying off the wounded, depended, partly upon the casual assistance of a weak waggon train, very badly disciplined, furnishing only three waggons to a division, and not originally appropriated to that service; partly upon the spare commissariat animals, but principally upon the resources of the country, whether of bullock-carts, mules, or donkeys, and hence the most doleful scenes after a battle, or when an hospital was to be evacuated. The increasing numbers of the sick and wounded as the war enlarged, also pressed on the limited number of regular medical officers, and Wellington complained, that when he demanded more, the military medical board in London neglected his demands, and thwarted his arrangements. Shoals of hospital mates and students were indeed sent out, and they arrived for the most part ignorant alike of war, and their own profession; while a heterogeneous mass of purveyors and their subordinates, acting without any military organization or effectual superintendence, continually bade defiance to the exertions of those medical officers, and they were many, whose experience, zeal, and talents would, with a good institution to work upon, have rendered this branch of the service most distinguished. Nay, many even of the well-educated surgeons sent out were for some time of little use, for superior professional skill is of little value in comparison of experience in military arrangement; where one soldier dies from the want of a delicate operation, hundreds perish from the absence of military arrangement. War tries the strength of the military frame-work; it is in peace that the frame-work itself must be formed, otherwise barbarians would be the leading soldiers of the world; a perfect army can only be made by civil institutions, and those, rightly considered, would tend to confine the horrors of war to the field of battle, which would be the next best thing to the perfection of civilization that would prevent war altogether.

Such was the state of affairs on the allies’ line of communication, when, on the 14th of August, Clauzel suddenly came down the Pisuerga. Anson’s cavalry immediately recrossed the Duero at Tudela, Santo Cildes, following Wellington’s instructions, fell back to Torrelobaton, and on the 18th the French assembled at Valladolid to the number ofClauzel’s Correspondence, MSS. twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, and fifty guns well provided with ammunition. Five thousand stragglers, who in the confusion of defeat had fled to Burgos and Vittoria, were also collected and in march to join. Clauzel’s design was to be at hand when Joseph, reinforced from the south, should drive Wellington from Madrid, for he thought the latter must then retire by Avila, and the Valle de Ambles, and he purposed to gain the mountains of Avila himself, and harass the English general’s flank. Meanwhile Foy proposed with two divisions of infantry and sixteen hundredFoy’s correspondence, MSS. cavalry, to succour the garrisons of Toro, Zamora, and Astorga, and Clauzel consented, though he appears to have been somewhat fearful of this dangerous experiment, and did not believe Astorga was so near its fall.

Foy wished to march on the 15th by Placentia, yet he was not dispatched until the evening of the 17th, and then by the line of Toro, the garrison of which place he carried off in passing. The 19th he sabred some of the Spanish rear-guard at Castro Gonzalo, on the Esla; the 20th, at three o’clock in the evening, he reached La Baneza, but was mortified to learn, that Castaños, by an artful negociation had, the day before, persuaded the garrison of Astorga, twelve hundred good troops, to surrender, although there was no breach, and the siege was actually being raised at the time. The Gallicians being safe in their mountains, the French general turned to the left, and marched upon Carvajales, hoping to enclose Silveira’s militia, between the Duero and the Esla, and sweep them off in hisFoy’s correspondence, MSS. course; then relieving Zamora, he purposed to penetrate to Salamanca, and seize the trophies of the Arapiles. And this would infallibly have happened, butSir H. Douglas’s papers, MSS. for the judicious activity of sir Howard Douglas, who, divining Foy’s object, sent Silveira with timeful notice into Portugal; yet so critical was the movement that Foy’s cavalry skirmished with the Portuguese rear-guard near Constantin at day-break on the 24th. The 25th the French entered Zamora, but Wellington was now in movement upon Arevalo, and Clauzel recalled Foy at the moment when his infantry were actually in march upon Salamanca to seize the trophies, and his cavalry was moving by Ledesma, to break up the line of communication with Ciudad Rodrigo.

That Foy was thus able to disturb the line of communication was certainly Clinton’s error. Wellington left eighteen thousand men, exclusive of the troops besieging Astorga, to protect his flank and rear, and he had a right to think it enough, because he momentarily expected Astorga to fall, and the French army, a beaten one, was then in full retreat. It is true none of the French garrisons yielded before Clauzel returned, but Clinton alone had eight thousand good troops, and might with the aid of Santo Cildes and the partidas, have baffled the French; he might even have menaced Valladolid, after Foy’s departure, which would have certainly brought that general back. And if he dared not venture so much, he should, following his instructions, have regulated his movements along the left of the Duero, so as to be always in a condition to protect Salamanca; that is, he should have gone to Olmedo when Clauzel first occupied Valladolid, but he retired to Arevalo, which enabled Foy to advance.

The mere escape of the garrisons, from Toro and Zamora, was by the English general thought no misfortune. It would have cost him a long march and two sieges in the hottest season to have reduced them, which, in the actual state of affairs, was more than they were worth; yet, to use his own words, “it was not very encouraging to find, that the best Spanish army was unable to stand before the remains of Marmont’s beaten troops; that in more than two months, it had been unable even to breach Astorga, and that all important operations must still be performed by the British troops.” The Spaniards, now in the fifth year of the war, were still in the state described by sir John Moore, “without an army, without a government, without a general!”

While these events were passing in Castile Popham’s armament remained on the Biscay coast, and the partidas thus encouraged became so active, that with exception of Santona and Gueteria, all the littoral posts were abandoned by Caffarelli; Porlier, Renovalles, and Mendizabel, the nominal commanders of all the bands, immediately took possession of Castro, Santander, and even of Bilbao, and though general Rouget came from Vittoria to recover the last, he was after some sharp fighting obliged to retire again to Durango. Meanwhile Reille, deluded by a rumour that Wellington was marching through the centre of Spain upon Zaragoza, abandoned several important outposts, Aragon, hitherto so tranquil, became unquiet, and all the northern provinces were ripe for insurrection.