May. To lord Wellington, the English ministers had nominally confided the distribution of these succours, but following their usual vicious manner of doing business, they also gave Mr. Stuart a controul over it, without Wellington’s knowledge, and hence the stores, expected by the latter at Lisbon or Cadiz, were by Stuart unwittingly directed to Coruña, with which place the English general had no secure communication; moreover there were very few Spanish levies there, and no confidential person to superintend the delivery of them. Other political crosses, which shall be noticed in due time, he also met with, but it will suffice here to say that the want of money was an evil now become intolerable. The army was many months in arrears; those officers who went to the rear sick suffered the most cruel privations, and those who remained in Madrid, tempted by the pleasures of the capital, obtained some dollars at an exorbitant premium from a money-broker, and it was grievously suspected that his means resulted from the nefarious proceedings of an under commissary; but the soldiers, equally tempted, having no such resource, plundered the stores of the Retiro. In fine, discipline became relaxed throughout the army, and the troops kept in the field were gloomy, envying those who remained at Madrid.
September That city exhibited a sad mixture of luxury and desolation. When it was first entered a violent, cruel, and unjust persecution of those who were called “Afrancesados,” was commenced, and continued, until the English general interfered, and as an example made no distinction in his invitations to the palace feasts. Truly it was not necessary to increase the sufferings of the miserable people, for though the markets were full of provisions, there was no money wherewith to buy; and though the houses were full of rich furniture, there were neither purchasers nor lenders; even noble families secretly sought charity that they might live. At night the groans, and stifled cries of famishing people were heard, and every morning emaciated dead bodies, cast into the streets, shewed why those cries had ceased. The calm resignation with which these terrible sufferings were borne was a distinctive mark of the national character; not many begged, none complained, there was no violence, no reproaches, very few thefts; the allies lost a few animals, nothing more, and these were generally thought to be taken by robbers from the country. But with this patient endurance of calamity the “Madrileños” discovered a deep and unaffected gratitude for kindness received at the hands of the British officers who contributed, not much for they had it not, but, enough of money to form soup charities by which hundreds were succoured. It was the third division, and I believe the forty-fifth regiment which set the example, and surely this is not the least of the many honourable distinctions those brave men have earned.
Wellington desirous of obtaining shelter from the extreme heat for his troops, had early sent four divisions and the cavalry, to the Escurial and St. Ildefonso, from whence they could join Hill by the valley of the Tagus, or Clinton by Arevalo; but when he knew that the king’s retreat upon Valencia was decided, that Soult had abandoned Cordoba, and that Clinton was falling back before Clauzel, he ordered the first, fifth, and seventh divisions, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese brigades, Ponsonby’s light horsemen, and the heavy German cavalry, to move rapidly upon Arevalo, and on the 1st of September quitted Madrid himself to take the command. Yet his army had been so diminished by sickness that only twenty-one thousand men, including three thousand cavalry, were assembled in that town, and he had great difficulty to feed the Portuguese soldiers, who were also very ill equipped.
The regency instead of transmitting money and stores to supply their troops, endeavoured to throw off the burthen entirely by an ingenious device; for having always had a running account with the Spanish government, they now made a treaty, by which the Spaniards were to feed the Portuguese troops, and check off the expense on the national account which was then in favour of the Portuguese; that is, the soldiers were to starve under the sanction of this treaty, because the Spaniards could not feed their own men, and would not, if they could, have fed the Portuguese. Neither could the latter take provisions from the country, because Wellington demanded the resources of the valleys of the Duero and Pisuerga for the English soldiers, as a set-off against the money advanced by sir Henry Wellesley to the Spanish regency at Cadiz. Wherefore to force the Portuguese regency from this shameful expedient he stopped the payments of their subsidy from the chest of aids. Then the old discontents and disputes revived and acquired new force; the regency became more intractable than ever, and the whole military system of Portugal was like to fall to pieces.
On the 4th the allies quitted Arevalo, the 6th they passed the Duero by the ford above Puente de Duero, the 7th they entered Valladolid, and meanwhile the Gallicians, who had returned to the Esla, when Foy retreated, were ordered to join the Anglo-Portuguese army. Clauzel abandoned Valladolid in the night of the 6th, and though closely followed by Ponsonby’s cavalry, crossed the Pisuerga and destroyed the bridge of Berecal on that river. The 8th the allies halted, for rest, and to await the arrival of Castaños; but seldom during this war did a Spanish general deviate into activity; and Wellington observed that in his whole intercourse with that people, from the beginning of the revolution to that moment, he had not met with an able Spaniard, while amongst the Portuguese he had found several. The Gallicians came not, and the French retreated slowly up the beautiful Pisuerga and Arlanzan valleys, which, in denial of the stories about French devastation, were carefully cultivated and filled to repletion with corn, wine, and oil.
Nor were they deficient in military strength. Off the high road, on both sides, ditches and rivulets impeded the troops, while cross ridges continually furnished strong parallel positions flanked by the lofty hills on either side. In these valleys Clauzel baffled his great adversary in the most surprising manner. Each day he offered battle, but on ground which Wellington was unwilling to assail in front, partly because he momentarily expected the Gallicians up, but chiefly because of the declining state of his own army from sickness, which, combined with the hope of ulterior operations in the south, made him unwilling to lose men. By flank movements he dislodged the enemy, yet each day darkness fell ere they were completed, and the morning’s sun always saw Clauzel again in position. At Cigales and Dueñas, in the Pisuerga valley; at Magoz, Torquemada, Cordobilla, Revilla, Vallejera, and Pampliega in the valley of the Arlanzan, the French general thus offered battle, and finally covered Burgos on the 16th, by taking the strong position of Cellada del Camino.
But eleven thousand Spanish infantry, three hundred cavalry, and eight guns, had now joined the allies, and Wellington would have attacked frankly on the 17th, had not Clauzel, alike wary and skilful, observed the increased numbers and retired in the night to Frandovinez; his rear-guard was however next day pushed sharply back to the heights of Burgos, and in the following night he passed through that town leaving behind him large stores of grain. Caffarelli who had come down to place the castle of Burgos in a state of defence, now joined him, and the two generals retreated upon Briviesca, where they were immediately reinforced by that reserve which, with such an extraordinary foresight, the emperor had directed to be assembled and exercised on the Pyrennees, in anticipation of Marmont’s disaster. The allies entered Burgos amidst great confusion, for the garrison of the castle had set fire to some houses impeding the defence of the fortress, the conflagration spread widely, and the Partidas who were already gathered like wolves round a carcass, entered the town for mischief. Mr. Sydenham, an eye-witness, and not unused to scenes of war, thus describes their proceedings, “What with the flames and the plundering of the Guerillas, who are as bad as Tartars and Cossacks of the Kischack or Zagatay hordes, I was afraid Burgos would be entirely destroyed, but order was at length restored by the manful exertions of Don Miguel Alava.”
The series of beautiful movements executed by Clauzel, merit every praise, but it may be questioned if the English general’s marches were in the true direction, or made in good time; for though Clinton’s retreat upon Arevalo influenced, it did not absolutely dictate the line of operations. Wellington had expected Clauzel’s advance to Valladolid; it was therefore no surprise, and on the 26th of August, Foy was still at Zamora. At that period the English general might have had his army, Clinton’s troops excepted, at Segovia; and as the distance from thence to Valladolid, is rather less than from Valladolid to Zamora, a rapid march upon the former, Clinton advancing at the same time, might have separated Clauzel from Foy. Again, Wellington might have marched upon Burgos by Aranda de Duero and Lerma, that road being as short as by Valladolid; he might also have brought forward the third, or the light division, by the Somosierra, from Madrid, and directed Clinton and the Spaniards to close upon the French rear. He would thus have turned the valleys of the Pisuerga and the Arlanzan, and could from Aranda, or Lerma, have fallen upon Clauzel while in march. That general having Clinton and the Gallicians on his rear, and Wellington, reinforced by the divisions from Madrid, on his front or flank, would then have had to fight a decisive battle under every disadvantage. In fine the object was to crush Clauzel, and this should have been effected though Madrid had been entirely abandoned to secure success. It is however probable that want of money and means of transport decided the line of operations, for the route by the Somosierra was savage and barren, and the feeding of the troops even by Valladolid was from hand to mouth, or painfully supported by convoys from Portugal.
SIEGE OF THE CASTLE OF BURGOS.
Caffarelli had placed eighteen hundred infantry, besides artillery-men, in this place, and general Dubreton the governor, was of such courage and skill that he surpassed even the hopes of his sanguine and warlike countryman. The castle and its works enclosed a rugged hill, between which and the river, the city of Burgos was situated. An old wall with a new parapet and flanks constructedColonel Jones’s Sieges, 2nd edit. by the French offered the first line of defence; the second line, which was within the other, was earthen, of the nature of a field retrenchment and well palisaded; the third line was similarly constructed and contained the two most elevated points of the hill, on one of which was an entrenched building called the White Church, and on the other the ancient keep of the castle; this last was the highest point, and was not only entrenched but surmounted with a heavy casemated work called the Napoleon battery. Thus there were five separate enclosures.