Suchet treated Soult’s proposal as chimerical. His movable troops he said did not exceed eleven thousand, and a march upon Zaragoza with so few men would be to renew the disaster of Baylen, unless he could fly into France by Venasque where he had a garrison. An extraordinary view of affairs which he supported by statements still more extraordinary!
“General Hill had joined lord William Bentinck with twenty-four thousand men.” “La Bispal had arrived with fifteen thousand.” “There were more than two hundred thousand men on the Ebro.” “The Spanish insurrection was general and strongly organized.” “He had recovered the garrison of Taragona and destroyed the works, and he must revictual Barcelona and then withdraw to the vicinity of Gerona and remain on the defensive”!
This letter was written on the 23d of August, when lord William Bentinck had just retreated from the Gaya into the mountains above Hospitalet. The imperial muster-rolls prove that the two armies of Catalonia and Aragon, both under his command,[Appendix 8], Sect. 2. exceeded sixty-five thousand men, fifty-six thousand being present under arms. Thirty thousand were united in the field when he received Soult’s letter. There was nothing to prevent him marching upon Tortoza, except lord William Bentinck’s army which had just acknowledged by a retreat its inability to cope with him; there was nothing at all to prevent him marching to Lerida. The count of Bispal had thrown up his command from bad health, leaving his troops under Giron on the Echallar mountains. Sir Rowland Hill was at Roncesvalles, and not a man had moved from Wellington’s army. Elio and Roche were near Valencia in a starving condition. The Anglo-Sicilian troops only fourteen thousand strong including Whittingham’s division, were on the barren mountains above Hospitalet, where no Spanish army could remain; Del Parque’s troops and Sarzfield’s division had gone over the Ebro, and Copons’ Catalans had taken refuge in the mountains of Cervera. In fine not two hundred thousand but less than thirty-five thousand men, half-organized ill-fed and scattered from Vich to Vinaros were opposed to Suchet; and their generals had different views and different lines of operations. The Anglo-Sicilians could not abandon the coast, Copons could not abandon the mountains. Del Parque’s troops soon afterwards marched to Navarre, and to use lord Wellington’s phrase there was nothing to prevent Suchet “tumbling lord William Bentinck back even to the Xucar.” The true nature of the great insurrection which the French general pretended to dread shall be shown when the political condition of Spain is treated of.
Suchet’s errors respecting the allies were easily detected by Soult, those touching the French in Catalonia he could not suspect and acquiesced in the objections to his first plan; but fertile of resource he immediately proposed another, akin to that which he had urged Joseph to adopt in 1812 after the battle of Salamanca, namely, to change the theatre of war. The fortresses in Spain would he said, inevitably fall before the allies in succession if the French armies remained on the defensive, and the only mode of rendering offensive operations successful was a general concentration of means and unity of action. The levy of conscripts under an imperial decree, issued in August, would furnish, in conjunction with the depôts of the interior, a reinforcement of forty thousand men. Ten thousand would form a sufficient corps of observation about Gerona. The armies of Aragon and Catalonia could, he hoped, by sacrificing some posts produce twenty thousand infantry in the field. The imperial muster-rolls prove that they could have produced forty thousand, but Soult misled by Suchet’s erroneous statements assumed only twenty thousand, and he calculated that he could himself bring thirty-five or forty thousand good infantry and all his cavalry to a given point of junction for the two bodies between Tarbes and Pau. Fifteen thousand of the remaining conscripts were also to be directed on that place, and thus seventy or seventy-five thousand infantry all the cavalry of both armies and one hundred guns, would be suddenly assembled, to thread the narrow pass of Jaca and descend upon Aragon. Once in that kingdom they could attack the allied troops in Navarre if the latter were dispersed, and if they were united retire upon Zaragoza, there to fix a solid base and deliver a general battle upon the new line of operations. Meanwhile the fifteen thousand unappropriated conscripts might reinforce the twenty or twenty-five thousand old soldiers left to cover Bayonne.
An army so great and strongly constituted appearing in Aragon would, Soult argued, necessarily raise the blockades of Pampeluna, Jaca, Fraga, and Monzon, the two last being now menaced by the bands, and it was probable that Tortoza and even Saguntum would be relieved. The great difficulty was to pass the guns by Jaca, yet he was resolved to try, even though he should convey them upon trucks to be made in Paris and sent by post to Pau. He anticipated no serious inconvenience from the union of the troops in France since Suchet had already declared his intention of retiring towards Gerona; and on the Bayonne side the army to be left there could dispute the entrenched line between Cambo and St. Jean de Luz. If driven from thence it could take a flanking position behind the Nive, the right resting upon the entrenched camp of Bayonne, the left upon the works at Cambo and holding communication by the fortified mountain of Ursouia with St. Jean Pied de Port. But there could be little fear for this secondary force when the great army was once in Aragon. That which he most dreaded was delay, because a fall of snow, always to be expected after the middle of October, would entirely close the pass of Jaca.
This proposition written the 2d of September, immediately after the battle of San Marcial, reached Suchet the 11th and was peremptorily rejected. If he withdrew from Catalonia discouragement, he said, would spread, desertion would commence, and France be immediately invaded by lord William Bentinck at the head of fifty thousand men. The pass of Jaca was impracticable and the power of man could not open it for carriages under a year’s labour. His wish was to act on the defensive, but if an offensive movement was absolutely necessary, he offered a counter-project; that is, he would first make the English in his front re-embark at Taragona, or he would drive them over the Ebro and then march with one hundred guns and thirty thousand men by Lerida to the Gallego river near Zaragoza. Soult’s army, coming by Jaca without guns, might there meet him, and the united forces could then do what was fitting. But to effect this he required a reinforcement of conscripts, and to have Paris’s division and the artillery-men and draft horses of Soult’s army sent to Catalonia; he demanded also that two thousand bullocks for the subsistence of his troops should be provided to meet him on the Gallego. Then touching upon the difficulties of the road from Sanguessa to Pampeluna, he declared, that after forcing Wellington across the Ebro, he would return to Catalonia to revictual his fortresses and prevent an invasion of France. This plan he judged far less dangerous than Soult’s, yet he enlarged upon its difficulties and its dangers if the combined movements were not exactly executed. In fine, he continued, “The French armies are entangled amongst rocks, and the emperor should direct a third army upon Spain, to act between the Pyrenees and the Ebro in the centre, while the army of Spain sixty thousand strong and that of Aragon thirty thousand strong operate on the flanks. Thus the reputation of the English army, too easily acquired at Salamanca and Vittoria, will be abated.”
This illiberal remark combined with the defects of his project, proves that the duke of Albufera was far below the duke of Dalmatia’s standard both in magnanimity and in capacity. The one giving his adversary just praise, thought the force already supplied by the emperor sufficient to dispute for victory; the other, with an unseemly boast, desired overwhelming numbers.
Soult’s letter reached Suchet the day before the combat of Ordal, and in pursuance of his own plan he should have driven lord William Bentinck over the Ebro, as he could well have done, because the Catalan troops there separated from the Anglo-Sicilians. In his former letters he had estimated the enemies in his front at two hundred thousand fighting men, and affirmed that his own disposable force was only eleven thousand, giving that as a reason why he could not march to Aragon. Now, forgetful of his previous objections and estimates, he admitted that he had thirty thousand disposable troops, and proposed the very movement which he had rejected as madness when suggested by the duke of Dalmatia. And the futility of his arguments relative to the general discouragement, the desertion of his soldiers, and the temptation to an invasion of France if he adopted Soult’s plan, is apparent; for these things could only happen on the supposition that he was retreating from weakness, a notion which would have effectually covered the real design until the great movement in advance should change the public opinion. Soult’s plan was surer better imagined and grander than his; it was less dangerous in the event of failure and more conformable to military principles. Suchet’s project involved double lines of operation without any sure communications, and consequently without any certainty of just co-operation; his point of junction was within the enemy’s power, and the principal army was to be deprived of its artillery. There was no solidity in this design; a failure would have left no resource. But in Soult’s project the armies were to be united at a point beyond the enemy’s reach, and to operate afterwards in mass with all arms complete, which was conformable to the principles of war. Suchet indeed averred the impracticability of moving the guns by Jaca, yet Soult’s counter-opinion claims more respect. Clauzel and Paris who had lately passed with troops through that defile were in his camp, he had besides made very exact inquiries of the country people, had caused the civil engineers of roads and bridges on the frontiers to examine the route, and from their reports he judged the difficulty to be not insurmountable.
Neither the inconsistency, nor the exaggerations of Suchet’s statements, escaped Soult’s observation, but anxious to effect something while Pampeluna still held out, and the season permitted operations in the mountains he frankly accepted the other’s modification, and adopted every stipulation, save that of sending the artillery-men and horses of his army to Catalonia which he considered dangerous. Moreover he doubted not to pass his own guns by Jaca. The preparations for this great movement were therefore immediately commenced, and Suchet on his part seemed equally earnest although he complained of increasing difficulties, pretended that Longa’s and Morillo’s divisions had arrived in Catalonia, that general Graham was also in march with troops to that quarter, and deplored the loss of Fraga from whence the Empecinado had just driven his garrison. This post commanded indeed a bridge over the Cinca a river lying in his way and dangerous from its sudden and great floods but he still possessed the bridge of Monzon.