The fault was not so much in the raising of the siege as in the manner of doing it, and in the feebleness of the attack. For first, however numerous the chances of war are, fortresses expecting succour do not surrender without being vigorously assailed. The arrival of reinforcements from Sicily was too uncertain for reasonable calculation, and it was scarcely possible for the governor of Taragona, while closely invested, to discover that no fresh stores or guns were being landed; still less could he judge so timeously of Murray’s final intention by that fact, as to advertize Suchet that Taragona was in no danger. Neither were the spies, if any were in the allies’ camp, more capable of drawing such conclusions, seeing that sufficient artillery and stores for the siege were landed the first week. And the landing of more guns could not have deceived them, when the feeble operations of the general, and the universal discontent, furnished surer guides for their reports.
Murray designed to raise the siege as early as the 9th and only deferred it, after seeing the admiral, from his natural vacillation. It was therefore mere casuistry to say, that he first obtained certain information of Suchet’s advance on the night of the 11th. On the 8th and 10th through various channels he knew the French marshal was in march for Tortoza, and that his advanced guard menaced the Col de Balaguer. The approach of Maurice Mathieu on the other side was also known; he should therefore have been prepared to raise the siege without the loss of his guns on the 12th. Why were they lost at all? They could not be saved, he said, without risking a battle in a bad position, and Wellington had declared he would not pardon a defeat! This was the after-thought of a sophister, and not warranted by Wellington’s instructions, which on that head, referred only to the duke Del Parque and Elio.
But was it necessary to fight a battle in a bad position to save the guns? All persons admitted that they could have been embarked before mid-day on the 13th. Panettier was then at Monroig, Suchet still behind Perillo, Maurice Mathieu falling back from Villa Franca. The French on each side were therefore respectively thirty-six and thirty-four miles distant on the night of the 12th, and their point of junction was Reus. Yet how form that junction? The road from Villa Franca by the Col de Cristina was partially broken up by Copons, the road from Perillo to Reus was always impracticable for artillery, and from the latter place to Taragona was six miles of very rugged country. The allies were in possession of the point of junction, Maurice Mathieu was retiring, not advancing. And if the French could have marched thirty-four and thirty-six miles, through the mountains in one night, and been disposed to attack in the morning without artillery, they must still have ascertained the situation of Murray’s army; they must have made arrangements to watch Copons, Manso, and Prevôt, who would have been on their rear and flanks; they must have formed an order of battle and decided upon the mode of attack before they advanced. It is true that their junction at Reus would have forced Murray to suspend his embarkation to fight; but not, as he said, in a bad position, with his back to the beach, where the ships’ guns could not aid him, and where he might expect a dangerous surf for days. The naval officers denied the danger from surf at that season of the year; and it was not right to destroy the guns and stores when the enemy was not even in march for Reus. Coolness and consideration would have enabled Murray to see that there was no danger. In fact no emissaries escaped from the town, and the enemy had no spies in the camp, since no communication took place between the French columns until the 17th. On the 15th Suchet knew nothing of the fate of Taragona.
The above reasoning leaves out the possibility of profiting from a central position to fall with superior forces upon one of the French columns. It supposes however that accurate information was possessed by the French generals; that Maurice Mathieu was as strong as he pretended to be, Suchet eager and resolute to form a junction with him. But in truth Suchet knew not what to do after the fall of Fort Balaguer, Maurice Mathieu had less than seven thousand men of all arms, he was not followed by Decaen, and he imagined the allies to have twenty thousand men, exclusive of the Catalans. Besides which the position at Cape Salou was only six miles distant, and Murray might with the aid of the draft bullocks discovered by Donkin, have dragged all his heavy guns there, still maintaining the investment; he might have shipped his battery train, and when the enemy approached Reus, have marched to the Col de Balaguer, where he could, as he afterwards did, embark or disembark in the presence of the enemy. The danger of a flank march, Suchet being at Reus, could not have deterred him, because he did send his cavalry and field artillery by that very road on the 12th, when the French advanced guard was at Monroig and actually skirmished with lord Frederick Bentinck. Finally he could have embarked his main body, leaving a small corps with some cavalry to keep the garrison in check and bring off his guns. Such a detachment, together with the heavy guns, would have been afloat in a couple ofNaval evidence on the trial. hours and on board the ships in four hours; it could have embarked on the open beach, or, if fearful of being molested by the garrison, might have marched to Cape Salou, or to the Col de Balaguer; and if the guns had thus been lost, the necessity would have been apparent, and the dishonour lessened. It is clear therefore that there was no military need to sacrifice the battery pieces. And those were the guns that shook the bloody ramparts of Badajos!
Wellington felt their loss keenly, sir John Murray spoke of them lightly. “They were of small value, old iron! he attached little importance to the sacrifice of artillery, it was his principle, he had approved of colonel Adam losing his guns at Biar, and he had also desired colonel Prevôt, if pressed, to abandon his battering train before the Fort of Balaguer.” “Such doctrine might appear strange to a British army, but it was the rule with the continental armies and the French owed much of their successes to the adoption of it.”
Strange indeed! Great commanders have risked their own lives, and sacrificed their bravest men, charging desperately in person, to retrieve even a single piece of cannon in a battle. They knew the value of moral force in war, and that of all the various springs and levers on which it depends military honour is the most powerful. No! it was not to the adoption of such a doctrine, that the French owed their great successes. It was to the care with which Napoleon fostered and cherished a contrary feeling. Sir John Murray’s argument would have been more pungent, more complete, if he had lost his colours, and pleaded that they were only wooden staves, bearing old pieces of silk!
CHAPTER II.
Lord William Bentinck arrived without troops, for,1813. June. having removed the queen from Sicily, he feared internal dissension and Napoleon had directed Murat to invade the island with twenty thousand men, the Toulon squadron being to act in concert. Sir Edward Pellew admitted that the latter might easily gain twenty-four hours’ start of his fleet, and lord William judged that ten thousand invaders would suffice to conquer. Murat however, opened a secret negociation, and thus, that monarch, Bernadotte, and the emperor Francis endeavoured to destroy a hero connected with them by marriage and to whom they all owed their crowns either by gift or clemency!
This early defection of Murat is certain, and his[Appendix, No. 1.] declaration that he had instructions to invade Sicily was corroborated by a rumour, rife in the French camps before the battle of Vittoria, that the Toulon fleet had sailed and the descent actually made. Nevertheless there is some obscurity about the matter. The negociation was never completed, Murat left Italy to command Napoleon’s cavalry and at the battle of Dresden contributed much to the success of that day. Now it is conceivable that he should mask his plans by joining the grand army, and that his fiery spirit should in the battle forget everything except victory. But to disobey Napoleon’s orders as to the invasion of Sicily and dare to face that monarch immediately after, was so unlikely as to indicate rather a paper demonstration to alarm lord Wellington than a real attack. And it would seem from the short observation of the latter in answer to lord William Bentinck’s detailed communication on this subject, namely “Sicily is in no danger,” that he viewed it so, or thought it put forward by Murat to give more value to his defection. However it sufficed to hinder reinforcements going to Murray.