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HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA
AND IN THE
SOUTH OF FRANCE,
FROM THE YEAR 1807 TO THE YEAR 1814.
BY
W. F. P. NAPIER, C.B.
COLONEL H. P. FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH
ACADEMY OF MILITARY SCIENCES.
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
THOMAS & WILLIAM BOONE, NEW BOND-STREET.
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
MARCHANT, PRINTER, INGRAM-COURT, FENCHURCH-STREET.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
| BOOK XIII. | |
| CHAP. I. | |
| Lord Wellington’s sieges vindicated—Operations in Spain—State of Gallicia—Change of commanders—Bonet’s operations in the Asturias—Activity of the Partidas—Their system of operations—Mina captures a large convoy at Arlaban—Bessieres contracts his position—Bonet abandons the Asturias—Santocildes advances into Leon—French dismantle Astorga—Skirmish on the Orvigo—General inefficiency of the Gallicians and Asturians—Operations in the eastern provinces—State of Aragon—State of Catalonia—State of Valencia—Suchet marches against Tortoza—Fails to burn the boat-bridge there—M‘Donald remains at Gerona—The Valencians and Catalonians combine operations against Suchet—O’Donnel enters Tortoza—Makes a sally and is repulsed—The Valencians defeated near Uldecona—Operations of the seventh corps—M‘Donald reforms the discipline of the troops—Marches with a convoy to Barcelona—Returns to Gerona and dismantles the outworks of that place—O’Donnel’s plans—M‘Donald marches with a second convoy—Reaches Barcelona and returns to Gerona—Marches with a third convoy—Forces the pass of Ordal—Enters Reus and opens the communications with Suchet | [1] |
| CHAP. II. | |
| O’Donnel withdraws his troops from Falcet and surrounds the seventh corps—M‘Donald retires to Lerida—Arranges a new plan with Suchet—Ravages the plains of Urgel and the higher valleys—The people become desperate—O’Donnel cuts the French communication with the Ampurdan—Makes a forced march towards Gerona—Surprises Swartz at Abispal—Takes Filieu and Palamos—Is wounded and returns to Taragona—Campo Verde marches to the Cerdaña—M‘Donald enters Solsona—Campo Verde returns—Combat of Cardona—The French retreat to Guisona, and the seventh corps returns to Gerona—M‘Donald marches with a fourth convoy to Barcelona—Makes new roads—Advances to Reus—The Spaniards harass his flanks—He forages the Garriga district and joins the third corps—Operations of Suchet— General Laval dies—Operations of the Partidas—Plan of the secret junta to starve Aragon—General Chlopiski defeats Villa Campa—Suchet’s difficulties—He assembles the notables of Aragon and reorganizes that province—He defeats and takes general Navarro at Falcet—Bassecour’s operations—He is defeated at Uldecona | [19] |
| CHAP. III. | |
| Tortoza—Its governor feeble—The Spaniards outside disputing and negligent—Captain Fane lands at Palamos—Is taken—O’Donnel resigns and is succeeded by Campo Verde—Description of Tortoza—It is invested—A division of the seventh corps placed under Suchet’s command—Siege of Tortoza—The place negotiates—Suchet’s daring conduct—The governor surrenders—Suchet’s activity—Habert takes the fort of Balaguer—M‘Donald moves to Reus—Sarsfield defeats and kills Ugenio—M‘Donald marches to Lerida—Suchet goes to Zaragoza—The confidence of the Catalans revives—The manner in which the belligerents obtained provisions explained—The Catalans attack Perillo, and Campo Verde endeavours to surprise Monjuic, but is defeated with great loss—Napoleon changes the organisation of the third and seventh Corps—The former becomes the army of Aragon—The latter the army of Catalonia | [36] |
| CHAP. IV. | |
| Suchet prepares to besiege Taragona—The power of the Partidas described—Their actions—They are dispersed on the frontier of Aragon—The Valencians fortify Saguntum—Are defeated a second time at Uldecona—Suchet comes to Lerida—M‘Donald passes with an escort from them to Barcelona—His troops burn Manresa—Sarsfield harasses his march—Napoleon divides the invasion of Catalonia into two parts—Sinking state of the province—Rovira surprises Fort Fernando de Figueres—Operations which follow that event | [52] |
| CHAP. V. | |
| Suchet’s skilful conduct—His error about English finance—Outline of his arrangements for the siege of Taragona—He makes French contracts for the supply of his army—Forages the high valleys and the frontiers of Castile and Valencia—Marches to Taragona—Description of that place—Campo Verde enters the place—Suchet invests it—Convention relative to the sick concluded between St. Cyr and Reding faithfully observed—Sarsfield comes to Momblanch—Skirmish with the Valencians at Amposta and Rapita—Siege of Taragona—Rapita and Momblanch abandoned by Suchet—Taragona reinforced from Valencia—The Olivo stormed—Campo Verde quits Taragona, and Senens de Contreras assumes the chief command—Sarsfield enters the place and takes charge of the Port or lower town—French break ground before the lower town—The Francoli stormed—Campo Verde’s plans to succour the place—General Abbé is called to the siege—Sarsfield quits the place—The lower town is stormed—The upper town attacked—Suchet’s difficulties increase—Campo Verde comes to the succour of the place, but retires without effecting any thing—Colonel Skerrett arrives in the harbour with a British force—Does not land—Gallant conduct of the Italian soldier Bianchini—The upper town is stormed with dreadful slaughter | [70] |
| CHAP. VI. | |
| Suchet marches against Campo Verde—Seizes Villa Nueva de Sitjes and makes fifteen hundred prisoners—Campo Verde retires to Igualada—Suchet goes to Barcelona—A council of war held at Cervera by Campo Verde—It is resolved to abandon the province as a lost country—Confusion ensues—Lacy arrives and assumes the command—Eroles throws himself into Montserrat—Suchet sends detachments to the valley of Congosta and that of Vich, and opens the communication with M‘Donald at Figueras—Returns to Reus—Created a marshal—Destroys the works of the lower town of Taragona—Takes Montserrat—Negotiates with Cuesta for an exchange of the French prisoners in the island of Cabrera—Stopped by the interference of Mr. Wellesley—Mischief occasioned by the privateers—Lacy reorganizes the province—Suchet returns to Zaragoza, and chases the Partidas from the frontier of Aragon—Habert defeats the Valencians at Amposta—The Somatenes harass the French forts near Montserrat—Figueras surrenders to M‘Donald—Napoleon’s clemency—Observations—Operations in Valencia and Murcia | [100] |
| BOOK XIV. | |
| CHAP. I. | |
| State of political affairs—Situation of king Joseph—His disputes with Napoleon—He resigns his crown and quits Spain—The emperor grants him new terms and obliges him to return—Political state of France as regards the war | [120] |
| CHAP. II. | |
| Political state of England with reference to the war—Retrospective view of affairs—Enormous subsidies granted to Spain—The arrogance and rapacity of the juntas encouraged by Mr. Canning—His strange proceedings—Mr. Stuart’s abilities and true judgment of affairs shewn—He proceeds to Vienna—State of politics in Germany—He is recalled—The misfortunes of the Spaniards principally owing to Mr. Canning’s incapacity—The evil genius of the Peninsula—His conduct at Lisbon—Lord Wellesley’s policy totally different from Mr. Canning’s—Parties in the cabinet—Lord Wellesley and Mr. Perceval—Character of the latter—His narrow policy—Letters describing the imbecility of the cabinet in 1810 and 1811 | [131] |
| CHAP. III. | |
| Political state of Spain—Disputes amongst the leaders—Sir J. Moore’s early and just perception of the state of affairs confirmed by lord Wellington’s experience—Points of interest affecting England—The reinforcement of the military force—The claims of the princess Carlotta—The prevention of a war with Portugal—The question of the colonies—Cisnero’s conduct at Buenos Ayres—Duke of Infantada demanded by Mexico—Proceedings of the English ministers—Governor of Curaçoa—Lord Wellesley proposes a mediation—Mr. Bardaxi’s strange assertion—Lord Wellington’s judgment on the question—His discernment, sagacity, and wisdom shewn | [146] |
| CHAP. IV. | |
| Political state of Portugal—Mr. Villiers’ mission expensive and inefficient—Mr. Stuart succeeds him—Finds every thing in confusion—His efforts to restore order successful at first—Cortes proposed by lord Wellesley—Opposed by the regency, by Mr. Stuart, and by lord Wellington—Observations thereon—Changes in the regency—Its partial and weak conduct—Lord Strangford’s proceedings at Rio Janeiro only productive of mischief—Mr. Stuart’s efforts opposed, and successfully by the Souza faction—Lord Wellington thinks of abandoning the contest—Writes to the prince regent of Portugal—The regency continues to embarrass the English general—Effect of their conduct upon the army—Miserable state of the country—The British cabinet grants a fresh subsidy to Portugal—Lord Wellington complains that he is supplied with only one-sixth of the money necessary to carry on the contest—Minor follies of the regency—The cause of Massena’s harshness to the people of Portugal explained—Case of Mascarheñas—His execution a foul murder—Lord Wellington reduced to the greatest difficulties—He and Mr. Stuart devise a plan to supply the army by trading in grain—Lord Wellington’s embarrassments increase—Reasons why he does not abandon Portugal—His plan of campaign | [161] |
| CHAP. V. | |
| Second English siege of Badajos—Means of the allies very scanty—Place invested—San Christoval assaulted—The allies repulsed—Second assault fails likewise—The siege turned into a blockade—Observations | [182] |
| CHAP. VI. | |
| General Spencer’s operations in Beira—Pack blows up Almeida—Marmont marches by the passes to the Tagus, and Spencer marches to the Alemtejo—Soult and Marmont advance to succour Badajos—The siege is raised, and the allies pass the Guadiana—Lord Wellington’s position on the Caya described—Skirmish of cavalry in which the British are defeated—Critical period of the war—French marshals censured for not giving battle—Lord Wellington’s firmness—Inactivity of the Spaniards—Blake moves to the Condado de Niebla—He attacks the castle of Niebla—The French armies retire from Badajos, and Soult marches to Andalusia—Succours the castle of Niebla—Blake flies to Ayamonte—Sails for Cadiz, leaving Ballesteros in the Condado—French move against him—He embarks his infantry and sends his cavalry through Portugal to Estremadura—Blake lands at Almeria and joins the Murcian army—Goes to Valencia, and during his absence Soult attacks his army—Rout of Baza—Soult returns to Andalusia—His actions eulogised | [195] |
| CHAP. VII. | |
| State of the war in Spain—Marmont ordered to take a central position in the valley of the Tagus—Constructs forts at Almaraz—French affairs assume a favourable aspect—Lord Wellington’s difficulties augment—Remonstrances sent to the Brazils—System of intelligence described—Lord Wellington secretly prepares to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo—Marches into Beira, leaving Hill in the Alemtejo—French cavalry take a convoy of wine, get drunk and lose it again—General Dorsenne invades Gallicia—Is stopped by the arrival of the allies on the Agueda—Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.—Carlos España commences the formation of a new Spanish army—Preparations for the siege—Hill sends a brigade to Castello Branco | [215] |
| CHAP. VIII. | |
| The garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo make some successful excursions—Morillo operates against the French in Estremadura, is defeated and driven to Albuquerque—Civil affairs of Portugal—Bad conduct of the regency—They imagine the war to be decided, and endeavour to drive lord Wellington away from Portugal—Indications that Napoleon would assume the command in the Peninsula observed by lord Wellington—He expects a combined attack on Lisbon by sea and land—Marmont and Dorsenne collect convoys and unite at Tamames—Advance to succour Ciudad Rodrigo—Combat of Elbodon—Allies retire to Guinaldo—To Aldea Ponte—Combat of Aldea Ponte—The allies retire to Soita—The French retire—Observations | [229] |
| BOOK XV. | |
| CHAP. I. | |
| State of the war in Spain—Northern provinces—State of Gallicia—Attempt to introduce English officers into the Spanish service—Trafficked for by the Spanish government—Repelled by the Spanish military—The English government encourage the Partidas—Lord Wellington sends the chiefs presents—His after opinion of them—Sir H. Douglas succeeds general Walker—Miserable state of Gallicia described—Disputes between the civil and military—Anomalous proceedings of the English government—Gross abuses in the Spanish army—Expedition against America fitted out in Gallicia with the English supplies intended for the defence of the province—Sir H. Douglas’s policy towards the Partidas criticized—Events in the Asturias—Santander surprised by Porlier—Reille and Caffarelli scour Biscay and the Rioja—Bonet invades the Asturias—Defeats Moscoso, Paul Lodosa, and Mendizabel, and occupies Oviedo—In Gallicia the people prefer the French to their own armies—In Estremadura, Drouet joins Girard and menaces Hill—These movements parts of a great plan to be conducted by Napoleon in person | [254] |
| CHAP. II. | |
| Conquest of Valencia—Suchet’s preparations described—Napoleon’s system eminently methodical—State of Valencia—Suchet invades that province—Blake concentrates his force to fight—His advanced guard put to flight by the French cavalry—He retires to the city of Valencia—Siege of Saguntum—The French repulsed in an assault—Palombini defeats Obispo near Segorbe—Harispe defeats C. O’Donnel at Beneguazil—Oropesa taken—The French batteries open against Saguntum—Second assault repulsed—Suchet’s embarrassments—Operations in his rear in Catalonia—Medas islands taken—Lacy proposes to form a general depôt at Palamos—Discouraged by sir E. Pellew—The Spaniards blow up the works of Berga, and fix their chief depôt at Busa—Description of that place—Lacy surprises the French in the town of Igualada—Eroles takes a convoy near Jorbas—The French quit the castle of Igualada and join the garrison of Montserrat—That place abandoned—Eroles takes Cervera and Belpuig—Beats the French national guards in Cerdaña—Invades and ravages the French frontier—Returns by Ripol and takes post in the pass of Garriga—Milans occupies Mataro—Sarsfield embarks and sails to the coast of the Ampurdan—These measures prevent the march of the French convoy to Barcelona—State of Aragon—The Empecinado and Duran invade it on one side—Mina invades it on the other—Calatayud taken—Severoli’s division reinforces Musnier, and the Partidas are pursued to Daroca and Molino—Mina enters the Cinco Villas—Defeats eleven hundred Italians at Ayerbe—Carries his prisoners to Motrico in Biscay—Mazzuchelli defeats the Empecinado at Cubiliejos—Blake calls in all his troops and prepares for a battle—Suchet’s position described—Blake’s dispositions—Battle of Saguntum—Observations | [266] |
| CHAP. III. | |
| Suchet resolves to invest the city of Valencia—Blake reverts to his former system of acting on the French rear—Napoleon orders General Reille to reinforce Suchet with two divisions—Lacy disarms the Catalan Somatenes—Their ardour diminishes—The French destroy several bands, blockade the Medas islands, and occupy Mataro—Several towns affected to the French interest—Bad conduct of the privateers—Lacy encourages assassination—Suchet advances to the Guadalaviar—Spanish defences described—The French force the passage of the river—Battle of Valencia—Mahi flies to Alcira—Suchet invests the Spanish camp—Blake attempts to break out, is repulsed—The camp abandoned—The city is bombarded—Commotion within the walls—Blake surrenders with his whole army—Suchet created duke of Albufera—Shameful conduct of the junta of the province—Montbrun arrives with three divisions—Summons Alicant, and returns to Toledo—Villa Campa marches from Carthagena to Albaracin—Gandia and Denia taken by the French—They besiege Peniscola—Lacy menaces Taragona—Defeats a French battalion at Villa Seca—Battle of Altafulla—Siege of Peniscola—The French army in Valencia weakened by draughts—Suchet’s conquests cease—Observations | [291] |
| CHAP. IV. | |
| Operations in Andalusia and Estremadura—Description of Soult’s Position—Events in Estremadura—Ballesteros arrives at Algesiras—Advances to Alcala de Gazules—Is driven back—Soult designs to besiege Tarifa—Concludes a convention with the emperor of Morocco—It is frustrated by England—Ballesteros cooped up under the guns of Gibraltar by Sémelé and Godinot—Colonel Skerrett sails for Tarifa—The French march against Tarifa—Are stopped in the pass of La Pena by the fire of the British ships—They retire from San Roque—General Godinot shoots himself—General Hill surprises general Girard at Aroyo Molino, and returns to the Alemtejo—French reinforced in Estremadura—Their movements checked by insubordination amongst the troops—Hill again advances—Endeavours to surprise the French at Merida—Fine conduct of captain Neveux—Hill marches to Almendralejos to fight Drouet—The latter retires—Phillipon sends a party from Badajos to forage the banks of the Guadiana—Colonel Abercrombie defeats a squadron of cavalry at Fuente del Maestro—Hill returns to the Alemtejo | [313] |
| CHAP. V. | |
| Soult resolves to besiege Tarifa—Ballesteros is driven a second time under the guns of Gibraltar—Laval invests Tarifa—Siege of Tarifa—The assault repulsed—Siege is raised—The true history of this siege exposed—Colonel Skerrett not the author of the success | [329] |
| BOOK XVI. | |
| CHAP. I. | |
| Political situation of king Joseph—Political state of Spain—Political state of Portugal—Military operations—Julian Sanchez captures the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo—General Thiebault introduces a convoy and a new governor into that fortress—Difficulty of military operations on the Agueda—The allied army, being pressed for provisions, takes wide cantonments, and preparations are secretly made for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo | [345] |
| CHAP. II. | |
| Review of the different changes of the war—Enormous efforts of Napoleon—Lord Wellington’s situation described—His great plans explained—His firmness and resolution under difficulties—Distressed state of his army—The prudence and ability of lord Fitzroy Somerset—Dissemination of the French army—Lord Wellington seizes the opportunity to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo | [362] |
| CHAP. III. | |
| Means collected for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Major Sturgeon throws a bridge over the Agueda—Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Colonel Colborne storms fort Francesco—The scarcity of transport baulks lord Wellington’s calculations—Marmont collects troops—Plan of the attack changed—Two breaches are made and the city is stormed—Observations | [375] |
| CHAP. IV. | |
| Execution of the French partizans and English deserters found in Ciudad Rodrigo—The works are repaired—Marmont collects his army at Salamanca—Bonet abandons the Asturias—Souham advances to Matilla—Hill arrives at Castello Branco—The French army harassed by winter marches and by the Partidas—Marmont again spreads his divisions—Agueda overflows, and all communication with Ciudad Rodrigo is cut off—Lord Wellington prepares to besiege Badajos—Preliminary measures—Impeded by bad weather—Difficulties and embarrassments arise—The allied army marches in an unmilitary manner towards the Alemtejo—Lord Wellington proposes some financial measures—Gives up Ciudad to the Spaniards—The fifth division is left in Beira—Carlos d’Espagna and general Victor Alten are posted on the Yeltes—The Portuguese militia march for the Coa—Lord Wellington reaches Elvas—He is beset with difficulties—Falls sick, but recovers rapidly | [390] |
| CHAP. V. | |
| The allies cross the Guadiana—Beresford invests Badajos—Generals Graham and Hill command the covering army—Drouet retires to Hornaches in the Llerena—Third English siege of Badajos—Sally of the garrison repulsed—Works impeded by the rain—The besieged rake the trenches from the right bank of the Guadiana—The fifth division is called up to the siege—The river rises and carries away the bridge, and the siege is upon the point of being raised—Two flying bridges are established—The fifth division invest St. Christoval and the bridge-head—The Picurina is stormed—The batteries open against the San Roque and the body of the place—The covering army drive general Drouet from the Serena into the Morena on the side of Cordova—Marmont collects his forces in Leon—The Spanish officers and the Portuguese government neglect the supplies of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida—Soult advances from Cordova towards Llerena—The fifth division is brought over the Guadiana—The works of the siege are pressed—An attempt to blow up the dam of the inundation fails—The two breaches become practicable—Soult effects his junction with Drouet and advances to the succour of the place—Graham and Hill fall back—The bridge of Merida is destroyed—The assault is ordered, but countermanded—A third breach is formed—The fortress is stormed with a dreadful slaughter, and the city is sacked by the allies | [399] |
| CHAP. VI. | |
| The state of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida obliges lord Wellington to relinquish his design of invading Andalusia—Soult’s operations described—He reaches Villa Franca—Hears of the fall of Badajos and retires—Penne Villemur and Morillo move from the Niebla against Seville—Ballesteros having defeated Maransin at Cartama, comes from the Ronda against Seville—A French convoy is stopped in the Morena, and the whole of Andalusia is in commotion—Seville is saved by the subtlety of a Spaniard in the French interest—Ballesteros retires—Assaults Zahara and is repulsed—Sends a division against Ossuna, which is also repulsed by the Escopeteros—Drives general Rey from Allora to Malaga—Soult marches from Llerena towards Seville, and general Conroux brings a brigade up from the Guadalete to attack Ballesteros—Sir S. Cotton defeats general Peyreymont’s cavalry near Usagre—Soult concentrates his army near Seville to light the allies—Lord Wellington marches to Beira—Marmont’s operations—He marches against Ciudad Rodrigo—Carlos d’España retires towards Almeida and Victor Alten towards Penamacor—The French appear before Almeida—General Trant arrives on the Cabeça Negro—The French retire and Trant unites with J. Wilson at Guarda—Marmont advances to Sabugal—Victor Alten abandons Penamacor and Castello Branco, and crosses the Tagus—The Portuguese general Lecor opposes the enemy with skill and courage—Marmont drives Trant from Guarda and defeats his militia on the Mondego—Lord Wellington crosses the Tagus and enters Castello Branco—Marmont’s position perilous—Lord Wellington advances to attack him—He retreats over the Agueda—The allied army is spread in wide cantonments, and the fortresses are victualled | [434] |
| CHAP. VII. | |
| General observations—The campaign considered—The justice of Napoleon’s views vindicated, and Marmont’s operations censured as the cause of the French misfortunes—The operations of the army of the centre and of the south examined—Lord Wellington’s operations eulogized—Extraordinary adventures of captain Colquhon Grant—The operations of the siege of Badajos examined—Lord Wellington’s conduct vindicated | [450] |
APPENDIX.
| No. I. | |
| Justificatory papers relating to the state of Spain at different periods | [483] |
| No. II. | |
| Siege of Taragona | [498] |
| No. III. | |
| Political state of king Joseph | [512] |
| No. IV. | |
| Conduct of the English government, and extracts from Mr. Canning’s and lord Wellesley’s instructions to Mr. Stuart | [541] |
| No. V. | |
| Marmont and Dorsenne’s operations | [549] |
| No. VI. | |
| Siege of Tarifa, with anonymous extracts from memoirs and letters of different officers employed in the siege | [563] |
| No. VII. | |
| Storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, with anonymous extracts from memoirs and letters of officers engaged in, or eye-witnesses of the action described | [571] |
| No. VIII. | |
| English papers relating to Soult’s and Marmont’s operations, and French papers relating to the same | [578] |
| No. IX. | |
| Summary of the force of the Anglo-Portuguese army at different periods, exclusive of drummers and fifers, with summary of the French force at different periods, extracted from the imperial muster-rolls | [584] |
LIST OF PLATES.
| No. | [1. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Tortoza] | to face page | 41 |
| [2. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Taragona] | to face page | 75 | |
| [3. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations and Combat of Elbodon] | to face page | 240 | |
| [4. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege and Battle of Saguntum] | to face page | 283 | |
| [5. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege and Battle of Valencia] | to face page | 297 | |
| [6. Explanatory Sketch of general Hill’s Operations] | to face page | 324 | |
| [7. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Tarifa] | to face page | 331 | |
| [8. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo] | to face page | 386 | |
| [9. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Badajos, 1812] | to face page | 419 |
ERRATA.
| Page 3, | line 23, | [for “armies” read “parties.”] |
| 35, | 9, | [for “prisoners” read “provisions.”] |
NOTICE.
In addition to the manuscript authorities used for the former volumes, several memoirs, journals, and notes of officers employed in the different operations have been consulted for this volume. Amongst others, the Journal of general Harvey of the Portuguese service, and some original papers supplied by sir Howard Douglas.
In a recent controversy, I have expressed my belief that the French army at Albuera, instead of being more, was less numerous, than I had represented it in my account, of that battle. The following letter, since procured, decides the question:—
Extrait d’une lettre écrite de Seville le 4 Mai, 1811, par M. le mal duc de Dalmatie, général-en-chef de l’armée du midi, à S. A. S. le prince de Wagram et de Neufchatel, major-général.
Le général Latour Maubourg a été obligé de se replier sur Constantina et Alamis, Cordove est menacée par un corps Anglais, Portugais, et Espagnol, beaucoup de troupes se concentrent en Estramadure; Badajoz est investie. Le général Blake a réuni sur l’Odiel une armée de quinze à seize mille hommes, et paroit se préparer à marcher sur Seville. Le restant du quatrième corps est en opérations contre les troupes qui out débauché de Murcie. Si j’enumere bien, je suis en cet instant attaqué sur divers points par plus de soixante mille hommes indépendamment de troupes qui sont restées à Cadiz et à l’isle de Léon, et de celles qu’il y a à Tarrifa, à Algesiras, et à Gibraltar, que je dois contenir, le danger est pressant, je dois faire face de tous côtés assurer de nouveaux triomphes aux armées de S. M. l’empereur, et éviter les facheux événemens, que l’on prépare contre l’armée du midi. J’espère réussir, mais le succès sera complet si les secours que j’attends arrivent apropos; voici mes dispositions. Je pars dans quatre jours avec vingt mille hommes, trois mille chevaux, et trente pièces de canon, pour rejetter au delà de la Guadiana les corps ennemis qui se sont répandus en Estremadure, dégager Badajos et faciliter l’arrivée du général comte d’Erlon. Si les troupes que ce général amène peuvent se réunir avec celles que je conduirai et si les troupes qui sont parties des armées du nord et du centre, dont j’ai en partie disposé, arrivent à tems, j’aurai en Estremadure trente-cinq mille hommes, cinq mille chevaux, et quarante pièces de canon de campagne; alors je livre bataille aux ennemis quand bien même toute l’armée Angloise qui est sur le continent y seroit réunie, et ils seront vaincus.
Si une partie des renforts que j’attends manquent je ferai avec ce que j’aurai, tout ce que pourrai vers le but proposé.
Le général-en-chef de l’armée impériale du midi,
(Signée) Mal Duc de Dalmatie.
Pour extraits conformes.
To her grace the duchess of Abrantes.
September 11, 1833.
Madam,
In the eighth volume of your “Mémoires,” which I have only just seen, I find the following passages:—
“Toutefois, pourquoi donc m’étonner de la conduite des Portugais? N’ai je pas vu ici, en France, un des frères d’armes de Junot souffrir qu’on imprimât, dans un ouvrage traduit de l’Anglais, des choses revoltantes de fausseté sur lui et sur le maréchal Ney?...... Cet ouvrage, fait par un colonel Napier, et qui a trouvé grâce devant le ministère de la guerre parce qu’il dit du bien du ministre, m’a été donné à moi, à moi la veuve de Junot, comme renfermant des documents authentiques. J’ai du y lire une indécente attaque contre la vie privée d’un homme dont on ne pouvait dire aucun mal comme militaire dans cette admirable affaire de la Convention de Cintra, puisque les Anglais ont fait passer à une commission militaire ceux qui l’avaient signée pour l’Angleterre; et les beaux vers de Childe Harold suffisent seuls à la gloire de Junot, quand l’original de cette convention ne serait pas là pour la prouver. Heureusement que je le possède, moi, cet original, et même dans les deux langues. Il n’est pas dans M. Napier;”————
It is not permitted to a man to discover ill-humour at the expressions of a lady; yet when those expressions are dishonouring to him, and that reputation and talents are joined to beauty to give them a wide circulation, it would indicate insensibility to leave them unnoticed.
To judge of the talents of a general by his conduct in the field has always been the undisputed right of every military writer. I will not therefore enter upon that subject, because I am persuaded that your grace could not mean to apply the words “revolting falsehoods” to a simple judgement of the military genius of the duke of Abrantes. Indeed you intimate that the offensive passages are those directed against his private life, and touching the Convention of Cintra. I think, however, your grace has not perused my work with much attention, or you would scarcely have failed to perceive that I have given the Convention of Cintra at length in the Appendix.
But, in truth, I have only alluded to general Junot’s private qualities when they bore directly upon his government of Portugal, and, by a fresh reference to my work, you will find that I have affirmed nothing of my own knowledge. The character of the late duke of Abrantes, as drawn by me, is that ascribed to him by the emperor Napoleon, (see Las Cases,) and the authority of that great man is expressly quoted. It is against Napoleon therefore, and not against me, who am but a repeater of his uncontradicted observations, that your resentment should be directed.
If your grace should deign to dispose of any further thought upon me or my work, I would venture to suggest a perusal of the Portuguese, and English, and Spanish, and German histories of the invasion of Portugal; or even a slight examination of only a small part of the innumerable, and some of them very celebrated periodicals which treat of that event. You will be then convinced that, so far from having wantonly assailed the character of general Junot, I have made no slight effort to stem the torrent of abuse with which he has been unjustly overwhelmed; and believe me, madam, that the estimation in which an eminent man will be held by the world is more surely to be found in the literature of different countries than in the fond recollection of his own family. I admired general Junot’s daring character, and having enough of the soldier in me to like a brave enemy, I have, wherever the truth of history would permit, expressed that feeling towards him and towards other French generals whose characters and whose acts have been alike maligned by party writers in this country: such indeed has been my regard for justice on this point, that I have thereby incurred the charge of writing with a French rather than a national bias, as your grace will discover by referring to my lord Mahon’s History of the War of the Succession, in which his lordship has done me the honour to observe that I have written “by far the best French account yet published of the Peninsular War.”
For my own part I still think that to refrain from vulgar abuse of a gallant enemy will not be deemed un-English, although lord Mahon considers it wholly French; but his lordship’s observation incontestibly proves that I have discovered no undue eagerness to malign any of the French generals; and with respect to the duke of Abrantes, I could shew that all the offensive passages in my work rest upon the published authority of his own countrymen, and especially of his great master the emperor Napoleon, and that they are of a milder expression than those authorities would have warranted. It is, however, so natural and so amiable in a lady to defend the reputation of her deceased husband, that rather than appear to detract in any manner from the grace of such a proceeding, I choose to be silent under the unmitigated severity of your grace’s observations.
Not so, however, with respect to that part of your remarks which relate to marshal Ney. After carefully re-examining every sentence I have written, I am quite unable to discover the slightest grounds for your grace’s accusations. In all parts of my work the name of Ney is mentioned with praise. I have not, indeed, made myself a partizan of marshal Ney in relating his disputes with marshals Soult and Massena, because I honestly believed that he was mistaken; neither have I attributed to him unbounded talents for the higher parts of war, but this is only matter of opinion which the world is quite capable of appreciating at its true value; and upon all other points I have expressed admiration of marshal Ney’s extraordinary qualities, his matchless valour, his heroic energy!
In the hope that your grace will now think it reasonable to soften the asperity of your feelings towards my work, I take my leave, with more of admiration for your generous warmth in defence of a person so dear to you, than of any sentiment of resentment for the harsh terms which you have employed towards myself. And I remain, madam,
Your very obedient servant,
William Napier, Colonel.
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.
BOOK XIII.
CHAPTER I.
While marshal Beresford followed Soult towards1810. Llerena lord Wellington recommenced the siege of Badajos, but the relation of that operation must be delayed until the transactions which occurred in Spain, during Massena’s invasion of Portugal, have been noticed, for it is not by following one stream of action that a just idea of this war can be obtained. Many of lord Wellington’s proceedings might be called rash, and others timid, and slow, if taken separately; yet, when viewed as parts of a great plan for delivering the whole Peninsula, they will be found discreet or daring, as the circumstances warranted: nor is there any portion of his campaigns, that requires this wide-based consideration, more than his early sieges; which, being instituted contrary to the rules of art, and unsuccessful, or, when successful, attended with a mournful slaughter, have given occasion for questioning his great military qualities, which were however, then most signally displayed.
In the northern provinces the events were of little interest. Gallicia after the failure of Renovales’ expedition and the shipwreck that followed,See Vol. III p. 404. became torpid; the junta disregarded general Walker’s exhortations, and, although he furnished vast supplies, the army, nominally twenty thousand strong, mustered only six thousand in the field: there was no cavalry, and the infantry kept closeOfficial abstract of general Walker’s despatches in the mountains about Villa Franca, while a weak French division occupied the rich plains of Leon. General Mahi having refused to combine his operations with those of the Anglo-Portuguese army, was thought to be disaffected, and at the desire of the British authorities had been removed to make way for the duke of Albuquerque: he wasOfficial abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS. however immediately appointed to the command of Murcia, by Blake, in defiance of the remonstrances of Mr. Wellesley, for Blake disregarded the English influence.
When Albuquerque died, Gallicia fell to Castaños, and while that officer was co-operating with Beresford in Estremadura, Santocildes assumed the command. Meanwhile Caffarelli’s reserve havingSee Vol. III pp. 312, 407, and 475. joined the army of the north, Santona was fortified, and Bessieres, as I have before observed, assembled seven thousand men at Zamora to invade Gallicia.
In the Asturias, Bonet, although harassed, on the side of Potes, by the Guerillas from the mountains of Liebana; and on the coast by the English frigates, remained at Oviedo, and maintained his communications by the left with the troops in Leon. In November 1810 he defeated a considerable body of insurgents, and in February 1811 the Spanish general St. Pol retired before him with the regular forces, from the Xalon to the Navia; but thisMr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS. retreat caused such discontent in Gallicia that St. Pol advanced again on the 19th March, and was again driven back. Bonet then dispersed the Partidas, and was ready to aid Bessieres’ invasion of Gallicia; and although the arrival of the allied forces on the Coa in pursuit of Massena stopped that enterprise, he made an incursion along the coast, seized the Spanish stores of English arms and clothing, and then returned to Oviedo. The war was, indeed, so little formidable to the French, that in May Santander was evacuated, and all the cavalry in Castile and Leon joined Massena for the battle of Fuentes Onoro, and yet the Gallician and Asturian regular armies gained no advantage during their absence.
The Partidas, who had re-assembled after their defeat by Bonet, were more active. Porlier, Campillo, Longa, Amor, and Merino cut off small French parties in the Montaña, in the Rioja, in Biscay, and in the Baston de Laredo; they were not, indeed, dangerous in action, nor was it very difficult to destroy them by combined movements, but these combinations were hard to effect, from the little accord amongst the French generals, and thus they easily maintained their posts at Espinosa de Monteres, Medina, and Villarcayo. CampilloIntercepted letter of general Barthelemy to general Drouet, 1810. MSS. was the most powerful after Porlier. His principal haunts were in the valleys of Mena and Caranza; but he was in communication with Barbara, Honejas, and Curillas, petty chiefs of Biscay, with whom he concerted attacks upon couriers and weak detachments: and he sometimes divided his band into small parties, with which he overran the valleys of Gurieso, Soba, Carrado, and Jorrando, partly to raise contributions, partly to gather recruits, whom he forced to join him. His chief aim was, however, to intercept the despatches going from Bilbao to Santander, and for this purpose he used to infest Liendo between Ovira and Laredo, which he was enabled the more safely to do, because general Barthelemy, the governor of the Montaña, was forced to watch more earnestly towards the hilly district of Liebana, between Leon and the Asturias. This district was Porlier’s strong-hold, and that chief, under whom Campillo himself would at times act, used to cross the Deba and penetrate into the valleys of Cabuerniego, Rio Nauza, Cieza, and Buelna, and he obliged the people to fly to the mountains with their effects whenever the French approached: nevertheless the mass were tired of this guerilla system and tractable enough, except in Liebana.
To beat Campillo once or twice would have been sufficient to ruin him, but to ruin Porlier required great combinations. It was necessary to seize Espinosa, not that of Monteres, but a village in the mountains of Liebana, from whence the valleys all projected as from a point, and whence the troops could consequently act towards Potes with success. General Barthelemy proposed this plan1811. to Drouet, then with the 9th corps on the Upper Douro, whom he desired to co-operate from the side of Leon, while Bonet did the same from the side of the Asturias: but though partially adopted, the execution was not effectually followed up, the districts of Liebana and Santander continued to be disturbed, and the chain of Partidas was prolonged through Biscay and the Rioja, to Navarre.
In this last province Mina had on the 22d of1811. May. May defeated at the Puerto de Arlaban, near Vittoria, twelve hundred men who were escorting a convoy of prisoners and treasure to France; his success was complete, but alloyed by the death of two hundred of the prisoners, unfortunately killed during the tumult; and it was stained by the murder of six Spanish ladies, who, for beingMr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS. attached to French officers, were in cold blood executed after the fight. Massena, whose baggage was captured, was to have travelled with this escort, but disliking the manner of the march, he remained in Vittoria until a better opportunity, and so escaped.
These partizan operations, combined with the descents on the coast, the aspect of the war in Estremadura, and the unprotected state of Castile, which was now menaced by Santocildes, were rendered more important by another event to be noticed hereafter: Bessieres therefore resolved to contract his position in the north; and first causing Reille and Caffarelli to scour Biscay and the Rioja, he ordered Bonet to abandon the Asturias. On the 14th of June that general, having dismantled the coast-batteries, sent his sick and baggage by sea to Santander and marched into Leon, where Santocildes, who had now increased the Gallician field army to thirteen thousand men, was menacing Astorga, which place the French evacuated after blowing up some of the works. Serras and Bonet then united on the Esla, and being supported by three thousand men from Rio Seco, skirmished at the Ponte de Orvigo on the 23d, but had the worst, and general Valletaux was killed on their side: and as lord Wellington’s operations in Estremadura soon drew the French armies towards that quarter Santocildes held his ground at Astorga until August. Meanwhile two thousand French were thrown into Santona, and general Rognet coming, from the side of Burgos, with a division of the young guard, made a fruitless incursion against the Partidas of Liebana.
This system of warfare was necessarily harassing1811. June. to the French divisions actually engaged, but it was evident that neither the Asturias nor Gallicia could be reckoned as good auxiliaries to lord Wellington. Gallicia with its lordly junta, regular army, fortified towns, rugged fastnesses, numerous population, and constant supplies from England, was of less weight in the contest than five thousand Portuguese militia conducted by Trant and Wilson. The irregular warfare was now also beginning to produce its usual effects; the tree though grafted in patriotism bore strange fruit. In Biscay, which had been longest accustomed to the presence of the invaders, the armed peasantry were often found fighting in the ranks of the enemy, and on one occasion did of themselves attack the boats of the[Appendix, No. I.] Section 1. Amelia frigate to save French military stores! Turning now to the other line of invasion, we shall find the contest fiercer, indeed, and more honourable to the Spaniards, but the result still more unfavourable to their cause.
OPERATIONS IN THE EASTERN PROVINCES.
It will be remembered that Suchet, after the fall of Mequinenza, was ordered to besiege Tortoza while Macdonald marched against Taragona. Massena was then concentrating his army for the invasion of Portugal, and it was the emperor’s intention that Suchet should, after taking Tortoza, march with half of the third corps to support the prince of Esling. But the reduction of Tortoza proved a more tedious task than Napoleon anticipated, and as the course of events had now given the French armies of Catalonia and Aragon a common object, it will be well to compare their situation and resources with those of their adversary.
Suchet was completely master of Aragon, and not more by the force of his arms, than by the influence of his administration; the province was fertile, and so tranquil in the interior, that his magazines were all filled, and his convoys travelled under the care of Spanish commissaries and conductors. Mina was however in Navarre on his rear, and he communicated on the right bank of the Ebro with the Partidas in the mountains of Moncayo and Albaracin; and these last were occasionally backed by the Empecinado, Duran, and others whose strong-holds were in the Guadalaxara, and who from thence infested Cuença and the vicinity of Madrid. From Albaracin, Villa Campa continued the chain of partizan warfare and connected it with the Valencian army, which had also a line of operation towards Cuença. Mina, who communicated with the English vessels in the bay of Biscay, received his supplies from Coruña; and the others, in like manner, corresponded with Valencia, from whence the English consul Tupper succoured them with arms, money, and ammunition. Thus a line was drawn quite across the Peninsula which it was in vain for the enemy to break, as the retreat was secure at both ends, and the excitement to renewed efforts constant.
On the other flank of Suchet’s position the high valleys of the Pyrenees were swarming with small bands, forming a link between Mina and a division of the Catalonian army stationed about the Seu d’Urgel, which was a fortified castle, closing the passage leading from the plain of that name to the Cerdaña: this division in conjunction with Rovira, and other partizans, extended the irregular warfare on the side of Olot and Castelfollit to the Ampurdan; and the whole depended upon Taragona, which itself was supported by the English fleet in the Mediterranean. Aragon may therefore be considered as an invested fortress, which the Spaniards thought to reduce by famine, by assault, and by exciting the population against the garrison; but Suchet baffled them; he had made such judicious arrangements that his convoys were secure in the interior, and all the important points on the frontier circle were fortified, and connected, with Zaragoza, by chains of minor ports radiating from that common centre. Lerida, Mequinenza, and the plain of Urgel in Catalonia, the fort of Morella in Valencia, were his; and by fortifying Teruel and Alcanitz he had secured the chief passages leading through the mountains to the latter kingdom: he could thus, at will, invade either Catalonia or Valencia, and from Mequinenza he could, by water, transport the stores necessary to besiege Tortoza. Nor were these advantages the result of aught but his uncommon talents for war, a consideration which rendered them doubly formidable.
The situation of the French in Catalonia was different. Macdonald, who had assumed the command at the moment when Napoleon wished him to co-operate with Suchet, was inexperienced in the peculiar warfare of the province, and unprepared to execute any extended plan of operations. His troops were about Gerona and Hostalrich, which were in fact the bounds of the French conquest at this period; for Barcelona was a military point beyond their field system, and only to be maintained by expeditions; and the country was so exhausted of provisions in the interior, that the army itself could only be fed by land-convoys from France, or by such coasters as, eluding the vigilance of the English cruizers, could reach Rosas, St. Filieu, and Palamos. Barcelona like the horse-leech continually cried for more, and as the inhabitants as well as the garrison depended on the convoys, the latter were enormous, reference being had to the limited means of the French general, and the difficulty of moving; for, although the distance between Hostalrich and Barcelona was only forty miles, the road, as far as Granollers, was a succession of defiles, and crossed by several rivers, of which the Congosta and the Tordera were considerable obstacles; and the nature of the soil was clayey and heavy, especially in the defiles of the Trenta Pasos.
These things rendered it difficult for Macdonald to operate in regular warfare from his base of Gerona, and as the stores for the siege of Taragona were to come from France, until they arrived he could only make sudden incursions with light baggage, trusting to the resources still to be found in the open country, or to be gathered in the mountains by detachments which would have to fight for every morsel. This then was the condition of the French armies, that starting from separate bases, they had to operate on lines meeting at Tortoza. It remains to shew the situation of the Catalan general.
After the battle of Margalef, Henry O’Donnel1810. July. reunited his scattered forces, and being of a stern unyielding disposition, not only repressed the discontent occasioned by that defeat, but forced the reluctant Miguelettes to swell his ranks and to submit to discipline. Being assisted with money and arms by the British agents, and having free communication by sea with Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Minorca, he was soon enabled to reorganize his army, to collect vast magazines at Taragona, and to strengthen that place by new works. In July his force again amounted to twenty-two thousand men exclusive of the Partidas, and of the Somatenes, who were useful to aid in a pursuit, to break up roads, and to cut off straggling soldiers. Of this number one division under Campo Verde, was, as I have before said, in the higher valleys, having a detachment at Olot, and being supported by the fortified castles of Seu D’Urgel, Cardona, Solsona, and Berga. A second division was on the Llobregat, watching the garrison of Barcelona, and having detachments in Montserrat, Igualada, and Manresa to communicate with Campo Verde. The third division, the reserve and the cavalry were on the hills about Taragona, and that place and Tortoza had large garrisons.
By this disposition, O’Donnel occupied Falcet, the Col de Balaguer, and the Col del Alba, whichGeneral Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. were the passages leading to Tortoza; the Col de Ribas and Momblanch, which commanded the roads to Lerida; San Coloma de Queralt and Igualada, through which his connection with Campo Verde was maintained; and thus the two French armiesColonel Green’s do MSS. were separated not only by the great spinal ridges descending from the Pyrenees, but by the position of the Spaniards, who held all the passes, and could at will concentrate and attack either Suchet or Macdonald. But the Catalonian system was now also connected with Valencia, where, exclusive of irregulars, there were about fifteen thousand men under General Bassecour. That officer had in June occupied Cuença, yet having many quarrels with his officers he could do nothing, and was drivenOfficial Abstracts of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches, MSS. from thence by troops from Madrid: he returned to Valencia, but the disputes continued and extended to the junta or congress of Valencia, three membersMr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS. of which were by the general imprisoned. Nevertheless, as all parties were now sensible that Valencia should be defended at Tortoza, Bassecour prepared to march to its succour by the coast-road where he had several fortified posts. Thus, while Suchet and Macdonald were combining to crush O’Donnel, the latter was combining with Bassecour, to press upon Suchet; and there was always the English maritime force at hand to aid the attacks or to facilitate the escape of the Spaniards.
In the above exposition I have called the native armies by the names of their provinces, but in December 1810 the whole military force being reorganized by the regency the armies were designated by numbers. Thus the Catalonian forces, formerly called the army of the right, was now called the first army. The Valencians, together with Villa Campa’s division, and the partidas of the Empecinado and Duran, were called the second army. The Murcian force was called the third army. The troops at Cadiz, at Algesiras, and in the Conde Niebla were called the fourth army. The remnants of Romana’s old Gallician division which had escaped the slaughter on the Gebora formed the fifth army. The new-raised troops of Gallicia and those of the Asturias were called the sixth army. And the partidas of the north, that is to say, Mina’s, Longa’s, Campillo’s, Porlier’s, and other smaller bands formed the seventh army.
Such was the state of affairs when Napoleon’s order to besiege Tortoza arrived. Suchet was ready to execute it. More than fifty battering guns selected from those at Lerida were already equipped, and his depôts were established at Mequinenza, Caspe, and Alcanitz. All the fortified posts were provisioned; twelve thousand men under general Musnier, intended for the security of Aragon, were disposed at Huesca and other minor points on the left bank of the Ebro, and at Daroca, Teruel, and Calatayud on the right bank; and while these arrangements were being executed, the troops destined for the siege had assembled at Lerida and Alcanitz, under generals Habert and Laval, their provisions being drawn from the newly conquered district of Urgel.
From Mequinenza, which was the principal depôt, there was water-carriage, but as the Ebro was crossed at several points by rocky bars, some of which were only passable in full water, the communication was too uncertain to depend upon, and Suchet therefore set workmen to reopen an old road thirty miles in length, which had been made by the duke of Orleans during the war of the succession. This road pierced the mountains on the right bank of the Ebro, passed through Batea and other places to Mora, and from thence by Pinel to Tortoza, running through a celebrated defile called indifferently the Trincheras and the Passage of Arms. When these preliminary arrangements were made general Habert assembled his division at Belpuig near Lerida, and after making a feint as if to go towards Barcelona, suddenly turned to his right, and penetrating through the district of Garriga, reached Garcia on the left bank of the Lower Ebro the 5th of July. Laval at the same time quitted Alcanitz, made a feint towards Valencia bySee plans, No. 1 & 3. Morella, and then turning to his left, came so unexpectedly upon Tortoza by the right bank of the Ebro, that he surprised some of the outposts on the 2d, and then encamped before the bridge-head. The 4th he extended his line to Amposta, seized the ferry-boat of the great road from Barcelona to Valencia, and posted Boussard’s cuirassiers, with a battalion of infantry and six guns, at Uldecona, on the Cenia river, to observe Bassecour’s Valencians.
During these operations Suchet fixed his own quarters at Mora, and as the new road was not finished, he occupied Miravet, Pinel, and the Trincheras, on its intended line; and having placed flying bridges, with covering works, on the Ebro, at Mora and Xerta, made those places his depôt of siege. He likewise seized the craft on the river, established posts at Rapita, near the mouth of the Ebro, and at Amposta, and made a fruitless attempt to burn the boat-bridge of Tortoza, with fire vessels. Following Napoleon’s order, Macdonald should at this time have been before Taragona; but on the 9th, Suchet learned, from a spy, that the seventh corps was still at Gerona, and he thus found himself exposed alone to the combined efforts of the Catalans and Valencians. This made him repent of having moved from Aragon so soon, yet thinking it would be bad to retire, he resolved to blockade Tortoza; hoping to resist both O’Donnel and Bassecour until Macdonald could advance.
The Spaniards who knew his situation, sallied on the right bank the 6th and 8th, and on the 10th his outposts on the left bank were driven in at Tivisa by a division from Falcet, which, the next day, fell on his works at Mora, but was repulsed; and the 12th, general Paris pushed back the Spanish line, while Habert took post in force at Tivisa, by which he covered the roads to Xerta and Mora. O’Donoghue, who commanded Bassecour’s advanced guard, now menaced Morella, but general Montmarie being detached to its succour, drove him away.
The 30th, O’Donnel having brought up fresh troops to Falcet, made a feint with ten thousand men against Tivisa, and then suddenly entered Tortoza, from whence at mid-day, on the 3d of August, he passed the bridge and fell with the bayonet on Laval’s entrenchments. The French gave way at first, but soon rallied, and the Spaniards fearing for their communications regained the town in disorder, having lost two hundred prisoners besides killed and wounded.
This operation had been concerted with general1810. August. Caro, who having superseded O’Donoghue, was now marching with the Valencians by the coast-road towards Uldecona: Suchet therefore, judging that the intention of the Spaniards was to force him away from the Lower Ebro, before Macdonald could pass the Llobregat, resolved first to strike a sudden blow at the Valencians, and then turn upon the Catalans. In this view he contracted his quarters on the Ebro, and united at Uldecona, on the 13th, eleven battalions with eight hundred horsemen. Caro was then in a strong position covering the two great routes to Valencia, but when the French, after driving in his advanced guard from Vinaros, came up, his Valencians would not stand a battle, and being followed beyond Peniscola separated and retreated in disorder by different roads. Whereupon Suchet returned to Mora, and there found an officer of Macdonald’s army, who brought information that the seventh corps was at last in the plains of Reus, and its communications with the third corps open.
OPERATIONS OF THE SEVENTH CORPS.
When Macdonald succeeded Augereau he found1810. June. the troops in a state of insubordination, accustomed to plunder, and excited to ferocity by the cruelty of the Catalans, and by the conduct of his predecessor;Vacani. they were without magazines or regular subsistence, and lived by exactions: hence theVictoires et Conquêtes des François. people, driven to desperation, were more like wild beasts than men, and the war was repulsive to him in all its features. It was one of shifts and devices, and he better understood methodical movements; it was one of plunder, and he was a severe disciplinarian; it was full of cruelty on all sides, and he was of a humane and just disposition. Being resolved to introduce regular habits, Macdonald severely rebuked the troops for their bad discipline and cruelty, and endeavoured to soothe the Catalans, but neither could be brought to soften in their enmity; the mutual injuries sustained, were too horrible and too recent to be forgiven. The soldiers, drawn from different countries, and therefore not bound by any common national feeling, were irritated against a general, who made them pay for wanton damages, and punished them for plundering; and the Catalans attributing his conduct to fear, because he could not entirely restrain theVacani. violence of his men, still fled from the villages, and still massacred his stragglers with unrelenting barbarity.
While establishing his system it was impossible for Macdonald to take the field, because, without magazines, no army can be kept in due discipline; wherefore he remained about Gerona, drawing with great labour and pains his provisions from France, and storing up the overplus for his future operations. On the 10th of June however the wants of Barcelona became so serious, that leaving his baggage under a strong guard at Gerona, and his recruits and cavalry at Figueras, he marched with ten thousand men and a convoy, to its relief, by the way of the Trenta Pasos, Cardedieu, and Granollers. The road was heavy, the defiles narrow, the rivers swelled, and the manner of march rather too pompous for the nature of the war, for Macdonald took post in order of battle on each side of the defiles, while the engineers repaired the ways: in every thing adhered to his resolution of restoring a sound system; but while imitating the Jugurthine Metellus, he forgot that he had not Romans, but a mixed and ferocious multitude under his command, and he lost more by wasting of time, than he gained by enforcing an irksome discipline. Thus when he had reached Barcelona, his own provisions were expended, his convoy furnished only a slender supply for the city, and the next day he was forced to return with the empty carts in all haste to Gerona, where he resumed his former plan of action, and demolished the forts beyond that city.
In July he collected another convoy and prepared1810. July. to march in the same order as before, for his intent was to form magazines in Barcelona sufficient for that city and his own supply, during the siege of Taragona; but meanwhile Suchet was unable to commence the siege of Tortoza, in default of the co-operation of the seventh corps; and Henry O’Donnel having gained time to reorganize his army and to re-establish his authority was now ready to interrupt the French marshal’s march, proposing, if he failed, to raise a fresh insurrection in the Ampurdan, and thus give further occupation on that side. He had transferred a part of his forces to Caldas, Santa Coloma, and Bruñolas, taking nearly the same positions that Blake had occupied during the siege of Gerona; but the French detachments soon obliged him to concentrate again behind the defiles of the Congosta, where he hoped to stop the passage of the convoy; Macdonald, however, entered Hostalrich on the 16th, forced the Trenta Pasos on the 17th, and although his troops had only fifty rounds of ammunition he drove three thousand men from the pass of Garriga on the 18th, reached Barcelona that night, delivered his convoy, and returned immediately.
The French soldiers now became sickly from the1810. August. hardships of a march rendered oppressive by the severity of their discipline, and many also deserted;Vacani. yet others, who had before gone off, returned to their colours, reinforcements arrived from France, and the emperor’s orders to take the field were becoming so pressing, that Macdonald, giving Baraguay d’Hilliers the command of the Ampurdan, marched on the 8th of August with a third convoy for Barcelona, resolved at last to co-operate with Suchet. Instructed by experience he however moved this time with less formality, and having reached Barcelona the 11th, deposited his convoy, appointed Maurice Mathieu governor of that city, and on the 15th forced the pass of Ordal, and reached Villa Franca with about sixteen thousand men under arms. O’Donnel, still smarting from the affair at Tortoza, retired before him to Taragona without fighting, but directed Campo Verde to leave a body of troops under general Martinez in the mountains about Olot, and to move himself through Montserrat to the district of Garriga, which lies between Lerida and Tortoza; meanwhile the seventh corps passed by Braffin and Valls into the plain of Reus, and as we have seen opened the communication with Suchet, but to how little purpose shall be shewn in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
As the Spanish general knew that the French1810. August. could at Reus find provisions for only a few days, he withdrew his division from Falcet, and while Campo Verde, coming into the Garriga, occupied the passes behind them, and other troops were placed in the defiles between Valls and Villafranca, he held the main body of his army concentrated at Taragona, ready to fall upon Macdonald whenever he should move. This done, he became extremely elated, for like all Spaniards he imagined that to surround an enemy was the perfection of military operations. Macdonald cared little for the vicinity of the Catalan troops, but he had not yet formed sufficient magazines at Barcelona to commence the siege of Taragona, nor could he, as O’Donnel had foreseen, procure more than a few days supply about Reus, he therefore relinquished all idea of a siege and proposed to aid Suchet in the operation against Tortoza, if the latter would feed the seventh corps; and pending Suchet’s decision he resolved to remove to Lerida.
The 25th of August leaving seven hundred sick men in Reus, he made a feint against the Col de Balaguer, but soon changing his direction marched upon Momblanch and the Col de Ribas: his rear-guard, composed of Italian troops, being overtaken near Alcover, offered battle at the bridge of Goy, but this the Spaniards declined, and they also neglected to secure the heights on each side, which the Italians immediately turned to account and so made their way to Pixamoxons. They were pursued immediately, and Sarsfield coming from the Lerida side disputed the passage of Pixamoxons; but Macdonald, keeping the troops from Taragona in check with a rear-guard, again sent his Italians up the hills on the flanks while he pushed his French troops against the front of the enemy, and so succeeded; for the Italians quickly carried the heights, the rear-guard was very slightly pressed, the front was unopposed, and in two hours, the army reached Momblanch, whence after a short halt, it descended into the plains of Urgel.
Suchet being informed of this march came from1810. Sept. Mora to confer with Macdonald, and they agreed that the seventh corps should have for its subsistence the magazines of Monzon and the plains of Urgel, which had not yet delivered its contributions. In return Macdonald lent the Neapolitan division to guard Suchet’s convoys down the Ebro, and promised that the divisions of Severoli and Souham should cover the operations of the third corps, during the siege of Tortoza, by drawing the attention of the Catalan generals to the side of Cardona.
The seventh corps was now quartered aboutVacani. Tarega, Cervera, Guisona, and Agramunt, and Severola was detached with four thousand men over the Segre to enforce the requisitions about Talarn. He drove four hundred Swiss from the bridge of Tremp, and executed his mission, but with such violence that the people, becoming furious, assassinated the stragglers, and laid so many successful schemes of murder, that Macdonald was forced reluctantly to renew the executions and burnings of his predecessors. Indeed, to feed an army forcibly when all things are paid for, will, in a poor and mountainous country, create soreness, because the things taken cannot easily be replaced; but with requisitions severity is absolutely necessary. In rich plains the inhabitants can afford to supply the troops and will do so, to avoid being plundered; but mountaineers having scarcely any thing besides food, and little of that, are immediately rendered desperate and must be treated as enemies or left in quiet.
While Severoli was ravaging Tremp and Talarn, general Eugenio marched with another Italian detachment towards Castelfollit, which had a French garrison, and Macdonald removed his own quarters to Cervera. Meanwhile O’Donnel, having replaced his division at Falcet to observe Suchet, distributed his other forces on the line of communication through San Coloma de Querault, Igualada, Montserrat, and Cardona; he thus cut off all connection between Macdonald and the Ampurdan, and enabled Campo Verde closely to follow the operations of the seventh corps, and that general seeing the French army separated, fell first upon the head-quarters at Cervera, but being unsuccessful, marched against Eugenio, and was by him also repulsed near Castelfollit. Eugenio, distinguished alike by his valour and ferocity, then returned with his booty to Agramunt, and afterwards invading Pons, spoiled and ravaged all that district without hindrance. The provisions obtained, were heaped up in Lerida and Balaguer; but while Macdonald was thus acting in the plain of Urgel, O’Donnel formed and executed the most skilful plan which had yet graced the Spanish arms.
We have seen that Baraguay d’Hilliers was left with eighteen or twenty thousand men in the Ampurdan, but these troops were necessarily scattered: seven hundred were at Palamos, San Filieu, and other small ports along the coast; twelve hundred, under general Swartz, were quartered in Abispal, one short march from Gerona, and two hundred were at Calonjé, connecting Abispal with Palamos; the rest were in Figueras, Rosas, Olot, Castelfollit, Gerona, and Hostalrich, and several thousand were in hospital. O’Donnel having exact knowledge of all this, left a small garrison in Taragona, placed the baron d’Errolles at Montserrat, colonel Georget at Igualada, and Obispo at Martorel, while with six thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry he marched himself through the mountains, by San Culgat to Mattaro on the sea-coast: then crossing the Tordera below Hostalrich, he moved rapidly by Vidreras to Llagostera which he reached the 12th of September. His arrival was unknown to Macdonald, or Maurice Mathieu, or Baraguay d’Hilliers, for though many reports of his intentions were afloat, most of them spread by himself, no person divined his real object: by some he was said to be gone against a French corps, which, from the side of Navarre, had entered the Cerdaña; by others that he was concentrating at Manresa, and many concluded that he was still in Taragona.
Having thus happily attained his first object, O’Donnel proceeded in his plan with a vigour of execution equal to the conception. Leaving Campo Verde with a reserve in the valley of Aro, he sent detachments to fall on Calonjé and the posts along the coast, the operations there being seconded by two English frigates; and while this was in progress, O’Donnel himself on the 14th marched violently down from Casa de Silva upon Abispal. Swartz, always unfortunate, had his infantry and some cavalry under arms in an entrenched camp, and accepted battle; but after losing two hundred men and seeing no retreat, yielded, and all the French troops along the coast were likewise forced to surrender. The prisoners and spoil were immediately embarked on board the English vessels and sent to Taragona.
Until this moment Baraguay d’Hilliers was quite1810. October. ignorant of O’Donnel’s arrival, and the whole Ampurdan was thrown into confusion; for the Somatenes, rising in all parts, cut off the communications with Macdonald, whose posts on the side of Calaf and Cervera were at the same time harassed by Errolles and Obispo: nevertheless, although a rumour of Swartz’s disaster reached him, Macdonald would not credit it, and continued in the plain of Urgel. Baraguay d’Hilliers was therefore unable to do more than protect his own convoys from France, and would have been in a dangerous position if O’Donnel’s activity had continued; but that general having been severely wounded, the Spanish efforts relaxed, and Napoleon, whose eyes were every where, sent general Conroux, in the latter end of October, with a convoy and reinforcement of troops from Perpignan to Gerona. O’Donnel, troubled by his wound, then embarked; and Campo Verde, who succeeded to the command, immediately sent a part of the army to Taragona, left Rovira, and Claros, and Manso, to nourish the insurrection in the Ampurdan, and took post himself at Manresa, from thence he at first menaced Macdonald’s posts at Calaf; but his real object was to break up that road, which he effected, and then passed suddenly through Berga and Cardona to Puigcerda, and drove the French detachment, which had come from Navarre to ravage the fertile district of Cerdaña, under the guns of Fort Louis.
This excursion attracted Macdonald’s attention, he was now fully apprized of Swartz’s misfortune, and he hoped to repair it by crushing Campo Verde, taking Cardona, and dispersing the local junta of Upper Catalonia, which had assembled in Solsona; wherefore, on the 18th, he put his troops in motion, and the 19th, passing the mountains of Portellas, entered Solsona; but the junta and the inhabitants escaped to Cardona and Berja, and up the valleys of Oleana and Urgel. Macdonald immediately sent columns in all directions to collect provisions and to chase the Spanish detachments, and this obliged Campo Verde to abandon the Cerdaña, which was immediately foraged by the troops from Fort Louis. It only remained to sieze Cardona, and on the 21st the French marched against that place; but Campo Verde, by a rapid movement, arrived before them, and was in order of battle with a considerable force when Macdonald came up.
COMBAT OF CARDONA.
This town stands at the foot of a rugged hill, which is joined by a hog’s-back ridge to the great mountain spine, dividing Eastern from Western Catalonia. The Cardona river washed the walls, a castle of strength crowned the height above, and though the works of the place were weak, the Spanish army, covering all the side of the hill between the town and the castle, presented such an imposing spectacle, that the French general resolved to avoid a serious action. But the French and Italians marched in separate columns, and the latter under Eugenio, who arrived first, attacked contrary to orders; yet he soon found his hands too full, and thus, against his will, Macdonald was obliged also to engage to bring Eugenio off. Yet neither was he able to resist Campo Verde, who drove all down the mountain, and followed them briskly as they retreated to Solsona.
Macdonald lost many men in this fight, and on the 26th returned to Guisona. It was now more than two months since he had left the Ampurdan, and during that time he had struck no useful blow against the Spaniards, nor had he, in any serious manner, aided Suchet’s operations; for the Catalans continually harassed that general’s convoys, from the left of the Ebro, while the seventh corps, besides suffering severely from assassinations, had been repulsed at Cardona, had excited the people of the plain of Urgel to a state of rabid insurrection, and had lost its own communications with the Ampurdan. In that district the brigade of Swartz had been destroyed, the ports of Filieu and Palamos taken, and the Catalans were every where become more powerful and elated than before: Barcelona also was again in distress, and a convoy from Perpignan destined for its relief dared not pass Hostalrich. Macdonald therefore resolved to return to Gerona by the road of Manreza, Moya, and Granollers, and having communicated his intention to Suchet, and placed his baggage in Lerida, commenced his march the 4th of November.
Campo Verde getting intelligence of this design,1810. Nov. took post to fight near Calaf, yet when the French approached, his heart failed, and he permitted them to pass. The French general therefore reached Manreza the 7th, and immediately despatched parties towards Vich and other places to mislead the Spaniards, while with his main body he marched by Moya and the Gariga pass to Granollers, where he expected to meet Baraguay d’Hilliers with the convoy from Barcelona; but being disappointed in this, he returned by the Trenta Pasos to Gerona the 10th, and sent his convalescents to Figueras.
The vicinity of Gerona was now quite exhausted,1810. Dec. and fresh convoys from France were required to feed the troops, while the posts in the Ampurdan were re-established and the district reorganized. Macdonald’s muster-rolls presented a force of fifty-one thousand men, of which ten thousand were in hospital, six thousand in Barcelona, and several thousand distributed along the coast and on the lines of communication, leaving somewhat more than thirty thousand disposable for field-operations. Of this number, fourteen thousand were placed under Baraguay d’Hilliers to maintain the Ampurdan, and when the convoys arrived from France the French marshal marched, with the remaining sixteen thousand, for the fourth time, to the succour of Barcelona. His divisions were commanded by Souham and Pino, for Severoli had been recalled to Italy to organize fresh reinforcements; but following his former plan, this march also was made in one solid body, and as the defiles had been cut up by the Spaniards, and the bridge over the Tordera broken, Macdonald set his troops to labour, and in six hours opened fresh ways over the hills on the right and left of the Trenta Pasos, and so, without opposition, reached the more open country about Granollers and Moncada. The Spaniards then retired by their own left to Tarasa and Caldas, but Macdonald continued to move on in a solid body upon Barcelona; for as he was resolved not to expose himself to a dangerous attack, so he avoided all enterprise. Thus, on the 23d, he would not permit Pino to improve a favourable opportunity of crushing the CatalansVacani. in his front, and on the 24th, after delivering his convoy and sending the carts back to Belgarde, instead of pursuing Campo Verde to Tarasa, as all the generals advised, he marched towards the Llobregat; and as Souham and Pino remained discontented at Barcelona, their divisions were given to Frere and Fontanes.
Macdonald moved, on the 27th, towards Taragona, but without any design to undertake the siege; for though the road by Ordal and Villa Franca was broad and good, he carried no artillery or wheel-carriages: the Spaniards, seeing this, judged he would again go to Lerida, and posted their main body about Montserrat and Igualada; but he disregarded them, and after beating Sarsfield from Arbos and Vendril, turned towards the pass of Massarbones, which leads through the range of hills separating Villa Franca from the district of Valls. The Catalans had broken up both that and the pass of Christina leading to the Gaya, yet the French general again made new ways, and on the 30th spread his troops over the Paneda or plain of Taragona: thus shewing of how little use it is to destroy roads as a defence, unless men are also prepared to fight.
Instead of occupying Reus as before, Macdonald1811. Jan. now took a position about Momblanch, having his rear towards Lerida, but leaving all the passes leading from Taragona to the Ebro open for the Spaniards; so that Suchet derived no benefit from the presence of the seventh corps, nor could the latter feed itself, nor yet in any manner hinder the Catalans from succouring Tortoza. For Campo Verde, coming from Montserrat and Igualada, was encamped above the defiles between the French position and Taragona, principally at Lilla, on the road from Valls; and O’Donnel, who still directed the general movements, although his wound would not suffer him to appear in the field, sent parties into the Gariga behind Macdonald’s right flank to interrupt his foraging parties, and to harass Suchet’s communications by the Ebro.
From the strong heights at Lilla, the Catalans defied the French soldiers, calling upon them to come up and fight, and they would have done so if Macdonald would have suffered them, but after ten days of inactivity he divided his troops into many columns, and in concert with Abbé’s brigade of the third corps, which marched from Xerta, endeavoured to inclose and destroy the detachments in the Gariga; the Spaniards however disappeared in the mountains and the French army only gained some mules and four thousand sheep and oxen. With this spoil they united again on the left bank of the Ebro, and were immediately disposed on a line extending from Vinebre, which is opposite to Flix, to Masos, which is opposite to Mora, and from thence to Garcia and Gniestar. Suchet was thus enabled to concentrate his troops about Tortoza and the siege of that place was immediately commenced.
The operations of the third corps during the five months it had been dependent upon the slow movements of the seventh corps shall now be related.
Suchet, by resigning the plain of Urgel and the1810. Sept. magazines at Monzon, for Macdonald’s subsistence, in September, had deprived himself of all the resources of the left bank of the Ebro from Mequinenza to Tortoza, and the country about the latter place was barren; hence he was obliged to send for his provisions to Zaragoza, Teruel, and other places more than one hundred miles from his camp; and meanwhile the difficulty of getting his battering train and ammunition down the river from Mequinenza was increased because of the numerous bars and weirs which impeded the navigation when the waters were low: moreover Macdonald, by going to Cardona, exposed the convoys to attacks from the left bank, by the Spanish troops which being stationed between Taragona, Momblanch, and Falcet, were always on the watch. Considering these things Suchet had, while the seventh corps was yet at Lerida, and the waters accidentally high, employed the Neapolitan brigade of the seventh corps to escort twenty-six pieces of artillery down the river. This convoy reached Xerta the 5th of September, and the Neapolitans were then sent to Guardia; general Habert was placed at Tivisa; Mas de Mora was occupied by a reserve, and the Spaniards again took post at Falcet. At this time general Laval died, and his division was given to general Harispe, a person distinguished throughout the war by his ability, courage, and humanity.
Meanwhile the Valencian army had again concentrated to disturb the blockade of Tortoza, wherefore Suchet strengthened Boussard’s detachment at Uldecona, and gave the command to general Musnier, who was replaced at Zaragoza by general Paris. At the same time colonel Kliski was sent to command the detachments on the side of Montalvan, Teruel, Daroca, and Calatayud, where a partizan warfare was continued with undiminished activity by Villa Campa, who had contrived to open secret communications, and to excite some commotions even in Zaragoza. On the 7th of August he had beaten a French foraging detachment near Cuevas, and recaptured six thousand sheep, and at Andorra had taken both convoy and escort. On the side of Navarre also, Mina coming down into the Cinco Villas destroyed some detachments, and impeded the foraging parties. Thus the third corps also began to suffer privations, and no progress was made towards the conquest of Catalonia.
In September, however, Villa Campa, having increased his forces, advanced so near Suchet that general Habert attacked and drove him over the frontier in dispersion, and recaptured all the sheep before lost, and Suchet then brought down the remainder of the battering train, and the stores for the siege; but as the waters of the Ebro were low, the new road was used for the convoys, which thus came slowly and with many interruptions and considerable loss; especially on the 17th of September, when a whole Neapolitan battalion suffered itself to be taken without firing a shot.
In this manner affairs dragged on until the 28th1810. Oct. of October; but then Macdonald (O’Donnel having meantime captured Swartz and raised the Ampurdan) returned to Gerona, whereby Suchet’s hopes of commencing the siege were again baffled. And, as it was at this moment that the assembling of the Cortez gave a new vigour to the resistance in Spain and the regency’s plan of sending secret juntas, to organize and regulate the proceedings of the partidas, was put in execution, the activity of those bands became proportioned to the hopes excited, and the supplies and promises thus conveyed to them. One of those secret juntas composed of clergy and military men having property or influence in Aragon, endeavoured to renew the insurrection formerly excited by Blake in that province, and for this purpose sent their emissaries into all quarters, and combined their operations with Mina. They, also, diligently followed a plan of secretly drawing off the provisions from Aragon, with a view to starve the French, and general Carbajal, one of the junta, joining Villa Campa, assumed the supreme command on that side; while captain Codrington, at the desire of Bassecour, carried a Valencian detachment by sea to Peniscola to fall on the left flank of Suchet, if he should attempt to penetrate by the coast-road to Valencia. Thus, at the moment when Macdonald returned to the Ampurdan, the Aragonese became unquiet, the partidas from Navarre and the district of Montalvan and Calatayud, closed in on Suchet’s communications, the Valencians came up on the one side, towards Uldecona, and on the other Garcia Navarro moving from Taragona with a division again assumed the position of Falcet.
To check this tide of hostility the French general1810. Nov. resolved first to crush the insurrection project, and for this purpose detached seven battalions and four hundred cavalry against Carbajal. Chlopiski, who commanded them, defeated the Spaniards the 31st at Alventoza on the route to Valencia, taking some guns and ammunition. Nevertheless Villa Campa rallied his men in a few days on the mountain of Fuente Santa, where he was joined by Carbajal, and having received fresh succours renewed the project of raising the Aragonese. But Chlopiski again defeated him the 12th of November, and the Spaniards fled in confusion towards the river Libras, where the bridge breaking many were drowned. The French lost more than a hundred men in this sharp attack, and Chlopiski then returned to the blockade, leaving Kliski with twelve hundred men to watch Villa Campa’s further movements.
The Ebro having now risen sufficiently, the remainder of the battering train and stores were embarked at Mequinenza, and on the 3d dropt down the stream; but the craft outstripped the escort, and the convoy being assailed from the left bank, lost two boats; the others grounded on the right bank, and were there defended by the cannoneers, until the escort came up on the one side, and on the other, general Abbé, who had been sent from Guardia to their succour. The waters, however, suddenly subsided, and the convoy was still in danger until Suchet reinforced Abbé, who was thus enabled to keep the Spaniards at bay, while Habert, with fifteen hundred men, made a diversion by attacking the camp at Falcet. On the 7th the waters again rose and the boats with little loss reached Xerta on the 9th, and thus all things were ready to commence the siege, but the seventh corps still kept aloof.
Suchet was now exceedingly perplexed; for the provisions he had with so much pains collected, from the most distant parts of Aragon, were rapidly wasting; forage was every day becoming scarcer, and the plain of Urgel, was by agreement given over to the seventh corps, which thus became a burthen instead of an aid to the third corps. The latter had been, since the beginning of the year, ordered to supply itself entirely from the resources of Aragon without any help from France; and the difficulty of so doing may be judged of by the fact, that in six months they had consumed above a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and twelve hundred bullocks.
To obviate the embarrassments thus accumulating, the French general called the notables and heads of the clergy in Aragon to his head-quarters, and with their assistance reorganized the whole system of internal administration, in such a manner, that, giving his confidence to the natives, removing many absurd restrictions of their industry and trade, and leaving the municipal power and police entirely in their hands, he drew forth the resources of the provinces in greater abundance than before. And yet with less discontent, being well served and obeyed, both in matters of administration and police, by the Aragonese, whose feelings he was careful to soothe, shewing himself in all things, an able governor, as well as a great commander.
Macdonald was now in march from Barcelona towards Taragona, and Suchet to aid this operation attacked the Spanish troops at Falcet. General Habert fell on their camp in front the 19th, and to cut off the retreat, two detachments were ordered to turn it by the right and left; but Habert’s assault was so brisk, that before the flanking corps could take their stations the Catalans fled, leaving their general Garcia Navarro and three hundred men in the hands of the victors. But while Suchet obtained this success on the side of Falcet, the Valencian general Bassecour, thinking that the main body of the French would be detained by Navarro on the left bank of the Ebro, formed the design of surprising general Musnier at Uldecona. To aid this operation, a flotilla from the harbour of Peniscola, attacked Rapita, and other small posts occupied by the French, on the coast between the Cenia and the Ebro; and at the same time the governor of Tortoza menaced Amposta and the stations at the mouth of the Ebro.
Bassecour moved against Uldecona in three columns, one of which, following the coast-road towards Alcanar, turned the French left, while another passing behind the mountains took post at Las Ventallas, in rear of Musnier’s position, to cut him off from Tortoza. The main body went straight against his front, and in the night of the 26th the Spanish cavalry fell upon the French camp outside the town; but the guards, undismayed, opened a fire which checked the attack, until the troops came out of the town and formed in order of battle.
At daylight the Spanish army was perceived covering the hills in front; and those in rear also, for the detachment at Ventallas was in sight; the French were thus surrounded and the action immediatelySuchet’s Memoirs. commenced; but the Valencians were defeated with the loss of sixteen hundred men, and the detachment in the rear seeing the result made off to the mountains again. Bassecour then withdrew in some order behind the Cenia, where in the night Musnier surprised him, and at the same time sent the cuirassiers by the route of Vinaros to cut off his retreat, which was made with such haste and disorder that the French cavalry fallingOfficial Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatch. MSS. in with the fugitives near Benicarlo, killed or took nine hundred. Bassecour saved himself in Peniscola, and thither also the flotilla, having failed at Rapita, returned.
Suchet having thus cleared his rear, sent his prisoners to France by Jaca, and directed a convoy of provisions, newly collected at Mequinenza, to fall down the Ebro to the magazines at Mora: fearing however that the current might again carry the boats faster than the escort, he directed the latter to proceed first, and sent general Abbé to Flix to meet the vessels. The Spaniards in the Garriga observing this disposition, placed an ambuscade near Mequinenza, and attacked the craft before they could come up with the escort; the boats were then run ashore on the right side, and seventy men from Mequinenza came down the left bank to their aid, which saved the convoy, but the succouring detachment was cut to pieces. Soon after this the seventh corps having scoured the Garriga took post on the left bank of the Ebro, and enabled the third corps to commence the long delayed siege.
CHAPTER III.
Tortoza, with a population of ten thousand1810. Dec. souls and a garrison of from eight to nine thousand regular troops, was justly considered the principal bulwark of both Catalonia and Valencia, but it was under the command of general Lilli, Conde d’Alacha, a feeble man, whose only claim was, that he had shewn less incapacity than others before the battle of Tudela in 1808. However, so confident were the Spaniards in the strength of the place that the French attack was considerably advanced ere any interruption was contemplated, and had any well considered project for its relief been framed, it could not have been executed, because jealousy and discord raged amongst the Spanish chiefs. Campo Verde was anxious to succeed O’Donnel in command of the Catalonian army, Bassecourt held unceasing dispute with his own officers, and with the members of the junta or congress of Valencia; and Villa Campa repelled the interference both of Carbajal and Bassecour.
At this critical time therefore every thing was stagnant, except the English vessels which blockaded Rosas, Barcelona, and the mouths of the Ebro, or from certain head-lands observed and pounced upon the enemy’s convoys creeping along from port to port: they had thrown provisions, ammunition, and stores of all kinds into Taragona and Tortoza, and were generally successful, yet at times met with disasters. Thus captain Rogers of the Kent, having with him the Ajax, Cambrian, Sparrow-hawk, and Minstrel, disembarked six hundred men and two field-pieces under captain Fane at Palamos, where they destroyed a convoy intended for Barcelona; but as the seamen were re-embarking in a disorderly manner, the French fell upon them and took or killed two hundred, captain Fane being amongst the prisoners.
The Catalan army was thirty thousand strong,Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS. including garrisons, and in a better state than it had hitherto been; the Valencians, although discouraged by the defeat at Uldecona, were still numerous, and all things tended to confirm the Spaniards in the confident expectation that whether succoured or unsuccoured the place would not fall. But O’Donnel, who had been created Conde de’ Bispal was so disabled by wounds, that he resigned the command soon after the siege commenced, and Campo Verde was by the voice of the people raised in his stead; for it was their nature always to believe that the man who made most noise was the fittest person to head them, and in this instance, as in most others, they were greatly mistaken.
Tortoza, situated on the left of the Ebro, communicatedVacani. with the right bank by a bridge of boats, which was the only Spanish bridge on that river,Rogniat. from Zaragoza to the sea; and below and above the place there was a plain, but so narrowed bySuchet. the juttings of the mountains at the point where the town was built, that while part of the houses stood close to the water on flat ground, the other part stood on the bluff rocky points shot from the hills above; and thus appeared to tie the mountains, the river, and the plains together.
Five of these shoots were taken into the defence, either by the ramparts or by outworks. That on the south of the town was crowned by the fort of Orleans, and on the north another was occupied by a fort called the Tenaxas. To the east a horn-work was raised on a third shoot, which being prolonged, and rising suddenly again between the suburbs and the city, furnished the site of a castle or citadel: the other two, and the deep ravines between them were defended by the ramparts of the place, which were extremely irregular, and strong from their situation, rather than their construction.
There were four fronts.
1º. The northern defending the suburb. Although this front was built on the plain, it was so imbedded between the Ebro, the horn-work, the citadel, and the Tenaxas, that it could not even be approached without first taking the latter fort.
2º. The eastern. Extending from the horn-work to the bastion of San Pico. Here the deep ravines and the rocky nature of the ground, which was also overlooked by the citadel and flanked by the horn-work, rendered any attack very difficult.
3º. The south eastern. From the bastion of San Pico to the bastion of Santa Cruz. This front, protected by a deep narrow ravine, was again covered by the fort of Orleans, which was itself covered by a second ravine.
4º. The southern. From the Santa Cruz to the Ebro. The ground of approach here was flat, the soil easy to work in, and the fort of Orleans not sufficiently advanced to flank it with any dangerous effect; wherefore against this front Suchet resolved to conduct his attack.
The Rocquetta, a rising ground opposite the bridge-head on the right bank of the Ebro, was fortified and occupied by three regiments, but the other troops were collected at Xerta; and the 15th, before day-break, Suchet crossed the Ebro by his own bridge at that point, with eight battalions, the sappers, and two squadrons of hussars. He marched between the mountains and the river upon the fort of Tenaxas, while general Habert, with two regiments and three hundred hussars, moved from the side of Perillo, and attacked a detachment of the garrison which was encamped on the Col d’Alba eastward of the city. When Suchet’s column arrived in sight of the works, the head took ground, but the rear, under general Harispe, filed off to the left, across the rugged shoots from the hills, and swept round the place, leaving in every ravine and on every ridge a detachment, until the half circle ended on the Ebro, below Tortoza. The investment was then perfected on the left bankSuchet. by the troops from Rocquetta; and during this movement Habert, having seized the Col d’Alba, entered the line of investment, driving before himOfficial extract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS. six hundred men, who hardly escaped being cut off from the place by the march of Harispe. The communication across the water was then established by three, and afterwards by four flying bridges, placed above and below the town; a matter of some difficulty and importance, because all the artillery and stores had to come from Rocquetta, across the water, which was there two hundred yards wide, and in certain winds very rough.
The camps of investment were now secured, and meanwhile Macdonald, sending the greatest part of his cavalry, for which he could find no forage, back to Lerida by the road of Lardecans, marched, from Mas de Mora, across the hills to Perillo, to cover the siege. His patroles discovered a Spanish division in a position resting upon the fort of Felipe de Balaguer, yet he would not attack them, and thinking he could not remain for want of provisions, returned on the 19th to Gniestar; but this retrograde movement was like to have exposed the investing troops to a disaster, for as the seventh corps retired, a second Spanish division coming from Reus reinforced the first. However, Macdonald, seeing this, placed Frere’s division of six thousand infantry and a regiment of cavalry at Suchet’s disposal, on condition that the latter should feed them, which he could well do. These troops were immediately stationed behind the investing force, on the road of Amposta, by which the Spaniards from Taragona could most easily approach; and the remainder of the seventh corps encamped at Gniestar, a strong position covering the siege on the side of Falcet, only fifteen miles distant from Tortoza. In this situation it could be more easily fed from Lerida, and could with greater facility send detachments up the Ebro, to protect the convoy of the third corps coming from Mequinenza.
The Catalan army was now divided, part beingWimphen’s Memoir. kept on the Llobregat, under general Caro, part under general Yranzo at Momblanch, and part, under Campo Verde, on the hills watching Frere’s covering division. O’Donnel had before directed two convoys upon Tortoza, but the rapidity with which the investment had been effected prevented them from entering the place; and while he was endeavouring to arrange with Bassecour and Campo Verde a general plan of succour, his wounds forced him to embark for Valencia, when the command, of right, belonged to Yranzo, but the people, as I have before said, insisted upon having Campo Verde.
Vol. 4 Plate 1.
Explanatory Sketch
OF THE
SIEGE of TORTOZA,
1811.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.
SIEGE OF TORTOZA.
The half bastion of San Pedro, which was situated in the plain, and close to the river, was the first object of the French attack, and to prevent the fire of Fort Orleans from incommoding the trenches, the line of approach was traced in a slanting direction, refusing the right, and pushing forward the left; and to protect its flanks on the one side, Fort Orleans was masked by a false attack, while, on the other side of the Ebro, trenches were opened against the bridge-head, and brought down close to the water.
The 19th the posts of the besieged were all driven in, and an unfinished Spanish work, commenced on the heights in advance of Fort Orleans, was taken possession of. In the night, a flying sap was commenced upon an extent of three hundred and sixty yards, and at a distance of only one hundred and sixty from the fort; but in the following night, the true attack was undertaken in the plain, during a storm of wind which, together with the negligence of the Spaniards, who had placed no guards in front of their covered way, enabled the besiegers to begin this work at only one hundred and fifty yards from the half bastion of San Pedro. This parallel was above five hundred yards long, extending from the false attack against Fort Orleans, down to the bank of the river; two communications were also begun, and on the left bank ground was broken against the bridge-head.
The 21st, at day-break, the Spaniards, perceiving the works, commenced a heavy fire, and soon after made a sally; but they were overwhelmed by musketry from the false attack of Fort Orleans, and from the trenches on the right bank of the Ebro.
In the night of the 21st, the communication in the plain was extended to fourteen hundred yards, nine batteries were commenced, and bags of earth were placed along the edge of the trenches, whence chosen men shot down the Spanish artillery-men.
On the 23rd, a night sally, made from the bridge-head, was repulsed; and on the 24th, the second parallel of the true attack was commenced.
In the night of the 25th, at eleven o’clock and at one o’clock, separate sallies were again made, but both were repulsed, and the works were advanced to within twenty-five yards of the pallisades; a tenth battery was also commenced, and when day broke the Spanish gunners quailed under the aim of the chosen marksmen.
In the night of the 26th, the besieged fell upon the head of the sap, which they overturned, and killed the sappers, but were finally repulsed by the reserve, and the approach was immediately pushed forward to the place of arms. Thus, on the seventh night of open trenches, the besiegers were lodged in the covered way, before a shot had been fired from either breaching or counter-batteries; a remarkable instance of activity and boldness, and a signal proof that the defence was ill-conducted.
The night of the 27th, the works were enlarged as much as the fire of the place which was untouched would permit; but the Spaniards seeing the besiegers’ batteries ready to open, made a general sally through the eastern gates, against the false attack at Fort Orleans; and through the southern gates against the works in the plain. General Habert drove them back with slaughter from the former point, but at the latter they beat the French from the covered way, and arriving at the second parallel, burnt the gabions and did much damage ere the reserves could repulse them.
The night of the 28th, the batteries were armed with forty-five pieces, of which seventeen were placed on the right bank, to take the Spanish works at the main attack in reverse and to break the bridge. At day-break all these guns opened, and with success, against the demi-bastion, on the left bank of the river; but the fire from the castle, the bridge-head, the horn-work, and the quay, overpowered the French guns on the right bank, and although the bridge was injured, it was not rendered impassable.
On the 30th, the Spanish fire was in turn overpowered by the besiegers, the bridge was then broken, and in the following night an attempt was made to pass the ditch at the true attack; but two guns which were still untouched and flanked the point of attack, defeated this effort.
In the morning of the 31st, the Spaniards abandoned the bridge-head, and the French batteries on the right bank dismounted the two guns which had defended the half bastion of San Pedro. The besiegers then effected the passage of the ditch without difficulty, and attached the miner to the scarp.
In the night of the 31st, the miner worked into the wall, and the batteries opened a breach in the curtain, where a lodgement was established in preparation for an assault. At ten o’clock in the morning the besieged, alarmed at the progress of the attack, displayed the white flag. The negotiations for a surrender were, however, prolonged until evening by the governor, without any result, and the miner resumed his work in the night.
At seven o’clock on the 1st of January, two1811. January. practicable breaches besides that in the curtain were opened by the artillery, and the mine was ready to explode, when three white flags were seen to wave from different parts of the fortress; nevertheless the disposition of the garrison was mistrusted, and Suchet demanded as a preliminary the immediate possession of one of the forts,—a necessary precaution, for disputes arose amongst the besieged, and general Lilli intimated to Suchet, that his own authority was scarcely recognised.
In this critical moment, the French general gave proof that his talents were not those of a mere soldier, for suddenly riding up to the gates with a considerable staff, and escorted only by a company of grenadiers, he informed the Spanish officer on guard, that hostilities had ceased, and then, leaving his grenadiers on the spot, desired to be conducted to the governor who was in the citadel. Lilli still wavering, was upon the point of renewing the defence, in compliance with the desires of the officers about him, when the French general thus came suddenly into his presence, and, although the appearance of the Spanish guards was threatening, assumed an imperious tone, spoke largely of the impatience of the French army, and even menaced the garrison with military execution if any further delay occurred; during this extraordinary scene general Habert brought in the grenadiers from the gate, and the governor then signing a short capitulation, gave over the citadel to the French.
When this event was known in the city, the Spanish troops assembled, and Alacha, in the presence of Suchet ordered them to lay down their arms. Four hundred French and about fourteen hundred Spaniards had fallen during the siege; and many thousand prisoners, nine standards, one hundred pieces of artillery, ten thousand muskets, and immense magazines, enhanced the value of the conquest, which by some was attributed to general Lilli’s treachery, by others to his imbecility, and it would seem that there was reason for both charges.
The fall of Tortoza, besides opening the western passage into Catalonia, and cutting off the communication between that province and Valencia, reduced the Spanish army to twenty thousand men, including the garrisons of the towns which still remained in their possession. Campo Verde immediately retired from Falcet to Momblanch, and Suchet, always prompt to make one success the prelude to another, endeavoured in the first moment of consternation and surprise to get possession of the forts of Peniscola and of Felipe de Balaguer: nor was he deceived with respect to the last, for that place, in which were five guns and a hundred men, was taken on the 9th by Habert; but at Peniscola his summons was disregarded and his detachment returned.
Meanwhile Macdonald leaving the Neapolitan brigade still on the Ebro, passed by Falcet to Reus, where he encamped the 11th, as if to invest Taragona; but without any real intention to do so, for his cavalry and field artillery were left at Lerida and Tortoza, and his actual force did not exceed twelve thousand men. Campo Verde, who had retreated before him, then posted Sarsfield with six thousand men at Valls, from whence he made incursions against Macdonald’s foragers, and also surprised at Tarega, on the other side of the mountains, a regiment of Italian dragoons, which would have been destroyed but for the succour of a neighbouring post.
On the 14th Macdonald having marched towards Valls, Sarsfield retired to Pla, and was pursued by general Eugenio with two thousand Italian infantry. This officer being of a headstrong intractable disposition, pushed into the plain of Pla, contrary to his orders, and was nearing that town, when a strong body of cavalry poured out of it; and on each side the Spanish infantry were seen descending the hill in order of battle. Eugenio, instead of retiring, attacked the first that enteredVacani. the plain, but he fell mortally wounded, and his men retreated fighting: meanwhile the firing being heard at Valls Palombini marched to his assistance,Victoires et Conquêtes. but was himself beaten and thrown into confusion, and Sarsfield at the head of the Spanish horse was preparing to complete the victory, when theGeneral Doyle’s despatches MSS. French colonel Delort bringing up some squadrons charged with great fury, and so brought off the Italians; yet Delort himself was desperately wounded, and the whole loss was not less than six hundred men.
Macdonald would not suffer his main body to stir, and Vacani asserts that it was only by entreaty, that Palombini obtained permission to succour Eugenio, which was certainly a great error, for so hot and eager was Sarsfield in the pursuit, that he was come within two miles of Valls, and being on open ground might have been crushed in turn. He, however, returned unmolested to the pass of Cabra, leaving his cavalry as before in Pla, whence through bye-roads they communicated with Taragona.
A few days after this fight Sarsfield came out again in order of battle, and at the same time Campo Verde appeared with a division on the hills in rear of Valls. Macdonald was thus surrounded, but Palombini’s brigade sufficed to send Campo Verde back to Taragona, and Sarsfield refused battle; then the French marshal, who had resolved to go to Lerida, but wished to move without fighting, broke up from Valls in the night, and, with great order and silence, passed by the road of Fuencalde, between the defiles of Cabra and Ribas, and though both were occupied by the Spaniards, they did not discover his movements until the next day. From thence he marched by Momblanch, upon Lerida, where he arrived the 19th, and three days afterwards spread his troops over the plains of Urgel, to collect provisions, money, and transport, and to watch the defiles of the mountains.
On the other hand the Catalan general, who had1811. February. received stores and arms both from England and Cadiz, renewed the equipment of his troops, and called out all the Miguelettes and Somatenes, of the hills round the plain of Urgel, to replace the loss sustained by the fall of Tortoza. These new levies were united at Santa Coloma de Querault under Sarsfield, while the regular army assembled at Igualada and Villafranca, by which the Spaniards holding a close and concentrated position themselves, cut off Macdonald equally from Barcelona and the Ampurdan; and this latter district was continually harassed by Errolles, Rovira, and the brigade of Martinez, which still kept the mountains behind Olot, Vich, and the Cerdaña.
Meanwhile Suchet being called by the exigences of his government to Zaragoza, carried one division there, and distributed another under Musnier at Teruel, Molina, Alcanitz, and Morella: he also withdrew his troops from Cambril, which Habert had surprised on the 7th of February, but he left that general, with a division, in command of Tortoza, having two thousand men at Perillo to connect the city with San Felipe de Balaguer. Thus all things seemed to favour the Spanish side, and give importance to their success, against Eugenio; for they did not fail to attribute both Suchet’s and Macdonald’s retreats, to fear occasioned by the skirmish with that general; and with some shew of reason as regarded the latter, seeing that his night march had all the appearance of a flight.
Macdonald, while gathering provisions at Lerida, and stores and guns at Tortoza, also repaired the works of Balaguer near Lerida, to serve as a pivot for the troops employed to forage the country watered by the Noguera, Cinça, and Segre rivers. However Sarsfield and Campo Verde kept about Cervera and Calaf, watching for an opportunity to fall on the French detachments, and meanwhile the organization of the province went on.
It may appear extraordinary that the war could[Appendix, No. I.] Section 2. have been continued by either side under such difficulties, but the resources were still great. A patriotic junta had been formed in Catalonia to procure provisions, and although the English orders in council interfered with the trade of neutral vessels bringing grain, bread could be bought at the rate of 12 lbs. to the dollar, while with lord Wellington’s army in Castile it often cost half a dollar a pound. When the French foraging parties came out from Barcelona, their march could be always traced by the swarms of boats, loaded with people and provisions, which shooting out from the coast-towns, would hover, for a while, under the protection of the English vessels, and then return when the danger was over: and the enemy did never meddle with these boats lest they should remove the cover to their own supplies. Suchet however armed Rapita, and other small places, at the mouth of the Ebro, with a view to afford shelter to certain craft, which he kept to watch for provision-vessels, sailing from Valencia for Taragona, and to aid French vessels engaged in a like course coming from France.
To feed Barcelona, Maurice Mathieu at times occupied the head-lands from St. Filieu, to Blanes, with troops, and thus small convoys crept along shore; a fleet loaded with provisions and powder, escorted by three frigates, entered it in February, and a continual stream of supply was also kept up by sailing-boats and other small vessels, which could not be easily detected amidst the numerous craft belonging to the people along the coast. And besides these channels, as the claims of hunger are paramount to all others, it was necessary, for the sake of the inhabitants, to permit provision sometimes to reach Barcelona by land; the Spanish generals winked at it, and Milans and Lacy, have even been charged with permitting corn to pass into that city for private profit, as well as from consideration for the citizens. By these, and like expedients, the war was sustained.
No important event occurred after the skirmish1811. March. in which Eugenio fell, until the 3d of March, when the Spaniards having observed that the garrison of Tortoza was weakened by the detachment at Perillo, endeavoured to cut the latter off, intending if successful to assault Tortoza itself. At the same timeOfficial Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches. MSS. they also attacked the fort of San Filippe, but failed, and the French at Perillo effected their retreat although with considerable loss. This attempt was however followed by a more important effort. On the 19th of March, Campo Verde having assembled eight thousand men at Molinos del Rey, four thousand at Guisols, and three thousand at Igualada, prepared to surprise the city and forts of Barcelona, for he had, as he thought, corrupted the town-major of Monjuic. Trusting to this treason, he first sent eight hundred chosen grenadiers in the night by the hills of Hospitalette, to enter that place, and they descended into the ditch in expectation of having the gate opened; but Maurice Mathieu, apprized of the plan, had prepared every thing to receive this unfortunate column, which was in an instant overwhelmed with fire.
Napoleon now changed the system of the war. All that part of Catalonia west of the Upper Llobregat, and from Igualada by Ordal to the sea, including the district of Tortoza, was placed under Suchet’s government, and seventeen thousand of Macdonald’s troops were united to the third corps, which was thus augmented to forty-two thousand men, and took the title of the “Army of Aragon.” It was destined to besiege Taragona, while Macdonald, whose force was thus reduced to twenty-seven thousand under arms, including fifteen thousand in garrison and in the Ampurdan, was restricted to the upper part of Catalonia. His orders were to attack Cardona, Berga, Seu d’Urgel, and Montserrat, and to wear down Martinez, Manso, Rovira, and other chiefs, who kept in the mountains between Olot and the Cerdaña: and a division of five thousand men, chiefly composed of national guards, was also ordered to assemble at Mont Louis, for the purpose of acting in the Cerdaña, and on the rear of the partizans in the high valleys. By these means the line of operations for the invasion of Catalonia was altered from France to Aragon, the difficulties were lessened, the seventh corps reduced in numbers, became, instead of the principal, the secondary army; and Macdonald’s formal method was thus exchanged for the lively vigorous talent of Suchet. But the delay already caused in the siege of Tortoza, could never be compensated; Suchet had been kept on the Ebro, when he should have been on the Guadalaviar, and this enabled the Murcians to keep the fourth corps in Grenada, when it should have been on the Tagus aiding Massena.
CHAPTER IV.
When the troops of the seventh corps were incorporated1811. March. with the army of Aragon, the preparations for the siege of Taragona, were pushed forward with Suchet’s usual activity; but previous to touching upon that subject it is necessary to notice the guerilla warfare, which Villa Campa, and others, had carried on against Aragon during the siege of Tortoza. This warfare was stimulated by the appointment of the secret juntas, and by the supplies which England furnished, especially along the northern coast, from Coruña to Bilbao, where experience had also produced a better application of them than heretofore. The movements of the English squadrons, in that sea, being from the same cause better combined with the operations of the Partidas, rendered the latter more formidable, and they became more harassing to the enemy as they acquired something of the consistency of regular troops in their organization, although irregular in their mode of operations: for it must not be supposed, that because the guerilla system was in itself unequal to the deliverance of the country, and was necessarily accompanied with great evils, that as an auxiliary it was altogether useless. The interruption of the French correspondence was, as I have already said, tantamount to a diminution on their side of thirty thousand regular troops, without reckoning those who were necessarily employed to watch and pursue the Partidas; this estimate may even be considered too low, and it is certain that the moral effect produced over Europe by the struggle thus maintained, was very considerable.
Nevertheless the same number of men under a good discipline would have been more efficacious, less onerous to the country people, and less subversive of social order. When the regular army is completed, all that remains in a country may be turned to advantage as irregulars, yet they are to be valued as their degree of organization approaches that of the regular troops: thus militia are better than armed bodies of peasantry, and these last, if directed by regular officers, better than sudden insurrections of villagers. But the Spanish armies were never completed, never well organized; and when they were dispersed, which happened nearly as often as they took the field, the war must have ceased in Spain, had it not been kept alive by the Partidas, and it is there we find their moral value. Again, when the British armies kept the field, the Partidas harassed the enemy’s communications, and this constituted their military value; yet it is certain[Appendix, No. I.] Section 2. that they never much exceeded thirty thousand in number; and they could not have long existed in any numbers without the supplies of England, unless a spirit of order and providence, very different from any thing witnessed during the war, had arisen in Spain. How absurd then to reverse the order of the resources possessed by an invaded country, to confound the moral with the military means, to place the irregular resistance of the peasants first, and that of the soldiers last in the scale of physical defence.
That many of the Partida chiefs became less active, after they received regular rank, is undeniable; but this was not so much a consequence of the change of denomination, as of the inveterate abuses which oppressed the vigour of the regular armies, and by which the Partidas were necessarily affected when they became a constituent part of those armies; many persons of weight have indeed ascribed entirely to this cause, the acknowledged diminution of their general activity at one period. It seems, however, more probable that a life of toil and danger, repeated defeats, the scarcity of plunder, and the discontent of the people at the exactions of the chiefs, had in reality abated the desire to continue the struggle; inactivity was rather the sign of subjection than the result of an injudicious interference by the government. But it is time to support this reasoning by facts.
During the siege of Tortoza, the concentration of the third and seventh corps exposed Aragon and Catalonia to desultory enterprises at a moment when the Partidas, rendered more numerous and powerful by the secret juntas, were also more ardent, from the assembly of the Cortez, by which the people’s importance in the struggle seemed at last to be acknowledged. Hence no better test of their real influence on the general operations can be found than their exploits during that period, when two French armies were fixed as it were to one spot, the supplies from France nearly cut off by natural difficulties, the district immediately around Tortoza completely sterile, Catalonia generally exhausted, and a project to create a fictitious scarcity in the fertile parts of Aragon diligently and in some sort successfully pursued by the secret juntas. The number of French foraging parties, and the distances to which they were sent were then greatly increased, and the facility of cutting them off proportionably augmented. Now the several operations of Villa Campa during the blockade have been already related, but, although sometimes successful, the results were mostly adverse to the Spaniards; and when that chief, after the siege was actually commenced, came down, on the 19th December 1810, towards the side of Daroca, his cavalry was surprised by colonel Kliski, who captured or killed one hundred and fifty in the village of Blancas. The Spanish chief then retired, but being soon after joined by the Empecinado from Cuença, he returned in January to the frontier of Aragon, and took post between Molina and Albaracin.
At this period Tortoza had surrendered, and Musnier’s division was spread along the western part of Aragon, wherefore Suchet immediately detached general Paris with one column from Zaragoza, and general Abbé with another from Teruel, to chase these two Partidas. Paris fell in with the Empecinado near Molina, and the latter then joined Villa Campa, but the French general forced both from their mountain position near Frias, where he was joined by Abbé; and they continued the pursuit for several days, but finding that the fugitives took different routes, again separated; Paris followed Villa Campa, and Abbé pursued the Empecinado through Cuença, from whence Carbajal and the secret junta immediately fled. Paris failing to overtake Villa Campa, entered Beleta, Cobeta, and Paralejos, all three containing manufactories for arms, which he destroyed, and then returned; and the whole expedition lasted only twelve days, yet the smaller Partidas, in Aragon, had taken advantage of it to cut off a detachment of fifty men near Fuentes: and this was followed up on the side of Navarre by Mina, who entered the Cinco Villas in April, and cut to pieces one hundred and fifty gens-d’armes near Sadava. However Chlopiski pursued him also so closely, that he obliged his band to disperse near Coseda in Navarre.
During this time the Valencians had been plunged1811. April. in disputes, Bassecour was displaced, and Coupigny appointed in his stead. The notables, indeed, raised a sum of money for recruits, but Coupigny would not take the command, because the Murcian army was not also given to him; and that army, although numerous, was in a very neglected state, and unable to undertake any service. However, when Tortoza fell, the Valencians were frightened, and set about their own defence. They repaired and garrisoned the fort of Oropesa, and some smaller posts on the coast, along which runs the only artillery-road to their capital: they commenced fortifying Murviedro, or rather the rock of Saguntum overhanging it, and they sent fifteen hundred men into the hills about Cantavieja. These last were dispersed on the 5th of April by a column from Teruel; and on the 11th another body having attempted to surprise Uldecona, which was weakly guarded, were also defeated and sabred by the French cavalry.
These different events, especially the destruction of the gun-manufactories, repressed the activity of the partizans, and Suchet was enabled to go to Lerida, in the latter end of March, to receive the soldiers to be drafted from the seventh corps: Macdonald himself could not, however, regain Barcelona without an escort, and hence seven thousand men marched with him on the 29th of the month, not by Igualada, which was occupied in force by Sarsfield, but by the circuitous way of Manresa; for neither Macdonald nor Suchet wished to engage in desultory actions with the forces destined for the siege. Nevertheless Sarsfield, getting intelligence of the march, passed by Calaf with his own and Eroles’ troops, and waited on Macdonald’s flanks and rear near the Cardenera river, while a detachment, barricading the bridge of Manresa, opposed him in front. This bridge was indeed carried, but the town being abandoned, the Italian soldiers wantonly set fire to it in the night; an act which was immediately revenged, for the flames being seen to a great distance, so enraged the Catalans, that in the morning all the armed men in the district, whether regulars, Miguelettes, or Somatenes, were assembled on the neighbouring hills, and fell with infinite fury upon Macdonald’s rear, as it passed out from the ruins of the burning city. The head of the French column was then pushing for the bridge of Villamara, over the Llobregat, which was two leagues distant; and as the country between the rivers was one vast mountain, Sarsfield, seeing that the French rear stood firm to receive the attack of the Somatenes, while the front still advanced, thought to place his division between, by moving along the heights which skirted the road. Macdonald, however, concentrated his troops, gained the second bridge, and passed the Llobregat, but with great difficulty and with the loss of four hundred men, for his march was continually under Sarsfield’s fire, and some of his troops were even cut off from the bridge, and obliged to cross by a ford higher up. During the night, however, he collected his scattered men, and moved upon Sabadel, whence he pushed on alone for Barcelona, and on the 3d of April, Harispe, who commanded the escort, recommenced the march, and passing by Villa Franca, Christina, Cabra, and Momblanch, returned to Lerida the 10th.
The invasion of Catalonia was now divided into three parts, each assigned to a distinct army.
1º. Suchet, with that of Aragon, was to take Taragona and subdue the lower part of the province.
2º. Macdonald, with that part of the seventh corps called the active army of Catalonia, was to break the long Spanish line extending from Taragona, through Montserrat to the Cerdaña, and the high mountains about Olot.
3º. Baraguay d’Hilliers, having his head-quarters at Gerona, was to hold the Ampurdan with the troops before assigned to his charge, and to co-operate, as occasion might offer, with Macdonald, under whose orders he still remained; and the division of five thousand men before mentioned as having been collected near Mount Louis, at the entrance of the French Cerdaña, was to act on the rear of the Spaniards in the mountains, while the others attacked them in front. Nor did the success appear doubtful, for the hopes and means of the province were both sinking. The great losses of men sustained at Tortoza and in the different combats; the reputation of Suchet; the failure of the attempts to surprise Barcelona, Perillo, and San Filippe de Balaguer; the incapacity of Campo Verde, which was now generally felt, and the consequent desertion of the Miguelettes, would probably have rendered certain the French plans, if at the very moment of execution they had not been marred by Rovira, who surprised the great fortress of Figueras, the key of the Pyrenees on that side of Catalonia. This, the boldest and most important stroke made by a Partida chief, during the whole war, merits a particular detail.
SURPRISE OF FERNANDO DE FIGUERAS.
The governor of the place, general Guillot, enforcedVacani. no military discipline, his guards were weak, he permitted the soldiers to use the pallisades forOfficial Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches. MSS. fuel, and often detached the greatest part of the garrison to make incursions to a distance from the place; in all things disregarding the rules of service.General Campbell’s MSS. The town, which is situated below the hill, upon which the great fortress of Fernando stands,General Doyle’s MSS. was momentarily occupied by the Italian general Peyri, with about six hundred men, who wereCapt. Codrington’s MSS. destined to join Macdonald, and who trusting to the strength of the fortress above, were in noMr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS. manner on their guard. And the garrison above was still more negligent; for Guillot had on the 9th of April sent out his best men to disperse some Somatenes assembled in the neighbouring hills, and this detachment having returned at night fatigued, and being to go out again the next day, slept while the gates were confided to convalescents, or men unfit for duty: thus the ramparts were entirely unguarded. Now there were in the fort two Catalan brothers named Palopos, and a man called Juan, employed as under-storekeepers, who being gained by Rovira had, such was the negligence of discipline, obtained from the head of their department the keys of the magazines, and also that of a postern under one of the gates.
Rovira, having arranged his plan, came down from the mountain of St. Lorens de Muga in the night of the 9th, and secretly reached the covered way with seven hundred chosen men of his own Partida. General Martinez followed in support with about three thousand Miguelettes, and the Catalan brothers, having previously arranged the signals, opened the postern, and admitted Rovira, who immediately disarmed the guard and set wide the gates for the reserve; and although some shots were fired, which alarmed the garrison, Martinez came up so quickly that no effectual resistance could be made. Thirty or forty men were killed or wounded, the magazines were seized, the governor and sixteen hundred soldiers and camp-followers were taken in their quarters, and thus in an hour Rovira mastered one of the strongest fortresses in Europe: three cannon-shot were then fired as a signal to the Somatenes in the surrounding mountains, that the place was taken, and that they were to bring in provisions as rapidly as possible. Meanwhile general Peyri alarmed by the noise in the fortress and guessing at the cause, had collected the troops, baggage, sick men, and stores in the town below, and sent notice to Gerona, but he made no attempt to retake the place, and at daylight retired to Bascara. For having mounted the hills during the night, to observe how matters went, he thought nothing could be done, an opinion condemned by some as a great error; and indeed it appears probable that during the confusion of the first surprise, a brisk attempt by six hundred fresh men might have recovered the fortress. At Bascara five hundred men detached from Gerona, on the spur of the occasion, met him with orders to re-invest the place, and Baraguay d’Hilliers promised to follow with all his forces without any delay. Then Peyri, although troubled by the fears of his troops, many of whom were only national guards, returned to Figueras, and driving the Spaniards out of the town took post in front of the fort above; but he could not prevent Martinez from receiving some assistance in men and provisions from the Somatenes. The news of Rovira’s exploit spread with inconceivable rapidity throughout the Peninsula, extending its exhilarating influence, even to the Anglo-Portuguese army, then not much given to credit or admire the exploits of the Spaniards, but Baraguay d’Hilliers with great promptness assembled his dispersed troops, and on the 13th invested the fort with six thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry; and this so quickly that the Spaniard had not time, or, more probably neglected, to remove, sixteen thousand muskets which were in the place.
Martinez remained governor, but Rovira was again in the mountains, and all Catalonia, animated by the Promethean touch of this Partida chief, seemed to be moving at once upon Figueras. Campo Verde came up to Vich, intending first to relieve Figueras, and then in concert with the English and Spanish vessels to blockade Rosas by land and sea. Rovira himself collected a convoy of provisions near Olot. Captain Bullen with the Cambrian and Volontaire frigates, taking advantage of the French troops having been withdrawn from Gerona, drove out the small garrison from San Filieu and Palamos, destroyed the batteries, and made sail to join captain Codrington at Rosas. A Spanish frigate, with a fleet of coasting-vessels loaded with supplies, anchored at Palamos; and Francisco Milans, after beating a small French detachment near Arens de Mar, invested Hostalrich; Juan Claros hovered about Gerona, and Eroles and Manso coming from Montserrat reduced Olot and Castelfollit. Sarsfield however remained in the Seu d’Urgel, and directed the mountaineers to establish themselves at Balaguer, but they were driven away again with great loss by a detachment from the garrison of Lerida.
On the 3d of May, Rovira having brought his convoy up to Besalu, Campo Verde, who had arranged that captain Codrington should make a diversion by an attack on Rosas, drew Milans from Hostalrich, and having thus united eleven thousand men marched in several columns from Avionet and Villa Fan against the town, hoping to draw Baraguay d’Hilliers to that side; and to beat him, while Rovira, forcing a small camp near Llers, at the opposite quarter, should introduce the convoy and its escort into the fortress. The circuit of investment was wide, and very difficult, and therefore slightly furnished of men; but it was strengthened by some works, and when the Spanish columns first advanced, the French general reinforced the camp near Llers, and then hastened with four thousand men against Campo Verde, who was already in the valley of Figueras, and only opposed by one battalion. Baraguay d’Hilliers immediately fell on the right flank of the Spaniards and defeated them; the French cavalry, which had been before driven in from the front, rallied and completed the victory, and the Spaniards retreated with a loss of fifteen hundred including prisoners. This affair was exceedingly ill-managed by Campo Verde, who was so sure of success that he kept the sheep of the convoy too far behind, to enter, although the way was open for some time, hence the succour was confined to a few artillery-men, some tobacco, and medicines. Meanwhile the English ships landed some men at Rosas, but neither did this produce any serious effect, and the attempt to relieve Figueras having thus generally failed, that place was left to its own resources which were few; for the French with an unaccountable negligence had always kept a scanty supply of provisions and stores there. Martinez, who had now above four thousand men, was therefore obliged to practise the most rigorous economy in the distribution of food, and in bearing such privations the peninsular race are unrivalled.
Macdonald was so concerned for the loss of Figueras, that, setting aside all his own plans, he earnestly adjured Suchet to suspend the siege of Taragona, and restore him the troops of the seventh corps: Maurice Mathieu also wrote from Barcelona in a like strain, thinking that the possession of Upper Catalonia depended upon one powerful effort to recover the lost fortress. But Suchet, who had no immediate interest in that part of the province, whose hopes of obtaining a marshal’s staff rested on the taking of Taragona, and whose preparations were all made for that siege, Suchet I say, whose judgement was unclouded, and whose military talent was of a high order, refused to move a step towards Figueras, or even to delay, for one moment, his march against Taragona.
He said that “his battalions being scattered, in search of supplies, he could not reunite them, and reach Figueras under twenty-five days; during that time the enemy, unless prevented by Baraguay d’Hilliers, could gather in provisions, receive reinforcements, and secure the fortress. A simple blockade might be established by the nearest troops, and to accumulate great numbers on such a sterile spot would not forward the recapture, but would create infinite difficulties with respect to subsistence. It was probable Napoleon had already received information of the disaster, and given orders for the remedy; and it was by no means reasonable to renounce the attack on Taragona, the only remaining bulwark of Catalonia, at the very moment of execution, because of the loss of a fort; it was in Taragona, the greatest part of the forces of Catalonia would be shut up, and it was only in such a situation that they could be made prisoners; at Lerida, Mequinenza, and Tortoza, eighteen thousand men and eight hundred officers had been captured, and if ten or twelve thousand more could be taken in Taragona, the strength of Catalonia would be entirely broken. If the Spaniards failed in revictualling Figueras, that place, by occupying their attention, would become more hurtful than useful to them; because Campo Verde might, and most probably would, march to its succour, and thus weaken Taragona, which was a reason for hastening rather than suspending the investment of the latter; wherefore he resolved, notwithstanding the separation of his battalions and the incomplete state of his preparations, to move down immediately and commence the siege.” A wise determination and alone sufficient to justify his reputation as a general.
Macdonald was now fain to send all the troops he could safely draw together, to reinforce Baraguay d’Hilliers. In June, when a detachment from Toulon, and some frontier guards had arrived at Figueras, the united forces amounting to fifteen thousand men, he took the command in person and established a rigorous blockade, working day and night, to construct works of circumvallation and contravallation; his lines six miles in length, crowning the tops of the mountains and sinking into the deepest valleys, proved what prodigious labours even small armies are capable of. Thus with incessant wakefulness Macdonald recovered the place; but this was at a late period in the year, and when Suchet’s operations had quite changed the aspect of affairs.
When Tortoza fell, that general’s moveable columns traversing the borders of Castile, the eastern districts of Valencia, a portion of Navarre, and all the lower province of Catalonia, protected the collection of supplies, and suppressed the smaller bands which swarmed in those parts; hence, when the siege of Taragona was confided to the third corps, the magazines, at Lerida and Mora, were already full; and a battering train was formed at Tortoza, to which place the tools, platforms, and other materials, fabricated at Zaragosa were conveyed. Fifteen hundred draft horses, the greatest part of the artillery-men and engineers, and ten battalions of infantry were also collected in that town, and from thence shot and shells were continually forwarded to San Felippe de Balaguer. This was a fine application of Cæsar’s maxim, that war should maintain itself, for all the money, the guns, provisions, and materials, collected for this siege, were the fruits of former victories; nothing was derived from France but the men. It is curious, however, that Suchet so little understood the nature and effects of the English system of finance, that he observes, in his memoirs, upon the ability with which the ministers, made Spain pay the expense of this war by never permitting English gold to go to the Peninsula; he was ignorant, that the paper money system had left them no English gold to send.
The want of forage in the district of Tortoza, and the advantage of the carriage-road by the Col de Balaguer, induced the French general to direct his artillery that way; but his provisions, and other stores, passed from Mora by Falcet and Momblanch to Reus, in which latter town he proposed to establish his stores for the siege, while Mora, the chief magazine, was supplied from Zaragoza, Caspe, and Mequinenza. Divers other arrangements, of which I shall now give the outline, contributed to the security of the communications, and enabled the army of Aragon to undertake the great enterprize for which it was destined.
1º. Detachments of gens-d’armes and of the frontier guards of France, descending the high valleys of Aragon, helped to maintain tranquillity on the left bank of the Ebro, and occupied the castles of Venasque and Jaca, which had been taken by Suchet in his previous campaign.
2º. The line of correspondence from France, instead of running as before through Guipuscoa and Navarre, by Pampeluna, was now directed by Pau, Oleron, and Jaca to Zaragoza; and in the latter city, and in the towns around it, four or five battalions, and a proportion of horsemen and artillery, were disposed, to watch the Partidas from Navarre and the Moncayo mountains.
3º. Four battalions with cavalry and guns, were posted at Daroca under general Paris, whose command extended from thence to the fort of Molina, which was armed and garrisoned.
4º. General Abbé was placed at Teruel with five battalions, three hundred cuirassiers, and two pieces of artillery, to watch Villa Campa, and the Valencian army which was again in the field.
5º. Alcanitz and Morella were occupied by fourteen hundred men, whereby that short passage through the mountains from Aragon to Valencia was secured; and from thence the line to Caspe, and down the Ebro from Mequinenza to Tortoza, was protected by twelve hundred men; Tortoza itself was garrisoned by two battalions, the forts at the mouth of the Ebro were occupied, and four hundred men were placed in Rapita.
This line of defence from right to left was fourteen days march, but the number of fortified posts enabled the troops to move from point to point, without much danger; and thus the army of the great and rich province of Valencia, the division of Villa Campa, the Partidas of New Castile and Navarre, including Mina and the Empecinado, the most powerful of those independent chiefs, were all set at nought by twelve thousand French, although the latter had to defend a line of one hundred and fifty miles. Under cover of this feeble chain of defence, Suchet besieged a strong city which had a powerful garrison, an open harbour, a commanding squadron of ships, and a free communication, by sea, with Cadiz, Valencia, Gibraltar, and the Balearic islands. It is true that detachments from the army of the centre, acting on a large circuit round Madrid, sometimes dispersed, and chased the Partidas that threatened Suchet’s line of defence, but at this period, from circumstances to be hereafter mentioned, that army was in a manner paralysed.
While the French general’s posts were being established, he turned his attention to the arrangements for a permanent supply of food. The difficulty of procuring meat was become great, because he wisely refrained from using up the sheep and cattle of Aragon, lest the future supply of his army should be anticipated, and the minds of the people of that province alienated by the destruction of their breeding flocks; to avoid this, he engaged contractors to furnish him from France, and so completely had he pacified the Aragonese, through whose territories the flocks were brought, and with whose money they were paid for, that none of his contracts failed. But as these resources were not immediately available, the troops on the right bank of the Ebro made incursions after cattle beyond the frontiers of Aragon; and when Harispe returned from Barcelona, eight battalions marched upon a like service up the higher valleys of the Pyrenees.
It was in this state of affairs that Suchet received intelligence of the surprise of Figueras, which induced him to hasten the investment of Taragona. Meanwhile, fearing that Mina might penetrate to the higher valleys of Aragon, and in conjunction with the partidas of Upper Catalonia cut off all correspondence with France, he detached Chlopiski with four battalions and two hundred hussars to watch the movements of that chief only, and demanded of the emperor, that some troops from Pampeluna should occupy Sanguessa, while others, from the army of the north, should relieve the detachments of the army of Aragon, at Soria and Calatayud.
The battalions sent up the high valleys of Catalonia returned in the latter end of April. Suchet then reviewed his troops, issued a month’s pay, and six day’s provisions to each soldier, loaded many carriages and mules with flour, and, having first spread a report, that he was going to relieve Figueras, commenced his march to Taragona by the way of Momblanch. Some Miguelettes entrenched in the pass of Ribas, were dispersed by Harispe’s division on the 1st of May, and the army descended the hills to Alcover; but four hundred men were left in Momblanch, where a post was fortified, to protect the line of communication with Lerida, and to prevent the Spanish partizans on that flank, from troubling the communication between Mora and Reus. The 2d the head-quarters were fixed at Reus, and the 3d the Spanish outposts were driven over the Francoli; meanwhile Habert, sending the artillery from Tortoza by the Col de Balaguer, moved himself with a large convoy from Mora by Falcet to Reus.
CHAPTER V.
In Taragona, although a siege had been so long1811. May. expected, there was a great scarcity of money and ammunition, and so many men had, as Suchet foresaw, been drawn off to succour Figueras, that the garrison, commanded by colonel Gonzalez, was not more than six thousand, including twelve hundred armed inhabitants and the seamen of the port. The town was encumbered with defensive works of all kinds, but most of them were ill-constructed, irregular, and without convenient places for making sallies.
Taragona itself was built upon rocks, steep on the north-east and south, but sinking gently on the south-west and west into low ground. A mole formed a harbour capable of receiving ships of the line, and beyond the mole there was a roadstead. The upper town was surrounded by ancient walls, crowning the rocks, and these walls were inclosed by a second rampart with irregular bastions which ran round the whole city. On the east, across the road to Barcelona, there was a chain of redoubts connected by curtains, with a ditch and covered way; and behind this line there was a rocky space called the Milagro, opening between the body of the place and the sea. The lower town, or suburb, was separated from the upper, by the inner ramparts of the latter, and was protected by three regular and some irregular bastions with a ditch; a square work, called Fort Royal, formed a species of citadel within, and the double town presented the figure of an irregular oblong, whose length lying parallel to the sea, was about twelve hundred yards.
On the east beyond the walls, a newly constructed line of defence was carried along the coast to the mouth of the Francoli, where it ended in a large redoubt, built to secure access to that river when the ancient aqueducts which furnished the city with water should be cut by the French. This line was strengthened by a second redoubt, called the Prince, half-way between that near the Francoli and the town; and it was supported by the mole which being armed with batteries, and nearly in a parallel direction, formed as it were a second sea-line.
The approach on the side of the Francoli river was of a level character, and exposed to the fire of the Olivo, a large outwork on the north, crowning a rocky table-land of an equal height with the upper town, but divided from it by a ravine nearly half-a-mile wide, across which the aqueducts of the place were carried. This Olivo was an irregular horn-work, four hundred yards long, with a ditch twenty-four feet deep and forty wide, but the covered way was not completed, and the gorge was only closed by a loop-holed wall; neither was this defence quite finished, as the steepness of the rock, and the fire of the city appeared to render it secure. The bastion on the left of the Olivo, was cut off by a ditch and a rampart from the body of the work, and on the right also within the rampart there was a small redoubt of refuge, with a high cavalier or bank, on which three guns were placed that overlooked all the country round. The ordinary garrison of the Olivo was from twelve to fifteen hundred men, and it contained fifty out of three hundred pieces of artillery which served the defence of Taragona.
The nature of the soil combined with the peculiarities of the works, determined Suchet’s line of attack. On the north and east side the ground was rocky, the fronts of defence wide, the approaches unfavourable for breaching batteries; and as all the guns and stores would have to be dragged over the hills on a great circuit, unless the Olivo was first taken, no difficulty could be avoided in an attack. Wherefore, on the side of the lower town the French resolved to approach, although the artificial defences were there accumulated, and the ground between the town and the Francoli river taken in reverse by the Olivo, which rendered it necessary first to reduce that outwork. But this part was chosen by the French, because the soil was deep and easily moved, their depôts and parks close at hand, the ground-plot of the works so salient that they could be easily embraced with fire, and because the attack would, it was supposed, cut off the garrison from fresh water, yet this last advantage was not realized.
On the 4th of May the French, passing the Francoli, drove in the outposts, took possession of two small detached redoubts, situated on the northern side, called the forts of Loretto, and invested the place. However the Spanish troops supported by the fire of the Olivo killed and wounded two hundred men, and the next day a fruitless attempt was made to retake the lost ground; at the same time the fleet under captain Codrington, consisting of three English ships of the line and three frigates, besides sloops and Spanish vessels of war, cannonaded the French right, and harassed their convoys, then coming by the coast-road from the Col de Balaguer. The investing troops whose posts were very close to the Olivo, were also greatly incommoded by the heavy fire from that outwork, yet the line was maintained and perfected.
Habert’s division, forming the right wing, extended from the sea to the bridge of the Francoli; general Frere’s division connected Habert with Harispe’s, whose troops occupied the ground before the Olivo; the Italian division prolonged Harispe’s left to the road of Barcelona which runs close to the sea on the east side of Taragona; three regiments were placed in reserve higher up on the Francoli, where a trestle bridge was cast, and the park, which was established on the right of that river, at the village of Canonja, contained sixty-six battering guns and mortars, each furnished with seven hundred rounds. There were also thirty-six field-pieces, two thousand artillery-men to serve the guns, seven hundred sappers and miners, fourteen hundred cavalry, and nearly fifteen thousand infantry. The head-quarters were fixed at the village of Constanti, a strong covering position, the depôt at Reus was secured by fortified convents, and the works at Mora were defended by several battalions. Other troops, placed at Falcet, guarded the communications, which were farther secured by the escorts belonging to the convoys; and the French had cut off the water of the aqueducts from the Olivo, but this water, whose source was ten or twelve miles off, was also necessary to the besiegers on that sterile land, and was again cut off by the Somatenes, which obliged the French to guard its whole course during the siege.
Meanwhile Campo Verde after his defeat at Figueras had sent Sarsfield and Eroles to their former posts near Valls, Momblanch, and Igualada, and embarking at Mattaro himself, with four thousand men, came on the 10th to Taragona, where the sudden appearance of the French had produced great consternation. Yet when Campo Verde arrived with[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. this reinforcement, and when colonel Green, the English military agent, arrived on the 15th from Cadiz, in the Merope, bringing with him fifty thousand dollars and two transports laden with arms and stores, Spanish apathy again prevailed, and the necessary measures of defence were neglected. Beyond the walls, however, the French post at Momblanch was attacked by two thousand Miguelettes, and the Somatenes assembled in the vicinity of Reus.
Suchet detached general Frere with four battalions to relieve the former place, where the attack had failed; the commandant of Reus also dispersed the Somatenes, and meanwhile Harispe pushed his patroles over the Gaya as far as Torre de Barra, where he found some wounded Spaniards. These men were within the protection of a convention, made by St. Cyr with Reding, by which the wounded men of both armies were to be left in the civil hospitals of the different towns, and mutually taken care of, without being made prisoners; and it is remarkable that this compact was scrupulously executed on both sides, while beyond those hospitals the utmost ferocity and a total disregard of civilized usages prevailed.
Vol. 4 Plate 2.
Explanatory Sketch
OF THE
SIEGE of TARAGONA.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.
Sarsfield’s arrival near Momblanch threatened the communications between Reus and Mora, and at the same time a Valencian column, acting in concert with captain Adam of the Invincible, attacked the posts of Rapita and Amposta: the former was abandoned by the garrison, and the latter was surrounded by the Valencians, but a regiment sent from Tortoza, after disengaging Amposta, defeated the Valencians near Rapita; nevertheless Suchet, unwilling to lessen his already too small force, did not restore the latter post.
SIEGE OF TARAGONA.
The French general having resolved to attack the lower town, commenced his operations by constructing a fort and batteries, on the right of the Francoli, near the sea-shore, with a view to keep the English ships of war and the gun-boats at a distance from his projected trenches. These works commenced in the night of the 7th, were successfully continued towards the mouth of the river under the fire of the vessels; a trench, lined with musqueteers, was also carried from the left along the bank of the river to the bridge, but the Spaniards continually harassed the investing troops both from within and from without, and made some attempts against the camp; wherefore the brigade of general Salme, which was close to the Olivo, was obliged to entrench, and yet lost fifty or sixty men daily by the enemy’s skirmishers.
On the night of the 13th, during a tempest, the French stormed two external entrenchments near the Olivo, and then turned them against the besieged; the next morning a vigorous attempt to retake them was repulsed with a loss of one hundred men, and on the Francoli side, a sally supported by the shipping failed in consequence of the cowardice of some Spanish officers. On the[Appendix, No. II.] Sect. 1. same day, besides this attack on the side of the Francoli, the garrison came out from the Barcelona gate, and six hundred Somatenes from the Upper Gaya fell on the patroles of the Italian division, whereupon Palombini scoured the country on the 15th as far as Arbos.
The 18th a powerful sortie from the lower town was made by Gonzalez, who passed the bridge, and, aided by a fire from the place, from the Olivo, and from the fleet, pressed Habert’s division hard; Suchet however came down with his reserve, pushed between the river and the Olivo, and menaced the Spanish line of retreat, which obliged Gonzalez to retire with loss. On the 20th three other sallies were made from the Olivo, and from the upper town, on the Barcelona side, but they were all in like manner repulsed; and that day Sarsfield took post with twelve hundred men on a high and rugged place near Alcover, thus menacing the depôt at Reus. The French general therefore detached two battalions of infantry and some cavalry, under general Broussard, to dislodge him, which was effected with the loss of a hundred French; but three days later he appeared before Momblanch, and was only driven away by the united brigades of Frere and Palombini, who marched against him. Divers attempts were also made upon the line of Falcet, especially at Grattallopes, where the Spanish colonel, Villamil, having attacked Morozinski, a Pole, the latter defended himself successfully, and with a bravery that has always distinguished the people of that heroic nation; a nation whose glory springs like an ignis fatuus from the corruption of European honour!
These repeated attacks having warned Suchet how difficult it would be to maintain, with his weak army, so great an extent of communication, he abandoned his post at Momblanch, and contented himself with preserving the lines of Falcet and of Felippe de Balaguer; a measure the more necessary, that the garrison of Taragona was now greatly augmented; for on the 16th, the Blake had sailed for Valencia to seek reinforcements, and Carlos O’Donnel, who had succeeded Bassecour, gave him above two thousand infantry and two hundred cannoneers, who were safely landed at Taragona on the 22d, two thousand stand of arms being, in return, delivered by captain Codrington to O’Donnel, to equip fresh levies. Above twelve thousand men were thus collected in the fortress, but all the richest citizens had removed with their families and effects to Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and the people were dispirited.
Suchet broke ground before the Olivo in the night of the 21st, and carried on his approaches from both ends of the Spanish entrenchments which he had seized on the night of the 13th. His engineers wished to reach a round hill, close to the works, on which they proposed to plant their first breaching battery, and they crowned it on the 22d, but with much loss, being obliged to carry the earth for the work, up the hill in baskets, and they were continually interrupted by sallies. Three counter-batteries were, however, completed and armed on the 27th with thirteen pieces, of which six threw shells; but to effect this, the soldiers dragged the artillery over the rocks, under a heavy fire of grape, and the garrison making a vigorous sally, killed general Salme, when he opposed them with the reserves. The moment was dangerous toSuchet. the French, but they were finally victorious, and the fire of the batteries having opened the same morning, was sustained until the evening of the 29th, when a breach being formed, the assault was ordered.
STORMING OF THE OLIVO.
Upon the success of this attack, Suchet thought, and with reason, that his chance of taking the town would depend, seeing that his army was too feeble to bear any serious check. Wherefore, having formed his columns of assault, he personally encouraged them, and at the same time directed the troops along the whole line of investment to advance simultaneously, and menace every part of the town. The night was dark, and the Spaniards were unexpectant of an attack, because none of their guns had yet been silenced; but the French, full of hope and resolution, were watching for the signal. When that was given, the troops on the Francoli, and those on the Barcelona side, made a sudden discharge of musketry, beat all their drums, and with loud shouts approached the town at those opposite quarters; the rampart of the place was instantly covered with fire from within and from without; the ships in the offing threw up rockets, and amidst the noise of four hundred guns the storming columns rushed upon the Olivo.
The principal force made for the breach; but a second column, turning the fort, got between it and the town, at the moment when fifteen hundred men, sent to relieve the old garrison, were entering the gates. Some of the French instantly fell on theirSuchet. rear, which hurrying forward, gave an opportunity to the assailants to penetrate with them beforeVacani. the gates could be closed, and thirty sappers with hatchets having followed closely, endeavoured to break the door, while Papignay, their officer, attempted to climb over the wall; the Spaniards killed him and most of the sappers, but the other troops, planted their ladders to the right and left, and cutting through the pointed stakes above, entered the place and opened the gate.
At the main attack the French boldly assailed the narrow breach, but the ditch was fifteen feet deep, the Spaniards firm, and the fire heavy, and they were giving way, when the historian, Vacani, followed by some of his countrymen, (it is a strange error to think the Italians have not a brave spirit!) cut down the paling which blocked the subterranean passage of the aqueduct, and thus got into the ditch and afterwards into the fort. Then the Spaniards were driven from the ramparts on all sides, back to the little works of refuge, before noticed, as being at each end of the Olivo, from whence they fired both musketry and guns; but the French and Italian reserves, followed by Harispe with a third column now entered the place, and with a terrible slaughter ended the contest. Twelve hundred men perished, some escaped, a thousand were taken, and amongst them their commander who had received ten wounds.
In the morning three thousand Spaniards came out of Taragona, yet retired without attacking, and Suchet demanded a suspension of arms to dispose of the dead; this was however treated with scorn and the heaps were burned, for the sterile rocks afforded no earth to bury them. Campo Verde now gave general Senens de Contreras the command of Taragona, and went himself to the field-army, which was about ten thousand strong, including some new levies made by the junta of Catalonia.
Suchet’s investment having been precipitated by1811. June. the fall of Figueras his stores were not all collected until the 1st of June, when trenches were opened to embrace the whole of the lower town including the fort of Francoli and its chain of connecting works running along the sea-shore, that is to say, 1º. The Nun’s bastion and a half-moon called the King’s, which formed, on the Spanish right, a sort of horn-work to the royal fort or citadel. 2º. The bastion of San Carlos and a half-moon called the Prince’s, which stood on the left, in the retiring angle where the sea-line joined the body of the place, and served as a counter-guard to the bastion of San Carlos. 3º. The sea-line itself and the Francoli fort.
The 2d of June the besieged made a fruitless sally, and in the night of the 3d some advanced Spanish entrenchments were destroyed by the French. Sarsfield then entered Taragona with a detachment, and took the command of what was called the Port, which included the Mole, the works leading to the Francoli, and the suburb or lower town, Contreras still remaining governor of all, although reluctantly, for he expected no success.
In the night of the 4th the approaches were carried forward by the sap, the second parallel was commenced, and on the 6th the besiegers were within twenty yards of the Francoli fort, which had a wet ditch and was of regular construction. The breaching batteries which had been armed as the trenches proceeded, opened their fire against it on the 7th. The fresh masonry crumbled away rapidly, and at ten o’clock that night, the fort being entirely destroyed, three hundred chosen men in three columns, one of which forded the Francoli river, attacked the ruins, and the defenders retired fighting, towards the half-moon of the Prince. The assailants then made a disorderly attempt to enter with them, but were quickly repulsed with a loss of fifty men, yet the lodgement was under a heavy fire secured; and the next night a battery of six pieces was constructed there, with a view to silence the guns of the Mole, which together with that of the place, endeavoured to overwhelm the small space thus occupied, with shot.
In the nights of the 8th and 9th under terrible discharges from both the upper and lower town, the second parallel was prolonged to fort Francoli on the right, and on the left, carried to within seventy yards of the Nun’s bastion.
The 11th Sarsfield making a sally, killed some men, and retarded the works; but before the 15th, three approaches by the sap were conducted against the Nun’s bastion, where the besiegers crowned the glacis, and against the half-moon of the King and Prince. Fresh batteries were also constructed, whose fire embraced the whole front from the Prince to the Nun’s bastion.
On the morning of the 16th fifty-four guns opened from the French batteries, and the Spaniards placing sand-bags along the parapets endeavoured by musketry to kill the gunners, who were much exposed, while all the cannon of the place which could be directed upon the trenches were employed to crush the batteries. Towards evening this fire had in a great degree mastered that of the besiegers, destroyed the centre of their second parallel, and silenced a battery on their right; but the loss and damage was great on both sides, for two consumption magazines exploded in the town and the Nun’s bastion was breached. The engineers also observed that the ditch of the Prince was not carried round to the sea, and hence Suchet who feared a continuation of this murderous artillery battle, resolved to storm that point at once, hoping to enter by the defect in the ditch.
At nine o’clock two columns, supported by a reserve, issued from the trenches, and after a short resistance entered the work both by the gap of the ditch, and by escalade; the garrison fought well, and were put to the sword, a few only escaping along the quay, these were pursued by a party of the French, who passing a ditch, and draw-bridge which cut off the road from the bastion of San Carlos, endeavoured to maintain themselves there, but being unsupported were mostly destroyed. The lodgement thus made was immediately secured and included in the trenches.
During the night of the 17th the old batteries were repaired and the construction of a new one, to breach the bastion of San Carlos, was begun upon the half-moon of the Prince; the saps and other approaches were also pushed forward, a lodgement was effected in the covered way of the Nun’s bastion, and the third parallel was commenced; but on the right of the trenches, in advance of the Prince, the workmen came upon water which obliged them to desist at that point.
The 18th the third parallel was completed and the descent of the ditch at the Nun’s bastion was commenced by an under-ground gallery; yet the fire from the upper town plunged into the trenches, and thirty-seven shells thrown very exactly into the lodgement on the counterscarp, obliged the besiegers to relinquish their operations there during the day. At this time also the gun-boats which hitherto had been of little service in the defence, were put under the direction of the British navy, and worked with more effect; yet it does not appear that the enemy ever suffered much injury from the vessels of war, beyond the interruption sometimes given to their convoys on the Col de Balaguer road.
During the nights of the 19th and 20th all the French works were advanced, and the morning of the 21st the new battery, in the Prince, being ready, opened its fire against San Carlos, and was followed by all the other batteries. The explosion of an expense magazine silenced the Prince’s battery after a few rounds, the damage was however repaired, and at four o’clock in the evening nearly all the Spanish guns being overcome and the breaches enlarged, Suchet resolved to storm the lower town. But previous to describing this terrible event, it is necessary to notice the proceedings within and without the place, that a just idea of the actual state of affairs on both sides may be formed.
Macdonald had continued the blockade of Figueras with unceasing vigilance; and as the best of the Miguelettes were shut up there, and as the defeat of Campo Verde, on the 3d of May, had spread consternation throughout the province, the operations to relieve it were confined to such exertions as Rovira, Manso, and other chiefs could call forth. In like manner Francisco Milans was left in the Hostalrich district, and by his local popularity amongst the people of the coast between Palamos and Barcelona, was enabled to keep up an irregular force; but his object was to be made captain-general of the province, and his desire of popularity, or some other motive, led him to favour the towns of his district at the expense of the general cause. Mattaro and Villa Nueva de Sitjes trafficked in corn with Barcelona, and one of their secret convoys was detected at a later period passing the outposts with Milans’ written authority. He put[Appendix, No. II.] Section 4. the men to death who permitted the convoy to pass, but he did not succeed in removing the suspicion of corruption from himself. This traffic was very advantageous for the French, and Maurice Mathieu being either unwilling to disturb it, or that having recently suffered in a skirmish at Mattaro, he feared to risk his troops, made no movement to aid the siege of Taragona, which it would appear, he might have done by taking possession of Villa Nueva de Sitjes.
Such was the state of Eastern Catalonia, and in the western parts, the infantry of Sarsfield, and of Eroles, who had come down to the vicinity of Valls, and the cavalry under Caro, which was a thousand strong, formed, with the new levies ordered by the junta, an army of seven or eight thousand men. This force might have done much, if Campo Verde, a man of weak character, and led by others, had not continually changed his plans. At the opening of the siege, Sarsfield had acted, as we have seen, with some success on the side of Momblanch and Reus; but when he was sent into the lower town, the active army being reduced to Eroles’ division, the cavalry could do no more than supply small detachments, to watch the different French convoys and posts. Campo Verde, however, fixed his quarters at Igualada, sent detachments to the Gaya and Villa Franca, and holding Villa Nueva de Sitjes as his post of communication with the fleet, demanded assistance from Murcia and Valencia, and formed a general plan for the succour of the place. But in Taragona his proceedings were viewed with dislike, and discord and negligence were rendering the courage of the garrison of no avail.
We have seen that captain Codrington landed two thousand five hundred Valencians on the 22d of May; besides that reinforcement, vessels loaded with powder and other stores, and additional mortars for the batteries, came from Carthagena and from Cadiz in the beginning of June. From Murcia also came reinforcements; but such was the perversity of some authorities and the want of arrangement in all, that the arms of these men were taken away from them before they sailed; and yet in Taragona there were already two thousand men without arms, a folly attributed by some to[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. the Spanish authorities of Murcia, by others to colonel Roche, the English military agent. Nor did the confusion end here; for captain Codrington, when he sailed from Taragona to Peniscola in the latter end of May, supplied O’Donnel with arms for two thousand recruits, who were to replace the Valencians then embarked; and a few days afterwards he delivered so many more at the city of Valencia, that Villa Campa and the Empecinado, whose troops, after their dispersion in April by Abbé and Paris, had remained inactive, were enabled[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. again to take the field. Thus it appears that, while men were sent without arms from Valencia to Taragona, arms were being conveyed from the latter place to Valencia.
The troops in Taragona had, by these different reinforcements, been augmented to near seventeen thousand men; however that number was never available at one time, for the Murcians were sent to Montserrat to be armed, and the losses during the operations, including those caused by sickness, had reduced the garrison at this period to less than twelve thousand. Several colonels of regiments, and manyReport of Contreras. other officers, feigning sickness, or with open cowardice running away, had quitted the town, leaving their battalions to be commanded by captains; the general of artillery was incapable, and Contreras himself, unknown to the inhabitants, unacquainted with the place or its resources, was vacillating and deceitful to those serving under him. He was very unwilling to undertake the defence, and he was at variance with Campo Verde outside, and jealous of Sarsfield inside. In the fleet also some disagreement occurred between captain Codrington and captain Bullen, and the commanders of the Diana and Prueba, Spanish ships of war, were accused of gross misconduct.
Carlos O’Donnel and his brother the Conde de Abispal, at the desire of captain Codrington, had permitted Miranda to embark with four thousand of the best Valencian troops for Taragona, there to join in a grand sally; but they exacted from Codrington a pledge to bring those who survived back, for they would not suffer this their second aid in men to be shut up in the place when the object was effected. These troops landed the 12th at Taragona, yet the next day, at Campo Verde’s order, Miranda, instead of making a sally as had been projected, carried them off by sea to Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and from thence marched to meet a detachment of horse coming from Villa Franca; and on the 15th two squadrons of cavalry issuing from Taragona by the Barcelona gate, passed the French line of investment, without difficulty, and also joined Miranda who then marched to unite with Campo Verde at Igualada.
This movement was in pursuance of a grand plan to succour the place; for the junta of Catalonia, having quitted Taragona after the fall of the Olivo, repaired with the archives to Montserrat, and as usual made their clamours for succour ring throughout the peninsula: they had received promises of co-operation from O’Donnel, from Villa Campa, and from the partizans, and Campo Verde proposed, that the English ships of war should keep between the Col de Balaguer and Taragona, to cannonade the French convoys on that route; that a detachment should take post at Ordal to watch the garrison of Barcelona, and that he with the remainder of his forces, which including Miranda’s division amounted to ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, should take some commanding position near Reus. In this situation he designed to send a detachment towards San Filippe de Balaguer to communicate with the fleet, and, avoiding any serious action, to operate by small corps against the French line of supply, and thus oblige them to raise the siege, or if they came out of their lines to fight them in strong positions.
Contreras treated this plan with contempt. He said it would cause the loss both of the place and the army; that the French would not raise the siege except for a general battle, and that within their lines the best mode of fighting them would be in concert with the garrison; wherefore he desired the general-in-chief to attack them in conjunction with himself, and the junta, who were at variance with Campo Verde, backed this proposal.
Neither of these plans, however, appear sound; for though it is certain, if the generals could have depended upon their troops, such was the reduced state of Suchet’s force, and so extensive was his line of investment, that it would have been easy to break through; yet, unless the French were put entirely to the route, which was unlikely, no great advantage would have followed, because the communication was already open by sea. On the other hand Campo Verde’s plan was only proposed on the 13th, and would have been too slow for the critical nature of the case. It would have been more in accord with that great maxim of war, which prescribes the attack of an enemy’s weakest point with the greatest possible numbers, to have marched with his whole force upon Mora, or upon Reus, to beat the troops there, and destroy the depôts; and then seizing some strong posts on the hills close to the besieger’s lines to have entrenched it and operated daily and hourly against their rear. If Campo Verde had destroyed either of these depôts the siege must have been raised; and if he was unable to beat two or three thousand infantry at those places, he could not hope, even with the assistance of the garrison, to destroy sixteen thousand of all arms in the entrenchments before Taragona. Suchet did not fear a battle on the Francoli river; but so tender was he of the depôts, that when Campo Verde sent an officer to raise the Somatenes about Mora, he called Abbé with three thousand infantry from Teruel, and that general who was active and experienced in the guerilla warfare, soon dispersed the Spanish levies, and took their chief with many others prisoners, after which he joined the besieging army.
Suchet required this reinforcement. He had lost a general, two hundred inferior officers, and above two thousand five hundred men during the siege, and had not more than twelve thousand infantry fit for duty; but colonel Villamil, a partizan of Campo Verde’s, taking advantage of Abbé’s absence, marched with a thousand men to attack Mora, and being beaten on the 16th was succeeded by Eroles, who came with his whole division to Falcet on the 20th, and captured a convoy of loaded mules, driving back the escort with some loss to Mora. The design was to tempt Suchet to send a strong detachment in pursuit of Eroles, in which case the latter was by a rapid march to rejoin Campo Verde near Alcover, when the whole army was to attack Suchet thus weakened. However the French general would not turn from his principal object, and his magazines at Reus were still so full that the loss of the convoy did not seriously affect him.
Such was the situation of affairs on the 21st of June, when the order to assault the lower town was given to an army, small in number, but full of vigour, and confident of success; while, in the place there was confusion, folly, and cowardice. Contreras indeed acted a shameful part; for during captain Codrington’s absence, Sarsfield had concerted with the navy, that in the case of the lower town being stormed, the ships should come to the mole and the garrison would retire there, rather than to the upper town; meanwhile Campo Verde recalled him to the active army, intending that general Velasco should replace him; but at three o’clock on the 21st, the breaches being then open, and the assault momentarily expected, Contreras commanded Sarsfield instantly to embark, falsely averring that such was the peremptory order of Campo Verde. Sarsfield remonstrated in vain, and a boat from the[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. Cambrian frigate carried him and his personal staff and his effects on board that vessel; thus the command of the troops was left to an inefficient subordinate officer, the assault took place at that moment, and when Velasco arrived, he found only the dead bodies of those he was to have commanded. Contreras then assured captain Codrington and the junta, that Sarsfield had acted without his consent, and had in fact betrayed his post!
STORMING OF THE LOWER TOWN.
This calamitous event happened in the eveningRogniat. of the 21st. Two breaches had been made in theVacani. bastions, and one in the fort Royal; they were notSuchet. wide, and a few Spanish guns still answered the French fire; nevertheless the assault was ordered,Captain Codrington’s Papers, MSS. and as some suppose, because Suchet had secret intelligence of Sarsfield’s removal, and the consequent confusion in the garrison.
Fifteen hundred grenadiers, destined for the attack, were assembled under Palombini in the trenches; a second column was formed to support the storming troops, and to repel any sally from the upper town; and while the arrangements were in progress, the French guns thundered incessantly, and the shouts of the infantry, impatient for the signal, were heard between the salvos, redoubling as the shattered walls gave way. At last Harispe’s division began to menace the ramparts on the side of Barcelona, to distract the attention of the Spaniards, and then Suchet exhorting the soldiers to act vigorously, gave the signal and let them loose while it was still day. In an instant the breaches were crowned, and the assailants swarmed on the bastions, the ramparts, and the fort Royal; the Spaniards, without a leader, were thrown into confusion, and falling in heaps broke and fled towards the port, towards the mole, and towards the upper town, and a reserve stationed under the walls of the latter was overthrown with the same shock. Then some of the fugitives, running towards the mole, were saved by the English launches, others escaped into the upper town, a few were made prisoners, and the rest were slaughtered.
At eight o’clock the lower town was in the possession of the enemy. Fifteen hundred bodies, many of whom were inhabitants, lay stretched upon the place, and the mercantile magazines of the port being set on fire, the flames finished what the sword had begun. When the carnage ceased, the troops were rallied, working parties were set to labour; and ere the confusion in the upper town had subsided, the besiegers were again hidden in their trenches and burrowing forward to the walls of the upper town.
The front before them consisted of four bastions with curtains, but without a ditch. The bastion of St. Paul was opposite their left, that of St. John opposite their centre, that of Jesus opposite their right; but the bastion of Cervantes, which covered the principal landing place of the Milagro, although on the same front of defence, was somewhat retired and not included within the attack. A hollow piece of ground, serving as a trench, had enabled the French to establish their left in a side bastion of the wall, connecting the upper with the lower town; and their right was strongly protected by some houses lining the road, for between the two parts of the city there were four hundred yards of open garden-ground interspersed with single houses. A battery was constructed to play upon the landing places of the Milagro, two mortars which were on the hill of the fort Loretto, concurred in this object, and the light troops were pushed close up to the wall; but at daylight the ships of war passed the port delivering their broadsides in succession, Contreras then showed the heads of columns as if for a sally, and the French skirmishers retired; whereupon the Spanish general, contented with having thus cleared his front, re-entered the place.
The men saved from the mole, by the ships, were now relanded in the upper town, and the second reinforcement from Murcia arrived, but being like the first detachment without arms only added to the confusion and difficulties of the governor. Nevertheless as the loss of the French in the storming was about six hundred, and that of the Spaniards not more than two thousand, the besieged had still nine thousand fighting men; a number nearly equal to the whole infantry of Suchet’s army; and hence Contreras, far from quailing beneath the blow, would not even receive a flag of truce by which the French general offered honourable conditions.
Suchet’s position was becoming more embarrassing every moment; he had now delivered four assaults, his force was diminished nearly one-fifth of its original number, and the men’s strength was spent with labouring on his prodigious works: his line of communication with Lerida was quite intercepted and that with Mora interrupted, and he had lost a large convoy of provisions together with the mules that carried it. The resolution of the besieged seemed in no manner abated, and their communication with the sea, although partially under the French fire, was still free; the sea itself was covered with ships of war, overwhelming reinforcements might arrive at any moment, and Campo Verde with ten thousand men was daily menacing his rear. The Valencian army, Villa Campa, the Empecinado, Duran who had defeated a French detachment near Mirando del Ebro, Mina who had just then taken the convoy with Massena’s baggage at the Puerto de Arlaban, in fine all the Partidas of the mountains of Albaracin, Moncayo, and Navarre, were in motion, and menacing his position in Aragon. This rendered it dangerous for him to call to his aid any more troops from the right of the Ebro, and yet a single check might introduce despondency amongst the soldiers of the siege, composed as they were of different nations, and some but lately come under his command; indeed their labours and dangers were so incessant and wearing, that it is no small proof of the French general’s talent, and the men’s spirit, that the confidence of both was still unshaken.
On the 24th the crisis seemed at hand, intelligence arrived in the French camp, that the Spanish army was coming down the Gaya river to fight, at the same time the garrison got under arms, and an active interchange of signals took place between the town and the fleet. Suchet immediately placed a reserve to sustain the guards of his trenches, and marched with a part of his army to meet Campo Verde. That general, pressed by the remonstrances of Contreras and the junta, had at last relinquished his own plan, recalled Eroles, and united his army at Momblanch on the 22nd, and then moving by Villardoña, had descended the hills between the Gaya and the Francoli; he was now marching in two columns to deliver battle, having directed Contreras to make a sally at the same moment. But Miranda, who commanded his right wing, found, or pretended to find, some obstacles and halted, whereupon Campo Verde instantly relinquished the attack, and marched to Vendril before the French general could reach him.
The 25th he again promised Contreras to make a decisive attack, and for that purpose desired that three thousand men of the garrison should be sent to Vendril, and the remainder be held ready to cut their way through the enemy’s lines during the action. He likewise assured him that four thousand English were coming by sea to aid in this project, and it is probable some great effort was really intended, for the breaching batteries had not yet opened their fire, and the wall of the place was consequently untouched; ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry under Campo Verde were within a few miles of the French camp on the Barcelona side; eight thousand men accustomed to fire were still under arms within the walls; and on the 26th colonel Skerrett appeared in the roadstead, not with four thousand, but with twelve hundred British soldiers, sent from Cadiz and from Gibraltar to succour Taragona.
The arrival of this force, the increase of shipping in the roadstead, and the promises of Campo Verde, raised the spirits of the garrison from the depression occasioned by the disappointment of the 27th; and they were still more elated when in the evening colonel Skerrett and his staff, accompanied by general Doyle, captain Codrington, and other officers of the navy, disembarked, and proceeded to examine the means of defence. But they were struck withContreras’ Report consternation when they heard that the British commander, because his engineers affirmed that the[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. wall would give way after a few salvos from the breaching batteries, had resolved to keep his troops on board the transports, idle spectators of the garrison’s efforts, to defend the important place which he had been sent to succour.
Contreras, thus disappointed on all sides, and without dependence on Campo Verde, resolved, if the French delayed the storm until the 29th, to make way by a sally on the Barcelona road, and so join the army in the field; meanwhile to stand the assault if fortune so willed it. And he had good reason for his resolution, for the ground in front of the walls was high and narrow; and although there was neither ditch nor covered way, a thick hedge of aloe trees, no small obstacle to troops, grew at the foot of the rampart, which was also cut off from the town, and from the side works, by an internal ditch and retrenchment. Behind the rampart the houses of the great street called the Rambla, were prepared for defence, furnishing a second line of resistance; and although the cuts on the flanks hindered the making of sallies in force, which at such a period was a good mode of defence, the reduced state of the French army gave reason to believe that eight thousand brave men could resist it effectually.
The 28th a general plan for breaking out on the Barcelona side, the co-operation of the fleet, and a combined attack of the Spanish army, was arranged; and Eroles embarked for the purpose of re-landing at Taragona, to take the leading of the troops destined to sally forth on the 29th. The French general had however completed his batteries on the night of the 27th, and in the morning of the 28th they opened with a crashing effect. One magazine blew up in the bastion of Cervantes; all the guns in that of San Paulo were dismounted; the wall fell away in huge fragments before the stroke of the batteries, and from the Olivo, and from all the old French trenches, the guns and mortars showered bullets and shells into the place. This fire was returned from many Spanish pieces, still in good condition, and the shoulders of the French batteries were beaten down; yet their gunners, eager for the last act of the siege, stood to their work uncovered, the musketry rattled round the ramparts, the men on both sides crowded to the front, and while opprobrious words and mutual defiance passed between them, the generals, almost within hearing of each other, exhorted the soldiers to fight with the vigour that the crisis demanded.
STORMING OF THE UPPER TOWN.
At five o’clock in the evening the French fireSuchet. suddenly ceased, and fifteen hundred men led byRogniat. general Habert passing out from the parallel, went at full speed up against the breach; twelve hundredVacani. under general Ficatier followed in support, general Montmarie led a brigade round the left,Codrington’s papers. MSS. to the bastion of Rosario, with a view to break the gates there during the assault, and thus penetrating, to turn the interior defence of the Rambla. Harispe took post on the Barcelona road, to cut off the retreat of the garrison.
The columns of attack had to pass over an open space of more than a hundred yards before they could reach the foot of the breach; and when within twenty yards of it, the hedge of aloes obliged them to turn to the right, and left, under a terrible fire of musketry and of grape, which the Spaniards, who were crowding on the breach with apparent desperation, poured unceasingly upon them. The destruction was great, the head of the French column got into confusion, gave back, and was beginning to fly, when the reserves rushed up, and a great many officers coming forward in a body, renewed the attack. At that moment one Bianchini, an Italian soldier, who had obtained leave to join the column as a volunteer, and whose white clothes, amidst the blue uniforms of the French, gave him a supernatural appearance, went forth alone from the ranks, and gliding silently and sternly up the breach, notwithstanding many wounds reached the top, and there fell dead. Then the multitude bounded forward with a shout, the first line of the Spaniards fled, and the ramparts were darkened by the following masses of the French.
Meanwhile Montmarie’s sappers cut away the palisades at Rosario, and his light troops finding a rope hanging from the wall, mounted by it, at the moment when the assailants at the breach broke the Spanish reserves with one shock, and poured into the town like a devastating torrent. At the Rambla a momentary stand was indeed made, but the impulse of victory was too strong to be longer resisted, and a dreadful scene of slaughter and violence ensued. Citizens and soldiers, maddened with fear, rushed out in crowds by the Barcelona gate, while others, throwing themselves over the ramparts, made for the landing-places within the Milagro; but that way also had been intercepted by general Rogniat with his sappers, and then numbers throwing themselves down the steep rocks were dashed to pieces, while they who gained the shore were still exposed to the sword of the enemy. Those that went out by the Barcelona gate were met by Harispe’s men, and some being killed, the rest, three thousand in number, were made prisoners. But within the town all was horror; fire had been set to many houses, Gonzales, fighting manfully, was killed, Contreras, wounded with the stroke of a bayonet, was only saved by a French officer; and though the hospitals were respected by the soldiers, in every other part their fury was unbounded. When the assault first commenced, the ship-launches had come close into the Milagro, and now saved some of the fugitives, but their guns swept the open space beyond, killing friends and enemies, as, mixed together, they rushed to the shore; and the French dragoons, passing through the flaming streets at a trot, rode upon the fugitives, sabring those who had outstripped the infantry. In every quarter there was great rage and cruelty, and although most of the women and children had, during the siege, been removed from Taragona by the English shipping, and that the richest citizens had all gone to Sitjes, this assault was memorable as a day of blood. Only seven or eight hundred miserable creatures, principally soldiers, escaped on board the vessels; nine thousand, including the sick and wounded, were made prisoners; more than five thousand persons were slain, and a great part of the city was reduced to ashes.
CHAPTER VI.
Suchet had lost in killed and wounded during1811. June. the siege between four and five thousand men, yet scarcely had the necessary orders to efface the trenches, secure the prisoners, and establish order in the ruined city been given, than the French general was again in movement to disperse Campo Verde’s force. In the night of the 29th Frere’s division marched upon Villa Franca, Harispe’s upon Villa Nueva, being followed by Suchet himself with Abbé’s brigade and the heavy cavalry. Campo Verde then abandoned Vendril, and Harispe’s column, although cannonaded by the English squadron, reached Villa Nueva, where a great multitude, military and others, were striving to embark in the vessels off the port. The light cavalry sabred some and made fifteen hundred prisoners, including the wounded men who had been carried there from Taragona during the siege; and Frere’s column in a like manner dispersed the Spanish rear-guard at Vendril and Villa Franca. Campo Verde then fled with the main body to Igualada, and Suchet pushed on with the reserve to Barcelona, where he arranged with Maurice Mathieu a plan to prevent the Valencian division from re-embarking, or marching to aid the blockade of Figueras.
Distrust, confusion, and discord now prevailed1811. July. amongst the Catalans. The people were enraged against Campo Verde, and the junta sent to Cadiz to demand the duke of Infantado as a chief. Milans, who had assembled some Miguelettes and Somatenes about Arens de Mar, openly proposed himself, and Sarsfield, whose division was the only one in any order, was at variance with Eroles. The[Appendix, No. II.] Section 5. country people desired to have the latter made captain-general, and a junta of general officers actually appointed him; yet he would not accept it while Campo Verde remained, and that general had already reached Agramunt, whence, overwhelmed with his misfortunes, he meant to fly towards Aragon. He was, however, persuaded to return to Cervera, and call a council of war, and then it was proposed to abandon Catalonia as a lost country, and embark the army; and this disgraceful resolution, although opposed by Sarsfield, Santa Cruz, and even Campo Verde himself, was adopted by the council, and spread universal consternation. The junta remonstrated loudly, all the troops who were not Catalans deserted, making principally for the Segre and Cinça rivers, in hope to pass through Aragon into New Castile, and so regain their own provinces; every place was filled with grief and despair.
In this conjuncture captain Codrington refused to embark any Catalans, but he had promised to take back the Valencians, and although the conditions of his agreement had been grossly violated by Campo Verde and Miranda, he performed his contract: yet even this was not arranged without a contest between him and Doyle, on the one side, and Miranda and Caro on the other. Meanwhile[Appendix, No. II.] Section 2. colonel Green, instead of remaining at the Spanish head-quarters, returned to Peniscola with all the money and arms under his controul; and the captain of the Prueba frigate, having under his command, several Spanish vessels of war loaded with wounded men, the archives of the municipality, ammunition, stores, and money, all belonging to Catalonia, set sail for Majorca under such suspicious circumstances,[Appendix, No. II.] Section 3. that captain Codrington thought it necessary to send a ship to fetch him back by force.
In the midst of these afflicting scenes Suchet brought up his troops to Barcelona, and Maurice Mathieu with a part of his garrison marching upon Mataro, dispersed a small body of men that Eroles had collected there; but the Valencian infantry to the number of two thousand four hundred escaped to Arens de Mar, and being received on board the English vessels were sent back to their own country. The cavalry, unwilling to part with their horses, would not embark, and menaced their general Caro, who fled from their fury; nevertheless Eroles rallied them, and having gathered some stores and money from the smaller depôts, marched inland. Campo Verde then embarked privately in the Diana to avoid the vengeance of the people, and general Lacy, who had arrived from Cadiz, took the command; yet he would have been disregarded, if Eroles had not set the example of obedience. Suchet however moved against him, and first scouring the valley of the Congosta and that of Vich, spread his columns in all directions, and opened a communication with Macdonald at Figueras. Lacy, thus pressed, collected the cavalry and a few scattered Catalonian battalions remaining about Solsona, Cardona, and Seu d’Urgel, and took refuge in the hills, while Eroles threw himself into Montserrat, where large magazines had been previously formed.
Suchet unable to find subsistence in the valleys, resolved to attack this celebrated place, and for this purpose leaving Frere and Harispe at Vich and Moya, with orders to move at a given time upon Montserrat, returned himself with the reserve to Reus. Here he received despatches from Napoleon, who had created him a marshal, and had sent him orders to take Montserrat, to destroy the works of Taragona, with the exception of a citadel, and finally to march against Valencia. He therefore preserved the upper town of Taragona, ruined the rest of the works, carried the artillery to Tortoza, and marched against Montserrat on the 22d of July by the way of Momblanch and San Coloma to Igualada. At the same time Harispe and Frere moved by Manresa, and Maurice Mathieu entered Esparaguera with a part of the garrison of Barcelona.
TAKING OF MONTSERRAT.
This strong-hold was occupied by fourteen or fifteen hundred Miguelettes and Somatenes, inadequate as it proved to defend it against a great body of men such as Suchet was bringing up. But Eroles was daily raising recruits and adding works to the natural strength, and it would soon have been impregnable; for on all sides the approaches were through the midst of steeps and precipices, and high upon a natural platform, opening to the east, and overlooking the Llobregat, stood the convent of “Nuestra Señora de Montserrat,” a great edifice, and once full of riches, but the wary monks had removed their valuables to Minorca early in the war. It was now well stored and armed, and above it huge peaks of stone shot up into the clouds so rude, so naked, so desolate, that, to use Suchet’s expressive simile, “It was like the skeleton of a mountain.”
There were three ways of ascending to this convent; one from Igualada which winded up on the north, from Casa Mansana, between a perpendicular rock and a precipice; this road which was the only one supposed practicable for an attack, was defended by two successive batteries, and by a retrenchment immediately in front of the convent itself. The other two ways were, a foot-path on the south leading to Colbato, and a narrow road crossing the Llobregat and running by Monistrol on the east, but both so crossed and barred by precipices as to be nearly inaccessible to troops.
Suchet disposed one brigade at Colbato to menace that front, and to intercept the retreat of the Spaniards; he then occupied the roads of Igualada and Monistrol with Harispe’s and Frere’s divisions, and directed Abbé’s brigade to attack from the convent by the northern line. The 24th Abbé drove the Spaniards from Casa Mansana, and the 25th advanced up the mountain, flanked by some light troops, and supported by Suchet in person with the Barcelona troops, but exposed to the fire of the Somatenes, who had gathered round the peaks above. In a short time the first Spanish battery opened upon the head of the column as it turned an angle, but more light troops being sent out, they climbed the rough rocks, and getting above the battery shot down upon the gunners, while the leading companies of the column rushed forward, in front, and before a second discharge could be made, reached the foot of the battery beneath the line of fire. The Spaniards then threw down large stones upon the French until the fire of the light troops above, became so galling that the work was abandoned, the French however followed close, and the men above continued clambering along with that energy which the near prospect of success inspires; thus the Spaniards, unable to rally in time, were overtaken and bayoneted in the second battery, and the road was opened.
Abbé now re-formed his troops and marched on to assail the entrenchments of the convent, but as he advanced a sharp musketry was heard on the opposite quarter, and suddenly the Spanish garrison came flying out of the building pursued by French soldiers, who were supposed to be the brigade from Colbato; they however proved to be the light troops first sent out, to keep off the Somatenes from the right flank; for when the column advanced up the mountain, these men, about three hundred in number, had wandered too far to the right, and insensibly gaining ground up hill, had seized one or two of the hermitages with which the peaks are furnished; then growing more daring, they pressed on unopposed, until they gained the rock immediately overhanging the convent itself, and perceiving their advantage, with that intelligence which belongs only to veterans, immediately attacked the Spanish reserves. Their commanding position, the steep rocks, and narrow staircases, compensated for their inferiority of numbers, and in a little time they gained one of the doors, entered, and fought the defenders amongst the cloisters and galleries, with various turns of fortune, until the fugitives from the batteries, followed by Abbé, arrived, and then the whole garrison gave way and fled down the eastern precipices to the Llobregat, where from their knowledge of the country they easily avoided Harispe’s men.
The loss of this place, which by Eroles and others was attributed to colonel Green’s having carried off the money destined for strengthening it, was deeply felt from its military importance, and from the superstitious veneration in which it was held: several towns then offered their submission, many villages gave up their arms, and a general fear of Suchet’s prowess began to spread all over Spain; but the Catalans, a fierce and constant race, were not yet conquered. The anarchy attendant upon the fall of Taragona and the after movements of Suchet had indeed been great; and as we have seen, most of the persons who might have aided to restore order, acted so as to increase the general confusion, and their bad example was followed by the authorities in other provinces who were most immediately connected with Catalonia: thus Cuesta, at this time governor of the Balearic isles, Bassecour who was at Cuença, and Palacios, who had just been made captain-general of Valencia, did in no manner comport themselves as the occasion required. Cuesta who had neglected to send from Minorca the guns wanted in Catalonia, now entered into a negotiation to exchange the prisoners at Cabrera against those of Taragona, a praiseworthy thing, if, as Suchet asserts, it arose from humanity; and not an ill-judged measure in itself, because the Catalonian soldiers to be exchanged were the best in Spain, and the French prisoners were ruined in constitution by their hard captivity. But at this period of distress it was impolitic, and viewed with suspicion by the Catalonians, as tending to increase the French force. At the desire of Mr. Wellesley this exchange was, however, peremptorily forbidden by the regency, and Cuesta refused to receive any more prisoners at Cabrera, which while those already there were so tormented, was, from whatever motive arising, a meritorious act, and the last important one of his life, for he soon after died. The prisoners remained, therefore, a disgrace to Spain and to England; for if her envoy interfered to prevent their release, she was bound to insist, that thousands of men, whose prolonged captivity was the result of her interference, should not be exposed upon a barren rock, naked as they[Appendix, No. I.] Section 4. were born, and fighting for each other’s miserable rations to prolong an existence inconceivably wretched.
This untoward state of affairs in Catalonia was1811. August. aggravated by the English, Spanish, and French privateers, who taking advantage of the times, plundered the people along the coast in concert; and they were all engaged in the smuggling of[Appendix, No. I.] Section 4. tobacco, the monopoly of which here as in other parts of Spain formed the principal resource of the revenue. Yet there were many considerable resources left to the Catalans. The chief towns had fallen, but the mountainous districts were not subdued and scarcely crossed by the French lines of invasion. The Somatenes were numerous, more experienced, and still ready to come forward, under a good general, if arms were provided for them, and the English squadron was always at hand to aid them: Admiral Keats brought three thousand muskets from Gibraltar, Sir E. Pellew, who had succeeded to the command of the Mediterranean fleet, was anxious to succour the province to the full extent of his means, and Minorca was a great depôt of guns, stores, and even men. Lacy, Eroles, Rovira, and others, therefore, raised fresh levies; and while the blockade of Figueras continued to keep all Macdonald’s army employed, the Spaniards seized the opportunity to operate partially on the side of Besalu and Bispal, and even in the French Cerdaña, which being unprotected, was invaded by Lacy.
Suchet, whose posts now extended from Lerida to Montserrat on one side, and on the other from Taragona to Mequinenza, foresaw that a new and troublesome Catalonian war was preparing; but he was obliged to return to Saragoza, partly to prepare for the invasion of Valencia, partly to restore tranquillity in Aragon, which had been disturbed by the passage of the seceders from Campo Verde’s army. The Valencian cavalry also, when Eroles threw himself into Montserrat, had under the conduct of general Gasca endeavoured to push through Aragon towards Navarre; and although they were intercepted by general Reille, and followed closely by Chlopiski, they finally reached Valencia without much loss, and the rest of the fugitives gained the Moncayo mountains and afterwards joined Mina. That chief was then in a very low state; he had been defeated on the 14th at Sanguessa, by Chlopiski, and Reille, who using the reinforcements then pouring into Spain, had pursued and defeated him again at Estella on the 23d of July, at Sorlada on the 24th, and at Val de Baygory on the 25th; yet he finally escaped to Motrico on the Biscay coast, where he received fresh arms and stores from the English vessels; but he was again defeated by Caffarelli, and finally driven for refuge to the district of Leibana; here the soldiers flying from Taragona and Figueras joined him, and he soon reappeared more fierce and powerful than before.
Meanwhile Villa Campa, whose division hadMr. Stuart’s papers, MSS. been re-equipped from the supplies given by captain Codrington, concerted his operations with the partida chiefs Duran and Campillo; and their combined forces being eight thousand strong, having advanced from different quarters on the right bank of the Ebro, invested Calatayud, and sought to carry off grain, which was now very scarce. This delayed the invasion of Valencia, for Suchet would not undertake it until he had again secured the frontier of Aragon, and many of his battalions were then escorting the prisoners to France. But when they returned, he directed numerous columns against the partidas, and at the same time troops belonging to the army of the centre came down by the way of Medina Celi; whereupon the Spaniards retired to their fastnesses in the mountains of Soria on one side, and in those of Albaracin on the other.
Four thousand of the Valencian army had meanwhile marched against Rapita and Amposta, for the former post was re-established after the fall of Taragona, but although Habert, marching out of Tortoza with seven or eight hundred men, defeated them with a considerable loss, the embarrassments of the third corps were not removed; for while these successes were obtained on the right of the Ebro the Catalans began to harass the posts between Lerida and Montserrat. On the 9th of August the Somatenes fell on some Italians placed in Monistrol, and were with difficulty repulsed; and a few days after, a convoy coming from Igualada to Montserrat, was attacked by fifteen hundred insurgents, and was unable to proceed until Palombini arrived with a battalion and dislodged the Catalans, but he lost more than a hundred of his own men in the action. Suchet finding from these events that he could not safely withdraw his main body from Catalonia until the fall of Figueras should let loose the army of the upper province, sent fresh troops to Montserrat, and ordered Palombini to move with his garrison to aid Macdonald in the blockade; that place had, however, surrendered before Palombini had passed Barcelona.
General Martinez, after making many vain efforts to break the line of blockade, and having used every edible substance, prepared, on the 16th of August, to make a final effort, in concert with Rovira who came down to Llers. An officer deserting from the garrison betrayed the project; and Rovira was beaten in the morning before the garrison sallied, nevertheless, in the night Martinez endeavoured to cut his way through the lines on the side of Rosas, but was driven back with a loss of four hundred men. Three days after, the place was given up and three thousand famished men were made prisoners. Thus ended the fourth great effort of the Catalonians. The success of the French was not without alloy, more than a fourth part of the blockading troops had died of a pestilent distemper; Macdonald himself was too ill to continue in the command, and the remainder of his army was so weakened, that no further active operations could be undertaken; Suchet was still occupied in Aragon, and Lacy thus obtained time and means to reorganize troops for a fifth effort.
The persons who had betrayed the place to Rovira were shot by Macdonald, and the commandant whose negligence had occasioned this misfortune was condemned to death; but Napoleon, who has been so foully misrepresented as a sanguinary tyrant, Napoleon, who had commuted the sentence of Dupont, now pardoned general Guillot; a clemency in both cases remarkable, seeing that the loss of an army by one, and of a great fortress by the other, not only tended directly and powerfully to the destruction of the emperor’s projects, but were in themselves great crimes; and it is to be doubted if any other sovereign in Europe would have displayed such a merciful greatness of mind.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The emperor was discontented with Macdonald’s operations, and that general seems to have mistaken both the nature of mountain warfare in general, and that of Catalonia in particular. The first requires a persevering activity in seizing such commanding posts on the flanks or rear of an adversary as will oblige him to fight on disadvantageous terms; and as the success greatly depends upon the rapidity and vigour of the troops, their spirit should be excited by continual enterprize, and nourished by commendation and rewards. Now Macdonald, if we may believe Vacani, an eye-witness, did neither gain the confidence of his soldiers, nor cherish their ardour; and while he exacted a more rigid discipline, than the composition of his troops and the nature of the war would bear, he let pass many important opportunities of crushing his enemies in the field. His intent was to reduce the ferocious and insubordinate disposition of his men, but the peculiar state of feeling with respect to the war on both sides, did not permit this, and hence his marches appeared rather as processions and ceremonies than warlike operations. He won no town, struck no important blow in the field, gave no turn to the public feeling, and lost a most important fortress, which, with infinite pains and trouble, he could scarcely regain.
The plans of all the French generals had been different. St. Cyr used to remain quiet, until the Spaniards gathered in such numbers that he could crush them in general battles; but then he lost all the fruit of his success by his inactivity afterwards. Augereau neither fought battles nor made excursions with skill, nor fulfilled the political hopes which he had excited. Macdonald was in constant movement, but he avoided battles; although in every previous important attack the Catalans had been beaten, whether in strong or in weak positions. Suchet alone combined skill, activity, and resolution, and the success which distinguished his operations is the best comment upon the proceedings of the others. It is in vain to allege that this last marshal was in a better condition for offensive operations, and that the emperor required of the seventh corps exertions which the extreme want of provisions prevented it from making. Napoleon might have been deceived as to the resources at first, and have thus put it upon enterprises beyond its means; but after two years’ experience, after receiving the reports of all the generals employed there, and having the most exact information of all occurrences, it is impossible to imagine that so consummate a captain would have urged Macdonald to undertake impracticable operations; and the latter gave no convincing proof that his own views were sound. Notwithstanding the continual complaints of St. Cyr, and other French writers, who have endeavoured to show that Napoleon was the only man who did not understand the nature of the war in Spain, and that the French armies were continually overmatched, it is certain that, after Baylen, the latter never lost a great battle except to the English; that they took every town they besieged, and never suffered any reverse from the Spaniards which cannot be distinctly traced to the executive officers. It would be silly to doubt the general merit of a man who in so many wars, and for many years, has maintained the noblest reputation, midst innumerable dangers, and many great political changes in his own country, but Macdonald’s military talents do not seem to have been calculated for the irregular warfare of Catalonia.
2º. The surprise of Figueras has been designated as a misfortune to the Spaniards, because it shut up a large body of their best Miguelettes, who fell with the place; and because it drew off Campo Verde from Taragona at a critical period. Let us, however, contrast the advantages, and, apart from the vigour and enterprise displayed in the execution, no mean help to the cause at the time, it will be seen that the taking of that fortress was a great gain to the Catalans; for, first, it carried away Macdonald from Barcelona, and thus the fall of Montserrat was deferred, and great danger of failure incurred by Suchet at Taragona; a failure infallible, if his adversaries had behaved with either skill or courage. Secondly, it employed all the French army of Upper Catalonia, the national guards of the frontier, and even troops from Toulon, in a blockade, during which the sword and sickness destroyed more than four thousand men, and the remainder were so weakened as to be incapable of field service for a long time; meanwhile Lacy reorganized fresh forces, and revived the war, which he could never have done if the seventh corps had been disposable. Thirdly, seeing that Campo Verde was incapable of handling large masses, it is doubtful if he could have resisted or retarded for any time the investment of Taragona; but it is certain that the blockade of Figueras gave an opportunity to Catalonia, to recover the loss of Taragona; and it obliged Suchet, instead of Macdonald, to take Montserrat, which disseminated the former force, and retarded the invasion of Valencia. Wherefore Rovira’s daring, in the surprise, and Martinez’ resolution in the maintaining of Figueras, were as useful as they were glorious.
3º. The usual negligence, and slowness of the Spaniards, was apparent during this campaign; although resolution, perseverance, and talent were evinced by Suchet in all his operations, the success was in a great measure due to the faults of his opponents, and amongst those faults colonel Skerrett’s conduct was prominent. It is true that captain Codrington and others agreed in the resolution not to land; that there was a heavy surf, and that the engineers predicted on the 27th that the wall would soon be beaten down; but the question should have been viewed in another light by colonel Skerrett. Taragona was the bulwark of the principality, the stay and hope of the war. It was the city of Spain whose importance was next to Cadiz, and before its walls the security or the ruin of Valencia as well as of Catalonia was to be found. Of the French scarcely fourteen thousand infantry were under arms, and those were exhausted with toil. The upper town, which was the body of the place, was still unbreached, it was only attacked upon one narrow front, and behind it the Rambla offered a second and a more powerful defence. There were, to use the governor’s expression, within the walls “eight thousand of the most warlike troops in Spain,” and there was a succouring army without, equal in number to the whole infantry of the besiegers. Under these circumstances the stoutest assailants might have been repulsed, and a severe repulse would have been fatal to the French operations.
Captain Codrington asserts that in the skirmishes beyond the walls, the valour of the garrison was eminent; and he saw a poor ragged fellow endeavouring, such was his humanity and greatness of mind, to stifle the burning fuze of a shell with sand, that some women and children might have time to escape. Feeling and courage, the springs of moral force, were therefore not wanting, but the virtue of the people was diminished, and the spirit of the soldiery overlaid, by the bad conduct of their leaders. The rich citizens fled early to Villa Nueva, and they were followed by many superior officers of regiments; Contreras jealous of Sarsfield had obliged him, as we have seen, to quit his post at a critical moment, and then represented it to the garrison as a desertion; the Valencians were carried off after being one day in the place, and the Murcians came without arms; and all this confusion and mischief were so palpable, that the poor Spanish soldiers could anticipate nothing but failure if left to themselves, and it was precisely for this reason that the British should have been landed to restore confidence. And is there nothing to be allowed for the impetuous fury of an English column breaking out of the place at the moment of attack? Let it be remembered also, that in consequence of the arrival of a seventy-four, convoying the transports, such was the number of ships of war, that a thousand seamen and marines might have been added to the troops; and who can believe that three or four thousand French and Italians, the utmost that could be brought to bear in mass on one point, and that not an easy point, for the breach was narrow and scarcely practicable, would have carried the place against eight thousand Spaniards and two thousand British. But then the surf and the enemy’s shot at the landing-place, and the opinion of general Doyle and of captain Codrington and of the engineers! The enemy’s shot might have inflicted loss, but could not, especially at night, have stopped the disembarkation; and the opinion of the engineers, was a just report of the state of the walls, but in no manner touched the moral considerations.
When the Roman Pompey was adjured by his friends not to put to sea during a violent storm he replied, “it is necessary to sail—it is not necessary to live.” It was also necessary to save Taragona! Was no risk to be incurred for so great an object? Was an uncertain danger to be weighed against such a loss to Spain? Was the British intrepidity to be set at nought? Were British soldiers to be quiet spectators, while Spaniards stood up in a fight too dangerous for them to meddle with? Is that false but common doctrine, so degrading to soldiers, that brick-and-mortar sentiment, that the courage of the garrison is not to be taken into account, to be implicitly followed? What if the Spaniards had been successful? The result was most painful! Taragona strongly fortified, having at different periods above fifteen thousand men thrown into it, with an open harbour and free communication by sea, was taken by less than twenty thousand French and Italian infantry, in the face of a succouring army, a British brigade, and a British fleet!
4º. The cruelty of the French general and the ferocity of his soldiers, have been dwelt upon by several writers, but Suchet has vindicated his own conduct, and it is therefore unnecessary here to enter into a close investigation of facts which have been distorted, or of reasoning which has been misapplied. That every barbarity, commonly attendant upon the storming of towns, was practised may be supposed; there is in the military institutions of Europe nothing calculated to arrest such atrocities. Soldiers of every nation look upon the devastation of a town taken by assault as their right, and it would be unjust to hold Suchet responsible for the violence of an army composed of men from different countries, exasperated by the obstinacy of the defence, and by a cruel warfare; in Spanish towns also the people generally formed a part of the garrison.
OPERATIONS IN VALENCIA AND MURCIA.
The transactions in the first of these provinces during the siege of Taragona have been already sufficiently noticed; and those in Murcia were ofSee Vol. III. little interest, for the defeat of Blake at Cullar in November 1810, and the fever which raged at Carthagena, together with the frequent change of commanders, and the neglect of the government had completely ruined the Murcian army. The number of men was indeed considerable, and the fourth French corps, weakened by drafts for the expedition to Estremadura, and menaced by the Barossa expedition, could not oppose more than five or six thousand men; yet the province had never been touched by an enemy, and the circumstances were all favorable for the organization and frequent trial of new troops.