Joseph Bonaparte again King of Spain--His Difficulties with Soult
--Second Siege of Saragossa--Another English Army, under Sir Arthur
Wellesley, lands at Lisbon--Battle of Talavera--The English retire
into Portugal--Siege of Gerona--Principal Events of the Campaign
of 1810--The English Troops make a Stand at Torres Vedras--Retreat
of Massena--Siege of Cadiz--Escape of French Prisoners--Opening
of the Campaign of 1811.
Having closed the history of this unfortunate army, let us now return
to Spain. Joseph had returned, a nominal king, to Madrid. More than
twenty-six thousand heads of families had come forward, of their
own accord, and sworn, by the host, that they desired his presence
amongst them. The marshals, under his directions, were pursuing
the conquest of Spain with vigor. Though Joseph was nominally
lieutenant-general, Soult was in reality at the head of operations.
A modern writer, speaking of these two commanders, says Soult was
crippled in all his movements, his sound policy neglected, and his
best combinations thwarted, by Joseph. His operations in Andalusia
and Estramadura, and the firmness with which he resisted the avarice
of Joseph, all exhibited his well-balanced character. In Andalusia he
firmly held his ground, although hedged in with hostile armies, and
surrounded by an insurgent population, while a wide territory had to
be covered with his troops.
King Joseph could not comprehend the operations of such a mind as
Soult’s, and constantly impeded his success. When, without ruin to
his army, the stubborn marshal could yield to his commands, he did;
but where the king’s projects would plunge him into irredeemable
errors, he openly and firmly withstood them. The anger and threats of
Joseph were alike in vain. The inflexible old soldier professed his
willingness to obey, but declared he would not, with his eyes open,
commit a great military blunder. King Joseph would despatch loud and
vehement complaints to Napoleon, but the emperor knew too well the
ability of Soult to heed them. Had the latter been on the Spanish
throne, the country would long before have been subdued, and the
French power established.
We shall not enter into detail of all the operations in Spain. A
short account of some of the principal battles we will give; and, as
we have already detailed the first siege of Saragossa, our readers
may perhaps like to know the final fate of this devoted city. We
quote from Headley’s description of the second siege.
“The siege at Saragossa had been successively under the command of
Moncey and Junôt. The camp was filled with murmurs and complaints.
For nearly a month they had environed the town in vain. Assault after
assault had been made; and from the 2d of January, when Junôt took
the command, till the arrival of Lannes in the latter part of the
month, every night had been distinguished by bloody fights; and yet
the city remained unconquered. Lannes paid no heed to the murmurs
and complaints around him, but immediately, by the promptitude
and energy of his actions, infused courage into the hearts of the
desponding soldiery. The decision he was always wont to carry into
battle was soon visible in the siege. The soldiers poured to the
assault with firmer purpose, and fought with more resolute courage.
The apathy which had settled down on the army was dispelled. New life
was given to every movement; and on the 27th, amid the tolling of
the tower-bell, warning the people to the defence, a grand assault
was made, and, after a most sanguinary conflict, the walls of the
town were carried, and the French soldiers fortified themselves
in the convent at St. Joseph’s. Unyielding to the last, the brave
Saragossans fought on, and, amid the pealing of the tocsin, rushed
up to the very mouths of the cannons, and perished by hundreds and
by thousands in the streets of the city. Every house was a fortress,
and around its walls were separate battle-fields, where deeds of
frantic valor were done. Day after day did these single-handed fights
continue, while famine and pestilence walked the city at noonday,
and slew faster than the swords of the enemy. The dead lay piled
up in every street, and on the thick heaps of the slain the living
mounted, and fought with the energy of despair for their homes and
their liberty. In the midst of this incessant firing by night and
by day, and hand to hand fights on the bodies of the slain, ever
and anon a mine would explode, blowing the living and dead, friend
and foe, together in the air. An awful silence would succeed for a
moment, and then, over the groans of the dying, would ring again
the rallying cry of the brave inhabitants. The streets ran torrents
of blood, and the stench of putrefied bodies loaded the air. Thus,
for three weeks, did the fight and butchery go on, within the city
walls, till the soldiers grew dispirited and ready to give up the
hope of spoils, if they could escape the ruin that encompassed them.
Yet theirs was a comfortable lot to that of the besieged. Shut up in
the cellars with the dead, pinched with famine, while the pestilence
rioted without mercy and without resistance, they heard around them
the incessant bursting of bombs, and thunder of artillery, and
explosions of mines, and crash of falling houses, till the city
shook, night and day, as within the grasp of an earthquake. Thousands
fell daily, and the town was a mass of ruins. Yet, unconquered and
apparently unconquerable, the inhabitants struggled on. Out of the
dens they had made for themselves among the ruins, and from the
cellars where there were more dead than living, men would crawl to
fight, who looked more like spectres than warriors. Women would work
the guns, and, musket in hand, advance fearlessly to the charge; and
hundreds thus fell, fighting for their homes and their firesides.
Amid this scene of devastation,--against this prolonged and almost
hopeless struggle of weeks,--against the pestilence that had appeared
in his own army, and was mowing down his own troops,--and, above all,
against the increased murmurs and now open clamors of the soldiers,
declaring that the siege must be abandoned till reinforcements could
come up,--Lannes remained unshaken and untiring. The incessant
roar and crash around him, the fetid air, the exhausting toil, the
carnage and the pestilence, could not change his iron will. He had
decreed that Saragossa--which had heretofore baffled every attempt
to take it--should fall. At length, by a vigorous attempt, he took
the convent of St. Laran, in the suburbs of the town, and planted
his artillery there, which soon levelled the city around it with the
ground. To finish this work of destruction by one grand blow, he
caused six mines to be run under the main street of the city, each of
which was charged with three thousand pounds of powder. But before
the time appointed for their explosion arrived, the town capitulated.
The historians of this siege describe the appearance of the city and
its inhabitants, after the surrender, as inconceivably horrible.
With only a single wall between them and the enemy’s trenches, they
had endured a siege of nearly two months by forty thousand men, and
continued to resist after famine and pestilence began to slay faster
than the enemy. Thirty thousand cannon-balls and sixty thousand bombs
had fallen in the city, and fifty-four thousand of the inhabitants
had perished. Six thousand only had fallen in combat, while
forty-eight thousand had been the prey of the pestilence. After the
town had capitulated, but twelve thousand were found able to bear
arms, and they looked more like spectres issuing from the tomb than
like living warriors.
“Saragossa was taken; but what a capture! As Lannes rode through
the streets at the head of his victorious army, he looked only on a
heap of ruins, while six thousand unburied corpses lay in his path.
Sixteen thousand lay sick, while on the living famine had written
more dreadful characters than death had traced on the fallen. Infants
lay on the breasts of their dead mothers, striving in vain to draw
life from bosoms that would never throb again. Attenuated forms,
with haggard faces and sunken eyes and cheeks, wandered around
among the dead to search for their friends; corpses, bloated with
famine, lay stretched across the threshold of their dwellings, and
strong-limbed men went staggering over the pavements, weak from want
of food, or struck with the pestilence. Woe was in every street,
and the silence in the dwellings was more eloquent than the loudest
cries and groans. Death and famine and the pestilence had been there,
in every variety of form and suffering. But the divine form of
Liberty had been there too, walking amid those mountains of corpses
and ruins of homes, shedding her light through the subterranean
apartments of the wretched, and, with her cheering voice, animating
the thrice-conquered, yet still unconquered, to another effort,
and blessing the dying as they prayed for their beloved city. But
she was at last compelled to take her departure, and the bravest
city of modern Europe sunk in bondage. Still her example lives, and
shall live to the end of time, nerving the patriot to strike and
suffer for his home and freedom, and teaching man everywhere how to
die in defending the right. A wreath of glory surrounds the brow of
Saragossa, fadeless as the memory of her brave defenders. Before
their achievements,--the moral grandeur of their firm struggle,
and the depth and intensity of their sufferings,--the bravery and
perseverance of the French sink into forgetfulness. Yet theirs was no
ordinary task, and it was by no ordinary means that it was executed.”
The English had by no means relinquished their designs upon the
Peninsula. The successes of Napoleon and his victorious army but
served to stimulate their hatred of the French, and spur them on
to further efforts. Another army was accordingly collected, and
placed under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who landed in
Lisbon on the 22d of April, 1809. The force under his command was
fourteen thousand five hundred infantry, fifteen hundred cavalry, and
twenty-four pieces of artillery. The passage of the river Dwero was
his first contest with the French. In this he was successful, and his
success opened to him the gates of Oporto. Soon after occurred the
celebrated battle of Talavera. King Joseph was himself nominally
at the head of his troops; but Marshal Victor was, in reality, the
leader. Victor and Soult had both laid their plans before the king,
and urged them with all the eloquence they were capable of. So sure
was Victor of the victory, should his advice be followed, that
he said that, if his plans should fail, all military science was
useless. The event proved, however, that Soult was correct.
“The morning dawned beautifully clear, but a July sun poured down its
burning heat, until the soldiers were glad to seek shelter from its
rays in the quiet shade. Between the camps of the two armies flowed
a little murmuring rivulet, and, as the French and English met there
to slake their thirst, pleasant words passed between them. Familiar
conversation, the light laugh and the gay jest, were heard on every
side. But, about one o’clock, the deep rolling of drums along the
French lines announced to the allies that the hour had come when
those who had met to slake their thirst in those quiet waters were
soon to mingle to quell in blood their thirst for strife. They, too,
prepared for combat; and, when the loud booming of the guns gave the
signal that the battle was commenced, eighty cannon opened their
destructive fire, and the light troops went sweeping onward with the
rapidity of a thunder-cloud over the heavens, while the deep, dark
columns marched sternly after, and charged, with terrible strength,
the English lines. Then all along their fronts the deep-mouthed guns
opened their well-directed fire, and the infantry responded to the
furious attack with their rapid volleys, as they closed around the
head of the advancing columns, enveloping them in one sheet of flame,
that streamed like billows along their sides. It was too much for
human courage to endure; and, after bravely breasting the storm, they
were obliged to fall back in disorder.
“After various successes and reverses, the French seemed about to
gain the day. The English centre was broken, and Victor’s columns
marching triumphantly through it. Just at this juncture, when the
English were scattering on every side, Colonel Donellan, anxious to
save the honor of his army, was seen advancing through the disordered
masses, at the head of the 48th regiment. The retiring masses on
every side pressed hard against these brave soldiers, and it seemed,
at first, as though they must be carried away by them; but, wheeling
back by companies, they opened to let the fugitives pass, and then,
pursuing their proud and beautiful line, they marched straight upon
the pursuing columns on the right side, and poured their rapid
fire into the dense ranks. Closing on the foe with steadiness and
firmness, these few soldiers arrested the progress of the entire
mass. Then their artillery opened its fire upon them, and the cavalry
rallied, and rode round to charge their flanks; and, after a short
and earnest warfare, the tide of success turned, and victory, which
seemed a moment before in the hands of the French, was wrested
from their grasp, amid the loud shouts and earnest cheerings of
the British. Their troops retired in good order to their former
position, and at six o’clock the battle had closed. And now, as both
parties were preparing to remove their wounded, and pay the last
sad duties to the dead, one of those terrible events occurred which
sometimes come to shock the human soul, and overrun a cup of misery
already full. Hardly had the last troops withdrawn from the scene of
contest, when the long dry grass took fire, and one broad flame swept
furiously over the field, wrapping the dead and wounded together in
its fiery mantle. The shrieks of the scorched and writhing victims,
that struggled up through the thick folds of smoke that rolled darkly
over them, were far more appalling than the uproar of battle, and
carried consternation to every heart that heard. Two thousand men
were killed on both sides, and eight thousand wounded.”[1]
Soon after, the army effected a junction with Soult, and Sir Arthur
Wellesley was obliged to retreat. He obtained, however, a promise
from the Spanish general that the English wounded should be removed
from the hospitals of Talavera to some other place. But this promise,
like too many others, was shamefully violated; and he left the place,
abandoning them all to the mercy of the enemy. When Victor entered
the town, he found the public square covered with the sick and maimed
of both armies, scattered around on the pavement, without any one
to care for them. He immediately sent his soldiers into the houses,
commanding the inhabitants to receive the wounded sufferers. He
ordered that one English and one French soldier should be lodged
together,--thus softening the asperities of war, and setting an
example to his foes which they would have done well to follow. If
the Spanish had refused to care for the sick and wounded of their
allies, they showed scarcely more consideration for the men on whose
success their own safety depended. They refused to supply them with
provisions. The soldiers were weakened by hunger, and the sick dying
for want of necessary succor. Half a pound of wheat in the grain,
and, twice a week, a few ounces of flour, with a quarter of a pound
of goat’s flesh, formed the sole subsistence of men and officers. The
goats were caught and killed by the troops; and it was so difficult
to procure even these, that the mere offal of a goat would bring
three or four dollars. Sir Arthur’s warm remonstrances to the Spanish
junta were answered only by promises. The soldiers were murmuring
at their bad treatment; and, when pestilence broke out in the army,
and five thousand men died in their hospitals, Wellesley, deeming
it useless to struggle longer against the force of circumstances,
judged it best again to evacuate Spain, and withdraw his troops
into Portugal. However lightly the English had, in anticipation,
regarded the bravery of the French troops, experience--that stern
and truthful monitor--had taught them that they were an enemy
not to be despised, and that Soult, their chief commander, was as
skilful, and, as a tactician, fully equal to Wellington. Many English
writers, in speaking of Wellington, have drawn a parallel between him
and Napoleon, because he was commander-in-chief when the battle of
Waterloo was won. Yet this long struggle between the English general
and Soult, in Spain, in which he was as often defeated as conqueror,
shows conclusively that the French and English commanders were well
matched,--that there was little to choose between them; and who would
think, even for a moment, of instituting a comparison of equality
between Napoleon and Soult?
We cannot follow the Spaniards, in all their operations, after the
English forces had been withdrawn; marked, as they often were, by
want of courage, and oftener by want of skill and foresight in their
arrangements. The Partida warfare was now instituted, and many of the
French troops were cut off in this way; yet the system was a decided
injury to Spain. The heroic defence of Saragossa, already recorded,
and the almost equally courageous one of Gerona, rise as bright spots
on the dark page of Spanish history, and are well worthy of a name
and place in this history. Most of the siege of Gerona we shall take
the liberty to extract from Tucker’s Life of Wellington.
Gerona is a city of Catalonia, situate on the little river Onar.
It is protected by four forts, upon the high ground above it. Its
principal defence, however, was the citadel, called the Monjuie.
This is a square fort, two hundred and forty yards in length on each
side, with four bastions. The garrisons consisted of three thousand
four hundred men, commanded by Mariano Alvarez,--a man at once noble,
brave, and humane. Alvarez, who knew that he could place small
dependence on reinforcements from without, gave every encouragement
to the feelings of the citizens to defend their town to the last
extremity. For this purpose, he formed them into eight companies of
one hundred men each. Nor was the enthusiasm of the defence shared
alone by the men. Maids and matrons also enrolled themselves in an
association, which they termed the Company of St. Barbara, to perform
whatever lay in their power. Alvarez knew full well the power which
superstition would exert on the minds of the bigoted Spaniards. He,
therefore, invested St. Narcis, the patron saint of the Geronans,
with the insignia of generalissimo of all their forces, by land and
by sea. This was done on the Sabbath; and the shrine of the saint was
opened, and a general’s staff, a sword and richly-ornamented belt,
were deposited with his holy relics. Such was the joy and excitement
of the Spaniards, that one of their writers says, “It seemed as
if the glory of the Lord had descended and filled the church,
manifesting that their devotion was approved and blessed by heaven.”
A proclamation was also issued by Alvarez, forbidding all persons, of
whatever rank, from speaking of capitulation, on pain of immediate
death. This was received, both by the garrison and people, with
acclamation.
The city was closely invested by eighteen thousand French, under
the command of General Verdier, on the 6th of May, on the heights
of Casa Roca, where they erected a battery of eleven mortars, and
began to form their first line of circumvallation. The garrison was
too weak to make a sally, or otherwise prevent them. A flag of truce
was sent, with the conditions on which the French would leave the
city; but the only reply it drew forth was, that the Geronans would
hold no communication with the French, but at the cannon’s mouth. At
one o’clock on the morning of June 14th, the bombardment commenced.
As soon as the first shell struck, the loud tones of the _generale_
resounded through the streets, and every one flew to his post. The
female Company of St. Barbara, so far from shrinking from danger,
sought everywhere those spots where most was anticipated. What
bravery or daring could do was done; yet two castles were yielded
up, after a brave but vain resistance. Palamas was also carried
by assault. Very few of the garrison escaped, and those only by
throwing themselves into the sea. In July, three batteries kept up
an incessant fire upon three sides of the Monjuie. By one of these
discharges the angle on which the Spanish flag was planted was cut
off, and the flag prostrated into the ditch below. In an instant, a
man was lowered down from the walls to regain it. Balls fell like
hail around him; yet, apparently unmindful of the dangers to which he
was exposed, he calmly descended, and, having recovered the prostrate
banner, returned to his comrades unhurt, and again hoisted it on the
walls.
A breach was now made in the walls so wide that forty men might enter
abreast. The works progressed with more rapidity, as the fire of the
besieged had entirely ceased. It was not that Gerona was conquered,
but, finding that their ammunition was growing short, they prudently
reserved it until the nearer approach of the enemy should make it
more efficient. On the morning of the 8th, about three o’clock, the
French, under cover of a most tremendous bombardment, again assaulted
the city. Six thousand men marched up to the breach, and endeavored
to rush through; but, concealed there in the ruins of the ravelin,
lay a mortar, which discharged five hundred musket-balls every
shot. As they advanced, it was turned upon them, and their way was
soon impeded by the slain. Three times during that day the assault
was repeated, with the utmost resolution, by the assailants; and
three times were they obliged to retire before the heroic defenders
of Gerona, leaving sixteen hundred men lifeless on the field of
battle. But the effect of that dreadful attack was severely felt
by the besieged. The tower of St. Juan had been blown up, and only
twenty-three of its brave little garrison remained alive.
An instance of extraordinary heroism, in a youthful drummer, which
occurred during the assault, deserves to be recorded. His name was
Luciana Ancio, and he belonged to the artillery. He was stationed to
give the alarm, when a shell was thrown. A ball struck his leg off to
the knee, and felled him to the ground. Some women, who saw him fall,
hastened to remove him to a place of greater safety; but he refused,
saying, “No, no! my arms are left, and I can still beat the drum to
give my comrades warning in time to save themselves.” Heaven seemed
to smile upon his bravery; for he alone, of all those who suffered an
amputation of the thigh during the siege, recovered.
The Company of St. Barbara were everywhere to be seen, covered
with dust and blood, under the burning heat of a July sun. Those
courageous women, through an incessant fire of the batteries and the
musketry, carried water and wine to the soldiers, and bore back the
wounded. Every day produced acts of heroism equally conspicuous, for
the attack continued with unabated force. The sharp-shooters of the
enemy were stationed thickly in the trenches; and so fatal was their
aim, that for any of the garrison to be seen, only for a moment,
was certain death. And, although the sentinels were changed every
half-hour, nine were killed, in one day, at one post; and, after
this, it was only possible to observe what the enemy were about, by
some one in the force lifting up his head, and taking a momentary
glance.
Early in August, the besiegers had pushed their parallels to the
very edge of the fosse; but here their efforts were delayed, because
the nature of the soil obliged them to bring earth from some distance
to finish their works. About this time, Castellar de la Silva, at
the head of fifteen hundred men, attempted to throw supplies into
the city; but no precautions could escape the watchful eye of the
besiegers. The convoy was seized, and only five hundred men, of the
fifteen hundred who defended it, lived to tell the tale.
The main attacks of the besiegers were now directed against the
ravelin, which had become the chief defence of Monjuie. Attempts were
made, night after night, to storm it; but in vain. It was mined, but,
as the breastwork was wholly of earth, the explosion did no injury. A
battery was planted against it, and a sally was made by the besieged,
hoping to destroy it. This attack was headed by a priest. He was
fired upon, and fell. One of the French officers, at the risk of his
own life, protected him from further injury. But his humanity cost
him his life. One of the Spaniards, mistaking his object, cut him
down. The guns of the battery were spiked; but this brave attack was
of little use, for the French were well supplied with artillery, and
fresh guns were soon mounted, and played upon the gate and ravelin.
For thirty-seven days had this fierce conflict been sustained. The
numbers of the besieged were greatly reduced; the hospitals were
filled to overflowing, and pestilence, with all its horrors, spread
unchecked, on every side. Yet this was not all. Grim, gaunt famine
was among them, and began to be severely felt. Of all their stores,
only some wheat and a little flour remained. Still, there was no
thought of capitulation, although every day diminished their little
stock. On the 19th of September, another general assault was made,
and as bravely met. “Frequently,” says Southey, “such was the press
of conflict, and such the passion that inspired them, that, impatient
of the time required for reloading their muskets, the defendants
caught up stones from the breach, and hurled upon their enemies
these readier weapons. Four times the assault was repeated in the
course of two hours, and at every point the enemy was beaten off. The
noble Alvarez, during the whole assault, hastened from post to post,
wherever he was most needed, providing everything, directing all,
and encouraging all. Eight hundred of the besiegers fell, on this
memorable day. A glorious success had been gained, yet it brought
with it no rest,--no respite,--scarcely a prolongation of hope. There
was no wine to cheer the wearied soldiery, when they returned from
the assault--not even bread. A scanty mess of pulse, or corn, with
a little oil, or morsel of bacon, in its stead, was all that could
be served out; and even this was the gift of families, who shared
with the soldiers their little stores.” “What matters it?” was the
answer of these heroes to the lament of the inhabitants that they had
nothing better to give; “if the food fail, the joy of having saved
Gerona will give us strength to go on.” Every day, every hour, added
to the distress of the besieged. Their flour was exhausted, and, for
want of other animal food, mules and horses were slaughtered, and
sent to the shambles. A list was made of all within the city, and
they were taken by lot. Fuel became exceedingly scarce; yet such was
the patriotism of the people, that the heaps placed at the corners
of the streets, to illuminate them in case of danger, remained
untouched. A glimmering of hope still remained that the city might be
supplied with provisions by the army of Blake; but even this faint
hope was cut off when Marshal Augereau superseded St. Cyr in the
control of the siege,--for his first act was to take possession of
Haslatrich, at which place Blake had stored the greater part of his
magazines. Augereau sent letters to the city threatening an increase
of horrors in case the siege was prolonged, and offering them an
armistice of a month, with provisions for that time, if Alvarez would
then capitulate; but these terms were rejected with scorn. Hitherto,
the few animals which had remained had been led out to feed near the
burying-ground; but this was no longer possible, and the wretched
animals gnawed the hair from each other’s bodies. The stores of the
citizens were now exhausted, and the food for the hospitals was
sometimes seized on the way, by the famishing populace. Provisions
were prepared in the French camp, and held out to the garrison as a
temptation to desert; and yet, during the whole siege, only ten so
deserted.
At length, human nature could endure no more. The chief surgeon
presented to Alvarez a report on the state of the city. It was,
indeed, a fearful one. It stated that “not a single house remained
in a habitable state” in Gerona. The people slept in cellars, and
vaults, and holes, amid the ruins; and the wounded were often
killed in the hospital by the enemy’s fire. The streets were broken
up, so that the rain-water and sewers had stagnated, and their
pestilential breath was rendered more noxious by the dead bodies
which lay perishing in the ruins. The incessant thunder of artillery
had affected the atmosphere, and vegetation had stopped. The fruit
withered on the trees, and nothing would grow. Within the last three
days, says the report, five hundred of the garrison alone have died
in the hospitals, and the pestilence is still raging unchecked. “If,
by these sacrifices,” say its authors, in conclusion, “deserving
forever to be the admiration of history,--and if, by consummating
them with the lives of us, who, by the will of Providence, have
survived our comrades,--the liberty of our country can be secured,
happy shall we be, in the bosom of eternity, and in the memory
of all good men, and happy will be our children among their
fellow-countrymen.”
Alvarez himself could do no more. Yet would he not yield to the
enemy; but, being seized with a delirious fever, his successor
in command yielded the city on honorable terms, on the 10th of
December, the siege having lasted seven months. Alvarez died soon
after, and the central junta awarded honors and titles to his family,
and exempted the whole city from taxation.
The surrender of this devoted city closed the campaign for 1809.
The principal events of the campaign of 1810 were the battle of
Busaco, in which the English gained the victory, and the retreat
of the French Marshal Massena. For four months and a half, Massena
had continually followed the retreating forces of Wellington, until
now he had retired beyond the lines of Torres Vedras. The English
had been engaged on these lines a year, until they had at last
rendered them almost impregnable. They consisted of three lines of
intrenchments, one within another, extending for nearly thirty miles.
On these lines were a hundred and fifty redoubts, and six hundred
mounted cannon. Here Massena saw his enemy retire within these lines,
and he then knew that his utmost efforts to dislodge him must prove
abortive. Besides, Wellington here received reinforcements to his
army, which increased it to one hundred and thirty thousand men.
Besides these defences, there were twenty British ships of the line,
and a hundred transports, ready to receive the army, if forced to
retire. Unwilling to retreat, Massena sat down with his army here,
hoping to draw Wellington to an open battle. But he preferred waiting
for an attack upon his intrenchments, or to starve the enemy into a
retreat. This he knew must soon be done. Wellington himself declares
that Massena provisioned his sixty thousand men and twenty thousand
horses, for two months, where he could not have maintained a single
division of English soldiers. But his army was now reduced to
starvation; and he, driven to the last extremity, saw that he must
either commence his retreat at once, or his famine-stricken army
would be too weak to march. Arranging his troops into a compact mass,
he placed the rear guard under the command of Ney, and retired from
the Torres Vedras. Wellington immediately commenced the pursuit; but,
owing to the skilful arrangements of the French marshal, he found
it impossible to attack him with success. Taking advantage of every
favorable position, he would make a stand, and wait until the main
body of the army had passed on, and then would himself fall back.
Thus, for more than four months, did this retreat continue, until he
arrived at the confines of Portugal, having lost more than one-third
of his army. Many were the cruelties practised on this retreat.
They have often been described, and form a dark spot on the English
historian’s page. All war is necessarily cruel; and the desolation
and barrenness that followed in the track of the French army, wasting
the inhabitants by famine, were a powerful check on Wellington in his
pursuit. The track of a retreating and starving army must always be
covered with woe; and one might as well complain of the cruelty of a
besieging force, because innocent women and children die by hunger.
The siege of Cadiz occupied the spring and summer of this year.
During this siege, a tremendous tempest ravaged the Spanish coast,
lasting four days. By it more than forty sail of merchantmen, besides
three line-of-battle ships, were driven on shore. It was during this
tempest that the French and Swiss on board the prison-ships in the
harbor made their escape. “The storm was so great,” writes one of the
unhappy captives, “that we could not receive our supply of provision
from the shore. Our signals of distress were wholly disregarded
by the Spanish authorities; and, had it not been for the humanity
of the British admiral, who sent his boats to their relief, many
more of our miserable men must have perished. The pontoons in which
these prisoners were confined were not properly secured; and the
prisoners on board the Castilla, seeing that the wind and tide were
in their favor, cut the cable, and, hoisting a sail which they had
made from their hammocks, steered for the opposite coast. They were
seven hundred in number, and most of them officers. English boats
were sent against them, but they found the French were prepared. The
ballast of the vessel in which they were confined was cannon-balls of
twenty-four and thirty-six pounds’ weight. These the French hurled
by hand into the boats of their pursuers, and soon disabled them,
so that the fugitives finally succeeded in escaping with but little
loss.”
The first two months of the year 1811 were most inauspicious for the
Spanish cause. General Suchet possessed himself of Tortosa, and on
the 23d of the same month Soult became master of Olivenza. On the
same day died the Marquis de la Romana, one of the most skilful and
noblest of the Spanish leaders; and he had scarcely expired, before
his army met with a signal defeat at Gebora.