collected in central Estremadura--head-quarters at Almendralejo, the
troops cantoned about Ribera, Villafranca, Fuente del Maestre, and Los
Santos, with Penne Villemur’s Spanish horse in front at Zafra. Hill
had in hand his old force--the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese,
with two (instead of the usual one) British and one Portuguese cavalry
brigades. He could also call up, if needed, the three strong Portuguese
infantry regiments (5th, 17th, 22nd) which were holding Badajoz till
a sufficient native garrison should be provided for it. At present
only a few hundred Spaniards [Tiradores de Doyle] had appeared. Far
away, to the north of the Guadiana, observing the French posts on the
Tagus, there was a detached Portuguese cavalry regiment at Plasencia.
This outlying unit was also put under Hill’s charge: its object was to
give early notice of any possible stir by the French, in the direction
of Almaraz or the recently restored bridge of Alcantara. Morillo’s
infantry division of Castaños’s army was lying on the right of Hill,
in south-western Estremadura: Wellington suggested that the Spanish
general might be willing to throw it into Badajoz, and so liberate
the Portuguese regiments lying there, if Soult should advance before
the regular garrison intended for the great fortress should arrive
from Cadiz. The whole force watching Soult amounted to nearly 19,000
men, not including the Spaniards. Of this total about 7,500 sabres
and bayonets were British--something over 11,000 were Portuguese.
In addition, Morillo and Penne Villemur had not quite 4,000 Spanish
horse and foot. Supposing that a minimum garrison were thrown into
Badajoz--Morillo’s infantry for choice--Hill could dispose of 18,000
Anglo-Portuguese for field-operations, not including the Portuguese
cavalry by the Tagus, who had the separate duty of watching the Army of
the Centre.
The French in Estremadura still consisted of the old contingent which
D’Erlon had been administering since the year began, viz. his own
and Daricau’s infantry divisions, with Lallemand’s and Perreymond’s
cavalry--altogether not more than 12,000 men, for several of the
infantry regiments had lost a battalion apiece when Badajoz fell. Since
his excursion to Don Benito and Medellin at the time of Hill’s raid on
Almaraz, D’Erlon had drawn back, abandoning all southern and most of
eastern Estremadura to the allies. He himself was lying at Azuaga and
Fuente Ovejuna, on the slopes of the Sierra Morena, while Daricau was
more to the north, about Zalamea, rather too far off to give his chief
prompt support. Daricau’s detachment in this direction seems to have
been caused by a desire to make communication with the Army of Portugal
easy, if the latter should ever come southward again from the Tagus,
and push to Truxillo as in 1811. It was clear that unless Soult should
reinforce his troops to the north of the mountains, Hill need fear
nothing: indeed he had a distinct superiority over D’Erlon.
Early in June, however, there was no danger that any troops from
Seville would come northward, for Ballasteros’s diversion had taken
place somewhat earlier than Wellington had wished, and the disposable
reserve of the Army of Andalusia was far away in the extreme southern
point of the province. After his success at Alhaurin in April, and his
subsequent pursuit by Soult’s flying columns, Ballasteros had taken
refuge--as was his wont when hard pressed--under the guns of Gibraltar.
The French retired when they had consumed their provisions, and fell
back to their usual stations at Malaga and Ronda, and along the line
of the Guadalete. When they were gone, the Spanish general emerged in
May, and recommenced his wonted incursions, ranging over the whole
of the mountains of the South. Having received the dispatches of the
Regency, which directed him to execute a diversion in favour of the
allied army in Estremadura, he obeyed with unexpected celerity, and
took in hand a very bold enterprise. General Conroux, with the column
whose task it was to cover the rear of the Cadiz Lines, was lying at
Bornos, behind the Guadalete, in a slightly entrenched camp. He had
with him about 4,500 men[671]. Ballasteros resolved to attempt to
surprise him, on the morning of June 1. Having got together all his
disposable troops, 8,500 infantry and a few squadrons of horse[672],
he made a forced march, and, favoured by a heavy mist at dawn, fell
upon the enemy’s cantonments and surprised them. He won a considerable
success at first: but the French rallied, and after a hard fight broke
his line by a general charge, and drove him back across the Guadalete.
Conroux was too exhausted to pursue, and Ballasteros remained in
position, apparently meditating a second attack, when on seeing some
cavalry detachments coming up to join the enemy, he sullenly retired.
He had lost 1,500 men and 4 guns, the French over 400[673]. The first
note of alarm from Bornos had caused Soult to send what reserves he
could collect from the Cadiz Lines and Seville--six battalions and
two cavalry regiments, and since Ballasteros had been beaten, but
not routed, he thought it necessary to give prompt attention to him.
Thereupon the Spaniard retreated first to Ubrique, and when threatened
in that position, to his old refuge in the lines of San Roque before
Gibraltar.
[671] 9th Léger, 96th Ligne, a battalion of the 16th Léger, and
the 5th Chasseurs.
[672] Figures in _Los Ejércitos españoles_, p. 128.
[673] Possibly more--the casualty list of officers in Martinien’s
admirable tables is very heavy--9 officers hit in the 9th Léger,
13 in the 96th Ligne, 3 in the 16th Léger, 5 in the 5th Chasseurs
à cheval. Thirty officers hit might very probably (but not
certainly) mean 600 casualties in all.
Soult would have liked to make an end of him, and would also have been
glad to direct a new attack upon Tarifa, which served as a second base
to the roving Spanish corps; he mentions his wish to capture it in more
than one of his dispatches of this summer. But his attention was drawn
away from Ballasteros and the South by the prompt advance of Hill, who
(as had been settled) pressed in upon Drouet at the right moment. On
the 7th June he moved forward his head-quarters from Almendralejo to
Fuente del Maestre, and two days later to Zafra. On the 11th, Penne
Villemur’s cavalry pushed out from Llerena towards Azuaga, while
Slade’s brigade, advancing parallel with the Spanish general, pressed
forward from Llera on Maguilla, a village some fifteen miles in front
of Drouet’s head-quarters at Fuente Ovejuna. This reconnaissance in
force brought on the most unlucky combat that was ever fought by the
British cavalry during the Peninsular War, the skirmish of Maguilla.
Slade, an officer whose want of capacity we have before had occasion
to notice[674], after some hours of march began to get in touch
with French dragoon vedettes, and presently, after driving them in,
found himself facing Lallemand’s brigade. Their forces were nearly
equal--each having two regiments, Slade the 1st Royals and 3rd Dragoon
Guards, Lallemand the 17th and 27th Dragoons--they had about 700
sabres a side: if anything Slade was a little the stronger. The French
general showed considerable caution and retired for some distance,
till he had nearly reached Maguilla, where he turned to fight. Slade
at once charged him, with the Royals in front line and the 3rd Dragoon
Guards supporting. The first shock was completely successful, the
French line being broken, and more than 100 men being taken. But Slade
then followed the routed squadrons with headlong recklessness, ‘each
regiment,’ as he wrote in his very foolish report of the proceedings,
‘vying with the other which should most distinguish itself.’ The
pursuit was as reckless as that of the 13th Light Dragoons at Campo
Mayor in the preceding year, and resolved itself into a disorderly
gallop of several miles. After the French had passed a defile beyond
Maguilla a sudden cry was heard, ‘Look to your right’--a fresh squadron
which Lallemand had left in reserve was seen bearing down on the flank
of the disordered mass. Charged diagonally by a small force, but one
in good order, the British dragoons gave way. Lallemand’s main body
turned upon them, and ‘the whole brigade in the greatest disorder, and
regardless of all the exertions and appeals of their general and their
regimental officers, continued their disgraceful flight till victors
and fugitives, equally overcome and exhausted by the overpowering heat
and the clouds of thick dust, came to a standstill near Valencia de las
Torres, some four miles from Maguilla, where at last Slade was able to
collect his regiments, and to retire to the woods beyond Llera[675].’
[674] See vol. iv. pp. 187 and 437.
[675] See Ainslie’s _History of the 1st Royals_, p. 133.
In this discreditable affair Slade lost 22 killed, 26 wounded, and
no less than 2 officers and 116 men taken prisoners--most of the
latter wounded--a total casualty list of 166. Lallemand acknowledges
in his report a loss of 51 officers and men[676]. The defeated general
irritated Wellington by a very disingenuous report, in which he merely
wrote that ‘I am sorry to say our loss was severe, as the enemy brought
up a support, and my troops being too eager in pursuit, we were obliged
to relinquish a good number of prisoners that we had taken, and to
fall back on Llera.’ He then added, in the most inappropriate phrases,
‘nothing could exceed the gallantry displayed by both officers and men
on this occasion, in which Colonels Calcraft and Clinton, commanding
the two regiments, distinguished themselves, as well as all the other
officers present[677].’
[676] Including one officer killed and four wounded.
[677] See Slade’s report in _Dispatches_, ix. pp. 242-3.
Tomkinson (p. 174) says that Slade’s report to Cotton, commanding
the cavalry, was ‘the _best_ I ever saw. He made mention of his
son having stained his maiden sword!’
Wellington’s scathing comment, in a letter to Hill, was: ‘I have never
been more annoyed than by Slade’s affair, and I entirely concur with
you in the necessity of inquiring into it. It is occasioned entirely
by the trick our officers of cavalry have acquired, of galloping
at everything--and then galloping _back_ as fast as they galloped
_on_ the enemy. They never consider their situation, never think of
manœuvring before an enemy--so little that one would think they cannot
manœuvre except on Wimbledon Common: and when they use their arm as it
ought to be used, viz. offensively, they never keep nor provide for a
reserve.... The Royals and 3rd Dragoon Guards were the best cavalry
regiments in this country, and it annoys me particularly that the
misfortune has happened to them. I do not wonder at the French boasting
of it: it is the greatest blow they have struck[678].’ It is curious
to find that Slade retained command of his brigade till May 1813. One
would have expected to find him relegated to Great Britain at a much
earlier date. But Wellington was not even yet in full control of the
removal or promotion of his senior officers. Other generals with whom
he was equally discontented, such as Erskine and Long, were also left
upon his hands after he had set a black mark against their names.
[678] Wellington to Hill, _Dispatches_, ix. p. 238.
The combat of Maguilla, however unsatisfactory in itself, made no
difference to the general strategy of the campaign. Drouet, having
drawn back on Hill’s advance, sent messages to Soult, to the effect
that unless he were strongly reinforced he must retire from the Sierra
Morena, and cover the roads to Cordova on the Andalusian side of the
mountains. He reported that he had only 6,000 men in hand, and that
Hill was coming against him with 30,000, including the Spaniards. Both
these figures were fantastic--for reasons best known to himself D’Erlon
did not include Daricau’s division in his own total, while he credited
Hill with 15,000 men in the 2nd British division alone [which was
really 8,000 strong, including its Portuguese brigade], and reported
with circumstantial detail that the 7th Division had come down from
Portalegre and joined the 2nd[679].
[679] Letters of D’Erlon to Jourdan on June 9th, and of Soult to
King Joseph June 12, copies from the Paris archives--lent me by
Mr. Fortescue.
Soult sent on D’Erlon’s dispatch to Madrid, with the comment that
Hill’s advance showed that the main intention of Wellington was
certainly to attack Andalusia, and not to fall upon Marmont. But that
he did not consider such an attack very imminent is sufficiently shown
by the fact that he detached to Drouet’s aid only one division of
infantry, that of Barrois--which composed his central reserve--and
one of cavalry, that of Pierre Soult, or a total of 6,000 infantry
and 2,200 cavalry: such a reinforcement would have been futile if he
had really believed that Wellington was marching against Seville.
His real view may be gathered from his estimate of Hill’s force at
15,000 Anglo-Portuguese and 5,000 Spaniards--a total very remote
from the alarmist reports of Drouet, and not far from the truth. The
reinforcement sent under Barrois would give the Estremaduran detachment
a practical equality in numbers with Hill, and a great superiority in
quality. The orders sent to Drouet were that he was to advance against
Hill, to strive to get him to an engagement, at any rate to ‘contain’
him, so that he should not detach troops north of the Guadiana to join
Wellington or to demonstrate against Madrid. If things went well,
Drouet was to invest Badajoz, and to occupy Merida, from whence he
would try to get into communication via Truxillo with the troops of the
Army of the Centre. The final paragraph of his directions stated that
Drouet’s main object must be to make such a formidable diversion that
Wellington would have to reinforce Hill. ‘When the Army of Portugal
finds that it has less of the English army in front of it, we may
perhaps persuade it [i. e. Marmont] that the enemy’s plan is certainly
to invade the provinces of the south of Spain before he acts directly
against the North: then, no doubt, changed dispositions will be made.’
Unfortunately for the strategical reputation of Soult, Wellington
crossed the Agueda with seven of his eight divisions to attack Marmont,
on the very day after this interesting dispatch was written.
D’Erlon had been promised that Barrois should march to his aid on the
14th, but it was not till the 16th that the column from Seville started
to join him, and then it marched not by the route of Constantina and
Guadalcanal, as D’Erlon had requested, but by the high-road from
Andalusia to Badajoz, via Monasterio. If Hill had been pressing the
troops in front of him with vigour, the French would have been in an
awkward position, since they were on separate roads, and might have
been driven apart, and kept from junction by a decisive movement from
Llerena, where Hill’s cavalry and advanced guard lay. But the British
general had orders to attract the attention of Soult and to ‘contain’
as many of the enemy as possible, rather than to risk anything. He
resolved, when he heard of the approach of Barrois, to retire to the
heights of Albuera, which Wellington had pointed out to him as the
most suitable position for standing at bay, if he were pressed hard.
Accordingly he drew back by slow stages from Zafra towards Badajoz,
covering his rear by his cavalry, which suffered little molestation.
Barrois joined Drouet at Bienvenida near Zafra on the 19th, and their
united force, since Daricau had come in to join them from the direction
of Zalamea, with the greater part of his division, must have amounted
to over 18,000 men, though Drouet in a report to King Joseph states it
at a decidedly lower figure[680]. They advanced cautiously as far as
Villafranca and Fuente del Maestre, which their infantry occupied on
June 21, while their numerous cavalry lay a little way in front, at
Villalba, Azeuchal, and Almendralejo. On the same day Hill had taken up
the Albuera position, on which several points had been entrenched.
[680] In this report (the copy of which I owe to Mr. Fortescue’s
kindness) Drouet says that Soult had told him to expect
reinforcements to the total of some 15,000 men, but that Barrois
brought him only 3,500 infantry and 1,500 horse, and Daricau
4,500 infantry and 1,000 horse, so that his reinforcements were
only 10,500 men instead of 15,000. Drouet stated his own force,
horse and foot (his own division and Lallemand’s cavalry) in a
preceding letter of June 9th at 6,000 of all arms, so that the
concentration would only give 16,000 men. I fancy that he is
deliberately understating Barrois, for that general had 7,000
men in March, and 5,000 still in October at the end of a long
and fatiguing campaign, and Pierre Soult too. Drouet’s object
in giving these figures to Joseph was to prove that he was so
weak that he could make no detachment towards the Tagus, as the
King had directed him to do. Was it for the same purpose that he
always over-stated Hill’s army? Or did he really believe that the
latter had 30,000 men arranged opposite him, as he repeatedly
told Soult?
As Hill had just called out the three garrison regiments of Portuguese
from Badajoz, he had now between 18,000 and 19,000 of his own army in
position, besides Villemur’s Spanish cavalry. This last, together with
Long’s and Slade’s squadrons, were thrown out in front of the Albuera
river, with their vedettes in Santa Marta, Almendral, and Corte de
Peleas, only a mile or two from the French advanced posts. They were
directed not to give way till they were severely pressed, as Hill
wished to avoid at all costs the kind of surprise that had befallen
Beresford in 1811, when Long had retired so precipitately before the
French horse that he could give no account of their strength, nor of
the position of Soult’s infantry. But the expected advance of the enemy
hung fire--from the 21st onwards Hill was waiting to be attacked, and
sending almost daily accounts of the situation to Wellington: but the
main body of the French moved no farther forward. This was all the more
surprising to the English general because he had intercepted a letter
written on May 31 from King Joseph to Drouet, in which the latter was
directed to ‘passer sur le corps à Hill[681],’ and then to come up to
the Tagus to join the Army of the Centre. Not knowing how entirely
Soult and D’Erlon were ignoring all orders from Madrid, both Wellington
and his trusty lieutenant thought that such instructions must almost
certainly bring about an action. The former wrote to the latter on
June 28th, after receiving several statements of the situation: ‘if
you should find that Drouet separates his troops, or if he pretends
to hold you in check with a smaller body of men than you think you can
get the better of, fall upon him, but take care to keep a very large
proportion of your troops in reserve.... I should prefer a partial
affair to a general one, but risk a general affair--keeping always
a large body of reserve, particularly of cavalry--rather than allow
Drouet to remain in Estremadura and keep you in check.’ But the enemy
neither came on for a general action, nor scattered his troops so
widely as to induce Hill to risk an attack on any point of his line.
He remained with his infantry massed about Villafranca and Fuente del
Maestre, and only demonstrated with his cavalry.
[681] Cf. Wellington to Hill of July 11th. _Dispatches_, ix. p.
280.
The cause of this inactivity on Drouet’s part was partly, perhaps, his
over-estimate of Hill’s strength, but much more Soult’s unwillingness
to obey the orders sent him from Madrid. He was determined not to
detach a third part of his army to the Tagus, to join the Army of
the Centre. He was by this time fully embarked on his long course of
insubordinate action, with which we have already dealt when writing
of the King’s desires and their frustration[682]. On the 26th May
Joseph had sent him the dispatch which directed that D’Erlon must come
up northward, if Wellington’s main attack turned out to be directed
against Marmont and the Army of Portugal: ‘his corps is the pivot on
which everything turns: he is the counterpoise which can be thrown
into the balance in one scale or the other, according as our forces
have to act on the one side or the other[683].’ Drouet himself had
at the same time received that order to the same effect, sent to
him directly and not through his immediate superior, which so much
scandalized Soult’s sense of hierarchical subordination[684]. On
getting the Madrid dispatch of May 26 upon June 8th, Soult had written
to say that Wellington’s real objective was Andalusia and not the
North, that Marmont was utterly misled if he supposed that he was to be
attacked by the main body of the allies, that Graham, with two British
divisions, was still at Portalegre in support of Hill, and that Drouet
had therefore been forbidden to lose touch with the Army of the South
by passing towards the Tagus. If he departed, the whole fabric of
French power in the South would go to pieces, ‘I should have to pack
up and evacuate Andalusia after the smallest check.’ Drouet should
‘contain’ Hill, but could do no more. In a supplementary dispatch of
June 12, provoked by the receipt of Joseph’s direct orders to Drouet,
Soult went further, definitely stating that the troops in Estremadura
should not go to the Tagus, ‘where they would be lost to the Army
of the South, but would never arrive in time to help the Army of
Portugal.’ If Drouet passed the Tagus, Hill would march on Seville,
and on the sixth day would capture that insufficiently garrisoned
capital, put himself in communication with Ballasteros, and raise the
siege of Cadiz. ‘I repeat that the Army of the South cannot carry
out its orders, and send Count D’Erlon and 15,000 men to the valley
of the Tagus, without being compelled to evacuate Andalusia within
the fortnight.... If your Majesty insists, remove me from command, I
do not wish to be responsible for the inevitable disaster that must
follow[685].’
[682] See chapter i above, pp. 309-10.
[683] Joseph to Soult, May 26, intercepted dispatch in the
Scovell ciphers.
[684] See above, p. 332.
[685] Soult to Joseph, printed in Joseph’s _Correspondence_, ix.
pp. 31-3.
[Illustration: ESTREMADURA]
At the same time Drouet, much vexed at having personal responsibility
thrown upon his shoulders, by the King’s direct orders to him to march
without consulting Soult, wrote to Madrid that he was very weak, that
Hill was in front of him with a superior force, and that Barrois and
Pierre Soult, who had just joined him, were under strict orders not to
go beyond the Guadiana, so that if he himself marched towards the Tagus
it would be with a very small force. But he dare not make that move:
‘I am absolutely obliged to stop where I am [Villafranca] in presence
of Hill, who still remains concentrated on the Albuera position, which
he has entrenched, with at least 25,000 men.’ Indeed an attack by Hill
was expected day by day: ‘at the moment of writing there is lively
skirmishing going on at the outposts, and news has come in that the
whole allied army is advancing[686].’ Drouet, in short, was determined
to evade responsibility, and summed up the situation by the conclusion
that he was acting for the best in ‘containing’ Hill and his very
large detachment, who could be of no use to Wellington in the campaign
which the latter was now reported to have begun against Marmont in the
North. He could do no more.
[686] Drouet to Joseph, Villafranca, July 3, Paris Archives
[paper communicated to me by Mr. Fortescue]. Cf. Drouet to
Jourdan to much the same general effect, of June 18, in King
Joseph’s _Correspondence_, ix. pp. 36-7.
The deadlock in front of the Albuera position lasted for many
days--from June 21st till July 2nd. This was a very trying time for
Hill’s corps--the weather was excessively hot, the ground was hideous
with the insufficiently buried corpses of the battle of last year, and
sickness was very prevalent in some regiments. For the first day or two
after the arrival of the French at Villafranca and Almendralejo, an
attack was expected each morning, but nothing in particular happened.
Drouet kept quiet behind his cavalry screen, and did no more than send
foraging parties out on his flanks, which ravaged the countryside as
far as Merida and Feria. Over-valuing Hill’s strength, he dreaded to
commit himself to an attack on a superior force, covered by field-works
and in a fine position. Nothing was seen of him for ten days, save that
on the 26th he felt the posts of the allies at Corte de Peleas and
Santa Marta, and retired after a little cavalry skirmishing. On July
1, however, he executed a more searching reconnaissance, with three
brigades of cavalry under the direction of Pierre Soult, Vinot’s in
the centre, Sparre’s on the right, Lallemand’s on the left. Barrois’s
infantry division came up in support. Vinot drove in a Portuguese
cavalry regiment of J. Campbell’s brigade from Corte de Peleas[687],
but retired when he found it supported by Long’s light dragoons in
front of the Albuera position. Lallemand found Santa Marta held by
Penne Villemur’s cavalry, and turned them out of it with considerable
loss, for the Spanish general unwisely offered battle, and was routed
after a very short contest. He retired into the wood of Albuera, whose
edge was occupied by Slade’s heavy dragoons, supported by the pickets
of Byng’s infantry brigade. A troop of the 3rd Dragoon Guards made a
gallant charge to cover the retreat of the Spaniards, and suffered some
loss in bringing them off. Lallemand at dusk pressed forward, and cut
off a small party of the Buffs, who would have been taken prisoners if
a troop of the 2nd Hussars K.G.L. had not rescued them by a sudden
counter-attack. Sparre’s brigade on the right did no more than skirmish
with the allied outposts along the lower course of the river Albuera.
At night all the French cavalry retired, and D’Erlon wrote to Soult
that his reconnaissance had ‘completely fulfilled its object,’ by
making him certain that Hill had 25,000 foot, 3,000 horse, and a very
strong force of artillery in position, so that it would be insane to
attack him[688].
[687] Espinchal says that the 2nd Hussars captured a Portuguese
gun: I have no corroboration for this.
[688] Details of all this in Soult’s dispatch to Joseph of July
10, in Espinchal’s _Mémoires_ (he served in Vinot’s brigade), and
in the diaries of Swabey of the R.A. and of Stoltzenberg of the
2nd Hussars K.G.L., printed in full in Schwertfeger’s _History of
the K. G. Legion_, ii. pp. 257-8.
On the next morning, July 2nd, Hill determined to make use of
Wellington’s permission to bring on an action, if he should judge that
Drouet was not strong enough to face him. The weakness of the French
demonstration had convinced him that the enemy was not ready to fight.
Collecting the whole of his army, he advanced from the Albuera position
towards Santa Marta, thus challenging Drouet to a fight. The enemy’s
vedettes made no stand and retired when pushed. On reaching Santa Marta
Hill halted for the night in battle order, and on the morning of the
3rd resumed his movement, which was directed to cutting off Drouet from
the great road to Seville. While Erskine with the light cavalry (Long,
and J. Campbell’s Portuguese) advanced down the high-road to Villalba,
supported by one British and one Portuguese brigade of infantry, Hill
himself, with the rest of his army, executed a flank march to Feria,
and, having got behind the French left wing, turned inward and moved
toward Los Santos. The enemy’s main body, at Villafranca and Fuente
del Maestre, were thus prevented from using the high-road to Seville,
and placed in a position which compelled Drouet either to fight, or to
retire south-eastward towards Usagre and Llerena.
Next morning (July 4) Hill expected a battle, for Barrois’s division
and all Pierre Soult’s cavalry were found in a strong position at
Fuente del Maestre, and the rest of the French were close behind at
Almendralejo. But when he continued his movement toward the right,
outflanking Barrois instead of attacking him, the enemy gave way and
retired, protected by his cavalry, retreating on Ribera, Hinojosa,
and Usagre[689]. There was lively skirmishing between the squadrons of
the British advanced guard, and those of the French rearguard, but no
serious engagement.
[689] All this from Hill’s dispatch to Wellington of July 4, from
Los Santos.
The same general plan of action continued on the 5th. Hill, keeping
his army well concentrated, moved in two columns on Usagre and
Bienvenida, the bulk of his cavalry riding at the head of his left-hand
column and pressing in the French horse. Drouet took up a position at
Valencia de las Torres, where he had found strong ground, and thought
on the 6th that he would risk a defensive action. But Hill, instead
of marching in upon him, continued his flanking movement towards
Llerena. Thereupon Drouet, finding that he would be cut off from
Andalusia if he remained in his chosen position, evacuated it and fell
back by Maguilla on Berlanga and Azuaga [July 7]. The two armies had
thus got back into exactly the same positions in which they had lain
on June 19th, before Hill’s retreat to Albuera. The tale of their
manœuvres bears a curious resemblance to the contemporary movements of
Wellington and Marmont between Salamanca and Tordesillas. In each case
one combatant, when pressed, retired, and took up a strong position
(Marmont at Tordesillas-Pollos-Toro, Hill at Albuera). He then issued
from it after some days, and by persistent flank movements dislodged
his opponent, and drove him back to the same position from which he
had started, so that the situation came back to that which it had been
three weeks before. But here the parallel ended--Marmont pressed his
advantage too far, and got entangled in the disastrous manœuvre of
July 22, which brought on the battle of Salamanca and his own ruin.
Hill, contented with what he had achieved, halted at Llerena, and did
not push matters to a decisive action. He had done all that Wellington
desired in keeping Soult’s attention diverted from Marmont’s peril, and
in ‘containing’ a hostile force as great as his own. Moreover he had
driven it off the road to Seville, and if it retreated on Andalusia it
would have to be on Cordova, by the road of Constantina, since no other
remained available.
But a new development of this complicated and indecisive campaign
began on July 10th. Drouet, thinking apparently that Hill’s farther
advance might be stopped as effectively by assuming a position on
his flank as by direct opposition in front, shifted his right wing
(Daricau’s division and Sparre’s and Vinot’s cavalry) back to Zalamea
and its neighbourhood, where Daricau had lain in May and June. He
himself resumed his old head-quarters at Fuente Ovejuna. Now just at
this time Hill received an intercepted letter of King Joseph to Drouet,
dated June 21st, which repeated in angry terms the long-ignored orders
that the Estremaduran detachment of the Army of the South was to march
on Toledo without delay. ‘Vous aurez sans doute reçu les renforts que
j’ai donné l’ordre au duc de Dalmatie de vous envoyer. Vous devez avoir
quinze mille hommes. Agissez avec ce corps, et tout ce qui est sous
le commandement du général Daricau. Rapprochez-vous de moi: passez le
Tage, et mettez-vous en état d’agir suivant les événements; n’attendez
aucun ordre[690].’
[690] See Wellington to Hill of July 11 (_Dispatches_, ix. p.
280) and Hill to Wellington of July 9. The text of the order is
in Joseph’s _Correspondence_, ix. p. 41.
The capture of this dispatch coincided with the news that Drouet had
pushed Daricau and a large body of cavalry towards Zalamea. Hill drew
the natural deduction that the French opposite him were at last about
to obey the King’s orders, and to march to the Tagus, via Zalamea,
Medellin, and Truxillo. ‘The intelligence that I have of the enemy’s
movements’ (he wrote to Wellington) ‘indicates his intention of
carrying Joseph’s instructions into execution.... I have received
information [false as it chanced] that Drouet was yesterday at Zalamea,
with his main body, having sent troops by Berlanga and Azuaga. I shall
move immediately in the direction of Zalamea.’ That is to say that if
Drouet was going off northward towards the King, Hill was prepared to
carry out the original instructions which Wellington had left him, and
if he could not stop the enemy, would move parallel to him, so as to
join his chief before Drouet could transfer himself to the northern
sphere of operations. His route would be by Badajoz or Merida and the
newly-restored bridge of Alcantara on Ciudad Rodrigo, a much shorter
one than that of his opponent. He had just begun to move his left wing
in the direction of Merida, when he received a letter from Wellington
exactly conforming to his own ideas. If Drouet is making for the Tagus
in full force, wrote Wellington, you must take all the cavalry except
one English regiment and Campbell’s Portuguese, along with Byng’s and
Howard’s brigades of the 2nd Division, and Hamilton’s division, and
send orders to have all preparations made at Alcantara to lay down the
bridge: your route across the mountains will be by the pass of Perales:
you will find elaborate instructions for the further movement at Ciudad
Rodrigo. If Drouet only takes a small force, more allied troops may
be left in Estremadura; Zafra had better be their head-quarters. Hill
would conduct the marching column as far as Perales, and then return to
take charge of whatever is left in the South to watch Soult[691].
[691] Wellington to Hill, Rueda, July 11.
A few days later it became evident that no general movement of the
French towards the Tagus was in progress. Daricau’s infantry and the
attached cavalry settled down at and about Zalamea, and pushed nothing
but reconnaissances in the direction of the Guadiana--parties of
horse appeared about Don Benito and Medellin, but no solid columns in
support[692]. Hill therefore halted, with his head-quarters at Zafra
and his rearguard (which had but a moment before been his advanced
guard) at Llerena: only a few of J. Campbell’s Portuguese squadrons
moved to Merida, though some Spanish infantry came up to the same
direction[693]. Things then remained very quiet till July 24th, when
Drouet at last appeared to be on the move with some definite purpose.
On that day Lallemand’s dragoons appeared at Hinojosa, pressed in
a Portuguese cavalry regiment, and seemed inclined to push towards
Ribera, but retired when Long’s brigade came up against them: the
losses on both sides were trifling. Three days later (July 27) a
brigade of Daricau’s infantry advanced to Medellin and drove off
the observing force of the Spanish infantry, while Vinot’s cavalry
executed a raid on Merida, expelled the Portuguese detachment there,
and exacted a requisition of food from the town. They then retired in
haste; but Hill thought it well for the future to strengthen his left,
and moved up Byng’s British and A. Campbell’s Portuguese infantry
brigades to Merida. But Drouet was only feinting, and had no serious
intentions of drawing up to the Guadiana, or crossing that river
northward. His main purpose was simply the raising of requisitions; for
his detachments in the mountains of the Serena were living on the edge
of famine, and could only feed themselves by keeping constantly on the
move. It is curious to find from the dispatches of the two opposing
generals at this time that both were fairly satisfied with themselves:
each thought that he was ‘containing’ a somewhat superior force of the
enemy, and was doing his duty by keeping it from interfering in the
more important theatre of war. Hill knew that he was detaining Drouet,
when he was much wanted at Madrid: Drouet knew that he was preventing
Hill from joining Wellington on the Douro. But the real balance of
advantage was on the side of the allies: Hill, with only 8,000 British
and 11,000 Portuguese was claiming the attention of three veteran
divisions of the infantry of the Army of the South, and of the major
part of Soult’s cavalry. The French in Andalusia were left so weak by
the absence of 18,000 men beyond the Sierra Morena, that they could
neither molest Cadiz nor the Army of Murcia. Indeed, Ballasteros,
though his forces were less than they had been at the time of his
defeat at Bornos, was able to provide employment for all the troops
that Soult could spare for operations in the open field.
[692] There is plenty of detail about these quite unimportant
movements in Espinchal, ii. pp. 26-33.
[693] Not, however, the bulk of Morillo’s division, which was at
Medina de las Torres near Zafra, as the general’s correspondence
of that date shows [Villa’s _Life of Morillo_, ii. p. 224].
Six weeks after his disaster of June 1st, that enterprising, if
irresponsible, general started out again from the lines of San Roque
with between 5,000 and 6,000 men. Keeping to mountain roads and
concealing his march, he surprised, on July 14, the great harbour-city
of Malaga, though he failed to capture its citadel, Gibalfaro, into
which the wrecks of the garrison escaped. Ballasteros got money,
stores, and recruits from the captured town, but knew that he dare not
tarry there for long. For Soult, naturally enraged at such a bold and
successful raid, turned troops toward him from all sides. Leval, the
governor of Granada, marched against him with every spare battalion
that could be got together from the eastern side of Andalusia, some
5,000 bayonets. Villatte, in command before Cadiz, came from the other
quarter with 6,000 men; they had orders to catch Ballasteros between
them, to intercept his retreat upon Gibraltar, and annihilate him.
In order to cut off the Spaniard from his usual place of refuge,
Villatte took a turn to the south, appeared in sight of Gibraltar on
July 20, and then, keeping himself between the British fortress and
Ballasteros, advanced northward to wait for him. Leval was to have
driven him into Villatte’s arms, advancing from Antequera and pressing
the hunt southward. But the raider, instead of retreating in the
expected direction, slipped unseen across Villatte’s front by Alora,
and made off into the plains of central Andalusia. On the 25th at dawn
he appeared, most unexpectedly, at Osuna and surprised the small French
garrison there. The governor, Colonel Beauvais, cut his way through the
streets to a fortified convent, where he held out. But Ballasteros,
satisfied with having captured a quantity of stores, mules, and
baggage, and a few prisoners, vanished. Leval was on his track, and
he had to evade his pursuer by a flank march, first to Grazalema and
then to Ubrique. This was bringing him dangerously near to Villatte’s
position. But that general had no accurate knowledge of what was going
on to the north, and having waited for ten days in the mountains beyond
Gibraltar for a prey that never appeared, found himself starved out. On
the 30th he started on his enforced return towards the Cadiz Lines, and
had reached Medina Sidonia when Ballasteros, who had quite outmarched
Leval, came down in safety to Ximena on August 1, and placed himself
in touch with Gibraltar once more. Thereupon Leval, seeing that it was
no use to push the Spaniard (for about the tenth time) under the guns
of the British fortress, and finding his column utterly worn out, went
home to Granada[694].
[694] The best account of all this is in Schepeler, pp. 661-3.
Thus Ballasteros gave no small help to the allied cause by distracting
some 11,000 or 12,000 French troops for a long fortnight, while Hill
was detaining Drouet in Estremadura. By the time that the hunt after
the evasive Spaniard had come to an end, the battle of Salamanca
had been fought, and the aspect of affairs in the Peninsula had been
completely changed. Even Soult, who had so long shut his eyes to the
obvious, had at last to acknowledge that a new situation had arisen.
The news of Salamanca had reached Hill on July 29th, and caused a
general expectation that the French in Estremadura would retreat
at once, and that Soult would be retiring from Andalusia also in a
few days. No such results followed--the intelligence was late in
penetrating to the French camps; and Soult, still hoping to induce
King Joseph to join him, lingered for many days in his old posture. On
August 4 Hill wrote that the ‘recent glorious event’ appeared to have
had very little effect on his immediate opponent, who continued in a
strong position in his front. ‘Therefore for the present I shall remain
where I am, and watch for a favourable opportunity of acting[695].’
Soult at Seville had, as late as August 8, no official news of
Marmont’s defeat, and only knew of it by Spanish rumours, which he--of
set purpose--discounted. ‘Les relations qu’ils ont publiées exagèrent
sans doute les avantages: mais il paraît que quelque grand événement
s’est passé en Castille[696].’ He continued to urge King Joseph to come
to Seville, join him, and attack Hill with such superior forces that
Wellington would be forced to fly to the aid of his subordinate. It
was only on August 12th that certain information regarding the battle
of July 22nd reached the head-quarters of the Duke of Dalmatia, in
the form of Joseph’s Segovia dispatch of July 29th, containing the
orders for the complete evacuation of Andalusia, and the march of the
whole Army of the South upon Toledo. Even then Soult did not think it
too late to make a final appeal to the King: ‘the loss of a battle by
the Army of Portugal was nothing more than a great duel, which can
be undone by another similar duel. But the loss of Andalusia and the
raising of the siege of Cadiz would be events whose effects would be
felt all round Europe and the New World.... What does it matter if the
enemy is left in possession of the whole space between Burgos and the
Sierra Morena, until the moment when great reinforcements come from
France, and the Emperor has been able to make his arrangements? But
this sacrifice of Andalusia once made, there is no way of remedying
it. The imperial armies in Spain will have to repass the Ebro--famine
perhaps will drive them still farther[697],’ &c.
[695] Letter of August 4 in Sidney’s _Life of Hill_, p. 210.
[696] Soult to Joseph, August 8, Paris Archives (lent me by Mr.
Fortescue).
[697] Soult to Joseph, Seville, August 12, in Joseph’s
_Correspondence_, ix. pp. 67-8.
On reflection, however, Soult did not venture to disobey, and, before
his last appeal could possibly have reached the King’s hands, began to
issue orders for evacuation. But so great was his rage that he wrote an
extraordinary letter to Clarke, the Minister of War at Paris, in which
he made the preposterous insinuation that Joseph was about to betray
his brother the Emperor, and to come to an agreement with the Cadiz
Cortes. The evidence which he cited for this strange charge was flimsy
in the extreme. ‘I have read in the Cadiz newspapers the statement that
His Majesty’s Ambassador in Russia has joined the Russian army: that
the King has opened intrigues with the Insurrectional Government[698].
Sweden has made peace with England, and the Hereditary Prince
(Bernadotte) has begun to treat with the Regency at Cadiz[699].... I
draw no deduction from all these facts, but I am all the more attentive
to them. I have thought it necessary to lay my fears before six
generals of my army, after having made them take an oath not to reveal
what I told them save to the Emperor himself, or to some one specially
commissioned by him. But it is my duty to inform your Excellency that
I have a fear that all the bad arrangements made [by the King] and
all the intrigues that have been going on, have the object of forcing
the imperial armies to retreat to the Ebro, or farther, and then of
representing this event as the “last possible resource” (an expression
used by the King himself in a letter of July 20), in the hope of
profiting by it to come to some compromise[700].
[698] There _had_ been such intrigues between the King and
persons in Cadiz (see above, p. 140), but they had been opened by
Napoleon’s own advice, in order to sow seeds of dissension among
the patriots.
[699] The point of this insinuation is that Bernadotte and Joseph
were brothers-in-law, having married the two sisters Clary.
[700] Printed in Joseph’s _Correspondence_, ix. pp. 68-70.
This letter, as obscurely worded as it was malicious, was not sent
to France by the usual channels, lest the King should get wind of it,
but consigned to the captain of a French privateer, who was about to
sail from Malaga to Marseilles. By an ill chance for Soult, the vessel
was chased by a British ship, and compelled to run for shelter into
the harbour of Valencia. There the King had recently arrived, on his
retreat from Madrid. The privateer-captain, who did not know what he
was carrying, sent the letter in to the royal head-quarters. Hence came
an explosion of wrath, and a series of recriminations with which we
shall have to deal in their proper place.
The evacuation of Andalusia commenced from the western end, because
the retreat of the army was to be directed eastwards. The evacuation
of the Castle of Niebla on August 12th was its first sign--the troops
in the Condado had retired to San Lucar near Seville by the 15th. A
little later the garrisons in the extreme south, at Ronda and Medina
Sidonia, blew up their fortifications and retired. These were small
movements, but the dismantling of the Cadiz Lines was a formidable
business, and took several days. Soult covered it by ordering a furious
bombardment of the city and the Puntales fort from his batteries across
the bay; during each salvo of the heavy guns one or two of them were
disabled, others being fired at an angle against their muzzles, so as
to split them. More were burst by intentional over-loading, others
had their trunnions knocked off, but a good many were only spiked or
thrown into the water. The ammunition remaining after two days of
reckless bombardment was blown up; the stores set on fire; the flotilla
of gunboats was sunk, but so carelessly that thirty of them were
afterwards raised with no difficulty and found still seaworthy. This
orgy of destruction continued for the whole of the 24th: at night the
sky was red all round the bay, from Rota to Chiclana, with burning huts
and magazines, and the explosions were frequent.
This was the moment when the large allied force in Cadiz might well
have made a general sortie, for the purpose of cutting up the enemy
while he was engrossed in the work of destruction. Wellington had
written a week before, to General Cooke, then in command of the British
contingent in the Isla de Leon, to bid him fall upon the enemy when
opportunity should offer, considering that the French troops in the
Lines were reduced to a minimum by the detachment of the division
that had gone out to hunt Ballasteros. He suggested that the allies
should cross the Santi Petri river and attack Chiclana, taking care,
however, not to be cut off from their retreat. Unfortunately this
letter of August 16th came too late, for Cooke (after conferring with
the Spanish authorities) had committed himself to another and a more
circuitous expedition to molest the French. General Cruz Murgeon, with
a Spanish division of 4,000 men (which had originally been intended
for the reinforcing of Ballasteros) had landed at the port of Huelva,
in the Condado de Niebla, on August 11th. Cooke reinforced him with
the pick of the British contingent--six companies of Guards, half
of the 2/87th[701], two companies of Rifles[702], part of the 20th
Portuguese, and the squadron of the 2nd Hussars K.G.L., which was the
only cavalry at his disposition. These, placed under the charge of
Colonel Skerrett, made up 1,600 men in all[703]; they landed at Huelva,
joined Cruz Murgeon, and advanced with him against Seville. On the 24th
they discovered the French outposts at San Lucar la Mayor, and drove
them out of that town. But they hesitated over the idea of attacking
Seville, where French troops were collecting from all quarters, though
the divisions of Conroux and Villatte from the Cadiz Lines had not yet
come up.
[701] Minus four companies left at Tarifa.
[702] Two from the 2/95th, those of Cadoux and Jenkins.
[703] Skerrett in his dispatch (Wellington, _Supplementary
Dispatches_, xiv. p. 108), speaks of attacking San Lucar with 800
men: but this was not his whole force.
On the night of August 26th-27th, however, Soult, apprised of the near
approach of his column from the Lines, evacuated Seville with the main
part of his force, escorting a vast horde of Spanish refugees, who
feared to remain behind to face their countrymen, and a long train
of wagons and carriages loaded with the accumulated spoils of three
years of tyrannous misrule in Andalusia. He left a rearguard to occupy
the outworks of the city, which was to be picked up and taken on by
Villatte when he should appear on the next day.
On hearing of the departure of the Marshal, Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett
resolved to attack Seville, knowing that the troops left behind to
guard it were insufficient to man effectively all its long line of
defences. Being on the western side of the Guadalquivir, they had first
to win the large transpontine suburb of Triana, the home of potters
and gipsies, through which alone access could be got to the city. It
was attacked at several points and stormed, but the enemy then held
to the great bridge over the river linking Triana and Seville, and
made a long resistance there. The bridge had been barricaded, part of
its planks had been pulled up, and artillery had been trained on it
from the farther side. Notwithstanding these obstacles the Spaniards
attacked it; the well-known Irish adventurer Colonel Downie charged
three times at the head of his Estremaduran Legion. Repelled twice by
the heavy fire, he reached the barricade at the third assault, and
leaped his horse over the cut which the French had made in front of it,
but found himself alone within the work, and was bayoneted and made
prisoner[704]. But soon after the allies brought up guns through the
streets of Triana, and so battered the barricade that the French were
compelled to evacuate it. Skerrett sent the Guards across: they passed
by the beams which had been left unbroken, and many Spanish troops
followed. After a running fight in the streets of the city, in which
some of the inhabitants took part, the garrison was completely driven
out, and fled by the Carmona Gate towards Alcala. The victors captured
two field-pieces, about 200 prisoners[705], and a rich convoy of
plunder, which was to have been escorted by the French rearguard[706].
Villatte’s column, approaching the city in its march from the Cadiz
Lines and Xeres, found it in the hands of the allies, so swerved off
eastward and followed Soult, picking up the expelled garrison by the
way.
[704] Toreno (iii. p. 151) and other historians tell the tale how
Downie, finding that none of his men had followed him, though
they had reached the other side of the cut, flung back to them
his sword, which was the rapier of the _Conquistador_ Pizarro,
presented to him by a descendant of that great adventurer. It was
caught and saved, and he recovered it, for he was left behind by
the French a few miles from Seville, because of his wounds. They
stripped him and left him by the wayside, where he was found and
cared for by the pursuing Spaniards.
[705] The defence of Seville seems mainly to have been by the
French 63rd Ligne, which lost eight officers in the fight.
[706] For a curious story of the contents of a captured carriage,
which turned out to be stuffed with silver plate, see the Memoirs
of Harley of the 47th, ii. p. 24.
Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett did not pursue, not thinking themselves
strong enough to meddle with the French, but only sent their cavalry
forward to watch their retreat. They stayed in Seville, where the Cadiz
Constitution was proclaimed with great enthusiasm on August 29th. On
the other flank of the French Ballasteros was trying at this moment to
molest the column formed by the garrisons retiring from Ronda, Malaga,
and Antequera on Granada. He followed them for ten days, and fought
their rearguard at Antequera on September 3rd, and at Loja on September
5th; but though he captured many stragglers and some baggage, as also
three guns, he was unable to do any material harm to the main body,
which General Sémélé brought in to join Leval at Granada on September
6th.
Soult, meanwhile, with the troops from Cadiz and Seville, had to halt
at Cordova for some days, to allow of the junction of Drouet from
Estremadura; for that general had to collect his troops and to bring
down detachments from places so far away as Don Benito and Zalamea,
before he could concentrate and march across the Sierra Morena to join
his chief. Drouet had kept up a bold countenance in front of Hill
to the last moment, even after he had received orders from Soult to
prepare for a sudden retreat. Indeed one of the most lively of the
many cavalry affairs fought in Estremadura during the summer of 1812
took place in August. On the 1st of that month, when Hill was already
expecting that the news of Salamanca would have driven his opponent
away, Pierre Soult tried a raid upon Ribera, with two regiments of
cavalry and two battalions, and drove in the 2nd Hussars of the Legion,
who maintained a long and gallant skirmishing fight, till General
Erskine came up with Long’s brigade, when the French retreated. Erskine
was thought to have missed a fine opportunity of cutting up the raiding
detachment by his slow and tentative pursuit[707]. On the 18th Soult
made another reconnaissance in force, with four regiments, in the
same direction, on a false report that Hill had moved from Ribera and
Almendralejo. This brought on another long day of bickering, with no
definite result: it was mainly remembered afterwards for the courteous
behaviour of Drouet in sending back unharmed Erskine’s aide-de-camp
Strenowitz, the most daring officer for raids and reconnaissance work
in the German Legion. He had been captured while scouting, and a
general fear prevailed that he would be shot, for he had served for
a short time in the French army, and might have been treated as a
deserter. Drouet most handsomely dispatched him to the British camp on
parole, with a request that he might be exchanged for an officer of
his own, who had been taken a few days before. ‘A most courteous and
liberal enemy!’ wrote a diarist in Hill’s camp, ‘Strenowitz’s exploits
are well known: certainly in strict law he might have been hung[708].’
[707] ‘Confound all spiritless and dilatory generals,’ writes
Swabey of the R.A. in his diary, ‘... Sir W. E. actually halted
while four squadrons and 400 infantry were doing what they liked
in Ribera, though he had the Hussars, the 9th and 13th Light
Dragoons, the 3rd Dragoon Guards and our guns, and he might have
had the 71st regiment also, though it did not arrive till all was
over. The transaction was calculated to dispirit the soldier, to
discontent the officers, and to take away all confidence in the
general.’
[708] Swabey’s diary, p. 307. There is an interesting account of
Strenowitz’s capture and release in Espinchal’s _Mémoires_, ii.
pp. 36-40, as also of the long skirmish of this day.
It was not till August 26th that all the French troops in front of Hill
suddenly vanished, Drouet having had orders to keep his position till
Seville was ready to be evacuated; for Soult feared that if he withdrew
his forces in Estremadura too early, in the direction of Cordova, the
allied troops might make a forced march on Seville, and arrive there
before the divisions from the Cadiz Lines had gone by. Wherefore Drouet
was in evidence before Hill till the precise day when Soult left
Seville. He then retired through the Sierra Morena, going by the remote
mountain road by Belalcazar with such speed that he reached Cordova on
the fourth day (August 30). He was not pursued by Hill, whose orders
from Wellington were to come up to the Tagus and join the main army,
and not to involve himself in operations in Andalusia. Only some of
Penne Villemur’s Spanish horse, under the German colonel Schepeler--one
of the best historians of the war--followed on Drouet’s track, and saw
him join Soult at Cordova[709]. The united French force then marched
on Granada, where the garrisons of eastern Andalusia, under Leval, had
concentrated to meet the Marshal. Up to this moment Soult had been
uncertain whether he should retreat by way of La Mancha, or across the
kingdom of Murcia. His decision was settled for him by news brought by
Drouet, who had heard in Estremadura of King Joseph’s evacuation of
Madrid and Toledo. Since the Army of the Centre was now known to be on
the road for Valencia, to join Suchet, it would be too dangerous to
cross La Mancha in search of it. Wellington might descend from Madrid
in force, upon an enemy who dared to march across his front. Wherefore
Soult resolved that his retreat must be made across the kingdom of
Murcia. It was true that O’Donnell’s army was in occupation of the
inland in that direction, but it was weak and disorganized. Moreover,
Suchet had lately inflicted a severe defeat upon it at Castalla (on
July 21st), and O’Donnell was practically a negligible quantity in the
problem. A far more important factor in determining Soult’s exact route
was the news that the yellow fever had broken out at Cartagena and was
spreading inland: it had reached the city of Murcia. Wherefore the
French army avoided the coast, and took the inferior roads across the
northern part of the province.
[709] Schepeler says that he scared the French rearguard out
of Cordova on September 3 by lighting fires along the mountain
slopes, and giving out that Hill was behind him with his army.
See p. 666 of his history.
Soult, when once he had concentrated 45,000 men at Granada, had nothing
to fear from any enemy. The gloomy picture of ‘a retreat harrassed by
60,000 foes,’ with which he had tried to scare King Joseph a month
before, turned out to be a work of pure imagination. Hill had turned
off towards the Tagus: Cruz Murgeon and Skerrett remained at Seville,
awaiting the appearance of the 10,000 men left in Cadiz. But these were
slow to move, because they had been on garrison duty for long years,
and had to provide themselves with transport. Only Ballasteros hung
about Granada, bickering with the outposts of the French army, and as
he had no more than 5,000 or 6,000 men he was not dangerous, but only
tiresome.
Soult therefore was able to spend many days at Granada, making
deliberate preparations for the toilsome march that was before him. He
only started out, after destroying the fortifications of the Alhambra
and other posts, on September 16th. His route was by Baza, Huescar,
Caravaca, and Hellin, through a mountainous and thinly-peopled country,
where his troops suffered considerable privations. But these were
nothing compared to the misery of the immense convoy of _Afrancesados_
of all ages and both sexes, who had joined themselves to his train, and
had to be brought through to a place of safety. Nor did the 6,000 sick
and wounded whom he was dragging with him enjoy a pleasant journey. Yet
it was only the September heat and the mountain roads that harassed the
army and its train: Ballasteros did not pursue farther than the borders
of Andalusia: the Murcians were cowed by the approach of a force which
could have destroyed them with ease if it had lingered within their
borders. Some of them shifted north toward Madrid, others south toward
Alicante: none did anything to attract the notice of such a formidable
enemy. Touch with Suchet’s outposts was secured before September was
quite ended, and by the appearance of the whole Army of Andalusia
near Valencia, a new military situation was produced by October 1st.
With this we shall have to deal in its proper place--the fortunes of
Wellington and the main army of the allies have not been followed
beyond the middle of August.
Summing up the events of June-July-August 1812 in southern Spain, it
is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Soult’s personal interests
wrecked any chance that the French might have had of retaining their
dominant position in the Peninsula, when once Wellington had committed
himself to his offensive campaign upon the Tormes and the Douro. If the
Duke of Dalmatia had obeyed in June King Joseph’s peremptory orders
to send Drouet to Toledo, he would have had, no doubt, to evacuate
certain parts of Andalusia. But Joseph and Jourdan could have marched
many weeks earlier, and with a doubled force, to interfere with
Wellington’s campaign against Marmont. It is true that Hill would have
made a corresponding movement by Alcantara, and would have joined the
main allied army under his chief many days before the King and Drouet
would have been able to link up with Marmont. But Hill, on leaving
Estremadura, would have removed the larger and more efficient part of
his corps from Soult’s vicinity, and the Marshal might easily have
held Seville and the Cadiz Lines, when faced by no stronger enemies
than Ballasteros and the garrison in the Isla. If Soult had made up his
mind to sacrifice Andalusia, and had marched with his whole army on
Toledo, in June or even early in July, Wellington’s whole game would
have been wrecked. It was, perhaps, too much to expect that the Marshal
would consent to such a disinterested policy. But if, without making
this sacrifice, he had merely obeyed King Joseph, and reinforced the
Army of the Centre at an early date, he would have made the Salamanca
campaign impossible. Wellington would probably have retired behind the
Agueda and abandoned his conquests in Leon, without risking a battle,
if the French forces in contact with him had been 25,000 men stronger
than they actually were. The junction of Hill and some 12,000 men of
the best of his Estremaduran detachment would have given him the power
to fight out a defensive campaign on the Portuguese frontier, but
hardly to deliver an offensive battle like Salamanca. The net results
of all his manœuvres in June would then have been no more than an
indirect success--the delivery of eastern Andalusia from Soult. Seville
and the Cadiz Lines might still have remained occupied by the French.
It is scarcely necessary to repeat once more that Soult’s counter-plan
of inviting the King and the Army of the Centre to retire to Andalusia,
throwing up all communication with France and the imperial armies
beyond the Douro, was wrongheaded in the extreme, though Napier calls
it ‘grand and vigorous[710].’ Joseph could have brought no more than
the 15,000 men that he owned, and they, when added to the 50,000 men
of the Army of the South, would not have provided a force large enough
to make a decisive move. For, as we have already seen, half the French
in Andalusia were necessarily pinned down to garrison duties, and the
‘containing’ of Ballasteros and other partisans. Soult could never
bring more than 25,000 men of his own into Estremadura: if 15,000 more
are added for King Joseph’s troops[711], only 40,000 in all would have
been available for a demonstration (or a serious invasion) in the
direction of Portugal. Such a force would have given Wellington no
very great alarm. It would have had to begin by besieging Badajoz and
Elvas, in face of the existing ‘containing’ army under Hill, a delicate
business, and one that would have taken time. Meanwhile Wellington
could have come down, with reinforcements strong enough to make up
a total sufficient to fight and beat 40,000 men, since he had the
advantage of a central position and the shorter roads. At the worst
he would have blocked the French advance by taking up an unassailable
position, as he had before on the Caya in June 1811. But now he would
have had a far superior game in his hands, since Badajoz was his and
not his enemy’s, and his total disposable force was considerably larger
than it had been in 1811.
[710] Napier, iv. p. 371.
[711] Soult suggested that the less efficient of Joseph’s troops
should go on garrison duty, and set free a corresponding number
of his own best battalions.
Thus, if Soult’s plan had been carried out, all central Spain,
including the capital, would have been lost just as much as it was by
the actual campaign of July-August 1812, and the disorganized Army of
Portugal could have done nothing. For Wellington could have left not
Clinton’s one division (as he actually did) but three at least to look
after it--not to speak of the Galicians and the _partidas_. Isolated
and cut off from all communication with other French armies, Soult and
the King would have had to evacuate Andalusia in the end, if they did
not suffer a worse fate--a crushing defeat in a position from which
there would have been no retreat possible. Hypothetical reconstructions
of campaigns which might have happened are proverbially futile--but it
is hard to see how any final profit to the French could have come from
Soult’s extraordinary plan.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER XI
THE TWO DIVERSIONS: (1) OPERATIONS IN THE NORTH: SIR HOME POPHAM
AND CAFFARELLI. (2) OPERATIONS IN THE EAST: SUCHET, O’DONNELL,
AND MAITLAND. JUNE-AUGUST 1812
It has already been made clear that the whole of Wellington’s
victorious advance, from Ciudad Rodrigo to Madrid, was rendered
possible by the fact that he had only to deal with the Army of
Portugal, succoured when it was too late by the Army of the Centre.
If Caffarelli and his 35,000 men of the Army of the North had been
able to spare any help for Marmont, beyond the single cavalry brigade
of Chauvel, matters must have taken a very different turn from the
first, and the Douro (if not the Tormes) must have been the limit
of the activity of the Anglo-Portuguese army. How Caffarelli was to
be detained, according to Wellington’s plan, has been explained in
an earlier chapter[712]. The working out of the scheme must now be
described.
[712] See above, pp. 340-1.
The essential duty of the French Army of the North was twofold,
according to Napoleon’s general conception of the Spanish war. It was
Marmont’s reserve, bound to assist him in time of trouble; but it was
also the force of occupation for the Biscayan provinces, Navarre,
Santander, and Burgos. Of its 35,000 men more than half were at all
times immobilized in the innumerable garrisons which protected the
high-road from Bayonne to Burgos, and the small harbours of the coast,
from San Sebastian to Santoña. The system of posts was complicated
and interdependent. Since the great guerrillero Mina started on his
busy career in 1810, it had been necessary that there should be
fortified places at short intervals, in which convoys moving to or
from France (whether by Vittoria and San Sebastian, or by Pampeluna
and Roncesvalles) could take refuge when attacked by the bands.
And since a convoy, when it had sought shelter in one of the minor
garrisons, might be blockaded there indefinitely, unless the high-road
were cleared betimes, large movable columns had to be ready in three
or four of the larger places. Their duty was to march out on the
first alarm, and sweep the guerrilleros away from any post that they
might have beset. Such bodies were to be found at Bayonne, where the
‘Reserve of the Army of Spain’ kept a brigade of 3,500 men under
General D’Aussenac to watch for any exceptional outbreak of trouble in
Guipuzcoa; at Pampeluna, where General Abbé had the head-quarters of
his division; and at Vittoria, where the General-in-Chief, Caffarelli
himself, normally lay with the brigade of Dumoustier--the last unit of
the Imperial Guard still remaining in Spain--ready to keep the line of
the Ebro under surveillance, and to communicate when necessary with
the three large outlying garrisons of Santoña, Santander, and Burgos.
Each of these last consisted of some 1,300 or 1,500 men[713]; even
so, they were only strong enough to provide for their own safety in
normal times, and might require assistance from head-quarters in face
of any specially large and threatening combination of the insurgents.
But the larger half of Caffarelli’s army was locked up in small towns,
forts, and blockhouses, in bodies ranging down from a battalion to
half a company. Every one of the dozen little ports on the Biscay
coast had to be held, in order to prevent the bands of the inland from
communicating with the English cruisers, which occasionally appeared
in the offing to throw weapons and ammunition ashore. And similarly
all the little towns along the Ebro had to be garrisoned, in order to
keep touch with Reille at Saragossa; wherever there was a gap Mina’s
Navarrese slipped in between.
[713] In and about Santander, 2 battalions of the 130th, 2
squadrons of gendarmes, &c. In Santoña, 93 officers and 1,382 men
of the 28th, 75th, and 34th. In Burgos, 2 battalions of 34th Line.
Since the autumn of 1810, when Porlier and Renovales had made their
vain attempt, with British naval aid, to break up the line of
communication along the coast,[714] there had been no general attempt
to shake the French occupation of Biscay and Cantabria. The Spanish
resources were at a low ebb whenever Bonnet held the Asturias, and
(as we have seen) he was generally in possession of that province, or
at least of its capital and its chief harbours, from 1810 down to the
summer of 1812. The idea of attacking the harbour-fortresses of the
northern coast with a considerable naval force, which should get into
regular touch with the patriot forces of the inland, and establish
posts to be held permanently on suitable points of the northern
littoral, had been started by Sir Home Popham, approved by Sir Howard
Douglas, the British Commissioner in Galicia, and warmly adopted by
Wellington himself, who at once realized the pressure which such a
policy would bring upon Caffarelli. He counted upon this diversion as
one of his most valuable assets, when he drew up his scheme for the
invasion of Leon in May 1812. It more than fulfilled his expectation.
[714] See vol. iii. pp. 486-7.
On June 17th, four days after the Anglo-Portuguese army crossed
the Agueda, Sir Home Popham sailed from Corunna with two line of
battleships[715], five frigates[716], two sloops[717], and one or
two smaller vessels, carrying two battalions of marines, and several
thousand stand of small-arms for the insurgents. Popham had credentials
from Castaños, as captain-general of Galicia, for Mendizabal, the
officer who was supposed to exercise authority over all the bands of
Cantabria and Biscay. These scattered forces consisted in the more
or less organized brigades of Porlier in the Eastern Asturias, and
Longa in Cantabria--both of which were reckoned part of the national
army--and in addition of the guerrilleros of Jauregui [’El Pastor’] in
Guipuzcoa, Renovales in Biscay, Marquinez, Saornil, the Curé Merino,
and others in the mountains between the Douro and the sea. These
were bands of varying strength, often scattered by the French, but
always reassembled after a space, who roamed from region to region
according as the enemy was stronger or weaker at one point or another.
Occasionally Mendizabal was in touch with Mina and the Navarrese, but
generally the French were in too great force about the high-road from
Burgos to Pampeluna to make co-operation practicable.
[715] The _Venerable_ (his flag-ship) and the _Magnificent_. The
_Magnificent_ went home with prisoners some weeks later, and
was replaced for a time by the _Abercrombie_, from the Brest
blockading squadron.
[716] _Medusa_, _Isis_, _Diadem_, _Surveillante_, and _Rhin_. The
_Belle Poule_ looked in for a short time later in the season.
[717] _Sparrow_ and _Lyra_.
At the moment of Popham’s start matters were exceptionally favourable
along the Biscay coast, because Bonnet was just evacuating the
Asturias, in order to join his chief Marmont in the plains of Leon.
His departure isolated Santoña and Santander, which had been the links
by which he was joined to Caffarelli’s army. It also gave Porlier and
Longa an open communication with Galicia, from which they had hitherto
been cut off by Bonnet’s presence in Asturias, and a safe retreat
thitherward if they should be pressed. In addition Marmont had called
up all the small garrisons and detached columns from his rear, for
the main struggle with Wellington; so that the Upper Douro valley and
the Soria country were much more free from the French than they had
been for a long time. The opportunity for molesting Caffarelli and his
much-scattered Army of the North was unique.
The idea which lay at the back of Popham’s plan was that a fleet
furnished with the heaviest ship guns, and with a landing-force of
over 1,000 men, could operate at its choice against any one of the
long chain of posts which the French held, calling in to its aid the
local bands in each case. The insurgents had never been able to capture
any of these places because they lacked a battering-train. The fleet
supplied this want, and with few exceptions the French strongholds
were not suited for resistance against heavy guns. They were mediaeval
castles, fortified convents, or the patched-up walls of little towns,
all defensible against irregular bands without cannon, but most
vulnerable to 18-or 24-pounders. The number of the French garrisons
gave ample liberty of choice between one and another: individually
they were generally weak--not over 300, 500, or 1,000 men. There were
succouring columns, no doubt, ready to relieve them, at Bayonne and
Vittoria and elsewhere. But the squadron had the power of misleading
these forces to any extent--of drawing them from one remote port to
another by false attacks and demonstrations, and then of attacking
some third point when the enemy had been lured as far as possible
from it. Here lay the beauty of naval operations--the squadron could
appear to threaten any objective that it chose, could attract the enemy
thither, and then could vanish, and be fifty miles away next day. The
relieving column could only follow slowly over mountain roads, and
would invariably be late in learning what new direction the squadron
had taken. It was something like the advantage that the Danes had in
their attacks on England in the ninth century: a defending army cannot
guard all points of a coast-line at once against a movable landing
force on shipboard. The weaker points of the scheme were, firstly, the
dependence of all operations on fine weather--contrary winds could in
those days delay a fleet for whole weeks on end; secondly, the want of
a base nearer than Corunna, till some good and defensible haven should
have been captured; and third and greatest of all, the difficulty of
inducing the local chiefs to combine: they paid a very limited amount
of obedience to their nominal chief, Mendizabal: they had private
grievances and jealousies against each other: and each of them disliked
moving far from the particular region where his men were raised, and
where every inch of the mountain roads was known to him.
However, all these dangers were known and were chanced, and the game
was well worth the risk. The operations began with the appearance of
the squadron before Lequeitio on June 21st. Popham landed a heavy
gun and some marines, and the band of El Pastor [’Don Gaspar’ as
the English dispatches call him] appeared to co-operate from the
inland. The defences consisted of a fort and a fortified convent:
the 24-pounder breached the former, which was then stormed by the
guerrilleros in a very handsome fashion[718]: its garrison was slain or
captured. The gun was then brought up against the fortified convent,
whose commander, the _chef de bataillon_ Gillort, surrendered without
further fighting; the prisoners amounted to 290 men, a half-battalion
of the 119th regiment (June 22). Popham then moved off to Bermeo and
Plencia, both of which the French evacuated in haste, leaving guns
unspiked and some useful stores of provisions. The British force had
set the wildest rumours abroad, and Renovales, the Spanish commander
in Biscay, appeared at Orduna with his bands and threatened Bilbao, the
capital of the province. It was these reports which made Caffarelli
suddenly break off his project for sending reinforcements to Marmont,
and prepare rather to march northward when he was most wanted on the
Douro[719].
[718] So says Popham in his dispatch at the Record Office: though
Napier (iv. p. 246) says that the Spaniards attacked and were
repulsed. But Popham must have known best! Sir Howard Douglas
corroborates him, _Life_, p. 168.
[719] See above, p. 378.
Popham’s next blow was at Guetaria, a most important post, owing to
its nearness to the great _chaussée_ leading to Bayonne, which passes
quite close to it between Tolosa and Ernani. If it had fallen, the main
road from France to Spain would have been blocked for all practical
purposes. But being far to the East and near the French border, it was
remote from the haunts of the guerrilleros: few of them turned up:
after a few days Popham had to re-embark guns and men, and to take his
departure, owing to the arrival in his neighbourhood of a strong French
flying column. He then sailed off to Castro Urdiales, where he had much
better luck: Longa had left the Upper Ebro with his brigade and joined
him there on July 6th, by Mendizabal’s orders. Their united force drove
off on the 7th a small French column which came up from Laredo to raise
the siege. The governor of Castro then surrendered with some 150 men,
and 20 guns on his walls fell into Popham’s hands (July 8). The place
seemed so strong that the commodore resolved to keep it as a temporary
base, and garrisoned it with some of his marines.
Three days later Popham appeared before Portugalete, the fortified
village at the mouth of the Bilbao river, and bombarded it from the
side of the sea, while Longa (who had marched parallel with the
squadron along the shore), demonstrated against its rear. But a French
flying column happened just to have arrived at Bilbao, and the force
which marched out against the assailants was so powerful that they
made off, each on his own element [July 11th.] Popham now turned his
attention for a second time to the important strategical post of
Guetaria; he had enlisted the support of the Guipuzcoan bands under
Jauregui, and the distant Mina had promised to send a battalion to his
aid from Navarre. Popham got heavy guns on shore, and began to batter
the place, while Jauregui blockaded it on the land side. This move
drew the attention of D’Aussenac, commanding the flying column which
belonged to the Bayonne reserve: he marched with 3,000 men towards
Guetaria, and drove off Jauregui, whereupon Popham had to re-embark in
haste, and lost two guns which could not be got off in time and thirty
men [July 19], Mina’s battalion came up a day too late to help the
discomfited besiegers.
This petty disaster was in the end more favourable than harmful
to Popham’s general plan, for he had succeeded in drawing all
the attention of the French to the eastern end of their chain of
coast-fortresses, between Santoña and San Sebastian. But now he used
his power of rapid movement to attack unexpectedly their most important
western stronghold. On July 22nd he appeared in front of the harbour of
Santander, while (by previous arrangement) Campillo--one of Porlier’s
lieutenants--invested it on the land side. Porlier himself, with his
main body, was blockading at the moment the not very distant and still
stronger Santoña.
There was very heavy fighting round Santander between the 22nd July
and August 2. Popham landed guns on the water-girt rock of Mouro, and
bombarded from it the castle at the mouth of the port: when its fire
was subdued, he ran his squadron in battle order past it, and entered
the harbour, receiving little damage from the other French works (July
24). The enemy then evacuated the castle, which the marines occupied:
but an attempt to storm the town with the aid of Campillo’s men failed,
with a rather heavy casualty list of two British captains[720] and many
marines and seamen disabled (July 27th). However, Popham and Campillo
held on in front of Santander, and Mendizabal came up on August 2nd
to join them, bringing a captured French dispatch, which proved that
the enemy intended to evacuate the place, a strong relieving column
under Caffarelli himself being at hand to bring off the garrison. And
this indeed happened: the General-in-Chief of the Army of the North
had marched with all the disposable troops at Vittoria to save his
detachment. The governor Dubreton--the same man who afterwards defended
Burgos so well--broke out of the place with his 1,600 men on the night
of the 2nd-3rd and joined his chief in safety: he left eighteen guns
spiked in his works. Caffarelli then drew off the garrison of the
neighbouring small post of Torrelavega, but threw a convoy and some
reinforcements into Santoña, which he had determined to hold as long as
possible. He then hastened back to Vittoria, being under the impression
at the moment that Wellington was in march against him from Valladolid,
in pursuit of the routed host of Clausel. But the Anglo-Portuguese main
army--as will be remembered--had really followed the retreating French
no farther than Valladolid, and no longer than the 30th July. Instead
of finding himself involved in the affairs of the Army of Portugal,
Caffarelli had soon another problem in hand.
[720] One of them, Sir George Collier, commanding the _Medusa_.
The capture of Santander by the allies was the most important event
that had happened on the north coast of Spain since 1809, for it gave
the squadron of Popham possession of the sole really good harbor--open
to the largest ships, and safe at all times of the year--which lies
between Ferrol and the French frontier. At last the Spanish ‘Seventh
Army’ had a base behind it, and a free communication with England for
the stores and munitions that it so much needed. It might be developed
into a formidable force if so strengthened, and it lay in a position
most inconvenient for the French, directly in the rear of Clausel and
Caffarelli. Popham saw what might be made of Santander, and drew up for
Wellington’s benefit a report on the possibilities of the harbour, in
which he details, from the information given by Porlier and his staff,
the state of the roads between it and Burgos, Valladolid, and other
points. Six weeks before the siege of Burgos began, he wrote that by
all accounts six or eight heavy guns would be required to take that
fortress, and that he could manage that they should be got there--a
distance of 115 miles--by ox-draught, if they were wanted[721]. But
Wellington, at the moment that this useful information was being
compiled, was turning away from Valladolid and Burgos toward Madrid;
and when his attention was once more drawn back to Burgos, he made no
use of Popham’s offers till it was too late. Of this more in its proper
place.
[721] Popham’s prescience is shown by the fact that his papers
relating to Burgos began to be drawn up as early as July 26. He
cross-questioned not only Porlier but other Spanish officers.
Their answers did not always tally with each other. See all
Popham’s dispatches of the time, in the Admiralty Section at the
Record Office--under the general head ‘Channel Fleet!’ They have
this misleading heading because Popham was under Lord Keith, then
commanding that fleet.
Having brought all his squadron into Santander, and made himself a
fixed base in addition to his floating one, Popham began to concert
plans for further operations with Mendizabal, whom he described as
a man of ‘vacillating councils,’ and hard to screw up to any fixed
resolution. The scheme which the commodore most recommended to the
general was one for a general concentration of all his scattered forces
against Bilbao, in which the squadron should give its best help. But
he suggested as an alternative the sending of Porlier to join Longa,
who had already gone south to the Upper Ebro after the failure at
Portugalete on July 11th. Porlier and Longa would together be strong
enough to cut the road between Burgos and Vittoria, and so divide
Clausel from Caffarelli. If the two French generals combined against
them, they could always escape north-westward into their usual mountain
refuges.
According to Popham’s notes Mendizabal first seemed to incline to the
second scheme, and then decided for the first. He even in the end
ordered up Longa--then very usefully employed against Clausel’s rear
about Pancorbo and Cubo--to join in the attack upon Bilbao. But Longa
came late, being busy in operations that he liked better than those
which his chief imposed on him. After waiting a few days for him in
vain, Mendizabal marched against Bilbao by land with two battalions
belonging to Porlier and one recently raised in Alava, while Popham
took three Biscayan battalions belonging to Renovales on board his
squadron and sailed for Lequeitio, where he put them ashore. He himself
then made for Portugalete, at the mouth of the Bilbao river. The triple
attack, though made with no very great total force was successful.
The officer commanding in Bilbao, went out to meet Mendizabal, and in
order to collect as many men as possible, drew off the garrison of
Portugalete. The British squadron, arriving in front of the port, found
it undefended and threw the marines ashore. Hearing of this descent in
his rear the French general, then indecisively engaged with Mendizabal
and Renovales, thought that he was in danger of being surrounded, and
retired hastily toward Durango, abandoning Bilbao altogether [August
13].
Learning next day that they had overrated the enemy’s force, the
French returned and tried to reoccupy the Biscayan capital, but were
met outside by all Mendizabal’s troops, arrayed on the position of
Ollorgan. An attack entirely failed to move them, and the French
fell back to Durango. General Rouget, the commanding officer in the
province, then drew in all his minor garrisons, and sent Caffarelli
notice that all Biscay was lost, unless something could be done at
once to check Mendizabal’s progress [August 14]. Indeed the situation
looked most threatening, for Longa had at last come up and joined his
chief with 3,000 men, and the Biscayans were taking arms on every side.
A general junta of the Basque provinces was summoned by Mendizabal to
meet at Bilbao, and the French had for the moment no foothold left save
in San Sebastian and Guetaria. Thereupon Caffarelli, collecting every
man that he could at Vittoria, marched to join Rouget. Their united
forces, making some 7,000 men, attacked Bilbao on August 27th-29th,
and after much confused fighting drove Mendizabal and Longa out of
the place, only a fortnight after it had come into Spanish hands. The
defeated troops dispersed in all directions, each section seeking the
region that it had come from--Porlier’s men retired towards Cantabria,
Longa’s toward the Upper Ebro. Renovales and his Biscayan battalions
were caught in their retreat, and badly cut up at Dima.
While this fighting was going on around Bilbao, Popham was trying a
last attack on Guetaria, with his own resources only, as nearly all the
Spaniards were engaged elsewhere. He had accomplished nothing decisive
when he heard of Mendizabal’s defeat, and had to reship his guns and
take his departure before the victorious Caffarelli came up. He retired
to Santander, and heard there that Wellington was leaving Madrid, and
once more marching on Burgos. He determined to open up communications
with the British army without delay, and on August 31 sent off
Lieutenant Macfarlane to seek for the head of the approaching columns.
That officer, skirting the flank of Clausel’s retreating host, reached
Valladolid betimes, and explained to Wellington that the Santander road
would be open and available for the transport of ammunition, guns, and
even food, so soon as he should have driven the French past Burgos.
And--as will be seen--it was so used during the unlucky siege of that
fortress again and again--but not (as Popham recommended) for the
bringing up of the heavy artillery that Wellington so much lacked.
By September 1st Caffarelli had patched up matters for a time on the
side of Biscay, but though he had recovered Bilbao and preserved
Guetaria, all the other coast-towns were out of his power save Santoña,
and that important place was cut off from the nearest French garrison
by a gap of some sixty miles. Even now Popham’s useful diversion had
not ceased to have its effect. But its further working belongs to a
later chapter.
So much for the annals of the war in northern Spain from June
to August. The diversion which Wellington had planned had been
brilliantly successful. A very different story must be told of the
equally important scheme that he had concerted for keeping his enemies
distracted on the eastern side of the Peninsula, by means of the
Anglo-Sicilian expedition and the Spanish Army of Murcia.
Suchet, it will be remembered[722], had been stayed from further
conquests after the fall of Valencia partly by the indirect results
of Wellington’s operations on the Portuguese frontier--starting with
the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo--partly by Napoleon’s action in drawing
back to the Ebro the two divisions of Reille, and calling out of Spain
the numerous Polish battalions serving in the Army of Aragon. But
not the least of the hindering causes was a purely personal one--the
long illness which kept Suchet confined to his bed for ten weeks in
February, March, and April. By the time that he was in the saddle again
a notable change had come over the aspect of the war all over the
Peninsula. During his sickness his lieutenants, Habert and Harispe,
maintained their position in front of the Xucar river, and observed
the wrecks of the Valencian and Murcian divisions that had escaped
from Blake’s disaster in January. The whole force remaining under
Suchet--excluding the troops left behind in Catalonia and Aragon--was
not above 15,000 men, and of these nearly 4,000 were locked up in
garrisons, at Valencia, Saguntum, Peniscola, Morella, and other places.
It is not surprising, therefore, that no farther advance was made
against the Spaniards. Joseph O’Donnell, the successor of the unlucky
Mahy, was able during the spring to reorganize some 12,000 men on the
_cadres_ of his old battalions. In addition he had Roche’s reserve at
Alicante, 4,000 strong, which had now been profiting for many months
by the British subsidy and training, and was reckoned a solid corps.
He had also Bassecourt’s few battalions in the inland--the troops
that D’Armagnac had hunted in December and January in the district
about Requeña[723]. Cartagena, the only fortress on the coast still
in Spanish hands save Alicante, had been strengthened by the arrival
of a British detachment[724]. Altogether there were some 20,000
enemies facing Suchet in April, and he regarded it as impossible to
think of attacking Alicante, since he had not nearly enough men in
hand to besiege a place of considerable size, and at the same time
to provide a sufficient covering army against Joseph O’Donnell. So
little was the Murcian army molested that General Freire, O’Donnell’s
second-in-command, ignoring Suchet altogether, took advantage of
Soult’s absence in Estremadura, at the time of the fall of Badajoz,
to alarm eastern Andalusia. He occupied Baza on April 18th, and when
driven away after a time by Leval, governor of Granada, turned instead
against the coast-land of the South. On May 11th an expedition, aided
by English war-ships from Alicante, landed near Almeria, and cleared
out all the French garrisons from the small towns and shore batteries
as far west as Almunecar. Already before this (on May 1-3) an English
squadron had made a descent on Malaga, seized and destroyed the
harbour-works, and carried off some privateers and merchant vessels
from the port. But naught could be accomplished against the citadel
of Gibalfaro. Soult did little or nothing to resent these insults,
because he was at the time obsessed with his ever-recurring idea
that Wellington was about to invade Andalusia, and his attention was
entirely taken up with the movements of Hill and Ballasteros in the
West and North, so that the East was neglected. Leval at Granada had a
troublesome time, but was in no real danger, since Freire’s raids were
executed with a trifling force.
[722] See above, p. 86.
[723] See above, p. 56.
[724] The 2/67th and a part of the foreign Regiment of de
Watteville, also a British battery, from Cadiz.
Suchet was occupied at this time more with civil than with military
affairs: for some time after his convalescence he was engaged in
rearranging the administration of the kingdom of Valencia, and in
raising the enormous war-contribution which Napoleon had directed him
to exact--200,000,000 reals, or £2,800,000--in addition to the ordinary
taxes. The Marshal in his _Mémoires_ gives a most self-laudatory
account of his rule; according to his rose-coloured narrative[725],
the imposts were raised with wisdom and benevolence, the population
became contented and even loyal, the roads were safe, and material
prosperity commenced at once to revive. Napier has reproduced most of
Suchet’s testimonials to his own wisdom and integrity, without any hint
that the Spanish version of the story is different. The Marshal who
drove the civil population of Lerida under the fire of the cannon[726],
and who signalized his entry into Valencia by wholesale executions of
combatants and non-combatants[727], was not the benevolent being of
his own legend. Since that legend has been republished in many a later
volume, it may be well to give as a fair balance the version of an
enemy--not of a Spaniard, but of a Prussian, that Colonel Schepeler
whose authority on the war of Valencia we have so often had occasion to
quote.
[725] See _Mémoires_, ii. pp. 283-99.
[726] See vol. iii. p. 307.
[727] See above, p. 75.
‘Napoleon Bonaparte looked upon Valencia as the prey of France, and
Suchet did not fall behind in his oppressive high-handedness. The
long-desired goal, the wealthy city, now lay open to their rapacity,
and the riches that the clergy had denied to the needs of the nation
went to fill the plunder-bag of the conqueror. The miraculous statue
of Our Lady of Pity was stripped of her ancient jewelled robe: only
a light mantle now draped her, and showed the cut of the nineteenth
century. The silver apostles of the cathedral took their way to France
with many other objects of value, and the Chapter was forced to pay
ransom for hidden treasures. The magnanimous marshal imposed on the
new French province, as a sort of “benevolence,” six million dollars
(ten had been spoken of at first), with an additional million for the
city of Valencia. The churches had to buy off their bells with another
60,000 dollars. Suchet, in his moderation, contented himself with
exacting 500 dollars a day for his own table and household expenses.
‘Political persecution began with a decree of March 11, which ordered
the judges of the local _Audiencia_ [Law Court] to meet as before,
but to administer justice in the name of Napoleon _Empereur et Roi_.
The patriots refused to serve and fled; whereupon their goods were
confiscated, their families were harried, and when some of them
were captured they were threatened with penal servitude or death. A
decree drawn up in words of cold ferocity, declared every Spaniard
who continued to oppose the French to be a rebel and a brigand, and
therefore condemned to capital punishment. Several villages were
punished with fire and sword, because they were too patriotic to
arrest and deliver up insurgents. Contrary to the promise made at the
capitulation in January[728], many patriots were arrested and executed,
under the pretence that they had been concerned in the murder of
Frenchmen in 1808, even though they might actually have saved the lives
of certain of those unfortunates at that time.
[728] See p. 73 above.
‘Valencia produces little wheat: there was much lack of it, and the
French would not accept rice. Their requisitions were exacted with
cruel disregard of consequences, even from the poorest, and quickly
brought back to the patriotic side the mutable Valencian people, who
had already been sufficiently embittered when they found that they
were annexed to France. All over the province there began to appear
slaughter, rebellion, and finally guerrillero bands[729].’
[729] Schepeler, pp. 609-10.
The point which Schepeler makes as to Valencia being practically
annexed to France--as shown by the administration of justice in the
name of Napoleon, not of King Joseph--should be noted. It illustrates
Suchet’s determination to consider himself as a French viceroy, rather
than as the general of one of the armies recently placed by the
Emperor under the King as Commander-in-Chief in the Peninsula. We have
already noted the way in which he contrived to plead special orders
from Paris, exempting him from the royal control, whenever Joseph
tried to borrow some of his troops for use against Wellington[730].
At the same time it must be conceded that he had a much better excuse
than Soult for his persistent disobedience to such orders--his whole
available force was so small, that if he had sent 6,000 men to San
Clemente or Ocaña, as Joseph directed, there would have been little or
nothing left in Valencia save the garrisons, and the Spaniards from
Alicante and Murcia could have taken their revenge for the disasters
of the past winter[731]. He represented to the King that to draw off
such a body of troops to La Mancha implied the abandonment of all his
recent conquests, and that if something had to be evacuated, it was
better that Soult should begin the process, since Andalusia was a more
outlying possession than Valencia--’les provinces du sud devaient
être évacuées avant celles de l’est.’ And here he was no doubt right:
as we have been remarking again and again, the only solution for the
situation created by Wellington’s successes was to concentrate a great
mass of troops at all costs, and the Army of the South could best
provide that mass. It had 50,000 men under arms at the moment--Suchet
had not in Valencia more than 15,000.
[730] See above, pp. 304-5.
[731] This is Suchet’s own view, see his _Mémoires_, ii. p. 251.
Hitherto we have spoken of those parts of the east coast of Spain
which lie south of the Ebro. But if the situation in Valencia had not
altered much between February and June, the same was also the case in
Catalonia. Since Eroles’s victory over Bourke at Roda in March[732]
there had been much marching and counter-marching in that principality,
but nothing decisive. Lacy, the unpopular captain-general, was at
odds with the Junta, and especially with Eroles, the best of his
divisional officers, who was the most influential man in Catalonia,
owing to his local connexions and his untiring energy. Lacy was a
stranger, an enemy of the ‘Somaten’ system, and a pronounced Liberal.
The political tendencies of the Catalans were distinctly favourable
to the other or ‘Servile’ party. The captain-general was also accused
of nourishing jealousy against Sarsfield, his second-in-command: and
it is certain that both that officer and Eroles believed him capable
of any mean trick toward them. But though divided counsels and mutual
suspicions often hindered the co-operation of the commanders and the
people, all were equally bitter enemies of the invader, and none of
them showed any signs of slackening in their grim resolve to hold
out to the end. The Catalan army did not now count more than 8,000
men in the field, but its central position in the mountains of the
interior, round which the French garrisons were dispersed in a long
semicircle, gave it advantages that compensated to a certain extent for
its lack of numbers. It could strike out at any isolated point on the
circumference, and, whether its blow failed or succeeded, generally
got off before the enemy had concentrated in sufficient numbers to do
it much harm. On the other hand, Decaen, now commanding in Catalonia,
and Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, though they had some
three times as many men under arms as Lacy, were reduced to a position
that was little more than defensive. It is true that they occasionally
collected a heavy column and struck into the inland: but the enemy
avoided them, and replied by counter-attacks on depleted sections of
the French circle of garrisons. On April 9th, for example, 4,800 men
marched from Gerona against Olot: the local levies under Claros and
Rovira skirmished with them, giving ground, and finally losing the
town. But though they did not stop the advance of the enemy, Milans,
with a larger force, moved on the important harbour of Mataro, and laid
siege to the garrison there (April 22), a stroke which soon brought the
bulk of French troops back from Olot to drive him off. At the same time
Sarsfield’s division pressed in upon the garrison of Tarragona, and cut
off its communications with Barcelona.
[732] See above, p. 98.
This forced Decaen to march to open the road, with all the men that
Maurice Mathieu could spare from Barcelona (April 28). Letting them go
by, Lacy at once renewed the attack on Mataro, bringing up the forces
of Sarsfield and Milans, and borrowing four ship-guns from Commodore
Codrington to batter the fort, in which the French had taken refuge
after evacuating the town [May 3]. Decaen and Lamarque promptly turned
back, and on the third day of the siege came hastily to break it up.
The Spaniards dispersed in various directions, after burying the guns,
which (much to Codrington’s regret) were discovered and exhumed by the
enemy. The net result of all this marching and counter-marching was
that much shoe-leather had been worn out, and a few hundred men killed
or wounded on each side: but certainly no progress had been made in
the conquest of Catalonia. Indeed, Manso, at the end of the campaign,
established himself at Molins de Rey, quite close to Barcelona, and
Sarsfield occupied Montserrat, so that between them they once more cut
off the communications from Barcelona southward and westward. Both had
to be driven off in June, in order that the roads might again be opened.
Early in July Lacy devised a scheme which made him more hated than ever
in Catalonia. He concerted with some Spanish employés in the French
commissariat service a plan for blowing up the powder magazine of the
great fortress of Lerida, and arranged to be outside its walls on the
day fixed for the explosion, and to storm it during the confusion that
would follow. Eroles and Sarsfield both protested, pointing out that a
whole quarter of the city must be destroyed, with great loss of life.
Lacy replied that the results would justify the sacrifice, persisted
in his scheme, and moved with every available man towards Lerida to be
ready on the appointed day. He miscalculated his hours, however; and,
though he left hundreds of stragglers behind from over-marching, his
column arrived too late. The explosion took place on the 16th, with
dreadful success; not only did a hundred of the garrison perish, but a
much larger number of the citizens; many houses and one of the bastions
fell. The governor Henriod, a very firm-handed man whose record in
Lerida was most tyrannical[733], had been entirely unaware of the
approach of the Spaniards, but proved equal to the occasion. He put his
garrison under arms, manned the breach, and showed such a firm front,
when Lacy appeared, that the captain-general, having tired troops and
no cannon, refused to attempt the storm. He went off as quickly as he
had come, having caused the death of several hundred of his countrymen
with no profit whatever. If he was ready to adopt such terrible means,
he should at least have had his plans correctly timed. The Catalans
never forgave him the useless atrocity[734].
[733] See notes in Vidal de la Blache’s _L’Evacuation d’Espagne_,
1914, which reaches me just as this goes to press, for anecdotes
concerning his doings.
[734] About the same time a still more dreadful plot was said
to have been formed in Barcelona, with the knowledge and
approval of Lacy--arsenic was to be mixed with the flour of the
garrison’s rations by secret agents. [See Suchet’s _Mémoires_,
ii. p. 256, and Arteche, xii. p. 353.] How far the plan was a
reality is difficult to decide. There is a large file of papers
in the Paris War Office concerning experiments carried out by a
commission of army-doctors, in consequence of a sudden outbreak
of sickness among the troops in July. One or two soldiers died,
a great number were seized with vomiting and stomach-cramps;
poison being suspected, the doctors took possession of the flour,
attempted to analyse it, and tried its effects on a number of
street dogs. A few of the animals died: most were violently sick,
but got over the dose. Poison was not definitely proved, and
dirty utensils and bad baking might conceivably have been the
cause of the outbreak. Some Catalan writers say that there was a
poisoning-plot, or I should have doubted the whole story. See the
Appendix to Arteche, xii. p. 483.
Operations in Catalonia and Valencia were thus dragging on with no
great profit to one side or the other, when Wellington’s great scheme
for the Anglo-Sicilian diversion on the east coast began at last to
work, and--as he had expected--set a new face to affairs. Unfortunately
the expedition was conducted very differently from his desire. We have
already shown how, by Lord William Bentinck’s perversity, it started
too late, and was far weaker than was originally intended[735]. But on
July 15th General Maitland arrived at Port Mahon with a fleet carrying
three English[736] and two German battalions, and parts of three
foreign regiments, with a handful of cavalry, and two companies of
artillery. He sent messengers across Spain to announce to Wellington
his arrival, and his purpose of landing in Catalonia, as had been
directed. At Majorca he picked up Whittingham’s newly-organized
Balearic division, and after some delay he set sail on July 28 for
Palamos, a central point on the Catalan coast, off which he arrived on
the morning of July 31st with over 10,000 men on board.
[735] See above, p. 347.
[736] 1/10th, 1/81st, 1/58th, 4th and 6th Line battalions K.G.L.,
and parts of the foreign battalions of De Roll, Dillon, and the
Calabrian Free Corps. See table in Appendix XIV. The total was
248 officers, and 6,643 rank and file.
Owing to Bentinck’s unhappy hesitation in May and June, after the
expedition had been announced and the troops ordered to prepare for
embarkation, French spies in Sicily had found the time to send warning
to Paris, and Suchet had been advised by the Minister of War that a
fleet from Palermo might appear in his neighbourhood at any moment.
He received his warning in the end of June, a month before Maitland’s
arrival[737], and this turned out in the end profitable to the allied
cause; for, though the fleet never appeared, he was always expecting
it, and used the argument that he was about to be attacked by an
English force as his most effective reply to King Joseph’s constant
demands for assistance in New Castile. The arrival at Alicante of
transports intended to carry Roche’s division to Catalonia, and of some
vessels bearing the battering-train which Wellington had sent round for
Bentinck’s use, was duly reported to him: for some time he took this
flotilla to be the Anglo-Sicilian squadron. Hence he was expecting all
through June and July the attack which (through Bentinck’s perversity)
was never delivered. The threat proved as effective as the actual
descent might have been, and Wellington would have been much relieved
if only he could have seen a few of Suchet’s many letters refusing to
move a man to support the King[738].
[737] Clarke’s dispatch with the information was dated June 9th.
[738] Two of them dated July 22 and August 12 did ultimately fall
into his hands, but only after the victory of Salamanca. See
below, pp. 617-18.
Suchet’s great trouble was that he could not tell in the least whether
the Sicilian expedition would land in Catalonia or in Valencia. It
might come ashore anywhere between Alicante and Rosas. He prepared a
small movable central reserve, with which he could march northward if
the blow should fall between Valencia and Tortosa, or southward--to
reinforce Habert and Harispe--if it should be struck in the South.
Decaen was warned to have a strong force concentrated in central
Catalonia, in case the descent came in his direction, and Suchet
promised him such assistance as he could spare. On a rumour that the
Sicilian fleet had turned northward--as a matter of fact it was not
yet in Spanish waters--the Marshal thought it worth while to make a
rapid visit to Catalonia, to concert matters with Decaen. He marched
by Tortosa with a flying column, and on July 10th met Decaen at Reus.
Here he learned that there were no signs of the enemy to be discovered,
and after visiting Tarragona, inspecting its fortifications, and
reinforcing its garrison, returned southward in a more leisurely
fashion than he had gone forth.
During Suchet’s absence from his Valencian viceroyalty the
captain-general of Murcia took measures which brought about one of
the most needless and gratuitous disasters that ever befell the
ever-unlucky army of which he was in charge. Joseph O’Donnell knew
that the Sicilian expedition was due, and he had been warned that
Roche’s division would be taken off to join it; he was aware that
Maitland’s arrival would modify all Suchet’s arrangements, and would
force him to draw troops away from his own front. He had been requested
by Wellington to content himself with ‘containing’ the French force
in his front, and to risk nothing. But on July 18th he marched out
from his positions in front of Alicante with the design of surprising
General Harispe. He knew that Suchet had gone north, and was not aware
of his return; and he had been informed, quite truly, that Harispe’s
cantonments were much scattered. Unfortunately he was as incapable as
he was presumptuous, and he entirely lacked the fiery determination of
his brother Henry, the hero of La Bispal. According to contemporary
critics he was set, at this moment, on making what he thought would be
a brilliant descent on an unprepared enemy, without any reference to
his orders or to the general state of the war[739]. And he wished to
fight before Roche’s troops were taken from him, as they must soon be.
[739] See Schepeler, pp. 617 and 623.
Harispe had only some 5,000 men--his own division, with one stray
battalion belonging to Habert[740], and Delort’s cavalry brigade[741].
He had one infantry regiment in reserve at Alcoy[742], another at
Ibi[743], the third[744]--with the bulk of Delort’s horsemen--in
and about Castalla, the nearest point in the French cantonments to
Alicante. O’Donnell’s ambitious plan was to surround the troops in
Castalla and Ibi by a concentric movement of several columns marching
far apart, and to destroy them before Harispe himself could come up
with his reserve from the rear. Bassecourt and his detachment from the
northern hills was ordered to fall in at the same time on Alcoy, so as
to distract Harispe and keep him engaged--a doubtful expedient since
he lay many marches away, and it was obvious that the timing of his
diversion would probably miscarry.
[740] Of the 44th Line.
[741] The 13th Cuirassiers and 24th Dragoons.
[742] The 116th Line, 2 battalions.
[743] The 1st Léger, 3 battalions.
[744] The 7th Line, 2 battalions.
O’Donnell marched in three masses: on the right Roche’s division went
by Xixona with the order to surprise the French troops in Ibi. The
main body, three weak infantry brigades under Montijo, Mijares, and
Michelena, with two squadrons of cavalry and a battery, moved straight
upon Castalla. The main body of the horse, about 800 strong, under
General Santesteban, went out on the left on the side of Villena,
with orders to outflank the enemy and try to cut in upon his rear.
The whole force made up 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, not taking
into account the possible (but unlikely) advent of Bassecourt, so that
Harispe was outnumbered by much more than two to one. As an extra
precaution all the transports ready in Alicante were sent out--with
only one battalion on board--along the coast, to demonstrate opposite
Denia and the mouth of the Xucar, in order to call off the attention of
Habert’s division, which lay in that direction.
Having marched all night on the 20th July, the Spanish columns found
themselves--in a very fatigued condition--in front of the enemy at
four o’clock on the morning of the 21st. They were out of touch with
each other, Roche being separated from the centre by the mountain-spur
called the Sierra de Cata, and the cavalry having been sent very far
out on the flank. General Mesclop was opposed to Roche at Ibi, with
four battalions and a squadron of cuirassiers--General Delort, at
Castalla, had only one squadron of the cuirassiers, two battalions, and
a battery, but was expecting the arrival of the 24th Dragoons from the
neighbouring town of Biar, some way to his right, and of the remaining
two squadrons of the 13th Cuirassiers from Onil on his left. Meanwhile
he evacuated Castalla, but took up a position on a hillside covered by
a stream and a ravine crossed by a narrow bridge, with his trifling
force. He had already sent orders to Mesclop at Ibi to come in to his
aid, leaving only a rearguard to hold off as long as possible the
Spanish column in front of him. The latter did as he was bid; he threw
into the Castle of Ibi a company of the 44th and two guns, and left the
rest of that battalion and a troop of cuirassiers to support them. With
the rest of his force, the three battalions of the 1st Léger and the
remaining troop of cuirassiers, he set off in haste for Castalla.
O’Donnell assailed Delort in a very leisurely way after occupying the
town of Castalla--his troops were tired, and four of his six guns had
fallen behind. But Montijo’s brigade and the two pieces which had kept
up with it were developing an attack on the bridge, and Michelena and
Mijares had passed the ravine higher up, when the French detached
troops began to appear from all directions. The first to get up were
the 400 men of the 24th Dragoons, who--screened by an olive wood--came
in with a tremendous impact, and quite unforeseen, upon Mijares’s
flank, and completely broke up his three battalions. They then, after
re-forming their ranks, formed in column and charged across the narrow
bridge in front of O’Donnell’s centre, though it was commanded by
his two guns. An attack delivered across such a defile, passable by
only two horses abreast, looked like madness--but was successful! The
guns only fired one round each before they were ridden over, and the
brigade supporting them broke up. Delort then attacked, with his two
battalions and with the cuirassiers who had just come up from Onil.
Montijo’s brigade, the only intact Spanish unit left, was thus driven
from the field and scattered. The 6,000 infantry of O’Donnell’s centre
became a mass of fugitives--only one regiment out of the whole[745]
kept its ranks and went off in decent order. Of the rest nearly half
were hunted down and captured in droves by the French cuirassiers
and dragoons. Mesclop with the three battalions from Ibi arrived too
late to take any part in the rout. Delort sent him back at once to
relieve the detachment that he had left in front of Roche. The latter
had driven it out of the village of Ibi after some skirmishing, when
he saw approaching him not only Mesclop’s column, but Harispe coming
up from Alcoy with the 116th of the Line. He at once halted, turned
to the rear, and retired in good order towards Xixona: the enemy’s
cavalry tried to break his rearguard but failed, and the whole
division got back to Alicante without loss. The same chance happened
to Santesteban’s cavalry, which, marching from Villena at 7 o’clock,
had reached Biar, in the enemy’s rear, only when the fighting--which
had begun at 4--was all over. O’Donnell tried to throw blame on this
officer; but the fact seems to be that his own calculation of time
and distance was faulty: he had sent his cavalry on too wide a sweep,
separated by hills from his main body, and had kept up no proper
communication with it. Nor does it appear that if Santesteban had come
up to Biar a little earlier he would have been able to accomplish
anything very essential. Bassecourt’s diversion, as might have been
expected, did not work: before he got near Alcoy the main body had been
cut to pieces: he retired in haste to Almanza on hearing the news.
[745] Cuenca, of Montijo’s brigade. Schepeler, p. 619.
O’Donnell’s infantry was so shattered that his army was reduced to as
bad a condition as it had shown in January, after Blake’s original
disaster at Valencia. He had lost over 3,000 men, of whom 2,135 were
unwounded prisoners, three flags, and the only two guns that had got
to the front. The survivors of the three broken brigades had dispersed
all over the countryside, and took weeks to collect. It was fortunate
that Roche’s division had reached Alicante intact, or that city itself
might have been in danger. The French had lost, according to their own
account, no more than 200 men[746]: only the two cavalry regiments,
two battalions of the 7th Line, and one of the 44th had been put into
action. As Suchet truly remarks in his _Mémoires_[747] the total
numbers engaged--3,000 men[748]--on his side were somewhat less than
the casualty list of the enemy.
[746] This is the figure given by Suchet in his contemporary
dispatch to King Joseph, of which a copy lies in the Scovell
papers. In some French accounts the number is cut down to 70.
[747] Vol. ii. p. 260.
[748] 7th Line, about 1,200; 13th Cuirassiers and 24th Dragoons,
about 1,000; one battalion 44th, about 650; artillery, &c., about
150 = 3,000 in all. The 1st Léger and 116th Line were practically
not engaged.
The rout of Castalla put the Murcian army out of action for months--a
lucky thing for Suchet, since the force of the allies at Alicante
was just about to be increased by the arrival there of Maitland’s
expedition, and if O’Donnell’s army had been still intact, a very
formidable body of troops would have been collected opposite him.
It remains to explain the appearance of the Anglo-Sicilians in this
direction, contrary to the orders of Wellington, who had expressed his
wish that they should land in Catalonia, join Lacy, and lay siege to
Tarragona--an operation which he thought would force Suchet to evacuate
Valencia altogether, in order to bring help to Decaen.
We left Maitland anchored in the Bay of Palamos on July 31. The moment
that he appeared Eroles went on board his ship, to urge his immediate
disembarkation, and to promise the enthusiastic assistance of the
Catalans. The energetic baron gave a most optimistic picture of the
state of affairs, he declared that the whole country would rise at the
sight of the red-coats, that Tarragona was weakly held, and that the
total force of the French, including Suchet’s column near Tortosa, was
only 13,000 men. Lacy and Sarsfield appeared later, and gave much less
encouraging information: they rated the enemy at a far higher figure
than Eroles, and were right in so doing, for Decaen had some 25,000
men, and could by an effort have concentrated 15,000, exclusive of
succours from Suchet. The Spanish Army of Catalonia could only furnish
7,000 foot and 300 horse, of whom many were so far off at the moment
that Lacy declared that it would take six or eight days to bring them
up. By the time that they were all arrived, the French would have
concentrated also, and would be equal in numbers to the whole force
that the allies could collect. Tarragona was reported to be in a better
state of defence than Eroles allowed, and the engineers declared that
it might take ten days to reduce it. But the greatest problem of all
was that of provisions: Lacy declared that the country could furnish
little or nothing: he could not undertake to keep his own small army
concentrated for more than a week. The Anglo-Sicilians must be fed from
the fleet, and he could provide no transport. Evidently the expedition
would be tied down to the shore, and the siege of Tarragona was the
only possible operation. Since the Anglo-Sicilian army could not
manœuvre at large or retire into the inland, it would have to fight
Decaen, to cover the investment of Tarragona, within a few days of its
landing. On the other hand if, as Eroles promised, the _somatenes_
rose on every side at the news of the disembarkation, the outlying
French troops might not be able to get up to join Decaen, the roads
would be blocked, the enemy might never be able to concentrate, and the
force about Barcelona, his only immediately available field army, was
not more than 8,000 strong, and might be beaten.