Spain in 1806--Napoleon uses the quarrel between Ferdinand and Godoy--He
affects to be Ferdinand's protector--Dupont's army enters Spain--Murat in
Spain--Charles abdicates--Ferdinand King--Savary brings Ferdinand to
Bayonne--Napoleon makes both Charles and Ferdinand resign--Spirit of the
Spanish Nation--Contrast with Germany--Rising of all Spain--The Notables at
Bayonne--Campaign of 1808--Capitulation of Baylen--Wellesley lands in
Portugal--Vimieiro--Convention of Cintra--Effect of the Spanish Rising on
Europe--War Party in Prussia--Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt--Stein
resigns, and is proscribed--Napoleon in Spain--Spanish Misgovernment--
Campaign on the Ebro--Campaign of Sir John Moore--Corunna--Napoleon
leaves Spain--Siege of Saragossa--Successes of the French.
[Spanish affairs, 1793-1806.]
[Spain in 1806.]
Spain, which had played so insignificant a part throughout the
Revolutionary War, was now about to become the theatre of events that
opened a new world of hope to Europe. Its King, the Bourbon Charles IV.,
was more weak and more pitiful than any sovereign of the age. Power
belonged to the Queen and to her paramour Godoy, who for the last fourteen
years had so conducted the affairs of the country that every change in its
policy had brought with it new disaster. In the war of the First Coalition
Spain had joined the Allies, and French armies had crossed the Pyrenees. In
1796 Spain entered the service of France, and lost the battle of St.
Vincent. At the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon surrendered its colony Trinidad
to England; on the renewal of the war he again forced it into hostilities
with Great Britain, and brought upon it the disaster of Trafalgar. This
unbroken humiliation of the Spanish arms, combined with intolerable
oppression and impoverishment at home, raised so bitter an outcry against
Godoy's government, that foreign observers, who underrated the loyalty of
the Spanish people, believed the country to be on the verge of revolution.
At the Court itself the Crown Prince Ferdinand, under the influence of his
Neapolitan wife, headed a party in opposition to Godoy and the supporters
of French dominion. Godoy, insecure at home, threw himself the more
unreservedly into the arms of Napoleon, who bestowed upon him a
contemptuous patronage, and flattered him with the promise of an
independent principality in Portugal. Izquierdo, Godoy's agent at Paris,
received proposals from Napoleon which were concealed from the Spanish
Ambassador; and during the first months of 1806 Napoleon possessed no more
devoted servant than the man who virtually held the government of Spain.
[Spain intends to join Prussia in 1806.]
The opening of negotiations between Napoleon and Fox's Ministry in May,
1806, first shook this relation of confidence and obedience. Peace between
France and England involved the abandonment on the part of Napoleon of any
attack upon Portugal; and Napoleon now began to meet Godoy's inquiries
after his Portuguese principality with an ominous silence. The next
intelligence received was that the Spanish Balearic Islands had been
offered by Napoleon to Great Britain, with the view of providing an
indemnity for Ferdinand of Naples, if he should give up Sicily to Joseph
Bonaparte (July, 1806.) This contemptuous appropriation of Spanish
territory, without even the pretence of consulting the Spanish Government,
excited scarcely less anger at Madrid than the corresponding proposal with
regard to Hanover excited at Berlin. The Court began to meditate a change
of policy, and watched the events which were leading Prussia to arm for the
war of 1806. A few weeks more passed, and news arrived that Buenos Ayres,
the capital of Spanish South America, had fallen into the hands of the
English. This disaster produced the deepest impression, for the loss of
Buenos Ayres was believed, and with good reason, to be but the prelude to
the loss of the entire American empire of Spain. Continuance of the war
with England was certain ruin; alliance with the enemies of Napoleon was at
least not hopeless, now that Prussia was on the point of throwing its army
into the scale against France. An agent was despatched by the Spanish
Government to London (Sept., 1806); and, upon the commencement of
hostilities by Prussia, a proclamation was issued by Godoy, which, without
naming any actual enemy, summoned the Spanish people to prepare for a war
on behalf of their country.
[Treaty of Fontainebleau, Oct., 1807.]
Scarcely had the manifesto been read by the Spaniards when the Prussian
army was annihilated at Jena. The dream of resistance to Napoleon vanished
away; the only anxiety of the Spanish Government was to escape from the
consequences of its untimely daring. Godoy hastened to explain that his
martial proclamation had been directed not against the Emperor of the
French, but against the Emperor of Morocco. Napoleon professed himself
satisfied with this palpable absurdity: it appeared as if the events of the
last few months had left no trace on his mind. Immediately after the Peace
of Tilsit he resumed his negotiations with Godoy upon the old friendly
footing, and brought them to a conclusion in the Treaty of Fontainebleau
(Oct., 1807), which provided for the invasion of Portugal by a French and a
Spanish army, and for its division into principalities, one of which was to
be conferred upon Godoy himself. The occupation of Portugal was duly
effected, and Godoy looked forward to the speedy retirement of the French
from the province which was to be his portion of the spoil.
[Napoleon uses the enmity of Ferdinand against Godoy.]
[Napoleon about to intervene as protector of Ferdinand.]
Napoleon, however, had other ends in view. Spain, not Portugal, was the
true prize. Napoleon had gradually formed the determination of taking Spain
into his own hands, and the dissensions of the Court itself enabled him to
appear upon the scene as the judge to whom all parties appealed. The Crown
Prince Ferdinand had long been at open enmity with Godoy and his own
mother. So long as Ferdinand's Neapolitan wife was alive, her influence
made the Crown Prince the centre of the party hostile to France; but after
her death in 1806, at a time when Godoy himself inclined to join Napoleon's
enemies, Ferdinand took up a new position, and allied himself with the
French Ambassador, at whose instigation he wrote to Napoleon, soliciting
the hand of a princess of the Napoleonic House. [145] Godoy, though unaware
of the letter, discovered that Ferdinand was engaged in some intrigue. King
Charles was made to believe that his son had entered into a conspiracy to
dethrone him. The Prince was placed under arrest, and on the 30th of
October, 1807, a royal proclamation appeared at Madrid, announcing that
Ferdinand had been detected in a conspiracy against his parents, and that
he was about to be brought to justice along with his accomplices. King
Charles at the same time wrote a letter to Napoleon, of whose connection
with Ferdinand he had not the slightest suspicion, stating that he intended
to exclude the Crown Prince from the succession to the throne of Spain. No
sooner had Napoleon received the communication from the simple King than he
saw himself in possession of the pretext for intervention which he had so
long desired. The most pressing orders were given for the concentration of
troops on the Spanish frontier; Napoleon appeared to be on the point of
entering Spain as the defender of the hereditary rights of Ferdinand. The
opportunity, however, proved less favourable than Napoleon had expected.
The Crown Prince, overcome by his fears, begged forgiveness of his father,
and disclosed the negotiations which had taken place between himself and
the French Ambassador. Godoy, dismayed at finding Napoleon's hand in what
he had supposed to be a mere palace-intrigue, abandoned all thought of
proceeding further against the Crown Prince; and a manifesto announced that
Ferdinand was restored to the favour of his father. Napoleon now
countermanded the order which he had given for the despatch of the Rhenish
troops to the Pyrenees, and contented himself with directing General
Dupont, the commander of an army-corps nominally destined for Portugal, to
cross the Spanish frontier and advance as far as Vittoria.
[Dupont enters Spain, Dec., 1807.]
[French welcomed in Spain as Ferdinand's protectors.]
Dupont's troops entered Spain in the last days of the year 1807, and were
received with acclamations. It was universally believed that Napoleon had
espoused the cause of Ferdinand, and intended to deliver the Spanish nation
from the detested rule of Godoy. Since the open attack made upon Ferdinand
in the publication of the pretended conspiracy, the Crown Prince, who was
personally as contemptible as any of his enemies, had become the idol of
the people. For years past the hatred of the nation towards Godoy and the
Queen had been constantly deepening, and the very reforms which Godoy
effected in the hope of attaching to himself the more enlightened classes
only served to complete his unpopularity with the fanatical mass of the
nation. The French, who gradually entered the Peninsula to the number of
80,000, and who described themselves as the protectors of Ferdinand and of
the true Catholic faith, were able to spread themselves over the northern
provinces without exciting suspicion. It was only when their commanders, by
a series of tricks worthy of American savages, obtained possession of the
frontier citadels and fortresses, that the wiser part of the nation began
to entertain some doubt as to the real purpose of their ally. At the Court
itself and among the enemies of Ferdinand the advance of the French roused
the utmost alarm. King Charles wrote to Napoleon in the tone of ancient
friendship; but the answer he received was threatening and mysterious. The
utterances which the Emperor let fall in the presence of persons likely to
report them at Madrid were even more alarming, and were intended to terrify
the Court into the resolution to take flight from Madrid. The capital once
abandoned by the King, Napoleon judged that he might safely take everything
into his own hands on the pretence of restoring to Spain the government
which it had lost.
[Murat sent to Spain, Feb., 1808.]
[Charles IV. abdicates, March 17, 1808.]
On the 20th of February, 1808, Murat was ordered to quit Paris in order to
assume the command in Spain. Not a word was said by Napoleon to him before
his departure. His instructions first reached him at Bayonne; they were of
a military nature, and gave no indication of the ultimate political object
of his mission. Murat entered Spain on the 1st of March, knowing no more
than that he was ordered to reassure all parties and to commit himself to
none, but with full confidence that he himself was intended by Napoleon to
be the successor of the Bourbon dynasty. It was now that the Spanish Court,
expecting the appearance of the French army in Madrid, resolved upon that
flight which Napoleon considered so necessary to his own success. The
project was not kept a secret. It passed from Godoy to the Ministers of
State, and from them to the friends of Ferdinand. The populace of Madrid
was inflamed by the report that Godoy was about to carry the King to a
distance, in order to prolong the misgovernment which the French had
determined to overthrow. A tumultuous crowd marched from the capital to
Aranjuez, the residence of the Court. On the evening of the 17th of March,
the palace of Godoy was stormed by the mob. Godoy himself was seized, and
carried to the barracks amid the blows and curses of the populace. The
terrified King, who already saw before him the fate of his cousin, Louis
XVI., first published a decree depriving Godoy of all his dignities, and
then abdicated in favour of his son. On the 19th of March Ferdinand was
proclaimed King.
[French enter Madrid, March 23.]
Such was the unexpected intelligence that met Murat as he approached
Madrid. The dissensions of the Court, which were to supply his ground of
intervention, had been terminated by the Spaniards themselves: in the place
of a despised dotard and a menaced favourite, Spain had gained a youthful
sovereign around whom all classes of the nation rallied with the utmost
enthusiasm. Murat's position became a very difficult one; but he supplied
what was wanting in his instructions by the craft of a man bent upon
creating a vacancy in his own favour. He sent his aide-de-camp, Monthieu,
to visit the dethroned sovereign, and obtained a protest from King Charles
IV., declaring his abdication to have been extorted from him by force, and
consequently to be null and void. This document Murat kept secret; but he
carefully abstained from doing anything which might involve a recognition
of Ferdinand's title. On the 23rd of March the French troops entered
Madrid. Nothing had as yet become known to the public that indicated an
altered policy on the part of the French; and the soldiers of Murat, as the
supposed friends of Ferdinand, met with as friendly a reception in Madrid
as in the other towns of Spain. On the following day Ferdinand himself made
his solemn entry into the capital, amid wild demonstrations of an almost
barbaric loyalty.
[Savary brings Ferdinand to Bayonne, April, 1808.]
In the tumult of popular joy it was noticed that Murat's troops continued
their exercises without the least regard to the pageant that so deeply
stirred the hearts of the Spaniards. Suspicions were aroused; the
enthusiasm of the people for the French soldiers began to change into
irritation and ill-will. The end of the long drama of deceit was in fact
now close at hand. On the 4th of April General Savary arrived at Madrid
with instructions independent of those given to Murat. He was charged to
entice the new Spanish sovereign from his capital, and to bring him, either
as a dupe or as a prisoner, on to French soil. The task was not a difficult
one. Savary pretended that Napoleon had actually entered Spain, and that he
only required an assurance of Ferdinand's continued friendship before
recognising him as the legitimate successor of Charles IV. Ferdinand, he
added, could show no greater mark of cordiality to his patron than by
advancing to meet him on the road. Snared by these hopes, Ferdinand set out
from Madrid, in company with Savary and some of his own foolish confidants.
On reaching Burgos, the party found no signs of the Emperor. They continued
their journey to Vittoria. Here Ferdinand's suspicions were aroused, and he
declined to proceed farther. Savary hastened to Bayonne to report the delay
to Napoleon. He returned with a letter which overcame Ferdinand's scruples
and induced him to cross the Pyrenees, in spite of the prayers of statesmen
and the loyal violence of the simple inhabitants of the district. At
Bayonne Ferdinand was visited by Napoleon, but not a word was spoken on the
object of his journey. In the afternoon the Emperor received Ferdinand and
his suite at a neighbouring château, but preserved the same ominous
silence. When the other guests departed, the Canon Escoiquiz, a member of
Ferdinand's retinue, was detained, and learned from Napoleon's own lips the
fate in store for the Bourbon Monarchy. Savary returned to Bayonne with
Ferdinand, and informed the Prince that he must renounce the crown of
Spain. [146]
[Charles and Ferdinand surrender their rights to Napoleon.]
[Attack on the French in Madrid, May 2.]
For some days Ferdinand held out against Napoleon's demands with a
stubbornness not often shown by him in the course of his mean and
hypocritical career. He was assailed not only by Napoleon but by those
whose fall had been his own rise; for Godoy was sent to Bayonne by Murat,
and the old King and Queen hurried after their son in order to witness his
humiliation. Ferdinand's parents attacked him with an indecency that
astonished even Napoleon himself; but the Prince maintained his refusal
until news arrived from Madrid which terrified him into submission. The
irritation of the capital had culminated in an armed conflict between the
populace and the French troops. On an attempt being made by Murat to remove
the remaining members of the royal family from the palace, the capital had
broken into open insurrection, and wherever French soldiers were found
alone or in small bodies they were massacred. (May 2.) Some hundreds of the
French perished; but the victory of Murat was speedy, and his vengeance
ruthless. The insurgents were driven into the great central square of the
city, and cut down by repeated charges of cavalry. When all resistance was
over, numbers of the citizens were shot in cold blood. Such was the
intelligence which reached Bayonne in the midst of Napoleon's struggle with
Ferdinand. There was no further need of argument. Ferdinand was informed
that if he withheld his resignation for twenty-four hours longer he would
be treated as a rebel. He yielded; and for a couple of country houses and
two life-annuities the crown of Spain and the Indies was renounced in
favour of Napoleon by father and son.
[National spirit of the Spaniards.]
The crown had indeed been won without a battle. That there remained a
Spanish nation ready to fight to the death for its independence was not a
circumstance which Napoleon had taken into account. His experience had as
yet taught him of no force but that of Governments and armies. In the
larger States, or groups of States, which had hitherto been the spoil of
France, the sense of nationality scarcely existed. Italy had felt it no
disgrace to pass under the rule of Napoleon. The Germans on both sides of
the Rhine knew of a fatherland only as an arena of the keenest jealousies.
In Prussia and in Austria the bond of citizenship was far less the love of
country than the habit of obedience to government. England and Russia,
where patriotism existed in the sense in which it existed in Spain, had as
yet been untouched by French armies. Judging from the action of the Germans
and the Italians, Napoleon might well suppose that in settling with the
Spanish Government he had also settled with the Spanish people, or, at the
worst, that his troops might have to fight some fanatical peasants, like
those who resisted the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. But the
Spanish nation was no mosaic of political curiosities like the Holy Roman
Empire, and no divided and oblivious family like the population of Italy.
Spain, as a single nation united under its King, had once played the
foremost part in Europe: when its grandeur departed, its pride had remained
behind: the Spaniard, in all his torpor and impoverishment, retained the
impulse of honour, the spirited self-respect, which periods of national
greatness leave behind them among a race capable of cherishing their
memory. Nor had those influences of a common European culture, which
directly opposed themselves to patriotism in Germany, affected the
home-bred energy of Spain. The temper of mind which could find satisfaction
in the revival of a form of Greek art when Napoleon's cavalry were scouring
Germany, or which could inquire whether mankind would not profit by the
removal of the barriers between nations, was unknown among the Spanish
people. Their feeling towards a foreign invader was less distant from that
of African savages than from that of the civilised and literary nations
which had fallen so easy a prey to the French. Government, if it had
degenerated into everything that was contemptible, had at least failed to
reduce the people to the passive helplessness which resulted from the
perfection of uniformity in Prussia. Provincial institutions, though
corrupted, were not extinguished; provincial attachments and prejudices
existed in unbounded strength. Like the passion of the Spaniard for his
native district, his passion for Spain was of a blind and furious
character. Enlightened conviction, though not altogether absent, had small
place in the Spanish war of defence. Religious fanaticism, hatred of the
foreigner, delight in physical barbarity, played their full part by the
side of nobler elements in the struggle for national independence.
[Rising of Spain, May, 1808.]
The captivity of Ferdinand, and the conflict of Murat's troops with the
inhabitants of Madrid, had become known in the Spanish cities before the
middle of May. On the 20th of the same month the _Gaceta_ announced
the abdication of the Bourbon family. Nothing more was wanting to throw
Spain into tumult. The same irresistible impulse seized provinces and
cities separated by the whole breadth of the Peninsula. Without
communication, and without the guidance of any central authority, the
Spanish people in every part of the kingdom armed themselves against the
usurper. Carthagena rose on the 22nd. Valencia forced its magistrates to
proclaim King Ferdinand on the 23rd. Two days later the mountain-district
of Asturias, with a population of half a million, formally declared war on
Napoleon, and despatched envoys to Great Britain to ask for assistance. On
the 26th, Santander and Seville, on opposite sides of the Peninsula, joined
the national movement. Corunna, Badajoz, and Granada declared themselves on
the Feast of St. Ferdinand, the 30th of May. Thus within a week the entire
country was in arms, except in those districts where the presence of French
troops rendered revolt impossible. The action of the insurgents was
everywhere the same. They seized upon the arms and munitions of war
collected in the magazines, and forced the magistrates or commanders of
towns to place themselves at their head. Where the latter resisted, or were
suspected of treachery to the national cause, they were in many cases put
to death. Committees of Government were formed in the principal cities, and
as many armies came into being as there were independent centres of the
insurrection.
[Joseph Bonaparte made King.]
[Napoleon's Assembly at Bayonne, June, 1808.]
Napoleon was in the meantime collecting a body of prelates and grandees at
Bayonne, under the pretence of consulting the representatives of the
Spanish nation. Half the members of the intended Assembly received a
personal summons from the Emperor; the other half were ordered to be chosen
by popular election. When the order, however, was issued from Bayonne, the
country was already in full revolt. Elections were held only in the
districts occupied by the French, and not more than twenty representatives
so elected proceeded to Bayonne. The remainder of the Assembly, which
numbered in all ninety-one persons, was composed of courtiers who had
accompanied the Royal Family across the Pyrenees, and of any Spaniards of
distinction upon whom the French could lay their hands. Joseph Bonaparte
was brought from Naples to receive the crown of Spain. [147] On the 15th of
June the Assembly of the Notables was opened. Its discussions followed the
order prescribed by Napoleon on all similar occasions. Articles disguising
a central absolute power with some pretence of national representation were
laid before the Assembly, and adopted without criticism. Except in the
privileges accorded to the Church, little indicated that the Constitution
of Bayonne was intended for the Spanish rather than for any other nation.
Its political forms were as valuable or as valueless as those which
Napoleon had given to his other client States; its principles of social
order were those which even now despotism could not dissever from French
supremacy--the abolition of feudal services, equality of taxation,
admission of all ranks to public employment. Titles of nobility were
preserved, the privileges of nobility abolished. One genuine act of homage
was rendered to the national character. The Catholic religion was declared
to be the only one permitted in Spain.
[Attempts of Napoleon to suppress the Spanish rising.]
While Napoleon was thus emancipating the peasants from the nobles, and
reconciling his supremacy with the claims of the Church, peasants and
townspeople were flocking to arms at the call of the priests, who so little
appreciated the orthodoxy of their patron as to identify him in their
manifestos with Calvin, with the Antichrist, and with Apollyon. [148] The
Emperor underrated the military efficiency of the national revolt, and
contented himself with sending his lieutenants to repress it, while he
himself, expecting a speedy report of victory, remained in Bayonne.
Divisions of the French army moved in all directions against the
insurgents. Dupont was ordered to march upon Seville from the capital,
Moncey upon Valencia; Marshal Bessières took command of a force intended to
disperse the main army of the Spaniards, which threatened the roads from
the Pyrenees to Madrid. The first encounters were all favourable to the
practised French troops; yet the objects which Napoleon set before his
generals were not achieved. Moncey failed to reduce Valencia; Dupont found
himself outnumbered on passing the Sierra Morena, and had to retrace his
steps and halt at Andujar, where the road to Madrid leaves the valley of
the Guadalquivir. Without sustaining any severe loss, the French divisions
were disheartened by exhausting and resultless marches; the Spaniards
gained new confidence on each successive day which passed without
inflicting upon them a defeat. At length, however, the commanders of the
northern army were forced by Marshal Bessières to fight a pitched battle at
Rio Seco, on the west of Valladolid (July 13th). Bessières won a complete
victory, and gained the lavish praises of his master for a battle which,
according to Napoleon's own conception, ended the Spanish war by securing
the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid.
[Capitulation of Baylen, July 19.]
[Dupont in Andalusia.]
Never had Napoleon so gravely mistaken the true character of a campaign.
The vitality of the Spanish insurrection lay not in the support of the
capital, which had never passed out of the hands of the French, but in the
very independence of the several provincial movements. Unlike Vienna and
Berlin, Madrid might be held by the French without the loss being felt by
their adversary; Cadiz, Corunna, Lisbon, were equally serviceable bases for
the insurrection. The victory of Marshal Bessières in the north preserved
the communication between France and Madrid, and it did nothing more. It
failed to restore the balance of military force in the south of Spain, or
to affect the operations of the Spanish troops which were now closing round
Dupont upon the Guadalquivir. On the 15th of July Dupont was attacked at
Andujar by greatly superior forces. His lieutenant, Vedel, knowing the
Spaniards to be engaged in a turning movement, made a long march northwards
in order to guard the line of retreat. In his absence the position of
Baylen, immediately in Dupont's rear, was seized by the Spanish general
Reding. Dupont discovered himself to be surrounded. He divided his army
into two columns, and moved on the night of the 18th from Andujar towards
Baylen, in the hope of overpowering Reding's division. At daybreak on the
19th the positions of Reding were attacked by the French. The struggle
continued until mid-day, though the French soldiers sank exhausted with
thirst and with the burning heat. At length the sound of cannon was heard
in the rear. Castanos, the Spanish general commanding at Andujar, had
discovered Dupont's retreat, and pressed behind him with troops fresh and
unwearied by conflict. Further resistance was hopeless. Dupont had to
negotiate for a surrender. He consented to deliver up Vedel's division as
well as his own, although Vedel's troops were in possession of the road to
Madrid, the Spanish commander promising, on this condition, that the
captives should not be retained as prisoners of war in Spain, but be
permitted to return by sea to their native country. The entire army of
Andalusia, numbering 23,000 men, thus passed into the hands of an enemy
whom Napoleon had not believed to possess a military existence. Dupont's
anxiety to save something for France only aggravated the extent of the
calamity; for the Junta of Seville declined to ratify the terms of the
capitulation, and the prisoners, with the exception of the superior
officers, were sent to the galleys at Cadiz. The victorious Spaniards
pushed forwards upon Madrid. King Joseph, who had entered the city only a
week before, had to fly from his capital. The whole of the French troops in
Spain were compelled to retire to a defensive position upon the Ebro.
[Wellesley lands in Portugal, Aug. 1, 1808.]
[Vimieiro, Aug. 21.]
[Convention of Cintra, Aug. 30.]
The disaster of Baylen did not come alone. Napoleon's attack upon Portugal
had brought him within the striking-range of Great Britain. On the 1st of
August an English army, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed on the
Portuguese coast at the mouth of the Mondego. Junot, the first invader of
the Peninsula, was still at Lisbon; his forces in occupation of Portugal
numbered nearly 30,000 men, but they were widely dispersed, and he was
unable to bring more than 13,000 men into the field against the 16,000 with
whom Wellesley moved upon Lisbon. Junot advanced to meet the invader. A
battle was fought at Vimieiro, thirty miles north of Lisbon, on the 21st of
August. The victory was gained by the British; and had the first advantage
been followed up, Junot's army would scarcely have escaped capture. But the
command had passed out of Wellesley's hands. His superior officer, Sir
Harry Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle
ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of operations at a
moment when the enemy seemed to be within his grasp. Junot made the best
use of his reprieve. He entered into negotiations for the evacuation of
Portugal, and obtained the most favourable terms in the Convention of
Cintra, signed on the 30th of August. The French army was permitted to
return to France with its arms and baggage. Wellesley, who had strongly
condemned the inaction of his superior officers after the battle of the
21st, agreed with them that, after the enemy had once been permitted to
escape, the evacuation of Portugal was the best result which the English
could obtain. [149] Junot's troops were accordingly conveyed to French
ports at the expense of the British Government, to the great displeasure of
the public, who expected to see the marshal and his army brought prisoners
into Portsmouth. The English were as ill-humoured with their victory as the
French with their defeat. When on the point of sending Junot to a
court-martial for his capitulation, Napoleon learnt that the British
Government had ordered its own generals to be brought to trial for
permitting the enemy to escape them.
[Effect of Spanish rising on Europe.]
[War-party in Austria and Prussia.]
[Napoleon and Prussia.]
If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England, the tidings of
the successful uprising of the Spanish people against Napoleon, and of
Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, created the deepest impression in every
country of Europe that still entertained the thought of resistance to
France. The first great disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been
inflicted by a nation without a government, without a policy, without a
plan beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the foreigner.
What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect, the patriotism and
energy of a single people deserted by its rulers seemed about to
accomplish. The victory of the regular troops at Baylen was but a part of
that great national movement in which every isolated outbreak had had its
share in dividing and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of
untrained popular levies to resist practised troops might be exaggerated in
the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish rising;
but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by the spirit of
popular resentment and determination was one upon which mistake was
impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the politicians of Austria and
Prussia, and explained the powerlessness of those Coalitions in which the
wars had always been the affair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of
the people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against
Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a national
movement like that of Spain sprang up among the German race. "I do not
see," wrote Blücher some time afterwards, "why we should not think
ourselves as good as the Spaniards." The best men in the Austrian and
Prussian Governments began to look forward to the kindling of popular
spirit as the surest means for combating the tyranny of Napoleon. Military
preparations were pushed forward in Austria with unprecedented energy and
on a scale rivalling that of France itself. In Prussia the party of Stein
determined upon a renewal of the war, and decided to risk the extinction of
the Prussian State rather than submit to the extortions by which Napoleon
was completing the ruin of their country. It was among the patriots of
Northern Germany that the course of the Spanish struggle excited the
deepest emotion, and gave rise to the most resolute purpose of striking for
European liberty.
Since the nominal restoration of peace between France and Prussia by the
cession of half the Prussian kingdom, not a month had passed without the
infliction of some gross injustice upon the conquered nation. The
evacuation of the country had in the first instance been made conditional
upon the payment of certain requisitions in arrear. While the amount of
this sum was being settled, all Prussia, except Königsberg, remained in the
hands of the French, and 157,000 French soldiers lived at free quarters
upon the unfortunate inhabitants. At the end of the year 1807 King
Frederick William was informed that, besides paying to Napoleon 60,000,000
francs in money, and ceding domain lands of the same value, he must
continue to support 40,000 French troops in five garrison-towns upon the
Oder. Such was the dismay caused by this announcement, that Stein quitted
Königsberg, now the seat of government, and passed three months at the
head-quarters of the French at Berlin, endeavouring to frame some
settlement less disastrous to his country. Count Daru, Napoleon's
administrator in Prussia, treated the Minister with respect, and accepted
his proposal for the evacuation of Prussian territory on payment of a fixed
sum to the French. But the agreement required Napoleon's ratification, and
for this Stein waited in vain. [150]
[Stein urges war.]
[Demands of Napoleon, Sept., 1808.]
Month after month dragged on, and Napoleon made no reply. At length the
victories of the Spanish insurrection in the summer of 1808 forced the
Emperor to draw in his troops from beyond the Elbe. He placed a bold front
upon his necessities, and demanded from the Prussian Government, as the
price of evacuation, a still larger sum than that which had been named in
the previous winter: he insisted that the Prussian army should be limited
to 40,000 men, and the formation of the Landwehr abandoned; and he required
the support of a Prussian corps of 16,000 men, in the event of hostilities
breaking out between France and Austria. Not even on these conditions was
Prussia offered the complete evacuation of her territory. Napoleon still
insisted on holding the three principal fortresses on the Oder with a
garrison of 10,000 men. Such was the treaty proposed to the Prussian Court
(September, 1808) at a time when every soldierly spirit thrilled with the
tidings from Spain, and every statesman was convinced by the events of the
last few months that Napoleon's treaties were but stages in a progression
of wrongs. Stein and Scharnhorst urged the King to arm the nation for a
struggle as desperate as that of Spain, and to delay only until Napoleon
himself was busied in the warfare of the Peninsula. Continued submission
was ruin; revolt was at least not hopeless. However forlorn the condition
of Prussia, its alliances were of the most formidable character. Austria
was arming without disguise; Great Britain had intervened in the warfare of
the Peninsula with an efficiency hitherto unknown in its military
operations; Spain, on the estimate of Napoleon himself, required an army of
200,000 men. Since the beginning of the Spanish insurrection Stein had
occupied himself with the organisation of a general outbreak throughout
Northern Germany. Rightly or wrongly, he believed the train to be now laid,
and encouraged the King of Prussia to count upon the support of a popular
insurrection against the French in all the territories which they had taken
from Prussia, from Hanover, and from Hesse.
[Stein resigns, Nov. 24. Proscribed by Napoleon.]
[Napoleon and Alexander meet at Erfurt, Oct. 7, 1808.]
In one point alone Stein was completely misinformed. He believed that
Alexander, in spite of the Treaty of Tilsit, would not be unwilling to see
the storm burst upon Napoleon, and that in the event of another general war
the forces of Russia would more probably be employed against France than in
its favour. The illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the
accomplice of Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Principalities,
Alexander was willing to hold central Europe in check while Napoleon
crushed the Spaniards, and to stifle every bolder impulse in the simple
King of Prussia. Napoleon himself dreaded the general explosion of Europe
before Spain was conquered, and drew closer to his Russian ally.
Difficulties that had been placed in the way of the Russian annexation of
Roumania vanished. The Czar and the Emperor determined to display to all
Europe the intimacy of their union by a festal meeting at Erfurt in the
midst of their victims and their dependents. The whole tribe of vassal
German sovereigns was summoned to the meeting-place; representatives
attended from the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. On the 7th of October
Napoleon and Alexander made their entry into Erfurt. Pageants and
festivities required the attendance of the crowned and titled rabble for
several days; but the only serious business was the settlement of a treaty
confirming the alliance of France and Russia, and the notification of the
Czar to the envoy of the King of Prussia that his master must accept the
terms demanded by Napoleon, and relinquish the idea of a struggle with
France. [151] Count Goltz, the Prussian envoy, unwillingly signed the
treaty which gave Prussia but a partial evacuation at so dear a cost, and
wrote to the King that no course now remained for him but to abandon
himself to unreserved dependence upon France, and to permit Stein and the
patriotic party to retire from the direction of the State. Unless the King
could summon up courage to declare war in defiance of Alexander, there was,
in fact, no alternative left open to him. Napoleon had discovered Stein's
plans for raising an insurrection in Germany several weeks before, and had
given vent to the most furious outburst of wrath against Stein in the
presence of the Prussian Ambassador at Erfurt. If the great struggle on
which Stein's whole heart and soul were set was to be relinquished, if
Spain was to be crushed before Prussia moved an arm, and Austria was to be
left to fight its inevitable battle alone, then the presence of Stein at
the head of the Prussian State was only a snare to Europe, a peril to
Prussia, and a misery to himself. Stein asked for and received his
dismissal. (Nov. 24, 1808.)
Stein's retirement averted the wrath of Napoleon from the King of Prussia;
but the whole malignity of that Corsican nature broke out against the
high-spirited patriot as soon as fresh victories had released Napoleon from
the ill-endured necessity of self-control. On the 16th of December, when
Madrid had again passed into the possession of the French, an imperial
order appeared, which gave the measure of Napoleon's hatred of the fallen
Minister. Stein was denounced as the enemy of the Empire; his property was
confiscated; he was ordered to be seized by the troops of the Emperor or
his allies wherever they could lay their hands upon him. As in the days of
Roman tyranny, the west of Europe could now afford no asylum to the enemies
of the Emperor. Russia and Austria remained the only refuge of the exile.
Stein escaped into Bohemia; and, as the crowning humiliation of the
Prussian State, its police were forced to pursue as a criminal the
statesman whose fortitude had still made it possible in the darkest days
for Prussian patriots not to despair of their country.
[Misgovernment of the Spanish Junta.]
[Napoleon goes to Spain, Nov., 1808.]
Central Europe secured by the negotiations with Alexander at Erfurt,
Napoleon was now able to place himself at the head of the French forces in
Spain without fear of any immediate attack from the side of Germany. Since
the victory of Baylen the Spaniards had made little progress either towards
good government or towards a good military administration. The provincial
Juntas had consented to subordinate themselves to a central committee
chosen from among their own members; but this new supreme authority, which
held its meetings at Aranjuez, proved one of the worst governments that
even Spain itself had ever endured. It numbered thirty persons,
twenty-eight of whom were priests, nobles, or officials. [152] Its
qualities were those engrained in Spanish official life. In legislation it
attempted absolutely nothing but the restoration of the Inquisition and the
protection of Church lands; its administration was confined to a foolish
interference with the better generals, and the acquisition of enormous
supplies of war from Great Britain, which were either stolen by contractors
or allowed to fall into the hands of the French. While the members of the
Junta discussed the titles of honour which were to attach to them
collectively and individually, and voted themselves salaries equal to those
of Napoleon's generals, the armies fell into a state of destitution which
scarcely any but Spanish troops would have been capable of enduring. The
energy of the humbler classes alone prolonged the military existence of the
insurrection; the Government organised nothing, comprehended nothing. Its
part in the national movement was confined to a system of begging and
boasting, which demoralised the Spaniards, and bewildered the agents and
generals of England who first attempted the difficult task of assisting the
Spaniards to help themselves. When the approach of army after army, the
levies of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Italy, in addition to Napoleon's
own veteran troops of Austerlitz and Jena, gave to the rest of the world
some idea of the enormous force which Napoleon was about to throw on to
Spain, the Spanish Government could form no better design than to repeat
the movement of Baylen against Napoleon himself on the banks of the Ebro.
[Napoleon enters Madrid, Dec. 4.]
[Campaign on the Ebro, Nov., 1808.]
The Emperor for the first time crossed the Pyrenees in the beginning of
November, 1808. The victory of the Spaniards in the summer had forced the
invaders to retire into the district between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and
the Ebro now formed the dividing-line between the hostile armies. It was
the intention of Napoleon to roll back the extremes of the Spanish line to
the east and the west, and, breaking through its centre, to move straight
upon Burgos and Madrid. The Spaniards, for their part, were not content to
act upon the defensive. When Napoleon arrived at Vittoria on the 5th of
November, the left wing of the Spanish army under General Blake had already
received orders to move eastwards from the upper waters of the Ebro, and to
cut the French off from their communication with the Pyrenees. The movement
was exactly that which Napoleon desired; for in executing it, Blake had
only to march far enough eastwards to find himself completely surrounded by
French divisions. A premature movement of the French generals themselves
alone saved Blake from total destruction. He was attacked and defeated at
Espinosa, on the upper Ebro, before he had advanced far enough to lose his
line of retreat (Nov. 10); and, after suffering great losses, he succeeded
in leading off a remnant of his army into the mountains of Asturias. In the
centre, Soult drove the enemy before him, and captured Burgos. Of the army
which was to have cleared Spain of the French, nothing now remained but a
corps on the right at Tudela, commanded by Palafox. The destruction of this
body was committed by the Emperor to Lannes and Ney. Ney was ordered to
take a long march southwards in order to cut off the retreat of the
Spaniards; he found it impossible, however, to execute his march within the
time prescribed; and Palafox, beaten by Lannes at Tudela, made good his
retreat into Saragossa. A series of accidents had thus saved the divisions
of the Spanish army from actual capture, but there no longer existed a
force capable of meeting the enemy in the field. Napoleon moved forward
from Burgos upon Madrid. The rest of his march was a triumph. The batteries
defending the mountain-pass of Somo Sierra were captured by a charge of
Polish cavalry; and the capital itself surrendered, after a short artillery
fire, on the 4th of December, four weeks after the opening of the campaign.
[Campaign of Sir John Moore.]
An English army was slowly and painfully making its way towards the Ebro at
the time when Napoleon broke in pieces the Spanish line of defence. On the
14th of October Sir John Moore had assumed the command of 20,000 British
troops at Lisbon. He was instructed to march to the neighbourhood of
Burgos, and to co-operate with the Spanish generals upon the Ebro.
According to the habit of the English, no allowance was made for the
movements of the enemy while their own were under consideration; and the
mountain-country which Moore had to traverse placed additional obstacles in
the way of an expedition at least a month too late in its starting. Moore
believed it to be impossible to carry his artillery over the direct road
from Lisbon to Salamanca, and sent it round by way of Madrid, while he
himself advanced through Ciudad Rodrigo, reaching Salamanca on the 13th of
November. Here, while still waiting for his artillery, rumours reached him
of the destruction of Blake's army at Espinosa, and of the fall of Burgos.
Later came the report of Palafox's overthrow at Tudela. Yet even now Moore
could get no trustworthy information from the Spanish authorities. He
remained for some time in suspense, and finally determined to retreat into
Portugal. Orders were sent to Sir David Baird, who was approaching with
reinforcements from Corunna, to turn back towards the northern coast.
Scarcely had Moore formed this decision, when despatches arrived from
Frere, the British agent at Madrid, stating that the Spaniards were about
to defend the capital to the last extremity, and that Moore would be
responsible for the ruin of Spain and the disgrace of England if he failed
to advance to its relief. To the great joy of his soldiers, Moore gave
orders for a forward march. The army advanced upon Valladolid, with the
view of attacking the French upon their line of communication, while the
siege of the capital engaged them in front. Baird was again ordered
southwards. It was not until the 14th of December, ten days after Madrid
had passed into the hands of the French, that Moore received intelligence
of its fall. Neither the Spanish Government nor the British agent who had
caused Moore to advance took the trouble to inform him of the surrender of
the capital; he learnt it from an intercepted French despatch. From the
same despatch Moore learnt that to the north of him, at Saldanha, on the
river Carrion, there lay a comparatively small French force under the
command of Soult. The information was enough for Moore, heart-sick at the
mockery to which his army had been subjected, and burning for decisive
action. He turned northwards, and marched against Soult, in the hope of
surprising him before the news of his danger could reach Napoleon in the
capital.
[Napoleon marches against Moore, Dec. 19.]
[Retreat of the English.]
[Corunna, Jan. 16, 1809.]
On the 19th of December a report reached Madrid that Moore had suspended
his retreat on Portugal. Napoleon instantly divined the actual movement of
the English, and hurried from Madrid against Moore at the head of 40,000
men. Moore had met Baird on the 20th at Mayorga; on the 23rd the united
British divisions reached Sahagun, scarcely a day's march from Soult at
Saldanha. Here the English commander learnt that Napoleon himself was on
his track. Escape was a question of hours. Napoleon had pushed across the
Guadarama mountains in forced marches through snow and storm. Had his
vanguard been able to seize the bridge over the river Esla at Benavente
before the English crossed it, Moore would have been cut off from all
possibility of escape. The English reached the river first and blew up the
bridge. This rescued them from immediate danger. The defence of the river
gave Moore's army a start which rendered the superiority of Napoleon's
numbers of little effect. For a while Napoleon followed Moore towards the
northern coast. On the 1st of January, 1809, he wrote an order which showed
that he looked upon Moore's escape as now inevitable, and on the next day
he quitted the army, leaving to his marshals the honour of toiling after
Moore to the coast, and of seizing some thousands of frozen or drunken
British stragglers. Moore himself pushed on towards Corunna with a rapidity
which was dearly paid for by the demoralisation of his army. The sufferings
and the excesses of the troops were frightful; only the rear-guard, which
had to face the enemy, preserved soldierly order. At length Moore found it
necessary to halt and take up position, in order to restore the discipline
of his army. He turned upon Soult at Lugo, and offered battle for two
successive days; but the French general declined an engagement; and Moore,
satisfied with having recruited his troops, continued his march upon
Corunna. Soult still followed. On January 11th the English army reached the
sea; but the ships which were to convey them back to England were nowhere
to be seen. A battle was inevitable, and Moore drew up his troops, 14,000
in number, on a range of low hills outside the town to await the attack of
the French. On the 16th, when the fleet had now come into harbour, Soult
gave battle. The French were defeated at every point of their attack. Moore
fell at the moment of his victory, conscious that the army which he had so
bravely led had nothing more to fear. The embarkation was effected that
night; on the next day the fleet put out to sea.
[Siege of Saragossa, Dec., 1808.]
[Napoleon leaves Spain, Jan 19, 1809.]
Napoleon quitted Spain on the 19th of January, 1809, leaving his brother
Joseph again in possession of the capital, and an army of 300,000 men under
the best generals of France engaged with the remnants of a defeated force
which had never reached half that number. No brilliant victories remained
to be won; no enemy remained in the field important enough to require the
presence of Napoleon. Difficulties of transit and the hostility of the
people might render the subjugation of Spain a slower process than the
subjugation of Prussia or Italy; but, to all appearance, the ultimate
success of the Emperor's plans was certain, and the worst that lay before
his lieutenants was a series of wearisome and obscure exertions against an
inconsiderable foe. Yet, before the Emperor had been many weeks in Paris, a
report reached him from Marshal Lannes which told of some strange form of
military capacity among the people whose armies were so contemptible in the
field. The city of Saragossa, after successfully resisting its besiegers in
the summer of 1808, had been a second time invested after the defeats of
the Spanish armies upon the Ebro. [153] The besiegers themselves were
suffering from extreme scarcity when, on the 22nd of January, 1809, Lannes
took up the command. Lannes immediately called up all the troops within
reach, and pressed the battering operations with the utmost vigour. On the
29th, the walls of Saragossa were stormed in four different places.
[Defeats of the Spaniards, March, 1809.]
According to all ordinary precedents of war, the French were now in
possession of the city. But the besiegers found that their real work was
only beginning. The streets were trenched and barricaded; every dwelling
was converted into a fortress; for twenty days the French were forced to
besiege house by house. In the centre of the town the popular leaders
erected a gallows, and there they hanged every one who flinched from
meeting the enemy. Disease was added to the horrors of warfare. In the
cellars, where the women and children crowded in filth and darkness, a
malignant pestilence broke out, which, at the beginning of February, raised
the deaths to five hundred a day. The dead bodies were unburied; in that
poisoned atmosphere the slightest wound produced mortification and death.
At length the powers of the defenders sank. A fourth part of the town had
been won by the French; of the townspeople and peasants who were within the
walls at the beginning of the siege, it is said that thirty thousand had
perished; the remainder could only prolong their defence to fall in a few
days more before disease or the enemy. Even now there were members of the
Junta who wished to fight as long as a man remained, but they were
outnumbered. On the 20th of February what was left of Saragossa
capitulated. Its resistance gave to the bravest of Napoleon's soldiers an
impression of horror and dismay new even to men who had passed through
seventeen years of revolutionary warfare, but it failed to retard
Napoleon's armies in the conquest of Spain. No attempt was made to relieve
the heroic or ferocious city. Everywhere the tide of French conquest
appeared to be steadily making its advance. Soult invaded Portugal; in
combination with him, two armies moved from Madrid upon the southern and
the south-western provinces of Spain. Oporto fell on the 28th of March; in
the same week the Spanish forces covering the south were decisively beaten
at Ciudad Real and at Medellin upon the line of the Guadiana. The hopes of
Europe fell. Spain itself could expect no second Saragossa. It appeared as
if the complete subjugation of the Peninsula could now only be delayed by
the mistakes of the French generals themselves, and by the untimely removal
of that controlling will which had hitherto made every movement a step
forward in conquest.