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