THE COURSE OF THE PENINSULAR WAR[36]
[Footnote 36: See Napier, Peninsular War.]
Napoleon's Plans for Spain -- Character of the Troops Sent
Thither -- Conflicting Policies in England -- The Battle of
Busaco -- The Lines of Torres Vedras -- Soult's Dilatoriness --
Consequences of the Spanish Campaign -- English Opinion Opposed
to Wellington -- Difficulties of Spanish Warfare -- Marmont
Replaces Massena -- French Successes -- Their Slight Value -- The
French Character and the Spanish Invasion.
But matters were much worse beyond the Pyrenees, where there was open
warfare. The seizure of the northern provinces marked the commencement
of a new policy, nothing less than the incorporation of all Spain in
France. Azanza, the envoy of Joseph at Paris, could scarcely trust his
senses when, after long and fruitless efforts to persuade Napoleon
that the troubles of Spain were due to the rapine of the French
generals and the quarrels of their unbridled soldiery, and that the
new King's moderation would be a perfect remedy if left to work its
effects, he was finally shown his master's carefully written
abdication, only waiting on events for publication, and was harshly
told in reply to his intercessions for the integrity of his country
that it was merely "the natural extension of France." It was
Talleyrand who originally said that Italy was the flank of France,
Spain its natural continuation, and Holland its alluvium.
Spain was to be conquered step by step, and by a season of military
administration each new acquisition was to be made ready for the
eventual dignity of a French department. A manifesto setting forth
this policy was prepared and was to be duly issued to the Spanish
people, but it never reached Madrid. The courier who carried it was
captured by a guerrilla, and the proclamation was at once printed in a
popular journal and copied thence into the "London Courier." It is not
difficult to imagine how its perusal intensified the ever-growing
national passion of the insurgent Spaniards for emancipation from the
French yoke.
This spirit was England's powerful ally and Massena's destructive foe.
The great marshal, second in ability only to his imperial master, had
succeeded to the command in the peninsula. The Imperial Guard was the
mainstay of the reinforcements despatched thither in order to end the
military conflict and inaugurate the new peaceful warfare by enforcing
the Continental system of commercial embargo for humiliating England.
Besides the guard there were, however, some of those regiments which
had quailed at Vienna before the supposed approach of the Archduke
John's army from Hungary after the battle of Wagram, by no means the
flower of the Emperor's troops. These newcomers, together with the
forces already in Spain under Suchet, Augereau, Reille, and Thouvenot,
and the remnant of those troops which had been under Soult, were
quickly organized for offensive warfare, first against the Spaniards
and then against the English under Wellington who were still holding
Portugal. The three army corps which were collected in Leon ready for
advance were commanded respectively by Ney, Junot, and Regnier. Their
number on paper was eighty thousand; in reality there were not more
than fifty thousand effective fighting men. By the arrival of Hill's
corps to reinforce Wellington the English numbered nearly if not quite
as many.
For three years public opinion in England had been divided, some
sustaining on the one hand Canning's policy of striving to defeat
Napoleon by rousing the Continental nations and furnishing them with
subsidies for warfare, others preferring that of Castlereagh, which
advocated the sending of English forces into the Continent. The latter
theory had temporarily prevailed. Three expeditions, one to Portugal,
one to Walcheren, and one to Sicily, had been entire or partial
failures. But Wellington's victory at Talavera having kept the
peninsular ports open to English trade, his older brother, Lord
Wellesley, who was now secretary for foreign affairs in the new
cabinet, and who ardently believed that thus alone could England win,
managed continuously to reinforce the army in Portugal until at last
it was strong in numbers and efficient as a fighting machine.
From beginning to end Massena's campaign was marked by unexpected
disaster. Such were the zeal and endurance of the Spaniards that the
old, ill-constructed fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo held out from the
beginning of June until the ninth of July. Owing to the great heat and
the preparations necessary in a hostile and deserted land, Almeida,
which next blocked the way, was not even beleaguered until August
fifteenth, and it held out for nearly a fortnight. Finally, on
September sixteenth, Massena crossed the Portuguese frontier, and
Wellington, who lay near by but had not ventured to assume the
offensive, began a slow and cautious retreat down the valley of the
Mondego, devastating the country as he went. At last he made a stand
on the heights near Busaco, over against a gorge where the river
breaks through the hills into the plains below. Massena attacked on
September twenty-seventh and was repulsed with a loss of four thousand
five hundred dead and wounded. His division commanders showed at once
a spirit which soon developed into unruliness: they had declared from
the outset that their force was not sufficiently strong for the task
assigned to it, and they now demanded a retreat. But the veteran
Massena stood firm: his scouts had brought word of a certain
unprotected vale or rather depression of the land on the English left,
which, having apparently escaped Wellington's observation, was not
fortified, and the French commander determined to outflank his foe on
that line. The movement was thoroughly successful and the British
began a rapid retreat southward before the advancing French.
Massena found easy sustenance for man and beast in the rich lowlands
about Coimbra, and halting in that town for a short time to recruit
his strength and nurse his sick, started at last in the full tide of
success for Lisbon and the sea, to drive the English to their ships
and complete the Continental embargo. As one day succeeded another,
his hopes grew higher until at last he overtook and began to skirmish
with the English rear-guard. But after a final dash on October
eleventh, that rear-guard suddenly vanished. Two days later the French
were brought suddenly to a standstill before a long, perfectly
constructed, and bristling line of fortifications of whose existence
they had known absolutely nothing. These were the famous lines of
Torres Vedras, constructed by Wellington in his recent enforced
vacation, to guard his eventual retreat and embarkment, provided Sir
John Moore's unfortunate campaign and the last Austrian war should
find a climax in a similar French victory over all Spain. These lines
effectually protected the right bank of the Tagus. They consisted of
one hundred and fifty-two redoubts, equipped with seven hundred guns
and manned by thirty thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese,
and eight thousand Spaniards. As Massena now had but forty-five
thousand men, there could be no question of storming such a fortress,
and nothing was left but to await reinforcements and plan a strategic
movement by which he might cross the Tagus, threaten Lisbon from the
left bank, draw off the foe to its defense, and thus perhaps, having
weakened the garrison, secure the possibility of a successful attack
on the fortified lines in front.
The notion was not visionary. Soult had been despatched with a strong
force southward into Andalusia, with orders to crush out the
resistance of that province; he was then to turn westward, join
Massena in Portugal, and cooeperate with him under his orders for the
expulsion of the English. The belated expedition had not arrived, but
in spite of the delay and disappointment it must surely come at last;
and if the Emperor would but consent to order up the troops lying in
Castile, the quickly formed and brilliant plan of Massena would be
feasible. But, alas for the scheme, what was apparently jealousy on
the part of Soult had quenched all ardor in the Andalusian invasion.
He was at this moment before Cadiz, carrying on a siege in which
either the Spanish were displaying great courage or the French but
little heart. His sluggish progress was not unobserved at Paris, and
finally under pressure he left half his force before the walls of the
"white city," while with the other he advanced and captured the
fortress of Badajoz. There he paused of necessity, being falsely
informed that Massena, who had only withdrawn toward Santarem, was in
full retreat, but being correctly notified that the portions of his
own force left before Cadiz were not able to hold their own. Having
been virtually defeated in his attack on Sir John Moore, his invasion
of Portugal in 1809 had been temporarily successful; but he had
occupied Oporto only to conspire like Junot for the crown of the
country, and he had been driven out without difficulty by the English.
Made commander-in-chief after the empty victory of Wellington at
Talavera, he had won a great battle at Ocana on November nineteenth,
1809; but since then his time had been virtually wasted, for his
bickerings with Joseph and his jealousy of Massena made all his
successes, even this last one at Badajoz, entirely useless. In a short
time he returned to Cadiz, and the French before Lisbon remained
therefore without their auxiliaries.
Both these checks displeased Napoleon greatly. It is often stated that
it was because he felt contempt alike for the Spanish guerrillas and
the English infantry that he delegated the conduct of affairs in the
peninsula to his lieutenants. Quite the reverse appears to be the
truth. Foy, Massena's envoy, reached Paris about the end of November,
and found the Emperor in something like a dull fury. His personal
experience had now the confirmation of that undergone by Massena and
Soult, two of his greatest lieutenants. He had himself found the
rugged and ill-cultivated country unable to support large armies. It
was a discouraging fact that neither Soult nor Massena had succeeded
better than the great captain himself, and Napoleon was thus convinced
that the Continental System could not be enforced against such dogged
persistency as that of the unreasoning, disorganized, but courageous
and frenzied Spaniards, assisted by the cold, calculating, and lucky
Wellington: at least not without terrible cost in life and money.
Accordingly Massena was left without immediate reinforcement, while on
December tenth, 1809, was promulgated the decree incorporating the
North Sea coast into the Empire. Alexander chose to regard this
fateful act as merely disrespectful, remonstrated with the French
envoy at St. Petersburg, and sent a circular to the powers reserving
the rights of his house over Oldenburg; he refused the petty
indemnification of Erfurt offered by Napoleon, and a year later, in
December, 1810, issued a ukase which laid prohibitive duties on French
silks and wines, while at the same time it favored the "neutral"
traffic in English wares. But at the moment he bore the affront
without any menace of war, and merely called attention to the common
obligations of friendship between sovereigns. If the breach were to
occur, it must be plainly and manifestly Napoleon's doing.
Napoleon's failure to reinforce Massena left the situation before
Lisbon precarious. It cannot be proved that he understood all the
difficulties in Wellington's position, but it is not unlikely that he
did. Lisbon was overcrowded with fugitives, and demanded speedy relief
by offensive operations. If Massena had opened a bombardment from the
opposite bank, its inhabitants would have risen in rebellion against
the English general. The opposition party in Westminster used what
seemed in England to be the perennial and everlasting delay of the
younger brother as ground to attack the older one's conduct and to
arraign the entire ministerial policy. The English people had heard of
the Spanish insurrection with wild delight, but the inefficiency and
stubbornness of the insurgent leaders, together with the
untrustworthiness of the provisional governments, had cooled their
ardor, and after the defeat at Ocana--a battle which the vainglorious
Spaniards had fought in direct opposition to Wellington's advice--they
were loud in abuse of their allies. Lord Liverpool openly attacked
Wellington, popular discontent was heightened by the opposition
taunts, and it seemed for a time as if the ministry must abandon the
expedition or fall.
But if Wellington required all the force of his will and the
compulsion of a higher necessity to make him deaf to the clamor of his
allies for an advance, Massena had equal need for strength to sustain
his forces, and to resist the clamor of his own generals for retreat.
Foy finally brought back the necessary orders for reinforcements to
come in from Castile; but, as a large proportion of the men stationed
in that province existed merely on paper, only nine thousand could be
spared from those who actually were there. Still Massena stood like a
rock. Wellington wrote home that with all his money, and assisted by
the good will of the inhabitants, he could not have maintained one
division where all the winter long Massena found sustenance for sixty
thousand men and twelve thousand beasts. This tribute to the
campaigning powers of the French reveals incidentally the exaggerated
conception of their strength entertained by the enemy.
The return of Soult to Cadiz emboldened Wellington to advance into
Spain. After various movements on the part of both sides, Massena was
beaten at Fuentes de Onoro, and Almeida was retaken by the English.
Badajoz was beset by the English, and Soult once more advanced to its
assistance. He, too, was defeated in a battle at Albuera, but
succeeded finally in effecting a junction with Massena, so that
Wellington felt compelled to retreat again into Portugal before the
united army. The exasperation of Napoleon at the failure of Massena in
the battle of Fuentes de Onoro led to the disgrace of the old marshal,
and Marmont was sent to replace him. Such was the difficulty which the
French experienced in securing commissary stores from an impoverished
land that Wellington seemed content to let want fight his battles. The
season of 1811 was marked by inactivity on both sides except in the
east, where Suchet captured Aragon and Valencia, annihilating the
Spanish army under Blake. But at the close of the year Soult was
compelled to withdraw southward toward the coast, in the hope of
securing indispensable supplies. The Spanish guerrillas of central
Spain harassed the French soldiers and took the heart out of them.
Wellington at once resumed the offensive; Ciudad Rodrigo fell before
him on January twelfth, 1812, and on April eighth, after one of the
bravest and bloodiest assaults recorded in English annals, Badajoz
also was carried.
Marmont drew back for concentration, and the English advanced to the
Duero. Thereupon the French turned again, Wellington retreated on
Salamanca, and there made his stand, defeating his enemy on July
twenty-second, in a brilliant engagement. The French commander then
marched to Burgos, but his opponent, instead of following, turned
toward Madrid, in order first to drive Joseph from his capital. By
that time Burgos had been made so strong that all efforts to capture
it proved unavailing, Soult at once abandoned Cadiz and turned
northward to aid Joseph. The English were thus between two foes, and
such was the demoralization of the British soldiery when they
understood their danger that Wellington could with difficulty lead
them back into Portugal. At the close of 1812 the French were in
control of all Spain except the south, which had been freed by Soult's
northward movement. Cadiz became the capital of the nationalists, but
they could not restrain their revolutionary impulses long enough to
form a respectable or trustworthy government, and Wellington was once
more relegated to inactivity. His enforced leisure was occupied by the
consideration of plans for the great successes with which he crowned
the following season.
Viewed from a military standpoint, the French warfare in Spain
appeared utterly disastrous.[37] Regiments melted away like ice before
an April sun; desertions became ominously numerous, and disease laid
thousands low. Guerrilla warfare demoralized the regular forces. The
new conscripts at first showed a noisy zeal, but they had been torn
too young from their home nurture, and had neither strength nor power
of resistance. The troops from vassal kingdoms and newly annexed
territories were dismayed by the sufferings they had to endure, and
beheld with interest the national uprising of the Spaniards, which, in
spite of local jealousies, of rabid and radical doctrines that could
lead to nothing but anarchy, of disastrous failure in government, of
feebleness and falsehood in the temporary rulers, seemed likely to
render of no avail the efforts and successes of a great empire.
[Footnote 37: Oman, History of the Peninsular War, furnishes
much valuable material on this period. His point of view in
one feature is corrected by J. B. Rye and R. A.
Bence-Pembroke of Oxford. See the Army Service Corps
Quarterly, October, 1905.]
Yet in some respects the French character appeared in a stronger light
throughout the disasters of the Peninsular war than at any other time.
Marbot's tale of the beautiful young cantiniere, or woman sutler, of
the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the
English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured
general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the
lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the
unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the
pure-minded gallantry of the English. The same writer's narrative of
the French deserters who, under a leader nicknamed Marshal Stockpot,
established themselves as freebooters in a convent not far from
Massena's headquarters at Santarem, and of the general's swift,
condign punishment of such conduct, graphically delineates the straits
of the French, which led them into the extreme courses that devastated
the land, but it also displays the quality of the discipline which was
exercised whenever possible. Nor should it be forgotten that the two
most splendid writers of France's succeeding age were profoundly
impressed with the terrible scenes of the French invasion of Spain.
George Sand was in Madrid as an infant for a considerable portion of
1808; Victor Hugo passed the year 1811 in a Madrid school, fighting
childish battles for "the great Emperor," whom his Spanish schoolmates
called Napoladron (Napo the robber). Upon both the fact of their
connection with the repulse of Napoleon's armies left a profound
impression. The former was irresistibly drawn to revisit the country;
the latter recalled his impressions in some of his noblest verse.