Insurrection of the Spaniards and Portuguese--Their Alliance with
England--Battle of Riosecco--Joseph enters Madrid--First Siege of
Zaragossa--Dupont's March into Andalusia--The Battle of
Baylen--Dupont Surrenders--Joseph quits Madrid--Situation of
Junot--Arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley--Battle of Rorica--Battle of
Vimiero--Convention of Cintra.
On the 4th of July the King of England addressed his Parliament on the
subject which then fixed the universal enthusiasm of his people. "I
view" (said he) "with the liveliest interest the loyal and determined
spirit manifested in resisting the violence and perfidy with which the
dearest rights of the Spanish nation have been assailed. The kingdom
thus nobly struggling against the usurpation and tyranny of France, can
no longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, but is recognised
by me as a natural friend and ally." It has been already mentioned that
the British commanders in the neighbourhood of Spain did not wait for
orders from home to espouse openly the cause of the insurgent nation.
The Spanish prisoners of war were forthwith released, clothed, equipped,
and sent back to their country. Supplies of arms and money were
liberally transmitted thither; and, Portugal catching the flame and
bursting into general insurrection also, a formal treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, was soon concluded between England and the two
kingdoms of the Peninsula.
This insurrection furnished Great Britain with what she had not yet
possessed during the war, a favourable theatre whereon to oppose the
full strength of her empire to the arms of Napoleon; and the opportunity
was embraced with zeal, though for some time but little skill appeared
in the manner of using it. The Emperor, on the other hand, observed with
surprise and rage the energy of the Spaniards, and not doubting that
England would hasten to their aid, bent every effort to consummate his
flagitious purpose. "Thus" (says a distinguished writer) "the two
leading nations of the world were brought into contact at a moment when
both were disturbed by angry passions, eager for great events, and
possessed of surprising power."[59]
Napoleon, from the extent and population of his empire, under the
operation of the Conscription Code was enabled to maintain an army
500,000 strong; but his relations with those powers on the continent
whom he had not entirely subdued were of the most unstable character,
and even the states which he had formally united to France were, without
exception, pregnant with the elements of disaffection. It was therefore
impossible for him to concentrate the whole of his gigantic strength on
the soil of Spain. His troops, moreover, being drawn from a multitude of
different countries and tongues, could not be united in heart or in
discipline like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the other
hand, the military genius at his command has never been surpassed in any
age or country: his officers were accustomed to victory, and his own
reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes. The
pecuniary resources of the vast empire were great, and they were managed
so skilfully by Buonaparte that the supplies were raised within the
year, and in a metallic currency.
His ancient enemy was omnipotent at sea; and if the character of her
armies stood at the moment much lower both at home and abroad than it
ever deserved to do, this was a mistake which one well-organised
campaign was likely to extinguish. England possessed at this time a
population of twenty millions, united in the spirit of loyalty and
regarding the Spanish cause as just, noble and sacred: a standing army
of 200,000 of the best troops in the world, an immense recruiting
establishment, and a system of militia which enabled her to swell her
muster to any limit. Her colonies occupied a large share of this army;
but there remained at her immediate command a force at least equal to
that with which Buonaparte had conquered Austria and Prussia. Her credit
was unbounded; and her commerce not only supplied means of information
altogether unrivalled, but secured for her the secret goodwill of whole
classes in every country. England possessed Generals worthy to cope with
the best of Buonaparte's Marshals, and in the hour of need discovered
that she possessed one capable of confronting, and of conquering, the
great Emperor himself. Finally, she possessed the incalculable
advantage of warring on the side of justice and freedom, against an
usurper, whose crimes were on the same gigantic scale with his genius.
The remembrance of their leader's perfidy weighed heavily on the moral
strength of the French army throughout the approaching contest; while a
proud conviction that their cause was the right sustained the hearts of
the English.
Upon them, ultimately, the chief burden and the chief glory of the war
devolved: yet justice will ever be done to the virtuous exertions of
their allies of the Peninsula. At the moment when the insurrection
occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of
Junot; 15,000 more, under the Marquis de Romana, were serving Napoleon
in Holstein. There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss, and
30,000 militia; but of the best of these the discipline, when compared
with French or English armies, was contemptible. The nobility, to whose
order the chief officers belonged, were divided in their
sentiments--perhaps the greater number inclined to the interests of
Joseph. Above all, the troops were scattered, in small sections, over
the face of the whole country, and there was no probability that any one
regular army should be able to muster so strong as to withstand the
efforts of a mere fragment of the French force already established
within the kingdom. The fleets of Spain had been destroyed in the war
with England: her commerce and revenues had been mortally wounded by the
alliance with France and the maladministration of Godoy. Ferdinand was
detained a prisoner in France. There was no natural leader or chief,
around whom the whole energies of the nation might be expected to rally.
It was amidst such adverse circumstances that the Spanish people rose
everywhere, smarting under intolerable wrongs, against a French army,
already 80,000 strong, in possession of half the fortresses of the
country, and in perfect communication with the mighty resources of
Napoleon.
There are authors who still delight to undervalue the motives of this
great national movement; according to whom the commercial classes rose
chiefly, if not solely, from their resentment of the pecuniary losses
inflicted on them by Godoy's alliance with the author of the
"continental system"; the priesthood because Godoy had impoverished the
church, and they feared that a Buonapartean government would pursue the
same course to a much greater extent; the peasantry because their
priests commanded them. All these influences unquestionably operated,
and all strongly; but who can believe in the absence of others
infinitely above these, and common to all the Spaniards who, during six
years, fought and bled, and saw their towns ruined and their soil a
waste, that they might vindicate their birthright, the independence of
their nation? Nor can similar praise be refused to the great majority of
the Portuguese. Napoleon summoned a body of the nobles of that kingdom
also to meet him early in the year at Bayonne: they obeyed, and being
addressed by the haughty usurper in person, resisted all his efforts to
cajole them into an imitation of the Spanish Notables, who at the same
time and place accepted Joseph for their King. They were in consequence
retained as prisoners in France during the war which followed; but their
fate operated as a new stimulus upon the general feeling of their
countrymen at home, already well prepared for insurrection by the brutal
oppression of Junot.
The Spanish arms were at first exposed to many reverses; the rawness of
their levies, and the insulated nature of their movements, being
disadvantages of which it was not difficult for the experienced Generals
and overpowering numbers of the French to reap a full and bloody
harvest. After various petty skirmishes, in which the insurgents of
Arragon were worsted by Lefebre Desnouettes, and those of Navarre and
Biscay by Bessieres, the latter officer came upon the united armies of
Castile, Leon and Galicia, commanded by the Generals Cuesta and Blake,
on the 14th of July, at Riosecco, and defeated them in a desperate
action, in which not less than 20,000 Spaniards died. This calamitous
battle it was which opened the gates of Madrid to the intrusive
king--whose arrival in that capital on the 20th of the same month has
already been mentioned.
But Joseph was not destined to remain long in Madrid: the fortune of
war, after the great day of Riosecco, was everywhere on the side of the
patriots. Duhesme, who had so treacherously possessed himself of
Barcelona and Figueras, found himself surrounded by the Catalonian
mountaineers, who, after various affairs, in which much blood was shed
on both sides, compelled him to shut himself up in Barcelona. Marshal
Moncey conducted another large division of the French towards Valencia,
and was to have been further reinforced by a detachment from Duhesme.
The course of events in Catalonia prevented Duhesme from affording any
such assistance; and the inhabitants of Valencia, male and female,
rising _en masse_, and headed by their clergy, manned their walls with
such determined resolution, that the French marshal was at length
compelled to retreat. He fell back upon the main body, under Bessieres,
but did not effect a conjunction with them until his troops had suffered
miserably in their march through an extensive district, in which every
inhabitant was a watchful enemy.
A far more signal catastrophe had befallen another powerful _corps
d'armee_, under General Dupont, which marched from Madrid towards the
south, with the view of suppressing all symptoms of insurrection in that
quarter, and, especially, of securing the great naval station of Cadiz,
where a French squadron lay, watched, as usual, by the English. Dupont's
force was increased as he advanced, till it amounted to 20,000 men; and
with these he took possession of Baylen and La Carolina, in Andalusia,
and stormed Jaen. But before he could make these acquisitions, the
citizens of Cadiz had universally taken the patriot side; the commander
of the French vessels had been forced to surrender them; and the place,
having opened a communication with the English fleet, assumed a posture
of determined defence. General Castanos, the Spanish commander in that
province, meanwhile, having held back from battle until his raw troops
should have had time to be disciplined, began at length to threaten the
position of the French. Jaen was attacked by him with such vigour, that
Dupont was fain to evacuate it, and fall back to Baylen, where his
troops soon suffered severe privations, the peasantry being in arms all
around them, and the supply of food becoming from day to day more
difficult. On the 16th of July, Dupont was attacked at Baylen by
Castanos, who knew from an intercepted despatch the extent of his
enemy's distress: the French were beaten, and driven as far as Menjibar.
They returned on the 18th, and attempted to recover Baylen; but, after a
long and desperate battle, in which 3000 of the French were killed,
Dupont, perceiving that the Spaniards were gathering all around in
numbers not to be resisted, proposed to capitulate. In effect, he and
20,000 soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, on condition that they
should be transported in safety into France. The Spaniards broke this
convention, and detained them as prisoners--thus, foolishly as well a
wickedly, imitating the perfidy of Napoleon's own conduct to Spain. This
battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself
_the Caudine forks_ of the French army. He attributed the disaster to
treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the result of the rashness of
the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part
of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders: the light troops of Castanos
pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King
Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed his
headquarters to Vittoria.
In the meantime Lefebre Desnouettes, whose early success in Arragon has
been alluded to, was occupied with the siege of Zaragossa--the
inhabitants of which city had risen in the first outbreak, and prepared
to defend their walls to the last extremity. Don Jose Palafox, a young
nobleman of no great talents, who had made his escape from Bayonne, was
invested with the command; but the real leaders were the priests and
some of the private citizens, who selected him for the prominent place
as belonging to a family of eminent distinction in their kingdom, but in
effect considered and used him as their tool. Some Spanish and Walloon
regiments, who had formed the garrisons of strong places treacherously
seized by the enemy before the war commenced, had united with Palafox,
and various bloody skirmishes had occurred--ere the French general was
enabled to shut them up in Zaragossa and form the siege. The importance
of success in this enterprise was momentous, especially after the
failure of Moncey at Valencia. Napoleon himself early saw, that if the
Valencians should be able to form an union with the Arragonese at
Zaragossa, the situation of the Catalonian insurgents on the one side
would be prodigiously strengthened; while, on the other hand, the armies
of Leon and Galicia (whose coasts offered the means of continual
communication with England) would conduct their operations in the
immediate vicinity of the only great road left open between Madrid and
Bayonne--the route by Burgos. He therefore had instructed Savary to
consider Zaragossa as an object of the very highest importance; but the
corps of Lefebre was not strengthened as the Emperor would have wished
it to be, ere he sat down before Zaragossa. The siege was pressed with
the utmost vigour; but the immortal heroism of the citizens baffled all
the valour of the French. There were no regular works worthy of notice:
but the old Moorish walls, not above eight or ten feet in height, and
some extensive monastic buildings in the outskirts of the city, being
manned by crowds of determined men, whose wives and daughters looked on,
nay, mingled boldly in their defence--the besiegers were held at bay
week after week, and saw their ranks thinned in continual assaults
without being able to secure any adequate advantage. Famine came and
disease in its train, to aggravate the sufferings of the townspeople;
but they would listen to no suggestions but those of the same proud
spirit in which they had begun. The French at length gained possession
of the great convent of St. Engracia, and thus established themselves
within the town itself: their general then sent to Palafox this brief
summons: "Headquarters, Santa Engracia--Capitulation"; but he received
for answer: "Headquarters, Zaragossa--War to the knife." The battle was
maintained literally from street to street, from house to house, and
from chamber to chamber. Men and women fought side by side, amidst
flames and carnage; until Lefebre received the news of Baylen, and
having wasted two months in his enterprise, abandoned it abruptly, lest
he should find himself insulated amidst the general retreat of the
French armies. Such was the first of the two famous sieges of Zaragossa.
The English government meanwhile had begun their preparations for
interfering effectually in the affairs of the Peninsula. They had
despatched one body of troops to the support of Castanos in Andalusia;
but these did not reach the south of Spain until their assistance was
rendered unnecessary by the surrender of Dupont at Baylen. A more
considerable force, amounting to 10,000, sailed early in June, from
Cork, for Coruna, under the command of the Honourable Sir Arthur
Wellesley. This armament, originally designed to co-operate with another
from India in a great attack on Mexico, had its destination altered the
moment the Spanish Insurrection was announced. Sir Arthur, being
permitted to land at what point of the Peninsula he should judge most
advantageous for the general cause, was soon satisfied that Portugal
ought to be the first scene of his operations, and accordingly lost no
time in opening a communication with the patriots, who had taken
possession of Oporto. Here the troops which had been designed to aid
Castanos joined him. Thus strengthened, and well informed of the state
of the French armies in Spain, Sir Arthur resolved to effect a landing
and attack Junot while circumstances seemed to indicate no chance of his
being reinforced by Bessieres.
It is, perhaps, an evil unavoidable in the institutions of an old and
settled government, that men rarely, very rarely, unless they possess
the advantages of illustrious birth and connection, can hope to be
placed in situations of the highest importance until they have passed
the prime vigour of their days. Sir Arthur Wellesley, fortunately for
England and for Europe, commenced life under circumstances eminently
favourable for the early development and recognition of his great
talents. To his brother, the Marquis Wellesley's rank as
Governor-General of India, he owed the opportunity of conducting our
armies in the East at a time of life when, if of inferior birth, he
could hardly have commanded a battalion; and the magnificent campaign of
Assaye so established his reputation, that shortly after his return to
Europe he was entrusted without hesitation with the armament assembled
at Cork.
It was on the 8th of August, 1808--a day ever memorable in the history
of Britain--that Sir Arthur Wellesley effected his debarkation in the
bay of Mondego. He immediately commenced his march towards Lisbon, and
on the 17th came up with the enemy under General Laborde, strongly
posted on an eminence near Rorica. The French contested their ground
gallantly, but were driven from it at the point of the bayonet, and
compelled to retreat. The British General, having hardly any cavalry,
was unable to pursue them so closely as he otherwise would have done:
and Laborde succeeded in joining his shattered division to the rest of
the French forces in Portugal. Junot (recently created Duke of Abrantes)
now took the command in person; and finding himself at the head of full
24,000 troops, while the English army were greatly inferior in numbers,
and miserably supplied with cavalry and artillery, he did not hesitate
to assume the offensive. On the 21st of August he attacked Sir Arthur at
Vimiero. In the language of the English General's despatch, "a most
desperate contest ensued"; and the result was "a signal defeat," Junot,
having lost thirteen cannon and more than two thousand men, immediately
fell back upon Lisbon, where his position was protected by the strong
defile of the Torres Vedras.
This retreat would not have been accomplished without much more
fighting, had Sir Arthur Wellesley been permitted to follow up his
victory, according to the dictates of his own understanding and the
enthusiastic wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to
begin, Sir Harry Burrard, an old officer of superior rank, unfortunately
entitled to assume the chief command, arrived on the field. Finding that
Sir Arthur had made all his dispositions, General Burrard handsomely
declined interfering until the fortune of the day should be decided; but
he took the command as soon as the victory was won, and more cautiously
than wisely, prevented the army from instantly advancing, as Sir Arthur
Wellesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, and thus
endeavouring to intercept the retreat of Junot upon Lisbon. Sir Harry,
having made this unhappy use of his command, was, the very next day,
superseded in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar;
another veteran more disposed to imitate the prudence of Burrard than
the daring of Wellesley.
Shortly after the third general had taken the command, Junot sent
Kellerman to demand a truce, and propose a convention for the evacuation
of Portugal by the troops under his orders. Dalrymple received Kellerman
with more eagerness of civility than became the chief of a victorious
army, and forthwith granted the desired armistice. Junot offered to
surrender his magazine, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British
would disembark his soldiers, with their arms, at any French port
between Rochefort and L'Orient, and permit them to take with them their
private property; and Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these
terms, although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a
reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the negotiation. The
famous "_Convention of Cintra_" (most absurdly so named, as it was in
fact concluded thirty miles from Cintra) was signed accordingly on the
30th of August; and the French army wholly evacuated Portugal in the
manner provided for. The English people heard with indignation that the
spoilers of Portugal had been suffered to escape on such terms; and the
article concerning private property gave especial offence, as under that
cover the French removed with them a large share of the plunder which
they had amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their
occupation of the Portuguese territories. A parliamentary investigation
was followed by a court-martial, which acquitted Dalrymple. In truth it
seems now to be admitted, by competent judges, that after Burrard had
interfered so as to prevent Wellesley from instantly following up the
success of Vimiero, and so enabled Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure
the pass of the Torres Vedras, it would have been imprudent to decline
the terms proffered by a repelled, but still powerful enemy--who, if
driven to extremities, could hardly fail to prolong the war, until
Napoleon should be able to send him additional forces from Spain.
Meanwhile Portugal was free from the presence of her enemies; England
had obtained a permanent footing within the Peninsula; what was of still
higher moment, the character of the British army was raised not only
abroad, but at home; and had the two insurgent nations availed
themselves, as they ought to have done, of the resources which their
great ally placed at their command, and conducted their own affairs with
unity and strength of purpose, the deliverance of the whole peninsula
might have been achieved years before that consummation actually took
place.
The Portuguese, however, split into factions--under leaders whose
primary objects were selfish, who rivalled each other in their absurd
jealousy of England, afforded to her troops no such supplies and
facilities as they had the best title to demand and expect, and wasted
their time in petty political intrigues, instead of devoting every
energy to the organisation of an efficient army, and improving the
defences of their naturally strong frontier. The Spaniards conducted
themselves with even more signal imprudence. For months each provincial
junta seemed to prefer the continuance of its own authority to the
obvious necessity of merging all their powers in some central body,
capable of controlling and directing the whole force of the nation; and
after a supreme junta was at last established in Madrid, its orders were
continually disputed and disobeyed--so that in effect there was no
national government. Equally disgraceful jealousies among the generals
prevented the armies from being placed under one supreme chief,
responsible for the combination of all their movements. In place of this
it was with difficulty that the various independent generals could be
prevailed on even to meet at Madrid, and agree to the outline of a joint
campaign; and that outline seemed to have no recommendation except that
its gross military defects held out to each member of the Council the
prospect of being able to act without communication, for good or for
evil, with any of the others. The consequences of these shameful follies
were calamitous: and but for events which could not have been foreseen,
must have proved fatal: for the gigantic resources of the common enemy
were about to be set in motion by Napoleon himself; who, on hearing of
the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived too clearly that
the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand
than his brother's.
[Footnote 59: Col. Napier, chap. i.]