the Centre’ were profiting for many months from the absence of any
danger upon the side of Portugal. Indeed, the period between September
1810 and April 1811 were the least disturbed of any in the short and
troublous reign of the _Rey Intruso_, so far as regular military
affairs went. There was no enemy to face save the guerrilleros, yet
these bold partisans, of whom the best known were the Empecinado and
El Medico (Dr. Juan Palarea) on the side of the eastern mountains, and
Julian Sanchez more to the west, on the borders of Leon, sufficed to
keep the 20,000 men of whom King Joseph could dispose[270] in constant
employment. Such a force was not too much when every small town, almost
every village, of New Castile had to be provided with a garrison.
Roughly speaking, each province absorbed a division: the Germans of
the _Rheinbund_ occupied La Mancha, Lahoussaye’s dragoons and the
incomplete division of Dessolles[271] held Toledo and its district, the
King’s Spaniards the Guadalajara country, leaving only the Royal Guards
and some drafts and detachments to garrison the capital. It was with
considerable difficulty that Joseph collected in January 1811 a small
expeditionary force of not over 3,500 men[272], with which Lahoussaye
went out, partly to open up communications with Soult in Estremadura,
but more especially to search for any traces of the vanished army of
Masséna in the direction of the Portuguese frontier. Lahoussaye started
from Talavera on February 1, communicated by means of his cavalry with
Soult’s outposts between Truxillo and Merida, and then went northward
across the Tagus to Plasencia, from which his cavalry searched in
vain, as far as Coria and Alcantara, for any news of the Army of
Portugal. From Plasencia he was soon driven back to Toledo by want of
supplies. Joseph had directed him to seize Alcantara, re-establish its
broken bridge, and place a garrison there; but this turned out to be
absolutely impossible, for it would have been useless to leave a small
force in this remote spot, when it was certain that it must ere long
retire for lack of food, and might well be cut off by the guerrilleros
before it could reach Talavera, the nearest occupied point[273].
[270] The King in all his dispatches seems to understate his own
force. He sometimes calls it only 15,000 men. But a muster roll
of the Army of the Centre, which I have copied from the Archives
de la Guerre, for February 15, 1811, shows a total of 20,000,
viz. Dessolles, 3,300, German Division, 5,200, Spaniards, 4,200,
Lahoussaye, 2,500, Treillard’s Light Cavalry, 1,400, Artillery
Train, Sappers, &c., 1,500, Royal Guards, 2,000 of all arms.
In addition there were 5,000 drafts for Soult detained in New
Castile, but about to start for Seville.
[271] Which had only seven battalions, the rest being with Soult
in Andalusia.
[272] Composed of two cavalry regiments of Marisy’s brigade,
three German battalions from La Mancha, and two French battalions.
[273] Napoleon in a dispatch of 22 March (_Correspondance_, xxi.
496) blames Lahoussaye for not stopping in northern Estremadura,
in touch with Soult.
The Army of the Centre just sufficed to occupy the kingdom of New
Castile, and was unable to do more. At least, however, it could
maintain its position, and was in no danger. The King was even able
to make state visits to places in the close neighbourhood of Madrid,
such as Alcala and Guadalajara[274], and seems to have regarded
the possibility of such a modest tour as a sign of the approaching
pacification of this region.
[274] See Miot de Melito’s _Mémoires_, iii. 153-6.
But just at the moment when Joseph Bonaparte’s military situation
was safe, if not satisfactory, he was passing through a diplomatic
crisis which absorbed all his attention and reduced him to the verge
of despair. We have already alluded, in an earlier chapter, to
Napoleon’s insane resolve to annex all Spain beyond the Ebro to the
French Empire[275], in return for which he was proposing to hand over
Portugal, when it should be conquered, to his brother. The proclamation
announcing this strange resolve, which was to make Frenchmen of Mina
and all the guerrilleros of Navarre, no less than of the Catalan armies
which were still striving so hard against Macdonald, was delayed in
publication. For the Emperor wished to wait till Lisbon was in the
hands of Masséna, before he made known his purpose. But Joseph was
aware that the proclamation had been drawn up, and had been sent out
to the governors of the northern provinces, who were only waiting for
orders to issue it. The news that the English had evacuated Portugal
might any day arrive, and would be the signal for the dismemberment of
Spain. He had sent in succession to Paris his two most trusted Spanish
adherents, the Duke of Santa-Fé and the Marquis of Almenara, to beg
the Emperor to forgo his purpose; all was to no effect. Santa-Fé came
back in December absolutely crushed by the reception that he had been
given; the Emperor had delivered to him an angry diatribe, in which he
complained that his brother forgot that he was a French prince, and
remarked that ‘many other European sovereigns, who had received much
harder measure, did not make nearly so much noise about it as the King
of Spain[276].’ Almenara reached Madrid about a week later to report an
equally characteristic interview with Napoleon. He had been directed
to inform his master that he should be given one more chance. Let him
open negotiations with the Cortes at Cadiz, making them the offer that
if they would recognize him as King of Spain, he would recognize them
as lawful representatives of the nation, and rule them according to
the constitution drawn up at Bayonne. Cadiz and the other fortresses
held by the troops of the Regency must open their gates, and Napoleon
would then promise to make no annexations of Spanish soil; he would
even guarantee the integrity of the kingdom. If the Cortes refused
to treat, the Emperor would regard himself as free from any previous
engagements made with his brother or the Spanish nation. The provinces
beyond the Ebro would become part of France. He added that if affairs
in Portugal went badly, it would not be wise to open negotiations with
Cadiz at all, for fear that the Spaniards might take the mere fact
that proposals had been made to them as a token of growing fear and
depression on the part of Joseph.
[275] See vol. iii. pp. 506-7.
[276] See Miot’s _Mémoires_, iii. 160, for the discouraging
results of this embassy.
The King and his ministers knew well the impracticability of making
any offer to the government of Cadiz, which (with all its faults and
internal dissensions) was determined to fight to the death, and had
never shown the least intention of recognizing Napoleon’s nominee as
King of Spain. They looked upon the scheme as merely a preliminary to
the publication of the edict for the annexation of the provinces beyond
the Ebro. King Joseph was to be made to demonstrate his own futility,
since he would receive an angry and contemptuous reply, or no reply
at all, and it would then be open to his brother to declare that the
attempt to govern a united Spain by a king had failed, and that it was
necessary to dismember it--perhaps to cut it up into a number of French
military governments. This seems to have been Joseph’s own impression;
in the council at which the Emperor’s proposal was discussed, he
broke out into violent reproaches and bitter complaints against his
brother, and explained with tears to his ministers that he and they
were betrayed. He was now for abdicating, and this would have been the
most dignified course to take. He talked of buying an estate in France,
and settling down, far from Paris, as a private person. He had indeed
charged his wife’s nephew, Marius Clary, to cross the Pyrenees, and
purchase a castle and lands for him in Touraine or the South, where he
might hide his disgrace and disappointment.
This move provoked Napoleon’s wrath. He signified his displeasure.
‘The members of the Imperial family could not legally make any
acquisition of land in France without the formal consent of the
Emperor. In addition, it was impossible for the King of Spain, or the
commander of the Army of the Centre, to quit his post without having
received the Imperial authorization. Painful as the declaration must
be, if the King took such a hazardous step, he should be arrested at
Bayonne on crossing the frontier. There must be no more talk about
the constitution of Bayonne: the Emperor could dispose of Spain at
his good pleasure, and in the interests of the French Empire alone.’
If Joseph persisted in the idea of abdication, he must first make a
formal statement to that effect to the French ambassador at Madrid,
and, provided that it was considered that the step would cause no
dangerous results, nor give rise to any slanderous reports, he might
come to his estate of Morfontaine near Paris and ‘finish the matter _en
règle_[277].’
[277] All this from the letter of the Queen of Spain, detailing
her interview with the Duc de Cadore, who sent for her in the
Emperor’s name on January 15, 1811, and administered this bitter
message to her, for her husband’s benefit. See the letter given
in Miot’s _Mémoires_, iii. 171-2. Cf. Napoleon’s dispatch to
Laforest, ambassador at Madrid, _Correspondance_, 17,111.
Joseph at first seemed inclined to accept any terms by which he
might emerge from his present ignominious position, and actually
had several interviews with Laforest, in which they discussed the
drafting of a deed of abdication. But it seemed that Napoleon would
prefer the prolongation of the present state of affairs, and for his
own purposes intended that a puppet king should continue at Madrid.
By the ambassador’s advice the document ultimately took the shape of
a letter in which Joseph, instead of abdicating in definitive form,
merely stated his wish to do so, and referred it to his brother. His
confidant, Miot de Melito, with whom he talked over the whole matter,
expresses his opinion that at the last moment the fascination of the
crown overpowered his master’s full sense of resentment. ‘The King’s
note was a good piece of writing, but I consider that it did not state
clearly enough that the course to which he inclined, and which he
preferred to all others, was abdication. I wished that he had made a
stronger affirmation of this, and told him so, but to no effect. It
was easy to see that the name of King had still a powerful attraction,
from which Joseph could not escape, and I wondered at the glamour and
intoxication which (as it seems) hangs about supreme power, since the
mere shadow of that power could overweigh with him so many rebuffs and
so much resentment[278].’
[278] Miot’s _Mémoires_, iii. 176.
Napoleon made no reply to his brother’s declaration; he had no
intention of taking over the formal responsibility for the government
of Spain, and preferred to leave another to answer for all its obvious
injustices and oppressions. Affairs were at a standstill for some
months, till in April Joseph, taking the opportunity of a formal
invitation to become one of the godfathers of the newly-born King of
Rome, the heir of the Empire, made a sudden and unauthorized sally
to Paris. He started from Madrid on April 23, accompanied by nine of
his courtiers and ministers, and crossed the Bidassoa into France on
May 10. He made no halt at Bayonne, lest he should be stopped there
by orders from his brother, and when, at Dax in Gascony, he received
an Imperial dispatch forbidding him to quit Spain, he was able to
plead that it was too late to act upon it. Pursuing his journey night
and day, he presented himself at Paris on May 15th, and announced to
Napoleon that he was come to discharge in person the honourable duties
of god-parent at the approaching baptism of his nephew.
Though annoyed at the King’s arrival, for refusals and evasions of a
brother’s petitions are transacted more easily by letter than face to
face, the Emperor thought it well to make no open show of displeasure,
and accepted all the explanations given to him. There followed a series
of interviews at Rambouillet, in which Joseph allowed himself to be
talked out of his project of abdication: for the Emperor declared that
he found him useful in his present position, and informed him that it
was his duty, as a brother and a French prince, to obey the directions
of the head of his house. In return Napoleon promised to make many
arrangements which would render the King’s position less intolerable
than it had been for the last year. He would provide him with a monthly
subsidy of a million francs from the French treasury, of which half
would be for the sustenance of his court and ministers, and the other
half for the pay of the Army of the Centre. Orders were issued to
Soult, commanding the Army of Andalusia, Bessières, commanding the
newly-formed Army of the North, and Suchet, so far as the Army of
Aragon was concerned (but not for Catalonia), by which they were
directed to pay over to a commissary appointed by Joseph one quarter of
the gross revenues which they were raising in the districts which they
occupied. They were also directed to leave the law courts in the King’s
hands, and not to allow judgements to be given in the name of the
Emperor. It was this last practice, frequently adopted by Kellermann in
Castile, which had irritated Joseph more than any other misdemeanour of
the local commandants.
What Joseph most desired, a real directing power over the movements
of all the French troops in Spain, was not given him. But he was
granted a sort of illusory superintending authority: if he was at the
head quarters of any of the armies, he was to be given the honours
of supreme command; all the marshals and generals commanding armies
were to send him frequent reports, and not to undertake any operations
without informing him of them. ‘The King must have reports of
everything that happens; he must know everything, and be able to act in
his central position as a sort of agency for transmitting information
to the generals. This communication of intelligence, observations,
and advice may even take place through his Spanish Minister of
War[279],’ wrote the Emperor. The King flattered himself that this
meagre concession gave him something like a directing authority over
the armies. He told his courtiers that he was given the position of
General-in-Chief[280], and used his brother’s permission to send
advice in reams to each of the local commanders. Unfortunately there
was no way of making them take this advice; they answered more or less
politely, showing reasons why they could not follow it, and went on
their own ways as before. It was to no effect that Joseph got leave to
have his old friend Marshal Jourdan sent back to him, first as governor
of Madrid, and later as chief of the staff. He flattered himself
that his dispatches would be taken more seriously by Soult or Suchet
when they came countersigned by a marshal of France. But he erred,
for the younger commanders looked upon Jourdan as effete and past his
prime--nor were they altogether wrong.
[279] Napoleon to Berthier, from Caen, May 27. _Correspondance_,
no. 17,752.
[280] See Miot de Melito’s _Mémoires_, iii. 197-8, and compare
it with the actual terms of Napoleon’s concession given in his
letter to Berthier quoted above.
Nothing can be more curious than the Emperor’s memorandum to Berthier,
which directs him to lay these conditions before Joseph. ‘I am thus,’
he writes, ‘satisfying the desires which the King expressed to me,
save on the single point of the supreme command over my troops. I
cannot give away that supreme command, because I do not see any man
capable of managing the troops, and yet the command ought to be one and
indivisible. In the note which the King gave me, all the arrangements
were complex and confused. It is in the nature of things that if one
marshal were placed at Madrid, and directed all operations, he would
want to have all the glory along with all the responsibility. The
commanders of the Armies of the South and of Portugal would think
themselves under the orders not so much of the King as of that marshal,
and in consequence would not give him obedience.... My intention is to
make no change whatever in the military command, neither with the Army
of the North, nor the Army of Aragon, nor the Army of the South, nor
the Army of Portugal, save so much as is necessary to secure for the
King reports from them all.... I want to do all that I can to give the
King a new prestige on his return to Spain, but nothing that may in any
way disorganize the Army of Andalusia, or any of the other armies[281].’
[281] All from the Caen memorandum for Berthier quoted above.
It is clear that we have in these few sentences the key to all
Napoleon’s difficulties in conducting the Spanish war. He did not wish
to ‘have a marshal at Madrid who would want to have all the glory along
with all the responsibility,’ i. e. he refused to make one of his
servants dangerously great. Soult’s intrigues for kingship at Oporto
in 1809 were not forgotten, and Soult would have been the obvious
candidate for supreme command, now that Masséna had been tried and
found wanting. The Emperor preferred to go on with the hopeless system
that was already working, by which he himself directed operations
from Paris, basing his orders on facts that were often a month old
when he learnt of them, and sending out those orders to reach their
destination another month later. He was aware of the evils of this
arrangement, but anything was better than to hand over supreme power
over 300,000 soldiers to a single lieutenant. It is strange that he
did not resolve to descend into Spain himself during the summer of
1811, for European politics were at the moment so quiet that he was
actually thinking of concentrating 80,000 men at Boulogne, for a real
or a threatened descent on the British Isles[282], a project which he
had not been able to dream of since Trafalgar. The tension between
France and Russia, which was to increase in a dangerous fashion during
the autumn, was not so great in May or June as to make the idea of a
Spanish campaign impossible. If it was possible to think of an invasion
of England at this moment, it was surely equally feasible to consider
the advantages of a descent on Lisbon or Cadiz. But apparently it
was the physical distance between Paris and the further end of the
Peninsula which deterred the Emperor from seizing what turned out to
be the last available opportunity for a sally beyond the Pyrenees.
As he himself observed on another occasion, he would be at the end
of the world in Portugal, and a crisis might arise behind his back
before he got any adequate news of it[283]. This was different from
campaigning in central Europe; when at Vienna or Berlin he was still in
touch with Paris. The only parallel to an invasion of Portugal would
be an invasion of Russia, and it will be remembered that Napoleon’s
apprehensions were absolutely justified by what occurred in the autumn
of 1812 during his absence at Moscow. The astounding conspiracy of
General Malet was within an ace of succeeding, because it was possible
to put about all manner of false rumours, when the Emperor was lost
to sight on the steppes. A handful of plotters--we might almost say
a single plotter, Malet himself--with no assets save impudence and
reckless courage, seized the imperial ministers, mustered an armed
force, and almost established a provisional government and mastered
Paris. This was only possible because the Emperor and the grand army
had got so far off that the touch between them and France had been
lost, and absence of news for many days had set the tongue of rumour
loose[284]. Under such circumstances almost anything might happen,
for imposing as was the Colossus of the French Empire, it stood on no
firm base, its feet were of clay. Napoleon hoped to build a permanent
structure, but there can be no doubt that all through his reign its
stability depended on his own life and strength. If he had been cut
off suddenly by a cannon-ball at Jena or Wagram, or by the knife of a
fanatic such as Staps--Spain could have produced such enthusiasts by
the score--chaos would have supervened in France. When once the rumour
was set about that the Emperor was dead, anything became possible in
Paris. No one knew this better than himself; in his cynical moments he
would remark to his confidants that he was well aware that if sudden
death came to him the public feeling would be one of relief rather than
of sorrow. It was the constraining force of his own indomitable will
alone which kept everything together, and if he removed himself to
some very remote corner of Europe, from which his orders could not be
transmitted continuously and at short intervals, there was grave danger
that the machine might run down.
[282] For dispatches concerning this, and notes as to the troops
and ships to be employed, see _Correspondance_, 17,824, 17,875,
&c. The project seems to have been seriously thought over, the
Emperor wrongly believing that England was stripped of regular
troops.
[283] ‘Le Portugal est trop loin: je ne peux pas y aller; il
faudrait six mois. Pendant six mois tout est suspendu: l’Europe
est sans direction: les Russes peuvent se déclarer, les Anglais
débarquer au nord. En vérité, quand on voit la différence qu’un
homme met aux événements, il est impossible de ne pas avoir de
l’amour propre.’ 30th March, 1811. Napoleon’s interview with Foy,
reported by the latter in Vie _Militaire du Général Foy_, p. 140.
[284] For a similar hint of danger in 1809, see above, vol. i.
pp. 560-61.
Hence it may perhaps be said that the Peninsula was saved from the
presence of the Emperor in 1811 because of the necessary limitations
of a one-man power. He dared not remove himself from the centre of
affairs; he would not make one of his jealous and ambitious lieutenants
over-great, by giving him supreme command. This being so, the bad old
system had to go on, and that system of over-late orders grounded
on over-late information[285], and followed (or not followed) by
over-late execution, was bound to fail, when the enemy’s movements
were guided by the cool and resolute brain of Wellington. More than
once Napoleon wrote in a petulant mood to complain that it was absurd
that all his Spanish armies should be detained and kept in check by a
mere 30,000 British troops[286]; he refused for a long time to take the
Portuguese seriously, and would only reckon the Spanish guerrilleros
as ‘brigands’ or ‘canaille.’ What he failed to see was that a small
army worked by a general on the spot, who had minute local knowledge
and admirable foresight, was necessarily superior to a much larger
force directed by orders from a distance, and commanded by several
marshals who were bitterly jealous of each other. Moreover he never
thoroughly comprehended the way in which the movements of his armies
were delayed by the fact that they were moving in a country where every
peasant was their enemy, where provisions could only be collected by
armed force, and where no dispatch would reach its destination unless
it were guarded by an escort of from 50 to 250 men. And he refused
to see that a division or an army corps was in Spain practically no
more than the garrison of the province which it occupied--that, if it
moved, that province immediately became hostile soil again, and would
have to be reconquered. He was always prescribing the concentration of
large bodies of men, by means of the evacuation of places or regions
of secondary importance[287]. His marshals, knowing the practical
inconveniences of such evacuations, were loth to carry them out. To
disgarrison a region meant that all communications were cut off, and
that the nearest posts were at once blockaded by guerrillero bands.
Whenever the Army of Andalusia concentrated, it ceased to receive
its dispatches or its convoys from Madrid, and soon learned that
Granada and Seville were being menaced. Whenever the Army of the North
concentrated, the road between Vittoria and Burgos was cut, and the
_partidas_ descended from the Cantabrian mountains to threaten all
the posts in Old Castile. And the concentration, when made, could
only continue for a few days for lack of food, for there is hardly a
region in Spain where a very large army, 80,000 or 100,000 men, can
live on the country for a week. It was this, and no mere jealousy of
rival generals, which forced Soult and Marmont to part, as we shall
see, in June 1811, and Marmont and Dorsenne in September of the same
year, and which in November 1812 prevented the immense body formed
by the united Armies of the South, Centre, North, and Portugal, from
pursuing Wellington to Ciudad Rodrigo. If such a force as 80,000 men
were concentrated, it had to be fed; after a few days of living on
the country it would be forced to ask for convoys. But convoys coming
from long distances were the destined prey of the guerrilleros; if not
captured they were at least delayed _ad infinitum_. Meanwhile the army
in front would run out of provisions, and be forced to scatter itself
once more in order to live. After Masséna’s venture no French marshal
ever dared to think of plunging into Portugal, where he knew that he
would find before him a country systematically devastated. No one was
better aware of this limitation of the French power than Wellington. He
had written as early as 1809 that the enemy could not turn him out of
the Peninsula with anything less than 100,000 men, and that he could
make such arrangements that an army of that number could not live in
the country. The prophecy was fulfilled over and over again. With the
enormous strength of the imperial armies it was not impossible to
collect 80,000 or 100,000 men--but it was impossible to feed them. All
concentrations must be but temporary. When the enemy was massed, the
Anglo-Portuguese army might have to give ground, or only to accept an
action under the most favourable conditions. But the French would soon
have to scatter, and then Wellington regained his freedom of action.
[285] Sometimes on absolutely false information, due to the
Emperor’s vast distance from the theatre of war leading him to
make hypotheses which had been falsified, because of the mistaken
premises on which he grounded them. For example, on March 30,
1811, he told Berthier that Masséna’s head quarters were at
Coimbra, and that a detachment of his army occupied Oporto, and
these ‘news’ were to be sent on to Soult (_Correspondance_,
17,531). On that day Masséna was already behind the Coa on his
retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo.
[286] Compare the dispatches of March 30, where it is
demonstrated that Soult has nothing to fear for Badajoz, because
Wellington cannot detach more than 15,000 men against it,
and that of December 12, where it is demonstrated that Soult
having 80,000 men should be ashamed of himself for allowing the
‘affront’ of Arroyo dos Molinos to be put upon him by Hill and
6,000 British.
[287] ‘Il ne faut pas se diviser: il faut réunir ses forces,
présenter des masses imposantes: toutes les troupes qu’on
laisse en arrière courent le risque d’être battues en détail,
ou forcées d’abandonner les postes,’ &c. Napoleon to Soult,
_Correspondance_, December 6, 1811.
It was useless, therefore, for the Emperor to reiterate his orders
that his marshals were to join their armies and ‘livrer enfin une
belle bataille’ against Wellington[288]. It takes two sides to fight a
battle, and Wellington was determined never to accept a general action,
when the numbers were hopelessly against him. He would give back into
Portugal, and the enemy could not follow him for more than a march or
two.
[288] Napoleon to Berthier; orders for Bessières and Marmont of
May 26, 1811.
Meanwhile, though he could not undertake to descend himself into
Portugal, Napoleon did not cease to pour troops across the Pyrenees.
It is often said that after Masséna’s expedition of 1810 he began to
neglect the Peninsula, and to turn all his thoughts towards the growing
tension with Russia. This is not correct; it ignores the fact that the
French armies in Spain rose to their highest numbers during the year
1811. While not ceasing to send their regular drafts to all the corps
there engaged, the Emperor dispatched three new divisions of his best
troops to the front during the summer. These were no collections of
newly-raised fourth battalions or _régiments de marche_, but old units
of high reputation, drawn partly from the Army of Italy, partly from
the garrisons of the coasts of France. One division, under General
Souham, ultimately went to join the Army of Portugal, the second, under
General Caffarelli, was absorbed in the Army of the North, the third,
under General Reille, was sent to reinforce the garrison of Navarre
and Aragon, where Suchet wanted fresh troops to occupy the land behind
him, when he was pushing forward towards Catalonia and Valencia. In
addition, two fresh regiments of Italian troops were requisitioned from
the Viceroy Eugène Beauharnais for service in eastern Spain[289]. The
total reinforcement to the armies beyond the Pyrenees amounted to some
25,000 men, in addition to the regular annual draft of conscripts. The
deficit in the strength of the French forces caused by Masséna’s losses
in Portugal was more than made up, and the gross total in October 1811
amounted to no less than 368,000 men. Nothing was withdrawn from the
Peninsula till the following winter.
[289] See _Correspondance_, 17,784, Napoleon to Clarke, 8th June,
1811. The divisions were composed as follows:--
Souham. 1st Line (4 batts.) and 62nd Line (4 batts.), from Turin
and Marseilles; 23rd Léger (2 batts.), from Auxonne; 101st Line
(4 batts.), from Turin and Spezzia. About 7,000 men.
Caffarelli. 5th Léger (2 batts.), from Cherbourg; 3rd and 105th
Line (each 2 batts.), from Rennes; 10th Léger (4 batts.), from
Rennes; 52nd Line (2 batts.), from Toulon. About 6,000 men.
Reille. 81st Line (2 batts. at Pampeluna, 1 from Genoa); 10th
Line and 20th Line (4 batts. each), already at Pampeluna; 60th
Line (4 batts.), from Toulon. About 7,500 men.
Italian Division. 1st Line (4 batts.); 7th Line (4 batts.). About
4,000 men.
SECTION XXV: CHAPTER II
SUCHET ON THE EBRO. THE FALL OF TORTOSA
DECEMBER 1810-MARCH 1811
In the last pages of the third volume of this work we brought the
history of the campaigns of Suchet and Macdonald in Aragon and
Catalonia as far as December 12th, 1810, the day on which the Marshal
came down to the lower Ebro at the head of the field-divisions of the
7th Corps, in order to cover the long-delayed siege of Tortosa, which
his colleague, the commander of the Army of Aragon, was about to take
in hand.
For five months, ever since August 1810, as it will be remembered,
Suchet had been waiting to commence the attack on Tortosa, which he
was not strong enough to conduct with his own resources, since the
besieger would have not only to execute his own operations, but to fend
off at the same time all attempts by the Spanish armies of Catalonia
and Valencia to relieve a fortress which was equally important to each
of them. For Tortosa commanded the one land route by which Catalonia
and Valencia were still able to communicate with each other; no other
bridge on the Ebro was in Spanish hands. It was highly desirable
to keep the line of defence in eastern Spain unbroken, and Tortosa
lay at its narrowest and most dangerous point. The Emperor Napoleon
attached an immense importance to its capture, and considered that
after its fall, and that of Tarragona, the conquest of Valencia and the
termination of the war on this side of the Peninsula would be at hand.
Already in September 1810 he was looking forward to all these events as
matters of the near future[290]. But though Tortosa was actually to be
captured in January 1811, Tarragona in June, and Valencia in December,
the long-foreseen consummation was never to come to pass. For two years
more, down to the very end of the war, the indomitable Catalans were
destined to maintain their independence, despite of all the successes
of the French arms.
[290] _Correspondance_, no. 16,910, of September 10, 1810.
Tortosa was not quite so indispensable in reality as it looked on
the map. For though it would have been a point of absolutely vital
importance to the Spaniards, if they had been compelled to conduct
all their operations by land, it must not be forgotten that the
British command of the Mediterranean gave an alternative route for
communication between north and south, which the French could never
touch. Long after Tortosa had fallen, troops were repeatedly and easily
transferred from Catalonia to Valencia, and vice versa, despite of the
fact that Suchet had completely mastered all the land routes. Indeed
it may be said that the sea passage from one to the other was always
preferable to the route through Tortosa, for the country about both
banks of the lower Ebro was rugged, barren, and thinly peopled, and
Tortosa itself--a decayed city of 10,000 inhabitants--was the only
place in this region which presented resources of any kind for an
army on the march. It is, moreover, twenty miles from the sea, and
not a port; strange to say, there is no decent harbour at the mouth
of the Ebro. Though the river is intermittently navigable for a good
many miles in its lower course, its estuary has never been a point
through which trade discharges itself to the sea. The commerce of
southern Catalonia goes to Tarragona, sixty miles to the north of the
Ebro mouth, that of Northern Valencia to Peniscola, thirty miles to
its south. Tortosa, indeed, was more important to the French than to
the Spaniards, since Napoleon’s armies were tied down to land routes,
and, if ever they were to make a lodgement in Valencia, would find the
possession of that city and its bridge absolutely necessary, if they
were to keep in touch with the troops left in Catalonia.
At last, in December 1810, Macdonald had accomplished the preliminary
duties which rendered it possible for him to move on Tortosa. He had
revictualled Barcelona, so that it would be safe for some months from
famine, and he had repaired the gap in the French lines in northern
Catalonia, which had been caused by Henry O’Donnell’s daring expedition
to La Bispal in the preceding September. Though the Spanish army had
not been crushed, nor indeed seriously injured, it had been thrust
aside for the moment: Macdonald had brought down three divisions, over
15,000 men, to Mora on the Ebro, some twenty-five miles to the north
of Tortosa, and with them he was prepared to act as a covering force
to the projected siege. He was strong enough to render any attempt at
relief by the Catalan army impossible, for a force sufficient to beat
him could not be collected by the enemy, unless they abandoned all
their outlying posts; and this was practically impossible, for local
feeling in the Principality was too strong to allow of the withdrawal
of the smaller Spanish detachments from the various valleys and small
towns which they covered. There was still the Valencian army to be
considered; but Suchet considered that he could himself deal with
that unfortunate and oft-defeated force; he had already proved its
weakness at the series of engagements in August[291] in which he had
so effectually scattered the levies of the dictator José Caro. One
division would probably suffice to keep the Valencians at bay, while
with two others the actual siege of Tortosa could be taken in hand. It
was the Catalan army alone which had made Suchet anxious, and he was
now to be relieved of all care on that side by Macdonald.
[291] See vol. iii. p. 494.
The preparations for the siege, it will be remembered, had long
been in progress; ever since August magazines and material had
been accumulating at Xerta. They had been brought down the Ebro
from Mequinenza, whenever the water was high enough to allow of
navigation--not without much difficulty, and occasional petty disasters
when the Catalan miqueletes made a pounce upon an exposed convoy[292].
Fifty-two heavy guns were now lying ready at Xerta, with 30,000 rounds
of ammunition for them, and 90,000 lb. more of powder. To set in
motion the besieging army and this very large battering-train, it only
required that the covering forces on each side of the Ebro should take
up their positions. When Macdonald had brought up his troops to Mora,
and undertaken to move them to Perello, the junction point of the two
roads from Tortosa to Tarragona, nothing more remained to be settled.
If the Catalan army should try to attack him it would certainly be
beaten, being far too weak to face 15,000 French troops concentrated
in one body. For the restraining of the Valencians, on the other side
of the Ebro, General Musnier with 7,000 men was placed at Uldecona,
twelve miles beyond Tortosa on the great road to the south.
[292] See vol. iii. p. 503.
These arrangements being made, Suchet crossed the Ebro at Xerta by his
pontoon bridge on December 15th with twelve battalions, and made a
sweeping circular march to shut in Tortosa on the northern side, while
five battalions more, under General Abbé, moved by the other bank to
block the bridge-head, by which the city communicates with Valencia and
the south. The operation was completed without resistance, save at the
Col de Alba, where a post of 600 Catalans, placed to cover the road
between Tortosa and the pass of Balaguer, was discovered. This small
force was driven into Tortosa after a skirmish; two small convoys on
their way from Tarragona by sea had to turn back, because the way into
the city was closed.
The siege of Tortosa was remarkable for its swift progress and complete
success--it can only be compared with Wellington’s capture of Ciudad
Rodrigo, just a year later, in this respect. The Army of Aragon arrived
in front of the city on December 16th--the surrender took place on
January 2nd. At first sight the problem set before Suchet appeared by
no means likely to receive such a rapid solution, for Tortosa as a
fortress had many strong points. The city lies on and around the end of
a spur of the Sierra de Alba, which runs down to the bank of the Ebro.
This spur at its termination is many-headed: three ravines divide it
into four separate hills, of which the highest is that crowned by the
castle. The other three die down into undulations, and leave between
them and the Ebro a comparatively flat space, on which the lower part
of the town is built. Its higher quarters lie on the slopes where the
various hills begin to rise from the level. The old enceinte of Tortosa
had consisted of a mediaeval wall running across the hills and down the
ravines between them, so as to enclose nothing but the inhabited parts
of the city. But after a famous siege during the War of the Spanish
Succession (1708), a number of outer works had been constructed to
crown the culminating summit of each hill, and keep future besiegers
at a distance, while part of the inner ancient fortifications had been
transformed into a series of bastions, so far as the ground allowed.
The outer works were: (1) Starting from the river, on the extreme
north-east front, a large hornwork called Las Tenazas[293], crowning
the hill which lies most to the left, protecting the suburb of
Remolinos, and commanding the flat ground as far as the river, from
which it is only 400 yards distant. (2) A second hornwork covered the
outer side of the castle hill: this was called El Bonete; there was
a deep ravine on each side of it. (3) A sort of outer enceinte with
three bastions (La Victoria, El Cristo, and Cruces) runs along the
summit of the fourth hill, which is broader than the rest and expands
into a plateau; the old town wall formed a second line in rear of this
advanced front. (4) The last hill, that most towards the south-east,
was crowned by a strong closed fort, named after the Duke of Orleans,
the general who had captured the city for Philip V in the year 1708.
Between the Orleans hill and the river there was no high ground; this
was the only open front of the city which was approachable on a level
without any natural hindrances. Here the enceinte had no outer works;
it consisted of two large bastions, San Pedro and San Juan, with a
demi-lune named El Temple projecting between them. This last was a low
work of no great strength: the curtain behind it, which joined San
Pedro and San Juan, was a mere shell with no terrace or room for guns.
The other (south-western) side of the city was sufficiently protected
by the broad and swift river, 300 yards in width; behind it was only
the ancient wall, but, as this was wholly inaccessible, its weakness
did not matter. In the middle of the river front, which was 1,200
yards long, was a gate leading to the great bridge of boats. This was
protected on the further bank by a little _tête-du-pont_, built in the
form of a ravelin and well armed with artillery.
[293] Napier’s ‘Tenaxas’ and Belmas’s ‘Tenailles’ = ‘the
Pinchers.’
The garrison consisted, when the siege began, of 7,179 men, including
600 artillery and a weak battalion of Urban Guards. The regiments
were drawn partly from the Catalonian and partly from the Valencian
army, there being seven battalions from the former and four from the
latter[294]. The governor was Major-General Lilli, Conde de Alacha,
an old officer who had won some credit, two years back, by bringing
off his small corps intact after the battle of Tudela, when he had
been cut off by the French in the mountains[295]. Unfortunately it is
impossible to argue that because an officer has made a skilful retreat
he is a good fighting-man. Lilli, indeed, proved the reverse on this
occasion--all that can be said in his defence is that he was old
and in bad health. His conduct during the siege was vacillating and
inexplicable; he more than once declared that he would give over charge
of the defence to the second in command, Brigadier-General Yriarte.
But he would then appear again, and countermand all Yriarte’s orders.
In the end he capitulated on his own account, against the wishes and
without the knowledge of the brigadier.
[294] The strength of the garrison raises a conflict of
authorities. The Spanish official figures are those given above,
which are followed by Schepeler and Arteche. But Suchet says
that he captured 9,461 prisoners, including the wounded in
the hospitals, and that several hundred men more had perished
before the surrender. He gives a muster roll of the garrison
purporting to bear out his figures (_Mémoires_, i. p. 359), which
Belmas copies. Since Suchet’s Spanish totals are often more
than doubtful (cf. vol. iii. p. 304) I accept the figures given
by his adversaries. The December figures of the Spanish Army
of Catalonia show 13,040 men in all distributed in garrisons,
including those of Tarragona, Tortosa, Seu de Urgel, Cardona, and
smaller places. I think that 7,000 for Tortosa is probable.
[295] See vol. ii. p. 6.
The problem in poliorcetics set before Suchet and his engineers at
Tortosa had some resemblance to that which was to confront Wellington
at Badajoz a few months later. Given a town to besiege which is partly
built on heights crowned by forts and partly in the flat, is it better
to attack one of the forts, which if taken commands the whole town,
or to start against the lower front? The latter will be easier to
assail, but after its fall the strongholds on the heights may hold
out as independent fortresses. Whereas if a dominating work on a
high-lying hill is taken in hand, it may make a very hard and long
resistance, but, if once it is captured, the whole city is overlooked
by it and must surrender. The answer to the problem seems to be that
all depends on the governor and the garrison; if he and they are weak,
it will suffice to attack the easier front, for when the lower town
has fallen the morale will be so shaken that they will surrender,
without attempting to hold the upper works. But if they are active
and obstinate, it may be worth while to aim at the most commanding
position, which, if captured, absolutely compels the capitulation of
the whole place. Yet there remains the danger that the crucial fort may
be so strong that no effort can take it from a determined defender.
This happened to Wellington at the two earlier sieges of Badajoz; the
fall of San Cristobal would have brought about most inevitably the
surrender of the city. But it proved too hard a nut to crack, in the
time and with the means at the English general’s disposal. Suchet at
Tortosa struck at the easiest front, taking the risk that he might
have to conduct a second siege of the upper works (as he had to do at
Tarragona, his next leaguer). When he had breached the weakest point,
but before a storm had been tried, the imbecile governor capitulated.
The weak front of Tortosa was the bastion of San Pedro and the
demi-lune of El Temple on its flank. They were not properly supported
or flanked by any works on higher ground, for Fort Orleans (on the
nearest hill) did not command all the flats in front of San Pedro, and
moreover Suchet intended to give this fort so much business on its own
account that its gunners would have little attention to spare for the
attack on the lower ground to their right. There were two additional
advantages: the soil in front of San Pedro was soft river mould, very
easy to dig; and moreover this bastion could be enfiladed by batteries
on the other side of the Ebro. Such batteries had nothing to fear, if
properly constructed, from the guns of the little _tête-du-pont_; while
on the river front of the city there were no cannon at all--they could
not be mounted on the mediaeval walls.
On the 16th, 17th, and 18th Suchet was employed in bringing up his
siege-guns, choosing the emplacements of his camps, and constructing
flying-bridges across the river, both above and below the fortress. On
the 19th active operations started, with the development of a false
attack on Fort Orleans, whose attention it was necessary to distract.
The construction of a first parallel against this work was begun with
some ostentation, and had to be carried out under a furious fire
from its artillery. On the night of the 20th-21st the real business
commenced: 2,300 men crept across the flat ground by the river opposite
San Pedro, and threw up an entrenchment within 160 yards of its ditch.
They were undiscovered and unopposed, for the night was dark and
windy, and the Spaniards had no outposts beyond the walls, and kept bad
watch. At dawn 500 paces of trench had been constructed, and a safe
access to the parallel had been contrived, by connecting one of its
ends with a ravine which cuts across the flat a little to the rear, and
whose bottom could not be searched by the guns of the place. The trench
was sloped away on the right, so as not to be enfiladed by downward
fire from Fort Orleans, which would have commanded it supposing it
had been drawn exactly parallel to the front of San Pedro. This was a
tremendously advantageous start; seldom has a besieger been able to
begin his works at such a short distance from his objective.
Next morning the new trench became visible to the Spaniards, who turned
all the artillery of the neighbouring front upon it, but to little
effect, for the soil was soft and the French had dug deep. A sortie was
made from the demi-lune of El Temple, but was driven off with loss.
The only successful effort of the Spaniards on this day was that the
guns of Fort Orleans succeeded in destroying part of the trenches of
the false attack in front of them, and drove out the workers. This was
of little consequence, as Suchet was not really aiming at the fort. On
the 22nd and 23rd December the main attack was urged with a celerity
that seemed appalling to the defenders; despite of a heavy fire of
musketry as well as of artillery, approaches were pushed forward from
the first parallel, to within 80 yards of the bastion of San Pedro and
110 yards of the Temple demi-lune. The works opposite Fort Orleans were
repaired and extended. On the 24th the two approaches in the plain were
connected by a long trench, which formed the second parallel, only 60
yards from the walls. On the 25th new zigzags, thrown out from this
line, reached the glacis of San Pedro. The garrison made two sorties
in the night to hinder this advance at all hazards, but failed, being
driven off by the musketry from the second parallel without much
difficulty: the force employed, 300 men, was too small. Meanwhile the
artillery and sappers were constructing ten batteries, four--and these
the largest--in the main frontal attack, but four others on the heights
over against Fort Orleans, and two beyond the river, whose special
purpose was to enfilade the front of San Pedro, and also to play upon
the bridge of boats which joined the city to the _tête-du-pont_. The
trenches on the heights before Fort Orleans were also strengthened, and
a second parallel constructed in front of the first, at some loss of
life; but it was necessary to keep the enemy on this front employed, or
he would have interfered too much with the real attack in the plain.
All this had been accomplished before the French had fired a single
gun; there is hardly another instance to be quoted of a siege in which
the assailants got up to the glacis, and crowned the covered way,
without any assistance from their artillery. It seems that the gunnery
of the defence must have been exceptionally bad, and the sorties
hitherto had been small and feeble--quite insufficient to interfere
with, much less to destroy, the approaches. Noting batteries sketched
out on several points and approaching completion, Yriarte saw that he
must at all costs try to delay the opening of the adversary’s fire,
and on the night of the 27th-28th made two sallies in considerable
force--600 men came out of the Rastro gate, beyond Fort Orleans, to
attack the upper trenches, as many more issued from San Pedro against
the main attack. The first-named sortie was an entire failure--most
of the men lay down and began to skirmish with the trench-guard
before they had got near the works; a very few reached them, and were
killed on the parapet. But the attack in the plain was a serious one,
and pressed home. The lodgement in the covered way was captured and
destroyed, and the Spaniards penetrated to the second parallel, and
captured part of it for a time. They were finally driven out by a
reserve of four battalions commanded by General Abbé, but not before
they had done considerable damage. The besiegers had to spend the
following day and night (28-29 December) in repairing the trenches and
parapets, and getting a fresh lodgement in the covered way. On the
morning of the latter day the ten siege-batteries opened simultaneously
with 45 guns, and very soon gained a marked superiority over the fire
of the defence. The cannon of Fort Orleans and the bastion of San
Juan were silenced, as were also those of the Temple demi-lune and
San Pedro. The bridge of boats was nearly destroyed. Next night, the
Spanish fire being crushed, the third parallel was constructed on the
very brink of the ditch of San Pedro, and within 25 yards of the wall
of the bastion. The mortar batteries were employed in distributing
a rain of projectiles in the streets behind the attacked front, to
prevent the besieged from constructing defences and barricades on which
they might fall back when the wall was breached. Though not altogether
successful--for the Spaniards succeeded in building some traverses and
in blocking and loopholing many houses--the bombardment caused many
casualties, and cowed the population, who evacuated this quarter and
sought refuge in the interior of the town. The interior of Fort Orleans
was also shelled with some effect: its garrison retired to their
bomb-proofs, and kept very quiet, making little attempt to repair the
injuries to its outer wall, or to replace the injured cannon.
On the night of the 30th the French succeeded in getting down from the
third parallel into the ditch of San Pedro, with the object of mining
the scarp and blowing down sufficient debris to fill the ditch. Their
first party was driven out again by the fire of two guns which had been
brought up to enfilade the ditch from the extreme flank of the bastion.
But on the following morning all the siege-batteries were turned on to
these guns, and destroyed them. Meanwhile the Spaniards had abandoned
the _tête-du-pont_, taking the men away by boat, and throwing the guns
into the water, except three injured and spiked pieces. The ditch was
occupied during the day (December 31st) and the miners got to work, so
little incommoded by the fire of the defenders, who were hardly visible
on the wall, that they lost only two men killed while establishing
themselves in their dangerous position. Their most serious hindrance
came from the good quality of the masonry which they were attacking--it
was mediaeval work and as hard as iron. The decisive stroke at this
point, however, was to be given by the artillery, and on the night of
the 31st a battery for four 24-pounders was commenced in the third
parallel--only 25 yards away from the ramparts of San Pedro. It had not
yet opened when, at ten o’clock on the morning of January 1st, 1811,
the governor hoisted the white flag, and sent a Colonel Veyan into
Suchet’s camp, to treat for surrender. The proposals, however, were
quite inadmissible, as Alacha only covenanted to evacuate Tortosa if
it were not relieved in fifteen days, and demanded that the garrison
should not be prisoners of war, but should be allowed to march to
Tarragona with arms and baggage. Suchet refused to treat (as was
natural) but was delighted with the aspect of affairs--a garrison which
begins to parley before there is a practicable breach in its walls is
obviously demoralized, and needs only a little further persuasion by
the strong arm. He sent back with the Spanish _parlementaire_ his own
chief of the staff, Colonel Saint Cyr-Nugues, with orders to impress on
the governor the futility of further demands such as those he had just
made. He announced that he should storm the place next morning unless
one of the upper forts were placed in his hands as a pledge of complete
submission. The governor therefore called and consulted a council of
war: some of the officers and notables assembled voted that an attempt
must be made to defend the breach, others that the garrison should
retire into the castle and forts, and abandon the town as untenable.
But there were some despairing voices raised: the representatives of
the municipality spoke with terror of the bombardment of the last few
days; some of the officers complained that their troops were completely
demoralized, and were leaving their posts to hide in the town. Suchet’s
proposals, nevertheless, were rejected.
Only a little more persuasion, however, was required to break down
Alacha’s nerve. On the morning of the 2nd of January the 4-gun battery
opposite San Pedro opened with the best effect; by the afternoon there
was a breach 15 yards broad, and the miners reported that they had
got deep enough into the lower walls to make an explosion profitable.
The curtain at the back of the Temple demi-lune had also been much
battered, and was crumbling--but an assault here was not practicable,
as the intervening work was still in the hands of the Spaniards. For
a second time the governor hoisted the white flag, but Suchet ordered
the fire to continue at the breach, and began to collect his storming
columns in the shelter of the parallels, while his mortar batteries
played on the town at large. He was afraid that the enemy was scheming
for a suspension of arms, during which they would clandestinely repair
and retrench the broken wall. The answer that he sent back, when a
second _parlementaire_ came out to him, was that he must have a simple
and complete capitulation, and that one of the upper forts must be
placed in his hands before he would allow the bombardment to cease.
[Illustration: TORTOSA]
Alacha continued to keep the white flag flying on the citadel and to
exchange messages with Suchet, while the fire was still going on at
the breach of San Pedro, where Yriarte was doing his best to keep
his men together, though he had his doubts as to the result of the
threatened assault. Meanwhile the French general took an extraordinary
resolution: gathering from the confused and wavering replies of the
governor that the old man was at his wit’s end, and ready to yield to
pressure, he came to the castle gate himself, with his staff and a
company of grenadiers, and sent for the officer on guard--who did not
order his men to fire because the white flag was flying, and messengers
continually passing to and fro. Suchet told the astonished subaltern
that hostilities were at an end, and that he must see the governor
without delay. When Alacha came down to him, he assumed a peremptory
tone, said that further resistance was criminal, that the assault was
about to take place at once, and that the garrison would be put to the
sword if resistance continued. He bade the governor ratify on the spot
the terms of capitulation which had been sent in upon the previous
afternoon. Utterly cowed, the old man obeyed at once, called for a
pen, and signed the document upon the carriage of a gun. The company
of grenadiers which had accompanied Suchet occupied the castle, and
orders were sent down to the city to cease all resistance. The first
notice that Yriarte got of what had happened was by hearing French
drums beating in the streets behind him, as a column descended from
the citadel to force the defenders of the breach to lay down their
arms[296]. When they had withdrawn, the storming column ran into the
gap, and sacked the quarter adjoining, despite of the cries and
remonstrances of their officers. They would not be cheated out of what
they considered their lawful prey[297].
[296] This narrative of the fall of Tortosa is mainly derived
from the sources given by Arteche, especially Yriarte’s
narrative, and from Schepeler and Vacani. These in some details
differ from Suchet’s story repeated by Belmas, though there is
no fundamental discrepancy. But it is clear that Alacha was
even more to blame than the French versions would give us to
understand.
[297] Vacani, iv. 420-1.
In this disgraceful way fell Tortosa, after only eighteen days of
siege, twelve of open trenches, and four of bombardment. The French
lost no more than 400 men, nearly half of them among the sappers and
artillerymen[298], for the infantry only suffered in repelling the
sorties. The Spaniards had about 1,400 killed and wounded, but as the
garrison marched out only 3,974 strong and had started with 7,179,
it is clear that there had been other wastage. During the last days
of the siege the Urban Guard disappeared, and the commanders of the
regular troops were complaining bitterly of desertion among their men.
Indeed, from the governor downwards, there seems to have been too much
demoralization in all ranks. The second in command, Yriarte, and many
other officers did their duty, but the defence was not what might
have been expected from Catalans, with the example of Gerona before
their eyes. From the start Suchet had the mastery, and largely owing
to the mismanagement of his adversaries; if (for example) they had
kept proper watch, he would never have been able to start his first
parallel at the distance of only 160 yards from the walls--this piece
of luck saved him many days of work. But if the defence was unskilful,
and anything rather than resolute, the main responsibility falls on
the governor, whose conduct was calculated to discourage even the most
zealous subordinates. For he sometimes pleaded his age and infirmity,
and declared that he handed over all responsibility to the second in
command, shutting himself up in the castle for whole days at a time;
but on other occasions he interfered in details, countermanded orders,
and practically resumed charge of the defence. But to call a council
of war, to receive its opinion in favour of protracted defence, and
then to capitulate behind its back was worst of all. Such conduct
was absolutely ignominious, and it was not without reason that the
Catalan Junta ordered him to be tried (in his absence) for cowardice
and treason. He was condemned to death, and the sentence (grotesquely
enough) carried out upon his effigy, while he was safe in France, a
prisoner on parole.
[298] The figures of 400 killed and wounded given by Belmas seem
very low, but are borne out by the invaluable lists in Martinien,
who shows that only some thirty officers were killed or wounded
at Tortosa, of whom twelve belonged to the engineers, artillery,
and sappers. Thirty officers hit imply (at the usual rate of one
to twenty men) 600 casualties, but it is very possible that there
were no more than 400 and odd, for the engineer officers, of whom
six were killed or hurt, ran special risks.
That nothing was done from outside to save Tortosa was mainly due to
the rapidity of Suchet’s operations. The Junta of Catalonia was busily
engaged in concerting measures for concentrating a relieving army,
had sent to Cadiz for arms and (if possible) reinforcements, and had
opened negotiations with the Valencians and with the irregular forces
of Carbajal and Villa Campa in the Aragonese mountains. But who could
calculate that the defence would last only eighteen days? Before any
general scheme had been worked out the place had fallen[299]. The only
organized force in the neighbourhood was the section of the Catalan
army which lay in and about Tarragona. The responsibility here lay no
longer with the active Henry O’Donnell, who had thrown up the command
in December, and sailed to the Balearic Islands to give his gangrened
wounds time to heal. General Yranzo, as the senior officer in the
principality, ought to have taken over the charge of operations; but he
called a council of war at Tarragona, and declared himself unwilling
to assume the position that had fallen to him. He was unpopular, and
the Catalans were holding violent meetings in favour of the Marquis
of Campoverde, who enjoyed much local popularity at the moment. This
ambitious officer finally obtained the interim command, owing to the
abnegation of his seniors; but Tortosa had fallen before he was seated
in the saddle, for he was finally recognized as chief only upon January
6th, four days after the capitulation.
[299] For all this see Wimpffen’s reports printed in the Appendix
to Suchet’s _Mémoires_, i. 359.
But even a capable officer, enjoying undisputed control over all the
Catalan forces, could have done little during the few days that the
siege of Tortosa lasted. The covering army under Macdonald was too
strong to be meddled with by the two divisions based on Tarragona. On
the first day of the siege (as we have already seen) he marched from
Mora with his 15,000 men: on the 18th he came up to Perello, where meet
the two roads from Tortosa to the north, thus absolutely barring any
attempt to approach the place. After some days he found it impossible
to feed his troops in this rugged spot, and divided them, placing one
division of 6,000 men under Frère on the Tarragona-Amposta road, in the
direct rear of the besieging army, while with the other two he retired
to Ginestar on the Ebro, twenty miles due north of Tortosa, from whence
he could reinforce Suchet in a single march if the Spaniards made any
movement. But no one came against him: the existence of his army in
this quarter sufficed to paralyse the modest force then lying in the
neighbourhood of Tarragona. Campoverde took one division to the Fort
of Balaguer, covering the coast road, from which he observed Frère at
a distance; while Yranzo with the other occupied Macdonald’s old head
quarters at Momblanch. But they knew that they were too weak to risk an
advance from these points, and while they remained quiet Tortosa fell.
The only diversions carried out during the siege were in corners of
Catalonia, where even a considerable success would have had no effect
on the course of affairs on the lower Ebro. A French foraging party
of 650 cavalry was cut up at Tarrega, near Lerida, on January 1, by a
detachment from Momblanch. On December 25, a landing party from the
British frigates on the Catalan station surprised the post of Palamos,
and destroyed there two gunboats and eight transports which were
coasting down from Cette towards Barcelona. But remaining on shore too
long they were surprised by a French flying column, and driven back to
their boats with a loss of over 200 men, including Captain Fane of the
_Cambrian_, the officer in command.
On the news of the fall of Tortosa the Spanish divisions drew back
towards Tarragona. Suchet left General Habert in charge of the captured
city, dispersed Musnier’s troops to Morella, Alcañiz and Mequinenza,
and left the Neapolitan brigade lent him by Macdonald at Mora.
Harispe’s division escorted the Spanish prisoners to Saragossa, and
was accompanied by Suchet himself, who had much to settle in Aragon
before he took in hand the siege of Tarragona, the next task imposed
upon him by the Emperor, who had informed him that ‘he would find his
Marshal’s bâton within its walls’. Before leaving the neighbourhood of
Tortosa Suchet ordered four battalions of Habert’s division to execute
a _coup de main_ upon the little fort of San Felipe de Balaguer, on
the coast defile of the Col de Balaguer so often mentioned of late.
It was completely successful--after a short bombardment, part of the
garrison escaped along the Tarragona road; the governor with ninety men
surrendered [January 8, 1811]. The fort was a trifling work, but its
strategic position was eminently important, as it blocks the only road
along the sea from Tarragona to the regions of the Ebro mouth.
Macdonald, being no longer needed in the direction of Tortosa,
resolved to return to Lerida, at the same time that Suchet went off
to Saragossa. They were to meet again in the spring for the great
enterprise against Tarragona. For reasons not easy to fathom, the
Marshal made his march to his base not by the direct road, but past
Tarragona via Reus and Valls. Probably he was desirous of clearing the
country-side of the outlying Spanish troops as a preliminary to the
siege, and perhaps he had some idea of destroying any magazines that
might lie in this direction. That he could have no serious intention of
blockading Tarragona was shown by the fact that he had sent back all
his cavalry, save one regiment, and most of his guns, to Lerida. Since
he had also lent his Neapolitan brigade to Suchet, his column was not
much over 12,000 strong.
Macdonald was usually unlucky in his Catalonian campaigning; though
he had won great reputation in mountain warfare against the Austrians
in his early days, he does not seem to have been able to apply his
knowledge of it to Spain. Marching from Ginestar by Falset, he reached
and occupied the large town of Reus, only ten miles from Tarragona,
on January 12th. From thence he set his army in motion for Valls on
the 15th, marching across the front of the fortress, with which he
clearly had no intention of interfering. His vanguard was formed by
the Italian division, which was followed at a distance of three miles
by his three French brigades and his single regiment of cavalry.
Meanwhile Campoverde, now in command at Tarragona, had detached General
Sarsfield with a division of 3,000 foot and 800 horse--all that the
Army of Catalonia possessed--to observe the march of the French, while
he himself remained just outside Tarragona with the remainder of his
troops--some 8,000 men. Sarsfield had taken post at Pla, some five
miles north of Valls, which town he had evacuated on the approach of
the enemy. When Macdonald’s leading brigade reached Valls, information
was received that there was a Spanish force close in its front.
Without waiting for orders from the Marshal, who had merely directed
that Valls should be occupied, the commander of the vanguard, General
Eugenio[300], resolved to bring the enemy to action. Marching with
five Italian battalions and only thirty chasseurs--about 2,500 men in
all--he ran headlong into Sarsfield’s forces drawn up in a well-masked
position, the infantry occupying a ridge, the 800 cavalry hidden in a
wood to the left. Unable to estimate the enemy’s strength, and thinking
that a brisk attack might drive them off the ground, Eugenio--a man
of reckless courage--made a direct frontal charge against the enemy’s
position in column of battalions. He was completely beaten, his brigade
fell back still fighting, and he was himself mortally wounded. The
recoiling mass was saved from annihilation by the arrival on the field
of the other Italian brigade, that of Palombini, on which it rallied.
But Sarsfield’s troops were determined to finish appropriately the
day that they had begun so well. They fell on the newly formed line
and broke it, the cavalry turning Palombini’s right and sweeping it
away. The whole Italian division would have been annihilated but
for the arrival of two squadrons of the 24th Dragoons under Colonel
Delort, who charged the victorious cavalry, and, though hopelessly
outnumbered, gave the Spaniards so much trouble that the routed
infantry of Eugenio and Palombini escaped into Valls, without much
further loss. Macdonald had refrained from bringing up the French
brigades to help his vanguard, because he had discovered a column
under Campoverde coming out of Tarragona to threaten his rear. This
demonstration kept him occupied while the Italians were being cut up by
Sarsfield, whose operations were extremely well managed and resolute.
The Italian division and the dragoons lost 600 men including a few
prisoners[301]--the Spaniards only 160.
[300] His name was really Orsatelli, but he always appears in the
reports as Eugenio.
[301] Vacani says only 266 (v. 26), including 3 officers killed
and 13 wounded, but Martinien’s lists show 3 officers killed and
24 wounded; it is impossible that 27 officers should be hit and
only 239 men--the proportion of 1 to 9 is incredible, and the
loss must have been more like 600. Schepeler and the Spaniards
put it at 1,200, which is too high.
Next day (January 16th) Macdonald was in order of battle at Valls,
with two fronts, one facing towards Sarsfield and the north, the other
towards Campoverde and Tarragona. But the Spaniards wisely refused to
commit themselves to a general engagement, and Macdonald would not
divide his army by marching to assail one or the other of the two
hostile columns. In the night he retreated to Momblanch by a forced
march, leaving the enemy encouraged by the results of the combat of the
15th, and no less by the fact that the Marshal had not tried to avenge
his check by an attack on the following day. The French retired to
Lerida unmolested, and the Duke of Tarentum began to make preparations
for his approaching return to Tarragona in company with Suchet’s
corps, as had been ordered by the Emperor. It is difficult to see that
Macdonald gained anything by his curious flank march, and he certainly
lost heavily in prestige. Campoverde, exultant at the good fortune of
his first venture in arms, recovered from the despondency caused by the
fall of Tortosa, and dreamed of making a great blow against the French
by no less an achievement than the recapture of Barcelona.
Ever since the commencement of the war plots and conspiracies had
been rife in that great city--it will be remembered that Duhesme
had been forced to punish the most important of them by a series
of executions[302]. Discontent was as keen as ever, and a knot of
patriots had formed a scheme for opening to their friends without the
gates of the fortress of Monjuich, which dominates the whole place.
This was to be done by the assistance of a repentant ‘Juramentado,’ a
Spanish commissary in the French service named Alcina, who had access
to the stronghold, and imagined that he had corrupted the fort-major,
a certain Captain Sunier, who for a great sum of money undertook to
leave one of its posterns open on the night of March 19th. Campoverde,
who loved plots and intrigues, arranged to have his men ready outside
the ditch on the appointed night. Unfortunately the officer who was
supposed to be a traitor was only feigning discontent and treason,
and kept informing Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, of all
the details of the plot. It was allowed to proceed, in order that a
sharp blow might be inflicted on the Spaniards. Before the appointed
night Campoverde suddenly marched the divisions of Sarsfield and
Courten to the immediate vicinity of Barcelona, and sent forward from
them a body of 800 grenadiers, who were to execute the actual _coup de
main_. They were allowed to descend into the ditch of Monjuich, and
to approach the postern, when the whole of the ramparts were lighted
up with cressets and fire-balls, and a furious fire was opened upon
them. The head of the column was blown to pieces, a hundred men were
killed and wounded at the first volley, and four officers and many of
the rank and file taken prisoners, before the remainder could scramble
off in the darkness. The supports hurriedly retired, and the business
was over--save that Maurice Mathieu caused the commissary Alcina to be
shot in public next morning as a warning to traitors. Such plots seldom
succeed, but that they must not be too much disregarded as a source
of danger was shown only a few weeks later, when Figueras, the second
fortress of Catalonia, was successfully surprised by the Spaniards,
as the result of a conspiracy exactly similar to that which failed at
Barcelona[303].
[302] See vol. iii. p. 24.
[303] See below, sect. xxviii. chap. i.
The unfortunate affair at Monjuich was not the only sign of the
revived activity of the Catalans under the leadership of Campoverde,
a busy and active man, but (as subsequent events showed) one lacking
both resolution and true strategic instinct. He was one of those who
take many schemes in hand, but fail for want of determination at
the critical moment, and was a very poor substitute for that hard
fighter Henry O’Donnell, whose place he had been so eager to seize. On
March 3rd he made a vain attack to recover the fort of San Felipe de
Balaguer--marching with Courten’s division of 4,000 men he beat the
French 117th out of Perello, where it was covering Tortosa, and laid
siege to the fort. But General Habert came up with a force from the
garrison to reinforce the 117th, and the attack had to be given up
almost as soon as it was begun. More fruitful were some attacks of the
_somatenes_ of northern Catalonia on convoys passing between Gerona
and Hostalrich. And Sarsfield, pushing forward to Cervera, usefully
restrained the foraging of Macdonald’s cavalry in the region east of
Lerida. But all this came to little, and Campoverde’s efforts seemed
to have no very visible results, and certainly did nothing decisive to
prevent Suchet and Macdonald from completing their preparations for the
siege of Tarragona.
It was much the same in Aragon, where Villacampa and Carbajal were
contending in the mountains of the south with the garrisons which held
Daroca, Alcañiz, Teruel, and the other chief towns of this rugged
and thinly peopled district. The fall of Tortosa had set free for
the moment many troops of the 3rd Corps, and Suchet employed them in
scouring the country between these posts, and endeavouring to clear
away the _partidas_ from their chief rallying-places. Flying columns
under Generals Paris and Abbé marched up and down the sierras in the
vile weather of February, expelled the insurrectionary Junta of Aragon
from Cuenca, which was at that time its head quarters, and chased
Carbajal to Moya, where the frontiers of Castile, Aragon, and Valencia
meet. The Empecinado came over the mountains, from his usual beat in
the Guadalajara country, to help the Aragonese, but had small success.
Yet the net result of all this hunting was little. ‘This expedition,’
says Suchet himself, ‘which took two brigades over the border into
Castile for twelve days, procured us a few hundred prisoners; a more
useful thing was the destruction of some small manufactures of arms.
But we were to see ten times, nay a hundred times more, these partisans
appearing once again in the plains; they always surrounded us, were
always dispersed rather than defeated, and never grew discouraged[304].’
[304] Suchet, _Mémoires_, i. 266.
SECTION XXVI
FUENTES DE OÑORO AND ALBUERA
CHAPTER I
BERESFORD’S CAMPAIGN IN ESTREMADURA. THE FIRST SIEGE OF BADAJOZ.
MARCH-APRIL 1811
On the 11th of March, as it will be remembered, Imaz--the deplorable
successor of the gallant Menacho--surrendered Badajoz to Marshal Soult,
despite of the messages which he had received that an Anglo-Portuguese
corps was on its way for his relief. On the 14th the conqueror,
appalled at the news of the battle of Barrosa and the danger of
Seville, marched back to Andalusia, taking with him a brigade of
dragoons and the greater part of Gazan’s infantry division. He left
behind him in Estremadura Mortier with a force of some 11,000 men,
composed of fifteen battalions of the 5th Corps[305], five cavalry
regiments[306], and a heavy proportion of artillerymen and engineers,
who were required for the garrisoning of the fortress of Badajoz no
less than for the siege of the small places in its vicinity, whose
capture Soult had delegated to Mortier as his parting legacy.
[305] The eleven battalions of Girard’s division, and from
Gazan’s the 100th of the Line, and a battalion of the 21st Léger
put in garrison at Badajoz.
[306] 26th Dragoons, 2nd and 10th Hussars, 21st Chasseurs à
cheval, 4th Chasseurs Espagnols. Only the 10th Hussars and the
21st Chasseurs belonged to the 5th Corps.
This was a small force to leave behind, charged not only with the
occupation of an extensive province, but with the duty of continuing
the offensive, by attacking Campo Mayor and Albuquerque. Elvas the
Marshal can hardly have hoped to assail--it was a fortress as large
and in some ways stronger than Badajoz, with a garrison composed of
Portuguese troops of the line. Any idea of an invasion of the Alemtejo
was useless, now that it was known that Masséna had departed from his
old position on the Tagus. The Emperor had ordered Soult to undertake
it merely for Masséna’s assistance, and the ‘Army of Portugal’ was no
longer needing such help: for good or for ill it had moved away on its
own business. It remained to be seen whether Mortier would be able to
carry out the orders given him, for no one in the French camp could
tell whether the British relieving force for Badajoz, whose existence
had been known since March 8th, had actually started for Estremadura,
or had joined in the pursuit of Masséna, when it received the news
that Imaz had made his disgraceful capitulation. If this force were
on its way, and proved to be strong in numbers, Mortier would be
thrown at once on the defensive. His duty would be to hold off the
Allies till Badajoz was in a state of defence: and the repairing of
the fortress would take some time, even though the greater part of its
fortifications were intact, and only the Pardaleras Fort and the ruined
bastions behind it required reconstruction. If the Allies came on in
great force, and without delaying for a moment, it was even possible
that Mortier would have to blow up Badajoz and withdraw its garrison,
for it would be absurd to leave behind, in an untenable post, such a
large body of men as would be required for the holding of its extensive
enceinte.
The actual course of affairs in Estremadura followed logically from
Wellington’s orders to Beresford on the 9th and the 15th of March.
On the 8th, as it will be remembered, Beresford had been directed to
march to the relief of Badajoz with the 2nd and 4th Divisions and
Hamilton’s Portuguese, some 18,000 men. On the 9th these orders had
been countermanded, on a false report that Masséna had concentrated
and was offering battle behind Thomar. The 4th Division and one
brigade (Hoghton’s) of the 2nd were called off, and marched to join
Wellington’s main body. The rest of the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s
Portuguese stood halted, in or near Abrantes, till the intentions
of the French should be discovered. It was not till March 12th that
Wellington, reassured as to his adversaries’ intentions, thought it
possible once more to take the relief of Badajoz in hand[307]. The
troops about Abrantes were ordered to prepare to march for the Guadiana
in successive brigades; the absent brigade of the 2nd Division,
which had reached Thomar, was directed to retrace its steps and join
the main body of that unit. But the 4th Division had gone on much
further; it was well on its way towards Coimbra, and was engaged in the
Pombal-Redinha operations. It was not till the 15th that Wellington
thought himself able to dispatch it, along with De Grey’s brigade of
dragoons, to cross the Tagus in the wake of the 2nd Division. Beresford
himself, who had joined the main army for a few days by Wellington’s
own orders, was not given his final instructions and sent off to the
south till the following morning.
[307] Nothing could be done in Estremadura without the 2nd
Division, and D’Urban’s diary shows that the orders for the
2nd Division to march into the Alemtejo were only given on the
12th. Beresford’s chief of the staff notes on that day, ‘Orders
to General Stewart [commanding 2nd Division] to fix his head
quarters at Tramagal, to move the 13th to Crato or Carragueira
[both in the Alemtejo south from Abrantes], and to let the
troops remain as at present--unless it should become necessary
to concentrate for the protection of the Bridge of Tancos.’ This
shows that Wellington’s statement to Lord Liverpool on March 14th
(_Dispatches_, vii. 360) that ‘troops had marched from Thomar on
the 9th, and that part of Sir William Beresford’s division, which
had not passed the Tagus, was put in motion, and that their head
had arrived within three marches of Elvas,’ can apply at most to
Hamilton’s Portuguese.
But before the moment at which Beresford started, the whole face of
affairs had been changed by the news, received on the 14th, that
Badajoz had surrendered on the 11th. Wellington was not prepared for
this blow. ‘I had received on the 9th,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool,
‘accounts of a most favourable nature, from which I was induced to
believe not only that the place was in no danger, but that it was in
fact untouched: that its fire was superior to that of the enemy, that
it was in no want of provisions and ammunition, had sustained no loss,
excepting that of the governor Menacho, and was able and likely to hold
out for a month. General Imaz, a person of equally good reputation, had
succeeded to the command, and great confidence was reposed in him.... I
had called up to the army the 4th Division of infantry and the brigade
of heavy cavalry, under the conviction that Badajoz would hold out for
the time during which it would be necessary to employ them. Experience
has shown that I could not have done without these troops, and it is
also clear that, if I had left them behind, they could not have saved
Badajoz, which the governor surrendered on the day after he received my
assurances that he should be relieved, and my entreaties that he would
hold out to the last moment[308].’
[308] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, March 14. _Dispatches_, vii.
360-1.
As far as the argument from time goes, it is clear that Wellington is
stating indisputable facts. Supposing that he had not countermanded
on the 9th of March the orders to Beresford which he had given on the
previous night, and that the three divisions designated for service
in Estremadura had marched with unrelaxing vigour, the head of their
column could not have been further forward than Arronches (if they
took the Portalegre road) or Estremos (if they took the Elvas road)
at the moment when Imaz surrendered. As the former of these points
is about twenty-five and the latter about thirty miles from Badajoz,
the capitulation would not have been prevented. For the governor was
determined to surrender, and did so in full knowledge of the fact,
transmitted by semaphore from Elvas[309], that a relieving expedition
was in hand. Whether the nearest allied troops were (as was actually
the case) at Abrantes or (as might have been the case) at Estremos,
would not have affected him. For, as the proceedings recorded at his
council of war show, he concealed from his officers the news that
succour was promised, and allowed one of them to put down in the
_procès verbal_ of the proceedings the statement that ‘there was no
official news whatever that any army of succour was in movement.’ Such
official news Imaz possessed, through the semaphore messages sent on by
General Leite at Elvas, so that it is evident that he kept them from
the knowledge of his subordinates.
[309] See p. 60 above.
If Badajoz had held out for a fortnight after March 9th,--and
Wellington supposed that it was well able to defend itself for a whole
month--the relieving column would have been in good time. The dispatch
of March 12th set in motion two divisions from near Abrantes, that of
the 15th sent on the third from the banks of the Ceira. Steady marches
of twenty miles a day, or a little less, would have brought Stewart
and Hamilton to the neighbourhood of Badajoz on the 17th, and Cole
with the 4th Division and the dragoon brigade on the 24th[310]. If,
as is probable, Beresford had waited for the arrival of the last-named
force before presenting himself in front of the French lines, the 24th
of March would have been the critical day. It is hard to believe that
Soult could have fought to advantage, since he must have left so many
men to blockade Badajoz that he could not have faced Beresford with
more than 12,000 sabres and bayonets, numbers inadequate to hold off
the 18,000 Anglo-Portuguese who formed the allied Army of Estremadura.
It is quite probable that he might have raised the siege, and offered
battle with his whole army, somewhere south of Badajoz. But into these
possibilities it is profitless to inquire.
[310] Cole actually reached Portalegre on the 22nd, so could have
been in front of Badajoz on the 24th.
Since, however, Wellington and Beresford knew on the night of the
14th that Imaz had surrendered, there was no longer the same need
for haste that existed down to this moment, and the advance of
the Anglo-Portuguese army was made at a moderate pace. Hamilton’s
Portuguese were at Portalegre by the 17th, the 2nd Division came in on
the 19th and 20th. Beresford himself appeared on the latter day, having
ridden through from the neighbourhood of Coimbra in four days. The 4th
Division, which had made an admirable march, a hundred and ten miles of
mountain road in six days, came up on the 22nd. On this day, therefore,
the whole 18,000 men of the expeditionary force were collected within
forty miles of Badajoz, and Beresford had to make up his mind as to
the course of his campaign. The orders given to him by Wellington
had been to concentrate at Portalegre and attack the French, who (as
it had now been ascertained) were moving out to besiege the little
Portuguese fortress of Campo Mayor, just across the frontier. The
small Spanish force under Castaños at Estremos--the wrecks of the old
Army of Estremadura--was to be called up to assist[311]. Wellington,
who did not know of Soult’s departure for Seville, thought that he
could not possibly collect enough men, after garrisoning Badajoz and
Olivenza, to enable him to face Beresford. In a supplementary dispatch
he told his colleague that he thought it most likely that the Marshal
would go south of the Guadiana without accepting battle. In that case
the allied army must be careful, when following him, not to trust
its communications and line of advance or retreat to any temporary
bridge, but must use the Portuguese riverside fortress of Jerumenha
as its base, and construct there a bridge composed of twenty Spanish
pontoon-boats, which (as Wellington was informed) had been floated
down from Badajoz before the siege of that place began. Beresford was
to construct a strong _tête-du-pont_ on the Spanish bank to cover this
bridge[312], and might then move forward and invest Badajoz if he were
able.
[311] Wellington to Beresford, March 18th (_Dispatches_, vii.
372), ‘You had better lose no time in moving up to Portalegre,
and attack Soult, if you can, at Campo Mayor. I will come to
you if I can, but if I cannot do not wait for me. Get Castaños
to join you from Estremos with any Spanish troops he can bring.
You must be two days marching from Portalegre to Campo Mayor, I
believe.’
[312] Wellington to Beresford, March 20 (_Dispatches_, vii.
374-5); some details added from D’Urban’s diary, which do not
appear in this dispatch.
A most prescient note occurs in this dispatch, which seems as if it
were written in prophetical foresight of what was to happen at Campo
Mayor five days later. ‘The cavalry is the most delicate arm we
possess. We have few officers who have practical knowledge of the mode
of using it, or who have ever seen more than two regiments together. To
these circumstances add that the defeat of, or any great loss sustained
by, our cavalry in these open grounds would be a misfortune, amounting
almost to a defeat of the whole; you will therefore see the necessity
of keeping your cavalry as much as possible _en masse_, and in reserve,
to be thrown in at the moment when opportunity offers for striking a
decisive blow.’ It looks almost as if Wellington knew that General
Long, who commanded Beresford’s cavalry, was going to make the very
mistakes that he actually committed on the first collision with the
enemy.
The moment that the 4th Division and De Grey’s dragoons reached
Portalegre, Beresford began his march on Campo Mayor (March 22) sending
out Colborne’s and Lumley’s brigades of the 2nd Division to Arronches,
and the Portuguese cavalry brigade of Otway to Azumar. This last-named
unit had been watching the frontier between the Tagus and the Guadiana
ever since Masséna’s retreat from Santarem, and joined the 2nd
Division on the 20th of March. Hamilton’s Portuguese infantry division
was to follow next day, the 4th Division was to be allowed two days’
rest after its fatiguing march from the Ceira, and was only to start on
the 24th[313]. On the 25th the whole army was to be in front of Campo
Mayor.
[313] All these details are from D’Urban’s Journal.
It remains to speak of the position in which the enemy was found.
Between the 14th of March, when Soult departed from Seville, and the
25th, when Beresford’s army made its sudden and quite unexpected
descent into the middle of the French forces, only eleven days
elapsed; but Mortier had turned them to good account, and had more
than fulfilled all that had been expected of him. On the very day that
Soult started for Seville he marched against Campo Mayor, with nine
battalions of infantry, a cavalry brigade, and part of the siege-train
which had just captured Badajoz. One other battalion was left as
garrison in Olivenza, the six that remained from the corps were told
off for Badajoz, where General Phillipon had been appointed governor.
With the aid of three companies of sappers they were already busily
engaged in levelling their own old siege-works, and commencing the
repairs to the battered front of the walls. Mortier conceived that
there could not be any danger in carrying out the orders that Soult had
left, for he could find no traces of any hostile force in his vicinity,
save the Portuguese garrison of Elvas, and the 4,000 men who formed
the wrecks of Mendizabal’s army. This demoralized force had rallied at
Campo Mayor, but on receiving the news of the fall of Badajoz retired
in haste to Estremos, twenty miles within the Portuguese frontier.
Their presence there was a danger rather than a defence to the
Alemtejo, for not only did they consume some magazines collected there
by Wellington’s orders for the use of the expeditionary force, but
they plundered recklessly in the neighbouring villages, and committed
such outrages that the Portuguese Government was almost forced to
take military measures against them[314]. Mortier had nothing to fear
from this quarter, while he could hear no news of the approach of any
British force from the direction of the Tagus. The 2nd Division and
Hamilton’s Portuguese, it will be remembered, had only been ordered to
resume their movement towards Estremadura on the 13th, by Wellington’s
dispatch of the 12th, and when Mortier started from Badajoz they were
only just commencing their advance from the neighbourhood of Abrantes
towards Crato and Portalegre, and were very nearly a hundred miles
away, so that it was impossible that he should get any information
concerning them.
[314] The consumption of the Estremos magazines by Mendizabal’s
men will be found mentioned in the pamphlet (written under
Beresford’s direction) called ‘Strictures on Napier’s Peninsular
War’ [London, 1832]. ‘When the Marshal (Beresford) put his
corps in motion from the Tagus he was informed that the British
Commissary in the Alemtejo had from 200,000 to 300,000 rations
in store for his use. But this officer had also been ordered to
supply the Spanish division lately in that province, and (most
incautiously) issued for its service whatever its commander
required. Owing to this inadvertence on the part of the
Commissary (whose name, I think, was Thompson), when Marshal
Beresford arrived the store was _absolutely empty_’ [p. 61].
His name _was_ Thompson, and he was immediately superseded by
Wellington’s order (_Dispatches_, vii. 426).
Campo Mayor was an old-fashioned fortress, which had not been
remodelled since the War of the Spanish Succession, its greatest
weakness was that an outlying fort (São João), only 200 yards from the
walls in a commanding position, had been dismantled, but not blown
up and levelled to the ground. It overlooked one of the bastions of
the place, and had only to be seized in order to provide an admirable
starting-place for operations against the enceinte. No serious
attention had been paid to Campo Mayor of late, the much stronger place
of Elvas, only eleven miles away, having absorbed all the attention of
the Portuguese government. The Spaniards had been garrisoning it for
the last six months, but when they hastily departed the Governor of
Elvas threw into it half a battalion of the Portalegre Militia (about
300 men) and a company of artillery. This handful of men, aided by the
Ordenança of the place, were all that were at the disposition of the
very gallant and resourceful old engineer officer, Major José Joaquim
Talaya, who was left in charge of the place. As the population was
under 3,000 souls, the levy of the Ordenança cannot have amounted to
more than 300 men, and many of these (as was still the case in most
parts of Portugal) had no firearms, but only pikes. But the chief
magistrate (_juiz de fora_), José Carvalho, served at the head of them
with great energy, and we are assured that (contrary to what might
have been expected) the citizens took a more creditable part than the
militiamen in the defence[315].
[315] Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 531-2.
With no regulars save the company of artillery, and no more than 800
men in all to protect a long enceinte, it might have been expected that
Talaya could make no defence at all--indeed he might have evacuated
the place without any blame. But being a man of fine resolution, and
recognizing the fact that he was doing the greatest possible service
by detaining 7,000 French before his walls, and thereby covering Elvas
and allowing time for Beresford to arrive, he resolved to hold out as
long as possible. The French seized Fort São João on the night of their
arrival (March 14th) and opened trenches on each side of it, commencing
at the same time three batteries, of which two were sheltered by the
dismantled work. Next morning two of these works were in a position to
open fire on the town, since the heavy guns for them had only to come
from Badajoz, a mere nine miles away.
Despite of this Talaya held out for seven days of bombardment and
open trenches (15th-21st March). He concentrated all his artillery on
the approaches and the breaching-batteries, and for some time held
his own. On the 19th a breach was opened in the projecting bastion
(de Concelho), but the Governor refused a summons to surrender, and
actually beat off an assault that night. On the following day the whole
face of the bastion began to crumble, and, since further resistance
was hopeless, Talaya accepted the terms offered him by Mortier--viz.
that the garrison should lay down its arms if not relieved within
twenty-four hours, the Militia and Ordenança not to be regarded as
prisoners of war, but to be allowed to stay in or retire to their
homes, on condition that they should not again bear arms against the
French. A similar favour was extended to the Governor himself, who
was allowed, ‘on account of his great age,’ says the capitulation, to
retire to his own residence on giving his word of honour not to serve
again[316]. As the whole garrison, save the artillery, were irregular
troops, Mortier took over less than 100 prisoners. Some fifty guns,
many of them of very antique and useless fabric, and 10,000 rations of
biscuit were captured. The delay of twenty-four hours in the surrender
of the town turned out very unluckily for Mortier, as it just gave
time for Beresford and his army to arrive, only four days after the
surrender, before the place had been dismantled or injured.
[316] Colonel Dickson met Talaya only two days after the
surrender and had an interesting interview with him. See
Dickson’s _Journal_, i. p. 366. He can find no praise high enough
for the old engineer officer. D’Urban also speaks of him in most
appreciative terms.
The eight-day defence of the absolutely untenable Campo Mayor contrasts
in the strongest fashion with that of the neighbouring Spanish fortress
of Albuquerque. This, too, was a very neglected and antiquated place,
but it possessed a citadel on a high crag, which might have been held
for some days against anything but heavy artillery, and it would have
taken some time to erect batteries which could effectively reach it.
When, however, Latour-Maubourg, with two cavalry regiments, summoned
it, on March 15, the Governor at once began to parley, and on being
told that infantry and guns were coming forward, actually opened his
gates next day, before the two battalions and two guns sent by Mortier
arrived. This demoralized officer was Major-General José Cagigal; his
garrison consisted of two battalions of the Estremaduran regiment of
Fernando VII, about 800 men, and a few artillerymen with seventeen
brass guns of position. This was, on the whole, the most disgraceful
surrender made during the whole Peninsular War--it can only be compared
to the celebrated capitulation of Stettin in 1806, when the Prussian
general, in an exactly similar fashion, yielded a fortress to a brigade
of hussars who were impudent enough to summon it. But Stettin was a far
worse case than Albuquerque--since it was a modern stronghold with a
garrison of no less than 6,000 men.
After the surrender of Albuquerque, Latour-Maubourg sent on a regiment
of dragoons to Valencia de Alcantara, the last fortified place in
Spanish hands between the Guadiana and the Tagus. The small garrison
evacuated it, and the dragoons, after bursting seven guns found within
its walls, and blowing up its gates (March 17), returned to Badajoz.
The news of the loss of the one Portuguese and the two Spanish
fortresses did not detain Beresford a moment in his advance, indeed
he was only anxious to attack the enemy before he should have either
repaired and garrisoned, or else dismantled and destroyed, Campo Mayor.
On the 24th, Cole’s 4th Division, having had its two prescribed days
of rest, marched from Portalegre to Arronches, where it caught up
the cavalry and the other two divisions. Nothing had been discovered
of the French, save some hussar vedettes only three miles north of
Campo Mayor. It seems that Beresford’s approach came as a complete
surprise to Mortier, who had made no preparations to meet it. He had
withdrawn the greater part of the troops who had formed the siege corps
to Badajoz, and had left Latour-Maubourg to dismantle the place--for
he had made up his mind not to hold it. The cavalry general retained
three of his own regiments (26th Dragoons and 2nd and 10th Hussars),
one infantry regiment (the 100th of the Line), a half-battery of horse
artillery, with a large detachment of the military train, who were in
charge not only of the siege-guns lately used, but of thirty pieces
from the walls of Campo Mayor, which it was intended to bring over to
Badajoz. The rest of the Portuguese guns were to be burst, as useless
and antiquated. The engineers were selecting sections of the enceinte,
which were to be mined and blown up. The whole French force was about
900 sabres and 1,200 bayonets, plus the detachments of the auxiliary
arms--perhaps 2,400 men in all[317]. There was a very fair chance of
capturing it entire, owing to the careless way in which Latour-Maubourg
kept watch. The presence of scouting parties of Portuguese dragoons had
been reported to him[318]. But probably he attached little importance
to their presence in this direction. There had been cavalry of that
nation on the Estremaduran frontier ever since January.
[317] There is great difficulty in making out what were the
French cavalry regiments, but Martinien’s lists show losses in
the 26th Dragoons (eight officers) and 2nd Hussars, and Long
speaks positively of the 10th Hussars as present also.
[318] D’Urban, reconnoitring with one, was sighted and chased a
little way by French hussars. See C. E. Long’s vindication of his
uncle, _General Long’s Military Reputation_ [London, 1832], pp.
74-5.
At half-past ten o’clock on the very rainy morning of the 25th,
Beresford’s army was advancing on Campo Mayor in three converging
columns, the bulk of the 2nd Division preceded by De Grey’s dragoons
on the high-road, Hamilton’s Portuguese division on a by-path over
a ridge to the east of the road, with the 13th Light Dragoons and
two Portuguese squadrons in their front, Colborne’s brigade and the
remaining Portuguese horse on a corresponding ridge, some way to the
western or right side of the _chaussée_. Cole followed a mile in the
rear as reserve. The French outposts were found as on the preceding
day, only three miles outside the town. General Latour-Maubourg chanced
to be visiting them, probably in tardy consequence of the reports of
the previous day. When attacked they retired skirmishing, to delay
as far as possible the advance of Beresford’s leading squadrons.
Latour-Maubourg, seeing that the Allies were coming up on a broad
front, and at least 15,000 strong, rode back hastily into the town,
ordered the drums to beat, and directed infantry and cavalry alike to
abandon their baggage, and to form up without a moment’s delay on the
glacis outside the southern gate for a retreat. A column of sixteen
heavy guns from the walls of Campo Mayor and the siege-train, with
practically no escort, had started some little time back, and was on
its way to Badajoz along the high-road before the alarm was given[319].
The allied cavalry, on coming in sight of the town from the ridge to
its north, discovered the enemy just moving off, the infantry regiment
in column of route on the road, with one hussar regiment in front
of it and another in rear, while the 26th Dragoons, some little way
ahead, was covering the rest from being intercepted on the high-road,
for Latour-Maubourg had seen that his danger lay in the probability
that Beresford would strike in, with the horse of his van, between him
and Badajoz, and so force him to fight his way through, under pain of
being surrounded and captured if he failed. This indeed was Beresford’s
intention, but being impressed with Wellington’s warning not to risk
or lose his cavalry, he had ordered General Long, who was in command
of the division of that arm, not to commit himself against a superior
force, and ‘to wait for the infantry to come up if he were in any
doubt; yet if the opportunity to strike a blow occurs he must avail
himself of it[320].’ The whole cavalry force with the army was only
eleven British squadrons and five Portuguese, the latter very weak, and
the total number of sabres was about 1,500, a very small allowance for
an army of over 18,000 men, and therefore very precious.
[319] Belmas says that it had started _déjà_, and must be right:
while Lapéne, who thinks that it was loaded up and sent off
after the alarm, fails to account for its being six miles along
the road when surprised. Heavy guns travel slowly. Beresford
corroborates Belmas.
[320] This is Long’s account of the orders given by Beresford (p.
75 of the _Vindication of the Military Reputation of the late
General Long_, by C. E. Long), in a letter from the general to
General Le Marchant. This agrees pretty well with Beresford’s
version of the facts, and is no doubt correct.
When Latour-Maubourg saw the British divisions coming on in the
distance, he marched off with all possible speed, and had such a start
that his column, whose pace was set by the quick step of the infantry,
had got nearly three miles from Campo Mayor before it was seriously
threatened. General Long had, by Beresford’s orders, directed his
squadrons to sweep east of the walls of the town, out of gunshot, in
case there should chance to have been a garrison left behind. The
sweep was a long one, because a ravine was discovered which forced the
regiments to turn further eastward than was at first intended. They
came up in two detachments, one formed by the 13th Light Dragoons and
Otway’s Portuguese, more to the left (east), the other of De Grey’s
dragoons further to the right (west). The first body was nearly level
with the dragoon regiment which was moving ahead of the French column,
the other was not so far to the front, being 400 or 500 yards away
from the rear flank of the French. The nearest British infantry and
guns, Colborne’s brigade and Cleeves’s German battery accompanying it,
were out of sight, two miles to the rear, hidden by undulations of the
ground; so was Beresford himself and his staff, who were riding ahead
of the main body.
Seeing a fight forced on him, Latour-Maubourg resolved to accept it. He
had a force of all arms, and thought himself strong enough to beat off
cavalry unsupported by infantry or guns, even though they outnumbered
his own horsemen in the proportion of five to three. Accordingly he
suddenly halted and formed his infantry in battalion squares on the
high-road, with the hussars flanking them in deep order, while the
dragoon regiment, with its right wing drawn back and its left wing
not far from the leading hussars, formed a line at an obtuse angle to
the main body, ready to deliver a flanking charge on the British and
Portuguese if they should attack the infantry.
Long, considering, as he says, that he was strong enough to attempt
the ‘blow’ of which Beresford had spoken, resolved first to drive off
the French dragoon regiment which threatened his flank, and then to
fall upon the hussars and infantry. He sent orders to De Grey and the
heavy dragoons to close in upon the rear and left flank of the French,
from whom they were still separated by a ridge, but to hold off till
the rest of the troops had disposed of the covering cavalry. He then
advanced with the light squadrons, English and Portuguese, to get
beyond the French dragoons--his line was formed with two Portuguese
squadrons (7th regiment) on the extreme left, then the two and a half
squadrons of the 13th British Light Dragoons[321], and to the right the
three remaining Portuguese squadrons (1st regiment).
[321] A squadron was absent with Colborne’s column and another
troop on distant reconnaissance work, and the regiment was not
much over 200 sabres.
Seeing that Long was manœuvring to outflank him, Latour-Maubourg
ordered the 26th Dragoons to charge before the movement was far
advanced. The British 13th formed to their front, and started to
meet them; the two lines met with a tremendous crash, neither giving
way, and were mingled for a few moments in desperate hand to hand
fighting[322], in which Colonel Chamorin, the French brigadier, was
slain in a personal combat with a corporal named Logan of the 13th.
Presently the French broke, and fled in disorder along and beside the
Badajoz road. Then followed one of those wild and senseless pursuits
which always provoked Wellington’s wrath, and induced him to say in
bitterness that the ordinary British cavalry regiment was ‘good
for nothing but galloping[323].’ General Long says in his account of
the affair that he found it impossible to stop or rally the Light
Dragoons, and therefore sent after them the two squadrons of the 7th
Portuguese, to act as a support. But the Portuguese put on a great pace
to come up with the 13th, got excited in pursuing stray knots of French
dragoons, broke their order, and finally joined in the headlong chase
as recklessly as their comrades.
[322] Napier’s story that they charged _through_ each other,
formed up front to rear, and then charged each other again
is strongly denied by Beresford as ‘purely supposititious’
(_Strictures_, pp. 152-3), and not confirmed by Long or any other
eye-witness.
[323] See vol. i. p. 119.
[Illustration: _Field Marshal Sir William Carr Beresford_]
The ride was incredibly long and disorderly, quite in the style of
Prince Rupert at Edgehill. It was continued for no less than seven
miles; four miles from the place where it had started, the Light
Dragoons came on the artillery convoy of sixteen heavy guns which had
left Campo Mayor in the early morning, and had crawled on almost to
the gates of Badajoz; the small escort was dispersed, and the drivers
were cut down or chased off the road. Many of the Portuguese stopped to
make prize of the horses--most valuable personal plunder--and went off
with them in small parties towards the allied camp. The pursuers should
have stopped here. There was no object in chasing any further the few
surviving French dragoons, who were scattered broadcast. The guns, with
a long train of caissons and carts, were left standing beside the road,
but little attention was paid to these valuable trophies. One or two
were rehorsed and turned towards the British lines by some officers of
the 13th. The main body of the pursuers, however, did not stop with the
convoy, but, still sabring at the routed French, rode two miles and a
half further, till they hurtled against the bridge-head fortifications
of Badajoz. They were only stopped by being shelled from Fort San
Cristobal, and fired on by the garrison of the _tête-du-pont_. It is
said by one French authority[324] that the leading dragoons actually
reached the barrier-gate of the covered way of the latter work, and
were shot there. Marshal Mortier, learning what had happened, sallied
out of the fortress with a cavalry regiment and four battalions,
captured quite a number of straggling dragoons, whose horses had fallen
or given out in the wild ride, and found the bulk of the artillery
convoy standing lonely and teamless by the wayside. It was dragged
along into Badajoz, save one howitzer and six caissons, which were left
behind on the approach of Beresford’s main body. Mortier also picked up
near the place where the convoy was lying, and brought into Badajoz,
Latour-Maubourg’s column, whose further fortunes need to be detailed.
[324] Belmas, iii. p. 557.
When the 13th Light Dragoons and the 7th Portuguese went off on their
mad escapade, General Long found himself left in front of the main
French force, with only the three squadrons of the 1st Portuguese
cavalry, which had formed his reserve, and the Heavy Brigade, distant
half a mile from him, and on the other side of the French line. It was
apparently his intention to charge the enemy with these troops, a most
hazardous experiment, for the French with a regiment of 1,200 infantry
in square, flanked by four squadrons of hussars, were dangerous to deal
with. In all the Peninsular War there was only one occasion (at Garcia
Hernandez in 1812) where formed squares of either side were broken
by the cavalry of the other, and the 100th Ligne on this occasion
had 500 hussars to support them. There was some delay while Long was
sending an aide-de-camp to the Heavy Brigade to bid them prepare to
attack[325], and, seeing him holding back, Latour-Maubourg started off
his column once more along the high-road, the infantry marching in
square, with two squadrons of hussars in front and two behind. To stop
him from moving on, Long brought forward the 1st Portuguese to check
the hussars. But when they advanced toward them, and were about to
engage, the front side of the leading French battalion square opened a
distant fire against their flank. Surprised by this, for they had not
realized that they were within effective range of the hostile infantry,
the three Portuguese squadrons broke and galloped off, pursued by the
hussars for some little way[326].
[325] So, at least, I gather from Long’s narrative: he says that
‘he sent an order for the advance of De Grey’s brigade’ (p. 34),
and in another place (p. 53), that ‘it was only necessary to
charge and throw into confusion the cavalry at their (the French)
head and rear, and the object was accomplished.’ The object is
defined as the ‘annihilation’ of the French column, which Long
thinks would have surrendered.
[326] This regiment lost one officer and ten men killed, and
thirty-two wounded, beside some prisoners, in the abortive
advance. The French statement that the 2nd Hussars made ‘de
belles charges’ is therefore evidently justified. But it was the
flanking infantry fire which demoralized the Portuguese (Long’s
_Vindication_, p. 49).
At this moment Marshal Beresford and his staff came upon the scene,
on the ridge near De Grey’s brigade, and saw the three Portuguese
squadrons rallying at a distance, and still in disorder, while the
heavy dragoons were preparing to attack. On inquiring what had become
of the 13th and the rest of the Portuguese, Beresford was told by one
of his staff[327] that they had been cut off and were believed to have
been captured. Horrified at this news, which brought to his mind all
Wellington’s warnings, Beresford forbade the Heavy Brigade to charge,
and bade them hold off, till some infantry and guns should come up.
He was indubitably right in so doing, for, as all previous and later
experience proved, it was most unlikely that they would have broken the
French squares.
[327] By all accounts this was Baron Trip, a Dutch _émigré_
officer, who was serving on Beresford’s staff. The statement was
very astounding, even incredible, considering that the country
was open and undulating. But it was almost equally incredible
that the 13th and 7th Portuguese should have pursued the French
dragoons completely out of sight, six miles away, without leaving
a man behind.
He sent back for the nearest infantry, which was Colborne’s brigade,
and some guns. Meanwhile the enemy continued moving off at a great
pace, followed at a distance by the heavy dragoons, while Long and the
three rallied Portuguese squadrons marched parallel with their flank.
The two parties had proceeded several miles in this way, when the 13th
Light Dragoons came in sight, returning from the direction of Badajoz,
and their Portuguese companions with them. Soon after, two guns of
Cleeves’s battery got up, unlimbered, and opened a fire at long range
against the rear of the French. It had some effect, but the enemy kept
his ranks and continued to move on as fast as possible, leaving his
dead and wounded in the road. The artillery horses were exhausted and
unable to keep up, wherefore Beresford ordered the whole force to halt,
saying that without infantry there was nothing more to be done. At this
moment Colborne’s brigade was no more than half a mile behind according
to Long and certain other witnesses[328]. But on the other hand,
Mortier with 2,000 infantry and a cavalry regiment from Badajoz was
visible, waiting for Latour-Maubourg near the spot where the dismantled
convoy was standing. The two French forces joined, and retired into
the fortress with nearly all the recaptured guns--only one and some
caissons remained to be picked up by Beresford’s advance.
[328] Colonel Gabriel, a staff officer of the 2nd Division, says
that Colborne’s brigade was only 500 yards in rear of the heavy
dragoons, and the French still in sight when Beresford ordered
the final halt. See Long’s _Vindication_, p. 65.
The loss of the British on this occasion, all in the 13th Light
Dragoons[329], was 10 killed, 3 officers and 24 men wounded, and 22
prisoners; among the Portuguese 1st and 7th cavalry an officer and 13
men killed, 40 wounded, and 55 prisoners--a total of over 150. The
French suffered more--the 26th Dragoons alone had 8 officers[330] and
over 100 men killed, wounded, and taken, the train and artillery had
been dreadfully cut up at the capture of the convoy, and the infantry
had lost 3 officers and many men by the fire of Cleeves’s guns. The
total casualties were over 200[331]. But the moral effect of a combat
is not judged by a mere comparison of losses, and the British officers
were much disappointed. Beresford and his friends held that Long had
by mismanagement wasted 150 precious cavalrymen--Long declared that
if Beresford had not taken the command out of his hands he would have
captured the whole French column. This last claim was absolutely
unreasonable: it is far more likely that he would merely have caused
severe loss to the two heavy dragoon regiments by persisting. The
Marshal and the General were on bad terms from this moment onward, and
the former took the next opportunity given him to remove the latter
from the chief command of the allied cavalry. The most curious comment
on the combat of Campo Mayor is Napier’s statement that ‘the 13th Light
Dragoons were severely reprimanded for pursuing so eagerly. But the
unsparing admiration of the whole army consoled them!’ Pursuing eagerly
is a mild expression for riding seven miles off the battlefield, and
on to the glacis of a hostile fortress. Wellington’s comment was that
‘the undisciplined ardour of the 13th Dragoons and the 7th regiment of
Portuguese cavalry is not of the description of the determined bravery
of soldiers confident in their discipline and their officers. Their
conduct was that of a rabble galloping as fast as their horses could
carry them, after an enemy to whom they could do no further mischief
when they were broken: the pursuit was continued for an unlimited
distance, and sacrificed substantial advantages, and all the objects
of the operation, by want of discipline[332].’ A similar reproof was
published in a General Order, to be read to the cavalry.
[329] Except three wounded in the 3rd Dragoon Guards in
skirmishes with the hussars of the French rearguard.
[330] One killed, six wounded, one prisoner. For names see
Martinien’s lists and supplement thereto.
[331] Belmas says 175, but this is too low.
[332] Wellington to Beresford, from Celorico, March 28
(_Dispatches_, vii. 412). By an odd error Wellington wrote the
1st Portuguese, but it was the 7th which joined in the hunt.
The only really satisfactory result of the combat of Campo Mayor was
that Beresford recovered the town intact, with some guns which had not
yet been sent off to Badajoz, and a considerable amount of stores,
including 8,000 rations of biscuit. The place was at once re-garrisoned
with the Faro regiment of militia from Elvas, who rapidly repaired the
breach. It was tenable again in a few days.
On the 26th Beresford discovered that the French had withdrawn entirely
beyond the Guadiana, keeping nothing north of it save the bridge-head
and Fort San Cristobal at Badajoz. All accounts agreed that after
deducting the garrison of that place Mortier could not have more than
8,000, or at the most 10,000, men available for the field, so that
there was no reason why Wellington’s orders to thrust him out of
Estremadura, and besiege Badajoz, should not be carried out. It was
particularly directed in those orders that the expeditionary force
should cross the Guadiana at Jerumenha, and make a bridge at that
place, only a few miles from the strong fortress of Elvas, the base
of its line of communications[333]. Accordingly the 2nd Division and
Hamilton’s Portuguese marched to Elvas on the 26th, leaving Cole and
the 4th Division (still much fatigued by their long march) for a day
at Campo Mayor. There can be no doubt that if Beresford had been able
to cross at Jerumenha on the 27th or 28th he would have compelled
the French to retire southward at once, and might have invested
Badajoz, then not yet fully repaired, as soon as he chose. But a most
tiresome series of hindrances, for which it seems unjust to blame the
Anglo-Portuguese commander, now began to crop up. The first and most
fatal was that the stock of Spanish pontoon boats which, as he had
been told by Wellington, would be found at Elvas or Jerumenha, was not
forthcoming. Only five were discovered: two complete bridge-equipages
had been kept by Imaz at Badajoz, and were now in the hands of the
French. But twenty large pontoons, as the engineers declared, was the
least number which would suffice to bridge the Guadiana. An attempt
was made to seek for river-craft to eke out the pontoons. But by
Wellington’s orders all the boats on the river for many miles had been
destroyed, when Soult entered Estremadura in January. Some Portuguese
pontoons were ordered from Lisbon, but it would be a week or so before
they could be carted across the Alemtejo. Meanwhile Captain Squire,
the engineer charged with the bridge-building, offered to lay trestles
across the shallower part of the bed of the Guadiana on either bank,
and to moor the five pontoons in the deep channel in the middle to join
them. To this Beresford assented, and the bridge-place was selected on
the 30th: Squire promised that the whole should be completed on the 3rd
of April; he could not finish it earlier, as the wood for the trestles
had to be found, cut down, and shaped _ab initio_.
[333] Napier censures Beresford for not crossing at Merida,
thirty miles east of Badajoz. But (1) Wellington’s orders
directed him to use Jerumenha; (2) to march to Merida would have
been to pass across the front of an enemy who had a bridge-head
at Badajoz, from which he could push out detachments to cut the
line of communication, Campo Mayor to Merida; (3) Elvas was the
only possible base, and the only place where magazines could be
safely formed, or munitions, siege artillery, &c., procured; (4)
the road Campo Mayor-Merida was very bad; (5) Merida was within
reach of the French Army of the Centre, which had detachments at
Truxillo and Almaraz.
The delay of a week thus caused was of the less importance, however,
because of another contretemps. There were no stores ready to feed the
army when it should cross the Guadiana. The 200,000 rations at Estremos
which Wellington (as it will be remembered) had promised to Beresford,
were found to have been entirely consumed by the wreck of Mendizabal’s
army, who had been lying there for the last three weeks. There was
nothing to lade upon the mules and carts of the expeditionary force;
the troops were in great difficulties from day to day, ate the 8,000
rations at Campo Mayor, and were finally forced to indent upon the
stores of the garrison of Elvas, which ought to have been sacred to the
defence of the town.
Lastly, and this was perhaps the most important of all, the shoes of
the 4th Division, which had marched continuously from the 6th to the
22nd of March, first from the Lines to Espinhal, and then from Espinhal
to Portalegre, were completely worn out. Cole protested against the
division being moved till it was reshod. No footgear could be found
at Elvas, and though an immediate requisition was sent to Lisbon,
the convoy bringing the shoes would obviously take a week or so to
get up[334]. From the 26th of March to the 3rd of April Beresford
was perforce immovable. This loss of eight days was apparently the
reason why Badajoz did not fall into his hands a little later, for the
fortifications, which were still in a dangerous state of disrepair
on the 25th, were practically tenable by the second week in April.
The stores in the fortress were a less important matter. Imaz when
he surrendered had over a month’s rations for 9,000 men, which, even
when a certain amount had been consumed by Soult’s field army, left
a nucleus sufficient to keep the garrison of 3,000 men placed in the
town by Mortier out of need for many weeks. In addition, cattle had
been requisitioned all over Estremadura. The small movable force of
8,000 men which was available for observing Beresford, was now living
entirely on the country-side, in order to spare the stores of Badajoz.
[334] These notes as to Beresford’s difficulties are taken
partly from the Journal of his chief of the staff, D’Urban,
partly from the latter’s detailed report on the Estremaduran
campaign, published in 1832, but written in 1811, partly from
the _Strictures on Napier’s History_, vol. iii, written under
Beresford’s eye. The latter might be considered suspicious if
they were not completely borne out by the two former, as well as
by Wellington’s _Dispatches_, vii. 414, 426, 432.
Beresford’s delay in crossing the Guadiana, therefore, was unfortunate,
but apparently inevitable, and there seems no reason to blame him for
it. On April 3rd the engineers reported that the bridge at Jerumenha
would be ready that evening, and the three divisions concentrated on
the left bank: the water was low, and a difficult ford for cavalry had
been found above the bridge, by which a squadron of dragoons passed,
and established a chain of pickets on the Spanish side. No French were
seen abroad, though it was discovered that they still had a garrison
in Olivenza, only six miles away. It is difficult to make out why no
attempt was made to obstruct the building of Beresford’s bridge--the
enemy had five regiments of cavalry in Estremadura, and 6,000 infantry
of Girard’s division were available for field service. Even a small
detachment with some guns would have made it impossible for the
British engineers to complete their work. But the Allies found a great
advantage in the fact that Mortier had just received orders to return
to Paris, and had on March 26th handed over the command of all the
troops on the Guadiana to Latour-Maubourg, who was a good divisional
general on the battlefield, but a very indifferent strategist. All
his manœuvres during the following month were weak and confused. How
it came that from the 30th of March to the 7th of April no French
cavalry were seen opposite Jerumenha, much less any serious force
sent to disturb the bridge-building, it is impossible to conceive. By
all accounts the horsemen who should have been in front of Olivenza
were at this time mainly employed in scouring the villages of Central
Estremadura for cattle and corn, and escorting what they could seize
into Badajoz and the camp of Girard’s division.