Everything seemed now to depend on the attack against the Castle, since

that on the other side of the river had come to such a disastrous

conclusion. The fire of the newly arrived iron ship-guns was still

very effective, and the breach looked larger and less steep. In fact

French accounts state that it was now for the first time thoroughly

practicable--but it was 800 yards from the British parallel, and the

artillery on the neighbouring bastions and even on the Castle itself

was still intact. Phillipon was in no wise freed from care by the

successful repulse of the two attempts to storm San Cristobal. He had

just had to reduce his troops to half-rations, and even on this scale

there were only ten days more of food in the place: no provisions

had been got in since Beresford’s first siege began in April. The

garrison, though its losses in killed and wounded had not been great,

had many sick, and the strain of being constantly under arms expecting

an assault was beginning to be felt. There was no news from outside,

save that brought by two or three deserters from the foreign corps in

the British 7th Division, who reported that Soult was still in the

Sierra Morena[537], and that they had heard nothing of the approach

of a relieving army, though there was a rumour that Victor was going

to raise the siege of Cadiz in order to join his chief. Phillipon was

forced to contemplate the double possibility of his provisions running

short and of a successful assault on the Castle front. Wherefore he

resolved that preparations should be made to bring off the garrison by

a sally, if the worst came to the worst. If no relief came, or if the

walls were forced, the whole available body of his men were to cross

the river to the Cristobal side under cover of the night, and to dash

at the lines of the besiegers, in order to cut their way through by the

road to Montijo and Merida. But this was not to be tried before the day

of absolute necessity should arrive: the council of war called by the

governor decided that the topic of evasion need not be broached for

five days more[538]. Before those five days had expired they were out

of danger and sure of relief.

[537] Lamare, p. 179.

[538] Lapéne, p. 212. Cf. Lamare, p. 203.

It was at noon on June 10th that Wellington made up his mind that the

siege must be abandoned. Calling together the divisional commanders,

and the senior officers of artillery and engineers, he gave them a

short address. It had been proved, he said, that it was impossible to

storm San Cristobal without sapping up to the crest of the glacis,

which was a practically impossible task on the bare rock. There was

now a breach in the Castle, but it was too remote from the parallel,

and the route to it was commanded both by the guns on the flank of San

Cristobal and those on the lunette of San Roque and other parts of the

southern enceinte. It was known that it had been elaborately retrenched

behind, by ditches and palisades. But these were not his sole or the

main reasons for stopping the siege. He had news that Marmont and the

9th Corps would both join Soult in a few days: and the allied army must

not be caught in the trenches, and forced to fight superior numbers in

an unfavourable position. It would be possible to stop five days more

and to continue the battering for that time, but on the 15th the French

armies might be concentrated and a general action forced upon him.

This he would not risk, but had decided to order the whole siege-train

to be withdrawn into Elvas at once, while the army would keep up the

blockade of Badajoz till the enemy drew near, and would then retire

beyond the Guadiana at its leisure, and take up a position on the

Portuguese frontier which he had already chosen. As soon as it was dark

the guns should be withdrawn from the batteries, and the sending of

stores, tools, &c., back to Elvas must commence. He would have risked a

couple of days more battering if he had thought it likely to lead to a

storm. But it was his opinion that there was no prospect of immediate

success against the place, and he was therefore resolved to give up the

siege even before he was actually forced to do so. Rumour adds that

he muttered more or less to himself that ‘next time he would be his

own engineer[539].’ But he did not speak publicly in censure of the

mistakes of Fletcher and his colleagues: the men who had planned and

built the Lines of Torres Vedras were not to be disgraced lightly, even

if they had failed in their last task.

[539] See Burgoyne’s _Diary_, i. p. 135: ‘There is an account

current that his Lordship says if he undertakes another siege

he will be his own engineer. Whatever faults were committed

at Badajoz I suspect he was not aware of them, and I think it

very doubtful whether he even knows them now. It appears to me

probable that he _did_ say so, by the mystery affected about

_our_ [the engineer] head quarters respecting the siege.’

Burgoyne, an engineer with his feelings hurt, under-values

Wellington’s intelligence.

The approaching concentration of the French armies had been very

carefully watched by Wellington, who was in constant touch with

Spencer, and had been keeping a most vigilant eye on all his reports.

He had also been helped by several intercepted dispatches, taken on the

way between the Armies of Portugal and Andalusia, and by reports from

the guerrillero chiefs of Castile and his own secret correspondents

in Salamanca. Marmont had been much more rapid in his movements, and

had shown more willingness to help a colleague in distress, than was

usual among the French commanders in Spain. He was new to command, and

very zealous; it is certain that a year later, when he had gained more

experience of co-operation with Soult, he would not come so fast and so

eagerly to his aid.

The Duke of Ragusa had conducted the Army of Portugal back to Salamanca

on May 15th, and had (as has been already related[540]) spent the

next fortnight in breaking up the old corps into six new divisions

of infantry and five brigades of cavalry. The regiments had all sent

back to France the cadres of their 3rd battalions and their 3rd and

4th squadrons. The infantry battalions had been completed up to about

700 men each: and the six divisions had by May 25th about 28,000 men

present with the colours[541], besides sick and detachments, who were

very numerous[542]. There were only 2,500 cavalry fit for service,

and six batteries of artillery; great drafts of horses were promised

from France, by which it was hoped that the former would ere long be

able to show 5,000 sabres, and the latter to put 60 guns in the field.

Meanwhile there were not more than 33,000 men of all arms fit to march.

[540] See pp. 361-2.

[541] These figures, given by Marmont in his _Mémoires_, iv. pp.

40-1, are borne out by the official states.

[542] Bessières writes to Berthier on May 23 that he has 4,000

men of the Army of Portugal, convalescents and drafts, in his

government, who could be sent forward if there were officers to

take charge of them. In reality the figures were even greater.

There were also some 4,000 sick in the hospitals of the army at

Salamanca, &c.

Soult, before starting on his Albuera campaign, had written to Masséna

(whose deposition was unknown to him) to state that if he failed in his

attempt to deliver Badajoz at the head of his own expeditionary force,

he might have to ask for aid from the Army of Portugal. This letter was

delivered to Marmont on May 14th, when he had just assumed command.

He replied (May 16) that he recognized the importance of Badajoz,

and would move all or a part of his army southward if it were really

required. Soult received the dispatch from the hands of his colleague’s

aide-de-camp Fabvier at Llerena on May 27th, and was overjoyed at

its contents. He wrote to acknowledge the offer in terms of effusive

politeness, and begged Marmont to march not with a detachment but

with his whole army.[543] Though he was expecting to be joined by

Drouet and the 9th Corps within ten days, he was doubtful whether that

reinforcement would make him strong enough to face Wellington. But,

with 30,000 men of the Army of Portugal placed in the valley of the

Guadiana, there would be a force amply sufficient to sweep the Allies

back into Portugal. On hearing that Marmont had started, he would

extend his troops toward Merida, where the head of his colleague’s

column, coming by Truxillo and Almaraz, would probably appear.

[543] Soult to Marmont, May 27th, printed in Marmont’s

_Mémoires_, iv. 93-5. It contains much rhodomontade on the

‘successful’ action of Albuera, to which Marmont appends a

caustic note, ‘Excellente plaisanterie que de représenter comme

une victoire une bataille offensive dont le but n’a pas été

atteint!’

Long before Soult’s Llerena dispatch came to hand, Marmont had

already begun to move some of his divisions towards the Tagus, as a

precautionary measure, in case his offer should be accepted. But it was

apparently the news of Albuera which made him resolve to betake himself

to Estremadura with every available man, and not Soult’s appeal, which

only reached him after he had started. He was anxious to hand over the

charge of the whole frontier of Leon, and of the fortress of Ciudad

Rodrigo, to Bessières. But the Duke of Istria protested in the most

vehement style against having this responsibility thrust upon him.

Until he had learnt of the Albuera check, he kept preaching to Mortier

on the text that Soult was well able to take care of himself, and ought

to draw rather on Drouet and Madrid for reinforcements than on the Army

of Portugal. Marmont might move a division to Baños and Bejar, and two

more to Plasencia, but this was all that honour and prudence demanded.

The main body of his troops ought to be left in or near Salamanca,

to observe the British force in front of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Army of

the North could not spare a man to relieve Marmont’s troops on the

Douro and the Tormes, if they marched away; what with the Galicians,

the Cantabrian bands of Longa and Porlier, and the guerrilleros, it

had so much upon its hands that it could not find one brigade to

occupy Salamanca. The Army of Portugal was so much in need of rest and

reinforcement that it would perish by the way, or never reach Badajoz,

if its commander persisted in carrying out his quixotic plan, &c.

All these arguments were hollow: Bessières disliked Soult, and not only

would not stir a finger himself to aid him, but wished to discourage

Marmont from doing so. When the news of Albuera came, he made shift to

protect the frontiers of Leon, despite of all his previous allegations.

His estimate of the impossibility of the march to Badajoz was

absolutely falsified: the Army of Portugal accomplished it in fifteen

days without any appreciable loss in men or material. Marmont deserves,

as he himself remarks[544], great credit for his move, which was made

contrary to his colleague’s advice, and without any orders from Paris.

For Napoleon’s dispatches, based, as usual, on facts three weeks or a

month old, were coming in at this time with notes as to the resting

and reorganization of the army, and spoke of a battle near Ciudad

Rodrigo, to keep Wellington from besieging that place, as the next task

which would probably fall to the Duke of Ragusa[545]. Marmont had as

directions nothing but a vague precept to ‘act for the general interest

of the Imperial armies in Spain’ and to keep an eye on Andalusia, where

the progress of affairs would be better known to him than it could be

in Paris[546]. These directions he most certainly carried out, but on

his own responsibility, and without any detailed instructions from his

master. Indeed, his dispatch of May 31st, in which he informed the

Emperor that he was about to march for the Tagus, brought down on him

a scolding from Berthier for moving with only thirty-six pieces of

artillery, and for not having sent back to Bayonne a mass of men of the

train, who were to pick up horses there[547]. If Marmont had waited

to procure more teams from the rear, he would never have joined Soult

in time to raise the siege of Badajoz. It was the quickness of his

movement which forced the Allies to abandon that enterprise.

[544] _Mémoires_, iv. [p]. 100.

[545] See especially Berliner to Marmont of May 27.

[546] Berthier to Marmont, 10th May, 1811.

[547] Berthier to Marmont, June 17th.

Wellington had been from the first convinced that Marmont would

move southward on hearing of Soult’s check at Albuera. It was for

this reason that he made no scruple of depleting Spencer’s corps of

reinforcements for the army in Estremadura: not only detachments,

but probably the whole force would ere long have to be drawn to

join the main army. On May 24th, as has been already mentioned, he

ordered Howard’s British[548] and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades to

move towards him via Sabugal, Castello Branco, and the bridge of

Villa Velha. Howard’s 1,500 men were to be taken away permanently

from the 1st Division and added to the second, replacing in it three

battalions which, owing to the carnage of Albuera, had to be sent home

to recruit[549]. By June 8th Howard had reached Talavera Real, near

Badajoz, and had formally been placed on the roll of the 2nd Division,

which then rose once more to 4,000 men.

[548] Howard’s brigade consisted of the 1/50th, 1/71st, 1/92nd,

and a rifle company of the 5/60th.

[549] The battalions which went home were the 2/28th, 29th,

2/48th, 2/39th.

In compliance with his chief’s general directions that, if the

French Army of Portugal turned southward, he himself was to make a

corresponding movement, Spencer moved the Light and 1st Divisions

from their cantonments towards Sabugal, on a rumour (which turned

out to be premature) that Marmont had already started on the 26th

of May. Learning that he had been misinformed, he brought them back

again to their old cantonments between the Azava and the Coa on the

27th[550]. On the next day there arrived detailed and certain news from

secret correspondents in Salamanca, to the effect that Marmont was

concentrating his troops in two bodies, one, under his own command,

at Salamanca itself, the other about Alba de Tormes and Tamames. The

natural deduction from this information was that one column would march

by the Puerto de Baños over the mountains to the Tagus, and the other

by Ciudad Rodrigo and the Puerto de Perales. Wellington, on receiving

the Spanish notes forwarded by Spencer, was delighted to find that

his forecast was almost certainly right. ‘You will see by my letter

yesterday,’ he wrote on June 2nd, ‘that I did not make a bad guess

at the enemy’s probable movement, as described in the letters from

our friends of the 28th, enclosed in yours of the 31st[551].’ His own

dispatch of June 1st, to which he refers, had already told Spencer that

the moment Marmont moved he was to bring up his right to Penamacor,

and his left to Sabugal, leaving only a screen in front of Ciudad

Rodrigo. But since it was not quite certain that the Marshal might not

be projecting a mere raid into the Beira, either by the Almeida or the

Sabugal road, no definite move was to be made till it was clear that

the French columns were heading for the passes. This caution against

over-hasty deductions kept Spencer very much in his original position

till June 4th, the day on which Marmont’s movements became clear.

[550] Light Division diaries (Simmons) show these to be the

correct days.

[551] Wellington to Spencer, 2nd of June, _Dispatches_, vii. p.

633.

The Marshal had concentrated one division (Foy’s[552]) and all his

cavalry at Salamanca on June 1st, while Reynier with two divisions,

followed at a day’s distance by three more, moved from Tamames for

the eastern pass, the Puerto de Baños. On the 3rd the Marshal and

the smaller column started from Salamanca on the Rodrigo road, for

the purpose of making a demonstration against Almeida, which was

intended to hold Spencer in his present position, while Reynier and

the main body of the French army should get two or three days’ start.

Marmont reached Rodrigo on the 5th, and sallied out from it, cavalry

in front, on the following morning. He was exposing himself to some

danger, since Spencer had four divisions within call, though his

cavalry was weak--only two British and two Portuguese regiments[553].

But, uncertain as to the strength of his enemy, Spencer gave way; the

Light Division and Slade’s cavalry being drawn back from the line

of the Azava, while the other three divisions marched for Sabugal

under the cover of this screen. The road to Almeida being thus left

unguarded, Pack, who was lying there with his Portuguese brigade,

blew up such part of the enceinte as remained intact after Brennier’s

explosion, and retired westward. For this both he and Spencer were

blamed by Wellington, who said that they should have waited till the

French actually made a move towards Almeida before destroying it. Its

subsequent repair was made much more difficult by the supplementary

damage needlessly carried out[554].

[552] Marmont says only one division, and I follow him here,

as the best authority, though Foy in his _Mémoires_ says two

divisions.

[553] Slade’s and Barbaçena’s brigades. The other British cavalry

brigade (Anson’s) had marched for the south on June 1, and was at

this moment at Caria, near Castello Branco.

[554] Wellington was still more angry with Spencer for

authorizing Pack to blow up the place, for the brigadier had

very properly asked definite leave to do so from his immediate

superior. Wellington argued that a proper reading of his

dispatches would have showed Spencer that the destruction was

only to be made in case Marmont actually marched on Almeida. See

_Dispatches_, viii. p. 1.

Marmont’s force, 5,000 foot and 2,500 cavalry, advanced in pursuit of

Spencer by both the Gallegos and the Carpio roads. It was only on the

latter, however, that any serious skirmishing occurred. Montbrun’s

squadrons in overwhelming numbers pressed hard on the British cavalry

screen, composed on this front of the 1st Dragoons and a squadron of

the 14th Light Dragoons, under Slade. That brigadier, always, if his

subordinates are to be trusted, a little over-slow in movement, allowed

himself to be outflanked while executing a series of demonstrations

to cover the rear of the infantry, and only got off without serious

loss through the gallantry of a squadron of the Royals, who charged the

turning force at an opportune moment, and gained time for the rest of

the regiment to retire with some difficulty across the marsh of Nava de

Aver[555]. A dangerous movement was got over with the loss of only four

men killed and nine wounded.

[555] See Napier, iii. p. 312; Ainslie’s _History of the Royals_,

pp. 120-1; Tomkinson, p. 105.

Spencer’s whole force had reached Alfayates by the night of the 6th,

retiring before a French column of not a third of its own strength.

On the next day he received from Colonel Waters, one of Wellington’s

great intelligence officers, news which cleared up the situation for

him. Waters, who came in from a tour in the Sierra de Gata, reported

that an immense French column was already passing the Puerto de Baños,

thirty miles to the east, and that the force in front of the British

did not apparently exceed the single division of infantry and the four

brigades of horse which had been already seen and noted. There was no

need therefore to retire towards the Zezere and the Estrada Nova, for

Marmont was not making a serious raid into Portugal, but only covering

the march of his main body by a demonstration. The truth of this

intelligence was soon verified, for the Marshal, instead of pressing

the British rear on the 7th, wheeled eastward, and went off by the Pass

of Perales, leaving Spencer entirely unmolested.

Wellington’s original orders thus became valid and practicable, and

Spencer was able to march his whole four divisions towards Badajoz

and the main army, with the certainty that he was moving parallel to

Marmont’s route, and that he could join his chief many days before

the French columns could unite with Soult. For the invaluable bridge

of Villa Velha now became of primary importance. It provided a good

passage over the Tagus, leading straight to Estremadura by a short

line, while the French, having no bridge lower down the river than

Almaraz, were compelled to make a much longer detour, and to spend

several days more than the British in transferring themselves to the

southern seat of war.

The head of Spencer’s marching column was now formed by Anson’s light

cavalry, who had moved (as it will be remembered) towards Castello

Branco before the rest of the army[556]. Then came the infantry

divisions, while Slade remained to cover the rear, and only marched

on when the main body had already crossed the Tagus[557]. The route

lay from Alfayates by Penamacor, São Miguel d’Arche, Castello Branco,

Villa Velha, Niza, and Portalegre. Anson crossed the Tagus at the

bridge of Villa Velha on June 11th, the Light Division on June 12th,

the 1st Division on the 14th-15th, Pack’s Portuguese and the 6th

Division on June 15th-16th. Slade’s cavalry, who had waited behind

near Castello Branco till it should be certain that no French were

showing in this direction, only came over the river on the 19th. All

this was rough marching, in hot weather, over bad roads, and the

troops suffered somewhat from sunstroke and from occasional lack of

water in the mountains. But the transport worked fairly well in spite

of all difficulties, and food only once failed to be distributed

regularly[558]. By dint of moving as far as was possible in the early

morning and the evening hours, the divisions made good time, and

the distances covered exceeded on several days twenty miles in the

twenty-four hours[559].

[556] See p. 437.

[557] Napier says that Spencer on his southern march ‘detached

a division and his cavalry to Coria as flankers’ (iii. 312). I

think this statement that the British flank-guard was pushed

forward into Spain is an error, caused by the similarity of names

between the Spanish Coria and Caria in Portugal, between Sabugal

and Castello Branco. For it is certain that Anson’s cavalry

brigade were at Caria June 3rd-9th, and then went on to Castello

Branco and Villa Velha, while Slade’s cavalry were from the

7th to the 15th between Alfayates and Castello Branco. See the

regimental histories.

[558] See Leach, p. 221.

[559] Napier’s statement (iii. p. 312) that ‘the Light Division

did not leave a single straggler behind’ is contradicted by the

note of Leach of the 95th (p. 221) that ‘on June 11 many hundreds

of men were left by the wayside quite exhausted by the intense

heat, which compelled us to make frequent halts by day and to

proceed by night.’ Tomkinson also notes that the Light Division

lost men, who fell dead from sunstroke while marching up the

steep ascent to Niza on June 13th (p. 106). He says that the

Light Division men were so willing that they marched on till the

last possible moment, and reeled over to die.

On the 13th the head of the infantry column was at Niza, only twenty

miles from Portalegre, and fifty from Badajoz, while its rear had

passed Castello Branco and was nearing the Tagus. Wellington was

therefore able to contemplate the situation with serenity. Spencer’s

whole force would be able to join him long before Marmont could unite

with Soult. He ordered that each of the divisions, as it reached

Portalegre, should take several days’ rest before moving on to Campo

Mayor and Elvas.

The French army meanwhile had endured a much longer and more fatiguing

march. The head of Reynier’s column, moving by Fuente Roble, Baños,

and Bejar across the chain of the Sierra de Gata, reached Plasencia

on the 9th and Almaraz on the 11th. Marmont and the smaller column

which had demonstrated against Spencer fell into the rear of the main

body at Malpartida near Plasencia on the 14th[560]. The passage of the

Tagus at Almaraz took longer than had been expected, because pontoons

which had been ordered down from Madrid had failed to appear, and the

whole army had to be ferried over by driblets on the flying-bridge

already existing there. But though strung out over fifty miles of road

by this mischance, the Army of Portugal at least got the advanced

squadrons of its light cavalry to Truxillo on the 14th[561] and to

Merida on the 17th. The head of the infantry column was a day’s march

behind, and reached Merida on the 18th, with the main body trailing

down the mountain road from Truxillo behind it. Soult’s advanced guard

was already in possession of the town and bridge of Merida, and the

junction of the Armies of Andalusia and Portugal was secured.

[560] Foy’s _Mémoires_, ed. Girod de L’Ain, p. 146.

[561] According to a report brought to Wellington by a British

intelligence-officer in that direction, as early as the 13th. But

this is probably an error of a day. _Dispatches_, viii. p. 37.

But meanwhile Wellington had retired from their neighbourhood. On the

afternoon of the 10th the orders had been issued for the withdrawing

of all the guns from the siege-batteries before Badajoz, and by the

next morning many of them were already _en route_ for Elvas. All

through the 11th and 12th convoys of ammunition, platforms, fascines,

wool-packs, &c., were being sent to the rear, and by the night of the

last-named day there was nothing left in the trenches or the camps

save a small daily store for the troops, who were kept to blockade the

fortress as long as was prudent. For it was well that the garrison

should be straitly shut in, and forced to consume as much of their

provisions as possible; Wellington knew that they were only rationed up

to the 20th, and there was a bare chance that Soult or Marmont might

be delayed by some unforeseen mishap. Nothing of the kind happened,

however, and on the 13th Soult began to stir. He had been joined by

Drouet’s long-expected corps on that morning; it had accomplished a

most circuitous march from Valladolid, by Madrid, Toledo, the pass

of Despeñaperros and Cordova, in which it had consumed more than a

month (May 11th-June 13th). All Drouet’s corps was composed of 4th

battalions of regiments belonging to the 1st or 5th Corps, and the

provisional brigade of cavalry which accompanied him consisted of 3rd

and 4th squadrons belonging to dragoon regiments of the Army of the

South. These were at once treated as drafts, and amalgamated with the

depleted units which had been so much cut up at Albuera. The 5th Corps

and the other regiments present with Soult had 4,000 men drafted into

their ranks[562], and once more became strong. There remained over one

provisional division, 5,000 strong, which consisted of 4th battalions

whose regiments were absent with Victor before Cadiz[563]. Drouet’s

arrival gave Soult a total force of some 28,000 men, which made him

still unable to face Wellington with his own unaided strength; but he

knew that he could count on Marmont’s approach with 30,000 more within

a week.

[562] The regiments which received a battalion were the 40th,

64th, 88th, 100th, 103rd, 21st and 28th Léger of the 5th Corps,

and the 16th Léger. The cavalry regiments which received

squadrons were the 4th, 14th, 26th Dragoons.

[563] The 4th batts. of the 8th, 54th, 63rd, 24th, 45th, 94th,

95th, and 96th Line, and the 9th and 27th Léger. There were also

odd squadrons of the 1st, 2nd, and 9th Dragoons.

If he pressed in upon Badajoz before the junction took place, he

would risk the very real danger that Wellington might march against

him with every available man, and force him to another battle. He

therefore first sent cavalry along the highroads towards Villafranca

and Los Santos, and only when they reported that there was no British

infantry in front of them, moved up his main body to Villafranca and

Almendralejo (June 16th). Reconnaissances were pushed towards the

bridges of Merida and Medellin, where the Army of Portugal was to be

expected. As he kept very far from Wellington’s front, Soult’s march

was unmolested; the British general had concentrated the 4th and 2nd

Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese on the old Albuera position on the

14th of June, and could have brought up the 3rd and 7th and Ashworth’s

Portuguese to join them in a few hours. But he was not going to take

offensive action, and since Soult kept well away from him, he waited

till he had news that the two French armies would get in touch at

Merida on the 17th, and retired with his whole army beyond the Guadiana

on that day.

SECTION XXVII: CHAPTER II

WELLINGTON ON THE CAYA. JUNE-JULY 1811

On the morning of June 17th the five divisions of the Anglo-Portuguese

army which had hitherto remained on the south bank of the Guadiana

crossed that river, and retired to the positions along the line Elvas,

Campo Mayor, Ouguella, which Wellington had already selected for them.

The water was low, and the bulk of the troops used the fords between

Jerumenha and Badajoz[564] which are practicable during the summer

months, except after days of exceptional rain[565]. Head quarters

were moved back to the country-house known as the Quinta de São João,

near São Vicente, a spot equidistant from Elvas and Campo Mayor. The

7th Division, from the north side of Badajoz, made a corresponding

movement, and fell back into the same general line. Spencer’s column

from the Beira was now all across the Tagus, save Slade’s cavalry and

the 5th Division, and its head was resting at Portalegre, to which

its rear was rapidly coming up. As there are only two marches between

Portalegre and Elvas, it was clear that the two sections of the allied

army were certain of their junction. For since on the 18th Marmont’s

column-head had only reached Merida, and Soult’s was at Almendralejo,

it would take some days for the two French armies to draw together, and

concert further operations on the northern side of Badajoz.

[564] I follow Scovell, as an eye-witness, when he says that the

bulk of the infantry crossed by the fords. Napier says they went

over the flying-bridge below Badajoz (iii. p. 313). But Moyle

Sherer (p. 167) says that the 2nd Division forded the Guadiana,

and Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_ (p. 17) says the same of

Cole’s brigades.

[565] ‘The principal ford is by Porta de Coito, but there are

five or six between that spot and Badajoz.’ Scovell’s diary, June

17.

But there was one section of the allied forces which Wellington was

anxious not to withdraw across the Guadiana, but to send on another

quest, and all his future movements depended on the march of this

corps. The moment that Soult began to advance from Llerena on the

14th, and to edge off in the direction of Merida and Marmont, he had

left the western roads into Andalusia uncovered. Except a trifling

detachment at Guadalcanal, there was now no force protecting Seville

on that side. From the day that he got the news of the Marshal’s

northerly march, Wellington began to press General Blake to return at

once into his old haunts in the Condado de Niebla, passing round the

left rear of the enemy, and to begin to threaten Seville. There was

now nothing to prevent him from doing so, and it was well known that

the Andalusian capital was left to a scanty garrison, largely composed

of convalescents and untrustworthy _Juramentados_. As long as Soult

lay at Llerena, he could easily throw a column to the flank to succour

Seville; but when he had moved on, this was no longer in his power. As

early as June 10 Wellington had written to Castaños[566] that Soult

would ultimately move on Merida, and that Blake would then be able to

slip into Andalusia either by the route of Xeres de los Caballeros

and Fregenal, or if he preferred a safer though longer road, by that

hugging the Portuguese frontier, following which he would emerge into

Spain by Mertola. He could not be stopped on either route, and his

appearance before Seville would bring back Soult in haste from Badajoz,

and cure him of any desire to cross the Guadiana or to besiege Elvas.

On June 12th Wellington ordered his commissaries to prepare rations

at Mertola for the benefit of the Spaniards, who would probably be

in their usual state of semi-starvation, and wrote to Blake to urge

him to march at once[567]. The Captain-General consented to move, but

asked for more food; he was told in reply that he should be fed from

Jerumenha to Mertola while he was on Portuguese soil, but must rely

on his own exertions while he was in Spain. On the morning of the

17th Blake crossed the Guadiana at Jerumenha with Loy’s 1,000 horse,

the 10,000 infantry of Zayas and Ballasteros, and two batteries, and

started to march down-stream for his destination. He was quite out of

touch with the enemy, and so well protected by the Guadiana and the

mountains that it was certain that his movement would be unobserved.

Marching fast, he reached Mertola on June 22nd, and Castillejos, across

the Andalusian frontier, on the 24th. Thus Wellington was serenely

confident, when the enemy came up against his front, that he had

thrown a bomb behind them, whose explosion would cause no small stir,

and infallibly draw back a large section of the Army of Andalusia to

defend Seville. Without these troops Soult would be in no condition to

attack him[568], even with Marmont’s aid. The crisis between Elvas and

Badajoz, therefore, could only last for a few days.

[566] _Dispatches_, vii, last two pages of the volume.

[567] _Dispatches_, viii. pp. 3-4, 19, 20.

[568] See for his confidence in the combination his dispatch to

Lord Liverpool of June 27. (_Dispatches_, viii. p. 57.)

Meanwhile it had to be faced, and from the 22nd to the 29th of June

Wellington might have found himself engaged in a general action on any

day of the week. Soult and Marmont had met at Merida on the 18th--the

day after Wellington’s army had crossed the Guadiana. The elder marshal

had overwhelmed the younger with compliments--it was the first time,

he said, that the Army of Portugal had done anything for the Army of

the South; with a colleague who was unselfish and enterprising, he

felt himself able to undertake any task[569]. It was settled that

the combined armies should march against the Albuera positions next

morning, in three columns. Marmont and his six divisions would move

along the bank of the Guadiana by the road running through Lobon and

Talavera Real: the main body of the Andalusian forces would take the

route Almendralejo-Solana-Albuera. One division detached by Soult

(it was the ten battalions of Conroux, the undistributed fraction of

Drouet’s 9th Corps) was to turn the British line by a flanking movement

through Almendral to Valverde. Thus just 60,000 men were put in motion,

Marmont having brought about 32,000 of all arms, while Soult, including

Drouet, had about 28,000. Expecting an action, for Wellington was known

to have been at Albuera on the 16th, and his departure was unsuspected,

the three columns advanced cautiously, and ready to deploy. But no

enemy was found, and by the evening of the 19th it was known that the

Anglo-Portuguese were all behind the Guadiana. At dusk the head of

Marmont’s light cavalry got in touch with the garrison of Badajoz,

and learnt that the last of the Allies had disappeared from in front

of its walls on the 16th. Phillipon was justified of his long and

obstinate defence: on the very day before his half-rations would have

given out, and at the moment when he was thinking seriously of blowing

up his works, and making a dash to get away, the expected succours had

appeared.

[569] ‘Il était dans l’ivresse de la joie et de la

reconnaissance,’ says Marmont (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 45). Soult’s

letters to Berthier give Marmont a handsome testimonial.

On the 20th Marmont entered Badajoz in triumph, amid the blare of

military music, and a few hours later Soult arrived and exchanged

felicitations with him and with the trusty governor. The two main

columns of each of their armies converged on the fortress, but

Briche’s light cavalry and the divisions of Conroux and Godinot went

to Olivenza, to see if by chance the Allies were holding that unlucky

and ill-protected town. It was found empty (June 21st), the small

Portuguese garrison having retired to Elvas on the 17th.

With 60,000 men in hand (or more, if the 3,500 bayonets of the Badajoz

garrison are counted) and with one bridge and many good fords at their

disposition, for the crossing of the Guadiana, the two marshals had the

power to thrust a general action upon their adversary--unless indeed

he should retire far beyond the Portuguese frontier, and so give them

the chance of laying siege to Elvas. It remained to be seen what was

his purpose, and on June 22nd a general reconnaissance on the further

bank of the Guadiana was carried out. On the left Godinot’s division

advanced from Olivenza to a point opposite Jerumenha, where, being

very visible from the further bank, it was furiously but ineffectively

cannonaded by the Portuguese garrison. Two dragoon regiments under

General Bron forded the river, but found no allied troops in this

direction. On the right, Montbrun, with two cavalry brigades of the

Army of Portugal, passed the Badajoz bridge, and marched on Campo

Mayor. After driving in a cavalry screen belonging to De Grey’s and

Madden’s regiments, he found himself feeling the front of a defensive

line, which he estimated at two division of infantry and 1,400 horse,

and could get no further forward[570]. He returned to report that

Wellington was showing fight.

[570] The French reports show that Wellington was wrong in

thinking (_Dispatches_, vol. viii, June 22) that the enemy got no

glimpse of the British infantry. They apparently detected the 3rd

and 7th Divisions.

In the centre, where Latour-Maubourg in person, with fourteen squadrons

of dragoons and Polish lancers, forded the Guadiana almost in front

of Elvas, there was hard fighting, ending in a petty disaster for the

allied outposts. Here the cavalry screen was formed on the right by the

2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion, on the left by the 11th Light

Dragoons. The French column drove in the pickets of the hussars, who

resisted from the water’s edge onward with great obstinacy. Presently

the main body of this weak corps (only two squadrons strong[571])

came up, and with more courage than discretion charged the leading

French regiment, which they broke. But being outflanked by the enemy’s

reserves, they were surrounded on three sides, and had to cut their

way out with a loss of three officers wounded, two dead, and twenty

prisoners. The remains of the hussars rallied behind the Quinta de

Gremezia, where they were presently joined by the main body of the

11th Light Dragoons. The enemy pushed them no further, but turning

to the right swept along Wellington’s outpost line in the direction

of Badajoz. By so doing they found themselves in the rear of the

outlying picket of the 11th, formed by Captain Lutyens’s troop. This

little force had, by some mischance, not paid much attention to the

disturbance in front of the hussars, nor had any orders been sent to

them by their brigadier (Long) to bid them be cautious as to their

flank. Warned at the last moment by a German sergeant, Lutyens had

just collected his men, and was about to retire, when he saw a body of

cavalry, not on his flank but directly in his rear, cutting him off

from Elvas. Thinking that a bold dash was his only chance, he closed up

his men and charged the front French squadron, which he broke through.

But a second line was behind, and he and his whole party of sixty-four

sabres were ridden down and captured[572]. Only one wounded officer

(Lieutenant Binney) cut his way through and brought the news of the

mishap[573].

[571] The remainder under Major von Busche was still at Cadiz.

It will be remembered that it took a distinguished part in the

battle of Barrosa.

[572] The loss was 8 killed, 1 officer and 20 men wounded, 1

officer and 35 men unwounded prisoners.

[573] There are two good accounts of this skirmish near Quinta

de Gremezia, one in a letter by Captain von Stolzenburg of the

hussars (in Schwertfeger’s _History of the K.G.L._, ii. 247), the

other by George Farmer, a trooper of the 11th Light Dragoons,

whose little autobiography was published by Gleig in 1844, under

the title of _The Light Dragoon_, see vol. i. pp. 92-7. Farmer

says that the French dragoons in their rear were taken at first

for Portuguese squadrons coming up from Elvas to reinforce the

line.

Wellington, with his usual clear perception, attributed this little

disaster to the fact that the two regiments engaged had both landed in

the Peninsula only a few weeks before, and were utterly unpractised in

outpost duty. The hussars ought to have retired skirmishing--it was

not their duty to try to fight five regiments of French. The light

dragoon pickets had clearly not kept touch with the detachments on

their flanks, or they would have heard of the advance of the enemy

in force, and would not have been surrounded before they were aware

that the French had got well round their rear. ‘This disagreeable

circumstance,’ he writes, ‘tends to show the difference between old and

new troops. The old regiments of cavalry, throughout all their service,

with all their losses put together, have not lost so many men as the

2nd Hussars and the 11th Light Dragoons in a few days. However, we must

make the new as good as the old[574].’ Wellington also blamed General

Long. ‘Let him attend to the directions he before received from Sir

Stapleton Cotton, to throw out only _small picquets of observation_

on the Caya and Guadiana. If he had had his whole brigade, instead of

one large picquet, on the Caya, he could not have prevented the enemy

from advancing.... This principle is well known and understood in the

army, and if it had not been acted upon invariably, we should have lost

all our cavalry long ago, in the way in which Captain Lutyens lost the

picquet of the 11th this morning[575].’

[574] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 58.

[575] Wellington to Erskine (then commanding the cavalry division

to which the 11th belonged), June 22. _Dispatches_, viii. p. 40.

By the evening of the 22nd the two French marshals, as the result of

their wide-spreading reconnaissances, were fully aware that Wellington

lay in force from Campo Mayor to Elvas, and had no intention of

retiring. But they had not been able to make out the details of his

position, which lay across an undulating country wooded in many parts,

and not to be embraced in a single view from any commanding spot. As

a matter of fact their adversary had now got up all his troops; the

last division from the Beira came into touch with the main body on the

morning of the 23rd. Elaborate orders issued for the conduct of the

army in case the French should advance for battle, show what were the

intentions of Wellington[576].

[576] They exist in the D’Urban papers, though not printed in the

Wellington dispatches, and fall into three sections: What is to

be done if the French attack (1) the left (near Campo Mayor); (2)

the centre (along the Caya); (3) the right (by Elvas).

His front extended from Ouguella near the Gebora river almost to

Elvas, a distance of twelve miles. Ouguella was a little town with

mediaeval fortifications, susceptible of defence for some hours. It was

garrisoned by two companies of Portuguese from Elvas. Beyond it rises

the mountain of the Dos Hermanas, and there is no practicable route to

turn it, save by an immense détour in the direction of Albuquerque, so

that the flank was very secure. Between Ouguella and Campo Mayor lay

the 3rd and 7th Divisions under Picton. Campo Mayor had been repaired

since its recapture, and had received a Portuguese garrison; it had

some heavy guns (24-pounders) which would sweep the level ground in

front of it. West of this fortress lay the allied centre under Hill,

composed of the 2nd and 4th Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese,

extending from Campo Mayor to the Caya. Beyond that river in the

direction of Elvas, in a somewhat ‘refused’ position leaning backward

to the north-west, lay the three brigades of the 1st Division, under

Spencer, forming the right wing, and resting on the great fortress

as their flank-guard. This formed the front line. The reserves were

the Light Division on the Monte Reguingo in front of Arronches, ready

to support Picton, and the 5th and 6th Divisions, which were on the

Portalegre road, échelonned in advance from that place, behind Spencer,

and able to reinforce the right or centre. The cavalry was out in

front, Madden’s Portuguese on the left, Long’s brigade on the right,

with De Grey’s, Slade’s, and Anson’s regiments ready in reserve to

transfer themselves where they should be wanted[577]. The whole force

available was about 46,000 infantry, of which 29,000 were British,

5,000 cavalry, of which 1,400 belonged to the weak Portuguese brigades

of Madden, Otway, and Barbaçena, and 14 batteries with 80 pieces and

2,800 gunners. The gross total was 54,000, not including two regular

and two militia regiments of Portuguese forming the garrison of Elvas.

Thus the allied army, though still appreciably inferior in numbers to

the enemy, more especially in the cavalry arm, was strong enough to

take the defensive in a good position[578]. Every available regular

unit in Portugal had been gathered in by the 23rd, even Pack’s and

Barbaçena’s small Portuguese brigades, which had remained down to the

last possible moment in the Beira. The ground was most formidable

for defence, covered by three fortresses, and having in its front an

open plain which, though interspersed with occasional groves, was

sufficiently commanded by the heights on the British flanks to make

it impossible for any large body of troops to move across it in any

direction without being detected. Wellington had placed observation

parties at the many ‘Atalayas,’ the old Moorish watch-towers, which

line the Portuguese frontier, and had arranged for a system of

flag-signalling to convey news from one flank to the other. There were

also warnings to be given by gun-fire, from pieces detailed for that

purpose at Ouguella and Campo Mayor[579]. The cross-roads along the

rear of the position being good, and the Caya fordable in many places,

Wellington thought that he was certain of being able to transfer troops

with swiftness and security to any part of the line that might be

threatened. The only way in which the enemy could approach him unseen

would be by moving at night, and even so there would be ample warning,

since the cavalry pickets were out far in front of the line, and would

give notice betimes. Moreover, a night-march of some nine miles out

from Badajoz over unknown ground, towards an undiscovered position,

would have little temptation for the enemy. The danger of blundering

into a trap in the dark would be too great.

[577] This description of the allied position differs, it may be

noted, from Napier’s (iii. p. 314), where it is said that the 1st

Division was retained at Portalegre as a general reserve. I think

that this is an error for the 5th Division--perhaps a printer’s

error perpetuated through many editions--like some others in his

great work. For the journals of the Guards’ brigade of the 1st

Division (Stothert, p. 259; Stepney, p. 130) show that it left

Portalegre on the 19th, and was at Santa Olalla near Elvas on

the 23rd. Oddly enough, Lord Londonderry makes the same mistake

(ii. 170), saying that Spencer was kept back at Portalegre with

his whole corps (i. e. the 1st, 5th, 6th Divisions). Gomm’s diary

(p. 226) vouches for the 5th and 6th being near Portalegre on the

24th.

[578] The last morning states of the army, those of mid June,

give a total for the British of 1,843 officers and 33,205 men

of all arms fit for service. Roughly the details are: Cavalry,

3,600; 1st Division, 5,000; 2nd Division, 4,100; 3rd Division,

3,300; 4th Division, 3,300; 5th Division, 3,200; 6th Division,

3,100; 7th Division (including Alten’s brigade), 3,000; Light

Division, 2,900; Artillery, Engineers, &c., 2,300. Portuguese

units: three weak cavalry brigades (Madden, Otway, Barbaçena),

1,400; nine and a half infantry brigades (Ashworth, Pack,

Power, Spry, Collins, Campbell, Fonseca, Harvey, Coleman, and

Elder’s Caçadores) varying from 1,500 to 2,200 bayonets, 17,000;

Artillery, 800. I cannot understand Napier’s statement that there

were only 14,000 Portuguese present, 17,000 seeming the lowest

possible figure. Wellington (to Lord Liverpool, June 24) says

that he has 41,000 effective _rank and file_ of infantry; adding

(as usual) one-eighth more for officers, sergeants, and staff,

we get 46,000 total for infantry. Now 29,000 being certainly

British (as by return above) there must be 17,000 Portuguese of

all ranks, which tallies with the figure above. The artillery

details are from the _Dickson Papers_, ed. Leslie, i. p. 407.

D’Urban, under July 15th (when a regiment or two, e. g. the 68th,

had joined from Lisbon), says that the allied total of _rank and

file_ was: Infantry, 44,600; Cavalry, 4,200; Artillery, 2,200

= 51,000 in all, or adding officers and sergeants, &c., about

57,500. This seems a high estimate for the infantry, but low for

the cavalry and artillery.

[579] All these details are set out in full in the orders copied

in D’Urban’s diary.

But as a matter of fact the French Marshals were not proposing to

attack. They had learnt that Spencer’s divisions were up, so that the

whole of the Anglo-Portuguese army was in front of them, and they

shrank from committing themselves to a general action. Marmont wrote

to Berthier on June 21st, Soult on June 22nd, and in neither of their

dispatches is there the least intention displayed of making any further

offensive move. Both state that they intended to attack the Albuera

position on the 19th, if Wellington had stayed in it. ‘The enemy,’ says

Marmont, ‘retired in haste, repassed the Guadiana, and returned into

Portugal, without leaving us any chance of tackling him. It is tiresome

that he would not make trial of his fortune, for a decisive victory

would infallibly have marked our arrival in this region.’ Soult, in

very similar terms, writes: ‘The Duke of Ragusa and I had resolved to

give battle, but Lord Wellington prudently retreated before we could

come up with him. Yet he had 60,000 men, of whom 30,000 were English,

including General Spencer’s divisions just drawn in from the north,

14,000 Portuguese, and 16,000 Spaniards; there were 5,000 cavalry among

them. It is vexatious that no general action could take place: our

success would not be doubtful. But we may hope that another occasion

may present itself, especially if the Army of Portugal continues to

keep in touch with the Army of the South, and communicates with it,

as it is now doing. Of that I have no doubt, from the alacrity with

which the Duke of Ragusa marched to join in the relief of Badajoz with

all his disposable forces.’ Soult then proceeds to state with great

gravity that Albuera was a signal victory, and the sole cause of the

preservation of Badajoz--ignoring the fact that he retreated sixty

miles after it, and could not move again till he had been joined by

Drouet and Marmont[580].

[580] These two noteworthy dispatches are accessible in the

Appendix to vol. i of Belmas, to those who have not time to visit

the Paris Archives.

If Soult wanted another signal victory of the type of Albuera he had

only to march nine miles towards Campo Mayor, on the day after he wrote

this dispatch to Berthier. The temptation was surely great, since

the defeat of Wellington’s army would have shaken to its foundations

the whole defence of the Peninsula. To assemble the force now lying

by Badajoz, Andalusia and Leon had been stripped of all disposable

troops, and left exposed to the raids of the Spanish Armies of Galicia

and Murcia, and to the omnipresent guerrilleros, who had already cut

communications in every direction. If Wellington could be beaten, the

concentration was justified; if he were left unmolested nothing had

been gained, save the reprovisioning of Badajoz--and the game might go

on for ever. Battle was now offered to the Marshals if they chose to

accept it--the reconnaissance of June 22nd proved that the Allies

had taken up a position and were standing on it.

[Illustration: ESTREMADURA]

But neither Soult nor Marmont would advance. The cause of their

reluctance to engage was undoubtedly a moral one. As Napier very truly

remarks in a typical sentence[581], ‘Marmont’s army was conscious of

its recent defeats at Bussaco, at Sabugal, at Fuentes de Oñoro; the

horrid field of Albuera was fresh; the fierce blood there spilt still

reeked in the nostrils of Soult’s soldiers.’ The generals, no less than

the rank and file, felt a qualm at the idea of attacking Wellington in

a position which he had taken up with deliberation, and where he showed

himself serenely expectant of their attack. They were aware that an

attempt to dislodge him would be rendered very tiresome by the fact

that Elvas and Campo Mayor protected his line. They over-valued his

forces by the number of Blake’s army, which, till the 24th June, they

wrongly supposed to be still with him. So contenting themselves with

dictating pompous dispatches concerning the importance of the relief of

Badajoz--which was indeed a notable advantage--they went each upon his

separate way. Instead of attempting to inflict a defeat on Wellington,

the Marshals did no more than patch up a scheme by which they thought

he might be contained and held in check for the present. In short, the

offensive spirit was gone: the French armies in Spain found themselves

thrown upon the defensive; and so things were to remain for the rest

of the Peninsular War. The offensive, though it was hardly realized as

yet, had passed to Wellington[582].

[581] vol. iii. p. 316.

[582] Napier (iii. p. 317) suggests that since the stores of

Elvas had run low, and its ammunition reserve in especial had

been much depleted by the expenditure of shot and shell before

Badajoz, the place was in such a dangerous condition that ‘Soult

(had he known this state of affairs) might have passed the

Guadiana by the fords, and by means of his pontoons from Badajoz,

might have overpowered the Allies’ right, invested Elvas, and

covered his army by lines, unless indeed the English general,

anticipating the attempt, defeated him between the Caya and

Elvas. This might not have been easy in an open country, which

offered every advantage to the overwhelming cavalry and artillery

of the French.’ With all humility, I must express my doubts

as to the wisdom or practicability of this course. An army of

60,000 men, with another of 54,000 in its front, cannot, surely,

venture to form the siege of a first-class fortress unless it has

previously beaten the covering army in a general action. Napier

suggests that Soult should push back Wellington’s right and

surround Elvas. But the attempt _must_ have brought on a general

action, close under the walls of Elvas, in which the Allies would

have had every advantage of position.

Meanwhile the Allies could not tell what might be the intentions of

the enemy. Seeing the enormous advantage that a victory would bring

the French, and remembering the way in which they had stripped all

Spain of troops in order to produce the army which now lay opposite

him, Wellington thought that he was to be attacked, and continued for

some days to perfect his preparations. The period of intent waiting

was from the 23rd to the 28th of June, during which nothing was to

be made out concerning the main purpose of the French. Petty cavalry

reconnaissances in the direction of the Albuquerque and Montijo roads,

much moving about of small columns between Olivenza and Badajoz, were

observed--but no certain deductions could be drawn from them. ‘No

judging what he means yet: meanwhile everything is ready for him,’

wrote D’Urban, Beresford’s chief of the staff, in his diary on June

25th. As a matter of fact, the small movements hitherto observed were

merely matters of foraging and exploration, and had no occult meaning.

On the 27th, however, there was something definite to be learnt;

on the morning of that day Godinot’s division blew up the walls of

Olivenza, and marched to Valverde. This disappearance of the French

left wing _might_ have meant that all the columns were being drawn in

for an attack in the centre; but it might also mean that Soult was

about to send back troops to Seville. That the latter was the true

interpretation was shown on the 28th, when Godinot definitely marched

not towards Badajoz, but southward along the _chaussée_ leading to

Andalusia by Los Santos and Monasterio. It was certain that, if

Soult was sending away men from the front, he could not be intending

to attack, since every man would be required, if a dash at the

Anglo-Portuguese lines was in contemplation. When Wellington had news

from the peasantry of Godinot’s southward march on the 29th June, he

could see that the die had been cast, and that he need no longer look

for an attack upon his lines. He was soon afterwards informed that two

divisions were gone southward, not merely one; but for some time he

could get no certitude of the departure of the second division, though

it was perfectly true that this unit (Conroux’s ten battalions of

Drouet’s old corps) had departed almost immediately after Godinot.

What had happened was that on June 24th, the fourth day after the entry

of the two Marshals into Badajoz, Soult had informed Marmont that he

had such bad news from Andalusia that he must return at once to Seville

with some of his troops. It was not so much Blake’s diversion which

was working[583]--the French had learnt of his start on the 24th,

but did not know that he had reached the Condado de Niebla--as the

tidings of the spread of the insurrection in the Ronda mountains, and

of threatening movements by Freire’s Army of Murcia against the 4th

Corps. The force in Eastern Andalusia had lent so much to Soult’s field

army[584], and so much more to garrison the province of Cordova[585],

that it was much under strength. There were only 9,000 men, or less,

left in the kingdom of Granada, and the Murcian army was 14,000

strong. Marmont refused to take Soult’s fears seriously, being (as

he himself tells us[586]) convinced by this time that his colleague

was wanting to throw all the responsibility of keeping Badajoz safe

and ‘containing’ Wellington on the Army of Portugal. He replied that

unless Soult promised to leave him the whole of the 5th Corps, and all

Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry, he should order his troops to march for

Truxillo and Almaraz, and throw the charge of Badajoz on the Army of

the South, which might keep it if it could.

[583] Soult’s dispatch of June 24 says that he has just heard

that Blake has gone off southward.

[584] Four battalions, two cavalry regiments, and a battery had

been lent for the field army.

[585] Of the four regiments garrisoning that region three (12th

Léger, 51st, 55th) had joined the Albuera army. Sebastiani had to

lend several battalions to take their place.

[586] See _Mémoires_, iv. p. 47.

Soult was forced to assent to this demand, and took away only Godinot’s

and Conroux’s provisional divisions, and three regiments of cavalry.

The 5th Corps, now placed under Drouet[587], and six dragoon regiments,

were left behind on the Guadiana, to enable Marmont to maintain a

safe defensive against Wellington. They made up some 15,000 men,

which, with the 32,000 of the Army of Portugal, provided a force quite

insufficient to attack the Allies, yet large enough to prevent a siege

of Badajoz. For no general, least of all the cautious commander of

the Anglo-Portuguese army, would undertake to besiege a fortress of

the first class, situated on two sides of a broad river, with 54,000

men, when a covering force of 47,000 men was supporting it in the near

vicinity.

[587] i. e. two infantry divisions, and Briche’s light cavalry,

14,000 men, since the drafts had come under Drouet.

Meanwhile, for a fortnight after Soult had departed from Badajoz for

Seville on June 28th, Marmont and Drouet on one side of the Guadiana,

and Wellington on the other, stood observing each other, and waiting

each for some move on the part of his adversary. The British general

knew that the French in his front were no longer strong enough to

attack him on his positions around the Caya. But he must keep his army

concentrated, since, if he made detachments in any direction, Marmont

might yet make a dash at Elvas; and that place, though it had been

much improved of late[588], during the weeks when an attack on it

seemed probable, still left something to be desired, especially in the

quality of the guns on its walls--our old acquaintances of the siege

of Badajoz, and their brethren. As long as Marmont and Drouet remained

massed near Badajoz the allied army could not disperse.

[588] When a siege seemed probable General Leite demolished a

number of houses and trees too close to the walls, improved the

works by clearing the ditch and strengthening parapets, and did

his best to draw in all available provisions. This last was hard,

when so large a friendly army was close at hand, eating up the

country-side.

On the other hand, the French generals were compelled to keep together

for a time, in order to superintend the victualling of Badajoz,

whose magazines were absolutely empty at the moment of its relief.

If they had drawn back into cantonments, and scattered their men,

Wellington might have thrown a light corps and cavalry across the

Guadiana, and have established once more a blockade of the fortress.

Accordingly, from the 28th of June to the 15th of July the Army of

Portugal and the 5th Corps remained concentrated in the quadrilateral

Badajoz-Merida-Almendralejo-Almendral, sweeping the country-side for

provisions. Each regiment was ordered to deposit in the magazines of

Badajoz a prescribed number of _fanegas_ of wheat or maize, making

in all six months’ rations for a garrison of 4,000 men. North of the

Guadiana the French cavalry ranged about the region around Montijo and

Torre del Fresno, where they were in constant touch with Wellington’s

exploring squadrons sent out from Campo Mayor and Ouguella: but no

serious collisions occurred. At last, on July 15th it was reported that

Badajoz was fully provisioned, and Marmont informed Drouet that he

was about to disperse his army in cantonments reaching as far as the

Tagus, since northern Estremadura was wholly exhausted. He would keep

a division at Truxillo, half-way between Merida and the Tagus, and the

rest of his army could be brought back at the shortest notice, if the

Anglo-Portuguese should make a forward move. Drouet, after changing the

garrison of Badajoz for new battalions of the same regiments which had

endured the two sieges of May and June, and confiding its charge once

more to the trusty Phillipon, drew back the 5th Corps to Zafra, Los

Santos, and Merida, leaving Briche’s light cavalry at Santa Marta to

keep the communication with Badajoz open. The Marshal and the general

calculated that if Wellington should once more come forward, they could

join again at Merida in six or seven days to ‘contain’ him. He could

do nothing against Badajoz in the short time that would elapse before

their concentration.

But Wellington had for the present no further designs against the

fortress which had cost him so much useless labour. The moment that

Marmont’s departure was announced to him, he too dispersed his army

into cantonments. The banks of the Caya and Guadiana were notorious

for their fever, and the troops were already beginning to suffer

from it. On the 18th of July orders were issued for the 3rd and 6th

Divisions to march for Castello Branco, the 7th for Niza, the 1st and

5th for Portalegre, the 4th for Estremos and then for Pedrogão, the

Light Division for Castello de Vide and Montalvão. Only the 2nd and

Hamilton’s Portuguese remained in the neighbourhood of Elvas--the

former at Villa Viçosa, the latter at Fronteira and Souzel, a little

further to the north-west[589]. Hill retained charge of these two

divisions, which formed the Anglo-Portuguese Army of the South for the

next twelve months. His allowance of cavalry consisted of Barbaçena’s

and Otway’s Portuguese brigades, and Long’s and De Grey’s British

brigades, which are for the future spoken of as the ‘second cavalry

division’ of the allied army. Its command was given not to Lumley, who

had used the troops so effectively during the late campaign, for he had

just gone on sick leave to England. It went to Sir William Erskine,

of whom Wellington could find no more to say, when proposing him to

Beresford for this post, than that he would at any rate do better than

Long, and that, if very blind, ‘which is against him at the head of

cavalry,’ he was at any rate very cautious[590]. The fact was that

Erskine had given grave dissatisfaction at Sabugal and elsewhere, and

that the Commander-in-Chief wished to shunt him on to some new line,

where he would have less responsibility. Yet the experiment of trusting

him with two cavalry brigades was a risky one!

[589] Elaborate marching arrangements, and timing for all these

destinations, are found in D’Urban’s diary under July 18.

[590] _Dispatches_, vii. p. 503.

There was more reorganization carried out in the allied army during

the months of June, July, and August 1811 than at any other period

of Wellington’s command. Owing to the arrival of more cavalry

regiments,[591] there were by September 1st six cavalry brigades in

existence instead of three, and they contained thirteen regiments

instead of the original seven which had served in 1810 and the

early months of 1811. Wellington’s mounted strength had been almost

doubled--though most of the corps arrived too late to be available when

the French were showing such a preponderant cavalry force on the Caya

in June. But in the next campaign Wellington was to be, for the first

time since his arrival in the Peninsula, possessed of an adequate

proportion of mounted men.

[591] The new arrivals were (see Atkinson’s ‘British Army in

the Peninsula’ in _English Historical Review_ for 1907): 2nd

Hussars K.G.L. (15th April), 11th Light Dragoons (by June 1),

12th Light Dragoons (by July 1), 9th Light Dragoons (by August

1), 3rd Dragoons and 4th Dragoon Guards (before September 1).

The brigading became--1st Division (Stapleton Cotton): Slade’s

brigade, 1st Royals and 12th Light Dragoons; Anson’s brigade,

14th and 16th Light Dragoons; Alten’s brigade, 11th Light

Dragoons, 1st Hussars K.G.L.; Le Marchant’s brigade, 3rd Dragoons

and 4th Dragoon Guards. 2nd Division (Erskine): Long’s brigade,

2nd Hussars K.G.L., 9th and 13th Light Dragoons; De Grey’s

brigade, 3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons.

As to the infantry, the 1st Division (as we have already seen[592])

had given a brigade to the 2nd to repair the losses of Albuera.

The 2nd Division had taken over Howard’s brigade from the 1st, and

had consolidated the remains of Colborne’s and Hoghton’s shattered

regiments from two brigades into one. The 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th

Divisions were comparatively little altered, getting, between them all,

only two more battalions on balance, after replacing certain old ones

by newly arrived units[593]. But the 7th Division, hitherto containing

only one British brigade (Sontag’s) was provided with a second one, by

taking in Alten’s light infantry battalions, which had fought so well

at Albuera.

[592] See p. 435.

[593] To go into details, the 1st Division not only gave over

Howard’s brigade (50th, 71st, 92nd) to Hill, but sent home the

7th Line battalion of the K.G.L., whose rank and file were

drafted into the three senior Line battalions of that corps. From

the 2nd Division the 2/28th, 29th, 2/39th, 2/48th went home, and

the 1/48th was transferred to the 4th Division: but the 1/28th

and 1/39th came out to Portugal and joined. The 3rd Division

got one new battalion (77th) in July. In the 4th Division the

1/7th and 2/7th were amalgamated, but the number of battalions

was kept as before by the transference of the 1/48th from the

2nd Division. The 6th Division got one new unit, the 2/32nd.

The 7th Division took over Alten’s K.G.L. light battalions, and

received the 68th, but sent home the 85th, after it had been only

seven months in the Peninsula. Wellington refused to keep this

regiment, which on its return to England went through a series of

court-martials, testifying to grave internal faults.

The net result of all this change was that, when Wellington once more

divided his army into a northern and a southern force in August, the

latter (now under Hill) amounted to about 9,000 bayonets and nearly

4,000 sabres. This detachment having four cavalry brigades (five

British and four Portuguese regiments) was able to ‘contain’ its normal

adversary in Estremadura, Drouet’s 9th Corps, which had about the same

number of cavalry and two or three thousand more infantry. Hill’s

regular task was to cover Elvas and to keep Drouet in check, without

committing himself to any large offensive operations, for which his

force was manifestly inadequate.

But the Anglo-Portuguese northern corps, or main army, was now far

stronger than it had ever been before, amounting to some 46,000 men,

including 5,000 cavalry. It now became for the first time decidedly

superior in numbers to its special opponent, the French Army of

Portugal, which even after receiving its drafts and convalescents in

the autumn did not amount to quite 40,000 men, and was very weak in

cavalry, of which it did not possess more than 3,000. Clearly, then,

for the future Marmont could not possibly take the offensive against

Wellington with his own forces, and would have to depend for help on

the Army of the North, if matters came to a crisis. He would be lucky

if he were able to ‘contain’ the Anglo-Portuguese, and certainly

could not think of doing more, unless he were able to get prompt

reinforcements from Bessières--or, after that Marshal’s departure, from

his successor, Dorsenne. Indeed, the Army of Portugal was so clearly

inadequate to discharge the function of protecting the whole Spanish

frontier from the Guadiana to the Douro, that the Emperor, though in

October he once more proposed to Marmont an invasion of Portugal, was

ultimately forced to make over to it 16,000 men from the Army of the

North, the divisions of Souham and Bonnet[594]. But of this more in

its own place. It must suffice here to say that the net results of the

spring and summer campaigns of 1811 was to leave the French decidedly

on the defensive all along the Portuguese border, and to transfer

to Wellington the opportunity of trying the offensive. It was to be

five months, however, before he succeeded in taking it up--his autumn

operations of 1811 were tentative, and led to no definite results. From

July to December there was much manœuvring, but little change came of

it.

[594] This was done by an Imperial decree issued on December 13th

through Berthier.

SECTION XXVII: CHAPTER III

EVENTS IN THE NORTH OF SPAIN DURING THE CONCENTRATION ON THE CAYA.

DORSENNE AND THE GALICIANS. JUNE-AUGUST 1811

It is often forgotten by English writers that while the armies of

Wellington, Soult, and Marmont faced each other near Badajoz in

June-July 1811, only in the end to depart in different directions

without a battle, there was a second and minor crisis going on in the

north, which had important consequences. Wellington had designedly

brought it about, because without it the French would have had much

larger forces disposable for action against Portugal, and might have

given much trouble by demonstrating against the Beira frontier.

When Marmont and Sir Brent Spencer, moving in parallel columns,

transferred themselves in ten days from the banks of the Agueda

and the Tormes to those of the Guadiana, the north-eastern angle

of Portugal was almost stripped of troops. There remained only the

militia divisions of Silveira[595] north of the Douro, in the province

of Tras-os-Montes, and of Wilson and Trant south of the Douro, in

front of Guarda and Celorico. The whole did not amount to 12,000 men,

of inferior quality. Fortunately the French Army of Portugal had

gone southward _en masse_. Marmont had left nothing behind him save

the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo and a great dépôt of convalescents,

dismounted dragoons, and other odds and ends, at Salamanca. From them

there was nothing to be feared.

[595] Silveira had only one infantry regiment of regulars (no.

24) and two squadrons of regular dragoons, as also two batteries

of old artillery. Wilson had one squadron of regular dragoons.

But behind Salamanca lay Bessières’s Army of the North. The Duke of

Istria had, very unwillingly, pledged himself to Marmont to take over

the supervision of the frontiers of Leon, when the Army of Portugal

marched for Badajoz. He had declared, when asked for help in May,

that he had not a man to spare after providing for the duty already

incumbent on him of holding down all Old Castile, Asturias, and

Santander. As the Emperor kept assuring him, by angry dispatches from

Paris, this was an exaggeration[596]. It was in his power to collect

a small field army of 12,000 or 15,000 men, without giving up any

essential point in his extensive sphere of operations; and in July

he did so, much against his inclination, and suffered no harm by so

doing. If such a force had been set to threaten northern Portugal

during the concentration on the Caya, Wellington would have felt most

uncomfortable. But occupation was found for Bessières from another

quarter, and this was part of the British commander’s general scheme

for the defence of the Peninsula. With the consent of General Castaños,

since he could only suggest and not command any operations to be

undertaken by Spanish troops, Wellington had provided for an attack

on the flank of Bessières by a force of which we have heard nothing

for many months--the Army of Galicia[597]. If threatened on the Esla

and the Orbigo, Bessières would be able to spare no attention for the

Agueda.

[596] See especially Berthier to Bessières, of May 19, from

Rambouillet.

[597] See especially Wellington to General Walker (British

attaché with the Army of Galicia), _Dispatches_, vii. p. 648,

where the siege of Astorga and the troubling of Bonnet in

Asturias are the operations recommended. Castaños was still

titular Captain-General in Galicia as well as in Estremadura.

At this time the Army of the North was not so strong in numbers as it

became a few weeks later, when Napoleon’s ‘divisions of Reserve’ began

to cross the Pyrenees. In June 1811 it consisted of only four infantry

divisions, those of Generals Bonnet, Serras, Roguet, and Dumoustier,

and of two brigades of cavalry under Wathier and Lepic. Bonnet’s

division had been holding the central region of the Asturias and the

city of Oviedo since it had conquered them in January 1810. In addition

it had occupied a string of ports from Gijon to Santander, in order

to keep off the English cruisers from their communication with the

guerrilleros of the Cantabrian hills. Bonnet had a strong force, four

full regiments of infantry, making 8,000 men, yet could never complete

the conquest of the Asturias. Wherever he struck with a strong force he

could penetrate, but any move far from his base at Oviedo brought down

the enemy upon some of his isolated posts, which he had then to rescue

by a swift return. His enemies were on the left hand the relics of the

old Spanish Army of Asturias, now under General Losada, who hung about

the mountains on the Galician frontier--on the right the great partisan

chiefs Porlier and Longa, whose beat was in the sierras above Santander.

On the left of Bonnet lay Bessières’s second division, that of Serras,

which had originally been assigned to the Army of Portugal in 1810, but

had remained behind to watch the Galician Spaniards. Its head quarters

were at Benavente; it held Astorga as an advanced post, and Leon as a

flank-guard. From the latter place it communicated with Bonnet through

the pass of Pajares. This was an enormous front for a division of 6,000

men to occupy, and that, too, one not composed of picked troops, but of

miscellaneous units. For Serras had two Italian regiments (32nd Léger,

113th Line[598]) and two Polish and two Swiss battalions, so that much

the larger half of his men were auxiliary troops and not native French.

[598] The 113th were a new Tuscan regiment, raised in 1809, which

had been practically destroyed in Catalonia, and sent home to

recruit. The 32nd Léger was Genoese.

On the other hand, there was nothing left to be desired in the two

divisions of Roguet and Dumoustier, which held the central position

in Bessières’s cantonments: they were all troops of the Young Guard,

eleven regiments of _tirailleurs_, _chasseurs_, and _voltigeurs_;

attached to them were three composite regiments of guard cavalry and

a proportion of artillery--the whole made up of 15,000 men of the

best quality. Dumoustier’s division was cantoned within the provinces

of Valladolid and Palencia, Roguet’s within that of Burgos. On the

south they had no enemies save the guerrilleros of the Guadarama and

the Avila and Soria sierras, tiresome and elusive but not formidable

foes. On the north, in the Liebana and the Cantabrian hills, Longa and

Porlier were much more troublesome and dangerous. Their bands were

well armed, and organized on the principles of a regular army, yet

had not lost the power of rapid movement which was the true strength

of the _partida_ system. The sierras in which they operated were,

including their foot-hills, some fifty miles broad, a chaos of passes

and ravines. Countless expeditions against them had led to no final

result. Like the holy men of old, when persecuted in one region they

merely fled to another. If the flying columns and petty garrisons

were withdrawn for a moment, they would be at the gates of Burgos or

Santander within two days, and the high-roads Burgos-Vittoria and

Burgos-Valladolid, the main arteries of communication with France,

would be cut.

There was soon to be a fifth division in Bessières’s army, but it

had not yet arrived from France--that of Souham, which formed (along

with the divisions of Caffarelli and Reille) the great reinforcement

poured by Napoleon into northern Spain during the late summer of

1811. But in June it was only beginning to march up from Marseilles,

Turin, and Spezia, the distant garrisons from which it was to be

drawn[599]. Before it arrived in Spain Bessières had ceased to command

the Army of the North, and Dorsenne had taken his place. Hence (though

Wellington was not aware of the fact) the months of June and July were

exceptionally favourable for a move against the French flank in this

direction.

[599] For details of its movements see Napoleon’s

_Correspondance_, 17,784, June 8th, 1811.

In addition to his four infantry divisions, Bessières possessed

Wathier’s brigade of light cavalry, and Lepic’s brigade of guard

cavalry, together with some unbrigaded units such as the 130th of

the Line (the fixed garrison of Santander)[600], the battalion of

Neuchâtel, which he had moved forward to Salamanca, a number of

squadrons of _gendarmes_, and a quantity of drafts for the Armies of

Portugal and the Centre, which had been stopped on their way south

in a surreptitious fashion, by various post-commanders who wanted to

strengthen their depleted detachments. In the autumn Marmont succeeded

in extracting no less than 4,000 of his own men from the territories

of the Army of the North, not without much friction with the local

officers who wished to detain them[601].

[600] This was a newly created regiment, formed out of a number

of provisional battalions, which had been doing garrison duty in

Biscay for the last year.

[601] Bessières grossly underrated his own force in a letter to

Berthier of June 6th, in which he stated the whole at only 44,000

men.

The whole force between the borders of Navarre and those of Portugal

was in June and July not less than 60,000 men, even before the three

divisions of Souham, Reille, and Caffarelli came up from France. On

the other hand, they had an enormous area to keep down, not less than

a fifth of the whole surface of Spain. And if their regular enemies,

the Armies of Galicia and Asturias, were weak, they had among the

irregulars opposed to them the boldest and the most obstinate of

all the guerrillero chiefs. Any serious move against a section of

Bessières’s long line would cause disturbance over the whole of his

viceroyalty, since to collect a serious force he would have to cut down

the garrisons of many localities below danger-point.

It was on this fact that Wellington relied when he obtained Castaños’s

leave to set the Spanish Army of Galicia in motion. It was fortunately

led at this moment by an active and enterprising chief, Santocildes,

the hero of the defence of Astorga in 1810, who lent himself eagerly

to the plan, though his army was not in good order. The cadres left

behind in the north, when del Parque moved into Estremadura in the

winter of 1809-10, were the worst and weakest of the old Army of

Galicia, and though they had been filled up with local recruits, till

the whole force had a nominal strength of 21,000 men, the organization

was bad, and the want of well-trained and capable regimental officers

very noticeable. The Junta of Galicia had spent more energy in 1810

on quarrels with the Captain-General Mahy than on the equipment of

its army. Its weakest point was that it possessed only 600 regular

cavalry--a defect that must be fatal if it left the mountains to

descend into the plains of Leon. It was for this reason that Wellington

advised Santocildes to form the siege of Astorga, to harass Bonnet in

the Asturias, but not to quit the skirts of the friendly sierras.

On taking over charge of the whole kingdom of Leon from Marmont,

Bessières came to the conclusion that he must draw in troops towards

the south, lest he should be caught in a position in which he had no

disposable central mass towards the Douro. Consequently on the 6th of

June he sent orders to Bonnet to evacuate the Asturias and fall back by

the pass of Pajares to Leon, in order to place himself in closer touch

with Serras.[602] On the 14th, therefore, Bonnet left Oviedo and came

over the mountains with three of his regiments, while the fourth went

eastward parallel to the coast, in the direction of Santander, picking

up in its retreat all the small garrisons which had been left to

dominate the Asturian ports, and to prevent communication between Longa

and Porlier and the English cruisers. By the 17th Bonnet lay at Leon

with 6,000 men: he was just in time to support the scattered front line

formed by Serras’s division against the attack which Wellington had

planned. For Santocildes and the Army of Galicia had advanced against

Astorga, quite without his knowledge, two days before he marched south

from Oviedo.

[602] See Bessières to Berthier of June 6th, from Valladolid.

The disposable force of the Spaniards consisted, after the weakest and

least serviceable regiments had been told off for garrison duty at

Corunna, Ferrol, Vigo, and other fortified places, of about 15,000 men.

Santocildes brought his reserve from Lugo and the division of General

Taboada, nearly 7,000 men and 600 horse, to Villafranca in the Vierzo,

from which he advanced down the passes to Astorga on June 12th. A

second division of 2,500 men under General Cabrera came forward at the

same time from Puebla de Senabria, as far as the edge of the mountains

above the Rio Tuerto, and demonstrated against La Baneza, the half-way

post between Astorga and Benavente. The left wing, composed of Losada’s

Asturians, was wanting: it had followed Bonnet when he began to retreat

and had occupied Oviedo. Losada remained there himself, but sent one

brigade to join the main army by a circuitous route[603], since the

direct way by the pass of Pajares and Leon was blocked by Bonnet. This

brigade under Castañon did not get to the front till June 23rd.

[603] I cannot discover which of the passes west of Pajares

Castañon used. They are all difficult.

On the 19th of June Santocildes found Astorga evacuated; the small

garrison of 400 men had blown up part of the city walls, and absconded

on that same morning. They fell back on Bonnet at Leon. Meanwhile

Serras started to march northward from Benavente with 2,000 men, to

‘contain’ Santocildes, while Bonnet sent forward two regiments under

his brigadier, Valletaux, to assist Serras. But their forces never met:

the column from Benavente got engaged with Cabrera’s division near La

Baneza, and could not push further forward. That from Leon found most

of Taboada’s division placed across its path near Benavides, behind

the river Orbigo, nine miles in front of Astorga (June 23). Valletaux,

despising his enemy, crossed the stream and attacked, though the

balance of numbers was against him. When the engagement had been for

some hours in progress, Castañon, with the brigade just arriving from

Asturias, came down on his flank. The French were beaten: Valletaux

fell, and his brigade lost over 300 men[604] in the combat, which the

Spaniards name from the village of Cogorderos and the French from

that of Quintanilla de Valle. The defeated force fell back beyond the

Orbigo, and was succoured by Bonnet, with the rest of his troops from

Leon. Meanwhile Serras retired towards Benavente, and called loudly for

help to his chief, Bessières.

[604] The brigade (119th, 122nd Line) lost fourteen officers on

June 23rd, which would argue total casualties of about 300 at the

usual rate. But the Spaniards say that they took many prisoners

and give the total French loss at 450.

Santocildes, seeing that Cabrera had now nothing in front of him at

La Baneza, called up his division to Astorga, and uniting it with the

troops of Taboada and Castañon marched against Bonnet on July 2nd. The

French general, after trying to defend for some time the bridge of

the Orbigo, found himself so outnumbered that he must retreat towards

Leon. But before he had been driven back so far, first Serras from

Benavente, and then Bessières himself, with Dumoustier’s division

from Valladolid, came up to join him. The French, now 13,000 strong,

advanced to seek a general action (July 18). Santocildes, showing great

prudence, refused to fight in the plain, hastily abandoned Astorga and

the banks of the Orbigo, and withdrew into the mountains south-west

of Astorga, where he took post at Torienzo. The enemy did not pursue,

and only a party of light cavalry entered Astorga, which it abandoned

next day. For Bessières had received intelligence that his head

quarters at Valladolid, which was almost ungarrisoned in the absence

of Dumoustier’s division, had been attacked by the _partidas_ of the

southern sierras (July 15). At the same time General Dorsenne reported

from Burgos that Mina had crossed into his government, deserting his

more usual haunts in Navarre, and had united with Longa and Porlier.

They had a large force and had cut the communications with Santander.

On returning to Valladolid with the Guard division, Bessières found

waiting there on July 25 his letters of recall to Paris. The Emperor

had deposed him, partly in consequence of complaints as to his

intractability made by King Joseph, partly because he was dissatisfied

at the hopeless tone of his dispatches, in which (to his master’s

discontent) he kept setting forth the thesis that the war in Spain

was being conducted on a wrong system, and that the Army of the North

was helpless[605]. His post was given to General Dorsenne, a man of

inferior ability, though his operations prove him not to have been such

a conceited imbecile as his jealous subordinate Thiébault alleges[606].

Indeed, his record in the north compares not unfavourably with that of

Bessières, and he was decidedly more ready to aid his neighbours than

the Duke of Istria--which was the main thing necessary among French

generals in Spain.

[605] See especially his dispatch to Berthier of June 6: ‘On fait

illusion à l’Empereur--tout le monde connaît le mode vicieux de

nos opérations, &c.’--it is most free-spoken.

[606] For Thiébault’s character of Dorsenne see his _Mémoires_

vol. iv. pp. 401-2.

On the departure of Bessières for Valladolid, his subordinates Bonnet

and Serras had halted behind the Orbigo, holding La Baneza as their

advanced point. Santocildes, who showed as much enterprise as prudence

during his short tenure of command, learning that there were now only

6,000 or 7,000 men in front of him, came down again from his mountains

on July 28th with all his three divisions, and advanced against them:

they were forced, after some slight skirmishing, to abandon La Baneza

and the line of the Orbigo, and to fall back on Leon. Santocildes

advanced to the Esla, and roving detachments sent out from his front

pushed forward as far into Old Castile as Sahagun and Palencia. The

_partidas_ got possession of the whole country-side, and the French

garrisons of Zamora, Toro, Benavente, and Salamanca were completely

cut off from their communication with Dorsenne’s head quarters at

Valladolid. There was equal trouble in the provinces of Burgos and

Santander, where Longa and Porlier long held occupied the Guard

division of General Roguet, evading him when necessary, and always

returning to give trouble when he had passed by.

Unfortunately for the Spaniards, Santocildes was at this moment

superseded by General Abadia, whom Castaños had sent to take general

command of the ‘6th Army’. He was in every way inferior to his junior

and predecessor, being neither so alert nor so cautious, and having

a craze for unnecessary innovation in matters of detail, which might

have been harmless in time of peace, but was vexatious when carried out

during a campaign. Wellington had at first conceived great expectations

from his intelligence[607], but soon became entirely disappointed with

him.

[607] See _Dispatches_, vii. p. 648, for an account of

Abadia’s good intentions, and viii. p. 128, for Wellington’s

disappointment at their non-fulfilment.

Just before Abadia replaced Santocildes, the position of Dorsenne was

wonderfully improved by the arrival on the Ebro of the division of

Souham, 7,000 strong, which had been promised to him in June, and had

been marching up from Marseilles for five weeks. The commander of the

Army of the North at once turned over the province of Burgos to Souham,

and moved forward from it the greater part of the Guard division of

Roguet, which thus became free for operations in the open field.

Caffarelli’s and Reille’s divisions were now also present in Biscay and

Navarre, so that the available strength of the French in northern Spain

was higher than it had been since the summer of 1810, and Dorsenne

thought that his rear was adequately covered. He therefore marched with

the two divisions of the Young Guard and his two cavalry brigades, to

link his operations with those of Bonnet on the Esla. Dorsenne started

from Valladolid on August 9th, marching in two columns, Dumoustier’s

division by Mayorga and Valencia de Don Juan, Roguet’s by Villalpando

and Benavente, so as to converge on La Baneza. Bonnet, strengthened by

some reinforcements, advanced at the same time from Leon against the

bridges of the Orbigo and Astorga, and Dorsenne, with a small reserve,

followed by the road Valladolid-Valderas. It was evidently intended

that Roguet’s division should turn the Spanish right, and drive the

whole army northward, and away from Galicia, while it was attacked in

front by Bonnet and Dumoustier.

Fortunately for his army, which was now about to be attacked by nearly

30,000 men, Abadia listened to the advice of Santocildes, and withdrew

hastily to the hills when, on August 17th, his outposts were attacked.

Cabrera’s division retired on its old post of Puebla de Senabria, and

got into communication with Silveira’s Portuguese, who had come up

to Braganza. Castañon and the Conde de Belveder[608] (who had just

relieved Taboada in command of the 2nd Division) were drawn back to

the two passes above Astorga, those of Manzanal and Fuencebadon.

Dorsenne, dividing his troops, attacked both, and carried them, not

without severe fighting, on July 27th. The Spanish detachment in the

Manzanal pass was badly cut up: that before Fuencebadon suffered

less. The French lost General Corsin. Behind the passes there are two

lines of retreat into Galicia, the northern and more obvious is the

great _chaussée_ to Corunna, via Villafranca and Lugo, which Sir John

Moore followed in January 1809. The southern and more rugged is that

by Ponferrada, Domingo Flores, and the Val de Orres to Orense, which

La Romana took in that same historic retreat. This last road was now

chosen by Abadia, for two reasons: the first was that by taking it he

placed himself upon the flank of Dorsenne’s advance against the heart

of Galicia, and forced the enemy either to turn against him, and follow

him into a remote and desolate country, or (if he pressed on) to expose

his communication with Astorga and Leon. The second reason was that he

knew that Dorsenne had come lightly equipped, intending rather to drive

his army out of the Astorga region than to conquer the whole province

of Galicia; the French would not, therefore, be able to feed on the

desolate route between Ponferrada and Orense, and would probably turn

back, content with having cleared the plains of Leon.

[608] Our old acquaintance of Gamonal and Tamames.

This argument was correct. Dorsenne went no further on the great

_chaussée_ than Villafranca, which he sacked on August 29th, and then

turned on his heel, refusing to press deeper into Galicia, or to

pursue Abadia’s army. He marched back to Astorga on the 30th-31st,

burning every village of the Vierzo on his way, and descended into the

plains of Leon. Abadia followed cautiously, reoccupied Villafranca and

Ponferrada, and pushed his outposts forward again to the edge of the

mountains. It was found that the French were repairing Astorga, which

they once more garrisoned, and held as an outpost till the next year.

The ground occupied by the Army of Galicia was exactly the same on the

10th of September as it had been on the 10th of June, save that all

Asturias was still clear of invaders. It was not till the late autumn

that Bonnet once more made his appearance in that oft-invaded province.

The reasons of Dorsenne’s sudden retreat from the borders of Galicia

were many and various. It must not be supposed that his expedition

had been taken in hand with the object of conquering that province,

as Napier seems to suggest[609]. Such a task would have required much

longer preparation than he had been able to make: he had neither

collected the stores and munitions that would have been required for

so great an enterprise, nor made the necessary dispositions for the

protection of the vast space behind him. When he marched against

Abadia, he left nothing between the Ebro and the border of Portugal

save Souham’s newly arrived division and a few of Serras’s battalions

scattered in small garrisons at Leon, Benavente, Valladolid, &c. His

movement of advance had been made to chase the Army of Galicia out of

the plains, where it had been showing itself so persistently since

June, and to relieve the pressure which it had brought upon Bonnet and

Serras. There was no purpose of conquest underlying his march, only

a desire to scour the valleys of the Orbigo and the Esla of tiresome

intruders. The Spaniards were wholly mistaken in supposing that he

retired from Villafranca because Abadia had shown a disposition to make

a long resistance, or because the Junta had called out the _alarmas_,

or general _levée en masse_ of the province, raised on the principle

of the Portuguese Ordenança. He could have gone on further if that had

been his intention--but he had no such desire.

[609] ‘Galicia was helpless, and Dorsenne would have taken Coruña

and Ferrol if the arrival of Wellington on the Coa had not

alarmed him,’ iii. p. 330. This statement shows a misconception

of the situation.

Not only were his munitions exhausted, but all the news behind him was

unsatisfactory. Though the reinforcements from France had arrived on

the Ebro, Old Castile was in the most disturbed condition. There had

been a notable disaster at Santander on August 14th-15th, when Porlier,

by a sudden concentration, had stormed the town, dispersing General

Rouget’s[610] garrison, and had then swept away most of the minor posts

around it; only Torrelavega had succeeded in beating off his assault.

But when reinforcements came flocking in, the Spaniards had retired to

the hills with 300 prisoners, and were threatening other points. The

gates of Palencia and Valladolid had been insulted by _partidas_, who

showed themselves boldly in sight of the walls, and established a loose

blockade, which could only be pierced by the movement of considerable

columns. But the most pressing point was Ciudad Rodrigo: Julian Sanchez

had cut its communications with Salamanca, and had defeated small

bodies of 300 or 400 men which had been sent to reopen them. A much

larger force had to be detailed to throw provisions into the place

in July, but by the end of August stores were again running low, and

General Reynaud, the governor, whenever he could pass an emissary

through the lines of the _partidas_, kept asking for help of all kinds.

[610] This general is not to be confused with Roguet, the Guard

commander, though they were operating in regions close to each

other, and often get mixed in contemporary narratives.

But since Dorsenne started for his expedition against Astorga, the

problem of getting food into Rodrigo had been complicated by the

appearance of Wellington’s army on the Coa and the Agueda. On August

12th the head quarters of the Anglo-Portuguese army had been moved up

from the south to Fuente Guinaldo, in the immediate neighbourhood of

the blockaded fortress, and already on August 8th the garrison had

detected British outposts--from the Light Division--in their immediate

neighbourhood. Now, since Marmont and the Army of Portugal were still

in the valley of the Tagus, and all Leon was still in the charge of

the Army of the North, Dorsenne found himself responsible for the

revictualling, indeed for the relief from blockade, of a fortress which

might be beset by 40,000 men. It was absolutely necessary for him to

return from the border of Galicia, and to concert matters with Marmont

for a common movement against Wellington. For the field force of the

Army of the North, which had just driven Abadia into the hills, was not

over 28,000 strong, and obviously could not succour Rodrigo by its own

unaided strength.

Returning to Valladolid early in September, with the two Guard

divisions, and leaving Bonnet once more to observe the Galicians,

Dorsenne opened _pourparlers_ with Marmont for a general concentration

against Wellington. Of this effort we must speak in its due place.

Meanwhile matters settled down in the northern field of operations.

Bonnet was too weak to move, or to think of reoccupying his old post

in the Asturias. Abadia’s army was much reduced in numbers, both by

privations and by desertion: the last days of the late campaign, spent

in the desolate Val de Orres, had been particularly trying to the

troops. An English observer who saw them at Ponferrada described them

as ‘in even worse condition than might be expected--half the soldiers

without trousers, and wearing only capotes--while the clothing of

the rest shows great need for improvement. They are a fine body of

men, standing well, though deeply marked by privation, and as badly

trained as equipped. The best corps can only manœuvre singly, not

attempting movements of the line; the Toledo battalion broke down in

attempting to change front _en échelon_. The cavalry are on a level

with the infantry, move with wide gaps between squadrons, and cannot

go accurately through the sword exercise. The horses might each be a

Rosinante--the artillery as badly manned as horsed[611].’ The numbers

were terribly low: it was doubtful whether the whole field force could

produce 10,000 men, and they had started on the June campaign with

15,000.

[611] From the _Memoirs of Sir Howard Douglas_, British

commissioner with Abadia’s army, pp. 122-3.

Dilapidated, however, as the Army of Galicia might be at the end of its

operations, it had done well, having kept the French Army of the North

‘contained’ for the many weeks during which Wellington was absent on

the Guadiana. Bessières and Dorsenne had accomplished nothing positive

during that time; and the territory held down by the invaders in

September was less than it had been in June by the whole extent of

the Asturias. It is absurd of Napier to state that ‘Galicia with its

lordly Junta, its regular army, fortified towns, numerous population,

and constant supplies from England, had less weight in the contest

than the 5,000 Portuguese militia conducted by Trant and Wilson[612].’

The province, so far from being of no weight in the contest, did

Wellington most useful service. The two diversions carried out by

Santocildes, which twice compelled the Army of the North to mass all

its available field troops on the Orbigo, were operations of the most

profitable sort, and since the Galician always retired in time, led

to no disasters of the kind that too often happened when a Peninsular

general was overdaring. But while paying his just due to Santocildes,

we must praise even more the unwearied activity of the chiefs of the

Cantabrian bands and the guerrilleros of Old Castile and Leon. It was

Longa and Porlier, and Julian Sanchez, who, with forces that were never

very great in numbers, paralysed by their ubiquity and their unceasing

enterprise the greater part of Bessières’s and Dorsenne’s troops. If

they had not been in existence, the French might have found men enough

to conquer Galicia, or to attack north-eastern Portugal in force. This

was true throughout the whole of 1810 and 1811, and was a governing

fact in the history of the Peninsular War. Even though the Emperor

pushed 30,000 fresh infantry (the divisions of Souham, Reille, and

Caffarelli) into northern Spain in July and August 1811, he was never

able to make the communication between Bayonne and Madrid absolutely

safe, or to call any region subdued which was not held down by a

garrison altogether out of proportion to its population.

[612] _History of the Peninsular War_, iii. p. 186.

SECTION XXVII: CHAPTER IV

SOULT’S TROUBLES IN ANDALUSIA. JULY-SEPTEMBER 1811

After his departure from the Guadiana on June 28th, Soult found

himself plunged into a new series of troubles, which were to continue

all through the summer and autumn. Just as he was about to set out

for Seville with two cavalry regiments as escort, following in the

wake of Godinot’s and Conroux’s infantry, he received the unwelcome

news that Blake, of whose march he had been aware since the 24th,

had crossed the lower Guadiana near Mertola on June 23[613], and had

invaded the Condado de Niebla with nearly 12,000 men. If Blake had

struck straight at Seville there can be little doubt that he would have

taken it, for General Daricau, the governor, hastened, on the first

news of the approach of an enemy, to shut himself up in the fortified

Cartuja Convent, with his scanty garrison of convalescents, drafts,

and _Juramentados_. He had not the least hope of maintaining the large

and turbulent city under control. But no one appeared to molest him,

except some cavalry, who were easily driven off by cannon-shot. Blake,

apparently disliking to present himself in the open plain of the

Guadalquivir, had not marched on Seville, but sat down on June 30 to

besiege the castle of Niebla, the capital of the region which he had

invaded. It was the only French garrison left in western Andalusia,

and was held by a battalion of 600 ‘Swiss’ in King Joseph’s service--a

miscellaneous corps formed of deserters of all races from the Spanish

and British armies, under a Colonel Fritzhardt. Blake lay for five

days before the mediaeval castle with the division of Zayas, while

Ballasteros, with the rest of the army, took a position to cover him

against French troops coming from Estremadura, who (as was rightly

suspected) were not long in appearing. The siege failed because Blake

had brought no artillery with him--on account of the bad mountain roads

he had sent his guns round from Mertola by Ayamonte, and they had not

come up. An attempt to take the castle by escalade failed, and the

Spanish general was sitting helplessly before its walls on July 2nd,

when the news came that the French were upon him. Soult, hearing on

his way southward of Blake’s raid, had turned both Conroux and Godinot

against the invaders, and had continued his own route to Seville with

no more than the cavalry and one infantry regiment. While Godinot

marched on Niebla by Cala and Aracena, Conroux tried to cut in between

Blake and the sea by a circuitous route by Fregenal, through the worst

of the mountains, aiming at the ports of Huelva and Moguer. It was

hoped that the Spaniards might be caught between the two divisions--but

the quarry was too shy. Blake departed at the first alarm, and embarked

at Ayamonte with Zayas’s division; Ballasteros, marching away into the

hills which he knew so well, evaded Conroux, and passed for a time

northward into the Sierra de Aroche. The cavalry under Penne Villemur

did not abscond by water, but returned along the Portuguese frontier

to Estremadura, where it joined the skeleton army of Castaños, which

still consisted of no more than six or eight battalions under Morillo

and Carlos de España, some 3,000 or 4,000 men at most. Wellington had

sent it back to Villa Viçosa during the operations around the Caya,

declining to use it in the fighting-line till it should be reorganized.

Blake, whose embarkation at Ayamonte on July 8th had been accompanied

by circumstances of disgraceful panic[614], returned to Cadiz with

7,000 men. Ballasteros followed him thither six weeks later, having

descended from the hills and embarked at the mouth of the Guadiana at

the end of August.

[613] His troops had plundered the Portuguese peasantry freely

during their rapid march, and actually came to skirmishing with

the local Ordenança. For anecdotes by an eye-witness, Schepeler,

see his book, i. p. 304.

[614] For which see Schepeler, p. 307. On a false alarm the

troops began to embark on the transports without orders, and in

great disarray. Blake, according to Schepeler, made a ridiculous

spectacle of himself, by wading a long way through shallow water

to get out to a small boat. There were no French within many

miles.

Blake’s Niebla expedition had been conducted with the greatest timidity

and incompetence. Yet it had served Wellington’s purpose much as he

had intended, since it drew off 11,000 French troops into a remote

corner of Andalusia for some weeks. It is true that Soult’s original

withdrawal from the Guadiana was not caused by this diversion, but

it had forced him to send away on a wild-goose chase troops urgently

needed elsewhere. For if Conroux and Godinot had not marched to Niebla

and Ayamonte, they would have gone straight to Granada, to reinforce

the 4th Corps, which was, throughout the month of July, in considerable

danger from the Murcians. It was not till August had begun that

Soult was able to come to its aid, with the divisions which had been

distracted to the far west by Blake’s expedition.

Of Freire’s Army of Murcia we have heard nothing since the unhappy rout

of Baza (November 3, 1810). After that shock it had kept quiet for

many a day, and only dared to move when, in April 1811, Soult began to

make heavy requisitions on the 4th Corps, in order to form the army

that marched for Albuera. Further drafts had been called westward in

the end of May, so that Leval, who succeeded Sebastiani as commander

of the corps about this time, was left with numbers quite inadequate

to hold down the broad kingdoms of Jaen and Granada. This, of course,

gave Freire the chance of accomplishing something useful: and, leaving

the frontiers of Murcia, he began to press forward against the French

posts. He had at this time a force of three infantry divisions, under

La Cuadra, Sanz, and Creagh, and two weak cavalry divisions under

Osorio and Ladrón. The whole amounted, after making deductions for the

garrison of Cartagena (2,000 men) to nearly 12,000 bayonets and 1,500

sabres[615]. In May Freire began to push forward cautiously, with his

cavalry and two divisions on the high-road Lorca-Baza-Granada, and a

smaller force, consisting of La Cuadra’s division, on the side road

which leads, by Huescar and Pozoalcon, to the valley of the upper

Guadalquivir and the kingdom of Jaen. His progress was so slow that the

French were able to withdraw at their leisure before him, without any

loss. Leval was so weak that he made no attempt to stand, and evacuated

in succession the coast lands about Almeria, as far as Motril, the

highlands east of Granada, including the towns of Baza and Guadix,

and the upper valley of the Guadalquivir. La Cuadra’s advanced posts

penetrated as far as Ubeda, and bickered with the garrisons of Baeza,

Linares, and Jaen. Officers sent out from the main column raised the

mountaineers of the Sierra Nevada, and bands of insurgents began to cut

the communications between Granada and Malaga. At the head of these

irregulars was the turbulent Conde de Montijo, of whom we last heard

when he got into trouble for conspiring against the supreme Junta[616].

He is now found more usefully employed, giving trouble to the enemy

instead of to his own Government.

[615] See table of the Army of Murcia (3rd Army) on June 1st, in

Appendix XVII.

[616] See vol. iii. pp. 4 and 104.

Cautious though Freire had been, his advance had shaken the hold of

the 4th Corps on eastern Andalusia. Leval reported to Soult that, with

the 3,000 or 4,000 troops whom he had concentrated at Granada, he was

quite helpless, and was wellnigh blockaded on every side. It was only

with difficulty that he could keep in touch with the Polish division,

which lay in and about Malaga, or with the garrisons of Jaen and

Cordova on the other side. He could only collect a force sufficient to

attack Freire by abandoning all his outlying posts, and permission to

do so had not been granted him. He must be reinforced, or allowed to

concentrate his scattered troops and strike at the enemy’s main body.

A few days later the state of affairs in eastern Andalusia became still

more threatening. Blake, after embarking at Ayamonte on July 8th, had

two days later returned to Cadiz with the two Albuera divisions of

Zayas and Lardizabal. He stayed only a fortnight in the island city,

and got leave from the Regency to join the Army of Murcia. In order

that he might dispose of all the forces in that direction, he asked

and obtained the control of the Valencian army also, and was made

Captain-General of that province as well as of Murcia and Aragon. Blake

landed at Almeria on July 31st with the same troops that he had brought

back from the west--about 7,000 foot and 500 horse. From thence he led

them to join Freire’s army near Baza, and left them there, while he

himself (taking Zayas and some other officers with him) made a hasty

visit to Valencia, to receive over the command from the Marquis del

Palacio[617], and to see what measures were necessary with regard to

the threatening movements of Suchet on the side of Aragon.

[617] The Marquis had only taken over charge of Valencia from

Charles O’Donnell a few weeks before.

The two divisions under Lardizabal and Joseph O’Donnell (vice Zayas)

had joined Freire on August 3rd, and a force of 15,000 infantry and

nearly 2,000 horse was thus concentrated near Baza. But Freire, being

now only the interim commander, refused to take any responsibility,

and remained apathetically watching the small French force in Granada,

which was (for the moment) absolutely at his mercy. He posted the army

in a very strong position near Gor, twelve miles in front of Baza and

forty miles from Granada. It was covered in front by the ravine of one

of the tributaries of the Guardal river, and could only be turned on

the flanks by a very wide movement in difficult ground. La Cuadra’s

division remained at Pozoalcon, some thirty miles away from the main

body, observing the kingdom of Jaen and vexing its garrisons by small

incursions.

Soult had returned to Seville after the expulsion of Blake from western

Andalusia, but with no intention of staying there for long, since it

was clearly necessary to re-establish the lost prestige of the French

arms on the side of Granada, and to reoccupy the ground which Leval had

been forced to give up. But he had judged that there was no desperate

hurry, since Freire had shown himself such a sluggish adversary: and

though he had already directed Godinot’s provisional division to march

on Jaen in the last days of July, he himself was still at Seville when

he received the unexpected news of Blake’s disembarkation at Almeria on

the 31st of that month. Since the Army of Murcia was thus reinforced,

the danger to Leval at Granada had become imminent, and it was clearly

necessary to rescue him at once. Accordingly the Marshal, setting out

from Seville on August 3rd with four regiments of Latour-Maubourg’s

cavalry and part of Conroux’s infantry division[618], arrived at

Granada by forced marches on the 7th. Godinot was at the same time

directed to move from Jaen and Baeza against La Cuadra, to drive

him off from Pozoalcon, and then to fall upon the flank and rear of

Freire’s strong position near Baza.

[618] This provisional division of 9th Corps troops (see p. 445)

had already sent off some of its battalions to join Victor before

Cadiz, since the units belonged to the 1st Corps.

Nothing could have served Soult better than the chance that the army

against which he was marching was destitute for the moment of its new

Commander-in-Chief, and left in charge of a substitute who shirked

responsibility. From August 3rd, when the Albuera divisions joined

Freire, down to the 7th, when the reinforcements reached Granada, the

small French force in that city had been in a most dangerous position.

But nothing whatever had happened during the critical days: the

Spaniards had remained quiescent behind the ravine of Gor. Picking up

the small part of the garrison of Granada that could be spared to join

his field force, Soult marched against the enemy on the 8th of August,

and was in front of their position on the 9th, with 6,000 infantry and

1,500 horse. Seeing the enormous strength of the ground, he contented

himself with making noisy artillery demonstrations against Freire’s

line, and waited for the arrival of Godinot, who with 4,000 bayonets

and 600 sabres was due to appear in the rear of the Murcians on the

10th, if all had gone well with him.

As a matter of fact Godinot had marched against La Cuadra on the

7th from Baeza, by the way of Jodar. The Spanish general, who was

outnumbered, abandoned his post at Pozoalcon on the 8th and fell back

towards Huescar, nearer the frontier of Murcia, without fighting.

Godinot, therefore, found nothing to prevent him from falling on the

rear of the main hostile force, and marched on Baza. His approach

was reported to Freire, who detached against him Joseph O’Donnell’s

division of 4,000 men, and ordered La Cuadra to hasten to its aid,

and to join in covering the flank of the army. O’Donnell took post at

the fords of the Guardal river, in front of Zujar, and stood on the

defensive, hoping to be joined by La Cuadra during the course of the

day. The latter, however, had gone off too far to the east for it to be

possible for him to return in time, and O’Donnell was badly beaten by

Godinot on the afternoon of the 9th, and lost a third of his men--423

killed and wounded, and 1,000 dispersed or prisoners.

By continuing his march for another eight miles, after beating

O’Donnell, Godinot might have seized Baza and cut off Freire from his

retreat on Murcia. But his men were tired, and it was reported to

him that a new Spanish force--La Cuadra, coming up over late in the

day--was approaching. Wherefore he halted, and only sent out cavalry

to search for Soult’s flank, and to reconnoitre Baza. But Freire,

on hearing that O’Donnell was crushed, and his own rear threatened,

silently evacuated his strong position in the night, and marched

through Baza and across Godinot’s front with all his host. He got away,

but Soult, detecting his retreat at dawn, bade Latour-Maubourg pursue

him with all speed at the head of his horsemen. The Spanish rearguard

was caught up at Las Vertientes, ten miles beyond Baza. Freire ordered

his cavalry, under Osorio and Loy, to face about and protect the march

of the infantry. But a charge of Pierre Soult, who led the French

advance brigade, broke the Spanish horse, who fled in all directions,

uncovering the infantry. The latter took to the hills--one column

consisting of the divisions of Sanz and O’Donnell went off southward,

and escaped without much loss by Oria and Albox. The other, containing

the divisions of Creagh and Lardizabal, turned north, plunged into

the Murcian hills, and made its way by Maria to Caravaca. La Cuadra,

making a separate retreat in a parallel direction, also arrived at

the last-named place[619]. Such was their haste that one column made

thirty-six miles in the day on the 10th, the other twenty-seven.

Stragglers were many.

[619] There is a good account of this obscure campaign by

Schepeler, an eye-witness, in his _Spanische Monarchie_, pp.

558-62, and a longer one in Arteche, vol. x.

The Murcian army was thus divided into two masses, neither of which

covered the main road to the capital of the province, and Soult,

standing triumphant at Velez Rubio with his 12,000 men united, might

have marched on Murcia had he chosen. But the way was long--some

seventy miles--and the intervening country rough and thinly peopled.

The Marshal resolved not to pursue Freire, but to devote himself to the

hunting down of the insurgents of Granada and the southern mountains,

while the main hostile army was out of action. When, therefore, Blake

returned from Valencia to pay a hasty visit to his scattered army,

he found it shaken in morale, and weaker by 4,000 men than when he

had left it, but not destroyed. Of the two disjointed sections, one

descended in haste from the northern mountains, the other came in

marching parallel with the coast; they met at Alcantarilla in front of

the city of Murcia, on August 14th, and began to fortify a position

there. But the French had turned back; Soult contented himself with

reoccupying Baza with a permanent garrison, and did not cross the

Murcian frontier. Hence Blake was able, a few weeks later, to take

off to the north not only his own two divisions, but part of Freire’s

troops, for service against Suchet on the side of Valencia. It was a

lucky chance for him that the invasion of Valencia from the side of

Aragon only began upon September 16, more than a month after Soult had

returned into Andalusia. If it had come earlier, there would have been

no succours available for the oft-defeated and never very efficient

‘2nd Army’, as the Valencian corps was now called.

Soult had not gone in person further than Velez Rubio, though his light

cavalry had pursued the flying Spaniards many miles further, as far as

the pass of Lumbreras. On August 14th he turned back[620], and broke

up his army into several columns, who were to hunt down the insurgents

of the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras. The main body returned to

Granada, a flanking column occupied Almeria, another swept the valley

of the upper Guadalquivir. There was much plunder and a good deal of

reckless shooting of inhabitants--for the French were exasperated at

the rising which had taken place in districts that had seemed for the

last eighteen months to be pacified. But the crushing of the insurgents

turned out to be a long business--indeed eastern and southern Andalusia

were never so thoroughly under Soult’s control as they had been in 1810

and the early months of 1811. The Count of Montijo lurked persistently

in the mountains, and gained several small successes over General

Godinot, who was in main charge of the hunt. On August 21st he captured

two whole companies of Poles near Motril, and a few days later checked

a column of 1,500 men under Colonel Remond. He himself ultimately got

off to join the Murcian army, but the local guerrilleros continued the

strife, which was to blaze up again into a formidable conflagration

when a new Spanish regular force came upon the scene. This was the

division of Ballasteros, who, as has been already mentioned, abandoned

his old haunts by the Rio Tinto and the lower Guadiana, to land on

September 4th at Algesiras with 3,000 men. Calling in the serranos of

the Ronda mountains to his aid, he captured many small places, and

forced Soult to turn Godinot’s troops against him. Thus the insurgents

further east got a momentary respite, and Soult’s unending troubles

took a new turn. But the autumn and winter warfare in the extreme south

of Andalusia must be narrated in another place. Suffice it to say here

that Soult was never in the later months of 1811 so free from trouble

as to find it easy to send any serious aid to Drouet and the 5th

Corps, whose duty it was to check and contain Hill’s Anglo-Portuguese

divisions in Estremadura.

[620] Schepeler (p. 460) mentions that during his short halt

on the frontier of Murcia, Soult court-martialled and shot a

French _émigré_ officer in the Spanish service captured on the

9th--Charles Cléry, the son of the faithful servant of Louis

XVI, who was so long with his master in the Temple prison. As he

had been out of France for many years, first in the Austrian and

then in the Spanish army, this was a cruel stretch of the idea of

treason.

SECTION XXVIII

OPERATIONS IN EASTERN SPAIN DURING THE SPRING, SUMMER, AND AUTUMN OF

1811

CHAPTER I

FIGUERAS AND TARRAGONA. APRIL-MAY 1811

In the earlier chapter of this volume, which took the affairs of

Catalonia and Aragon down to the month of March, we left Suchet

making vigorous preparation for the siege of Tarragona, within whose

walls his master had promised him that he should ‘find his marshal’s

baton.’ While munitions and food for this great enterprise were being

collected, the unemployed troops of the Army of Aragon were occupied

in scouring the mountains on the side of New Castile and Valencia,

always driving the _partidas_ before them, but never able to bring

about their capture or destruction. Meanwhile, Macdonald with the

active part of the French Army of Catalonia, about 17,000 strong, lay

in and about Lerida, ‘containing’ the main Spanish force, which had

now passed under the control of the new Captain-General, the active

but incapable Campoverde. Based on Tarragona, and with his divisions

spread out in front of it, this officer bickered with Macdonald

continually, but had achieved nothing substantial since his subordinate

Sarsfield cut up Eugenio’s Italians at the combat of Valls, long weeks

before[621]. His ambitious attempt to surprise Barcelona had failed

with loss on March 19th, because it was based on supposed treachery

within the walls, which did not really exist. Further to the north, in

the Ampurdam and on the Pyrenean frontier, Baraguay d’Hilliers with the

rest of the 7th Corps, some 18,000 men, had to furnish the garrisons

of Rosas, Figueras, Gerona and other smaller places, and to contend

with the miqueletes of Manso, Rovira, Martinez, and other chiefs.

There were practically no Spanish regular troops in this direction,

almost the whole of the old regiments having been withdrawn southward

to face Macdonald, and to defend Tarragona and the surrounding region

of central Catalonia. Nevertheless Baraguay d’Hilliers, as we shall

see, had no small task thrown upon his hands. In this province the

irregulars were at their best, having in the miquelete system an

organization which made them far more formidable than the _partidas_ of

central or northern Spain.

[621] See above, page 243.