came from all quarters was satisfactory. Villatte was in Salamanca,
with no more than his own infantry division and one regiment of cavalry
[464]: he had small detachments on his flanks at Ledesma and Alba de
Tormes, but no friends nearer than Daricau at Zamora; and for Daricau
full employment was about to be found, since Graham’s great column was
marching straight upon him. It was pretty certain that King Joseph
had not yet ordered the general concentration which was the only
thing that could save him from destruction. The French division at
Avila had not moved: Madrid was being held, and as late as the 20th
Maransin’s brigade had been at Toledo, and some of the Avila division
at Monbeltran on the borders of Estremadura. The map showed, therefore,
that the Army of the South could not possibly meet on the Tormes in
time to succour Villatte, who would have either to retreat or to be
destroyed. And Villatte being driven off eastward on Cantalpino, or
northward on Toro, the junction of the two wings of Wellington’s army
at or near Zamora was certain.
But haste was necessary, wherefore the army advanced by very long
marches, through the devastated country over which it had passed in
such different conditions seven months back. On the 25th, head-quarters
were at Matilla, with the infantry advancing in three parallel
columns, the Light Division on the high road to Salamanca, Hill and
Silveira to the right, Morillo still farther out, making for Alba de
Tormes. The satisfactory news came in that Villatte had withdrawn
his detachment from Ledesma, which indicated that he did not intend
to keep touch with Daricau at Zamora, so that the passage of the
Douro would be simplified[465]. A very long march on the 26th brought
matters to a crisis. Victor Alten’s cavalry pushing for Salamanca
bridge, and Fane’s for the fords which lie above the town, found that
Villatte had just evacuated it, after barricading and obstructing
its exits, but was visible on the heights above the fords of Santa
Marta (one of Wellington’s old positions of June 1812) in line of
battle. His delay in retreating is censured equally by Jourdan and by
Wellington--apparently he wished to be certain that he was not being
imposed upon by a mere cavalry demonstration, and had a serious force
opposite him: moreover, he was waiting to pick up his detachment from
Alba de Tormes, which he had only just ordered to join him, when he
heard that Long’s cavalry and Morillo were moving on that place.
On seeing the French in position the British cavalry pushed on with
all speed, Alten through Salamanca city, Fane by the fords above,
leaving the infantry far behind them, but hoping to detain the enemy
long enough to assure his destruction. Realizing over-late his
danger, Villatte moved off eastward when he recognized that heavy
forces were concentrating upon him, and threatening his retreat. He
marched not for Toro, but due east by roads parallel with the Tormes.
‘It is rather extraordinary,’ wrote Wellington that evening, ‘that
he should have marched by Cabrerizos and the ravine, which we used
to think so bad for even a horse, and thence by Aldea Lengua[466].’
At any rate the two cavalry brigades caught him up not far from
Aldea Lengua, and, after scattering his rearguard of dragoons, rode
in upon his infantry, which were marching hard in close column. The
tactical conditions were exactly the same as those which had been seen
during the retreat of Picton and the 3rd Division from El Bodon to
Fuente Grimaldo in September 1811. The brigadiers, after trying some
partial and ineffective charges[467], judged it useless to attack
steady and unbroken infantry in solid order, and contented themselves
with following the column at a cautious distance and picking up
stragglers--just as Montbrun had done in 1811 on the way to Fuente
Grimaldo. Fane’s horse-artillery battery got up, and put in some
damaging shots on the rear battalions, but they closed up and hurried
on. The day was hot, many of the French fell out of the ranks exhausted
and were gleaned up on the way. Their divisional ammunition train got
jammed in a hollow road and was captured--the leading caisson had been
overturned and blocked the exit of the rest. But the main body of
the infantry held on its way in a solid mass, and after five miles,
Wellington, who had just ridden up, ordered Fane and Alten to desist
from the pursuit. Villatte, therefore, got off, leaving behind him a
couple of hundred prisoners, and some scores of men who had fallen
dead from sunstroke and over-exertion, or had been knocked over by
the round-shot of Gardiner’s H.A. battery[468]. This was one more
example of the incapacity of cavalry unsupported to deal with unbroken
infantry, of which we have had to give so many previous instances. The
only exception to the rule was the extraordinary achievement of Bock’s
heavy German dragoons at Garcia Hernandez on the day after the battle
of Salamanca. Clearly Villatte waited too long, and should never have
allowed himself to be caught so near Salamanca. He got off better
than he deserved[469], and picked up his detachment from Alba, which
came in upon him from the right a few miles farther on, beyond Babila
Fuente, cautiously pursued by Long’s Light Dragoons. The column went
out of sight, retreating on Cantalpino, not on Toro--one more proof to
Wellington that the enemy was not going to attempt to strengthen the
line of the Douro, but to concentrate somewhere about Medina del Campo
or Valladolid.
The various infantry columns reached the neighbourhood of Salamanca on
the evening of the 26th, and crossed the Tormes, some by the bridge,
some by fords, next day. They were ordered to take up the position
facing north and east on the heights beyond the city which Wellington
had held against Marmont in June 1812. The Light Division was on the
left, the 2nd Division in the centre, Silveira’s Portuguese on the
right at Cabrerizos, Morillo on the upper Tormes at Machacon with a
detachment in Alba. The cavalry patrolled towards Zamora, Toro, the
fords of Fresno on the Douro, and also eastward toward the Guarena.
Hill now halted for six days--it was Wellington’s intention, now that
he had displayed himself in force at Salamanca, and set all the lines
of French intelligence quivering, that the enemy should conclude that
his great attack was to be delivered between the Douro and the Tormes,
and he hoped that they would attempt to parry it by a concentration
in the region of Valladolid--Toro for the defence of the line of the
Douro, or perhaps (but this was less likely) by a counter-offensive
south of the Douro from the direction of Medina del Campo, so as to
take him in flank and prevent his further progress northward. Either of
these moves would fall in with his desires, since his real intention
was to turn the line of the Douro much lower down, in the direction
of Zamora, by means of Graham’s corps, which was about to start from
Braganza and Miranda on the very day of the occupation of Salamanca,
and was due to arrive on the Esla, behind Zamora, on the 30th. It
pleased him well that Villatte should have retreated due east, that the
cavalry found no hostile forces south of the Douro in the direction of
either Zamora or Toro, and that it was reported that there was only one
French infantry division holding those towns.
Having allowed time for the enemy to get full knowledge of his presence
at Salamanca, and to act upon it--it was inevitable that they should
regard the place where he had shown himself as the base of his future
operations--Wellington made ready to transfer himself rapidly and
secretly to the other and stronger wing of his army, which Graham was
now conducting against the extreme western flank of the French line.
On May 28th he handed over the command of the southern wing to Hill,
and announced his own departure. The orders given to Sir Rowland were
that he was, unless the unexpected happened, to make ready to march on
the Douro at Zamora the moment that he should receive news that Graham
had crossed the Esla[470]. Bridges should be ready for him, and the
fortunate disappearance of the enemy’s horse from the region of Ledesma
made the rapid transmission of information between the two wings
certain.
There was one possibility to be considered. Though Wellington was
convinced that the French would concentrate north of the Douro, in the
direction of Valladolid and Medina de Rio Seco, it was just conceivable
that they might take the other course of concentrating south of the
river, round Medina del Campo, and marching straight on Salamanca with
all the troops that could be hastily drawn together. It was impossible
for them to gather their whole force in the few days that would be at
their disposition; but conceivably they might think it worth while to
make a counter-stroke with such divisions as could be got together in
haste. It is interesting to know that such an idea did flash through
Jourdan’s mind for a moment, only to be rejected by King Joseph on
the advice of the other generals[471]. Should the French march on
the Tormes, a grave responsibility would be placed on Hill’s head.
He was told to give them battle ‘if he was strong enough’--i. e. to
judge their force according to the best information to be had, not
an easy thing, but Hill was pre-eminently clear-headed and averse to
unnecessary risks. Should they be too numerous, he was not to retire
on Rodrigo by the route by which Wellington had come, but to throw up
his communication with that fortress, and move off in the direction
of Zamora, carrying out at all costs the plan for the junction of the
two wings of the army[472]. Nothing was to remain behind to cover
the Ciudad Rodrigo road and the Portuguese frontier but the single
Spanish division of Carlos de España: all convoys on the march from
Salamanca were to be turned off towards Ledesma and Zamora. It might
look perilous to leave Central Portugal unprotected, but Wellington was
sure that the enemy would be so distracted by his great movement north
of the Douro, that they would not dare to advance on Ciudad Rodrigo
and Almeida, to strike at his old line of communications. Moreover, it
would not matter if they did, for his new line of communication was now
entirely north of the Douro, and Oporto, not Lisbon, would be his base.
On the 29th at dawn Wellington rode off to the north-west, almost
unattended, and Hill’s responsibility began. It was not to turn out a
heavy one, since (as his chief had foreseen) the enemy was not in the
least thinking of taking up the offensive, but was rather expecting a
continuation of the British advance from Salamanca. It did not come,
and before the French had made up their minds as to what the halt of
the southern column might mean, they were attacked on the 30th by the
northern column, whose existence had hitherto been hidden from them.
Hill therefore had only to wait for Wellington’s directions to march
northward, when the date and route should be given. These orders
did not come till the 2nd of June, so that the southern corps had
to remain for a week in its own cantonments round Salamanca, doing
nothing more than watch the French, north and east, by means of cavalry
reconnaissances.
We must now turn to the operations of the more important northern
corps, which crossed the Portuguese frontier on the 26th, four days
after Wellington had started out in person from Ciudad Rodrigo.
SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER III
OPERATIONS OF GRAHAM’S COLUMN: MAY 26-JUNE 3
On May 18th Wellington had issued his final orders for the advance of
the great turning force under Graham, all of whose troops were due to
converge on the remote corner of Portugal between Braganza and Miranda
de Douro between the 21st and 27th of the month. Many of them came from
long distances, and had to start early--the 1st Division from Vizeu as
early as May 13th; and left behind it, as hopelessly inefficient from
sickness, Howard’s brigade of the Guards, reduced to a strength of 800
bayonets by the fever which had ravaged its ranks during the spring.
Shifted from Vizeu to Oporto for the benefit of the milder climate,
this brigade could not be moved for another month, and missed the
campaign of Vittoria. The 5th, 6th, and 7th Divisions left their winter
quarters in the Beira on the 14th, the 3rd and 4th, who were close to
the Douro or actually on it, at Moimenta and St. João de Pesqueira,
could afford not to move till the 16th. To secure a rapid movement for
the columns which had farthest to go, and to save any congestion of
traffic at the usual ferries of passage on the Douro--bridges there
were none--Wellington had collected a large number of barges and river
boats at Peso de Regoa, St. João de Pesqueira, and the Barca of Poçinho
near the confluence of the Coa and the Douro.
The arrangement of the marches was calculated to allow the heavy
infantry columns to make use as far as possible of the only two good
roads in the Tras-os-Montes, of which the one goes from the Douro to
Braganza, the other to Miranda. The 1st and 5th Divisions crossed
by the much-used ferry of Peso de Regoa near Lamego, and marched by
Villa Real and Mirandella on two separate routes to the neighbourhood
of Braganza[473]. The 3rd Division crossed the ferry at St. João de
Pesqueira and went by Villaflor and Vinhas to Vimioso, half-way between
Braganza and Miranda. All these columns had some cross-road marching
to do, where they were forced to cut across from one _chaussée_ to
another. The third column, the 4th, 6th, and 7th Divisions, more
fortunate, was on the high road nearly all the way: after crossing the
Douro at the ferry of Poçinho, they marched from Torre de Moncorvo
by the great _chaussée_ to the frontier town of Miranda and the
neighbouring village of Malhadas, where they were due to arrive on
three successive days (24th, 25th, 26th May). This column was followed
by the all-important pontoon-train, and by the reserve of siege
artillery--Portuguese 18-pounders under Major Ariaga[474]--as well as
by the main ammunition train.
The three British cavalry brigades which Wellington had allotted to the
great turning movement, those of Anson, Bock, and Ponsonby, had been
cantoned in the winter months in the lower Beira, along the coast, and
in the valley of the Vouga. Before the infantry had moved, they had all
three been brought north of the Douro about May 1, through Oporto, and
billeted in Braga, Guimaraens, San Tyrso, and neighbouring villages. On
May 12th orders set them moving eastward to the Braganza country--their
march was much more fatiguing than that of the infantry divisions, for
there are no high roads of any value going directly from the Braga
country to the direction of Miranda and Braganza--all run north and
south, not east and west. Though allotted short daily stages of only
three or four leagues, the cavalry found the route fatiguing--the
mountain cross-roads were more like staircases than paths--the horse
artillery accompanying the brigades had in some cases to swerve off
from its itinerary and take circuitous turns[475]: in others it had to
be man-handled down precipitous tracks. The only horsemen who had an
easy job were the Portuguese brigade of D’Urban, who had been wintering
at Braganza, and had only to advance a few miles to the frontier, and
Grant’s newly-arrived Hussar Brigade which, coming from the south,
followed the infantry column that went by Torre de Moncorvo to Miranda,
along the high road all the way.
Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese infantry, who (like D’Urban’s
dragoons) had wintered north of the Douro, at Penafiel and Villa Real
respectively, had a short way to go, and were timed to arrive at
Braganza before the heavy columns from the south came up.
Portugal and Spain, as is well known, turn their backs on each other
for the greater part of their long frontier, and though there were
decent _chaussées_ from the Douro to Braganza and Miranda they stopped
short at the boundary line. From thence onward there were no good roads
till Zamora was reached, and those bad ones which existed were country
tracks, only useful for operations in the summer. That they could be so
used, for all arms, in May and June, was one of Wellington’s secrets,
which he trusted that the French would never guess. For both parties
during the war had left alone this remote corner of the Peninsula. The
only operations seen near it had been Soult’s spring campaign of 1809,
and the forays of Silveira’s militia when they occasionally raided
towards Zamora.
Country roads, however, existed between the Sierra de Culebra and the
bend of the Douro between Zamora and Miranda, and the whole detail of
Graham’s march depended on their practicability: Wellington had caused
the whole region as far as the Esla to be explored by his intelligence
officers, and the report had been that the movement of all arms was
possible in the summer. The permanent bridges of the Esla, from
Benavente down to its confluence with the Douro, had been broken long
ago; but there was a certain number of fords, and convenient places for
the laying of temporary bridges. By the end of May it was calculated
that the spring floods due to the melting of snows in the Galician and
Asturian mountains would be over, and that the river would be down to
its normal low summer level. On these facts depended the success of
the operation, which must be a rapid one, in order that the French
might have no time for concentration. But Wellington’s provident
mind had taken into consideration the possibility of unexpected
high-water, and as a matter of precaution he had ordered up his main
pontoon-train from the Tagus. To get the cumbrous pontoons, 33 of
them, from Abrantes to Miranda de Douro by land was no small matter.
They travelled slowly on specially constructed wheeled trucks[476] by
Castello Branco, Sabugal, and Pinhel, crossed the Douro at Villa Nova
de Foscoa, and were then brought up on the Miranda high road as far as
Villa Velha, where they were halted for a short time, as Wellington
was not quite certain whether he would not lay them at Espadacinta on
the middle Douro, rather than farther up, beyond Miranda. For across
the pontoons he intended to lay the main line of communication between
Graham’s and Hill’s wings of the army, and if the latter failed to get
forward on the Tormes and to open up touch with Graham via Zamora, it
might be necessary to throw the bridge at some lower point, such as
Espadacinta[477]. On the 20th he made up his mind that 14 pontoons
should be sent to Espadacinta, while the remaining 19 should proceed
to Miranda, and from thence follow the course of the Douro to the
point where they would be laid--probably the ferry of Villa al Campo,
a mile below the confluence of the Esla and the Douro. The nineteen
all-important trucks with their burdens reached Miranda safely, and
moved close behind the right-hand column of Graham’s army during its
advance.
Down to May 26 all the British troops had been kept behind the
Portuguese frontier, nothing having been sent beyond it save D’Urban’s
Portuguese dragoons, who formed a screen some little way on the Spanish
side. Their appearance would, in the event of a French cavalry raid
from Zamora, create no suspicion of there being in the rear anything
more than the usual Tras-os-Montes militia. Nor could spies draw any
deduction from their presence.
But on the 26th the whole of Graham’s army[478] started out in three
columns arranged as follows:
1. From Braganza marched, as the northern column, Anson’s light and
Ponsonby’s heavy dragoon brigades, preceding the 1st Infantry division
and Pack’s Portuguese independent brigade. Crossing the frontier river,
the Manzanas, at fords by Nuez, they were ordered to move on Tabara in
four marches, by the country road through Sesnande.
2. From Outeiro and Vimioso marched, as the central column, following
D’Urban’s Portuguese light horse (who were already over the border),
Bock’s heavy German dragoons accompanied by the 3rd and 5th Divisions
and Bradford’s independent Portuguese brigade. They were directed to
move by Alcanizas in four marches on Losilla, five miles south of
Tabara.
3. From Miranda de Douro marched, as the right column, close to the
river, the 4th, 6th, and 7th Divisions; their cavalry, Grant’s hussar
brigade, overtook them on the second day. Having a shorter distance to
cover than the other two columns, their van was to reach Carvajales on
the 28th, in three marches. On the 30th the pontoons, which followed
in their rear, were to reach the ferry of Villa al Campo, where it was
intended that they should be laid down across the Douro.
The left-hand or northern column was to get into touch with the Army of
Galicia--Barcena’s and Losada’s divisions and Penne Villemur’s cavalry,
about 12,000 strong, who, marching from Astorga on the 26th, were to be
at the broken bridge of Benavente on the Esla on the 29th-30th.
It will be seen that Graham’s force was marching on a very compact
front, the central column being not more than five or six miles distant
from each of the flanking ones, so that the whole could be assembled
for action, in the unlikely event of opposition being met, in a very
few hours. The cavalry screen of five brigades was so strong that
it was impossible for any French horse which might be in the Zamora
direction to pierce it, or discover what was behind. The whole army
counted not less than 42,000 sabres and bayonets, exclusive of the
Galicians--as strong an Anglo-Portuguese force as that with which
Wellington had fought the battle of Salamanca, and outnumbering
considerably the other wing of Wellington’s army, which was marching
south of the Douro.
By an extraordinary piece of luck the attention of the French higher
command was completely distracted at the moment from the Esla front,
as a result of the last authentic reports received from that direction.
For as late as May 20th Reille had sent Boyer’s division of dragoons
across the Esla at Benavente, to make a sweep to the north and west in
the direction of La Baneza and the road to Puebla Senabria. They had
gone almost as far as Astorga without meeting troops of any kind; and
reported that some of the Galician army were at Astorga, but that they
had heard of no British save two or three commissaries, who had been
buying up barley and wheat in the valley of the Tera, which were to be
sent back into Portugal[479]. Reille drew the natural deduction, that
there was nothing stirring in this part of the world, and Boyer, after
thoroughly destroying the bridge of Castro Gonzalo outside Benavente,
went back to his former cantonments east of the Esla. If the raid had
been made a week later, he could not have failed to bring news of the
advance of the Galicians, and would probably have heard of Graham’s
movements from Braganza and Miranda de Douro. But by the 27th all the
attention of the French generals was already distracted to Wellington’s
march against Salamanca, at the head of Hill’s column, and the Esla
front received little notice. There remained opposite the advancing
troops of Graham only Daricau’s infantry division of the Army of the
South, with a brigade each at Zamora and Toro, and three regiments of
Digeon’s dragoons watching the Esla from San Cebrian to its juncture
with the Douro, and at the same time keeping a look-out southward
towards Salamanca. For the cavalry of Hill’s column was already on the
27th-28th pushing out northward towards Zamora as well as eastward
towards the Guarena. On the 28th this danger began to prey so much on
Daricau’s mind that he withdrew all his infantry save four companies
from Zamora, leaving Digeon’s dragoons practically unsupported to
watch rather than to defend the line of the Esla. Urgent requests were
sent to the cavalry of the Army of Portugal, farther north along that
river, to keep touch with Digeon and help him if necessary.
The cavalry at the head of Graham’s three columns reached their
destinations--Tabara, Losilla, Carvajales, on May 28th--the infantry
on the 29th. No French parties were found on the hither side of the
Esla, and though the peasantry reported that there were vedettes on
the farther bank, none were seen. Exploration of the course of the
Esla, however, led to the vexatious discovery that the river was very
high, owing to torrential rain on the night of the 28th-29th, and
that some of the fords intended for use were probably impracticable
for cavalry, most certainly so for infantry. Graham, though vexed at
the delay, refused to push across the water with horsemen alone, and
waited for the pontoon-train--due on the 30th--to come up, resolving to
lay it across the Esla, and not across the Douro as had been at first
intended. Meanwhile the French showed no signs of life on the 30th--it
had been feared that Daricau might come out of Zamora, only eight
miles away, with infantry and guns, to oppose the passage. But, as we
have seen, he had really departed on the 28th, and there was nothing
opposite Graham but a cavalry screen. The main attack seemed to the
French generals to be on the side of Salamanca, where Wellington was
known to have been present on May 27th. Digeon had discovered on the
29th that there were British troops on the opposite bank of the Esla,
but had no notion of their strength or purpose[480].
But if Wellington’s presence marked the danger-point, it was
now suddenly displaced. On the morning of the 29th the British
Commander-in-Chief had gone off on one of his not unusual lightning
rides. Starting early from Salamanca, he rode by Ledesma to the Douro
opposite Miranda--over 50 miles--before dark. Facing Miranda there is
no road on the Spanish side, the river descends fiercely in something
like cataracts, with high rocks on its eastern bank. The only
communication from shore to shore was by a rope and basket contrivance,
worked by a windlass, and stretched high above the water. By this
strange method Wellington crossed the Douro--what would have been the
results of the campaign of 1813 if the ropes had been rotten? He slept
at Miranda, started off at dawn on the 30th and was at Carvajales--20
miles away--by the afternoon, not so tired but that he could write
dispatches to Hill and Giron that night, and settle with Graham the
dispositions for next morning.
Wellington’s first decision was that the pontoons, which had come up
on the 30th, should be laid not on the Douro at Villa al Campo, but on
the Esla opposite Almendra, where the high road from Puebla Senabria to
Zamora crossed the river. But at the same time attempts were to be made
to get cavalry (and infantry if possible) across the water at other
points.
At dawn on the 31st Grant’s hussar brigade entered the ford of
Almendra, where it was intended that the bridge should be laid; each
man of the leading squadron had an infantry soldier of the 7th Division
hanging on to his stirrup. At the same time Bock’s German dragoons
and D’Urban’s Portuguese essayed the ford at Pallomilla, opposite
Montemarta, four miles up-stream. The hussars crossed with great
trouble--the bottom was stony, the water had risen in the night, some
horses lost their footing--many of the infantry stepped into holes, or
stumbled and were carried away. The majority were saved, but ten of the
51st and rather more of the Brunswickers were swept right down-stream
and drowned. Yet, despite mishaps, the hussars got over, and, advancing
rapidly, surprised the French cavalry picquet at the village of Val
de Perdrices, a little way up-stream, taking it whole--an officer and
32 men. This was certainly about the most extraordinary instance of
carelessness on the part of outposts during the war, and reflects as
much discredit on Digeon, whose dragoons were supposed to be watching
the lower Esla, as on the wretched officer in charge of the picquet.
How was it possible that such a large body as a brigade could approach
in daylight the best-known ford of the neighbourhood, at a spot where
the course of the high road showed the convenience of the passage,
without finding a single vedette on the bank? And why was such an
important point watched (or not watched) by a half-troop, instead of by
a force which could have offered at least a momentary opposition, and
have passed the alarm to its regiment, which, as Digeon’s report shows,
was at Iniesta, only four miles to the rear?
Meanwhile Bock’s Germans and D’Urban’s Portuguese dragoons had an
equally difficult, though equally unopposed, passage at the ford of
Palomilla, four miles up-stream. The river was running furiously,
and seven or eight horses and three or four men were washed away and
drowned. Anson’s light dragoons at the head of the third column had
an even worse experience at San Vincente del Barco, opposite San
Cebrian: the ford was found utterly impracticable, and the brigade was
ordered back toward Tabara: on its way it was turned off to a second
projected crossing-spot farther south. This was also discovered to be
hopeless, and finally the whole northern column was ordered to cross
at Almendra, behind the southern column. After a day’s profitless
countermarching[481], it came down thither, to find the pontoons laid,
the infantry of the southern column all across the river, and well
forward, while that of the centre column was crossing rapidly. In the
end all Graham’s troops save the leading cavalry brigades had to use
the bridge.
Meanwhile Grant’s hussars, advancing on Zamora, found that the French
had evacuated it in haste on the first news of the crossing of the
Esla. Digeon, with his two regiments of dragoons, his half-battery
of horse artillery, and the four companies of voltigeurs, had gone
off to Toro. Wellington therefore was able to occupy Zamora without
opposition on the night following the passage of the fords[482], and
moved his head-quarters thither next day. The moment that he knew that
Daricau and Digeon had absconded, he sent orders to Hill to march not
on Zamora, or the ford of Villa al Campo, as he had at first intended,
but directly on Toro, which would save twenty miles marching for the
right wing. For it was clear that Digeon and Daricau could not hold
Toro with some 6,000 men against Graham’s 40,000, now across the Esla
and in close pursuit of them. And there was no great body of French
available to reinforce them within a couple of days’ march--at most
Reille’s horse and one infantry division could have come up. On June
1st the signs were that the enemy would not stand--Digeon’s dragoons
were falling back on the Toro road--Reille’s cavalry, heard of at
Belver in the morning, had gone off eastward towards Medina del Rio
Seco in haste. Wherefore Wellington pushed on fast on that day, sending
on Graham’s columns by the two roads Zamora-Toro and Zamora-Rio Seco,
which do not diverge sufficiently to make it impossible to concentrate
the troops on them in a few hours. But caution proved unnecessary. The
French evacuated Toro in the afternoon, so that the junction-point with
Hill was safely secured, and Graham’s divisions were present in full
force next morning, to cover the passage of the southern wing across
the Douro.
Wellington moved his head-quarters to Toro on the morning of June 2nd,
and sent out his cavalry on all the roads which branch out from it:
Anson’s and Bock’s brigades going north-east occupied Vezdemarben.
Grant’s hussars pushing along the river-road toward Tordesillas came up
with Digeon’s rear at Morales, six miles outside Toro, and fell upon
it vigorously. The French dragoons--two regiments--were drawn up in
a defensive position, with a swamp in front and bridge over a ravine
behind. Grant charging furiously with the 10th Hussars and the 18th in
support on the flank, broke the front regiment, whereupon the enemy
went to the rear in disorder, and was chased for two miles, prisoners
being captured in considerable numbers. At last pursuers and pursued
ran in on the rear brigade of Daricau’s infantry, drawn up in good
order, with a battery across the road, on the heights of Pedroso del
Rey. Grant had therefore to call off his men, and to wait for the enemy
to retire, which they presently did in good order. Two officers and 208
men, all of the 16th Dragoons, were captured[483], about a hundred
of them wounded[484]; the rest were mainly taken owing to the bad
condition of their mounts, ‘raw-boned horses with evident marks of bad
provender, escort duties, and counter-marches--nearly the whole of them
had horrible sore backs.’ The 10th Hussars had only 16 casualties--one
of them an officer who had pursued incautiously and ridden into the
French infantry, by whom he was wounded and taken prisoner. This was
a good day’s record for the 10th Hussars, who started their first
Peninsular service--they had only landed in February--with a very
handsome success.
During the day of the combat of Morales Hill’s infantry had started
off from their billets in the villages ten miles north of Salamanca to
move on Toro. A forced march of over twenty miles, through Fuentesauco,
across a very bare and desolate country, brought the head of the column
down to the Douro, where they encamped among well-watered fields and
vegetable gardens. ‘Officers and men, after the long sultry day,
devoured with zest and relish the raw cabbages, onions, and melons.’
Next morning (June 3rd) the whole column began to cross the river at
Toro, the artillery and baggage by a ford no more than knee-deep, the
infantry by the fine but broken bridge. Only one arch of it had been
blown up, and a resourceful engineer, Lieutenant Pringle, had contrived
an easy method of utilizing it. A row of long ladders had been laid
against each side of the gap in the roadway: their feet inclined
together and united in the shallow water below. Long and stout planks
had then been laid across, resting at each end on the rungs of each
pair of corresponding ladders, and making a sort of platform. The men
went down the upper rungs of one set of ladders, walked a few steps
over the planks, and ascended by the rungs of the ladders on the other
side. This was rather tedious for the passage of four divisions, and
took the whole day and the following morning. But by noon on June 4
the entire army was concentrated in the vicinity of Toro on the north
bank. Its cavalry was many miles in advance, at Pedroso del Rey on the
Tordesillas road, Almaraz and Villavelid on the Rio Seco road. Parties
sent out northward had got in touch with Giron’s Galician army, which
had passed Benavente on June 1 and reached Villalpando on the 3rd, with
Penne Villemur’s squadrons out in its front.
Thus every man of Wellington’s striking force, 80,000 sabres and
bayonets, was concentrated north of Toro on the night of June 3--all
the British in a single mass, the Galicians some 18 miles off on the
flank, but easily available. Nothing was now south of the Douro save
Carlos de España’s Spanish division, left to garrison Salamanca, and
Julian Sanchez’s horse, who were searching the roads south of the
river, and had just captured a large French cavalry patrol at Castro
Nuño, near Pollos. It seemed to Wellington incredible that the enemy
would reply to his stroke at their communications by a similar stroke
at his on the Salamanca-Rodrigo line. Indeed, all reports showed them
moving north, in order to form opposite him on the north bank of
the Douro. Moreover, it was clear that they would have the greatest
difficulty in concentrating a sufficient force to fight him, for
the possession of Valladolid and the defence of the great northern
_chaussée_. The first stage of his plan had been completed with entire
success.
SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER IV
MOVEMENTS OF THE FRENCH: MAY 22-JUNE 4
At the moment when Wellington launched his two great columns into
Spain, the French head-quarters staff was in a condition of nervous
expectation. The spring was so far advanced that it had been expected
that the Allies would have been already on the move, and their long
quiescence was supposed, very reasonably, to cover some new plan which
it was impossible to divine. The position of the French armies was very
unfavourable, entirely owing to the continued absence from the front of
the whole infantry of the Army of Portugal, which, by Napoleon’s desire
and by the detailed instructions of the Minister of War at Paris, had
been lent to the Army of the North, and sent backward into Biscay,
Navarre, and Aragon to hunt the guerrilleros. Five and a half out of
the six divisions of Reille’s command were still occupied on these
marches and counter-marches in the rear, when May was far spent, and
when the offensive of the Allies must be expected at every moment.
The French army, available for immediate operations, was therefore
short of one-third of its strength, and Jourdan and King Joseph
disliked the situation. Jourdan confesses in his Memoirs that he and
his master ought to have ordered Clausel to suspend his operations,
however incomplete they might be, and to send back all the borrowed
infantry to the valley of the Douro. But the minister’s letters
kept repeating so often that the campaign north of the Ebro must be
completed at all costs, that the King considered that he could do no
more than transmit to Paris the warnings that he was receiving, urging
on the minister that it was time to suspend those operations, and
that General Clausel should be ordered to come back in haste towards
Burgos[485]. This self-exculpation of Jourdan shows clearly enough the
miserable consequences of the system of double-command which Napoleon
had always kept up in Spain. The habit of sending orders direct from
Paris to fractions of the Army of Spain was so deeply ingrained, that
the titular Commander-in-Chief and his Chief of the Staff dared not
issue instructions of primary importance to one of the generals under
them without obtaining leave from the Emperor! And at this moment
the Emperor was not even at Paris--he had long been at the front in
Germany, and had fought the battle of Lützen on May 2. What came from
Paris was not even the orders of Napoleon, but the orders of Clarke,
transmitting his impression of the imperial will from dispatches
already many days old, which would be doubly out of date before they
reached Valladolid. The supreme master must take the responsibility of
the fact that on May 15 or May 18 his representatives in Spain were
asking for leave to modify his arrangements, by petitions which could
receive no reply--for mere reasons of space and time--till the crisis
which they were fearing had burst upon them. The whole system was
ruinous--in 1813 as it had been in 1812. The only rational method would
have been to turn over the whole conduct of affairs in Spain to some
local authority, supreme in everything and responsible for everything.
Yet stronger men than Joseph and Jourdan would perhaps have taken the
risk of offending their master, and have issued peremptory orders,
which Clausel, Foy, and the other outlying generals would probably have
obeyed.
On May 20 the distribution of the Army of Spain was as follows:
King Joseph and the 2,500 men of his guards, horse and foot, lay at
general head-quarters at Valladolid. Of the two infantry divisions of
D’Erlon’s Army of the Centre, one, that of Darmagnac, had been lent
to Reille, when all the infantry of the Army of Portugal had been
borrowed from him, and was lying at Medina de Rio Seco, in the rear of
Reille’s cavalry, who were watching from a discreet distance the Army
of Galicia and the roads in the direction of Astorga and Leon. It will
be remembered that on May 20 Reille, hearing vague rumours of allied
movements beyond the Esla, had executed a great sweep with Boyer’s
dragoons across the bridge of Benavente, and for five leagues beyond
it, had found nothing, and had reported that there were no British
troops in the direction, and no Spaniards nearer than Astorga[486].
The other division of the Army of the Centre, that of Cassagne, was at
Segovia, far south of the Douro, keeping touch with the large garrison
still left in Madrid, which, as long as it was maintained there, could
not be left in a state of absolute isolation.
Of the Army of the South, Gazan had his head-quarters at Arevalo,
not very far from the King at Valladolid, but retained with him
only Tilly’s cavalry division. The rest of his troops were woefully
dispersed. Daricau’s division and Digeon’s dragoons lay at Zamora and
Toro--nearly 100 miles from head-quarters--maintaining a loose touch
with Reille’s cavalry. Villatte--with one detached regiment of Digeon’s
dragoons to keep watch for him--was at Salamanca--fifty miles from
Daricau. Conroux, with a third division, was at Avila, with a whole
block of mountains between him and Villatte. He was supposed to be
watching Hill, and had detachments as far out as Monbeltran on the
borders of Estremadura. He was also separated from the force at Madrid
by several sierras and the formidable pass of the Guadarrama. In the
capital itself lay Leval with one more division, while the independent
brigade of Maransin[487], had been intermittently holding Toledo, and
was actually there on the 20th, in company with a brigade of light
cavalry under Pierre Soult[488]. The extreme outer flanks of the Army
of the South were as far apart therefore as Zamora and Toledo--160
miles as the crow flies--and a Spanish crow has rough country to fly
over--and each of them was some 90 miles by road from the head-quarters
in the centre.
As to the infantry of the Army of Portugal, the only element of it
which lay anywhere near head-quarters was a brigade of Maucune’s at
Palencia on the Carrion, which was guarding a large dépôt of stores and
transport. The other brigade of Maucune’s was at Burgos. Lamartinière’s
division (late that commanded for so long by Bonnet) was watching
the great _chaussée_ from Burgos by Briviesca to Miranda del Ebro,
in order to keep touch with Clausel in Navarre. Similarly Sarrut’s
division, after its long and fruitless chase of Longa, was keeping safe
the roads from Bilbao to Miranda, in order to link Foy with the main
army. Foy himself was on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, where he had
stormed Castro-Urdiales on May 12, and was trying to make an end of the
local guerrilleros. The other two divisions of Reille’s infantry were
lost to sight in the mountains of Navarre, where they were marching
and countermarching with Clausel, in pursuit of the elusive Mina.
These were the divisions of Taupin and of Barbot: the troops which
were working along with them were the two ‘active’ divisions of the
Army of the North, those of Abbé and Vandermaesen. Clausel’s great
flying column, of 15,000 men or more, was so continually on the move
through regions where cross-communication was impossible, owing to the
insurrection, that it could not be located with certainty on any given
date, or receive instruction without a delay that might run to eight or
ten days.
Obviously it would take the French army a week to concentrate on
Valladolid or Arevalo, if Wellington should be aiming at Salamanca and
the Central Douro. But if he were about to attack one of the extreme
wings, at Zamora or Madrid, the time required would be much greater.
And Joseph and Jourdan were not at all sure that the secret plan of
Wellington might not be a thrust, with Hill’s force as the spear-head,
at Madrid. One of the many false rumours sent to head-quarters was that
forage had been ordered for Long’s cavalry at Escalona on the Tietar,
many miles in front of Talavera. While another report truly chronicled
the concentration of Hill’s brigades at Bejar, and the gathering of
stores there, but interpreted their meaning as preparation for a march
on Avila by the Puente de Congosto.
Uncertain as to what was Wellington’s plan, the French Higher Command
finally resolved to await its manifestation before giving the final
orders--a system which was certain to lead to some initial loss of
territory at the opening of the campaign, since the enemy would have a
week in hand, before he could be opposed by a sufficient mass on the
line which he might select. On May 18th Jourdan ordered Gazan to push
exploring reconnaissances towards the Portuguese frontier, and, if
Wellington should be met advancing, to order Leval to evacuate Madrid,
to send forward all his cavalry to support Villatte at Salamanca, and,
when the latter should be driven in, to have his whole army ready to
receive him behind the line of the Trabancos river, except Daricau’s
division, which should remain at Toro. Reille was to bring forward
Darmagnac’s infantry from Rio Seco to support his cavalry on the Esla,
and to unite Maucune’s scattered force by calling up his rear brigade
from Burgos, so as to provide a reserve for Darmagnac. If Wellington
should advance, as was thought most probable, from Ciudad Rodrigo,
marching on Salamanca in full strength, and driving in Villatte, it
was intended to bring in all the troops of Gazan and D’Erlon to the
north bank of the Douro, and to defend the course of that river from
Toro to Tordesillas, as Marmont had done in June 1812. If the British
showed strength on the Esla, which was thought unlikely, Reille would
reinforce Daricau and Digeon with all his cavalry and the divisions
of Darmagnac and Maucune. But no definite orders were sent either
to Clausel[489] or to Foy, Sarrut, and Lamartinière--the directions
to be given them would depend on the strength which the British
displayed, and the front on which they appeared. Thus a week or more
after Wellington should have shown his hand, the two armies of the
South and Centre, with the cavalry and one infantry division of the
Army of Portugal, ought to be concentrated on the required points
north of the Douro, with the possibility of bringing up later the five
missing divisions of the Army of Portugal, and Clausel’s two disposable
divisions from the Army of the North. But these last might take a very
long time to appear, and meanwhile there would only be 45,000 infantry
and 10,000 cavalry in hand opposite Wellington[490]. Considering the
latter’s estimated numerical superiority, it seemed that he might be
brought to a stand, but hardly beaten, by the forces which the King
could collect. A defensive campaign on the Douro was really Jourdan’s
forecast of the game; it might perhaps be turned into an offensive,
when the missing divisions of the Army of Portugal and Clausel should
come up, with some 30,000 men of reinforcements.
It is a nervous business to wait for the move which finally betrays
the enemy’s intention, as every one knows who remembers August 1914.
It was probably with some feeling of relief that Gazan at Arevalo and
King Joseph at Palencia heard, on the 24th, that Wellington had passed
the Agueda on the 22nd, and was apparently marching on Salamanca in
great strength. Conroux sent in news that Hill was at the same time
marching up from Bejar northward--not turning east. The campaign
therefore, as it appeared, was to take the form which had seemed most
probable, and the hypothetical orders for concentration which had been
issued to the generals on the 18th became valid. But Gazan lost a day
in evacuating Madrid, by riding over from Arevalo to Valladolid and
formally requesting the King’s authorization for the retreat of Leval
from the capital. So the aide-de-camp bearing the dispatch of recall
only started from Valladolid on the morning of the 25th, instead of
from Arevalo on the afternoon of the 24th: it was clear therefore that
Leval would be late at the concentration point.
The other parts of the French scheme were carried out according to plan
between the 25th and the 29th. When Villatte found himself attacked
at Salamanca, and got away with some loss eastward on the 26th, he
fell back on Medina del Campo, and found waiting for him there on
the 28th Conroux’s division from Avila and the division of cavalry
which Gazan had been keeping at his head-quarters at Arevalo--Tilly’s
dragoons. D’Erlon was in march from Segovia with Cassagne’s division
and Treillard’s horse, and had reached Olmedo, only fifteen miles from
Medina, so that he would be available next day. The whole made up a
force of 16,000 foot and 4,000 horse. But Leval was late, and would not
be up for three days more, nor had Maucune’s brigade yet come down from
Burgos, while Daricau and Digeon began to look uncomfortably remote in
their position at Toro and Zamora, where only Reille could reach them.
Joseph and Jourdan had intended to take position behind the Zapardiel
on the 30th, there to demonstrate against Wellington, who ought by
this time to be coming down upon them. It was necessary to hold him in
check till Leval should have got in from Madrid to join the main body,
and then all would retire beyond the Douro, to the intended defensive
position. But this day two disquieting facts became notable: one was
that Wellington was not advancing from Salamanca: the troops that he
had brought thither had not moved since the 26th. The other was that
Digeon sent word that there were allied forces approaching the lower
Esla from the direction of Braganza, although Reille had reported ten
days back that there were absolutely no signs of allied movement from
this direction--their numbers were as yet incalculable. The suspicion,
then for the first time, arose that the Salamanca advance might be
a mere feint, despite of Wellington’s personal appearance in that
direction.
On the morning of June 1st suspicion became certainty. Digeon reported
that the British had crossed the Esla in great force, by several fords,
and that he and Daricau were retiring on Toro at once. Joseph would
have liked to go behind the Douro without delay, but could not possibly
do so until Leval, Maransin, and Pierre Soult should have come up from
the south. And the Madrid column was not due on the Douro for two more
days, owing to its late start--no fault of its own, but due to Gazan’s
dilatory conduct on May 24th.
Leval had only got the order to evacuate the capital on the 26th.
Luckily for him Maransin had come in with his flying column from
Toledo on the 21st, so that there was no need to wait to pick up this
detachment. The garrison was directed to be under arms for marching
at daybreak on the 27th, and with them went a considerable train of
_Afrancesado_ refugees, for many of Joseph’s ministers and courtiers
had refused to start by the earlier convoys, which had gone to
Valladolid in March and April, hoping that emigration might never again
become necessary. The remembrance of the miserable march to Valencia
in July 1812 weighed on their minds, and made them unwilling to face
a second _hegira_ of the same sort. Now all had to go; and quantities
of carriages, carts, wagons, and mules belonging to civilians were
mixed with, or trailed behind, the columns of Leval’s infantry. The
convoy could not travel very fast; it only reached the foot of the
mountains on the night of the 27th, crossed the Guadarrama pass on the
28th, and reached Espinar on the northern descent on the 29th. Here
Leval turned off the baggage and refugees on to the road of Segovia,
under charge of an escort commanded by General Hugo, late Governor of
Madrid. He himself with the fighting men went on to Arevalo by the
great _chaussée_, reached the Douro on the 2nd of June, and joined
Gazan at Tordesillas. The latter had crossed the river on May 31st, the
moment that it became clear that the Madrid column was not going to be
intercepted by any British force from the Salamanca direction. D’Erlon
passed the Douro only on June 2, the same day as Leval, having waited
behind to cover the arrival of the column of refugees and transport
from Madrid, which had been directed on Segovia and Cuellar.
On June 2nd therefore the south bank of the Douro had been at last
evacuated by all the French forces, but Jourdan’s and Joseph’s plan for
defending the northern bank was obviously out of date and impossible.
For Wellington was already at Toro with Graham’s 40,000 men, and there
was no means of preventing Hill’s 30,000 and the Galicians from joining
him north of the river. The Salamanca column, if only the French had
known it, was already marching north, to fall in alongside of the other
and larger mass of the allied army, and was due at Toro next day (June
3rd).
This last fact was, of course, unknown at French head-quarters on the
afternoon of June 2nd--all that had transpired was that Wellington
was at Toro with a very large force, and the Galicians close by his
flank on the Benavente road. The exact position of the imperial
army was that Gazan, with four and a half infantry divisions of the
Army of the South and all the cavalry of Digeon, Tilly, and Pierre
Soult, was concentrated on a ten-mile front between Tordesillas and
Torrelobaton: Reille, with Darmagnac’s division and Boyer’s cavalry,
was at Medina de Rio Seco, twelve miles farther north. D’Erlon, with
Cassagne’s division and Treillard’s dragoons, was at Valladolid,
fifteen miles behind Tordesillas; the King and his Guards at Cigales,
ten miles north of D’Erlon, twelve miles east of Reille. Maucune’s two
brigades had at last concentrated at Palencia--some 25 miles north of
Valladolid. There was now a very solid mass of troops, which could be
united at one spot--Torrelobaton for example--by a concentric march,
taking up one day, or could on the other hand string itself out in
a well closed-up front behind the Carrion and Pisuerga rivers, from
Palencia to Simancas, to defend the line of those streams. The force
was formidable--over 40,000 bayonets, quite 10,000 sabres. It was
physically possible either to mass and offer Wellington a battle, or
to stand fast to defend the line of the Pisuerga. But would either
course be prudent, considering that Hill could join Wellington with
ease at Toro, so that the entire Anglo-Portuguese army could be
concentrated for a general action, not to speak of the Galicians of
Giron on his flank? Exact calculations as to the allied strength were
impossible--but it would certainly exceed 70,000 men: some of the
French generals put it at 90,000. To engage in an open battle west of
the Pisuerga against such superior numbers would be insane. But what
of the idea of taking up a defensive line east of that river, in the
hope of rallying Foy, Clausel, and other outlying forces within a week
or ten days? Marmont had done well with his position behind a river in
July 1812, and had only been ruined at Salamanca because he had left
his strong line and attacked with insufficient numbers.
There was much debate at head-quarters on the afternoon of June 2.
Several policies were discussed, even, as it would appear, a desperate
suggestion of Jourdan’s to bring the whole army back southward across
the Douro, to Medina del Campo and Olmedo, and defy Wellington to
cross its front so as to cut the Burgos road and the communication
with France. ‘It is doubtful whether Wellington would have dared to
continue his march to the Carrion, and to abandon his line of connexion
with Portugal,’ writes Jourdan; ‘more probably he would have repassed
the Douro, to follow the French army, which could then have retired
up-stream to Aranda, and from thence either on Burgos or on Saragossa.
Time would have been gained--Clausel would have come up, and we could
have fought on ground more suitable for cavalry[491].’ This most
hazardous plan would have commenced by abandoning to the enemy all
Old Castile and Biscay, with the French forces scattered in them; for
even if Wellington had followed the King with his Anglo-Portuguese
army, Giron’s Galicians and the insurgents of the North--Longa,
Porlier, El Pastor, and the rest--would have been left free to clear
the whole country up to the Pyrenees. The French detachments in the
North must have retired on Bayonne. King Joseph and the generals
rejected the scheme at once, on the ground that Napoleon’s orders had
always insisted on the retention of the direct road to France, by
Burgos and Vittoria, as the most important of all considerations. This
was undoubtedly a correct decision. Not only was the road along the
south bank of the Douro to Aranda a very bad one, through an exhausted
country, but it is clear that, if they took it, the French would never
have got back again on to the Burgos line, but would have been forced
to take the Saragossa line. The way from Aranda by Soria to Saragossa
was through a rough country infested by Duran, the Empecinado, and
other active guerrillero leaders. It could never have served as the
main artery of communication for an army of the size of King Joseph’s.
But supposing that the King should have reached Saragossa, his only
touch with France would be through Barcelona and Roussillon, for
there is no decent carriage road from Saragossa across the Central
Pyrenees--the difficult pass by Jaca having often been tried and found
wanting, save for small and unencumbered detachments. To base the
whole army of Spain on Perpignan instead of Bayonne would have been
hopelessly impracticable.
The question as to whether the line along the Pisuerga, from Palencia
to opposite Simancas, could not be held was the really hard problem. It
was 35 miles long, well marked, but with local faults; the water was
low; there were points where the west bank commanded the east; from
near Palencia to Cabezon the only good road was on the western side of
the river, and so out of control; while the bad path on the eastern
side was cut up by three streams coming in from the high plateaux of
the province of Burgos. In the rear there was the defile of Torquemada,
where the road and the Pisuerga itself came out of the upland. After
pondering over the question, Joseph decided that the Pisuerga was too
dangerous a line to hold, that he was still too weak in numbers, and
that he had better fall back on Burgos, and wait in position there, on
ground much more defensible than the broad plains of the Pisuerga and
the Carrion, for the arrival of the missing divisions of the Army of
Portugal and of Clausel.
On the evening of the 2nd orders were issued that all the _impedimenta_
of the Army of Spain should move off northward at once. The Grand Park
and other transport, the Spanish refugees with all their carriages and
lumber, the French civil administrators, the King’s ministers with his
private baggage and treasure, and much miscellaneous stuff from the
royal palaces--pictures, books, and antiquities--were to start off
at once on the road to Burgos. One great convoy was dispatched that
night, a second and still larger one the following morning. Escort was
found for them from the King’s Spanish troops, the so-called ‘division’
of Casa Palacios, and other detachments, making up 4,000 men in all.
On the afternoon of the 3rd the army executed a general movement of
retreat, leaving only a cavalry screen behind, to observe Wellington’s
advance. The Army of the South came back through Valladolid, after
blowing up all the bridges on the lower Pisuerga and the neighbouring
streams, and then marched up its western bank to Cabezon. Reille
evacuated Medina de Rio Seco and fell back on Palencia, where he picked
up Maucune. Head-quarters and the King’s guard moved to Magaz, just
south of Palencia. D’Erlon marched from Valladolid to Dueñas, ten
miles farther south than Magaz, and made ready to blow up the bridge
there and cross to the other side of the Pisuerga. The whole army was
collected in a space of 15 miles, and halted for two days, in a safe
position for retreat on Burgos, when it should be pressed. For Joseph
and Jourdan naturally wished to gain time--every day that passed made
it more likely that the missing divisions from the North would be
heard of, or even be reported as approaching. Yet it would seem that
even yet no direct and peremptory orders had been sent to Clausel, for
Jourdan writes in his Memoirs that ‘the King suspended the retrograde
movement because he thought to gain time, _and hoped that the Minister
of War would have given orders to General Clauzel to come down on
Burgos_[492].’ Again the wretched system of double-command and constant
reference to Paris was working! If it be remembered that it was only on
the 18th of May that the King had made his final appeal to the minister
to let loose Clausel from the northern operations, and that the news
of Wellington’s actual advance had only been sent to France on the
24th, when could it be expected that the directions from Paris would
reach the scattered columns lost in the mountains of Navarre? And was
there any certainty that Clarke would visualize the full danger of the
position, and give at once the kind of orders that the King desired?
He might send instead a lecture on the Emperor’s intentions, if past
experience was to be trusted, and some suggestions which the events of
the last ten days would have put completely out of date.
SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER V
THE OPERATIONS AROUND BURGOS: JUNE 4-14, 1813
On June 3rd Wellington had halted the infantry of Graham’s column at
Toro, in order to allow the whole of Hill’s column to cross the bridge
and fords, and to complete the junction of the army. He gave as his
reasons that he expected to meet Gazan, D’Erlon, and the King, on the
Hormija river, when he should have debouched from Toro, and that he
intended to fight them with his whole force, not with the northern
column only. ‘I do not think,’ he wrote, ‘that we are so close up
or so well concentrated as we ought to be, to meet the enemy in the
strength in which he will appear on the Hormija, probably to-morrow;
and therefore I propose to halt the heads of the different columns
to-morrow, and close up the rear of each, moving Hill in this direction
preparatory to our further movement[493].’ Only the cavalry continued
to press forward on the 3rd; they found no signs of resistance, but
only vedettes, which retired cautiously on their approach. Wellington
was so far right in his apprehension, that the idea of fighting in
front of Valladolid had been one of the three plans which the French
Head-quarters Staff had considered on June 2. But, as we have already
seen, that scheme had been rejected as rash, and during Wellington’s
halt upon June 3 the enemy were evacuating Valladolid and all its
neighbourhood, and commencing their retreat behind the Pisuerga. By
eight o’clock on the evening of that day the cavalry reports, all
along the front, showed that the enemy was retiring on every road,
and it appeared certain that they did not intend to fight; the army
therefore advanced in three main columns, Wellington himself with
the 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Divisions, followed by Hill, by the high
road on Valladolid through La Mota: Graham with the 1st and 5th
Divisions, Pack and Bradford, by the more northern parallel road, by
Villavelid and Villar de Frades, on Medina de Rio Seco. The Galicians
were converging on the same point as Graham, by the high road from
Villalpando and Villafrechos, but were directed not to approach too
close to Medina till further notice. The reason for their delay was a
curious one--Giron had just written on the previous day to say that
he had no reserve of infantry cartridges, and only 60 rounds a man in
the soldiers’ pouches. He wanted to borrow a supply from the British
army. Wellington replied in considerable heat: when he was on the move
he could not give away his own reserve ammunition: no doubt Giron
was not personally to blame--nor his men--but the administration in
Galicia. Yet the unfortunate result would be that the Galicians must
never be put in a position where there would be a heavy consumption
of cartridges, i. e. must be held in reserve, or used for subsidiary
operations only. Giron was directed to make small regimental reserves,
by taking away a proportion of the cartridges from each man and
carrying them on mules. The general got off easily--but Wellington
thundered that night on the War Minister O’Donoju, ‘Here is an army
which is clothed, armed, and disciplined, but cannot be brought into
action with the enemy: I am obliged to keep it in the rear. How can
troops march without provisions, or fight without ammunition? The cause
of the country may be lost unless the Government establish in the
provinces some authority to which the people will pay obedience, and
which will insure their resources for the purposes of the war[494].’ It
will be noted that all through the rest of the campaign Giron’s corps
was used for flanking movements, and never put in the forefront of the
fighting--though the other Spanish troops with the army, Morillo’s and
later Longa’s divisions, were used freely.
On the 4th June Wellington moved with the ‘Head-Quarters Column’ as
far as La Mota, Hill getting no farther than Morales. At La Mota
the information received showed that the French were in general
retreat--the cavalry advance got into Valladolid and found some
undestroyed stores of ammunition there. Julian Sanchez, scouting far
towards the south, discovered a considerable magazine of grain at
Arevalo, where Gazan’s head-quarters had been. In view of the new
situation it was necessary to recast the movements of the army--there
was to be no fight on the Hormija, or for the possession of Valladolid.
The initial strategical success of the passage of the Esla had settled
the event of the first phase of the campaign, and cleared the French
not only out of New Castile, but out of the kingdom of Leon and great
part of Old Castile. The fact that the enemy had abandoned Valladolid
and the lower crossings of the Pisuerga, would seem to show that
he intended to fall back on the Burgos country: he could hardly be
intending to defend a position behind the middle Pisuerga and the
Carrion, since he had surrendered the passages at and about Valladolid,
by which the southern flank of such a position could be turned.
Now nine months ago Wellington had been in these same regions, with the
army of Clausel retreating before him from Valladolid on Burgos. On
that occasion he had followed the enemy in a straightforward pursuit
along the great high road, by Cabezon and Torquemada. On this occasion
his strategy was entirely different. Leaving only a cavalry screen
between himself and the enemy, he proceeded to move his whole army
towards the north-west by secondary roads, marching in four parallel
columns not on Burgos but on the upper Pisuerga north-west of that
fortress, so as to turn entirely any position that the enemy might
take up on the Hormaza, the Arlanzon, or the Urbel. It can hardly be
doubted that he had already in his mind the great manœuvre which he
was to accomplish during the next fortnight--that of outflanking the
French right wing by a wide sweeping movement, which would not only
force Joseph and Jourdan to evacuate Burgos and its neighbourhood,
but would cut them off from the royal road to Bayonne and their main
communication with France. The first order in his dispatch book which
definitely reveals this intention does not appear till June 10[495],
but the facts which it contains prove that the plan must have been laid
long ere Wellington started from Portugal.
This plan was no less a scheme than the transference of the base of
the British army from the port of Lisbon to the Bay of Biscay, so that
when, in its wide turning movement, it should have passed the Ebro
and neared the Cantabrian coast, it should find stores and munitions
awaiting it, and be no longer tied to the long line of communication
with Portugal, which it had always used hitherto. It was an astonishing
example of the strategical use of sea-power, to which there had
hitherto been no parallel in the Napoleonic wars. The only manœuvre at
all resembling it was that by which Sir John Moore in December 1808
had changed his line of communication from Lisbon to Corunna. But this
was for a sudden hasty retreat, made by a small army--a very different
thing from an advance made by a large army. For Moore had only wanted
transports on which to abscond from the Peninsula; Wellington had
planned the arrival of a fleet of supply vessels, on whose contents
he was to rely for the future sustenance of his army during a long
campaign.
Their existence was his second great secret in 1813--the first had been
his plan for the crossing of the Esla. But the latter might have been
guessed at as a possibility by any intelligent French general: the
former, it is safe to say, had never been dreamed of as a conceivable
move. Santander is so remote from Portugal, and the French were so
firmly rooted in Northern Spain in the spring of 1813, that it could
never enter into the head of any of Napoleon’s subordinates that the
British Commander-in-Chief was planning such an elaborate surprise.
They were bound to believe that all Wellington’s operations would be
founded on, and circumscribed by, the basic fact that his line of
communication was on Lisbon. A manœuvre which presupposed the complete
abandonment of that line was not conceivable by officers reared in
Continental campaigns, and unused to contemplating the correlation of
land operations and naval strategy. Yet the fact that the supply fleet
had been gathered at Corunna long weeks before, and kept there till
the conquest of Northern Spain was well on its way to completion, is
conclusive evidence as to Wellington’s intentions. The crucial dispatch
of June 10 ran as follows--it was addressed to Colonel Bourke in charge
of the British dépôts in Galicia:
‘There are at Corunna certain ships loaded with biscuit and flour,
and certain others loaded with a train of heavy artillery and its
ammunition, and some with musket ammunition, and I shall be much
obliged if you will request any officer of the navy who may be at
Corunna, when you receive this letter, to take under his convoy all
the vessels loaded as above mentioned, and to proceed with them to
Santander. If he should find Santander occupied by the enemy, I beg him
to remain off the port till the operations of this army have obliged
the enemy to abandon it.
‘If the enemy is not occupying Santander, I beg him to enter the port,
but to be in readiness to quit it again if the enemy should approach
the place, until I shall communicate with him[496]’.
It should be noted that Wellington had carefully avoided calling
attention to the accumulation of ships and stores at Corunna, even
in his letters to the ministers at home[497]. Their existence there
was plausibly explained by the need for supplying the Spanish army of
Galicia--which had indeed received much material during the spring.
The provision of heavy artillery shows that he was contemplating
as a probability the siege of San Sebastian and the other northern
fortresses. He had failed at Burgos in 1812 for lack of the 24-pounders
which Home Popham had vainly offered to send him from Santander: now he
was quite ready to receive them from that port. As things stood on the
Pisuerga, at the moment that he sent this prescient dispatch to Bourke,
it was certainly a bold prophecy to write that he was about to clear
the Cantabrian coast by his next move. The French were still unbeaten,
and he was more than a hundred miles from the Bay of Biscay, from which
he was separated by a most rough and complicated land of mountains.
But he had already taken his measure of the capacity of the hostile
commanders, and his hopes were high.
The great flank movement’s initial stages can be best traced by
following on the map Wellington’s nightly head-quarters. They were
La Mota on the 4th, Castromonte on the 5th, Ampudia on the 6th--all
these carefully avoid the neighbourhood of the Pisuerga, though the
cavalry pushed on to feel the lines of the French along the river.
But the army, instead of making for the crossings at Valladolid,
Cabezon, or Dueñas, kept steadily on in four parallel columns, on
roads far from the river. Hill, still as always on the right, went by
Torrelobaton, Mucientes, and Dueñas; Graham, on the left, by Medina
de Rio Seco and Grixota; ‘the Head-Quarters Column’ under Wellington
himself, by Castromonte and Ampudia--while, far off, the Galician army
on the north moved by Villaramiel and Villoldo on Aguilar de Campos.
The flanking cavalry kept up a continual bickering along the Pisuerga
with French outposts; on the 6th those at the head of the advance had a
distant glimpse of a great review of the Army of the Centre, which King
Joseph was holding outside Palencia, from the heights which overlook
that city from the west. In front of Dueñas there was an exchange of
letters under a flag of truce between Wellington and Gazan--a most
odd proceeding at such a moment--from which both parties thought they
had derived useful information[498]. The British _parlementaire_
reported to the Commander-in-Chief that Dueñas was still held by French
infantry--which was good to know: the French, on the other hand, got a
reply to Gazan’s letter to Wellington within four hours--which proved
that British Head-Quarters must be a very short way from them--which
was equally a valuable scrap of knowledge.
The King had now waited three days in the temporary position behind
the Pisuerga, without being attacked, though he was in the close
neighbourhood of the enemy. The quiescence of such an adversary made
him uncomfortable, and at last he guessed part of what was going on
opposite him. The British must be pushing up northward parallel to his
line, and preparing to turn his right flank (which extended no farther
than Palencia) by way of Amusco and the upper Carrion. Whereupon Joseph
on the 7th hastily resumed his retreat, and got behind the defile of
Torquemada. There was danger in waiting--nothing had been heard of
Clausel, but news were to hand that Lamartinière, with one of the
missing divisions of the Army of Portugal, was nearing Burgos from
the north. The main body took post on the Arlanzon--but Reille with
his two divisions at Castroxeriz on the Odra. Jourdan went forward to
report on the condition of Burgos, where important new works had been
commenced in the spring, and to choose good defensible positions in its
neighbourhood. It was expected that the British army would follow in
pursuit, up the great _chaussée_ from Palencia to Torquemada.
And at first it looked as if this might be the case: entering Palencia
on the same day that the King had left it, Wellington pushed up the
_chaussée_ part of Hill’s column--Grant’s and Ponsonby’s cavalry
brigades and the Light Division, which kept in touch with the enemy’s
rear. The rest of the right column had got no farther forward than
Palencia. But the main body of the army continued its north-westerly
turning movement, Graham’s infantry that day reached Grixota, five
miles north of Palencia; the Galicians were up parallel with Graham
farther west, somewhere near Becceril. The movements of June 8 and 9,
however, were the decisive revelations of Wellington’s intentions.
He moved his head-quarters not up the Torquemada road, but to Amusco
on the Carrion river, and continued to urge his columns straight
northward--Graham to San Cebrian and Peña on the 8th and Osorno on the
9th, the main body of Hill’s column to Amusco and Tamara, the Galicians
to Carrion. He was thus getting his army well north of any positions
which the enemy would be likely to take up in the neighbourhood of
Burgos, giving it very long marches, but still keeping it closely
concentrated.
On the 10th he judged that he had got sufficiently round the enemy, and
turned all his columns due east towards the upper Pisuerga--Graham’s
and Wellington’s own divisions crossing it at Zarzosa and Melgar, Hill
at Astudillo, some miles farther south. Head-quarters were fixed that
night at Melgar. With the passage of the Pisuerga ended the long march
through the great flat corn-bearing plainland of Northern Spain, the
Tierra de Campos. The next ten days were to be spent among rougher
paths. The triumphant and almost unopposed advance from the Esla to the
Pisuerga, executed in one sweep and at high speed, was an episode which
those who were engaged in it never forgot.
‘From the time of our crossing the Esla up to this period,’ wrote one
diarist, ‘we have been marching through one continuous cornfield. The
land is of the richest quality, and produces the finest crops with the
least possible labour. It is generally wheat, with a fair proportion
of barley, and now and then a crop of vetches or clover. The horses
fed on green barley nearly the whole march, and got fat. The army has
trampled down twenty yards of corn on each side of the roads by which
the several columns have passed--in many places much more, from the
baggage going on the side of the columns, and so spreading farther into
the wheat. But they must not mind their corn if we get the enemy out
of their country!... The country gives bread and corn, and hitherto
these have not failed, and this is a region that has been plundered and
devastated for five years by the enemy! It was said before our march
that until the harvest came in, not a pound of bread by way of supplies
for the army could be procured[499].’
A Light Division diarist writes in a more romantic frame of mind: ‘The
country was beautifully diversified, studded with castles of Moorish
architecture, recalling the chivalric days of Ferdinand and Isabella.
The sun shone brilliantly, the sky was heavenly blue, and clouds of
dust marked the line of march of the glittering columns. The joyous
peasantry hailed our approach and came dancing to meet us, singing, and
beating time on their small tambourines; and when we passed through the
principal street of Palencia, the nuns, from the upper windows of a
convent, showered down rose-leaves upon our dusty heads[500].’
The dry comment of the Commander-in-chief, in his report to the War
Minister at home, contrasts oddly with this enthusiasm: ‘I enclose the
last weekly and daily states. We keep up our strength, and the army are
very healthy and in better order than I have ever known them. God knows
how long that will last. It depends entirely upon the officers[501].’
While Wellington’s columns were hurrying northward, the French remained
for two days (June 7-9) in position behind the Pisuerga--Reille on the
right at Castroxeriz, the rest of the army holding the heights down to
Villadiego and the Arlanza river. Only British cavalry scouts appeared
in front of them. ‘The position was excellent,’ says Jourdan, ‘and it
was hoped to hold it for some days. But the generals commanding the
armies represented to the King that the troops lacked bread, and that
they dared not send out large detachments far afield to requisition
food from the peasantry, wherefore the whole force retired on Burgos.’
No doubt the country was bare; and, when the enemy is known to be
near, it is unsafe to make large detachments: but it may be suspected
that the real cause for retreat was the continuous uncertainty as
to Wellington’s northward movement. Yet it is clear that the French
Head-Quarters had no suspicion how far that movement was going.
For on the 9th, when they retreated, they took up position on a very
short line north and south of Burgos. Reille’s two divisions lay behind
the Hormaza river, ten miles west of the fortress--with the right
opposite Hormaza village, the left at Estepar--forming a front line.
The Army of the South was on both banks of the Arlanzon, five miles
behind Reille--right wing behind the Urbel river, left wing behind
the Arcos river. The Army of the Centre and the King’s Guards were in
reserve, billeted in Burgos itself. But already Wellington’s columns
were aiming at points far north of Reille’s position. That day the
northernmost divisions of Graham’s infantry[502] were at Osorno, next
day (June 10th) at Zarzosa, beyond the Pisuerga, a point from which
they could easily march round the Hormaza position, and on June 11th,
at Sotresgudo, where they halted for a day[503]. The centre[504],
with Wellington himself, on the same day had reached Castroxeriz on
the Odra river, while Hill was close by at Barrio de Santa Maria and
Valbases. Nothing had been sent south of the Arlanzon save Julian
Sanchez’s lancers, who were scouring the country in the direction of
Lerma, on the look-out for belated French convoys or detachments.
The Galician army, keeping (as always) far out on the left wing, had
reached the Pisuerga at Herrera, ten miles north of Graham’s extreme
flank. They were now within two marches of the upper Ebro, and there
was absolutely no enemy in front of them for scores of miles--the
nearest Frenchmen in that direction were the columns with which Foy was
scouring the roads of Biscay, after his capture of Castro-Urdiales.
The halt of the French army in the neighbourhood of Burgos was not
to mark the end of its retreat, and the commencement of offensive
operations, as King Joseph had hoped. The only cheering features
in the general outlook were that Lamartinière’s division of the
Army of Portugal was now in touch--it was reported coming up from
Briviesca--and that a bulletin of the Grand Army was received from
Germany, telling of the victory of the Emperor at Bautzen. But the
discouraging news was appalling--the first instalment of it was that
Jourdan reported, after investigating the fortifications of Burgos,
that he considered the place untenable. During the spring building and
demolition had been taken in hand, for the purpose of linking up the
old castle, which had given so much trouble to Wellington in 1812,
with the high-lying ‘Hornwork of St. Miguel’ on the rising ground
above. The scheme was wholly unfinished--the only result achieved was
that St. Miguel, as reconstructed, commanded the castle, and that the
alterations started in the _enceinte_ of the latter, with the object
of linking it up with the former, had rendered it, in the marshal’s
opinion, incapable of holding out for a day. Yet this would not have
mattered so much if the army had been about to resume the offensive, or
to put up a stable defence in the Burgos region.
But it was declared that this was impossible--the governor reported
that the immense convoys which had been passing through Burgos of late,
and the recent stay of considerable bodies of troops in the place[505],
had brought his magazines to such a low ebb that he could not feed
an army of 50,000 men for more than a few days. The town was still
crammed with the last great horde of Spanish and French refugees, who
had come on from Madrid, Segovia, and Valladolid, and all the King’s
private train. They were sent on at once towards Vittoria, under escort
of Lamartinière’s division--which thus no sooner became available
than it was lost again. No news had arrived either from Foy or from
Clausel: but Sarrut’s division of the Army of Portugal had been located
north of the Ebro, and would be coming in ere very long. The news
that Clausel was undiscoverable brought King Joseph to such a pitch
of excitement that he took, on June 9th, a step which he should have
taken a fortnight before, and threw over all his fears of offending the
minister at Paris or the Emperor in Saxony. He sent direct peremptory
orders to Clausel to join him at once, and told off a column of 1,500
men to escort the aide-de-camp who bore them: it went off by Domingo
Calzada and Logroño. As a matter of fact the order reached the general
in six days--but it might have taken longer for all that Joseph could
guess. And the King came to the conclusion that if he were at all
pushed by Wellington within the next few days, he must abandon Burgos
and retire behind the Ebro. He might even have to go without hostile
persuasion, on the mere question of food-supplies.
But on June 12 the pressure was applied. Wellington had now got all
his forces over the Pisuerga, and his two southern columns were
concentrated between Castroxeriz and Villadiego: Graham was farther
off, but not out of reach. Having reconnoitred the advanced position
of Reille on the Hormaza river, and found that his supports were far
behind, he resolved to attack him in front and flank that morning. Only
the southern column--Hill’s troops--was employed, the centre divisions
being halted in a position from which they might be brought in on the
enemy’s rear, if the King reinforced Reille, but not if the French
showed no signs of standing. But the push against the Army of Portugal,
made by the 2nd Division, Silveira’s Portuguese, and Morillo’s
Spaniards, was sufficient to dislodge the enemy: for while they were
deploying against the French front, the cavalry brigades of Grant and
Ponsonby, supported by the Light Division, appeared behind Reille’s
right flank. The enemy at once gave way, before infantry fighting had
begun, and retreating hastily southward got behind the Urbel river,
where the Army of the South was already in line. Reille then crossed
the Arlanzon by the bridge of Buniel and took post south of Burgos.
The French loss was small--the retreat was made in good order and with
great speed, before the British infantry could arrive. Grant’s and
Ponsonby’s horse, already outflanking the rearguard, got in close, but
did not deliver a general attack--by Wellington’s own orders as it
is said[506]: for (despite of Garcia Hernandez) he held to his firm
belief that cavalry cannot break intact infantry. A half troop of the
14th Light Dragoons, under Lieut. Southwell, charged and captured an
isolated French gun, which had fallen behind the rearguard; but this
was the only contact between the armies that day. Jourdan says that
Reille lost about fifteen men only--an exaggeration no doubt, but not a
very great one.
The result, however, was to determine King Joseph to retreat at once,
and to abandon Burgos, before his obviously outflanked right wing
should be entirely circumvented. That night desperate measures were
taken--everything that could travel on wheels was sent off by the high
road towards the Ebro: the infantry followed, using such side roads as
were available. At dawn only cavalry rearguards were covering Burgos.
Jourdan explains the haste of the retreat as follows. ‘It was easy to
foresee that next morning that part of the Army of the South which lay
behind the Urbel river would be attacked, and that being separated by
the Arlanzon from the bulk of the army, which lay on the south bank, it
would be compromised. Three choices lay open--first, to bring the whole
army across the Arlanzon and to fight on the Urbel; but this would have
brought on the general action which it had been determined to avoid,
ever since the King had made up his mind to call in Clausel. Second--to
bring the whole army across to the south bank of the Arlanzon, where
there was a good position: but this move would have allowed the enemy
to cut the great road and our communications with France--and the same
motives which had caused the rejection of the scheme to retire south of
the Douro on June 2 caused this alternative to be disapproved on June
12. Third--to fall back by the great road to the Ebro, and so secure
the earliest possible concentration of all the armies of Spain. This
was the scheme adopted[507].’
It is said that Gazan was for fighting on the Urbel[508], while Reille
and D’Erlon opted for the second choice--that of abandoning the high
road to France, going south of the Arlanzon, and retreating by the bad
track to Domingo Calzada and Logroño, because Clausel, being certainly
somewhere in Navarre, would be picked up much sooner at Logroño than at
Miranda or other points higher up the Ebro. But the Emperor’s orders
that the direct communication with France must be kept up at all costs,
were adduced against them, and settled the question.
Before leaving, the French made arrangements to blow up the castle
which had served them so well in the preceding October, and to destroy
a great store of powder and munitions for which no transport could be
procured. According to Jourdan the disaster which followed was due to
the professional ignorance of General d’Aboville, the director-general
of artillery, who maintained that shells would do no great harm if
they were exploded, not in a great mass but placed in small groups, at
distances one from another. He had 6,000 of them laid in parcels on
the ground in the castle square, and connected with the mines which
were placed under the donjon keep. Orders were given that the fuses
were only to be lit when the last troops should have left, and the
inhabitants were told that if they would keep to their houses they
would incur no danger. But the mines by some error were fired before
seven o’clock in the morning, and the effects of the explosion had
been so badly calculated, that not only were many houses in the city
injured, all the glass blown out of the splendid cathedral, and its
roof broken in several places, but a hail of shells fell all over the
surrounding quarter, and killed 100 men of Villatte’s division, who
were halted in the Plaza Mayor, and a few of Digeon’s dragoons who were
crossing the bridge[509]. There were casualties also, of course, among
the unfortunate citizens. When the smoke cleared away, and the fire
had gone out, it was found that the destruction of the donjon keep and
upper works of the castle had been complete, but that most of the outer
wall was standing--as indeed it is to this day. Wellington remarked
that it was quite capable of restoration, if the fortunes of the war
made it necessary[510]. They did not; and the skeleton of the castle
still remains ruined and riven on its mound, to surprise the observer
by its moderate size. Those who go round it can only marvel that such a
small fortress should have held all Wellington’s army at bay during so
many eventful days in 1812.
The British general, hearing at Castroxeriz, on the early morning of
June 13, that the French had evacuated Burgos and blown up its works,
did not even enter the town, and sent nothing more than cavalry scouts
to follow the retreating enemy, but ordered the instant resumption of
the north-westward march of the whole army. It was now his intention
to turn the line of the Ebro, in the same fashion that he had turned
the line of the Douro on May 31--by passing it so far to the westward
that any position which the enemy might adopt would be outflanked, even
before it was fully taken up. And he was aiming not only at turning the
Ebro line, but at cutting Joseph’s communication with France: he was
already taking Vittoria, far behind the Ebro, as the goal for which he
was making.
We have Wellington’s own word for the fact that it was the collapse
of the French opposition in front of Burgos which finally induced him
to develop his original plan of campaign, spoken of above, into the
more ambitious scheme for driving the French completely out of the
Peninsula, which he now took in hand. Unfortunately his statement was
taken down many years after the event, and his memory of details was
not all that it might have been in his old age. But the story is so
interesting and fits into the psychology of the moment so well that it
must not be omitted.
‘When I heard and saw the explosion (I was within a few miles, and
the effect was tremendous) I made a sudden resolution forthwith--to
cross the Ebro _instanter_, and to endeavour to push the French to the
Pyrenees. We had heard of the battles of Lützen and Bautzen, and of
the Armistice, and the affairs of the Allies looked very ill. Some of
my officers remonstrated with me about the imprudence of crossing the
Ebro, and advised me to “take up the line of the Ebro”, &c. I asked
them what they meant by “taking up the line of the Ebro”,--a river 300
miles long, and what good I was to do along that line? In short I would
not listen to that advice, and that evening (or the very next morning)
I crossed the river and pushed the French till I afterwards beat them
at Vittoria. And lucky it was that I did! For the battle of Vittoria
induced the Allies to denounce the Armistice--then followed Leipzig and
all the rest.
‘All my staff were against my crossing the Ebro: they represented that
we had done enough, that we ought not to risk the army and all that we
had obtained, that the Armistice would enable Bonaparte to reinforce
his army in Spain, and we therefore should look for a defensive system.
I thought differently--I knew that the Armistice could not affect in
the way of quick reinforcement so distant an army as that of Spain. I
thought that if I could not _hustle_ them out of Spain before they were
reinforced, I should not be able to hold any position in Spain after
they should be. Above all I calculated on the effect that a victory
might have on the Armistice itself, so I crossed the Ebro and fought
the battle of Vittoria.’
How far is this curious confidence, made to Croker in January 1837, and
taken down by him in two separate drafts (_Croker Papers_, ii. p. 309,
and iii. pp. 336-7), a blurred impression, coloured by after events? It
is quite true that the Burgos explosion took place early on the morning
of June 13, that the orders dictated at Villadiego that day (_Suppl.
Disp._ vii, p. 637) give a sudden new direction to the army, and that
next evening (June 14) the heads of the columns were over the Ebro. But
Wellington’s own dispatches seem to show that he did not know anything
of the Armistice on June 13, for he wrote to his brother Henry that
day, ‘I have no news from England. The French have a bulletin of May
24th, when Napoleon was at Dresden--they talk of successes, but as he
was still at Dresden on the 24th, having arrived there on the 8th, they
cannot have been very important.’ Now the Armistice of Plässwitz was
signed on June 4, and on the 13th Wellington’s latest news was of May
24. But on the 17th, when he had been two days across the Ebro, he did
at last hear something. Again he writes to his brother:
‘I have got, by Corunna, English papers of the 3rd. There were several
actions in the neighbourhood of Bautzen on the 20th-22nd May....
Bonaparte turned then, and they retired. The Allies have lost ground
but are unhurt. He has offered (before the battle) to consent to a
congress at Prague.... An armistice is to commence when the ministers
shall arrive at Prague.... I do not think that the Russians and
Prussians can agree to the armistice, unless they submit entirely’
(_Disp._ x. p. 443).
Clearly, then, Wellington on the 13th knew nothing of any armistice,
since he introduces the proposal, not the accomplishment, of it to
his most trusted correspondent on the 17th, as the last news to hand.
He was committed to the advance on Vittoria long before he could
know of its subsequent political effects. And thus in his old age he
underrated his own prescience. But the fact that his officers doubted
the wisdom of the advance, and that he swept their objections away, is
probably correct. That he had considered the possibility of an advance
far beyond the Ebro seems, as has been said before (pp. 301-3), to be
proved by orders given in the spring, before the campaign began.
On the evening of the 13th head-quarters were at Villadiego, while the
columns were all heading northward on parallel routes. The Galicians
were moving from Aguilar on the bridge of Rocamonde[511], the highest
on the Ebro save that at its source near Reynosa. The bulk of Graham’s
column was marching by La Piedra on the bridge of San Martin, a
few miles lower down than Rocamonde, though some of its flanking
cavalry crossed at the latter passage, ahead of the Galicians. The
Head-Quarters divisions and Hill’s column moved, using all available
secondary roads, from their position opposite the lower Urbel, by
Villadiego and Montorio respectively, on the bridge of Puente Arenas,
some fifteen miles below that of San Martin. All three columns had on
the 13th-14th-15th very hard marches, of four long Spanish leagues
on three successive days, across upland roads where artillery had
never been seen before. The move would only have been practicable at
midsummer. But the columns were absolutely unopposed, and the upper
Ebro country had been entirely neglected by the French, as Wellington
had foreseen. ‘One division could have stopped the whole column at the
bridge of San Martin,’ wrote an intelligent observer, ‘or the other at
Rocamonde, where some of our column likewise crossed--the enemy cannot
be aware of our movement[512].’ Graham was all across the Ebro by noon
on the 14th, Hill by the morning of the 16th. Wellington who had fixed
his head-quarters at the lost village of Masa in the hills, was able
to declare with confidence that the whole army would be over the river
by the night--‘and then the French must either fight, or retire out of
Spain altogether.’
The Ebro country was a surprise to the British observers who had spent
so many years in the uplands of Portugal or the rolling plains of the
Tierra de Campos. ‘Winding suddenly out of a narrow pass, we found
ourselves in the river valley, which extended some distance on our
right. The beauty of the scenery was beyond description: the rocks
rose perpendicularly on every side, without any visible opening to
convey an idea of an outlet. This enchanting valley is studded with
picturesque hamlets and fruitful gardens producing every description of
vegetation. At the Puente Arenas we met a number of sturdy women loaded
with fresh butter from the mountains of the Asturias. We had not tasted
that commodity for _two years_, therefore it will be unnecessary to
describe how readily we made a purchase, nibbling by the way at such a
luxury[513].’ Northern or Pyrenean Spain is a very different country
from the dusty wind-swept central plateaux: above all the lack of
water, which is the curse of Castile, ceased at last to be the bane of
marching columns.
After crossing the Ebro on the 14th Graham’s column made another
four-league march on the 15th to the large town of Villarcayo, while
the Galicians got to Soncillo on the main road from Santander to
Burgos; thus Wellington was certain of the new naval base to which
he had bid the Corunna transports sail only five days before. Hill’s
troops, who had a longer march during the last two days than the other
columns, were not so far forward, but nearing the river had occupied
the heights on the southern side of the Puente de Arenas. The three
columns forming the Anglo-Portuguese army were, as a glance at the map
shows, in close touch with each other, and in a position where the
whole 80,000 men could be concentrated by a single march. Undoubtedly
the most surprising features of the advance is that Wellington’s
commissariat was able to feed such a mass of troops in such a limited
area, after they had left the plains of Castile and plunged into the
thinly inhabited mountains. The local supplies obtainable must have
been very limited. Several diarists speak of biscuit being short[514],
though meat was not. But somehow or other the commissaries generally
contrived to find more or less food for the army--the well-organized
mule trains were not far behind the infantry columns, and the long and
difficult movement was never checked--as earlier marches had been in
1809 and 1811[515]--by the mere question of provisions, though many
brigades got but scanty meals.
SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER VI
WELLINGTON ON THE EBRO. JUNE 15-20,1813
After evacuating Burgos the French army had retired, at a rather
leisurely rate, down the high road which leads by Briviesca and the
defile of Pancorbo to the valley of the Ebro. The rearguard, as we have
seen, had left Burgos on the morning of the 13th, and halted for great
part of the day at Gamonal, a few miles east of the city, on the spot
where Napoleon had won his easy victory over the Conde de Belveder
on November 10, 1808. It was only followed by Spanish irregular
horse--some of Julian Sanchez’s ubiquitous lancers. Head-quarters that
night and the next (June 14) were at Briviesca, and remained there
for forty-eight hours: on the 15th they were moved on to Pancorbo, an
admirable position with a high-lying fort in the centre, while the
road is flanked for miles by steep slopes, on which an advantageous
rearguard action might have been fought. But no pursuing enemy came in
sight: this fact began to worry the French Head-quarters Staff. ‘What
could have become of Lord Wellington? The French Army, in full retreat,
was permitted to move leisurely along the great route, without being
harassed or urged forward, not a carriage of any description being
lost. It appeared inexplicable[516].’ The French retreat was leisurely
for two reasons--the first was that King Joseph wished to gain time
for the immense convoys lumbering in front of him to reach Miranda
and Vittoria without being hustled. The second was that he thought
that every day gained gave more time for Clausel to come up: at the
slow rate at which he was proceeding he might almost hope to find the
missing divisions of the Army of Portugal converging on Miranda, at
the moment when he should arrive there himself. The Council of War at
Burgos had decided that Wellington must inevitably pursue by the great
_chaussée_. The routes from the Burgos region to the upper Ebro had
been reported both by French officers who claimed to know the country,
and by local _Afrancesados_, as presenting insuperable difficulties to
a large army. There was, it is true, the high road Burgos-Santander
by Santijanez, Pedrosa, and Reynosa--but this led north-west in an
eccentric direction, not towards Miranda or Vittoria. That the danger
lay on the rough mountain ways a little farther east, which fall down
to San Martin and Puente de Arenas, seems not to have been suspected.
Yet it was disquieting to find no pursuit in progress: could the Allied
Army possibly have been forced to halt at Burgos for want of supplies?
On the 16th the French army descended from the defile of Pancorbo
to the Ebro, and proceeded to distribute itself in the region round
Miranda, in cantonments which permitted of rapid concentration when it
should become necessary. Nothing was yet to be heard of Clausel--but on
the other hand Lamartinière’s division was again picked up--it handed
over the duty of escorting the convoys toward Vittoria to Joseph’s
Spanish contingent, the small division of Casapalacios. Sarrut’s
division also came in from Biscay, and reported that it had been lately
in touch with Foy, who was successfully hunting the local guerrilleros
in the coast-land. But neither Foy himself, nor the troops of the
Army of the North which had been co-operating with him of late, were
anywhere near. Strange as it may appear, that very capable officer had
wholly failed to understand the general situation: though apprised ere
now of the evacuation of Madrid and Valladolid, he had nothing in his
mind save his wholly secondary operations against the Biscay bands.
His dispatches of this period show him occupied entirely with the
safety of Bilbao, and the necessity for guarding the high road from
Bergara and Tolosa to France. There were 20,000 troops in Biscay, but
they were entirely dispersed on petty expeditions and convoy work. On
June 19, when he got from head-quarters the first dispatch that caused
him to think of concentrating and joining the main army, Foy had only
one battalion with him at the moment at Bergara. A column of 1,000
men was moving to reinforce the garrison of Bilbao, a brigade was at
Villafranca escorting towards France the large body of prisoners whom
he had captured in his recent operations--another brigade was waiting
on the road between Vittoria and Mondragon, to pick up a large convoy
which, as he had been warned, would be coming up the Royal Road and
would require to be protected as far as San Sebastian. He was making
efforts to send provisions by sea to Bilbao and Castro-Urdiales--a task
in which he was being worried by British cruisers off the coast--and
was preparing to go to Bilbao himself[517].
No doubt the main blame for this untimely dispersion of forces lay with
General Head-Quarters. Jourdan and Joseph ought to have sent orders
to Foy, after the evacuation of Madrid, ordering him to cease all
secondary operations, to leave minimum garrisons at a few essential
points, abandon all the rest, and collect as strong a field-force as
possible, with which to join the main army. But they had written to
the minister at Paris suggesting such moves, instead of dispatching
direct orders to that effect to the general himself. Foy had been sent
information, not orders, and had failed to realize the full meaning
of the information--absorbed as he was in his own particular Biscayan
problems. Events were marching very quickly: it was hard to realize
that Wellington, who had been on the Esla on May 31, would have been
across the upper Ebro with 70,000 men on June 15. It had taken little
more than a fortnight for him to overrun half of Northern Spain. The
fact remained that of all the French troops operating in Biscay in
June, only Sarrut’s division, from Orduña, joined the King in time for
the battle of Vittoria. Yet Foy had under his orders not only his own
division but the Italian brigade of St. Pol, and the mobile brigade
of Berlier from the Army of the North, in addition to 10,000 men of
the garrisons of the various posts and fortresses of the North and the
littoral. And he had no enemy save the great partisan Longa in the
western mountains, and the scattered remains of the local insurgents
under El Pastor and others, whom he had defeated in April and May, and
whom he was at present harrying from hill to coast and from coast to
hill. We are once more forced to remember that the French armies in
Spain were armies of occupation as well as armies of operation, and
that one of their functions was often fatal to the other.
But to return to the moment when the King’s army came back to the
Ebro. Head-quarters were, of course, established at Miranda, where the
royal Guard served as their escort. The Army of the South sent three
divisions across to the north bank of the river; they were cantoned
on the lower Zadorra about Arminion; but Gazan kept three brigades on
the south bank as a rearguard for the present, but (as the King hoped)
to form a vanguard for a counter-advance, if only Clausel should come
up soon, and an offensive campaign become possible. A small observing
force was left at Pancorbo, into whose castle a garrison was thrown.
Cavalry exploring parties, pushed out from this point, sought for
Wellington’s approaching columns as far as Poza de la Sal on the right,
Briviesca on the high road, and Cerezo on the left; but to no effect.
They came in touch with nothing but detachments of Julian Sanchez’s
Lancers. D’Erlon, with the Army of the Centre, went ten miles down the
Ebro to Haro: he had now recovered his missing division, Darmagnac’s,
which had been lent to Reille for the last two months. For the Army
of Portugal having now three infantry divisions collected--Maucune’s,
Sarrut’s, and Lamartinière’s--was ordered to give back the borrowed
unit to its proper commander. Reille took the right of the Ebro
position, having Maucune’s division at Frias, Sarrut’s at Espejo, and
Lamartinière’s at the Puente Lara. He was ordered to use his cavalry to
search for signs of the enemy along the upper Ebro. The King had thus
an army which, by the junction of Sarrut and Lamartinière, had risen
to over 50,000 infantry and nearly 10,000 cavalry, concentrated on a
short front of 25 miles from Frias to Haro, covering the main road to
France by Vittoria, and also the side roads to Orduña and Bilbao on
the one flank, and Logroño and Saragossa on the other. His retreat,
though dispiriting, had not yet been costly--it is doubtful whether
he had lost 1,000 casualties in the operations of the last six weeks.
With the exception of the combats at Salamanca on May 26 and Morales
on June 2, there had been no engagements of any importance. The army
was angry at the long-continued retreat; the officers were criticizing
the generalship of their commanders in the most outspoken fashion, but
there was no demoralization--the troops were clamouring for a general
action.
But on June 17, when the French armies settled down into their new
position, with no detected enemy in their neighbourhood, their fate
was already determined--the Ebro line had been turned before it was
even taken up. For on this same day Wellington had not only got his
whole army north of the Ebro, but was marching rapidly eastward, by
the mountain roads twenty miles north of the river, into the rear of
Reille’s cantonments. Of all his troops only Julian Sanchez and Carlos
de España’s infantry division were left in Castile.
The movements of the Allied Army on the 15th-16th-17th June had been
carried out with surprising celerity. The Galician infantry, who had
crossed the river first, at Rocamonde, the bridge highest up on its
course, on the 13th were hurrying northward, by cross roads not marked
on the map, and obviously impracticable for guns, to Soncillo (15th),
Quintanilla de Pienza (16th), Villasana (17th), and Valmaseda in Biscay
(18th). When they had reached the last-named town they were threatening
Bilbao, and almost at its gates. This was the great demonstration,
intended to throw confusion among all the French detachments on the
northern coast. Several of the stages exceeded thirty miles in the day.
Meanwhile the three great columns of the Anglo-Portuguese army were
executing a turning movement almost as wide as that of Giron’s
Galicians. Converging from different bridges of the Ebro--Rocamonde
(where some of Graham’s cavalry passed), San Martin de Lines (where
the bulk of Graham’s force debouched northward on the 14th), and
Puente Arenas (used by the Head-quarters column on the 15th and by
Hill’s column on the 16th[518])--the whole army came in by successive
masses on to the two neighbouring towns of Villarcayo and Medina de
Pomar. At the latter place Longa turned up with his hard-marching
Cantabrian division, and joined the army. These considerable towns are
the road-centres of the whole rugged district between the Ebro and the
Cantabrian mountains. From them fork out the very few decent roads
which exist in the land--those northward over the great sierras to
Santander, Santoña, and Valmaseda-Bilbao: those eastward across their
foot-hills to Orduña-Vittoria and to Frias-Miranda. These five roads
are the only ones practicable for artillery and transport: there are,
however, minor tracks which can take infantry in good summer weather.
From his head-quarters at Quintana, near the bridge of Puente Arenas,
Wellington dictated on the 15th the marching orders which governed
the next stage of the campaign. With the exception of the Galicians,
already starting on their circular sweep towards Bilbao, all his
columns were directed to utilize the road parallel to the Ebro, but
twenty miles north of it, which runs from Medina de Pomar to Osma,
Orduña, and Vittoria. He deliberately avoided employing the other high
road, which runs closer to the river from Medina de Pomar to Frias
and Miranda, even for a side-column or a flying corps: only cavalry
scouts were sent along it. The reason why the whole army was thrown
on to a single road--a thing generally to be avoided, especially when
time is precious--was partly that the appearance of British troops
before Frias, where the enemy was known to have a detachment, would
give him early warning of the move. But the more important object was
to strike at the French line of communication with Bayonne as far
behind the known position of King Joseph’s army as possible. If the
line Frias-Miranda had been chosen, the enemy would have had many miles
less to march, when once the alarm was given, if he wished to cover
his proper line of retreat. If a fight was coming, it had better be at
or about Vittoria, rather than at or about Miranda. Moreover, the high
road, for a few miles east of Frias, passes to the south bank of the
Ebro, which it recrosses at the Puente Lara--there is only a bad track
north of the river from Frias to that bridge. It would be absurd to
direct any part of the army to cross and recross the Ebro at passages
which might be defended.
So the whole force was committed to the Medina-Osma road, except that
the infantry occasionally took cross-cuts by local tracks, in order
to leave the all-important main line, as far as possible, to the
guns and transport. The three corps in which the army had marched
from the Pisuerga fell in behind each other, in the order in which
they had crossed the Ebro--Graham leading--the Head-Quarters column
following--Hill bringing up the rear. Longa’s Cantabrians went on
as a sort of flying vanguard in front of Graham, not being burdened
with artillery[519]. The road was one which could only have been used
for such a large force in summer--it hugged the foot-hills of the
Cantabrian sierras, crossing successively the head-waters of several
small rivers running south to the Ebro, each in its own valley. The
country was thinly peopled and bare, so that little food could be
got to supplement the mule-borne rations. For this reason, as also
with the object of granting the French as little time as possible
after the first alarm should be given, the pace had to be forced.
The marches were long: on the 15th the head of Graham’s infantry was
at Villarcayo: on the 16th at La Cerca (five miles beyond Medina de
Pomar): on the 17th at the mountain villages of San Martin de Loza and
Lastres de Teza: on the 18th it was due at Osma and at Berberena--a
few miles up the Osma-Orduña road. The Head-Quarters column having no
exploration to do, since the way was reported clear in front, covered
the same distance in three marches instead of four, and was expected
to reach the neighbourhood of Osma on the 18th. Hill’s column had also
to hurry--its leading division was on that same day expected to be
at Venta de Membligo, a posting station six miles short of Osma, so
that its head would be just behind the tail of the preceding corps.
But Hill’s rear would be strung out for many miles behind. However,
all the fighting army was again in one mass--with a single exception.
Wellington had ordered the 6th division, commanded temporarily by his
own brother-in-law Pakenham, to halt at Medina de Pomar. The reason
which he gives in his dispatch[520] for depriving himself, now that the
day of crisis was at hand, of a good division of 7,000 men, is that
he left it ‘to cover the march of our magazines and stores.’ This is
almost as puzzling a business as his leaving of Colville’s corps at Hal
on the day of the battle of Waterloo--the only similar incident in the
long record of his campaigns. If this was his sole reason, why should
not a smaller unit--Pack’s or Bradford’s independent brigade--or both
of them--have been left behind? For that purpose such a force would
have sufficed. We are not informed that the 6th Division was more
afflicted with sickness than any other, or that it was more way-worn.
The only supposition that suggests itself is that Wellington may have
considered the possibility of Giron’s raid into Biscay failing, and
bringing down on his rear some unsuspected mass of French troops from
Bilbao. If this idea entered his head, he may easily have thought it
worth while to leave behind a solid reserve, on which Giron might fall
back, and so to cover the rear of his main army while he was striking
at the great road to France. But it must be confessed that this is
a mere hypothesis, and that the detachment of Pakenham’s division
seems inexplicable from the information before us. It was ordered to
follow when the whole of the transport should be clear, if no further
developments had happened to complicate the situation. Carrying out
this direction literally, Pakenham waited three days at Medina de
Pomar, and so only got to the front twenty-four hours after the battle
of Vittoria.[521]
The orders which Wellington issued upon the 17th[522] brought the head
of his columns into touch with the enemy. They directed that Graham,
with the 1st and 5th Division, Pack and Bradford, should move past
Osma on to Orduña, by the two alternative routes available between
those places, while the Head-Quarters column should not turn north
toward Orduña on reaching Osma, but pursue the roads south-eastward
by Espejo and Carcamo, which lead to Vittoria by a more southerly
line. The result contemplated was very much that which was worked out
in the battle of the 21st--a frontal attack by the main body, with
an outflanking move by Graham’s corps, which would bring it into the
rear of the enemy. But the route via Orduña was not the one which
the northern column was actually destined to take, as the events of
the 18th distracted it into a shorter but rougher road to the same
destination (Murguia), which it would have reached by a much longer
turn on the high road via Orduña.
But all the columns were not moving on the main track from Medina de
Pomar to Osma this day, for Wellington had directed the Light Division
to drop its artillery to the care of the 4th Division, and cut across
the hills south of the high road, by a country path which goes by La
Boveda, San Millan, and Villanan to a point, a few miles south of Osma,
in the same valley of the Omecillo in which that town lies. And Hill,
still far to the rear, was told to detach two brigades of the 2nd
Division, and send them to follow the Light Division along the same
line: if Alten should send back word that the route was practicable
for guns, Hill was to attach his Portuguese field battery to this
advance-column.
It was, apparently, on the morning of the 17th June only that the
French got definite indications of the direction in which the British
army might be looked for. Maucune reported from Frias, not long after
his arrival there, that hostile cavalry were across the Ebro in the
direction of Puente Arenas, and that other troops in uncertain strength
were behind them. It was clearly necessary to take new measures,
in view of the fact that the enemy was beyond the Ebro, in a place
where he had not been expected. How much did the move imply? After
consideration Joseph and Jourdan concluded, quite correctly, that
since the main body of Wellington’s army had been invisible for so
many days--it had last been seen on the Hormaza on June 12th--it was
probably continuing its old policy of circular marches to turn the
French right. This was correct, but they credited Wellington with
intending to get round them not by the shorter routes Osma-Vittoria,
but by the much longer route by Valmaseda and Bilbao, which would cut
into the high road to France at Bergara, far behind Vittoria.
With this idea in their heads the King and the Marshal issued orders
of a lamentably unpractical scope, considering the position occupied
by Wellington’s leading divisions on June 17th. Reille was ordered to
collect his three infantry divisions at Osma, and to hurry across the
mountains by Valmaseda, to cover Bilbao from the west, by taking up a
position somewhere about Miravalles. He would find the Biscayan capital
already held by St. Pol’s Italians, and Rouget’s brigade of the Army
of the North. Foy, who was believed to be at Tolosa, was instructed to
bring up his division to the same point. Thus a force of some 25,000
men would be collected at Bilbao. Meanwhile Reille’s original positions
at Frias and the Puente Lara would be taken over by Gazan, who would
march up the Ebro from Arminion with two divisions of infantry and one
of cavalry, to watch the north bank of the Ebro. ‘These dispositions,’
remarks Jourdan, ‘were intended to retard the advance of the enemy
in this mountainous region, and so to gain time for the arrival of
the reinforcements we were expecting [i.e. Clausel]. But it was too
late![523]’
No worse orders could have been given. If Wellington had struck
twenty-four hours later than he did, and Reille had been able to carry
out his first day’s appointed move, and to get forward towards Bilbao,
the result would have been to split the French army in two, with the
main range of the Cantabrian sierras between them: since Reille and Foy
would have joined at Bilbao--three days’ forced marches away from the
King. Meanwhile Joseph, deprived of the whole Army of Portugal, would
have had Wellington striking in on his flank by Osma, and would have
been forced to fight something resembling the battle of Vittoria with
10,000 men less in hand than he actually owned on June 21. Either he
would have suffered an even worse defeat than was his lot at Vittoria,
or he would have been compelled to retreat without fighting, down the
Ebro, or towards Pampeluna. In either case he would have lost the line
of communication with France; and while he was driven far east, Foy and
Reille would have had to hurry back on Bayonne, with some risk of being
intercepted and cut off on the way.
As a matter of fact, Reille was checked and turned back upon the first
day of his northward march. He had sent orders to Maucune to join him
from Frias, either by the road along the Ebro by Puente Lara, or by the
mountain track which goes directly from Frias to Espejo. Then, without
waiting for Maucune, he started from Espejo to march on Osma. He had
gone only a few miles when he discovered a British column debouching on
Osma, by the road from Berberena[524] and the north-west, which he had
been intending to take himself. Seeing his path blocked, but being loth
to give way before what might be no more than a detachment, he drew up
his two divisions on the hillside a mile south of Osma and appeared
ready to offer battle. Moreover, he was expecting the arrival of
Maucune, and judged that if he made off without delaying the enemy in
front of him, the column from Frias might be intercepted and encircled.
The troops which Reille had met were Graham’s main column--the 1st and
5th divisions with Bradford’s Portuguese and Anson’s Light Dragoons,
on their march towards Orduña. Graham prepared to attack, sent forward
the German Legion light battalions of the 1st Division, and pushed out
Norman Ramsay’s horse artillery, with a cavalry escort, to the right
of Osma, forming the rest of his force for a general advance across
the Bilbao road. After estimating the strength of the British, Reille
appeared at first inclined to fight, or at least to show an intention
of fighting. But a new enemy suddenly came up--the 4th Division
appeared on a side road, descending from the hills on the right of
Graham’s line. It had just time to throw out its light companies to
skirmish[525] when Reille, seeing himself obviously outnumbered and
outflanked, retreated hastily on Espejo; the 5th Division followed him
on the left, with some tiraillade, the 4th Division on the right, but
he was not caught. ‘Considerable fire on both sides but little done,’
remarked an observer on the hillside[526]. Reille’s loss was probably
about 120 men, nearly all in Sarrut’s division[527]: that of the
British some 50 or 60.
Meanwhile there had been a much more lively fight, with heavier
casualties, a few miles farther south among the mountains nearer the
Ebro. Maucune had started before dawn from Frias, intending to join
Reille by a short cut through the hills, instead of sticking to the
better road along the river-bank by the Puente Lara. He only sent his
guns with a cavalry escort by that route. He was marching with his two
brigades at a considerable distance from each other, the rear one being
hampered by the charge of the divisional transport and baggage.
The leading brigade had reached the hamlet of San Millan and was
resting there by a brook, when British cavalry scouts came in upon
them--these were German Legion Hussars, at the head of the Light
Division, which Wellington had sent by the cross-path over the hills
by La Boveda. The approaching column had been marching along a narrow
road, shrouded by overhanging rocks and high banks, in which it
could neither see nor be seen. On getting the alarm the four French
battalions formed up to fight, in the small open space about the
village, while the head of the British column, Vandeleur’s brigade,
deployed as fast as it could opposite them, and attacked; the 2/95th
and 3rd Caçadores in front line, the 52nd in support. Maucune was
forced to make a stand, because his rear brigade was coming up,
unseen by his enemies, and would have been cut off from him if he had
retreated at once. But when the head of Kempt’s brigade of the Light
Division appeared, and began to deploy to the left of Vandeleur’s, he
saw that he was outnumbered, and gave ground perforce. He had been
driven through the village, and was making off along the road, with
the Rifle battalions in hot pursuit, when his second brigade, with
the baggage in its rear, came on the scene--most unexpected by the
British, for the track by which it emerged issued out between two
perpendicular rocks and had not been noticed. Perceiving the trap into
which they had fallen, the belated French turned off the road, and
made for the hillside to their right, while Kempt’s brigade started
in pursuit, scrambling over the rocky slopes to catch them up. The
line of flight of the French took them past the ground over which
Vandeleur’s men were chasing their comrades of the leading brigade,
and the odd result followed that they came in upon the rear of the
52nd, and, though pursued, seemed to be themselves pursuing. The
Oxfordshire battalion thereupon performed the extraordinary feat of
bringing up its left shoulder, forming line facing to the rear at a
run, and charging backward. They encountered the enemy at the top of
a slope, but the French, seeing themselves between two fires, for
Kempt’s men were following hotly behind them, avoided the collision,
struck off diagonally, and scattering and throwing away their packs
went off in disorder eastward, still keeping up a running fight. The
large majority escaped, and joined Gazan’s troops at Miranda. Meanwhile
the first brigade, pursued by the Rifles and Caçadores, got away in
much better order, and reached Reille’s main body at Espejo. The
transport which had come out of the narrow road too late to follow the
regiments, was captured whole, after a desperate resistance by the
baggage-guard. Maucune got off easily, all things considered, with
the loss of three hundred prisoners, many of them wounded, and all
his impedimenta[528]. The fight was no discredit to the general or
to his men, who saved themselves by presence of mind, when caught at
every disadvantage--inferior troops would have laid down their arms
_en masse_ when they found themselves between two fires in rough and
unknown ground[529]. The total British loss in the two simultaneous
combats of Osma and San Millan was 27 killed and 153 wounded.
Reille, having picked up Maucune’s first brigade at Espejo, continued
his retreat, and got behind the Bayas river at Subijana that night.
The report which he had to send to head-quarters upset all the plans
of Jourdan and the King, and forced them to reconsider their position,
which was obviously most uncomfortable, as their line of defence
along the Ebro was taken in flank, and the proposed succour to Bilbao
made impossible. At least four British divisions had been detected by
Reille, but where were the rest, and where were the Spaniards, who
were known to be in some strength with Wellington? Was the whole Allied
host behind the force which had driven in the Army of Portugal, or
was there some great unseen column executing some further inscrutable
movement?
There was hot discussion at Miranda that night. Reille repeated the
proposition which had already been made at Burgos six days back, that
in consideration of the fact that the army was hopelessly outflanked,
and that its retreat by the high road to Vittoria and Bayonne was
threatened by the presence of Wellington on the Bayas, it should
abandon that line of communication altogether, march down the Ebro,
and take up the line of Pampeluna and Saragossa, rallying Clausel and,
if possible, Suchet, for a general concentration, by which the British
army could be driven back as it had been from Burgos in 1812. Foy and
the Biscay garrisons would have to take care of themselves--it was
unlikely that Wellington would be able to fall upon them, when the
whole of the rest of the French armies of Spain were on his flank, and
taking the offensive against him.
Joseph, for the third time, refused to consider this scheme, alleging,
as before, the Emperor’s strict orders to keep to the Bayonne base, and
to hold on to the great royal _chaussée_. But, as is clear, his refusal
was affected by another consideration which in his eyes had almost
equally decisive weight. Vittoria was crammed with the great convoys
of French and Spanish refugees which had accumulated there, along with
all the plunder of Madrid, and the military material representing
the ‘grand train’ of the whole army of Spain--not to speak of his
own immense private baggage. There had also arrived, within the last
few days, a large consignment of hard cash--the belated arrears of
the allowance which the Emperor had consented to give to the Army of
Spain. One of Foy’s brigades had escorted these fourgons of treasure to
Vittoria, and dropped them there, returning to Bergara with a section
of the refugees in charge, to be passed on to Bayonne.[530] The amount
delivered was not less than five million francs--bitterly needed by the
troops, who were in long arrears. All this accumulation at Vittoria
was in large measure due to the King’s reluctance during the retreat
to order a general shift of all his officials and impedimenta over the
border into France. As long as his ministers, and all the plant of
royalty, remained on the south side of the Pyrenees, he still seemed
a king. And he had hoped to maintain himself first on the Douro, then
about Burgos, then on the Ebro. It was only when this last line was
forced that he made up his mind to surrender his theoretical status,
and think of military considerations alone. The lateness of his
decision was to prove most fatal to his adherents.
Having resolved to order a general retreat on Vittoria, Joseph and
Jourdan took such precautions as seemed possible. Reiterated orders
for haste were sent to Foy and Clausel: the latter was told to
march on Vittoria not on Miranda. Unfortunately he had received the
dispatch sent from Burgos on June 15th, which gave him Miranda as
the concentration-point, and had already gathered his divisions at
Pampeluna on June 18, and started to march by Estella and Logroño
and along the north bank of the Ebro. This gave him two sides
of a triangle to cover, while if he had been assigned the route
Pampeluna-Salvatierra-Vittoria, he would have been saved eighty miles
of road. But on June 9th, when the original orders were issued, no
one could have foreseen, save Wellington, that the critical day of
the campaign would have found the French army far north of the Ebro.
And the new dispatch, sent off on the night of the 18th-19th, started
far too late to reach Pampeluna in time to stop Clausel’s departure
southward. Indeed, it did not catch him up till the battle of Vittoria
had been fought, and the King was a fugitive on the way to France. Foy
received orders a little earlier, though not apparently those sent
directly by the King, but a copy of a dispatch to Thouvenot, governor
of Vittoria, in which the latter was instructed ‘that if General Foy
and his division are in your neighbourhood, you are to bid him give up
his march on Bilbao, and draw in towards Vittoria, unless his presence
is absolutely necessary at the point where he may be at present[531].’
This unhappy piece of wording gave Foy a choice, which he interpreted
as authorizing him to remain at Bergara, so as to cover the high road
to France, a task which he held to be ‘absolutely necessary.’
As to the troops already on the spot, Reille was ordered to defend
the line of the Bayas river, until the armies of the South and Centre
should have had time to get past his rear and reach Vittoria. Gazan
was ordered to collect the whole of the Army of the South at Arminion,
behind Miranda, drawing in at once the considerable detachment which he
had left beyond the Ebro. In this position he was to wait till D’Erlon,
with the Army of the Centre, who had to move up from Haro, ten miles to
the south, should have arrived and have got on to the great _chaussée_.
He was then to follow him, acting as rearguard of the whole force.
Between Arminion and Vittoria the road passes for two miles through the
very narrow defile of Puebla, the bottle-neck through which the Zadorra
river cuts its way from the upland plain of Vittoria to the lower level
of the Ebro valley.