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HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA
AND IN THE
SOUTH OF FRANCE,
FROM THE YEAR 1807 TO THE YEAR 1814.
BY
W. F. P. NAPIER, C.B.
_COLONEL H. P. FORTY-THIRD REGIMENT, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH_
_ACADEMY OF MILITARY SCIENCES._
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
THOMAS & WILLIAM BOONE, NEW BOND-STREET.
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
MARCHANT, PRINTER, INGRAM-COURT, FENCHURCH-STREET.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BOOK XIII.
CHAP. I.
Lord Wellington’s sieges vindicated—Operations in
Spain—State of Gallicia—Change of commanders—Bonet’s
operations in the Asturias—Activity of the Partidas—Their
system of operations—Mina captures a large convoy at
Arlaban—Bessieres contracts his position—Bonet abandons the
Asturias—Santocildes advances into Leon—French dismantle
Astorga—Skirmish on the Orvigo—General inefficiency of
the Gallicians and Asturians—Operations in the eastern
provinces—State of Aragon—State of Catalonia—State of
Valencia—Suchet marches against Tortoza—Fails to burn the
boat-bridge there—M‘Donald remains at Gerona—The Valencians
and Catalonians combine operations against Suchet—O’Donnel
enters Tortoza—Makes a sally and is repulsed—The
Valencians defeated near Uldecona—Operations of the seventh
corps—M‘Donald reforms the discipline of the troops—Marches
with a convoy to Barcelona—Returns to Gerona and dismantles
the outworks of that place—O’Donnel’s plans—M‘Donald
marches with a second convoy—Reaches Barcelona and returns
to Gerona—Marches with a third convoy—Forces the pass of
Ordal—Enters Reus and opens the communications with Suchet 1
CHAP. II.
O’Donnel withdraws his troops from Falcet and surrounds the
seventh corps—M‘Donald retires to Lerida—Arranges a new
plan with Suchet—Ravages the plains of Urgel and the higher
valleys—The people become desperate—O’Donnel cuts the
French communication with the Ampurdan—Makes a forced march
towards Gerona—Surprises Swartz at Abispal—Takes Filieu
and Palamos—Is wounded and returns to Taragona—Campo Verde
marches to the Cerdaña—M‘Donald enters Solsona—Campo Verde
returns—Combat of Cardona—The French retreat to Guisona,
and the seventh corps returns to Gerona—M‘Donald marches
with a fourth convoy to Barcelona—Makes new roads—Advances
to Reus—The Spaniards harass his flanks—He forages the
Garriga district and joins the third corps—Operations of
Suchet—General Laval dies—Operations of the Partidas—Plan
of the secret junta to starve Aragon—General Chlopiski
defeats Villa Campa—Suchet’s difficulties—He assembles
the notables of Aragon and reorganizes that province—He
defeats and takes general Navarro at Falcet—Bassecour’s
operations—He is defeated at Uldecona 19
CHAP. III.
Tortoza—Its governor feeble—The Spaniards outside
disputing and negligent—Captain Fane lands at Palamos—Is
taken—O’Donnel resigns and is succeeded by Campo
Verde—Description of Tortoza—It is invested—A division of
the seventh corps placed under Suchet’s command—Siege of
Tortoza—The place negotiates—Suchet’s daring conduct—The
governor surrenders—Suchet’s activity—Habert takes the
fort of Balaguer—M‘Donald moves to Reus—Sarsfield defeats
and kills Ugenio—M‘Donald marches to Lerida—Suchet goes to
Zaragoza—The confidence of the Catalans revives—The manner
in which the belligerents obtained provisions explained—The
Catalans attack Perillo, and Campo Verde endeavours to
surprise Monjuic, but is defeated with great loss—Napoleon
changes the organisation of the third and seventh Corps—The
former becomes the army of Aragon—The latter the army of
Catalonia 36
CHAP. IV.
Suchet prepares to besiege Taragona—The power of the
Partidas described—Their actions—They are dispersed on the
frontier of Aragon—The Valencians fortify Saguntum—Are
defeated a second time at Uldecona—Suchet comes to
Lerida—M‘Donald passes with an escort from them to
Barcelona—His troops burn Manresa—Sarsfield harasses his
march—Napoleon divides the invasion of Catalonia into two
parts—Sinking state of the province—Rovira surprises Fort
Fernando de Figueres—Operations which follow that event 52
CHAP. V.
Suchet’s skilful conduct—His error about English
finance—Outline of his arrangements for the siege of
Taragona—He makes French contracts for the supply of
his army—Forages the high valleys and the frontiers of
Castile and Valencia—Marches to Taragona—Description of
that place—Campo Verde enters the place—Suchet invests
it—Convention relative to the sick concluded between St.
Cyr and Reding faithfully observed—Sarsfield comes to
Momblanch—Skirmish with the Valencians at Amposta and
Rapita—Siege of Taragona—Rapita and Momblanch abandoned
by Suchet—Taragona reinforced from Valencia—The Olivo
stormed—Campo Verde quits Taragona, and Senens de Contreras
assumes the chief command—Sarsfield enters the place
and takes charge of the Port or lower town—French break
ground before the lower town—The Francoli stormed—Campo
Verde’s plans to succour the place—General Abbé is called
to the siege—Sarsfield quits the place—The lower town is
stormed—The upper town attacked—Suchet’s difficulties
increase—Campo Verde comes to the succour of the place, but
retires without effecting any thing—Colonel Skerrett arrives
in the harbour with a British force—Does not land—Gallant
conduct of the Italian soldier Bianchini—The upper town is
stormed with dreadful slaughter 70
CHAP. VI.
Suchet marches against Campo Verde—Seizes Villa Nueva de
Sitjes and makes fifteen hundred prisoners—Campo Verde
retires to Igualada—Suchet goes to Barcelona—A council
of war held at Cervera by Campo Verde—It is resolved
to abandon the province as a lost country—Confusion
ensues—Lacy arrives and assumes the command—Eroles
throws himself into Montserrat—Suchet sends detachments
to the valley of Congosta and that of Vich, and opens
the communication with M‘Donald at Figueras—Returns to
Reus—Created a marshal—Destroys the works of the lower
town of Taragona—Takes Montserrat—Negotiates with
Cuesta for an exchange of the French prisoners in the
island of Cabrera—Stopped by the interference of Mr.
Wellesley—Mischief occasioned by the privateers—Lacy
reorganizes the province—Suchet returns to Zaragoza, and
chases the Partidas from the frontier of Aragon—Habert
defeats the Valencians at Amposta—The Somatenes harass
the French forts near Montserrat—Figueras surrenders to
M‘Donald—Napoleon’s clemency—Observations—Operations in
Valencia and Murcia 100
BOOK XIV.
CHAP. I.
State of political affairs—Situation of king Joseph—His
disputes with Napoleon—He resigns his crown and quits
Spain—The emperor grants him new terms and obliges him to
return—Political state of France as regards the war 120
CHAP. II.
Political state of England with reference to the
war—Retrospective view of affairs—Enormous subsidies
granted to Spain—The arrogance and rapacity of the juntas
encouraged by Mr. Canning—His strange proceedings—Mr.
Stuart’s abilities and true judgment of affairs shewn—He
proceeds to Vienna—State of politics in Germany—He is
recalled—The misfortunes of the Spaniards principally
owing to Mr. Canning’s incapacity—The evil genius of the
Peninsula—His conduct at Lisbon—Lord Wellesley’s policy
totally different from Mr. Canning’s—Parties in the
cabinet—Lord Wellesley and Mr. Perceval—Character of the
latter—His narrow policy—Letters describing the imbecility
of the cabinet in 1810 and 1811 131
CHAP. III.
Political state of Spain—Disputes amongst the leaders—Sir
J. Moore’s early and just perception of the state of affairs
confirmed by lord Wellington’s experience—Points of interest
affecting England—The reinforcement of the military
force—The claims of the princess Carlotta—The prevention of
a war with Portugal—The question of the colonies—Cisnero’s
conduct at Buenos Ayres—Duke of Infantada demanded by
Mexico—Proceedings of the English ministers—Governor of
Curaçoa—Lord Wellesley proposes a mediation—Mr. Bardaxi’s
strange assertion—Lord Wellington’s judgment on the
question—His discernment, sagacity, and wisdom shewn 146
CHAP. IV.
Political state of Portugal—Mr. Villiers’ mission expensive
and inefficient—Mr. Stuart succeeds him—Finds every thing
in confusion—His efforts to restore order successful at
first—Cortes proposed by lord Wellesley—Opposed by the
regency, by Mr. Stuart, and by lord Wellington—Observations
thereon—Changes in the regency—Its partial and weak
conduct—Lord Strangford’s proceedings at Rio Janeiro only
productive of mischief—Mr. Stuart’s efforts opposed, and
successfully by the Souza faction—Lord Wellington thinks
of abandoning the contest—Writes to the prince regent of
Portugal—The regency continues to embarrass the English
general—Effect of their conduct upon the army—Miserable
state of the country—The British cabinet grants a fresh
subsidy to Portugal—Lord Wellington complains that he is
supplied with only one-sixth of the money necessary to carry
on the contest—Minor follies of the regency—The cause of
Massena’s harshness to the people of Portugal explained—Case
of Mascarheñas—His execution a foul murder—Lord Wellington
reduced to the greatest difficulties—He and Mr. Stuart
devise a plan to supply the army by trading in grain—Lord
Wellington’s embarrassments increase—Reasons why he does not
abandon Portugal—His plan of campaign 161
CHAP. V.
Second English siege of Badajos—Means of the allies very
scanty—Place invested—San Christoval assaulted—The allies
repulsed—Second assault fails likewise—The siege turned
into a blockade—Observations 182
CHAP. VI.
General Spencer’s operations in Beira—Pack blows up
Almeida—Marmont marches by the passes to the Tagus,
and Spencer marches to the Alemtejo—Soult and Marmont
advance to succour Badajos—The siege is raised, and the
allies pass the Guadiana—Lord Wellington’s position on
the Caya described—Skirmish of cavalry in which the
British are defeated—Critical period of the war—French
marshals censured for not giving battle—Lord Wellington’s
firmness—Inactivity of the Spaniards—Blake moves to the
Condado de Niebla—He attacks the castle of Niebla—The
French armies retire from Badajos, and Soult marches to
Andalusia—Succours the castle of Niebla—Blake flies to
Ayamonte—Sails for Cadiz, leaving Ballesteros in the
Condado—French move against him—He embarks his infantry
and sends his cavalry through Portugal to Estremadura—Blake
lands at Almeria and joins the Murcian army—Goes to
Valencia, and during his absence Soult attacks his army—Rout
of Baza—Soult returns to Andalusia—His actions eulogised 195
CHAP. VII.
State of the war in Spain—Marmont ordered to take a central
position in the valley of the Tagus—Constructs forts at
Almaraz—French affairs assume a favourable aspect—Lord
Wellington’s difficulties augment—Remonstrances sent to the
Brazils—System of intelligence described—Lord Wellington
secretly prepares to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo—Marches into
Beira, leaving Hill in the Alemtejo—French cavalry take a
convoy of wine, get drunk and lose it again—General Dorsenne
invades Gallicia—Is stopped by the arrival of the allies
on the Agueda—Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.—Carlos España
commences the formation of a new Spanish army—Preparations
for the siege—Hill sends a brigade to Castello Branco 215
CHAP. VIII.
The garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo make some successful
excursions—Morillo operates against the French in
Estremadura, is defeated and driven to Albuquerque—Civil
affairs of Portugal—Bad conduct of the regency—They
imagine the war to be decided, and endeavour to drive lord
Wellington away from Portugal—Indications that Napoleon
would assume the command in the Peninsula observed by lord
Wellington—He expects a combined attack on Lisbon by sea
and land—Marmont and Dorsenne collect convoys and unite
at Tamames—Advance to succour Ciudad Rodrigo—Combat of
Elbodon—Allies retire to Guinaldo—To Aldea Ponte—Combat
of Aldea Ponte—The allies retire to Soita—The French
retire—Observations 229
BOOK XV.
CHAP. I.
State of the war in Spain—Northern provinces—State of
Gallicia—Attempt to introduce English officers into
the Spanish service—Trafficked for by the Spanish
government—Repelled by the Spanish military—The English
government encourage the Partidas—Lord Wellington sends
the chiefs presents—His after opinion of them—Sir H.
Douglas succeeds general Walker—Miserable state of Gallicia
described—Disputes between the civil and military—Anomalous
proceedings of the English government—Gross abuses in
the Spanish army—Expedition against America fitted out
in Gallicia with the English supplies intended for the
defence of the province—Sir H. Douglas’s policy towards
the Partidas criticized—Events in the Asturias—Santander
surprised by Porlier—Reille and Caffarelli scour Biscay and
the Rioja—Bonet invades the Asturias—Defeats Moscoso, Paul
Lodosa, and Mendizabel, and occupies Oviedo—In Gallicia the
people prefer the French to their own armies—In Estremadura,
Drouet joins Girard and menaces Hill—These movements parts
of a great plan to be conducted by Napoleon in person 254
CHAP. II.
Conquest of Valencia—Suchet’s preparations
described—Napoleon’s system eminently methodical—State of
Valencia—Suchet invades that province—Blake concentrates
his force to fight—His advanced guard put to flight by the
French cavalry—He retires to the city of Valencia—Siege
of Saguntum—The French repulsed in an assault—Palombini
defeats Obispo near Segorbe—Harispe defeats C. O’Donnel
at Beneguazil—Oropesa taken—The French batteries open
against Saguntum—Second assault repulsed—Suchet’s
embarrassments—Operations in his rear in Catalonia—Medas
islands taken—Lacy proposes to form a general depôt at
Palamos—Discouraged by sir E. Pellew—The Spaniards
blow up the works of Berga, and fix their chief depôt
at Busa—Description of that place—Lacy surprises the
French in the town of Igualada—Eroles takes a convoy near
Jorbas—The French quit the castle of Igualada and join the
garrison of Montserrat—That place abandoned—Eroles takes
Cervera and Belpuig—Beats the French national guards in
Cerdaña—Invades and ravages the French frontier—Returns
by Ripol and takes post in the pass of Garriga—Milans
occupies Mataro—Sarsfield embarks and sails to the
coast of the Ampurdan—These measures prevent the march
of the French convoy to Barcelona—State of Aragon—The
Empecinado and Duran invade it on one side—Mina invades
it on the other—Calatayud taken—Severoli’s division
reinforces Musnier, and the Partidas are pursued to Daroca
and Molino—Mina enters the Cinco Villas—Defeats eleven
hundred Italians at Ayerbe—Carries his prisoners to
Motrico in Biscay—Mazzuchelli defeats the Empecinado at
Cubiliejos—Blake calls in all his troops and prepares
for a battle—Suchet’s position described—Blake’s
dispositions—Battle of Saguntum—Observations 266
CHAP. III.
Suchet resolves to invest the city of Valencia—Blake
reverts to his former system of acting on the French
rear—Napoleon orders General Reille to reinforce Suchet with
two divisions—Lacy disarms the Catalan Somatenes—Their
ardour diminishes—The French destroy several bands,
blockade the Medas islands, and occupy Mataro—Several
towns affected to the French interest—Bad conduct of the
privateers—Lacy encourages assassination—Suchet advances to
the Guadalaviar—Spanish defences described—The French force
the passage of the river—Battle of Valencia—Mahi flies
to Alcira—Suchet invests the Spanish camp—Blake attempts
to break out, is repulsed—The camp abandoned—The city is
bombarded—Commotion within the walls—Blake surrenders with
his whole army—Suchet created duke of Albufera—Shameful
conduct of the junta of the province—Montbrun arrives
with three divisions—Summons Alicant, and returns
to Toledo—Villa Campa marches from Carthagena to
Albaracin—Gandia and Denia taken by the French—They besiege
Peniscola—Lacy menaces Taragona—Defeats a French battalion
at Villa Seca—Battle of Altafulla—Siege of Peniscola—The
French army in Valencia weakened by draughts—Suchet’s
conquests cease—Observations 291
CHAP. IV.
Operations in Andalusia and Estremadura—Description of
Soult’s Position—Events in Estremadura—Ballesteros
arrives at Algesiras—Advances to Alcala de Gazules—Is
driven back—Soult designs to besiege Tarifa—Concludes a
convention with the emperor of Morocco—It is frustrated by
England—Ballesteros cooped up under the guns of Gibraltar by
Sémelé and Godinot—Colonel Skerrett sails for Tarifa—The
French march against Tarifa—Are stopped in the pass of La
Pena by the fire of the British ships—They retire from
San Roque—General Godinot shoots himself—General Hill
surprises general Girard at Aroyo Molino, and returns to the
Alemtejo—French reinforced in Estremadura—Their movements
checked by insubordination amongst the troops—Hill again
advances—Endeavours to surprise the French at Merida—Fine
conduct of captain Neveux—Hill marches to Almendralejos to
fight Drouet—The latter retires—Phillipon sends a party
from Badajos to forage the banks of the Guadiana—Colonel
Abercrombie defeats a squadron of cavalry at Fuente del
Maestro—Hill returns to the Alemtejo 313
CHAP. V.
Soult resolves to besiege Tarifa—Ballesteros is driven
a second time under the guns of Gibraltar—Laval invests
Tarifa—Siege of Tarifa—The assault repulsed—Siege is
raised—The true history of this siege exposed—Colonel
Skerrett not the author of the success 329
BOOK XVI.
CHAP. I.
Political situation of king Joseph—Political state
of Spain—Political state of Portugal—Military
operations—Julian Sanchez captures the governor of Ciudad
Rodrigo—General Thiebault introduces a convoy and a
new governor into that fortress—Difficulty of military
operations on the Agueda—The allied army, being pressed for
provisions, takes wide cantonments, and preparations are
secretly made for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo 345
CHAP. II.
Review of the different changes of the war—Enormous efforts
of Napoleon—Lord Wellington’s situation described—His
great plans explained—His firmness and resolution under
difficulties—Distressed state of his army—The prudence and
ability of lord Fitzroy Somerset—Dissemination of the French
army—Lord Wellington seizes the opportunity to besiege
Ciudad Rodrigo 362
CHAP. III.
Means collected for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Major
Sturgeon throws a bridge over the Agueda—Siege of Ciudad
Rodrigo—Colonel Colborne storms fort Francesco—The scarcity
of transport baulks lord Wellington’s calculations—Marmont
collects troops—Plan of the attack changed—Two breaches are
made and the city is stormed—Observations 375
CHAP. IV.
Execution of the French partizans and English deserters
found in Ciudad Rodrigo—The works are repaired—Marmont
collects his army at Salamanca—Bonet abandons the
Asturias—Souham advances to Matilla—Hill arrives at
Castello Branco—The French army harassed by winter
marches and by the Partidas—Marmont again spreads his
divisions—Agueda overflows, and all communication with
Ciudad Rodrigo is cut off—Lord Wellington prepares to
besiege Badajos—Preliminary measures—Impeded by bad
weather—Difficulties and embarrassments arise—The
allied army marches in an unmilitary manner towards
the Alemtejo—Lord Wellington proposes some financial
measures—Gives up Ciudad to the Spaniards—The fifth
division is left in Beira—Carlos d’Espagna and general
Victor Alten are posted on the Yeltes—The Portuguese militia
march for the Coa—Lord Wellington reaches Elvas—He is beset
with difficulties—Falls sick, but recovers rapidly 390
CHAP. V.
The allies cross the Guadiana—Beresford invests
Badajos—Generals Graham and Hill command the covering
army—Drouet retires to Hornaches in the Llerena—Third
English siege of Badajos—Sally of the garrison
repulsed—Works impeded by the rain—The besieged rake the
trenches from the right bank of the Guadiana—The fifth
division is called up to the siege—The river rises and
carries away the bridge, and the siege is upon the point of
being raised—Two flying bridges are established—The fifth
division invest St. Christoval and the bridge-head—The
Picurina is stormed—The batteries open against the San
Roque and the body of the place—The covering army drive
general Drouet from the Serena into the Morena on the side
of Cordova—Marmont collects his forces in Leon—The Spanish
officers and the Portuguese government neglect the supplies
of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida—Soult advances from Cordova
towards Llerena—The fifth division is brought over the
Guadiana—The works of the siege are pressed—An attempt to
blow up the dam of the inundation fails—The two breaches
become practicable—Soult effects his junction with Drouet
and advances to the succour of the place—Graham and Hill
fall back—The bridge of Merida is destroyed—The assault is
ordered, but countermanded—A third breach is formed—The
fortress is stormed with a dreadful slaughter, and the city
is sacked by the allies 399
CHAP. VI.
The state of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida obliges lord
Wellington to relinquish his design of invading
Andalusia—Soult’s operations described—He reaches Villa
Franca—Hears of the fall of Badajos and retires—Penne
Villemur and Morillo move from the Niebla against
Seville—Ballesteros having defeated Maransin at Cartama,
comes from the Ronda against Seville—A French convoy is
stopped in the Morena, and the whole of Andalusia is in
commotion—Seville is saved by the subtlety of a Spaniard
in the French interest—Ballesteros retires—Assaults
Zahara and is repulsed—Sends a division against Ossuna,
which is also repulsed by the _Escopeteros_—Drives general
Rey from Allora to Malaga—Soult marches from Llerena
towards Seville, and general Conroux brings a brigade up
from the Guadalete to attack Ballesteros—Sir S. Cotton
defeats general Peyreymont’s cavalry near Usagre—Soult
concentrates his army near Seville to light the allies—Lord
Wellington marches to Beira—Marmont’s operations—He marches
against Ciudad Rodrigo—Carlos d’España retires towards
Almeida and Victor Alten towards Penamacor—The French
appear before Almeida—General Trant arrives on the Cabeça
Negro—The French retire and Trant unites with J. Wilson at
Guarda—Marmont advances to Sabugal—Victor Alten abandons
Penamacor and Castello Branco, and crosses the Tagus—The
Portuguese general Lecor opposes the enemy with skill and
courage—Marmont drives Trant from Guarda and defeats his
militia on the Mondego—Lord Wellington crosses the Tagus and
enters Castello Branco—Marmont’s position perilous—Lord
Wellington advances to attack him—He retreats over the
Agueda—The allied army is spread in wide cantonments, and
the fortresses are victualled 434
CHAP. VII.
General observations—The campaign considered—The
justice of Napoleon’s views vindicated, and Marmont’s
operations censured as the cause of the French
misfortunes—The operations of the army of the centre
and of the south examined—Lord Wellington’s operations
eulogized—Extraordinary adventures of captain Colquhon
Grant—The operations of the siege of Badajos examined—Lord
Wellington’s conduct vindicated 450
APPENDIX.
No. I.
Justificatory papers relating to the state of Spain at
different periods 483
No. II.
Siege of Taragona 498
No. III.
Political state of king Joseph 512
No. IV.
Conduct of the English government, and extracts from Mr.
Canning’s and lord Wellesley’s instructions to Mr. Stuart 541
No. V.
Marmont and Dorsenne’s operations 549
No. VI.
Siege of Tarifa, with anonymous extracts from memoirs and
letters of different officers employed in the siege 563
No. VII.
Storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, with anonymous
extracts from memoirs and letters of officers engaged in, or
eye-witnesses of the action described 571
No. VIII.
English papers relating to Soult’s and Marmont’s operations,
and French papers relating to the same 578
No. IX.
Summary of the force of the Anglo-Portuguese army at
different periods, exclusive of drummers and fifers, with
summary of the French force at different periods, extracted
from the imperial muster-rolls 584
LIST OF PLATES.
No. 1. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Tortoza
_to face page_ 41
2. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Taragona
_to face page_ 75
3. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations and Combat of Elbodon
_to face page_ 240
4. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege and Battle of Saguntum
_to face page_ 283
5. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege and Battle of Valencia
_to face page_ 297
6. Explanatory Sketch of general Hill’s Operations
_to face page_ 324
7. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Tarifa
_to face page_ 331
8. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
_to face page_ 386
9. Explanatory Sketch of the Siege of Badajos, 1812
_to face page_ 419
ERRATA.
Page 3, line 23, _for_ “armies” _read_ “parties.”
35, 9, _for_ “prisoners” _read_ “provisions.”
NOTICE.
In addition to the manuscript authorities used for the former
volumes, several memoirs, journals, and notes of officers employed in
the different operations have been consulted for this volume. Amongst
others, the Journal of general Harvey of the Portuguese service, and
some original papers supplied by sir Howard Douglas.
In a recent controversy, I have expressed my belief that the French
army at Albuera, instead of being more, was less numerous, than I had
represented it in my account, of that battle. The following letter,
since procured, decides the question:—
_Extrait d’une lettre écrite de Seville le 4 Mai, 1811, par M. le
m^{al} duc de Dalmatie, général-en-chef de l’armée du midi, à S. A.
S. le prince de Wagram et de Neufchatel, major-général._
Le général Latour Maubourg a été obligé de se replier sur Constantina
et Alamis, Cordove est menacée par un corps Anglais, Portugais, et
Espagnol, beaucoup de troupes se concentrent en Estramadure; Badajoz
est investie. Le général Blake a réuni sur l’Odiel une armée de
quinze à seize mille hommes, et paroit se préparer à marcher sur
Seville. Le restant du quatrième corps est en opérations contre les
troupes qui out débauché de Murcie. Si j’enumere bien, je suis en cet
instant attaqué sur divers points par plus de soixante mille hommes
indépendamment de troupes qui sont restées à Cadiz et à l’isle de
Léon, et de celles qu’il y a à Tarrifa, à Algesiras, et à Gibraltar,
que je dois contenir, le danger est pressant, je dois faire face
de tous côtés assurer de nouveaux triomphes aux armées de S. M.
l’empereur, et éviter les facheux événemens, que l’on prépare contre
l’armée du midi. J’espère réussir, mais le succès sera complet si les
secours que j’attends arrivent apropos; voici mes dispositions. Je
pars dans quatre jours avec _vingt mille hommes, trois mille chevaux,
et trente pièces de canon_, pour rejetter au delà de la Guadiana les
corps ennemis qui se sont répandus en Estremadure, dégager Badajos
et faciliter l’arrivée du général comte d’Erlon. Si les troupes que
ce général amène peuvent se réunir avec celles que je conduirai et
si les troupes qui sont parties des armées du nord et du centre,
dont j’ai en partie disposé, arrivent à tems, j’aurai en Estremadure
trente-cinq mille hommes, cinq mille chevaux, et quarante pièces de
canon de campagne; alors je livre bataille aux ennemis quand bien
même toute l’armée Angloise qui est sur le continent y seroit réunie,
et ils seront vaincus.
Si une partie des renforts que j’attends manquent je ferai avec ce
que j’aurai, tout ce que pourrai vers le but proposé.
Le général-en-chef de l’armée impériale du midi,
(Signée) M^{al} Duc de DALMATIE.
Pour extraits conformes.
_To her grace the duchess of Abrantes._
_September 11, 1833._
MADAM,
In the eighth volume of your “_Mémoires_,” which I have only just
seen, I find the following passages:—
“Toutefois, pourquoi donc m’étonner de la conduite des Portugais?
N’ai je pas vu _ici, en France_, un des frères d’armes de Junot
souffrir qu’on imprimât, dans un ouvrage traduit de l’Anglais, des
choses revoltantes de fausseté sur lui et sur le maréchal Ney?......
Cet ouvrage, fait par un colonel Napier, et qui a trouvé grâce devant
le ministère de la guerre parce qu’il dit du bien du ministre, m’a
été donné _à moi, à moi la veuve de Junot_, comme renfermant des
documents _authentiques_. J’ai du y lire une indécente attaque contre
la vie privée d’un homme dont on ne pouvait dire aucun mal comme
militaire dans cette admirable affaire de la Convention de Cintra,
puisque les Anglais ont fait passer à une commission militaire ceux
qui l’avaient signée pour l’Angleterre; et les beaux vers de Childe
Harold suffisent seuls à la gloire de Junot, quand l’original de
cette convention ne serait pas là pour la prouver. Heureusement que
je le possède, moi, cet original, et même dans les deux langues. Il
n’est pas dans M. Napier;”————
It is not permitted to a man to discover ill-humour at the
expressions of a lady; yet when those expressions are dishonouring
to him, and that reputation and talents are joined to beauty to give
them a wide circulation, it would indicate insensibility to leave
them unnoticed.
To judge of the talents of a general by his conduct in the field has
always been the undisputed right of every military writer. I will not
therefore enter upon that subject, because I am persuaded that your
grace could not mean to apply the words “_revolting falsehoods_” to
a simple judgement of the military genius of the duke of Abrantes.
Indeed you intimate that the offensive passages are those directed
against his private life, and touching the Convention of Cintra.
I think, however, your grace has not perused my work with much
attention, or you would scarcely have failed to perceive that I have
given the Convention of Cintra at length in the Appendix.
But, in truth, I have only alluded to general Junot’s private
qualities when they bore directly upon his government of Portugal,
and, by a fresh reference to my work, you will find that I have
affirmed nothing of my own knowledge. The character of the late duke
of Abrantes, as drawn by me, is that ascribed to him by the emperor
Napoleon, (see _Las Cases_,) and the authority of that great man is
expressly quoted. It is against Napoleon therefore, and not against
me, who am but a repeater of his uncontradicted observations, that
your resentment should be directed.
If your grace should deign to dispose of any further thought upon me
or my work, I would venture to suggest a perusal of the Portuguese,
and English, and Spanish, and German histories of the invasion of
Portugal; or even a slight examination of only a small part of the
innumerable, and some of them very celebrated periodicals which treat
of that event. You will be then convinced that, so far from having
wantonly assailed the character of general Junot, I have made no
slight effort to stem the torrent of abuse with which he has been
unjustly overwhelmed; and believe me, madam, that the estimation in
which an eminent man will be held by the world is more surely to
be found in the literature of different countries than in the fond
recollection of his own family. I admired general Junot’s daring
character, and having enough of the soldier in me to like a brave
enemy, I have, wherever the truth of history would permit, expressed
that feeling towards him and towards other French generals whose
characters and whose acts have been alike maligned by party writers
in this country: such indeed has been my regard for justice on this
point, that I have thereby incurred the charge of writing with a
French rather than a national bias, as your grace will discover by
referring to my lord Mahon’s History of the War of the Succession,
in which his lordship has done me the honour to observe that I have
written “_by far the best_ FRENCH _account_ yet published of the
Peninsular War.”
For my own part I still think that to refrain from vulgar abuse
of a gallant enemy will not be deemed un-English, although lord
Mahon considers it wholly French; but his lordship’s observation
incontestibly proves that I have discovered no undue eagerness to
malign any of the French generals; and with respect to the duke
of Abrantes, I could shew that all the offensive passages in my
work rest upon the published authority of his own countrymen, and
especially of his great master the emperor Napoleon, and that
they are of a milder expression than those authorities would have
warranted. It is, however, so natural and so amiable in a lady to
defend the reputation of her deceased husband, that rather than
appear to detract in any manner from the grace of such a proceeding,
I choose to be silent under the unmitigated severity of your grace’s
observations.
Not so, however, with respect to that part of your remarks which
relate to marshal Ney. After carefully re-examining every sentence
I have written, I am quite unable to discover the slightest grounds
for your grace’s accusations. In all parts of my work the name of Ney
is mentioned with praise. I have not, indeed, made myself a partizan
of marshal Ney in relating his disputes with marshals Soult and
Massena, because I honestly believed that he was mistaken; neither
have I attributed to him unbounded talents for the higher parts of
war, but this is only matter of opinion which the world is quite
capable of appreciating at its true value; and upon all other points
I have expressed admiration of marshal Ney’s extraordinary qualities,
his matchless valour, his heroic energy!
In the hope that your grace will now think it reasonable to soften
the asperity of your feelings towards my work, I take my leave, with
more of admiration for your generous warmth in defence of a person so
dear to you, than of any sentiment of resentment for the harsh terms
which you have employed towards myself. And I remain, madam,
Your very obedient servant,
WILLIAM NAPIER, COLONEL.
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.
BOOK XIII.
CHAPTER I.
[Sidenote: 1810.]
While marshal Beresford followed Soult towards Llerena lord
Wellington recommenced the siege of Badajos, but the relation
of that operation must be delayed until the transactions which
occurred in Spain, during Massena’s invasion of Portugal, have been
noticed, for it is not by following one stream of action that a
just idea of this war can be obtained. Many of lord Wellington’s
proceedings might be called rash, and others timid, and slow, if
taken separately; yet, when viewed as parts of a great plan for
delivering the whole Peninsula, they will be found discreet or
daring, as the circumstances warranted: nor is there any portion of
his campaigns, that requires this wide-based consideration, more than
his early sieges; which, being instituted contrary to the rules of
art, and unsuccessful, or, when successful, attended with a mournful
slaughter, have given occasion for questioning his great military
qualities, which were however, then most signally displayed.
[Sidenote: See Vol. III p. 404.]
[Sidenote: Official abstract of general Walker’s despatches]
[Sidenote: Official abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS.]
In the northern provinces the events were of little interest.
Gallicia after the failure of Renovales’ expedition and the shipwreck
that followed, became torpid; the junta disregarded general Walker’s
exhortations, and, although he furnished vast supplies, the army,
nominally twenty thousand strong, mustered only six thousand in the
field: there was no cavalry, and the infantry kept close in the
mountains about Villa Franca, while a weak French division occupied
the rich plains of Leon. General Mahi having refused to combine his
operations with those of the Anglo-Portuguese army, was thought to
be disaffected, and at the desire of the British authorities had
been removed to make way for the duke of Albuquerque: he was however
immediately appointed to the command of Murcia, by Blake, in defiance
of the remonstrances of Mr. Wellesley, for Blake disregarded the
English influence.
[Sidenote: See Vol. III pp. 312, 407, and 475.]
When Albuquerque died, Gallicia fell to Castaños, and while that
officer was co-operating with Beresford in Estremadura, Santocildes
assumed the command. Meanwhile Caffarelli’s reserve having joined the
army of the north, Santona was fortified, and Bessieres, as I have
before observed, assembled seven thousand men at Zamora to invade
Gallicia.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.]
In the Asturias, Bonet, although harassed, on the side of Potes,
by the Guerillas from the mountains of Liebana; and on the coast
by the English frigates, remained at Oviedo, and maintained his
communications by the left with the troops in Leon. In November
1810 he defeated a considerable body of insurgents, and in February
1811 the Spanish general St. Pol retired before him with the regular
forces, from the Xalon to the Navia; but this retreat caused such
discontent in Gallicia that St. Pol advanced again on the 19th March,
and was again driven back. Bonet then dispersed the Partidas, and
was ready to aid Bessieres’ invasion of Gallicia; and although the
arrival of the allied forces on the Coa in pursuit of Massena stopped
that enterprise, he made an incursion along the coast, seized the
Spanish stores of English arms and clothing, and then returned to
Oviedo. The war was, indeed, so little formidable to the French,
that in May Santander was evacuated, and all the cavalry in Castile
and Leon joined Massena for the battle of Fuentes Onoro, and yet the
Gallician and Asturian regular armies gained no advantage during
their absence.
[Sidenote: Intercepted letter of general Barthelemy to general
Drouet, 1810. MSS.]
The Partidas, who had re-assembled after their defeat by Bonet, were
more active. Porlier, Campillo, Longa, Amor, and Merino cut off small
French parties in the Montaña, in the Rioja, in Biscay, and in the
Baston de Laredo; they were not, indeed, dangerous in action, nor was
it very difficult to destroy them by combined movements, but these
combinations were hard to effect, from the little accord amongst
the French generals, and thus they easily maintained their posts at
Espinosa de Monteres, Medina, and Villarcayo. Campillo was the most
powerful after Porlier. His principal haunts were in the valleys of
Mena and Caranza; but he was in communication with Barbara, Honejas,
and Curillas, petty chiefs of Biscay, with whom he concerted attacks
upon couriers and weak detachments: and he sometimes divided his
band into small parties, with which he overran the valleys of
Gurieso, Soba, Carrado, and Jorrando, partly to raise contributions,
partly to gather recruits, whom he forced to join him. His chief
aim was, however, to intercept the despatches going from Bilbao to
Santander, and for this purpose he used to infest Liendo between
Ovira and Laredo, which he was enabled the more safely to do, because
general Barthelemy, the governor of the Montaña, was forced to watch
more earnestly towards the hilly district of Liebana, between Leon
and the Asturias. This district was Porlier’s strong-hold, and that
chief, under whom Campillo himself would at times act, used to cross
the Deba and penetrate into the valleys of Cabuerniego, Rio Nauza,
Cieza, and Buelna, and he obliged the people to fly to the mountains
with their effects whenever the French approached: nevertheless the
mass were tired of this guerilla system and tractable enough, except
in Liebana.
[Sidenote: 1811.]
To beat Campillo once or twice would have been sufficient to ruin
him, but to ruin Porlier required great combinations. It was
necessary to seize Espinosa, not that of Monteres, but a village in
the mountains of Liebana, from whence the valleys all projected as
from a point, and whence the troops could consequently act towards
Potes with success. General Barthelemy proposed this plan to Drouet,
then with the 9th corps on the Upper Douro, whom he desired to
co-operate from the side of Leon, while Bonet did the same from the
side of the Asturias: but though partially adopted, the execution was
not effectually followed up, the districts of Liebana and Santander
continued to be disturbed, and the chain of Partidas was prolonged
through Biscay and the Rioja, to Navarre.
[Sidenote: 1811. May.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.]
In this last province Mina had on the 22d of May defeated at
the Puerto de Arlaban, near Vittoria, twelve hundred men who
were escorting a convoy of prisoners and treasure to France; his
success was complete, but alloyed by the death of two hundred of
the prisoners, unfortunately killed during the tumult; and it was
stained by the murder of six Spanish ladies, who, for being attached
to French officers, were in cold blood executed after the fight.
Massena, whose baggage was captured, was to have travelled with
this escort, but disliking the manner of the march, he remained in
Vittoria until a better opportunity, and so escaped.
These partizan operations, combined with the descents on the coast,
the aspect of the war in Estremadura, and the unprotected state
of Castile, which was now menaced by Santocildes, were rendered
more important by another event to be noticed hereafter: Bessieres
therefore resolved to contract his position in the north; and first
causing Reille and Caffarelli to scour Biscay and the Rioja, he
ordered Bonet to abandon the Asturias. On the 14th of June that
general, having dismantled the coast-batteries, sent his sick and
baggage by sea to Santander and marched into Leon, where Santocildes,
who had now increased the Gallician field army to thirteen thousand
men, was menacing Astorga, which place the French evacuated after
blowing up some of the works. Serras and Bonet then united on the
Esla, and being supported by three thousand men from Rio Seco,
skirmished at the Ponte de Orvigo on the 23d, but had the worst, and
general Valletaux was killed on their side: and as lord Wellington’s
operations in Estremadura soon drew the French armies towards
that quarter Santocildes held his ground at Astorga until August.
Meanwhile two thousand French were thrown into Santona, and general
Rognet coming, from the side of Burgos, with a division of the young
guard, made a fruitless incursion against the Partidas of Liebana.
[Sidenote: 1811. June.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 1.]
This system of warfare was necessarily harassing to the French
divisions actually engaged, but it was evident that neither the
Asturias nor Gallicia could be reckoned as good auxiliaries to lord
Wellington. Gallicia with its lordly junta, regular army, fortified
towns, rugged fastnesses, numerous population, and constant supplies
from England, was of less weight in the contest than five thousand
Portuguese militia conducted by Trant and Wilson. The irregular
warfare was now also beginning to produce its usual effects; the tree
though grafted in patriotism bore strange fruit. In Biscay, which had
been longest accustomed to the presence of the invaders, the armed
peasantry were often found fighting in the ranks of the enemy, and
on one occasion did of themselves attack the boats of the Amelia
frigate to save French military stores! Turning now to the other line
of invasion, we shall find the contest fiercer, indeed, and more
honourable to the Spaniards, but the result still more unfavourable
to their cause.
OPERATIONS IN THE EASTERN PROVINCES.
It will be remembered that Suchet, after the fall of Mequinenza, was
ordered to besiege Tortoza while Macdonald marched against Taragona.
Massena was then concentrating his army for the invasion of Portugal,
and it was the emperor’s intention that Suchet should, after taking
Tortoza, march with half of the third corps to support the prince
of Esling. But the reduction of Tortoza proved a more tedious task
than Napoleon anticipated, and as the course of events had now given
the French armies of Catalonia and Aragon a common object, it will
be well to compare their situation and resources with those of their
adversary.
Suchet was completely master of Aragon, and not more by the force of
his arms, than by the influence of his administration; the province
was fertile, and so tranquil in the interior, that his magazines
were all filled, and his convoys travelled under the care of Spanish
commissaries and conductors. Mina was however in Navarre on his
rear, and he communicated on the right bank of the Ebro with the
Partidas in the mountains of Moncayo and Albaracin; and these last
were occasionally backed by the Empecinado, Duran, and others whose
strong-holds were in the Guadalaxara, and who from thence infested
Cuença and the vicinity of Madrid. From Albaracin, Villa Campa
continued the chain of partizan warfare and connected it with the
Valencian army, which had also a line of operation towards Cuença.
Mina, who communicated with the English vessels in the bay of Biscay,
received his supplies from Coruña; and the others, in like manner,
corresponded with Valencia, from whence the English consul Tupper
succoured them with arms, money, and ammunition. Thus a line was
drawn quite across the Peninsula which it was in vain for the enemy
to break, as the retreat was secure at both ends, and the excitement
to renewed efforts constant.
On the other flank of Suchet’s position the high valleys of the
Pyrenees were swarming with small bands, forming a link between
Mina and a division of the Catalonian army stationed about the Seu
d’Urgel, which was a fortified castle, closing the passage leading
from the plain of that name to the Cerdaña: this division in
conjunction with Rovira, and other partizans, extended the irregular
warfare on the side of Olot and Castelfollit to the Ampurdan; and
the whole depended upon Taragona, which itself was supported by
the English fleet in the Mediterranean. Aragon may therefore be
considered as an invested fortress, which the Spaniards thought to
reduce by famine, by assault, and by exciting the population against
the garrison; but Suchet baffled them; he had made such judicious
arrangements that his convoys were secure in the interior, and all
the important points on the frontier circle were fortified, and
connected, with Zaragoza, by chains of minor ports radiating from
that common centre. Lerida, Mequinenza, and the plain of Urgel
in Catalonia, the fort of Morella in Valencia, were his; and by
fortifying Teruel and Alcanitz he had secured the chief passages
leading through the mountains to the latter kingdom: he could thus,
at will, invade either Catalonia or Valencia, and from Mequinenza
he could, by water, transport the stores necessary to besiege
Tortoza. Nor were these advantages the result of aught but his
uncommon talents for war, a consideration which rendered them doubly
formidable.
The situation of the French in Catalonia was different. Macdonald,
who had assumed the command at the moment when Napoleon wished
him to co-operate with Suchet, was inexperienced in the peculiar
warfare of the province, and unprepared to execute any extended plan
of operations. His troops were about Gerona and Hostalrich, which
were in fact the bounds of the French conquest at this period; for
Barcelona was a military point beyond their field system, and only
to be maintained by expeditions; and the country was so exhausted
of provisions in the interior, that the army itself could only be
fed by land-convoys from France, or by such coasters as, eluding the
vigilance of the English cruizers, could reach Rosas, St. Filieu,
and Palamos. Barcelona like the horse-leech continually cried for
more, and as the inhabitants as well as the garrison depended on the
convoys, the latter were enormous, reference being had to the limited
means of the French general, and the difficulty of moving; for,
although the distance between Hostalrich and Barcelona was only forty
miles, the road, as far as Granollers, was a succession of defiles,
and crossed by several rivers, of which the Congosta and the Tordera
were considerable obstacles; and the nature of the soil was clayey
and heavy, especially in the defiles of the Trenta Pasos.
These things rendered it difficult for Macdonald to operate in
regular warfare from his base of Gerona, and as the stores for the
siege of Taragona were to come from France, until they arrived he
could only make sudden incursions with light baggage, trusting to the
resources still to be found in the open country, or to be gathered
in the mountains by detachments which would have to fight for every
morsel. This then was the condition of the French armies, that
starting from separate bases, they had to operate on lines meeting at
Tortoza. It remains to shew the situation of the Catalan general.
[Sidenote: 1810. July.]
After the battle of Margalef, Henry O’Donnel reunited his scattered
forces, and being of a stern unyielding disposition, not only
repressed the discontent occasioned by that defeat, but forced the
reluctant Miguelettes to swell his ranks and to submit to discipline.
Being assisted with money and arms by the British agents, and having
free communication by sea with Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Minorca, he
was soon enabled to reorganize his army, to collect vast magazines
at Taragona, and to strengthen that place by new works. In July his
force again amounted to twenty-two thousand men exclusive of the
Partidas, and of the Somatenes, who were useful to aid in a pursuit,
to break up roads, and to cut off straggling soldiers. Of this number
one division under Campo Verde, was, as I have before said, in the
higher valleys, having a detachment at Olot, and being supported by
the fortified castles of Seu D’Urgel, Cardona, Solsona, and Berga.
A second division was on the Llobregat, watching the garrison of
Barcelona, and having detachments in Montserrat, Igualada, and
Manresa to communicate with Campo Verde. The third division, the
reserve and the cavalry were on the hills about Taragona, and that
place and Tortoza had large garrisons.
[Sidenote: General Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Green’s do MSS.]
[Sidenote: Official Abstracts of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.]
By this disposition, O’Donnel occupied Falcet, the Col de Balaguer,
and the Col del Alba, which were the passages leading to Tortoza;
the Col de Ribas and Momblanch, which commanded the roads to Lerida;
San Coloma de Queralt and Igualada, through which his connection
with Campo Verde was maintained; and thus the two French armies were
separated not only by the great spinal ridges descending from the
Pyrenees, but by the position of the Spaniards, who held all the
passes, and could at will concentrate and attack either Suchet or
Macdonald. But the Catalonian system was now also connected with
Valencia, where, exclusive of irregulars, there were about fifteen
thousand men under General Bassecour. That officer had in June
occupied Cuença, yet having many quarrels with his officers he could
do nothing, and was driven from thence by troops from Madrid: he
returned to Valencia, but the disputes continued and extended to the
junta or congress of Valencia, three members of which were by the
general imprisoned. Nevertheless, as all parties were now sensible
that Valencia should be defended at Tortoza, Bassecour prepared to
march to its succour by the coast-road where he had several fortified
posts. Thus, while Suchet and Macdonald were combining to crush
O’Donnel, the latter was combining with Bassecour, to press upon
Suchet; and there was always the English maritime force at hand to
aid the attacks or to facilitate the escape of the Spaniards.
In the above exposition I have called the native armies by the names
of their provinces, but in December 1810 the whole military force
being reorganized by the regency the armies were designated by
numbers. Thus the Catalonian forces, formerly called _the army of
the right_, was now called the _first army_. The Valencians, together
with Villa Campa’s division, and the partidas of the Empecinado and
Duran, were called the _second army_. The Murcian force was called
the _third army_. The troops at Cadiz, at Algesiras, and in the Conde
Niebla were called the _fourth army_. The remnants of Romana’s old
Gallician division which had escaped the slaughter on the Gebora
formed the _fifth army_. The new-raised troops of Gallicia and those
of the Asturias were called the _sixth army_. And the partidas of the
north, that is to say, Mina’s, Longa’s, Campillo’s, Porlier’s, and
other smaller bands formed the _seventh army_.
Such was the state of affairs when Napoleon’s order to besiege
Tortoza arrived. Suchet was ready to execute it. More than fifty
battering guns selected from those at Lerida were already equipped,
and his depôts were established at Mequinenza, Caspe, and Alcanitz.
All the fortified posts were provisioned; twelve thousand men under
general Musnier, intended for the security of Aragon, were disposed
at Huesca and other minor points on the left bank of the Ebro, and
at Daroca, Teruel, and Calatayud on the right bank; and while these
arrangements were being executed, the troops destined for the siege
had assembled at Lerida and Alcanitz, under generals Habert and
Laval, their provisions being drawn from the newly conquered district
of Urgel.
[Sidenote: See plans, No. 1 & 3.]
From Mequinenza, which was the principal depôt, there was
water-carriage, but as the Ebro was crossed at several points by
rocky bars, some of which were only passable in full water, the
communication was too uncertain to depend upon, and Suchet therefore
set workmen to reopen an old road thirty miles in length, which had
been made by the duke of Orleans during the war of the succession.
This road pierced the mountains on the right bank of the Ebro, passed
through Batea and other places to Mora, and from thence by Pinel to
Tortoza, running through a celebrated defile called indifferently
the _Trincheras_ and the _Passage of Arms_. When these preliminary
arrangements were made general Habert assembled his division at
Belpuig near Lerida, and after making a feint as if to go towards
Barcelona, suddenly turned to his right, and penetrating through the
district of Garriga, reached Garcia on the left bank of the Lower
Ebro the 5th of July. Laval at the same time quitted Alcanitz, made a
feint towards Valencia by Morella, and then turning to his left, came
so unexpectedly upon Tortoza by the right bank of the Ebro, that he
surprised some of the outposts on the 2d, and then encamped before
the bridge-head. The 4th he extended his line to Amposta, seized the
ferry-boat of the great road from Barcelona to Valencia, and posted
Boussard’s cuirassiers, with a battalion of infantry and six guns, at
Uldecona, on the Cenia river, to observe Bassecour’s Valencians.
During these operations Suchet fixed his own quarters at Mora, and
as the new road was not finished, he occupied Miravet, Pinel, and
the Trincheras, on its intended line; and having placed flying
bridges, with covering works, on the Ebro, at Mora and Xerta, made
those places his depôt of siege. He likewise seized the craft on the
river, established posts at Rapita, near the mouth of the Ebro, and
at Amposta, and made a fruitless attempt to burn the boat-bridge of
Tortoza, with fire vessels. Following Napoleon’s order, Macdonald
should at this time have been before Taragona; but on the 9th, Suchet
learned, from a spy, that the seventh corps was still at Gerona, and
he thus found himself exposed alone to the combined efforts of the
Catalans and Valencians. This made him repent of having moved from
Aragon so soon, yet thinking it would be bad to retire, he resolved
to blockade Tortoza; hoping to resist both O’Donnel and Bassecour
until Macdonald could advance.
The Spaniards who knew his situation, sallied on the right bank the
6th and 8th, and on the 10th his outposts on the left bank were
driven in at Tivisa by a division from Falcet, which, the next day,
fell on his works at Mora, but was repulsed; and the 12th, general
Paris pushed back the Spanish line, while Habert took post in
force at Tivisa, by which he covered the roads to Xerta and Mora.
O’Donoghue, who commanded Bassecour’s advanced guard, now menaced
Morella, but general Montmarie being detached to its succour, drove
him away.
The 30th, O’Donnel having brought up fresh troops to Falcet, made a
feint with ten thousand men against Tivisa, and then suddenly entered
Tortoza, from whence at mid-day, on the 3d of August, he passed the
bridge and fell with the bayonet on Laval’s entrenchments. The French
gave way at first, but soon rallied, and the Spaniards fearing for
their communications regained the town in disorder, having lost two
hundred prisoners besides killed and wounded.
[Sidenote: 1810. August.]
This operation had been concerted with general Caro, who having
superseded O’Donoghue, was now marching with the Valencians by the
coast-road towards Uldecona: Suchet therefore, judging that the
intention of the Spaniards was to force him away from the Lower Ebro,
before Macdonald could pass the Llobregat, resolved first to strike
a sudden blow at the Valencians, and then turn upon the Catalans.
In this view he contracted his quarters on the Ebro, and united at
Uldecona, on the 13th, eleven battalions with eight hundred horsemen.
Caro was then in a strong position covering the two great routes to
Valencia, but when the French, after driving in his advanced guard
from Vinaros, came up, his Valencians would not stand a battle,
and being followed beyond Peniscola separated and retreated in
disorder by different roads. Whereupon Suchet returned to Mora, and
there found an officer of Macdonald’s army, who brought information
that the seventh corps was at last in the plains of Reus, and its
communications with the third corps open.
OPERATIONS OF THE SEVENTH CORPS.
[Sidenote: 1810. June.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes des François.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
When Macdonald succeeded Augereau he found the troops in a state of
insubordination, accustomed to plunder, and excited to ferocity by
the cruelty of the Catalans, and by the conduct of his predecessor;
they were without magazines or regular subsistence, and lived by
exactions: hence the people, driven to desperation, were more like
wild beasts than men, and the war was repulsive to him in all its
features. It was one of shifts and devices, and he better understood
methodical movements; it was one of plunder, and he was a severe
disciplinarian; it was full of cruelty on all sides, and he was
of a humane and just disposition. Being resolved to introduce
regular habits, Macdonald severely rebuked the troops for their bad
discipline and cruelty, and endeavoured to soothe the Catalans,
but neither could be brought to soften in their enmity; the mutual
injuries sustained, were too horrible and too recent to be forgiven.
The soldiers, drawn from different countries, and therefore not bound
by any common national feeling, were irritated against a general, who
made them pay for wanton damages, and punished them for plundering;
and the Catalans attributing his conduct to fear, because he could
not entirely restrain the violence of his men, still fled from
the villages, and still massacred his stragglers with unrelenting
barbarity.
While establishing his system it was impossible for Macdonald to
take the field, because, without magazines, no army can be kept in
due discipline; wherefore he remained about Gerona, drawing with
great labour and pains his provisions from France, and storing up the
overplus for his future operations. On the 10th of June however the
wants of Barcelona became so serious, that leaving his baggage under
a strong guard at Gerona, and his recruits and cavalry at Figueras,
he marched with ten thousand men and a convoy, to its relief, by the
way of the Trenta Pasos, Cardedieu, and Granollers. The road was
heavy, the defiles narrow, the rivers swelled, and the manner of
march rather too pompous for the nature of the war, for Macdonald
took post in order of battle on each side of the defiles, while the
engineers repaired the ways: in every thing adhered to his resolution
of restoring a sound system; but while imitating the Jugurthine
Metellus, he forgot that he had not Romans, but a mixed and
ferocious multitude under his command, and he lost more by wasting of
time, than he gained by enforcing an irksome discipline. Thus when he
had reached Barcelona, his own provisions were expended, his convoy
furnished only a slender supply for the city, and the next day he was
forced to return with the empty carts in all haste to Gerona, where
he resumed his former plan of action, and demolished the forts beyond
that city.
[Sidenote: 1810. July.]
In July he collected another convoy and prepared to march in the
same order as before, for his intent was to form magazines in
Barcelona sufficient for that city and his own supply, during the
siege of Taragona; but meanwhile Suchet was unable to commence the
siege of Tortoza, in default of the co-operation of the seventh
corps; and Henry O’Donnel having gained time to reorganize his army
and to re-establish his authority was now ready to interrupt the
French marshal’s march, proposing, if he failed, to raise a fresh
insurrection in the Ampurdan, and thus give further occupation on
that side. He had transferred a part of his forces to Caldas, Santa
Coloma, and Bruñolas, taking nearly the same positions that Blake had
occupied during the siege of Gerona; but the French detachments soon
obliged him to concentrate again behind the defiles of the Congosta,
where he hoped to stop the passage of the convoy; Macdonald, however,
entered Hostalrich on the 16th, forced the Trenta Pasos on the 17th,
and although his troops had only fifty rounds of ammunition he drove
three thousand men from the pass of Garriga on the 18th, reached
Barcelona that night, delivered his convoy, and returned immediately.
[Sidenote: 1810. August.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
The French soldiers now became sickly from the hardships of a march
rendered oppressive by the severity of their discipline, and many
also deserted; yet others, who had before gone off, returned to their
colours, reinforcements arrived from France, and the emperor’s orders
to take the field were becoming so pressing, that Macdonald, giving
Baraguay d’Hilliers the command of the Ampurdan, marched on the 8th
of August with a third convoy for Barcelona, resolved at last to
co-operate with Suchet. Instructed by experience he however moved
this time with less formality, and having reached Barcelona the 11th,
deposited his convoy, appointed Maurice Mathieu governor of that
city, and on the 15th forced the pass of Ordal, and reached Villa
Franca with about sixteen thousand men under arms. O’Donnel, still
smarting from the affair at Tortoza, retired before him to Taragona
without fighting, but directed Campo Verde to leave a body of troops
under general Martinez in the mountains about Olot, and to move
himself through Montserrat to the district of Garriga, which lies
between Lerida and Tortoza; meanwhile the seventh corps passed by
Braffin and Valls into the plain of Reus, and as we have seen opened
the communication with Suchet, but to how little purpose shall be
shewn in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
[Sidenote: 1810. August.]
As the Spanish general knew that the French could at Reus find
provisions for only a few days, he withdrew his division from Falcet,
and while Campo Verde, coming into the Garriga, occupied the passes
behind them, and other troops were placed in the defiles between
Valls and Villafranca, he held the main body of his army concentrated
at Taragona, ready to fall upon Macdonald whenever he should move.
This done, he became extremely elated, for like all Spaniards he
imagined that to surround an enemy was the perfection of military
operations. Macdonald cared little for the vicinity of the Catalan
troops, but he had not yet formed sufficient magazines at Barcelona
to commence the siege of Taragona, nor could he, as O’Donnel had
foreseen, procure more than a few days supply about Reus, he
therefore relinquished all idea of a siege and proposed to aid Suchet
in the operation against Tortoza, if the latter would feed the
seventh corps; and pending Suchet’s decision he resolved to remove to
Lerida.
The 25th of August leaving seven hundred sick men in Reus, he made a
feint against the Col de Balaguer, but soon changing his direction
marched upon Momblanch and the Col de Ribas: his rear-guard, composed
of Italian troops, being overtaken near Alcover, offered battle at
the bridge of Goy, but this the Spaniards declined, and they also
neglected to secure the heights on each side, which the Italians
immediately turned to account and so made their way to Pixamoxons.
They were pursued immediately, and Sarsfield coming from the Lerida
side disputed the passage of Pixamoxons; but Macdonald, keeping the
troops from Taragona in check with a rear-guard, again sent his
Italians up the hills on the flanks while he pushed his French troops
against the front of the enemy, and so succeeded; for the Italians
quickly carried the heights, the rear-guard was very slightly
pressed, the front was unopposed, and in two hours, the army reached
Momblanch, whence after a short halt, it descended into the plains of
Urgel.
[Sidenote: 1810. Sept.]
Suchet being informed of this march came from Mora to confer with
Macdonald, and they agreed that the seventh corps should have for its
subsistence the magazines of Monzon and the plains of Urgel, which
had not yet delivered its contributions. In return Macdonald lent
the Neapolitan division to guard Suchet’s convoys down the Ebro,
and promised that the divisions of Severoli and Souham should cover
the operations of the third corps, during the siege of Tortoza, by
drawing the attention of the Catalan generals to the side of Cardona.
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
The seventh corps was now quartered about Tarega, Cervera, Guisona,
and Agramunt, and Severola was detached with four thousand men over
the Segre to enforce the requisitions about Talarn. He drove four
hundred Swiss from the bridge of Tremp, and executed his mission, but
with such violence that the people, becoming furious, assassinated
the stragglers, and laid so many successful schemes of murder, that
Macdonald was forced reluctantly to renew the executions and burnings
of his predecessors. Indeed, to feed an army forcibly when all
things are paid for, will, in a poor and mountainous country, create
soreness, because the things taken cannot easily be replaced; but
with requisitions severity is absolutely necessary. In rich plains
the inhabitants can afford to supply the troops and will do so, to
avoid being plundered; but mountaineers having scarcely any thing
besides food, and little of that, are immediately rendered desperate
and must be treated as enemies or left in quiet.
While Severoli was ravaging Tremp and Talarn, general Eugenio marched
with another Italian detachment towards Castelfollit, which had a
French garrison, and Macdonald removed his own quarters to Cervera.
Meanwhile O’Donnel, having replaced his division at Falcet to observe
Suchet, distributed his other forces on the line of communication
through San Coloma de Querault, Igualada, Montserrat, and Cardona; he
thus cut off all connection between Macdonald and the Ampurdan, and
enabled Campo Verde closely to follow the operations of the seventh
corps, and that general seeing the French army separated, fell first
upon the head-quarters at Cervera, but being unsuccessful, marched
against Eugenio, and was by him also repulsed near Castelfollit.
Eugenio, distinguished alike by his valour and ferocity, then
returned with his booty to Agramunt, and afterwards invading Pons,
spoiled and ravaged all that district without hindrance. The
provisions obtained, were heaped up in Lerida and Balaguer; but while
Macdonald was thus acting in the plain of Urgel, O’Donnel formed and
executed the most skilful plan which had yet graced the Spanish arms.
We have seen that Baraguay d’Hilliers was left with eighteen
or twenty thousand men in the Ampurdan, but these troops were
necessarily scattered: seven hundred were at Palamos, San Filieu,
and other small ports along the coast; twelve hundred, under general
Swartz, were quartered in Abispal, one short march from Gerona,
and two hundred were at Calonjé, connecting Abispal with Palamos;
the rest were in Figueras, Rosas, Olot, Castelfollit, Gerona, and
Hostalrich, and several thousand were in hospital. O’Donnel having
exact knowledge of all this, left a small garrison in Taragona,
placed the baron d’Errolles at Montserrat, colonel Georget at
Igualada, and Obispo at Martorel, while with six thousand infantry
and four hundred cavalry he marched himself through the mountains,
by San Culgat to Mattaro on the sea-coast: then crossing the Tordera
below Hostalrich, he moved rapidly by Vidreras to Llagostera which he
reached the 12th of September. His arrival was unknown to Macdonald,
or Maurice Mathieu, or Baraguay d’Hilliers, for though many reports
of his intentions were afloat, most of them spread by himself, no
person divined his real object: by some he was said to be gone
against a French corps, which, from the side of Navarre, had entered
the Cerdaña; by others that he was concentrating at Manresa, and many
concluded that he was still in Taragona.
Having thus happily attained his first object, O’Donnel proceeded
in his plan with a vigour of execution equal to the conception.
Leaving Campo Verde with a reserve in the valley of Aro, he sent
detachments to fall on Calonjé and the posts along the coast, the
operations there being seconded by two English frigates; and while
this was in progress, O’Donnel himself on the 14th marched violently
down from Casa de Silva upon Abispal. Swartz, always unfortunate,
had his infantry and some cavalry under arms in an entrenched
camp, and accepted battle; but after losing two hundred men and
seeing no retreat, yielded, and all the French troops along the
coast were likewise forced to surrender. The prisoners and spoil
were immediately embarked on board the English vessels and sent to
Taragona.
[Sidenote: 1810. October.]
Until this moment Baraguay d’Hilliers was quite ignorant of
O’Donnel’s arrival, and the whole Ampurdan was thrown into confusion;
for the Somatenes, rising in all parts, cut off the communications
with Macdonald, whose posts on the side of Calaf and Cervera were at
the same time harassed by Errolles and Obispo: nevertheless, although
a rumour of Swartz’s disaster reached him, Macdonald would not credit
it, and continued in the plain of Urgel. Baraguay d’Hilliers was
therefore unable to do more than protect his own convoys from France,
and would have been in a dangerous position if O’Donnel’s activity
had continued; but that general having been severely wounded, the
Spanish efforts relaxed, and Napoleon, whose eyes were every where,
sent general Conroux, in the latter end of October, with a convoy
and reinforcement of troops from Perpignan to Gerona. O’Donnel,
troubled by his wound, then embarked; and Campo Verde, who succeeded
to the command, immediately sent a part of the army to Taragona, left
Rovira, and Claros, and Manso, to nourish the insurrection in the
Ampurdan, and took post himself at Manresa, from thence he at first
menaced Macdonald’s posts at Calaf; but his real object was to break
up that road, which he effected, and then passed suddenly through
Berga and Cardona to Puigcerda, and drove the French detachment,
which had come from Navarre to ravage the fertile district of
Cerdaña, under the guns of Fort Louis.
This excursion attracted Macdonald’s attention, he was now
fully apprized of Swartz’s misfortune, and he hoped to repair
it by crushing Campo Verde, taking Cardona, and dispersing the
local junta of Upper Catalonia, which had assembled in Solsona;
wherefore, on the 18th, he put his troops in motion, and the 19th,
passing the mountains of Portellas, entered Solsona; but the junta
and the inhabitants escaped to Cardona and Berja, and up the
valleys of Oleana and Urgel. Macdonald immediately sent columns
in all directions to collect provisions and to chase the Spanish
detachments, and this obliged Campo Verde to abandon the Cerdaña,
which was immediately foraged by the troops from Fort Louis. It only
remained to sieze Cardona, and on the 21st the French marched against
that place; but Campo Verde, by a rapid movement, arrived before
them, and was in order of battle with a considerable force when
Macdonald came up.
COMBAT OF CARDONA.
This town stands at the foot of a rugged hill, which is joined by
a hog’s-back ridge to the great mountain spine, dividing Eastern
from Western Catalonia. The Cardona river washed the walls, a castle
of strength crowned the height above, and though the works of the
place were weak, the Spanish army, covering all the side of the
hill between the town and the castle, presented such an imposing
spectacle, that the French general resolved to avoid a serious
action. But the French and Italians marched in separate columns, and
the latter under Eugenio, who arrived first, attacked contrary to
orders; yet he soon found his hands too full, and thus, against his
will, Macdonald was obliged also to engage to bring Eugenio off. Yet
neither was he able to resist Campo Verde, who drove all down the
mountain, and followed them briskly as they retreated to Solsona.
Macdonald lost many men in this fight, and on the 26th returned
to Guisona. It was now more than two months since he had left the
Ampurdan, and during that time he had struck no useful blow against
the Spaniards, nor had he, in any serious manner, aided Suchet’s
operations; for the Catalans continually harassed that general’s
convoys, from the left of the Ebro, while the seventh corps, besides
suffering severely from assassinations, had been repulsed at Cardona,
had excited the people of the plain of Urgel to a state of rabid
insurrection, and had lost its own communications with the Ampurdan.
In that district the brigade of Swartz had been destroyed, the ports
of Filieu and Palamos taken, and the Catalans were every where become
more powerful and elated than before: Barcelona also was again in
distress, and a convoy from Perpignan destined for its relief dared
not pass Hostalrich. Macdonald therefore resolved to return to Gerona
by the road of Manreza, Moya, and Granollers, and having communicated
his intention to Suchet, and placed his baggage in Lerida, commenced
his march the 4th of November.
[Sidenote: 1810. Nov.]
Campo Verde getting intelligence of this design, took post to fight
near Calaf, yet when the French approached, his heart failed, and he
permitted them to pass. The French general therefore reached Manreza
the 7th, and immediately despatched parties towards Vich and other
places to mislead the Spaniards, while with his main body he marched
by Moya and the Gariga pass to Granollers, where he expected to
meet Baraguay d’Hilliers with the convoy from Barcelona; but being
disappointed in this, he returned by the Trenta Pasos to Gerona the
10th, and sent his convalescents to Figueras.
[Sidenote: 1810. Dec.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
The vicinity of Gerona was now quite exhausted, and fresh convoys
from France were required to feed the troops, while the posts in
the Ampurdan were re-established and the district reorganized.
Macdonald’s muster-rolls presented a force of fifty-one thousand men,
of which ten thousand were in hospital, six thousand in Barcelona,
and several thousand distributed along the coast and on the lines of
communication, leaving somewhat more than thirty thousand disposable
for field-operations. Of this number, fourteen thousand were placed
under Baraguay d’Hilliers to maintain the Ampurdan, and when the
convoys arrived from France the French marshal marched, with the
remaining sixteen thousand, for the fourth time, to the succour of
Barcelona. His divisions were commanded by Souham and Pino, for
Severoli had been recalled to Italy to organize fresh reinforcements;
but following his former plan, this march also was made in one solid
body, and as the defiles had been cut up by the Spaniards, and the
bridge over the Tordera broken, Macdonald set his troops to labour,
and in six hours opened fresh ways over the hills on the right and
left of the Trenta Pasos, and so, without opposition, reached
the more open country about Granollers and Moncada. The Spaniards
then retired by their own left to Tarasa and Caldas, but Macdonald
continued to move on in a solid body upon Barcelona; for as he was
resolved not to expose himself to a dangerous attack, so he avoided
all enterprise. Thus, on the 23d, he would not permit Pino to improve
a favourable opportunity of crushing the Catalans in his front, and
on the 24th, after delivering his convoy and sending the carts back
to Belgarde, instead of pursuing Campo Verde to Tarasa, as all the
generals advised, he marched towards the Llobregat; and as Souham and
Pino remained discontented at Barcelona, their divisions were given
to Frere and Fontanes.
Macdonald moved, on the 27th, towards Taragona, but without any
design to undertake the siege; for though the road by Ordal and
Villa Franca was broad and good, he carried no artillery or
wheel-carriages: the Spaniards, seeing this, judged he would again go
to Lerida, and posted their main body about Montserrat and Igualada;
but he disregarded them, and after beating Sarsfield from Arbos and
Vendril, turned towards the pass of Massarbones, which leads through
the range of hills separating Villa Franca from the district of
Valls. The Catalans had broken up both that and the pass of Christina
leading to the Gaya, yet the French general again made new ways, and
on the 30th spread his troops over the Paneda or plain of Taragona:
thus shewing of how little use it is to destroy roads as a defence,
unless men are also prepared to fight.
[Sidenote: 1811. Jan.]
Instead of occupying Reus as before, Macdonald now took a position
about Momblanch, having his rear towards Lerida, but leaving all the
passes leading from Taragona to the Ebro open for the Spaniards;
so that Suchet derived no benefit from the presence of the seventh
corps, nor could the latter feed itself, nor yet in any manner hinder
the Catalans from succouring Tortoza. For Campo Verde, coming from
Montserrat and Igualada, was encamped above the defiles between the
French position and Taragona, principally at Lilla, on the road
from Valls; and O’Donnel, who still directed the general movements,
although his wound would not suffer him to appear in the field, sent
parties into the Gariga behind Macdonald’s right flank to interrupt
his foraging parties, and to harass Suchet’s communications by the
Ebro.
From the strong heights at Lilla, the Catalans defied the French
soldiers, calling upon them to come up and fight, and they would
have done so if Macdonald would have suffered them, but after ten
days of inactivity he divided his troops into many columns, and in
concert with Abbé’s brigade of the third corps, which marched from
Xerta, endeavoured to inclose and destroy the detachments in the
Gariga; the Spaniards however disappeared in the mountains and the
French army only gained some mules and four thousand sheep and oxen.
With this spoil they united again on the left bank of the Ebro, and
were immediately disposed on a line extending from Vinebre, which
is opposite to Flix, to Masos, which is opposite to Mora, and from
thence to Garcia and Gniestar. Suchet was thus enabled to concentrate
his troops about Tortoza and the siege of that place was immediately
commenced.
The operations of the third corps during the five months it had been
dependent upon the slow movements of the seventh corps shall now be
related.
[Sidenote: 1810. Sept.]
Suchet, by resigning the plain of Urgel and the magazines at Monzon,
for Macdonald’s subsistence, in September, had deprived himself of
all the resources of the left bank of the Ebro from Mequinenza to
Tortoza, and the country about the latter place was barren; hence he
was obliged to send for his provisions to Zaragoza, Teruel, and other
places more than one hundred miles from his camp; and meanwhile the
difficulty of getting his battering train and ammunition down the
river from Mequinenza was increased because of the numerous bars and
weirs which impeded the navigation when the waters were low: moreover
Macdonald, by going to Cardona, exposed the convoys to attacks
from the left bank, by the Spanish troops which being stationed
between Taragona, Momblanch, and Falcet, were always on the watch.
Considering these things Suchet had, while the seventh corps was yet
at Lerida, and the waters accidentally high, employed the Neapolitan
brigade of the seventh corps to escort twenty-six pieces of artillery
down the river. This convoy reached Xerta the 5th of September, and
the Neapolitans were then sent to Guardia; general Habert was placed
at Tivisa; Mas de Mora was occupied by a reserve, and the Spaniards
again took post at Falcet. At this time general Laval died, and
his division was given to general Harispe, a person distinguished
throughout the war by his ability, courage, and humanity.
Meanwhile the Valencian army had again concentrated to disturb
the blockade of Tortoza, wherefore Suchet strengthened Boussard’s
detachment at Uldecona, and gave the command to general Musnier, who
was replaced at Zaragoza by general Paris. At the same time colonel
Kliski was sent to command the detachments on the side of Montalvan,
Teruel, Daroca, and Calatayud, where a partizan warfare was continued
with undiminished activity by Villa Campa, who had contrived to
open secret communications, and to excite some commotions even in
Zaragoza. On the 7th of August he had beaten a French foraging
detachment near Cuevas, and recaptured six thousand sheep, and at
Andorra had taken both convoy and escort. On the side of Navarre
also, Mina coming down into the Cinco Villas destroyed some
detachments, and impeded the foraging parties. Thus the third corps
also began to suffer privations, and no progress was made towards the
conquest of Catalonia.
In September, however, Villa Campa, having increased his forces,
advanced so near Suchet that general Habert attacked and drove him
over the frontier in dispersion, and recaptured all the sheep before
lost, and Suchet then brought down the remainder of the battering
train, and the stores for the siege; but as the waters of the Ebro
were low, the new road was used for the convoys, which thus came
slowly and with many interruptions and considerable loss; especially
on the 17th of September, when a whole Neapolitan battalion suffered
itself to be taken without firing a shot.
[Sidenote: 1810. Oct.]
In this manner affairs dragged on until the 28th of October; but then
Macdonald (O’Donnel having meantime captured Swartz and raised the
Ampurdan) returned to Gerona, whereby Suchet’s hopes of commencing
the siege were again baffled. And, as it was at this moment that
the assembling of the Cortez gave a new vigour to the resistance in
Spain and the regency’s plan of sending secret juntas, to organize
and regulate the proceedings of the partidas, was put in execution,
the activity of those bands became proportioned to the hopes excited,
and the supplies and promises thus conveyed to them. One of those
secret juntas composed of clergy and military men having property or
influence in Aragon, endeavoured to renew the insurrection formerly
excited by Blake in that province, and for this purpose sent their
emissaries into all quarters, and combined their operations with
Mina. They, also, diligently followed a plan of secretly drawing off
the provisions from Aragon, with a view to starve the French, and
general Carbajal, one of the junta, joining Villa Campa, assumed the
supreme command on that side; while captain Codrington, at the desire
of Bassecour, carried a Valencian detachment by sea to Peniscola to
fall on the left flank of Suchet, if he should attempt to penetrate
by the coast-road to Valencia. Thus, at the moment when Macdonald
returned to the Ampurdan, the Aragonese became unquiet, the partidas
from Navarre and the district of Montalvan and Calatayud, closed
in on Suchet’s communications, the Valencians came up on the one
side, towards Uldecona, and on the other Garcia Navarro moving from
Taragona with a division again assumed the position of Falcet.
[Sidenote: 1810. Nov.]
To check this tide of hostility the French general resolved first to
crush the insurrection project, and for this purpose detached seven
battalions and four hundred cavalry against Carbajal. Chlopiski,
who commanded them, defeated the Spaniards the 31st at Alventoza on
the route to Valencia, taking some guns and ammunition. Nevertheless
Villa Campa rallied his men in a few days on the mountain of Fuente
Santa, where he was joined by Carbajal, and having received fresh
succours renewed the project of raising the Aragonese. But Chlopiski
again defeated him the 12th of November, and the Spaniards fled in
confusion towards the river Libras, where the bridge breaking many
were drowned. The French lost more than a hundred men in this sharp
attack, and Chlopiski then returned to the blockade, leaving Kliski
with twelve hundred men to watch Villa Campa’s further movements.
The Ebro having now risen sufficiently, the remainder of the
battering train and stores were embarked at Mequinenza, and on the
3d dropt down the stream; but the craft outstripped the escort, and
the convoy being assailed from the left bank, lost two boats; the
others grounded on the right bank, and were there defended by the
cannoneers, until the escort came up on the one side, and on the
other, general Abbé, who had been sent from Guardia to their succour.
The waters, however, suddenly subsided, and the convoy was still in
danger until Suchet reinforced Abbé, who was thus enabled to keep
the Spaniards at bay, while Habert, with fifteen hundred men, made
a diversion by attacking the camp at Falcet. On the 7th the waters
again rose and the boats with little loss reached Xerta on the 9th,
and thus all things were ready to commence the siege, but the seventh
corps still kept aloof.
Suchet was now exceedingly perplexed; for the provisions he had with
so much pains collected, from the most distant parts of Aragon,
were rapidly wasting; forage was every day becoming scarcer, and the
plain of Urgel, was by agreement given over to the seventh corps,
which thus became a burthen instead of an aid to the third corps.
The latter had been, since the beginning of the year, ordered to
supply itself entirely from the resources of Aragon without any help
from France; and the difficulty of so doing may be judged of by the
fact, that in six months they had consumed above a hundred and twenty
thousand sheep and twelve hundred bullocks.
To obviate the embarrassments thus accumulating, the French general
called the notables and heads of the clergy in Aragon to his
head-quarters, and with their assistance reorganized the whole
system of internal administration, in such a manner, that, giving
his confidence to the natives, removing many absurd restrictions of
their industry and trade, and leaving the municipal power and police
entirely in their hands, he drew forth the resources of the provinces
in greater abundance than before. And yet with less discontent, being
well served and obeyed, both in matters of administration and police,
by the Aragonese, whose feelings he was careful to soothe, shewing
himself in all things, an able governor, as well as a great commander.
Macdonald was now in march from Barcelona towards Taragona, and
Suchet to aid this operation attacked the Spanish troops at Falcet.
General Habert fell on their camp in front the 19th, and to cut
off the retreat, two detachments were ordered to turn it by the
right and left; but Habert’s assault was so brisk, that before the
flanking corps could take their stations the Catalans fled, leaving
their general Garcia Navarro and three hundred men in the hands of
the victors. But while Suchet obtained this success on the side of
Falcet, the Valencian general Bassecour, thinking that the main body
of the French would be detained by Navarro on the left bank of the
Ebro, formed the design of surprising general Musnier at Uldecona.
To aid this operation, a flotilla from the harbour of Peniscola,
attacked Rapita, and other small posts occupied by the French, on
the coast between the Cenia and the Ebro; and at the same time the
governor of Tortoza menaced Amposta and the stations at the mouth of
the Ebro.
Bassecour moved against Uldecona in three columns, one of which,
following the coast-road towards Alcanar, turned the French left,
while another passing behind the mountains took post at Las
Ventallas, in rear of Musnier’s position, to cut him off from
Tortoza. The main body went straight against his front, and in the
night of the 26th the Spanish cavalry fell upon the French camp
outside the town; but the guards, undismayed, opened a fire which
checked the attack, until the troops came out of the town and formed
in order of battle.
[Sidenote: Suchet’s Memoirs.]
[Sidenote: Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatch. MSS.]
At daylight the Spanish army was perceived covering the hills in
front; and those in rear also, for the detachment at Ventallas was
in sight; the French were thus surrounded and the action immediately
commenced; but the Valencians were defeated with the loss of sixteen
hundred men, and the detachment in the rear seeing the result made
off to the mountains again. Bassecour then withdrew in some order
behind the Cenia, where in the night Musnier surprised him, and at
the same time sent the cuirassiers by the route of Vinaros to cut
off his retreat, which was made with such haste and disorder that the
French cavalry falling in with the fugitives near Benicarlo, killed
or took nine hundred. Bassecour saved himself in Peniscola, and
thither also the flotilla, having failed at Rapita, returned.
Suchet having thus cleared his rear, sent his prisoners to France
by Jaca, and directed a convoy of provisions, newly collected at
Mequinenza, to fall down the Ebro to the magazines at Mora: fearing
however that the current might again carry the boats faster than the
escort, he directed the latter to proceed first, and sent general
Abbé to Flix to meet the vessels. The Spaniards in the Garriga
observing this disposition, placed an ambuscade near Mequinenza, and
attacked the craft before they could come up with the escort; the
boats were then run ashore on the right side, and seventy men from
Mequinenza came down the left bank to their aid, which saved the
convoy, but the succouring detachment was cut to pieces. Soon after
this the seventh corps having scoured the Garriga took post on the
left bank of the Ebro, and enabled the third corps to commence the
long delayed siege.
CHAPTER III.
[Sidenote: 1810. Dec.]
Tortoza, with a population of ten thousand souls and a garrison of
from eight to nine thousand regular troops, was justly considered
the principal bulwark of both Catalonia and Valencia, but it was
under the command of general Lilli, Conde d’Alacha, a feeble man,
whose only claim was, that he had shewn less incapacity than others
before the battle of Tudela in 1808. However, so confident were the
Spaniards in the strength of the place that the French attack was
considerably advanced ere any interruption was contemplated, and had
any well considered project for its relief been framed, it could
not have been executed, because jealousy and discord raged amongst
the Spanish chiefs. Campo Verde was anxious to succeed O’Donnel in
command of the Catalonian army, Bassecourt held unceasing dispute
with his own officers, and with the members of the junta or congress
of Valencia; and Villa Campa repelled the interference both of
Carbajal and Bassecour.
At this critical time therefore every thing was stagnant, except the
English vessels which blockaded Rosas, Barcelona, and the mouths of
the Ebro, or from certain head-lands observed and pounced upon the
enemy’s convoys creeping along from port to port: they had thrown
provisions, ammunition, and stores of all kinds into Taragona and
Tortoza, and were generally successful, yet at times met with
disasters. Thus captain Rogers of the Kent, having with him the Ajax,
Cambrian, Sparrow-hawk, and Minstrel, disembarked six hundred men and
two field-pieces under captain Fane at Palamos, where they destroyed
a convoy intended for Barcelona; but as the seamen were re-embarking
in a disorderly manner, the French fell upon them and took or killed
two hundred, captain Fane being amongst the prisoners.
[Sidenote: Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS.]
The Catalan army was thirty thousand strong, including garrisons, and
in a better state than it had hitherto been; the Valencians, although
discouraged by the defeat at Uldecona, were still numerous, and all
things tended to confirm the Spaniards in the confident expectation
that whether succoured or unsuccoured the place would not fall. But
O’Donnel, who had been created Conde de’ Bispal was so disabled by
wounds, that he resigned the command soon after the siege commenced,
and Campo Verde was by the voice of the people raised in his stead;
for it was their nature always to believe that the man who made most
noise was the fittest person to head them, and in this instance, as
in most others, they were greatly mistaken.
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Rogniat.]
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
Tortoza, situated on the left of the Ebro, communicated with the
right bank by a bridge of boats, which was the only Spanish bridge on
that river, from Zaragoza to the sea; and below and above the place
there was a plain, but so narrowed by the juttings of the mountains
at the point where the town was built, that while part of the houses
stood close to the water on flat ground, the other part stood on the
bluff rocky points shot from the hills above; and thus appeared to
tie the mountains, the river, and the plains together.
Five of these shoots were taken into the defence, either by the
ramparts or by outworks. That on the south of the town was crowned by
the fort of Orleans, and on the north another was occupied by a fort
called the Tenaxas. To the east a horn-work was raised on a third
shoot, which being prolonged, and rising suddenly again between the
suburbs and the city, furnished the site of a castle or citadel: the
other two, and the deep ravines between them were defended by the
ramparts of the place, which were extremely irregular, and strong
from their situation, rather than their construction.
There were four fronts.
1º. _The northern defending the suburb._ Although this front was
built on the plain, it was so imbedded between the Ebro, the
horn-work, the citadel, and the Tenaxas, that it could not even be
approached without first taking the latter fort.
2º. _The eastern. Extending from the horn-work to the bastion
of San Pico._ Here the deep ravines and the rocky nature of the
ground, which was also overlooked by the citadel and flanked by the
horn-work, rendered any attack very difficult.
3º. _The south eastern. From the bastion of San Pico to the bastion
of Santa Cruz._ This front, protected by a deep narrow ravine, was
again covered by the fort of Orleans, which was itself covered by a
second ravine.
4º. _The southern. From the Santa Cruz to the Ebro._ The ground of
approach here was flat, the soil easy to work in, and the fort of
Orleans not sufficiently advanced to flank it with any dangerous
effect; wherefore against this front Suchet resolved to conduct his
attack.
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
[Sidenote: Official extract of Mr. Wellesley’s despatches MSS.]
The Rocquetta, a rising ground opposite the bridge-head on the right
bank of the Ebro, was fortified and occupied by three regiments,
but the other troops were collected at Xerta; and the 15th, before
day-break, Suchet crossed the Ebro by his own bridge at that point,
with eight battalions, the sappers, and two squadrons of hussars. He
marched between the mountains and the river upon the fort of Tenaxas,
while general Habert, with two regiments and three hundred hussars,
moved from the side of Perillo, and attacked a detachment of the
garrison which was encamped on the Col d’Alba eastward of the city.
When Suchet’s column arrived in sight of the works, the head took
ground, but the rear, under general Harispe, filed off to the left,
across the rugged shoots from the hills, and swept round the place,
leaving in every ravine and on every ridge a detachment, until the
half circle ended on the Ebro, below Tortoza. The investment was then
perfected on the left bank by the troops from Rocquetta; and during
this movement Habert, having seized the Col d’Alba, entered the
line of investment, driving before him six hundred men, who hardly
escaped being cut off from the place by the march of Harispe. The
communication across the water was then established by three, and
afterwards by four flying bridges, placed above and below the town; a
matter of some difficulty and importance, because all the artillery
and stores had to come from Rocquetta, across the water, which was
there two hundred yards wide, and in certain winds very rough.
The camps of investment were now secured, and meanwhile Macdonald,
sending the greatest part of his cavalry, for which he could find
no forage, back to Lerida by the road of Lardecans, marched, from
Mas de Mora, across the hills to Perillo, to cover the siege. His
patroles discovered a Spanish division in a position resting upon
the fort of Felipe de Balaguer, yet he would not attack them, and
thinking he could not remain for want of provisions, returned on
the 19th to Gniestar; but this retrograde movement was like to have
exposed the investing troops to a disaster, for as the seventh corps
retired, a second Spanish division coming from Reus reinforced the
first. However, Macdonald, seeing this, placed Frere’s division of
six thousand infantry and a regiment of cavalry at Suchet’s disposal,
on condition that the latter should feed them, which he could well
do. These troops were immediately stationed behind the investing
force, on the road of Amposta, by which the Spaniards from Taragona
could most easily approach; and the remainder of the seventh corps
encamped at Gniestar, a strong position covering the siege on the
side of Falcet, only fifteen miles distant from Tortoza. In this
situation it could be more easily fed from Lerida, and could with
greater facility send detachments up the Ebro, to protect the convoy
of the third corps coming from Mequinenza.
[Sidenote: Wimphen’s Memoir.]
The Catalan army was now divided, part being kept on the Llobregat,
under general Caro, part under general Yranzo at Momblanch, and part,
under Campo Verde, on the hills watching Frere’s covering division.
O’Donnel had before directed two convoys upon Tortoza, but the
rapidity with which the investment had been effected prevented them
from entering the place; and while he was endeavouring to arrange
with Bassecour and Campo Verde a general plan of succour, his wounds
forced him to embark for Valencia, when the command, of right,
belonged to Yranzo, but the people, as I have before said, insisted
upon having Campo Verde.
[Illustration: _Vol. 4 Plate 1._
_Explanatory Sketch_
OF THE
SIEGE OF TORTOZA,
1811.
_London. Published by T. & W. BOONE._]
SIEGE OF TORTOZA.
The half bastion of San Pedro, which was situated in the plain, and
close to the river, was the first object of the French attack, and
to prevent the fire of Fort Orleans from incommoding the trenches,
the line of approach was traced in a slanting direction, refusing the
right, and pushing forward the left; and to protect its flanks on the
one side, Fort Orleans was masked by a false attack, while, on the
other side of the Ebro, trenches were opened against the bridge-head,
and brought down close to the water.
The 19th the posts of the besieged were all driven in, and an
unfinished Spanish work, commenced on the heights in advance of Fort
Orleans, was taken possession of. In the night, a flying sap was
commenced upon an extent of three hundred and sixty yards, and at
a distance of only one hundred and sixty from the fort; but in the
following night, the true attack was undertaken in the plain, during
a storm of wind which, together with the negligence of the Spaniards,
who had placed no guards in front of their covered way, enabled the
besiegers to begin this work at only one hundred and fifty yards from
the half bastion of San Pedro. This parallel was above five hundred
yards long, extending from the false attack against Fort Orleans,
down to the bank of the river; two communications were also begun,
and on the left bank ground was broken against the bridge-head.
The 21st, at day-break, the Spaniards, perceiving the works,
commenced a heavy fire, and soon after made a sally; but they were
overwhelmed by musketry from the false attack of Fort Orleans, and
from the trenches on the right bank of the Ebro.
In the night of the 21st, the communication in the plain was extended
to fourteen hundred yards, nine batteries were commenced, and bags of
earth were placed along the edge of the trenches, whence chosen men
shot down the Spanish artillery-men.
On the 23rd, a night sally, made from the bridge-head, was repulsed;
and on the 24th, the second parallel of the true attack was commenced.
In the night of the 25th, at eleven o’clock and at one o’clock,
separate sallies were again made, but both were repulsed, and the
works were advanced to within twenty-five yards of the pallisades;
a tenth battery was also commenced, and when day broke the Spanish
gunners quailed under the aim of the chosen marksmen.
In the night of the 26th, the besieged fell upon the head of the
sap, which they overturned, and killed the sappers, but were finally
repulsed by the reserve, and the approach was immediately pushed
forward to the place of arms. Thus, on the seventh night of open
trenches, the besiegers were lodged in the covered way, before a
shot had been fired from either breaching or counter-batteries; a
remarkable instance of activity and boldness, and a signal proof that
the defence was ill-conducted.
The night of the 27th, the works were enlarged as much as the fire of
the place which was untouched would permit; but the Spaniards seeing
the besiegers’ batteries ready to open, made a general sally through
the eastern gates, against the false attack at Fort Orleans; and
through the southern gates against the works in the plain. General
Habert drove them back with slaughter from the former point, but at
the latter they beat the French from the covered way, and arriving at
the second parallel, burnt the gabions and did much damage ere the
reserves could repulse them.
The night of the 28th, the batteries were armed with forty-five
pieces, of which seventeen were placed on the right bank, to take the
Spanish works at the main attack in reverse and to break the bridge.
At day-break all these guns opened, and with success, against the
demi-bastion, on the left bank of the river; but the fire from the
castle, the bridge-head, the horn-work, and the quay, overpowered the
French guns on the right bank, and although the bridge was injured,
it was not rendered impassable.
On the 30th, the Spanish fire was in turn overpowered by the
besiegers, the bridge was then broken, and in the following night an
attempt was made to pass the ditch at the true attack; but two guns
which were still untouched and flanked the point of attack, defeated
this effort.
In the morning of the 31st, the Spaniards abandoned the bridge-head,
and the French batteries on the right bank dismounted the two guns
which had defended the half bastion of San Pedro. The besiegers then
effected the passage of the ditch without difficulty, and attached
the miner to the scarp.
In the night of the 31st, the miner worked into the wall, and
the batteries opened a breach in the curtain, where a lodgement
was established in preparation for an assault. At ten o’clock in
the morning the besieged, alarmed at the progress of the attack,
displayed the white flag. The negotiations for a surrender were,
however, prolonged until evening by the governor, without any result,
and the miner resumed his work in the night.
[Sidenote: 1811. January.]
At seven o’clock on the 1st of January, two practicable breaches
besides that in the curtain were opened by the artillery, and the
mine was ready to explode, when three white flags were seen to wave
from different parts of the fortress; nevertheless the disposition of
the garrison was mistrusted, and Suchet demanded as a preliminary the
immediate possession of one of the forts,—a necessary precaution,
for disputes arose amongst the besieged, and general Lilli intimated
to Suchet, that his own authority was scarcely recognised.
In this critical moment, the French general gave proof that his
talents were not those of a mere soldier, for suddenly riding up
to the gates with a considerable staff, and escorted only by a
company of grenadiers, he informed the Spanish officer on guard,
that hostilities had ceased, and then, leaving his grenadiers on the
spot, desired to be conducted to the governor who was in the citadel.
Lilli still wavering, was upon the point of renewing the defence,
in compliance with the desires of the officers about him, when the
French general thus came suddenly into his presence, and, although
the appearance of the Spanish guards was threatening, assumed an
imperious tone, spoke largely of the impatience of the French army,
and even menaced the garrison with military execution if any further
delay occurred; during this extraordinary scene general Habert
brought in the grenadiers from the gate, and the governor then
signing a short capitulation, gave over the citadel to the French.
When this event was known in the city, the Spanish troops assembled,
and Alacha, in the presence of Suchet ordered them to lay down their
arms. Four hundred French and about fourteen hundred Spaniards had
fallen during the siege; and many thousand prisoners, nine standards,
one hundred pieces of artillery, ten thousand muskets, and immense
magazines, enhanced the value of the conquest, which by some was
attributed to general Lilli’s treachery, by others to his imbecility,
and it would seem that there was reason for both charges.
The fall of Tortoza, besides opening the western passage into
Catalonia, and cutting off the communication between that province
and Valencia, reduced the Spanish army to twenty thousand men,
including the garrisons of the towns which still remained in their
possession. Campo Verde immediately retired from Falcet to Momblanch,
and Suchet, always prompt to make one success the prelude to another,
endeavoured in the first moment of consternation and surprise to get
possession of the forts of Peniscola and of Felipe de Balaguer: nor
was he deceived with respect to the last, for that place, in which
were five guns and a hundred men, was taken on the 9th by Habert; but
at Peniscola his summons was disregarded and his detachment returned.
Meanwhile Macdonald leaving the Neapolitan brigade still on the
Ebro, passed by Falcet to Reus, where he encamped the 11th, as if to
invest Taragona; but without any real intention to do so, for his
cavalry and field artillery were left at Lerida and Tortoza, and his
actual force did not exceed twelve thousand men. Campo Verde, who had
retreated before him, then posted Sarsfield with six thousand men at
Valls, from whence he made incursions against Macdonald’s foragers,
and also surprised at Tarega, on the other side of the mountains, a
regiment of Italian dragoons, which would have been destroyed but for
the succour of a neighbouring post.
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Victoires et Conquêtes.]
[Sidenote: General Doyle’s despatches MSS.]
On the 14th Macdonald having marched towards Valls, Sarsfield
retired to Pla, and was pursued by general Eugenio with two thousand
Italian infantry. This officer being of a headstrong intractable
disposition, pushed into the plain of Pla, contrary to his orders,
and was nearing that town, when a strong body of cavalry poured out
of it; and on each side the Spanish infantry were seen descending the
hill in order of battle. Eugenio, instead of retiring, attacked the
first that entered the plain, but he fell mortally wounded, and his
men retreated fighting: meanwhile the firing being heard at Valls
Palombini marched to his assistance, but was himself beaten and
thrown into confusion, and Sarsfield at the head of the Spanish horse
was preparing to complete the victory, when the French colonel Delort
bringing up some squadrons charged with great fury, and so brought
off the Italians; yet Delort himself was desperately wounded, and the
whole loss was not less than six hundred men.
Macdonald would not suffer his main body to stir, and Vacani asserts
that it was only by entreaty, that Palombini obtained permission to
succour Eugenio, which was certainly a great error, for so hot and
eager was Sarsfield in the pursuit, that he was come within two miles
of Valls, and being on open ground might have been crushed in turn.
He, however, returned unmolested to the pass of Cabra, leaving his
cavalry as before in Pla, whence through bye-roads they communicated
with Taragona.
A few days after this fight Sarsfield came out again in order of
battle, and at the same time Campo Verde appeared with a division
on the hills in rear of Valls. Macdonald was thus surrounded, but
Palombini’s brigade sufficed to send Campo Verde back to Taragona,
and Sarsfield refused battle; then the French marshal, who had
resolved to go to Lerida, but wished to move without fighting, broke
up from Valls in the night, and, with great order and silence, passed
by the road of Fuencalde, between the defiles of Cabra and Ribas, and
though both were occupied by the Spaniards, they did not discover his
movements until the next day. From thence he marched by Momblanch,
upon Lerida, where he arrived the 19th, and three days afterwards
spread his troops over the plains of Urgel, to collect provisions,
money, and transport, and to watch the defiles of the mountains.
[Sidenote: 1811. February.]
On the other hand the Catalan general, who had received stores and
arms both from England and Cadiz, renewed the equipment of his
troops, and called out all the Miguelettes and Somatenes, of the
hills round the plain of Urgel, to replace the loss sustained by
the fall of Tortoza. These new levies were united at Santa Coloma
de Querault under Sarsfield, while the regular army assembled at
Igualada and Villafranca, by which the Spaniards holding a close and
concentrated position themselves, cut off Macdonald equally from
Barcelona and the Ampurdan; and this latter district was continually
harassed by Errolles, Rovira, and the brigade of Martinez, which
still kept the mountains behind Olot, Vich, and the Cerdaña.
Meanwhile Suchet being called by the exigences of his government to
Zaragoza, carried one division there, and distributed another under
Musnier at Teruel, Molina, Alcanitz, and Morella: he also withdrew
his troops from Cambril, which Habert had surprised on the 7th of
February, but he left that general, with a division, in command of
Tortoza, having two thousand men at Perillo to connect the city with
San Felipe de Balaguer. Thus all things seemed to favour the Spanish
side, and give importance to their success, against Eugenio; for they
did not fail to attribute both Suchet’s and Macdonald’s retreats, to
fear occasioned by the skirmish with that general; and with some shew
of reason as regarded the latter, seeing that his night march had all
the appearance of a flight.
Macdonald, while gathering provisions at Lerida, and stores and guns
at Tortoza, also repaired the works of Balaguer near Lerida, to serve
as a pivot for the troops employed to forage the country watered by
the Noguera, Cinça, and Segre rivers. However Sarsfield and Campo
Verde kept about Cervera and Calaf, watching for an opportunity to
fall on the French detachments, and meanwhile the organization of the
province went on.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 2.]
It may appear extraordinary that the war could have been continued
by either side under such difficulties, but the resources were still
great. A patriotic junta had been formed in Catalonia to procure
provisions, and although the English orders in council interfered
with the trade of neutral vessels bringing grain, bread could
be bought at the rate of 12 lbs. to the dollar, while with lord
Wellington’s army in Castile it often cost half a dollar a pound.
When the French foraging parties came out from Barcelona, their march
could be always traced by the swarms of boats, loaded with people and
provisions, which shooting out from the coast-towns, would hover, for
a while, under the protection of the English vessels, and then return
when the danger was over: and the enemy did never meddle with these
boats lest they should remove the cover to their own supplies. Suchet
however armed Rapita, and other small places, at the mouth of the
Ebro, with a view to afford shelter to certain craft, which he kept
to watch for provision-vessels, sailing from Valencia for Taragona,
and to aid French vessels engaged in a like course coming from France.
To feed Barcelona, Maurice Mathieu at times occupied the head-lands
from St. Filieu, to Blanes, with troops, and thus small convoys
crept along shore; a fleet loaded with provisions and powder,
escorted by three frigates, entered it in February, and a continual
stream of supply was also kept up by sailing-boats and other small
vessels, which could not be easily detected amidst the numerous
craft belonging to the people along the coast. And besides these
channels, as the claims of hunger are paramount to all others, it
was necessary, for the sake of the inhabitants, to permit provision
sometimes to reach Barcelona by land; the Spanish generals winked
at it, and Milans and Lacy, have even been charged with permitting
corn to pass into that city for private profit, as well as from
consideration for the citizens. By these, and like expedients, the
war was sustained.
[Sidenote: 1811. March.]
[Sidenote: Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches. MSS.]
No important event occurred after the skirmish in which Eugenio
fell, until the 3d of March, when the Spaniards having observed that
the garrison of Tortoza was weakened by the detachment at Perillo,
endeavoured to cut the latter off, intending if successful to assault
Tortoza itself. At the same time they also attacked the fort of San
Filippe, but failed, and the French at Perillo effected their retreat
although with considerable loss. This attempt was however followed
by a more important effort. On the 19th of March, Campo Verde having
assembled eight thousand men at Molinos del Rey, four thousand at
Guisols, and three thousand at Igualada, prepared to surprise the
city and forts of Barcelona, for he had, as he thought, corrupted the
town-major of Monjuic. Trusting to this treason, he first sent eight
hundred chosen grenadiers in the night by the hills of Hospitalette,
to enter that place, and they descended into the ditch in expectation
of having the gate opened; but Maurice Mathieu, apprized of the plan,
had prepared every thing to receive this unfortunate column, which
was in an instant overwhelmed with fire.
Napoleon now changed the system of the war. All that part of
Catalonia west of the Upper Llobregat, and from Igualada by Ordal to
the sea, including the district of Tortoza, was placed under Suchet’s
government, and seventeen thousand of Macdonald’s troops were united
to the third corps, which was thus augmented to forty-two thousand
men, and took the title of the “_Army of Aragon_.” It was destined
to besiege Taragona, while Macdonald, whose force was thus reduced
to twenty-seven thousand under arms, including fifteen thousand in
garrison and in the Ampurdan, was restricted to the upper part of
Catalonia. His orders were to attack Cardona, Berga, Seu d’Urgel,
and Montserrat, and to wear down Martinez, Manso, Rovira, and other
chiefs, who kept in the mountains between Olot and the Cerdaña: and a
division of five thousand men, chiefly composed of national guards,
was also ordered to assemble at Mont Louis, for the purpose of acting
in the Cerdaña, and on the rear of the partizans in the high valleys.
By these means the line of operations for the invasion of Catalonia
was altered from France to Aragon, the difficulties were lessened,
the seventh corps reduced in numbers, became, instead of the
principal, the secondary army; and Macdonald’s formal method was thus
exchanged for the lively vigorous talent of Suchet. But the delay
already caused in the siege of Tortoza, could never be compensated;
Suchet had been kept on the Ebro, when he should have been on the
Guadalaviar, and this enabled the Murcians to keep the fourth corps
in Grenada, when it should have been on the Tagus aiding Massena.
CHAPTER IV.
[Sidenote: 1811. March.]
When the troops of the seventh corps were incorporated with the army
of Aragon, the preparations for the siege of Taragona, were pushed
forward with Suchet’s usual activity; but previous to touching upon
that subject it is necessary to notice the guerilla warfare, which
Villa Campa, and others, had carried on against Aragon during the
siege of Tortoza. This warfare was stimulated by the appointment
of the secret juntas, and by the supplies which England furnished,
especially along the northern coast, from Coruña to Bilbao, where
experience had also produced a better application of them than
heretofore. The movements of the English squadrons, in that sea,
being from the same cause better combined with the operations of the
Partidas, rendered the latter more formidable, and they became more
harassing to the enemy as they acquired something of the consistency
of regular troops in their organization, although irregular in their
mode of operations: for it must not be supposed, that because the
guerilla system was in itself unequal to the deliverance of the
country, and was necessarily accompanied with great evils, that as
an auxiliary it was altogether useless. The interruption of the
French correspondence was, as I have already said, tantamount to a
diminution on their side of thirty thousand regular troops, without
reckoning those who were necessarily employed to watch and pursue
the Partidas; this estimate may even be considered too low, and it is
certain that the moral effect produced over Europe by the struggle
thus maintained, was very considerable.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 2.]
Nevertheless the same number of men under a good discipline would
have been more efficacious, less onerous to the country people, and
less subversive of social order. When the regular army is completed,
all that remains in a country may be turned to advantage as
irregulars, yet they are to be valued as their degree of organization
approaches that of the regular troops: thus militia are better than
armed bodies of peasantry, and these last, if directed by regular
officers, better than sudden insurrections of villagers. But the
Spanish armies were never completed, never well organized; and when
they were dispersed, which happened nearly as often as they took the
field, the war must have ceased in Spain, had it not been kept alive
by the Partidas, and it is there we find their moral value. Again,
when the British armies kept the field, the Partidas harassed the
enemy’s communications, and this constituted their military value;
yet it is certain that they never much exceeded thirty thousand in
number; and they could not have long existed in any numbers without
the supplies of England, unless a spirit of order and providence,
very different from any thing witnessed during the war, had arisen
in Spain. How absurd then to reverse the order of the resources
possessed by an invaded country, to confound the moral with the
military means, to place the irregular resistance of the peasants
first, and that of the soldiers last in the scale of physical
defence.
That many of the Partida chiefs became less active, after they
received regular rank, is undeniable; but this was not so much a
consequence of the change of denomination, as of the inveterate
abuses which oppressed the vigour of the regular armies, and by which
the Partidas were necessarily affected when they became a constituent
part of those armies; many persons of weight have indeed ascribed
entirely to this cause, the acknowledged diminution of their general
activity at one period. It seems, however, more probable that a life
of toil and danger, repeated defeats, the scarcity of plunder, and
the discontent of the people at the exactions of the chiefs, had
in reality abated the desire to continue the struggle; inactivity
was rather the sign of subjection than the result of an injudicious
interference by the government. But it is time to support this
reasoning by facts.
During the siege of Tortoza, the concentration of the third and
seventh corps exposed Aragon and Catalonia to desultory enterprises
at a moment when the Partidas, rendered more numerous and powerful
by the secret juntas, were also more ardent, from the assembly of
the Cortez, by which the people’s importance in the struggle seemed
at last to be acknowledged. Hence no better test of their real
influence on the general operations can be found than their exploits
during that period, when two French armies were fixed as it were
to one spot, the supplies from France nearly cut off by natural
difficulties, the district immediately around Tortoza completely
sterile, Catalonia generally exhausted, and a project to create
a fictitious scarcity in the fertile parts of Aragon diligently
and in some sort successfully pursued by the secret juntas. The
number of French foraging parties, and the distances to which they
were sent were then greatly increased, and the facility of cutting
them off proportionably augmented. Now the several operations of
Villa Campa during the blockade have been already related, but,
although sometimes successful, the results were mostly adverse to
the Spaniards; and when that chief, after the siege was actually
commenced, came down, on the 19th December 1810, towards the side of
Daroca, his cavalry was surprised by colonel Kliski, who captured or
killed one hundred and fifty in the village of Blancas. The Spanish
chief then retired, but being soon after joined by the Empecinado
from Cuença, he returned in January to the frontier of Aragon, and
took post between Molina and Albaracin.
At this period Tortoza had surrendered, and Musnier’s division was
spread along the western part of Aragon, wherefore Suchet immediately
detached general Paris with one column from Zaragoza, and general
Abbé with another from Teruel, to chase these two Partidas. Paris
fell in with the Empecinado near Molina, and the latter then joined
Villa Campa, but the French general forced both from their mountain
position near Frias, where he was joined by Abbé; and they continued
the pursuit for several days, but finding that the fugitives took
different routes, again separated; Paris followed Villa Campa, and
Abbé pursued the Empecinado through Cuença, from whence Carbajal
and the secret junta immediately fled. Paris failing to overtake
Villa Campa, entered Beleta, Cobeta, and Paralejos, all three
containing manufactories for arms, which he destroyed, and then
returned; and the whole expedition lasted only twelve days, yet the
smaller Partidas, in Aragon, had taken advantage of it to cut off a
detachment of fifty men near Fuentes: and this was followed up on
the side of Navarre by Mina, who entered the Cinco Villas in April,
and cut to pieces one hundred and fifty _gens-d’armes_ near Sadava.
However Chlopiski pursued him also so closely, that he obliged his
band to disperse near Coseda in Navarre.
[Sidenote: 1811. April.]
During this time the Valencians had been plunged in disputes,
Bassecour was displaced, and Coupigny appointed in his stead. The
notables, indeed, raised a sum of money for recruits, but Coupigny
would not take the command, because the Murcian army was not also
given to him; and that army, although numerous, was in a very
neglected state, and unable to undertake any service. However, when
Tortoza fell, the Valencians were frightened, and set about their own
defence. They repaired and garrisoned the fort of Oropesa, and some
smaller posts on the coast, along which runs the only artillery-road
to their capital: they commenced fortifying Murviedro, or rather the
rock of Saguntum overhanging it, and they sent fifteen hundred men
into the hills about Cantavieja. These last were dispersed on the 5th
of April by a column from Teruel; and on the 11th another body having
attempted to surprise Uldecona, which was weakly guarded, were also
defeated and sabred by the French cavalry.
These different events, especially the destruction of the
gun-manufactories, repressed the activity of the partizans, and
Suchet was enabled to go to Lerida, in the latter end of March, to
receive the soldiers to be drafted from the seventh corps: Macdonald
himself could not, however, regain Barcelona without an escort,
and hence seven thousand men marched with him on the 29th of the
month, not by Igualada, which was occupied in force by Sarsfield,
but by the circuitous way of Manresa; for neither Macdonald nor
Suchet wished to engage in desultory actions with the forces destined
for the siege. Nevertheless Sarsfield, getting intelligence of the
march, passed by Calaf with his own and Eroles’ troops, and waited
on Macdonald’s flanks and rear near the Cardenera river, while a
detachment, barricading the bridge of Manresa, opposed him in front.
This bridge was indeed carried, but the town being abandoned, the
Italian soldiers wantonly set fire to it in the night; an act which
was immediately revenged, for the flames being seen to a great
distance, so enraged the Catalans, that in the morning all the armed
men in the district, whether regulars, Miguelettes, or Somatenes,
were assembled on the neighbouring hills, and fell with infinite fury
upon Macdonald’s rear, as it passed out from the ruins of the burning
city. The head of the French column was then pushing for the bridge
of Villamara, over the Llobregat, which was two leagues distant; and
as the country between the rivers was one vast mountain, Sarsfield,
seeing that the French rear stood firm to receive the attack of the
Somatenes, while the front still advanced, thought to place his
division between, by moving along the heights which skirted the
road. Macdonald, however, concentrated his troops, gained the second
bridge, and passed the Llobregat, but with great difficulty and with
the loss of four hundred men, for his march was continually under
Sarsfield’s fire, and some of his troops were even cut off from the
bridge, and obliged to cross by a ford higher up. During the night,
however, he collected his scattered men, and moved upon Sabadel,
whence he pushed on alone for Barcelona, and on the 3d of April,
Harispe, who commanded the escort, recommenced the march, and passing
by Villa Franca, Christina, Cabra, and Momblanch, returned to Lerida
the 10th.
The invasion of Catalonia was now divided into three parts, each
assigned to a distinct army.
1º. Suchet, with that of Aragon, was to take Taragona and subdue the
lower part of the province.
2º. Macdonald, with that part of the seventh corps called the active
army of Catalonia, was to break the long Spanish line extending from
Taragona, through Montserrat to the Cerdaña, and the high mountains
about Olot.
3º. Baraguay d’Hilliers, having his head-quarters at Gerona, was to
hold the Ampurdan with the troops before assigned to his charge,
and to co-operate, as occasion might offer, with Macdonald, under
whose orders he still remained; and the division of five thousand
men before mentioned as having been collected near Mount Louis, at
the entrance of the French Cerdaña, was to act on the rear of the
Spaniards in the mountains, while the others attacked them in front.
Nor did the success appear doubtful, for the hopes and means of
the province were both sinking. The great losses of men sustained
at Tortoza and in the different combats; the reputation of Suchet;
the failure of the attempts to surprise Barcelona, Perillo, and San
Filippe de Balaguer; the incapacity of Campo Verde, which was now
generally felt, and the consequent desertion of the Miguelettes,
would probably have rendered certain the French plans, if at the
very moment of execution they had not been marred by Rovira, who
surprised the great fortress of Figueras, the key of the Pyrenees on
that side of Catalonia. This, the boldest and most important stroke
made by a Partida chief, during the whole war, merits a particular
detail.
SURPRISE OF FERNANDO DE FIGUERAS.
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatches. MSS.]
[Sidenote: General Campbell’s MSS.]
[Sidenote: General Doyle’s MSS.]
[Sidenote: Capt. Codrington’s MSS.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers. MSS.]
The governor of the place, general Guillot, enforced no military
discipline, his guards were weak, he permitted the soldiers to use
the pallisades for fuel, and often detached the greatest part of the
garrison to make incursions to a distance from the place; in all
things disregarding the rules of service. The town, which is situated
below the hill, upon which the great fortress of Fernando stands, was
momentarily occupied by the Italian general Peyri, with about six
hundred men, who were destined to join Macdonald, and who trusting to
the strength of the fortress above, were in no manner on their guard.
And the garrison above was still more negligent; for Guillot had on
the 9th of April sent out his best men to disperse some Somatenes
assembled in the neighbouring hills, and this detachment having
returned at night fatigued, and being to go out again the next day,
slept while the gates were confided to convalescents, or men unfit
for duty: thus the ramparts were entirely unguarded. Now there were
in the fort two Catalan brothers named Palopos, and a man called
Juan, employed as under-storekeepers, who being gained by Rovira
had, such was the negligence of discipline, obtained from the head
of their department the keys of the magazines, and also that of a
postern under one of the gates.
Rovira, having arranged his plan, came down from the mountain of St.
Lorens de Muga in the night of the 9th, and secretly reached the
covered way with seven hundred chosen men of his own Partida. General
Martinez followed in support with about three thousand Miguelettes,
and the Catalan brothers, having previously arranged the signals,
opened the postern, and admitted Rovira, who immediately disarmed
the guard and set wide the gates for the reserve; and although some
shots were fired, which alarmed the garrison, Martinez came up
so quickly that no effectual resistance could be made. Thirty or
forty men were killed or wounded, the magazines were seized, the
governor and sixteen hundred soldiers and camp-followers were taken
in their quarters, and thus in an hour Rovira mastered one of the
strongest fortresses in Europe: three cannon-shot were then fired
as a signal to the Somatenes in the surrounding mountains, that
the place was taken, and that they were to bring in provisions as
rapidly as possible. Meanwhile general Peyri alarmed by the noise in
the fortress and guessing at the cause, had collected the troops,
baggage, sick men, and stores in the town below, and sent notice to
Gerona, but he made no attempt to retake the place, and at daylight
retired to Bascara. For having mounted the hills during the night,
to observe how matters went, he thought nothing could be done, an
opinion condemned by some as a great error; and indeed it appears
probable that during the confusion of the first surprise, a brisk
attempt by six hundred fresh men might have recovered the fortress.
At Bascara five hundred men detached from Gerona, on the spur of the
occasion, met him with orders to re-invest the place, and Baraguay
d’Hilliers promised to follow with all his forces without any delay.
Then Peyri, although troubled by the fears of his troops, many of
whom were only national guards, returned to Figueras, and driving
the Spaniards out of the town took post in front of the fort above;
but he could not prevent Martinez from receiving some assistance
in men and provisions from the Somatenes. The news of Rovira’s
exploit spread with inconceivable rapidity throughout the Peninsula,
extending its exhilarating influence, even to the Anglo-Portuguese
army, then not much given to credit or admire the exploits of the
Spaniards, but Baraguay d’Hilliers with great promptness assembled
his dispersed troops, and on the 13th invested the fort with six
thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry; and this so quickly that
the Spaniard had not time, or, more probably neglected, to remove,
sixteen thousand muskets which were in the place.
Martinez remained governor, but Rovira was again in the mountains,
and all Catalonia, animated by the Promethean touch of this Partida
chief, seemed to be moving at once upon Figueras. Campo Verde came
up to Vich, intending first to relieve Figueras, and then in concert
with the English and Spanish vessels to blockade Rosas by land and
sea. Rovira himself collected a convoy of provisions near Olot.
Captain Bullen with the Cambrian and Volontaire frigates, taking
advantage of the French troops having been withdrawn from Gerona,
drove out the small garrison from San Filieu and Palamos, destroyed
the batteries, and made sail to join captain Codrington at Rosas.
A Spanish frigate, with a fleet of coasting-vessels loaded with
supplies, anchored at Palamos; and Francisco Milans, after beating
a small French detachment near Arens de Mar, invested Hostalrich;
Juan Claros hovered about Gerona, and Eroles and Manso coming from
Montserrat reduced Olot and Castelfollit. Sarsfield however remained
in the Seu d’Urgel, and directed the mountaineers to establish
themselves at Balaguer, but they were driven away again with great
loss by a detachment from the garrison of Lerida.
On the 3d of May, Rovira having brought his convoy up to Besalu,
Campo Verde, who had arranged that captain Codrington should make a
diversion by an attack on Rosas, drew Milans from Hostalrich, and
having thus united eleven thousand men marched in several columns
from Avionet and Villa Fan against the town, hoping to draw Baraguay
d’Hilliers to that side; and to beat him, while Rovira, forcing a
small camp near Llers, at the opposite quarter, should introduce the
convoy and its escort into the fortress. The circuit of investment
was wide, and very difficult, and therefore slightly furnished of
men; but it was strengthened by some works, and when the Spanish
columns first advanced, the French general reinforced the camp near
Llers, and then hastened with four thousand men against Campo Verde,
who was already in the valley of Figueras, and only opposed by one
battalion. Baraguay d’Hilliers immediately fell on the right flank
of the Spaniards and defeated them; the French cavalry, which had
been before driven in from the front, rallied and completed the
victory, and the Spaniards retreated with a loss of fifteen hundred
including prisoners. This affair was exceedingly ill-managed by
Campo Verde, who was so sure of success that he kept the sheep of
the convoy too far behind, to enter, although the way was open for
some time, hence the succour was confined to a few artillery-men,
some tobacco, and medicines. Meanwhile the English ships landed some
men at Rosas, but neither did this produce any serious effect, and
the attempt to relieve Figueras having thus generally failed, that
place was left to its own resources which were few; for the French
with an unaccountable negligence had always kept a scanty supply
of provisions and stores there. Martinez, who had now above four
thousand men, was therefore obliged to practise the most rigorous
economy in the distribution of food, and in bearing such privations
the peninsular race are unrivalled.
Macdonald was so concerned for the loss of Figueras, that, setting
aside all his own plans, he earnestly adjured Suchet to suspend
the siege of Taragona, and restore him the troops of the seventh
corps: Maurice Mathieu also wrote from Barcelona in a like strain,
thinking that the possession of Upper Catalonia depended upon one
powerful effort to recover the lost fortress. But Suchet, who had
no immediate interest in that part of the province, whose hopes of
obtaining a marshal’s staff rested on the taking of Taragona, and
whose preparations were all made for that siege, Suchet I say, whose
judgement was unclouded, and whose military talent was of a high
order, refused to move a step towards Figueras, or even to delay, for
one moment, his march against Taragona.
He said that “his battalions being scattered, in search of supplies,
he could not reunite them, and reach Figueras under twenty-five days;
during that time the enemy, unless prevented by Baraguay d’Hilliers,
could gather in provisions, receive reinforcements, and secure the
fortress. A simple blockade might be established by the nearest
troops, and to accumulate great numbers on such a sterile spot would
not forward the recapture, but would create infinite difficulties
with respect to subsistence. It was probable Napoleon had already
received information of the disaster, and given orders for the
remedy; and it was by no means reasonable to renounce the attack on
Taragona, the only remaining bulwark of Catalonia, at the very moment
of execution, because of the loss of a fort; it was in Taragona,
the greatest part of the forces of Catalonia would be shut up, and
it was only in such a situation that they could be made prisoners;
at Lerida, Mequinenza, and Tortoza, eighteen thousand men and eight
hundred officers had been captured, and if ten or twelve thousand
more could be taken in Taragona, the strength of Catalonia would be
entirely broken. If the Spaniards failed in revictualling Figueras,
that place, by occupying their attention, would become more hurtful
than useful to them; because Campo Verde might, and most probably
would, march to its succour, and thus weaken Taragona, which was a
reason for hastening rather than suspending the investment of the
latter; wherefore he resolved, notwithstanding the separation of his
battalions and the incomplete state of his preparations, to move down
immediately and commence the siege.” A wise determination and alone
sufficient to justify his reputation as a general.
Macdonald was now fain to send all the troops he could safely
draw together, to reinforce Baraguay d’Hilliers. In June, when a
detachment from Toulon, and some frontier guards had arrived at
Figueras, the united forces amounting to fifteen thousand men, he
took the command in person and established a rigorous blockade,
working day and night, to construct works of circumvallation and
contravallation; his lines six miles in length, crowning the tops
of the mountains and sinking into the deepest valleys, proved what
prodigious labours even small armies are capable of. Thus with
incessant wakefulness Macdonald recovered the place; but this was at
a late period in the year, and when Suchet’s operations had quite
changed the aspect of affairs.
When Tortoza fell, that general’s moveable columns traversing the
borders of Castile, the eastern districts of Valencia, a portion
of Navarre, and all the lower province of Catalonia, protected the
collection of supplies, and suppressed the smaller bands which
swarmed in those parts; hence, when the siege of Taragona was
confided to the third corps, the magazines, at Lerida and Mora,
were already full; and a battering train was formed at Tortoza, to
which place the tools, platforms, and other materials, fabricated at
Zaragosa were conveyed. Fifteen hundred draft horses, the greatest
part of the artillery-men and engineers, and ten battalions of
infantry were also collected in that town, and from thence shot and
shells were continually forwarded to San Felippe de Balaguer. This
was a fine application of Cæsar’s maxim, that war should maintain
itself, for all the money, the guns, provisions, and materials,
collected for this siege, were the fruits of former victories;
nothing was derived from France but the men. It is curious, however,
that Suchet so little understood the nature and effects of the
English system of finance, that he observes, in his memoirs, upon the
ability with which the ministers, made Spain pay the expense of this
war by never permitting English gold to go to the Peninsula; he was
ignorant, that the paper money system had left them no English gold
to send.
The want of forage in the district of Tortoza, and the advantage
of the carriage-road by the Col de Balaguer, induced the French
general to direct his artillery that way; but his provisions, and
other stores, passed from Mora by Falcet and Momblanch to Reus, in
which latter town he proposed to establish his stores for the siege,
while Mora, the chief magazine, was supplied from Zaragoza, Caspe,
and Mequinenza. Divers other arrangements, of which I shall now give
the outline, contributed to the security of the communications, and
enabled the army of Aragon to undertake the great enterprize for
which it was destined.
1º. Detachments of gens-d’armes and of the frontier guards of
France, descending the high valleys of Aragon, helped to maintain
tranquillity on the left bank of the Ebro, and occupied the castles
of Venasque and Jaca, which had been taken by Suchet in his previous
campaign.
2º. The line of correspondence from France, instead of running as
before through Guipuscoa and Navarre, by Pampeluna, was now directed
by Pau, Oleron, and Jaca to Zaragoza; and in the latter city, and in
the towns around it, four or five battalions, and a proportion of
horsemen and artillery, were disposed, to watch the Partidas from
Navarre and the Moncayo mountains.
3º. Four battalions with cavalry and guns, were posted at Daroca
under general Paris, whose command extended from thence to the fort
of Molina, which was armed and garrisoned.
4º. General Abbé was placed at Teruel with five battalions, three
hundred cuirassiers, and two pieces of artillery, to watch Villa
Campa, and the Valencian army which was again in the field.
5º. Alcanitz and Morella were occupied by fourteen hundred men,
whereby that short passage through the mountains from Aragon to
Valencia was secured; and from thence the line to Caspe, and down the
Ebro from Mequinenza to Tortoza, was protected by twelve hundred men;
Tortoza itself was garrisoned by two battalions, the forts at the
mouth of the Ebro were occupied, and four hundred men were placed in
Rapita.
This line of defence from right to left was fourteen days march, but
the number of fortified posts enabled the troops to move from point
to point, without much danger; and thus the army of the great and
rich province of Valencia, the division of Villa Campa, the Partidas
of New Castile and Navarre, including Mina and the Empecinado, the
most powerful of those independent chiefs, were all set at nought
by twelve thousand French, although the latter had to defend a line
of one hundred and fifty miles. Under cover of this feeble chain
of defence, Suchet besieged a strong city which had a powerful
garrison, an open harbour, a commanding squadron of ships, and a
free communication, by sea, with Cadiz, Valencia, Gibraltar, and the
Balearic islands. It is true that detachments from the army of the
centre, acting on a large circuit round Madrid, sometimes dispersed,
and chased the Partidas that threatened Suchet’s line of defence, but
at this period, from circumstances to be hereafter mentioned, that
army was in a manner paralysed.
While the French general’s posts were being established, he turned
his attention to the arrangements for a permanent supply of food.
The difficulty of procuring meat was become great, because he wisely
refrained from using up the sheep and cattle of Aragon, lest the
future supply of his army should be anticipated, and the minds of
the people of that province alienated by the destruction of their
breeding flocks; to avoid this, he engaged contractors to furnish him
from France, and so completely had he pacified the Aragonese, through
whose territories the flocks were brought, and with whose money
they were paid for, that none of his contracts failed. But as these
resources were not immediately available, the troops on the right
bank of the Ebro made incursions after cattle beyond the frontiers of
Aragon; and when Harispe returned from Barcelona, eight battalions
marched upon a like service up the higher valleys of the Pyrenees.
It was in this state of affairs that Suchet received intelligence of
the surprise of Figueras, which induced him to hasten the investment
of Taragona. Meanwhile, fearing that Mina might penetrate to the
higher valleys of Aragon, and in conjunction with the partidas of
Upper Catalonia cut off all correspondence with France, he detached
Chlopiski with four battalions and two hundred hussars to watch the
movements of that chief only, and demanded of the emperor, that some
troops from Pampeluna should occupy Sanguessa, while others, from
the army of the north, should relieve the detachments of the army of
Aragon, at Soria and Calatayud.
The battalions sent up the high valleys of Catalonia returned in
the latter end of April. Suchet then reviewed his troops, issued a
month’s pay, and six day’s provisions to each soldier, loaded many
carriages and mules with flour, and, having first spread a report,
that he was going to relieve Figueras, commenced his march to
Taragona by the way of Momblanch. Some Miguelettes entrenched in the
pass of Ribas, were dispersed by Harispe’s division on the 1st of
May, and the army descended the hills to Alcover; but four hundred
men were left in Momblanch, where a post was fortified, to protect
the line of communication with Lerida, and to prevent the Spanish
partizans on that flank, from troubling the communication between
Mora and Reus. The 2d the head-quarters were fixed at Reus, and the
3d the Spanish outposts were driven over the Francoli; meanwhile
Habert, sending the artillery from Tortoza by the Col de Balaguer,
moved himself with a large convoy from Mora by Falcet to Reus.
CHAPTER V.
[Sidenote: 1811. May.]
In Taragona, although a siege had been so long expected, there was
a great scarcity of money and ammunition, and so many men had,
as Suchet foresaw, been drawn off to succour Figueras, that the
garrison, commanded by colonel Gonzalez, was not more than six
thousand, including twelve hundred armed inhabitants and the seamen
of the port. The town was encumbered with defensive works of all
kinds, but most of them were ill-constructed, irregular, and without
convenient places for making sallies.
Taragona itself was built upon rocks, steep on the north-east and
south, but sinking gently on the south-west and west into low ground.
A mole formed a harbour capable of receiving ships of the line, and
beyond the mole there was a roadstead. The upper town was surrounded
by ancient walls, crowning the rocks, and these walls were inclosed
by a second rampart with irregular bastions which ran round the whole
city. On the east, across the road to Barcelona, there was a chain
of redoubts connected by curtains, with a ditch and covered way; and
behind this line there was a rocky space called the Milagro, opening
between the body of the place and the sea. The lower town, or suburb,
was separated from the upper, by the inner ramparts of the latter,
and was protected by three regular and some irregular bastions
with a ditch; a square work, called Fort Royal, formed a species
of citadel within, and the double town presented the figure of an
irregular oblong, whose length lying parallel to the sea, was about
twelve hundred yards.
On the east beyond the walls, a newly constructed line of defence was
carried along the coast to the mouth of the Francoli, where it ended
in a large redoubt, built to secure access to that river when the
ancient aqueducts which furnished the city with water should be cut
by the French. This line was strengthened by a second redoubt, called
the Prince, half-way between that near the Francoli and the town; and
it was supported by the mole which being armed with batteries, and
nearly in a parallel direction, formed as it were a second sea-line.
The approach on the side of the Francoli river was of a level
character, and exposed to the fire of the Olivo, a large outwork
on the north, crowning a rocky table-land of an equal height with
the upper town, but divided from it by a ravine nearly half-a-mile
wide, across which the aqueducts of the place were carried. This
Olivo was an irregular horn-work, four hundred yards long, with a
ditch twenty-four feet deep and forty wide, but the covered way
was not completed, and the gorge was only closed by a loop-holed
wall; neither was this defence quite finished, as the steepness of
the rock, and the fire of the city appeared to render it secure.
The bastion on the left of the Olivo, was cut off by a ditch and a
rampart from the body of the work, and on the right also within the
rampart there was a small redoubt of refuge, with a high cavalier
or bank, on which three guns were placed that overlooked all the
country round. The ordinary garrison of the Olivo was from twelve
to fifteen hundred men, and it contained fifty out of three hundred
pieces of artillery which served the defence of Taragona.
The nature of the soil combined with the peculiarities of the works,
determined Suchet’s line of attack. On the north and east side
the ground was rocky, the fronts of defence wide, the approaches
unfavourable for breaching batteries; and as all the guns and stores
would have to be dragged over the hills on a great circuit, unless
the Olivo was first taken, no difficulty could be avoided in an
attack. Wherefore, on the side of the lower town the French resolved
to approach, although the artificial defences were there accumulated,
and the ground between the town and the Francoli river taken in
reverse by the Olivo, which rendered it necessary first to reduce
that outwork. But this part was chosen by the French, because the
soil was deep and easily moved, their depôts and parks close at hand,
the ground-plot of the works so salient that they could be easily
embraced with fire, and because the attack would, it was supposed,
cut off the garrison from fresh water, yet this last advantage was
not realized.
On the 4th of May the French, passing the Francoli, drove in the
outposts, took possession of two small detached redoubts, situated
on the northern side, called the forts of Loretto, and invested the
place. However the Spanish troops supported by the fire of the Olivo
killed and wounded two hundred men, and the next day a fruitless
attempt was made to retake the lost ground; at the same time the
fleet under captain Codrington, consisting of three English ships of
the line and three frigates, besides sloops and Spanish vessels of
war, cannonaded the French right, and harassed their convoys, then
coming by the coast-road from the Col de Balaguer. The investing
troops whose posts were very close to the Olivo, were also greatly
incommoded by the heavy fire from that outwork, yet the line was
maintained and perfected.
Habert’s division, forming the right wing, extended from the sea
to the bridge of the Francoli; general Frere’s division connected
Habert with Harispe’s, whose troops occupied the ground before
the Olivo; the Italian division prolonged Harispe’s left to the
road of Barcelona which runs close to the sea on the east side of
Taragona; three regiments were placed in reserve higher up on the
Francoli, where a trestle bridge was cast, and the park, which was
established on the right of that river, at the village of Canonja,
contained sixty-six battering guns and mortars, each furnished with
seven hundred rounds. There were also thirty-six field-pieces, two
thousand artillery-men to serve the guns, seven hundred sappers
and miners, fourteen hundred cavalry, and nearly fifteen thousand
infantry. The head-quarters were fixed at the village of Constanti, a
strong covering position, the depôt at Reus was secured by fortified
convents, and the works at Mora were defended by several battalions.
Other troops, placed at Falcet, guarded the communications, which
were farther secured by the escorts belonging to the convoys; and
the French had cut off the water of the aqueducts from the Olivo,
but this water, whose source was ten or twelve miles off, was also
necessary to the besiegers on that sterile land, and was again cut
off by the Somatenes, which obliged the French to guard its whole
course during the siege.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 1.]
Meanwhile Campo Verde after his defeat at Figueras had sent Sarsfield
and Eroles to their former posts near Valls, Momblanch, and Igualada,
and embarking at Mattaro himself, with four thousand men, came on
the 10th to Taragona, where the sudden appearance of the French had
produced great consternation. Yet when Campo Verde arrived with
this reinforcement, and when colonel Green, the English military
agent, arrived on the 15th from Cadiz, in the Merope, bringing with
him fifty thousand dollars and two transports laden with arms and
stores, Spanish apathy again prevailed, and the necessary measures of
defence were neglected. Beyond the walls, however, the French post at
Momblanch was attacked by two thousand Miguelettes, and the Somatenes
assembled in the vicinity of Reus.
Suchet detached general Frere with four battalions to relieve the
former place, where the attack had failed; the commandant of Reus
also dispersed the Somatenes, and meanwhile Harispe pushed his
patroles over the Gaya as far as Torre de Barra, where he found
some wounded Spaniards. These men were within the protection of a
convention, made by St. Cyr with Reding, by which the wounded men of
both armies were to be left in the civil hospitals of the different
towns, and mutually taken care of, without being made prisoners; and
it is remarkable that this compact was scrupulously executed on both
sides, while beyond those hospitals the utmost ferocity and a total
disregard of civilized usages prevailed.
[Illustration: _Vol. 4 Plate 2._
_Explanatory Sketch_
OF THE
SIEGE OF TARAGONA.
_London. Published by T. & W. BOONE._]
Sarsfield’s arrival near Momblanch threatened the communications
between Reus and Mora, and at the same time a Valencian column,
acting in concert with captain Adam of the Invincible, attacked
the posts of Rapita and Amposta: the former was abandoned by the
garrison, and the latter was surrounded by the Valencians, but a
regiment sent from Tortoza, after disengaging Amposta, defeated the
Valencians near Rapita; nevertheless Suchet, unwilling to lessen his
already too small force, did not restore the latter post.
SIEGE OF TARAGONA.
The French general having resolved to attack the lower town,
commenced his operations by constructing a fort and batteries, on
the right of the Francoli, near the sea-shore, with a view to keep
the English ships of war and the gun-boats at a distance from his
projected trenches. These works commenced in the night of the 7th,
were successfully continued towards the mouth of the river under
the fire of the vessels; a trench, lined with musqueteers, was also
carried from the left along the bank of the river to the bridge, but
the Spaniards continually harassed the investing troops both from
within and from without, and made some attempts against the camp;
wherefore the brigade of general Salme, which was close to the Olivo,
was obliged to entrench, and yet lost fifty or sixty men daily by the
enemy’s skirmishers.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Sect. 1.]
On the night of the 13th, during a tempest, the French stormed two
external entrenchments near the Olivo, and then turned them against
the besieged; the next morning a vigorous attempt to retake them
was repulsed with a loss of one hundred men, and on the Francoli
side, a sally supported by the shipping failed in consequence of the
cowardice of some Spanish officers. On the same day, besides this
attack on the side of the Francoli, the garrison came out from the
Barcelona gate, and six hundred Somatenes from the Upper Gaya fell on
the patroles of the Italian division, whereupon Palombini scoured the
country on the 15th as far as Arbos.
The 18th a powerful sortie from the lower town was made by Gonzalez,
who passed the bridge, and, aided by a fire from the place, from the
Olivo, and from the fleet, pressed Habert’s division hard; Suchet
however came down with his reserve, pushed between the river and
the Olivo, and menaced the Spanish line of retreat, which obliged
Gonzalez to retire with loss. On the 20th three other sallies were
made from the Olivo, and from the upper town, on the Barcelona side,
but they were all in like manner repulsed; and that day Sarsfield
took post with twelve hundred men on a high and rugged place near
Alcover, thus menacing the depôt at Reus. The French general
therefore detached two battalions of infantry and some cavalry, under
general Broussard, to dislodge him, which was effected with the
loss of a hundred French; but three days later he appeared before
Momblanch, and was only driven away by the united brigades of Frere
and Palombini, who marched against him. Divers attempts were also
made upon the line of Falcet, especially at Grattallopes, where the
Spanish colonel, Villamil, having attacked Morozinski, a Pole, the
latter defended himself successfully, and with a bravery that has
always distinguished the people of that heroic nation; a nation whose
glory springs like an _ignis fatuus_ from the corruption of European
honour!
These repeated attacks having warned Suchet how difficult it would be
to maintain, with his weak army, so great an extent of communication,
he abandoned his post at Momblanch, and contented himself with
preserving the lines of Falcet and of Felippe de Balaguer; a measure
the more necessary, that the garrison of Taragona was now greatly
augmented; for on the 16th, the Blake had sailed for Valencia to seek
reinforcements, and Carlos O’Donnel, who had succeeded Bassecour,
gave him above two thousand infantry and two hundred cannoneers, who
were safely landed at Taragona on the 22d, two thousand stand of
arms being, in return, delivered by captain Codrington to O’Donnel,
to equip fresh levies. Above twelve thousand men were thus collected
in the fortress, but all the richest citizens had removed with their
families and effects to Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and the people were
dispirited.
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
Suchet broke ground before the Olivo in the night of the 21st, and
carried on his approaches from both ends of the Spanish entrenchments
which he had seized on the night of the 13th. His engineers wished
to reach a round hill, close to the works, on which they proposed to
plant their first breaching battery, and they crowned it on the 22d,
but with much loss, being obliged to carry the earth for the work,
up the hill in baskets, and they were continually interrupted by
sallies. Three counter-batteries were, however, completed and armed
on the 27th with thirteen pieces, of which six threw shells; but to
effect this, the soldiers dragged the artillery over the rocks, under
a heavy fire of grape, and the garrison making a vigorous sally,
killed general Salme, when he opposed them with the reserves. The
moment was dangerous to the French, but they were finally victorious,
and the fire of the batteries having opened the same morning, was
sustained until the evening of the 29th, when a breach being formed,
the assault was ordered.
STORMING OF THE OLIVO.
Upon the success of this attack, Suchet thought, and with reason,
that his chance of taking the town would depend, seeing that his army
was too feeble to bear any serious check. Wherefore, having formed
his columns of assault, he personally encouraged them, and at the
same time directed the troops along the whole line of investment to
advance simultaneously, and menace every part of the town. The night
was dark, and the Spaniards were unexpectant of an attack, because
none of their guns had yet been silenced; but the French, full of
hope and resolution, were watching for the signal. When that was
given, the troops on the Francoli, and those on the Barcelona side,
made a sudden discharge of musketry, beat all their drums, and with
loud shouts approached the town at those opposite quarters; the
rampart of the place was instantly covered with fire from within and
from without; the ships in the offing threw up rockets, and amidst
the noise of four hundred guns the storming columns rushed upon the
Olivo.
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
The principal force made for the breach; but a second column,
turning the fort, got between it and the town, at the moment when
fifteen hundred men, sent to relieve the old garrison, were entering
the gates. Some of the French instantly fell on their rear, which
hurrying forward, gave an opportunity to the assailants to penetrate
with them before the gates could be closed, and thirty sappers with
hatchets having followed closely, endeavoured to break the door,
while Papignay, their officer, attempted to climb over the wall; the
Spaniards killed him and most of the sappers, but the other troops,
planted their ladders to the right and left, and cutting through the
pointed stakes above, entered the place and opened the gate.
At the main attack the French boldly assailed the narrow breach, but
the ditch was fifteen feet deep, the Spaniards firm, and the fire
heavy, and they were giving way, when the historian, Vacani, followed
by some of his countrymen, (it is a strange error to think the
Italians have not a brave spirit!) cut down the paling which blocked
the subterranean passage of the aqueduct, and thus got into the ditch
and afterwards into the fort. Then the Spaniards were driven from the
ramparts on all sides, back to the little works of refuge, before
noticed, as being at each end of the Olivo, from whence they fired
both musketry and guns; but the French and Italian reserves, followed
by Harispe with a third column now entered the place, and with a
terrible slaughter ended the contest. Twelve hundred men perished,
some escaped, a thousand were taken, and amongst them their commander
who had received ten wounds.
In the morning three thousand Spaniards came out of Taragona, yet
retired without attacking, and Suchet demanded a suspension of arms
to dispose of the dead; this was however treated with scorn and the
heaps were burned, for the sterile rocks afforded no earth to bury
them. Campo Verde now gave general Senens de Contreras the command
of Taragona, and went himself to the field-army, which was about
ten thousand strong, including some new levies made by the junta of
Catalonia.
[Sidenote: 1811. June.]
Suchet’s investment having been precipitated by the fall of Figueras
his stores were not all collected until the 1st of June, when
trenches were opened to embrace the whole of the lower town including
the fort of Francoli and its chain of connecting works running along
the sea-shore, that is to say, 1º. The Nun’s bastion and a half-moon
called the King’s, which formed, on the Spanish right, a sort of
horn-work to the royal fort or citadel. 2º. The bastion of San Carlos
and a half-moon called the Prince’s, which stood on the left, in
the retiring angle where the sea-line joined the body of the place,
and served as a counter-guard to the bastion of San Carlos. 3º. The
sea-line itself and the Francoli fort.
The 2d of June the besieged made a fruitless sally, and in the night
of the 3d some advanced Spanish entrenchments were destroyed by the
French. Sarsfield then entered Taragona with a detachment, and took
the command of what was called the Port, which included the Mole,
the works leading to the Francoli, and the suburb or lower town,
Contreras still remaining governor of all, although reluctantly, for
he expected no success.
In the night of the 4th the approaches were carried forward by the
sap, the second parallel was commenced, and on the 6th the besiegers
were within twenty yards of the Francoli fort, which had a wet
ditch and was of regular construction. The breaching batteries which
had been armed as the trenches proceeded, opened their fire against
it on the 7th. The fresh masonry crumbled away rapidly, and at ten
o’clock that night, the fort being entirely destroyed, three hundred
chosen men in three columns, one of which forded the Francoli river,
attacked the ruins, and the defenders retired fighting, towards
the half-moon of the Prince. The assailants then made a disorderly
attempt to enter with them, but were quickly repulsed with a loss
of fifty men, yet the lodgement was under a heavy fire secured; and
the next night a battery of six pieces was constructed there, with a
view to silence the guns of the Mole, which together with that of the
place, endeavoured to overwhelm the small space thus occupied, with
shot.
In the nights of the 8th and 9th under terrible discharges from both
the upper and lower town, the second parallel was prolonged to fort
Francoli on the right, and on the left, carried to within seventy
yards of the Nun’s bastion.
The 11th Sarsfield making a sally, killed some men, and retarded
the works; but before the 15th, three approaches by the sap were
conducted against the Nun’s bastion, where the besiegers crowned
the glacis, and against the half-moon of the King and Prince. Fresh
batteries were also constructed, whose fire embraced the whole front
from the Prince to the Nun’s bastion.
On the morning of the 16th fifty-four guns opened from the French
batteries, and the Spaniards placing sand-bags along the parapets
endeavoured by musketry to kill the gunners, who were much exposed,
while all the cannon of the place which could be directed upon the
trenches were employed to crush the batteries. Towards evening this
fire had in a great degree mastered that of the besiegers, destroyed
the centre of their second parallel, and silenced a battery on their
right; but the loss and damage was great on both sides, for two
consumption magazines exploded in the town and the Nun’s bastion was
breached. The engineers also observed that the ditch of the Prince
was not carried round to the sea, and hence Suchet who feared a
continuation of this murderous artillery battle, resolved to storm
that point at once, hoping to enter by the defect in the ditch.
At nine o’clock two columns, supported by a reserve, issued from the
trenches, and after a short resistance entered the work both by the
gap of the ditch, and by escalade; the garrison fought well, and
were put to the sword, a few only escaping along the quay, these
were pursued by a party of the French, who passing a ditch, and
draw-bridge which cut off the road from the bastion of San Carlos,
endeavoured to maintain themselves there, but being unsupported were
mostly destroyed. The lodgement thus made was immediately secured and
included in the trenches.
During the night of the 17th the old batteries were repaired and the
construction of a new one, to breach the bastion of San Carlos, was
begun upon the half-moon of the Prince; the saps and other approaches
were also pushed forward, a lodgement was effected in the covered way
of the Nun’s bastion, and the third parallel was commenced; but on
the right of the trenches, in advance of the Prince, the workmen came
upon water which obliged them to desist at that point.
The 18th the third parallel was completed and the descent of the
ditch at the Nun’s bastion was commenced by an under-ground gallery;
yet the fire from the upper town plunged into the trenches, and
thirty-seven shells thrown very exactly into the lodgement on the
counterscarp, obliged the besiegers to relinquish their operations
there during the day. At this time also the gun-boats which hitherto
had been of little service in the defence, were put under the
direction of the British navy, and worked with more effect; yet it
does not appear that the enemy ever suffered much injury from the
vessels of war, beyond the interruption sometimes given to their
convoys on the Col de Balaguer road.
During the nights of the 19th and 20th all the French works were
advanced, and the morning of the 21st the new battery, in the Prince,
being ready, opened its fire against San Carlos, and was followed
by all the other batteries. The explosion of an expense magazine
silenced the Prince’s battery after a few rounds, the damage was
however repaired, and at four o’clock in the evening nearly all
the Spanish guns being overcome and the breaches enlarged, Suchet
resolved to storm the lower town. But previous to describing this
terrible event, it is necessary to notice the proceedings within and
without the place, that a just idea of the actual state of affairs on
both sides may be formed.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 4.]
Macdonald had continued the blockade of Figueras with unceasing
vigilance; and as the best of the Miguelettes were shut up there,
and as the defeat of Campo Verde, on the 3d of May, had spread
consternation throughout the province, the operations to relieve it
were confined to such exertions as Rovira, Manso, and other chiefs
could call forth. In like manner Francisco Milans was left in the
Hostalrich district, and by his local popularity amongst the people
of the coast between Palamos and Barcelona, was enabled to keep up
an irregular force; but his object was to be made captain-general of
the province, and his desire of popularity, or some other motive,
led him to favour the towns of his district at the expense of the
general cause. Mattaro and Villa Nueva de Sitjes trafficked in corn
with Barcelona, and one of their secret convoys was detected at a
later period passing the outposts with Milans’ written authority. He
put the men to death who permitted the convoy to pass, but he did
not succeed in removing the suspicion of corruption from himself.
This traffic was very advantageous for the French, and Maurice
Mathieu being either unwilling to disturb it, or that having recently
suffered in a skirmish at Mattaro, he feared to risk his troops, made
no movement to aid the siege of Taragona, which it would appear, he
might have done by taking possession of Villa Nueva de Sitjes.
Such was the state of Eastern Catalonia, and in the western parts,
the infantry of Sarsfield, and of Eroles, who had come down to the
vicinity of Valls, and the cavalry under Caro, which was a thousand
strong, formed, with the new levies ordered by the junta, an army
of seven or eight thousand men. This force might have done much,
if Campo Verde, a man of weak character, and led by others, had
not continually changed his plans. At the opening of the siege,
Sarsfield had acted, as we have seen, with some success on the side
of Momblanch and Reus; but when he was sent into the lower town, the
active army being reduced to Eroles’ division, the cavalry could
do no more than supply small detachments, to watch the different
French convoys and posts. Campo Verde, however, fixed his quarters at
Igualada, sent detachments to the Gaya and Villa Franca, and holding
Villa Nueva de Sitjes as his post of communication with the fleet,
demanded assistance from Murcia and Valencia, and formed a general
plan for the succour of the place. But in Taragona his proceedings
were viewed with dislike, and discord and negligence were rendering
the courage of the garrison of no avail.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 1.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 1.]
We have seen that captain Codrington landed two thousand five hundred
Valencians on the 22d of May; besides that reinforcement, vessels
loaded with powder and other stores, and additional mortars for the
batteries, came from Carthagena and from Cadiz in the beginning
of June. From Murcia also came reinforcements; but such was the
perversity of some authorities and the want of arrangement in all,
that the arms of these men were taken away from them before they
sailed; and yet in Taragona there were already two thousand men
without arms, a folly attributed by some to the Spanish authorities
of Murcia, by others to colonel Roche, the English military agent.
Nor did the confusion end here; for captain Codrington, when he
sailed from Taragona to Peniscola in the latter end of May, supplied
O’Donnel with arms for two thousand recruits, who were to replace
the Valencians then embarked; and a few days afterwards he delivered
so many more at the city of Valencia, that Villa Campa and the
Empecinado, whose troops, after their dispersion in April by Abbé
and Paris, had remained inactive, were enabled again to take the
field. Thus it appears that, while men were sent without arms from
Valencia to Taragona, arms were being conveyed from the latter place
to Valencia.
[Sidenote: Report of Contreras.]
The troops in Taragona had, by these different reinforcements, been
augmented to near seventeen thousand men; however that number was
never available at one time, for the Murcians were sent to Montserrat
to be armed, and the losses during the operations, including those
caused by sickness, had reduced the garrison at this period to less
than twelve thousand. Several colonels of regiments, and many other
officers, feigning sickness, or with open cowardice running away,
had quitted the town, leaving their battalions to be commanded by
captains; the general of artillery was incapable, and Contreras
himself, unknown to the inhabitants, unacquainted with the place
or its resources, was vacillating and deceitful to those serving
under him. He was very unwilling to undertake the defence, and he
was at variance with Campo Verde outside, and jealous of Sarsfield
inside. In the fleet also some disagreement occurred between captain
Codrington and captain Bullen, and the commanders of the Diana and
Prueba, Spanish ships of war, were accused of gross misconduct.
Carlos O’Donnel and his brother the Conde de Abispal, at the desire
of captain Codrington, had permitted Miranda to embark with four
thousand of the best Valencian troops for Taragona, there to join in
a grand sally; but they exacted from Codrington a pledge to bring
those who survived back, for they would not suffer this their
second aid in men to be shut up in the place when the object was
effected. These troops landed the 12th at Taragona, yet the next day,
at Campo Verde’s order, Miranda, instead of making a sally as had
been projected, carried them off by sea to Villa Nueva de Sitjes,
and from thence marched to meet a detachment of horse coming from
Villa Franca; and on the 15th two squadrons of cavalry issuing from
Taragona by the Barcelona gate, passed the French line of investment,
without difficulty, and also joined Miranda who then marched to unite
with Campo Verde at Igualada.
This movement was in pursuance of a grand plan to succour the place;
for the junta of Catalonia, having quitted Taragona after the fall
of the Olivo, repaired with the archives to Montserrat, and as usual
made their clamours for succour ring throughout the peninsula:
they had received promises of co-operation from O’Donnel, from
Villa Campa, and from the partizans, and Campo Verde proposed, that
the English ships of war should keep between the Col de Balaguer
and Taragona, to cannonade the French convoys on that route; that
a detachment should take post at Ordal to watch the garrison of
Barcelona, and that he with the remainder of his forces, which
including Miranda’s division amounted to ten thousand infantry and a
thousand cavalry, should take some commanding position near Reus. In
this situation he designed to send a detachment towards San Filippe
de Balaguer to communicate with the fleet, and, avoiding any serious
action, to operate by small corps against the French line of supply,
and thus oblige them to raise the siege, or if they came out of
their lines to fight them in strong positions.
Contreras treated this plan with contempt. He said it would cause
the loss both of the place and the army; that the French would not
raise the siege except for a general battle, and that within their
lines the best mode of fighting them would be in concert with the
garrison; wherefore he desired the general-in-chief to attack them in
conjunction with himself, and the junta, who were at variance with
Campo Verde, backed this proposal.
Neither of these plans, however, appear sound; for though it is
certain, if the generals could have depended upon their troops,
such was the reduced state of Suchet’s force, and so extensive
was his line of investment, that it would have been easy to break
through; yet, unless the French were put entirely to the route,
which was unlikely, no great advantage would have followed, because
the communication was already open by sea. On the other hand Campo
Verde’s plan was only proposed on the 13th, and would have been too
slow for the critical nature of the case. It would have been more in
accord with that great maxim of war, which prescribes the _attack of
an enemy’s weakest point with the greatest possible numbers_, to have
marched with his whole force upon Mora, or upon Reus, to beat the
troops there, and destroy the depôts; and then seizing some strong
posts on the hills close to the besieger’s lines to have entrenched
it and operated daily and hourly against their rear. If Campo Verde
had destroyed either of these depôts the siege must have been raised;
and if he was unable to beat two or three thousand infantry at those
places, he could not hope, even with the assistance of the garrison,
to destroy sixteen thousand of all arms in the entrenchments before
Taragona. Suchet did not fear a battle on the Francoli river; but so
tender was he of the depôts, that when Campo Verde sent an officer to
raise the Somatenes about Mora, he called Abbé with three thousand
infantry from Teruel, and that general who was active and experienced
in the guerilla warfare, soon dispersed the Spanish levies, and took
their chief with many others prisoners, after which he joined the
besieging army.
Suchet required this reinforcement. He had lost a general, two
hundred inferior officers, and above two thousand five hundred men
during the siege, and had not more than twelve thousand infantry fit
for duty; but colonel Villamil, a partizan of Campo Verde’s, taking
advantage of Abbé’s absence, marched with a thousand men to attack
Mora, and being beaten on the 16th was succeeded by Eroles, who came
with his whole division to Falcet on the 20th, and captured a convoy
of loaded mules, driving back the escort with some loss to Mora. The
design was to tempt Suchet to send a strong detachment in pursuit
of Eroles, in which case the latter was by a rapid march to rejoin
Campo Verde near Alcover, when the whole army was to attack Suchet
thus weakened. However the French general would not turn from his
principal object, and his magazines at Reus were still so full that
the loss of the convoy did not seriously affect him.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 1.]
Such was the situation of affairs on the 21st of June, when the order
to assault the lower town was given to an army, small in number,
but full of vigour, and confident of success; while, in the place
there was confusion, folly, and cowardice. Contreras indeed acted a
shameful part; for during captain Codrington’s absence, Sarsfield had
concerted with the navy, that in the case of the lower town being
stormed, the ships should come to the mole and the garrison would
retire there, rather than to the upper town; meanwhile Campo Verde
recalled him to the active army, intending that general Velasco
should replace him; but at three o’clock on the 21st, the breaches
being then open, and the assault momentarily expected, Contreras
commanded Sarsfield instantly to embark, falsely averring that such
was the peremptory order of Campo Verde. Sarsfield remonstrated
in vain, and a boat from the Cambrian frigate carried him and his
personal staff and his effects on board that vessel; thus the command
of the troops was left to an inefficient subordinate officer, the
assault took place at that moment, and when Velasco arrived, he found
only the dead bodies of those he was to have commanded. Contreras
then assured captain Codrington and the junta, that Sarsfield had
acted without his consent, and had in fact betrayed his post!
STORMING OF THE LOWER TOWN.
[Sidenote: Rogniat.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
[Sidenote: Captain Codrington’s Papers, MSS.]
This calamitous event happened in the evening of the 21st. Two
breaches had been made in the bastions, and one in the fort Royal;
they were not wide, and a few Spanish guns still answered the French
fire; nevertheless the assault was ordered, and as some suppose,
because Suchet had secret intelligence of Sarsfield’s removal, and
the consequent confusion in the garrison.
Fifteen hundred grenadiers, destined for the attack, were assembled
under Palombini in the trenches; a second column was formed to
support the storming troops, and to repel any sally from the upper
town; and while the arrangements were in progress, the French guns
thundered incessantly, and the shouts of the infantry, impatient
for the signal, were heard between the salvos, redoubling as the
shattered walls gave way. At last Harispe’s division began to menace
the ramparts on the side of Barcelona, to distract the attention
of the Spaniards, and then Suchet exhorting the soldiers to act
vigorously, gave the signal and let them loose while it was still
day. In an instant the breaches were crowned, and the assailants
swarmed on the bastions, the ramparts, and the fort Royal; the
Spaniards, without a leader, were thrown into confusion, and falling
in heaps broke and fled towards the port, towards the mole, and
towards the upper town, and a reserve stationed under the walls of
the latter was overthrown with the same shock. Then some of the
fugitives, running towards the mole, were saved by the English
launches, others escaped into the upper town, a few were made
prisoners, and the rest were slaughtered.
At eight o’clock the lower town was in the possession of the enemy.
Fifteen hundred bodies, many of whom were inhabitants, lay stretched
upon the place, and the mercantile magazines of the port being set on
fire, the flames finished what the sword had begun. When the carnage
ceased, the troops were rallied, working parties were set to labour;
and ere the confusion in the upper town had subsided, the besiegers
were again hidden in their trenches and burrowing forward to the
walls of the upper town.
The front before them consisted of four bastions with curtains, but
without a ditch. The bastion of St. Paul was opposite their left,
that of St. John opposite their centre, that of Jesus opposite their
right; but the bastion of Cervantes, which covered the principal
landing place of the Milagro, although on the same front of defence,
was somewhat retired and not included within the attack. A hollow
piece of ground, serving as a trench, had enabled the French to
establish their left in a side bastion of the wall, connecting the
upper with the lower town; and their right was strongly protected by
some houses lining the road, for between the two parts of the city
there were four hundred yards of open garden-ground interspersed with
single houses. A battery was constructed to play upon the landing
places of the Milagro, two mortars which were on the hill of the fort
Loretto, concurred in this object, and the light troops were pushed
close up to the wall; but at daylight the ships of war passed the
port delivering their broadsides in succession, Contreras then showed
the heads of columns as if for a sally, and the French skirmishers
retired; whereupon the Spanish general, contented with having thus
cleared his front, re-entered the place.
The men saved from the mole, by the ships, were now relanded in
the upper town, and the second reinforcement from Murcia arrived,
but being like the first detachment without arms only added to the
confusion and difficulties of the governor. Nevertheless as the loss
of the French in the storming was about six hundred, and that of the
Spaniards not more than two thousand, the besieged had still nine
thousand fighting men; a number nearly equal to the whole infantry
of Suchet’s army; and hence Contreras, far from quailing beneath the
blow, would not even receive a flag of truce by which the French
general offered honourable conditions.
Suchet’s position was becoming more embarrassing every moment; he
had now delivered four assaults, his force was diminished nearly
one-fifth of its original number, and the men’s strength was spent
with labouring on his prodigious works: his line of communication
with Lerida was quite intercepted and that with Mora interrupted,
and he had lost a large convoy of provisions together with the mules
that carried it. The resolution of the besieged seemed in no manner
abated, and their communication with the sea, although partially
under the French fire, was still free; the sea itself was covered
with ships of war, overwhelming reinforcements might arrive at any
moment, and Campo Verde with ten thousand men was daily menacing his
rear. The Valencian army, Villa Campa, the Empecinado, Duran who
had defeated a French detachment near Mirando del Ebro, Mina who
had just then taken the convoy with Massena’s baggage at the Puerto
de Arlaban, in fine all the Partidas of the mountains of Albaracin,
Moncayo, and Navarre, were in motion, and menacing his position in
Aragon. This rendered it dangerous for him to call to his aid any
more troops from the right of the Ebro, and yet a single check might
introduce despondency amongst the soldiers of the siege, composed
as they were of different nations, and some but lately come under
his command; indeed their labours and dangers were so incessant and
wearing, that it is no small proof of the French general’s talent,
and the men’s spirit, that the confidence of both was still unshaken.
On the 24th the crisis seemed at hand, intelligence arrived in the
French camp, that the Spanish army was coming down the Gaya river
to fight, at the same time the garrison got under arms, and an
active interchange of signals took place between the town and the
fleet. Suchet immediately placed a reserve to sustain the guards
of his trenches, and marched with a part of his army to meet Campo
Verde. That general, pressed by the remonstrances of Contreras and
the junta, had at last relinquished his own plan, recalled Eroles,
and united his army at Momblanch on the 22nd, and then moving
by Villardoña, had descended the hills between the Gaya and the
Francoli; he was now marching in two columns to deliver battle,
having directed Contreras to make a sally at the same moment. But
Miranda, who commanded his right wing, found, or pretended to
find, some obstacles and halted, whereupon Campo Verde instantly
relinquished the attack, and marched to Vendril before the French
general could reach him.
The 25th he again promised Contreras to make a decisive attack, and
for that purpose desired that three thousand men of the garrison
should be sent to Vendril, and the remainder be held ready to cut
their way through the enemy’s lines during the action. He likewise
assured him that four thousand English were coming by sea to aid
in this project, and it is probable some great effort was really
intended, for the breaching batteries had not yet opened their fire,
and the wall of the place was consequently untouched; ten thousand
infantry and a thousand cavalry under Campo Verde were within a few
miles of the French camp on the Barcelona side; eight thousand men
accustomed to fire were still under arms within the walls; and on
the 26th colonel Skerrett appeared in the roadstead, not with four
thousand, but with twelve hundred British soldiers, sent from Cadiz
and from Gibraltar to succour Taragona.
[Sidenote: Contreras’ Report]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 1.]
The arrival of this force, the increase of shipping in the roadstead,
and the promises of Campo Verde, raised the spirits of the garrison
from the depression occasioned by the disappointment of the 27th;
and they were still more elated when in the evening colonel Skerrett
and his staff, accompanied by general Doyle, captain Codrington, and
other officers of the navy, disembarked, and proceeded to examine
the means of defence. But they were struck with consternation when
they heard that the British commander, because his engineers affirmed
that the wall would give way after a few salvos from the breaching
batteries, had resolved to keep his troops on board the transports,
idle spectators of the garrison’s efforts, to defend the important
place which he had been sent to succour.
Contreras, thus disappointed on all sides, and without dependence
on Campo Verde, resolved, if the French delayed the storm until the
29th, to make way by a sally on the Barcelona road, and so join the
army in the field; meanwhile to stand the assault if fortune so
willed it. And he had good reason for his resolution, for the ground
in front of the walls was high and narrow; and although there was
neither ditch nor covered way, a thick hedge of aloe trees, no small
obstacle to troops, grew at the foot of the rampart, which was also
cut off from the town, and from the side works, by an internal ditch
and retrenchment. Behind the rampart the houses of the great street
called the Rambla, were prepared for defence, furnishing a second
line of resistance; and although the cuts on the flanks hindered the
making of sallies in force, which at such a period was a good mode of
defence, the reduced state of the French army gave reason to believe
that eight thousand brave men could resist it effectually.
The 28th a general plan for breaking out on the Barcelona side, the
co-operation of the fleet, and a combined attack of the Spanish army,
was arranged; and Eroles embarked for the purpose of re-landing at
Taragona, to take the leading of the troops destined to sally forth
on the 29th. The French general had however completed his batteries
on the night of the 27th, and in the morning of the 28th they opened
with a crashing effect. One magazine blew up in the bastion of
Cervantes; all the guns in that of San Paulo were dismounted; the
wall fell away in huge fragments before the stroke of the batteries,
and from the Olivo, and from all the old French trenches, the guns
and mortars showered bullets and shells into the place. This fire
was returned from many Spanish pieces, still in good condition, and
the shoulders of the French batteries were beaten down; yet their
gunners, eager for the last act of the siege, stood to their work
uncovered, the musketry rattled round the ramparts, the men on both
sides crowded to the front, and while opprobrious words and mutual
defiance passed between them, the generals, almost within hearing of
each other, exhorted the soldiers to fight with the vigour that the
crisis demanded.
STORMING OF THE UPPER TOWN.
[Sidenote: Suchet.]
[Sidenote: Rogniat.]
[Sidenote: Vacani.]
[Sidenote: Codrington’s papers. MSS.]
At five o’clock in the evening the French fire suddenly ceased,
and fifteen hundred men led by general Habert passing out from the
parallel, went at full speed up against the breach; twelve hundred
under general Ficatier followed in support, general Montmarie led a
brigade round the left, to the bastion of Rosario, with a view to
break the gates there during the assault, and thus penetrating, to
turn the interior defence of the Rambla. Harispe took post on the
Barcelona road, to cut off the retreat of the garrison.
The columns of attack had to pass over an open space of more than a
hundred yards before they could reach the foot of the breach; and
when within twenty yards of it, the hedge of aloes obliged them to
turn to the right, and left, under a terrible fire of musketry and
of grape, which the Spaniards, who were crowding on the breach with
apparent desperation, poured unceasingly upon them. The destruction
was great, the head of the French column got into confusion, gave
back, and was beginning to fly, when the reserves rushed up, and a
great many officers coming forward in a body, renewed the attack. At
that moment one Bianchini, an Italian soldier, who had obtained leave
to join the column as a volunteer, and whose white clothes, amidst
the blue uniforms of the French, gave him a supernatural appearance,
went forth alone from the ranks, and gliding silently and sternly up
the breach, notwithstanding many wounds reached the top, and there
fell dead. Then the multitude bounded forward with a shout, the
first line of the Spaniards fled, and the ramparts were darkened by
the following masses of the French.
Meanwhile Montmarie’s sappers cut away the palisades at Rosario,
and his light troops finding a rope hanging from the wall, mounted
by it, at the moment when the assailants at the breach broke the
Spanish reserves with one shock, and poured into the town like a
devastating torrent. At the Rambla a momentary stand was indeed made,
but the impulse of victory was too strong to be longer resisted,
and a dreadful scene of slaughter and violence ensued. Citizens and
soldiers, maddened with fear, rushed out in crowds by the Barcelona
gate, while others, throwing themselves over the ramparts, made for
the landing-places within the Milagro; but that way also had been
intercepted by general Rogniat with his sappers, and then numbers
throwing themselves down the steep rocks were dashed to pieces,
while they who gained the shore were still exposed to the sword of
the enemy. Those that went out by the Barcelona gate were met by
Harispe’s men, and some being killed, the rest, three thousand in
number, were made prisoners. But within the town all was horror;
fire had been set to many houses, Gonzales, fighting manfully, was
killed, Contreras, wounded with the stroke of a bayonet, was only
saved by a French officer; and though the hospitals were respected
by the soldiers, in every other part their fury was unbounded. When
the assault first commenced, the ship-launches had come close into
the Milagro, and now saved some of the fugitives, but their guns
swept the open space beyond, killing friends and enemies, as, mixed
together, they rushed to the shore; and the French dragoons, passing
through the flaming streets at a trot, rode upon the fugitives,
sabring those who had outstripped the infantry. In every quarter
there was great rage and cruelty, and although most of the women
and children had, during the siege, been removed from Taragona by
the English shipping, and that the richest citizens had all gone to
Sitjes, this assault was memorable as a day of blood. Only seven or
eight hundred miserable creatures, principally soldiers, escaped on
board the vessels; nine thousand, including the sick and wounded,
were made prisoners; more than five thousand persons were slain, and
a great part of the city was reduced to ashes.
CHAPTER VI.
[Sidenote: 1811. June.]
Suchet had lost in killed and wounded during the siege between four
and five thousand men, yet scarcely had the necessary orders to
efface the trenches, secure the prisoners, and establish order in the
ruined city been given, than the French general was again in movement
to disperse Campo Verde’s force. In the night of the 29th Frere’s
division marched upon Villa Franca, Harispe’s upon Villa Nueva,
being followed by Suchet himself with Abbé’s brigade and the heavy
cavalry. Campo Verde then abandoned Vendril, and Harispe’s column,
although cannonaded by the English squadron, reached Villa Nueva,
where a great multitude, military and others, were striving to embark
in the vessels off the port. The light cavalry sabred some and made
fifteen hundred prisoners, including the wounded men who had been
carried there from Taragona during the siege; and Frere’s column in
a like manner dispersed the Spanish rear-guard at Vendril and Villa
Franca. Campo Verde then fled with the main body to Igualada, and
Suchet pushed on with the reserve to Barcelona, where he arranged
with Maurice Mathieu a plan to prevent the Valencian division from
re-embarking, or marching to aid the blockade of Figueras.
[Sidenote: 1811. July.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 5.]
Distrust, confusion, and discord now prevailed amongst the Catalans.
The people were enraged against Campo Verde, and the junta sent to
Cadiz to demand the duke of Infantado as a chief. Milans, who had
assembled some Miguelettes and Somatenes about Arens de Mar, openly
proposed himself, and Sarsfield, whose division was the only one in
any order, was at variance with Eroles. The country people desired to
have the latter made captain-general, and a junta of general officers
actually appointed him; yet he would not accept it while Campo Verde
remained, and that general had already reached Agramunt, whence,
overwhelmed with his misfortunes, he meant to fly towards Aragon. He
was, however, persuaded to return to Cervera, and call a council of
war, and then it was proposed to abandon Catalonia as a lost country,
and embark the army; and this disgraceful resolution, although
opposed by Sarsfield, Santa Cruz, and even Campo Verde himself, was
adopted by the council, and spread universal consternation. The junta
remonstrated loudly, all the troops who were not Catalans deserted,
making principally for the Segre and Cinça rivers, in hope to pass
through Aragon into New Castile, and so regain their own provinces;
every place was filled with grief and despair.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 2.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 3.]
In this conjuncture captain Codrington refused to embark any
Catalans, but he had promised to take back the Valencians, and
although the conditions of his agreement had been grossly violated
by Campo Verde and Miranda, he performed his contract: yet even
this was not arranged without a contest between him and Doyle, on
the one side, and Miranda and Caro on the other. Meanwhile colonel
Green, instead of remaining at the Spanish head-quarters, returned
to Peniscola with all the money and arms under his controul; and the
captain of the Prueba frigate, having under his command, several
Spanish vessels of war loaded with wounded men, the archives of
the municipality, ammunition, stores, and money, all belonging to
Catalonia, set sail for Majorca under such suspicious circumstances,
that captain Codrington thought it necessary to send a ship to fetch
him back by force.
In the midst of these afflicting scenes Suchet brought up his troops
to Barcelona, and Maurice Mathieu with a part of his garrison
marching upon Mataro, dispersed a small body of men that Eroles had
collected there; but the Valencian infantry to the number of two
thousand four hundred escaped to Arens de Mar, and being received on
board the English vessels were sent back to their own country. The
cavalry, unwilling to part with their horses, would not embark, and
menaced their general Caro, who fled from their fury; nevertheless
Eroles rallied them, and having gathered some stores and money
from the smaller depôts, marched inland. Campo Verde then embarked
privately in the Diana to avoid the vengeance of the people, and
general Lacy, who had arrived from Cadiz, took the command; yet he
would have been disregarded, if Eroles had not set the example of
obedience. Suchet however moved against him, and first scouring the
valley of the Congosta and that of Vich, spread his columns in all
directions, and opened a communication with Macdonald at Figueras.
Lacy, thus pressed, collected the cavalry and a few scattered
Catalonian battalions remaining about Solsona, Cardona, and Seu
d’Urgel, and took refuge in the hills, while Eroles threw himself
into Montserrat, where large magazines had been previously formed.
Suchet unable to find subsistence in the valleys, resolved to
attack this celebrated place, and for this purpose leaving Frere
and Harispe at Vich and Moya, with orders to move at a given time
upon Montserrat, returned himself with the reserve to Reus. Here he
received despatches from Napoleon, who had created him a marshal,
and had sent him orders to take Montserrat, to destroy the works
of Taragona, with the exception of a citadel, and finally to march
against Valencia. He therefore preserved the upper town of Taragona,
ruined the rest of the works, carried the artillery to Tortoza, and
marched against Montserrat on the 22d of July by the way of Momblanch
and San Coloma to Igualada. At the same time Harispe and Frere moved
by Manresa, and Maurice Mathieu entered Esparaguera with a part of
the garrison of Barcelona.
TAKING OF MONTSERRAT.
This strong-hold was occupied by fourteen or fifteen hundred
Miguelettes and Somatenes, inadequate as it proved to defend it
against a great body of men such as Suchet was bringing up. But
Eroles was daily raising recruits and adding works to the natural
strength, and it would soon have been impregnable; for on all sides
the approaches were through the midst of steeps and precipices, and
high upon a natural platform, opening to the east, and overlooking
the Llobregat, stood the convent of “_Nuestra Señora de Montserrat_,”
a great edifice, and once full of riches, but the wary monks had
removed their valuables to Minorca early in the war. It was now well
stored and armed, and above it huge peaks of stone shot up into
the clouds so rude, so naked, so desolate, that, to use Suchet’s
expressive simile, “It was like the skeleton of a mountain.”
There were three ways of ascending to this convent; one from
Igualada which winded up on the north, from Casa Mansana, between a
perpendicular rock and a precipice; this road which was the only one
supposed practicable for an attack, was defended by two successive
batteries, and by a retrenchment immediately in front of the convent
itself. The other two ways were, a foot-path on the south leading
to Colbato, and a narrow road crossing the Llobregat and running by
Monistrol on the east, but both so crossed and barred by precipices
as to be nearly inaccessible to troops.
Suchet disposed one brigade at Colbato to menace that front, and to
intercept the retreat of the Spaniards; he then occupied the roads
of Igualada and Monistrol with Harispe’s and Frere’s divisions, and
directed Abbé’s brigade to attack from the convent by the northern
line. The 24th Abbé drove the Spaniards from Casa Mansana, and the
25th advanced up the mountain, flanked by some light troops, and
supported by Suchet in person with the Barcelona troops, but exposed
to the fire of the Somatenes, who had gathered round the peaks above.
In a short time the first Spanish battery opened upon the head of
the column as it turned an angle, but more light troops being sent
out, they climbed the rough rocks, and getting above the battery shot
down upon the gunners, while the leading companies of the column
rushed forward, in front, and before a second discharge could be
made, reached the foot of the battery beneath the line of fire.
The Spaniards then threw down large stones upon the French until
the fire of the light troops above, became so galling that the work
was abandoned, the French however followed close, and the men above
continued clambering along with that energy which the near prospect
of success inspires; thus the Spaniards, unable to rally in time,
were overtaken and bayoneted in the second battery, and the road was
opened.
Abbé now re-formed his troops and marched on to assail the
entrenchments of the convent, but as he advanced a sharp musketry
was heard on the opposite quarter, and suddenly the Spanish garrison
came flying out of the building pursued by French soldiers, who were
supposed to be the brigade from Colbato; they however proved to be
the light troops first sent out, to keep off the Somatenes from the
right flank; for when the column advanced up the mountain, these
men, about three hundred in number, had wandered too far to the
right, and insensibly gaining ground up hill, had seized one or two
of the hermitages with which the peaks are furnished; then growing
more daring, they pressed on unopposed, until they gained the rock
immediately overhanging the convent itself, and perceiving their
advantage, with that intelligence which belongs only to veterans,
immediately attacked the Spanish reserves. Their commanding position,
the steep rocks, and narrow staircases, compensated for their
inferiority of numbers, and in a little time they gained one of the
doors, entered, and fought the defenders amongst the cloisters and
galleries, with various turns of fortune, until the fugitives from
the batteries, followed by Abbé, arrived, and then the whole garrison
gave way and fled down the eastern precipices to the Llobregat,
where from their knowledge of the country they easily avoided
Harispe’s men.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 4.]
The loss of this place, which by Eroles and others was attributed
to colonel Green’s having carried off the money destined for
strengthening it, was deeply felt from its military importance, and
from the superstitious veneration in which it was held: several towns
then offered their submission, many villages gave up their arms, and
a general fear of Suchet’s prowess began to spread all over Spain;
but the Catalans, a fierce and constant race, were not yet conquered.
The anarchy attendant upon the fall of Taragona and the after
movements of Suchet had indeed been great; and as we have seen, most
of the persons who might have aided to restore order, acted so as to
increase the general confusion, and their bad example was followed
by the authorities in other provinces who were most immediately
connected with Catalonia: thus Cuesta, at this time governor of the
Balearic isles, Bassecour who was at Cuença, and Palacios, who had
just been made captain-general of Valencia, did in no manner comport
themselves as the occasion required. Cuesta who had neglected to
send from Minorca the guns wanted in Catalonia, now entered into
a negotiation to exchange the prisoners at Cabrera against those
of Taragona, a praiseworthy thing, if, as Suchet asserts, it arose
from humanity; and not an ill-judged measure in itself, because the
Catalonian soldiers to be exchanged were the best in Spain, and the
French prisoners were ruined in constitution by their hard captivity.
But at this period of distress it was impolitic, and viewed with
suspicion by the Catalonians, as tending to increase the French
force. At the desire of Mr. Wellesley this exchange was, however,
peremptorily forbidden by the regency, and Cuesta refused to receive
any more prisoners at Cabrera, which while those already there were
so tormented, was, from whatever motive arising, a meritorious act,
and the last important one of his life, for he soon after died. The
prisoners remained, therefore, a disgrace to Spain and to England;
for if her envoy interfered to prevent their release, she was bound
to insist, that thousands of men, whose prolonged captivity was the
result of her interference, should not be exposed upon a barren rock,
naked as they were born, and fighting for each other’s miserable
rations to prolong an existence inconceivably wretched.
[Sidenote: 1811. August.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. I. Section 4.]
This untoward state of affairs in Catalonia was aggravated by the
English, Spanish, and French privateers, who taking advantage of
the times, plundered the people along the coast in concert; and
they were all engaged in the smuggling of tobacco, the monopoly of
which here as in other parts of Spain formed the principal resource
of the revenue. Yet there were many considerable resources left
to the Catalans. The chief towns had fallen, but the mountainous
districts were not subdued and scarcely crossed by the French lines
of invasion. The Somatenes were numerous, more experienced, and still
ready to come forward, under a good general, if arms were provided
for them, and the English squadron was always at hand to aid them:
Admiral Keats brought three thousand muskets from Gibraltar, Sir E.
Pellew, who had succeeded to the command of the Mediterranean fleet,
was anxious to succour the province to the full extent of his means,
and Minorca was a great depôt of guns, stores, and even men. Lacy,
Eroles, Rovira, and others, therefore, raised fresh levies; and while
the blockade of Figueras continued to keep all Macdonald’s army
employed, the Spaniards seized the opportunity to operate partially
on the side of Besalu and Bispal, and even in the French Cerdaña,
which being unprotected, was invaded by Lacy.
Suchet, whose posts now extended from Lerida to Montserrat on one
side, and on the other from Taragona to Mequinenza, foresaw that
a new and troublesome Catalonian war was preparing; but he was
obliged to return to Saragoza, partly to prepare for the invasion of
Valencia, partly to restore tranquillity in Aragon, which had been
disturbed by the passage of the seceders from Campo Verde’s army. The
Valencian cavalry also, when Eroles threw himself into Montserrat,
had under the conduct of general Gasca endeavoured to push through
Aragon towards Navarre; and although they were intercepted by general
Reille, and followed closely by Chlopiski, they finally reached
Valencia without much loss, and the rest of the fugitives gained the
Moncayo mountains and afterwards joined Mina. That chief was then
in a very low state; he had been defeated on the 14th at Sanguessa,
by Chlopiski, and Reille, who using the reinforcements then pouring
into Spain, had pursued and defeated him again at Estella on the
23d of July, at Sorlada on the 24th, and at Val de Baygory on the
25th; yet he finally escaped to Motrico on the Biscay coast, where
he received fresh arms and stores from the English vessels; but he
was again defeated by Caffarelli, and finally driven for refuge to
the district of Leibana; here the soldiers flying from Taragona and
Figueras joined him, and he soon reappeared more fierce and powerful
than before.
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s papers, MSS.]
Meanwhile Villa Campa, whose division had been re-equipped from the
supplies given by captain Codrington, concerted his operations with
the partida chiefs Duran and Campillo; and their combined forces
being eight thousand strong, having advanced from different quarters
on the right bank of the Ebro, invested Calatayud, and sought to
carry off grain, which was now very scarce. This delayed the invasion
of Valencia, for Suchet would not undertake it until he had again
secured the frontier of Aragon, and many of his battalions were
then escorting the prisoners to France. But when they returned, he
directed numerous columns against the partidas, and at the same time
troops belonging to the army of the centre came down by the way of
Medina Celi; whereupon the Spaniards retired to their fastnesses in
the mountains of Soria on one side, and in those of Albaracin on the
other.
Four thousand of the Valencian army had meanwhile marched against
Rapita and Amposta, for the former post was re-established after the
fall of Taragona, but although Habert, marching out of Tortoza with
seven or eight hundred men, defeated them with a considerable loss,
the embarrassments of the third corps were not removed; for while
these successes were obtained on the right of the Ebro the Catalans
began to harass the posts between Lerida and Montserrat. On the 9th
of August the Somatenes fell on some Italians placed in Monistrol,
and were with difficulty repulsed; and a few days after, a convoy
coming from Igualada to Montserrat, was attacked by fifteen hundred
insurgents, and was unable to proceed until Palombini arrived with a
battalion and dislodged the Catalans, but he lost more than a hundred
of his own men in the action. Suchet finding from these events that
he could not safely withdraw his main body from Catalonia until the
fall of Figueras should let loose the army of the upper province,
sent fresh troops to Montserrat, and ordered Palombini to move with
his garrison to aid Macdonald in the blockade; that place had,
however, surrendered before Palombini had passed Barcelona.
General Martinez, after making many vain efforts to break the line of
blockade, and having used every edible substance, prepared, on the
16th of August, to make a final effort, in concert with Rovira who
came down to Llers. An officer deserting from the garrison betrayed
the project; and Rovira was beaten in the morning before the garrison
sallied, nevertheless, in the night Martinez endeavoured to cut his
way through the lines on the side of Rosas, but was driven back with
a loss of four hundred men. Three days after, the place was given up
and three thousand famished men were made prisoners. Thus ended the
fourth great effort of the Catalonians. The success of the French
was not without alloy, more than a fourth part of the blockading
troops had died of a pestilent distemper; Macdonald himself was too
ill to continue in the command, and the remainder of his army was
so weakened, that no further active operations could be undertaken;
Suchet was still occupied in Aragon, and Lacy thus obtained time and
means to reorganize troops for a fifth effort.
The persons who had betrayed the place to Rovira were shot by
Macdonald, and the commandant whose negligence had occasioned this
misfortune was condemned to death; but Napoleon, who has been so
foully misrepresented as a sanguinary tyrant, Napoleon, who had
commuted the sentence of Dupont, now pardoned general Guillot; a
clemency in both cases remarkable, seeing that the loss of an army by
one, and of a great fortress by the other, not only tended directly
and powerfully to the destruction of the emperor’s projects, but were
in themselves great crimes; and it is to be doubted if any other
sovereign in Europe would have displayed such a merciful greatness of
mind.
OBSERVATIONS.
1º. The emperor was discontented with Macdonald’s operations, and
that general seems to have mistaken both the nature of mountain
warfare in general, and that of Catalonia in particular. The first
requires a persevering activity in seizing such commanding posts on
the flanks or rear of an adversary as will oblige him to fight on
disadvantageous terms; and as the success greatly depends upon the
rapidity and vigour of the troops, their spirit should be excited
by continual enterprize, and nourished by commendation and rewards.
Now Macdonald, if we may believe Vacani, an eye-witness, did neither
gain the confidence of his soldiers, nor cherish their ardour; and
while he exacted a more rigid discipline, than the composition of
his troops and the nature of the war would bear, he let pass many
important opportunities of crushing his enemies in the field. His
intent was to reduce the ferocious and insubordinate disposition of
his men, but the peculiar state of feeling with respect to the war
on both sides, did not permit this, and hence his marches appeared
rather as processions and ceremonies than warlike operations. He
won no town, struck no important blow in the field, gave no turn to
the public feeling, and lost a most important fortress, which, with
infinite pains and trouble, he could scarcely regain.
The plans of all the French generals had been different. St. Cyr used
to remain quiet, until the Spaniards gathered in such numbers that he
could crush them in general battles; but then he lost all the fruit
of his success by his inactivity afterwards. Augereau neither fought
battles nor made excursions with skill, nor fulfilled the political
hopes which he had excited. Macdonald was in constant movement, but
he avoided battles; although in every previous important attack the
Catalans had been beaten, whether in strong or in weak positions.
Suchet alone combined skill, activity, and resolution, and the
success which distinguished his operations is the best comment upon
the proceedings of the others. It is in vain to allege that this last
marshal was in a better condition for offensive operations, and that
the emperor required of the seventh corps exertions which the extreme
want of provisions prevented it from making. Napoleon might have been
deceived as to the resources at first, and have thus put it upon
enterprises beyond its means; but after two years’ experience, after
receiving the reports of all the generals employed there, and having
the most exact information of all occurrences, it is impossible to
imagine that so consummate a captain would have urged Macdonald to
undertake impracticable operations; and the latter gave no convincing
proof that his own views were sound. Notwithstanding the continual
complaints of St. Cyr, and other French writers, who have endeavoured
to show that Napoleon was the only man who did not understand
the nature of the war in Spain, and that the French armies were
continually overmatched, it is certain that, after Baylen, the latter
never lost a great battle except to the English; that they took every
town they besieged, and never suffered any reverse from the Spaniards
which cannot be distinctly traced to the executive officers. It would
be silly to doubt the general merit of a man who in so many wars,
and for many years, has maintained the noblest reputation, midst
innumerable dangers, and many great political changes in his own
country, but Macdonald’s military talents do not seem to have been
calculated for the irregular warfare of Catalonia.
2º. The surprise of Figueras has been designated as a misfortune
to the Spaniards, because it shut up a large body of their best
Miguelettes, who fell with the place; and because it drew off Campo
Verde from Taragona at a critical period. Let us, however, contrast
the advantages, and, apart from the vigour and enterprise displayed
in the execution, no mean help to the cause at the time, it will
be seen that the taking of that fortress was a great gain to the
Catalans; for, first, it carried away Macdonald from Barcelona,
and thus the fall of Montserrat was deferred, and great danger of
failure incurred by Suchet at Taragona; a failure infallible, if his
adversaries had behaved with either skill or courage. Secondly, it
employed all the French army of Upper Catalonia, the national guards
of the frontier, and even troops from Toulon, in a blockade, during
which the sword and sickness destroyed more than four thousand
men, and the remainder were so weakened as to be incapable of field
service for a long time; meanwhile Lacy reorganized fresh forces, and
revived the war, which he could never have done if the seventh corps
had been disposable. Thirdly, seeing that Campo Verde was incapable
of handling large masses, it is doubtful if he could have resisted or
retarded for any time the investment of Taragona; but it is certain
that the blockade of Figueras gave an opportunity to Catalonia, to
recover the loss of Taragona; and it obliged Suchet, instead of
Macdonald, to take Montserrat, which disseminated the former force,
and retarded the invasion of Valencia. Wherefore Rovira’s daring,
in the surprise, and Martinez’ resolution in the maintaining of
Figueras, were as useful as they were glorious.
3º. The usual negligence, and slowness of the Spaniards, was apparent
during this campaign; although resolution, perseverance, and talent
were evinced by Suchet in all his operations, the success was in a
great measure due to the faults of his opponents, and amongst those
faults colonel Skerrett’s conduct was prominent. It is true that
captain Codrington and others agreed in the resolution not to land;
that there was a heavy surf, and that the engineers predicted on the
27th that the wall would soon be beaten down; but the question should
have been viewed in another light by colonel Skerrett. Taragona
was the bulwark of the principality, the stay and hope of the war.
It was the city of Spain whose importance was next to Cadiz, and
before its walls the security or the ruin of Valencia as well as of
Catalonia was to be found. Of the French scarcely fourteen thousand
infantry were under arms, and those were exhausted with toil. The
upper town, which was the body of the place, was still unbreached,
it was only attacked upon one narrow front, and behind it the Rambla
offered a second and a more powerful defence. There were, to use the
governor’s expression, within the walls “_eight thousand of the most
warlike troops in Spain_,” and there was a succouring army without,
equal in number to the whole infantry of the besiegers. Under these
circumstances the stoutest assailants might have been repulsed, and a
severe repulse would have been fatal to the French operations.
Captain Codrington asserts that in the skirmishes beyond the walls,
the valour of the garrison was eminent; and he saw a poor ragged
fellow endeavouring, such was his humanity and greatness of mind, to
stifle the burning fuze of a shell with sand, that some women and
children might have time to escape. Feeling and courage, the springs
of moral force, were therefore not wanting, but the virtue of the
people was diminished, and the spirit of the soldiery overlaid, by
the bad conduct of their leaders. The rich citizens fled early to
Villa Nueva, and they were followed by many superior officers of
regiments; Contreras jealous of Sarsfield had obliged him, as we have
seen, to quit his post at a critical moment, and then represented
it to the garrison as a desertion; the Valencians were carried off
after being one day in the place, and the Murcians came without arms;
and all this confusion and mischief were so palpable, that the poor
Spanish soldiers could anticipate nothing but failure if left to
themselves, and it was precisely for this reason that the British
should have been landed to restore confidence. And is there nothing
to be allowed for the impetuous fury of an English column breaking
out of the place at the moment of attack? Let it be remembered also,
that in consequence of the arrival of a seventy-four, convoying the
transports, such was the number of ships of war, that a thousand
seamen and marines might have been added to the troops; and who can
believe that three or four thousand French and Italians, the utmost
that could be brought to bear in mass on one point, and that not
an easy point, for the breach was narrow and scarcely practicable,
would have carried the place against eight thousand Spaniards and
two thousand British. But then the surf and the enemy’s shot at
the landing-place, and the opinion of general Doyle and of captain
Codrington and of the engineers! The enemy’s shot might have
inflicted loss, but could not, especially at night, have stopped
the disembarkation; and the opinion of the engineers, was a just
report of the state of the walls, but in no manner touched the moral
considerations.
When the Roman Pompey was adjured by his friends not to put to sea
during a violent storm he replied, “_it is necessary to sail—it is
not necessary to live_.” It was also necessary to save Taragona!
Was no risk to be incurred for so great an object? Was an uncertain
danger to be weighed against such a loss to Spain? Was the British
intrepidity to be set at nought? Were British soldiers to be quiet
spectators, while Spaniards stood up in a fight too dangerous for
them to meddle with? Is that false but common doctrine, so degrading
to soldiers, that brick-and-mortar sentiment, that the courage of the
garrison is not to be taken into account, to be implicitly followed?
What if the Spaniards had been successful? The result was most
painful! Taragona strongly fortified, having at different periods
above fifteen thousand men thrown into it, with an open harbour and
free communication by sea, was taken by less than twenty thousand
French and Italian infantry, in the face of a succouring army, a
British brigade, and a British fleet!
4º. The cruelty of the French general and the ferocity of his
soldiers, have been dwelt upon by several writers, but Suchet has
vindicated his own conduct, and it is therefore unnecessary here to
enter into a close investigation of facts which have been distorted,
or of reasoning which has been misapplied. That every barbarity,
commonly attendant upon the storming of towns, was practised may be
supposed; there is in the military institutions of Europe nothing
calculated to arrest such atrocities. Soldiers of every nation look
upon the devastation of a town taken by assault as their right, and
it would be unjust to hold Suchet responsible for the violence of an
army composed of men from different countries, exasperated by the
obstinacy of the defence, and by a cruel warfare; in Spanish towns
also the people generally formed a part of the garrison.
OPERATIONS IN VALENCIA AND MURCIA.
[Sidenote: See Vol. III.]
The transactions in the first of these provinces during the siege
of Taragona have been already sufficiently noticed; and those in
Murcia were of little interest, for the defeat of Blake at Cullar in
November 1810, and the fever which raged at Carthagena, together
with the frequent change of commanders, and the neglect of the
government had completely ruined the Murcian army. The number of
men was indeed considerable, and the fourth French corps, weakened
by drafts for the expedition to Estremadura, and menaced by the
Barossa expedition, could not oppose more than five or six thousand
men; yet the province had never been touched by an enemy, and the
circumstances were all favorable for the organization and frequent
trial of new troops.
In February 1811 colonel Roche, the military agent, described the
whole army as “ready to disperse on the first appearance of an
enemy,” and in the following June he says that “after being left to
themselves for three years, the Murcian troops were absolutely in a
worse state than they were at the commencement of the revolution,
that general Freire, although at the head of sixteen thousand
infantry and three thousand cavalry, dared not attack the six
thousand French before him, lest his men should disperse, and they
thought as little of the general as he did of them; that indolence,
lassitude, and egotism prevailed in all parts; that the establishment
of the Cortes had proved but a slight stimulus to the enthusiasm,
which was fast dying away, and that the most agreeable thing in the
world at the moment to the Spaniards, would be to remain neuter,
while England and France fought the battle and paid all the expense.”
The Murcian force was increased after Mahi’s arrival to twenty-two
thousand men, but remained inactive until August, when Blake assumed
the command, and the events which followed will be treated of
hereafter.
The petty warfare in the south of Grenada and Andalusia, deserves
little notice, for during Blake’s absence in Estremadura with the
fourth army, it was principally confined to the Ronda, where the
Serranos aided at times by the troops from Algesiras, and by succours
from Gibraltar, were always in arms; yet even there, the extreme
arrogance and folly of the Spanish generals, so vexed the Serranos,
that they were hardly prevented from capitulating in form with
the French, and while Soult continued at Llerena after the battle
of Albuera. The Escopeteros and civic guards sufficed to keep the
Partidas in check. Thus the blockade of the Isla remained undisturbed
from without, and Cadiz itself, the seat of all intrigues and
follies, was fed by English fleets and defended by English troops.
The narrative of the circle of secondary operations being now
completed, and the fate of Spain proved to depend upon the British
general alone, it will be proper in the next book to take a view
of political affairs shewing how strongly they bore upon lord
Wellington’s decisions; and if such an interruption of the military
story should be distasteful to any reader I would have him reflect,
that war is not so much a series of battles, as a series of
difficulties in the preparations to fight them with success.
BOOK XIV.
CHAPTER I.
POLITICAL SITUATION OF JOSEPH.
[Sidenote: 1810.]
[Sidenote: Joseph’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III. Section 1.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Papers, MSS.]
After the conquest of Andalusia, the intrusive monarch pursued
his own system of policy with more eagerness than before. He
published amnesties, granted honours and rewards to his followers,
took many of the opposite party into his service, and treated the
people generally with mildness. But he was guided principally
by his Spanish ministers, who being tainted with the national
weaknesses of character were, especially Orquijo, continually making
exaggerated reports, intriguing against the French generals, and
striving, sometimes with, sometimes without justice, to incense the
king against them. This course, which was almost the inevitable
consequence of his situation, excited angry feelings in the military,
which, joined to the natural haughtiness of soldiers in command,
produced constant disputes. In the conquered provinces, Joseph’s
civil agents endeavoured to obtain more of the spoil than comported
with the wants of the armies, and hence bickerings between the French
officers and the Spanish authorities were as unceasing as they were
violent. The prefects, royal commissaries, and intendants would not
act under military orders, with respect to the supplies, nor would
they furnish sums for the military chests. On the other hand the
generals often seized the king’s revenue, raised extraordinary and
forced contributions, disregarded legal forms, and even threatened
to arrest the royal agents when they refused compliance with their
wishes. Neither was Joseph’s own conduct always free from violence,
for in the latter part of 1811 he obliged the merchants of Madrid, to
draw bills, for two millions of dollars, on their correspondents in
London, to supply him with a forced loan.
[Sidenote: Joseph’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
He was always complaining to the emperor that the niggardly
allowances from France, the exactions of the generals, and the misery
of the country left him no means of existence as a monarch; and
during the greatest part of 1810 and the beginning of 1811, Santa
Fé, Almenara, and Orquijo, succeeding each other as ambassadors
at Paris, were in angry negotiations, with Napoleon’s ministers,
relating to this subject, and to a project for ceding the provinces
of the Ebro in exchange for Portugal. Against this project Joseph
protested, on the grounds that it was contrary to the constitution
of Bayonne, that it would alienate the Spaniards, was degrading to
himself, and unjust as a bargain; seeing that Portugal, was neither
so rich, so industrious, so pleasant, nor so well affected to him as
the provinces to be taken away, and the well-known hatred between the
Spaniards and Portuguese would never allow the latter to be quiet
subjects.
[Sidenote: 1811. January.]
[Sidenote: Joseph’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
To these complaints, Napoleon answered with his usual force and
clearness of judgment. He insisted that the cost of the war had
drained the French exchequer; that he had employed nearly four
hundred thousand men for the king’s interest, and that rather than
increase the expenses he would withdraw some of the troops. He
reproached Joseph with the feebleness of his operations, the waste
and luxury of his court, his ill-judged schemes of conciliation, his
extravagant rewards, his too great generosity to the opposite party,
and his raising, contrary to the opinion of the marshals, a Spanish
army which would desert on the first reverse. The constitution of
Bayonne, he said, was rendered null by the war, nevertheless he had
not taken a single village from Spain, and he had no wish to seize
the provinces of the Ebro, unless the state of the contest obliged
him to do so. He required indeed a guarantee for the repayment of the
money France had expended for the Spanish crown, yet the real wishes
of the people were to be ascertained before any cession of territory
could take place, and to talk of Portugal before it was conquered
was folly. As this last observation was Joseph’s own argument, an
explanation ensued, when it appeared that Almenara, thinking the
seizure of the Ebro provinces a settled plan, had, of his own accord,
asked for Portugal as an indemnification; a fact that marks the
character of the Spanish cabinet.
Napoleon also assured the king that there must be a great deal of
money in Spain, for, besides the sums sent from France, the plate of
the suppressed convents, and the silver received by the Spaniards
from America, there were the subsidies from England, and the enormous
expenditure of her troops. Then, the seizure and sale of national
domains, and of confiscated colonial produce, were to be taken into
calculation, and if the king wanted more, he must extract it from the
country, or go without. France would only continue her subsidy of two
millions of franks monthly. The emperor had always supported his wars
by the resources of the territory in which it was carried on, and the
king might do the same.
[Sidenote: Joseph’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.]
[Sidenote: Joseph’s papers captured at Vittoria, MSS.]
Joseph replied that his court was neither luxurious nor magnificent;
that he recompensed services, by giving bills on the contingent sales
of national domains, which could not be applied to the wants of the
soldiers; that he could scarcely keep the public servants alive,
and that his own expenses were not greater than the splendour of
the crown required. That many of the best generals approved of his
raising a Spanish army, desertions from it were less frequent than
was imagined, and were daily diminishing; and these native troops
served to garrison towns while the French were in the field. He
wished, he said, to obtain large loans rather than small gifts from
the French treasury, and desired that the confiscated property of
the Spanish noblemen who had been declared traitors in 1808, should
be paid to him; but with regard to harsh measures, the people could
not pay the contributions, and the proceedings of a king with his
subjects should not be like those of a foreign general. Lenity was
necessary to tranquillize the provinces subdued, and as an example to
those which resisted. The first thing was to conciliate the people’s
affections. The plate of the suppressed convents was not so valuable
as it appeared at a distance, the greater part of it was already
plundered by the guerillas, or by the French troops. The French
marshals intercepted his revenues, disregarded his orders, insulted
his government, and oppressed the country. He was degraded as a
monarch and would endure it no longer. He had been appointed to the
throne of Spain without his own consent, and although he would never
oppose his brother’s will, he would not live a degraded king, and was
therefore ready to resign, unless the emperor would come in person
and remedy the present evils.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III. Section 3.]
[Sidenote: February.]
[Sidenote: April.]
Napoleon, while he admitted the reasonableness of some of the king’s
statements, still insisted, and with propriety of argument, that it
was necessary to subdue the people before they could be conciliated.
Yet to prevent wanton abuses of power, he fixed the exact sum
which each person, from the general governors down to the lowest
subaltern was to receive, and he ordered every person violating
this regulation to be dismissed upon the spot, and a report of the
circumstance sent to Paris within twenty hours after. Before this,
Bessieres, acknowledged by all to be a just and mild man, had been
sent to remedy the mischief said to have been done by Kellerman, and
others in the northern provinces. And in respect of conciliation,
the emperor remarked that he had himself, at first, intended to open
secret negotiations with the Cortes, but on finding what an obscure
rabble they were, he had desisted. He therefore recommended Joseph
to assemble at Madrid a counter-cortes, composed of men of influence
and reputation, wherein (adverting to the insane insolence of the
Spaniards towards their colonies) he might by the discussion of
really liberal institutions, and by exposing the bad faith with which
the English encouraged the Americans, improve public opinion, and
conciliate the Spaniards with hopes of preserving the integrity of
the empire, so rudely shaken by the revolt of the colonies.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III.]
[Sidenote: May.]
An additional subsidy was peremptorily refused, but the emperor
finally consented to furnish Joseph with half a million of franks
monthly, for the particular support of his court; and it is worthy of
notice, as illustrating the character of Napoleon, that in the course
of these disputes, Joseph’s friends at Paris, repeatedly advised him,
that the diplomatic style of his letters incensed and hardened the
emperor, whereas his familiar style as a brother always softened and
disposed him to concede what was demanded. Joseph, however, could not
endure the decree for establishing the military governments, by which
the administration was placed entirely in the hands of the generals,
and their reports upon the civil and judicial administration referred
entirely to the emperor. It was a measure assailing at once his
pride, his power, and his purse. His mind, therefore, became daily
more embittered, and his prefects and commissaries, emboldened by
his opinions, absolutely refused to act under the French marshal’s
orders. Many of these complaints, founded on the reports of his
Spanish servants, were untrue and others distorted. We have seen how
the habitual exaggerations, and even downright falsehoods of the
juntas and the regency, thwarted the English general’s operations,
and the king, as well as the French generals, must have encountered a
like disposition in the Spanish ministers. Nevertheless, the nature
of the war rendered it impossible but that much ground of complaint
should exist.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III. Section 2.]
Joseph’s personal sentiments, abstractedly viewed, were high-minded
and benevolent; but they sorted ill with his situation as an
usurper. He had neither patience nor profundity in his policy, and
at last such was his irritation, that having drawn up a private but
formal renunciation of the crown, he took an escort of five thousand
men, and about the period of the battle of Fuentes Onoro, passed
out of Spain and reached Paris: there Ney, Massena, Junot, St. Cyr,
Kellerman, Augereau, Loison, and Sebastiani, were also assembled, and
all discontented with the war, and with each other.
[Sidenote: See Chap. I.]
By this rash and ill-timed proceeding, the intrusive government was
left without a head, and the army of the centre was rendered nearly
useless at the critical moment, when Soult, engaged in the Albuera
operations, had a right to expect support from Madrid. The northern
army also was in a great measure paralysed, and the army of Portugal,
besides having just failed at Fuentes, was in all the disorganization
attendant upon the retreat from Santarem, and upon a change of
commanders. This was the principal cause why Bessieres abandoned
the Asturias and concentrated his forces in Leon and Castile on the
communications with France; for it behoved the French generals,
everywhere to hold their troops in hand, and to be on the defensive,
until the emperor’s resolution in this extraordinary conjuncture
should be known.
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III. Section 3.]
Napoleon astounded at this precipitate action of the king,
complained, with reason, that having promised not to quit the
country without due notice, Joseph had failed to him, both as a
monarch and as a general, and that he should at least have better
chosen his time; for if he had retired in January, when the armies
were all inactive, the evil would have been less, as the emperor
might then have abandoned Andalusia, and concentrated Soult’s and
Massena’s troops on the Tagus; which would have been in accord with
the policy fitting for the occasion. But now when the armies had
suffered reverses, when they were widely separated, and in pursuit of
different objects, the mischief was great, and the king’s conduct not
to be justified!
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. III. Section 2.]
Joseph replied that he had taken good measures to prevent confusion
during his absence, and then reiterating his complaints and declaring
his resolution to retire into obscurity, he finished by observing,
with equal truth and simplicity of mind, that it would be better for
the emperor that he should do so, inasmuch as in France he would be a
good subject, but in Spain a bad king.
The emperor had however too powerful an intellect for his brother
to contend with. Partly by reason, partly by authority, partly by
concession, he obliged him to return again in July, furnished with
a species of private treaty, by which the army of the centre was
placed entirely at his disposal. He was also empowered to punish
delinquents, to change the organization, and to remove officers who
were offensive to him, even the chief of the staff, general Belliard,
who had been represented by Orquijo as inimical to his system. And if
any of the other armies should, by the chances of war, arrive within
the district of the centre army, they also, while there, were to be
under the king; and at all times, even in their own districts, when
he placed himself at their head. The army of the north was to remain
with its actual organization and under a marshal, but Joseph had
liberty to change Bessieres for Jourdan.
[Sidenote: 1811. June.]
[Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 3.]
To prevent the oppression of the people, especially in the
north, Napoleon required the French military authorities, to send
daily reports, to the king, of all requisitions and contributions
exacted. And he advised his brother to keep a Spanish commissary at
the head-quarters of each army, to watch over Spanish interests;
promising that whenever a province should have the means, and the
will, to resist the incursions of the guerillas, it should revert
entirely to the government of the king, and be subjected to no
charges, save those made by the Spanish civil authorities for general
purposes. The armies of the south and of Aragon were placed in a like
situation on the same terms, and meanwhile Joseph was to receive a
quarter of the contributions from each, for the support of his court
and of the central army.
The entire command of the forces in Spain the emperor would not
grant, observing that the marshal directing from Madrid, as
major-general, would naturally claim the glory, as well as the
responsibility of arranging the operations; and hence the other
marshals, finding themselves, in reality, under his, instead of the
king’s command, would obey badly or not at all. All their reports
and the intelligence necessary to the understanding of affairs were
therefore to be addressed directly to Berthier, for the emperor’s
information. Finally the half million of francs hitherto given
monthly to the king was to be increased to a million for the year
1811; and it was expected that Joseph would immediately reorganize
the army of the centre, restore its discipline, and make it, what it
had not yet been, of weight in the contest.
[Sidenote: Ibid.]
The king afterwards obtained some further concessions, the most
important of which related to the employment and assembling of
Spaniards according to his own directions and plans. This final
arrangement and the importance given to Joseph’s return, for by the
emperor’s orders, he was received as if he had only been to Paris
to concert a great plan, produced a good effect for a short time;
but after the fall of Figueras, Napoleon fearing to trust Spanish
civilians, extended the plan, hitherto confined to Catalonia, of
employing French intendants in all the provinces on the left of
the Ebro. Then the king’s jealousy was again excited, and the old
bickerings between him and the marshals were revived.
POLITICAL SITUATION OF FRANCE.
In 1811 the emperor’s power over the continent, as far as the
frontier of Russia, was in fact, absolute; and in France internal
prosperity was enjoyed with external glory. But the emperor
of Russia, stimulated by English diplomacy, and by a personal
discontent; in dread also of his nobles, who were impatient under the
losses which the continental system inflicted upon them, was plainly
in opposition to the ascendancy of France, and Napoleon, although
wishing to avoid a rupture, was too long-sighted, not to perceive,
that it was time to prepare for a more gigantic contest than any
he had hitherto engaged in. He therefore husbanded his money and
soldiers, and would no longer lavish them upon the Spanish war. He
had poured men indeed continually into that country, but these were
generally conscripts, while in the north of France he was forming a
reserve of two hundred thousand old soldiers; but with that art that
it was doubtful whether they were intended for the Peninsula or for
ulterior objects, being ready for either, according to circumstances.
Such an uncertain state of affairs, prevented him from taking more
decided steps, in person, with relation to Spain, which he would
undoubtedly have done if the war there, had been the only great
matter on his hands, and therefore the aspect of French politics,
both in Spain and other places, was favourable to lord Wellington’s
views. A Russian war, sooner or later, was one of the principal
chances upon which he rested his hopes of final success; yet his
anticipations were dashed with fear, for the situation of the Spanish
and Portuguese governments, and of their armies, and the condition of
the English government, were by no means so favourable to his plans,
as shall be shewn in the next chapter.