[55] See St. Cyr to the Minister, Belmas, ii. Appendix no. 67.

[56] Augereau to the Minister, ibid., Oct. 8.

From the first to the eleventh of October Souham remained in charge

of the army, but on the twelfth Augereau appeared and took command,

bringing with him the mass of convalescents who had been lingering

at Perpignan. Among them was Verdier, whose health became all that

could be desired when St. Cyr had disappeared. The night following

the Marshal’s arrival was disturbed by an exciting incident. Henry

O’Donnell from his refuge on the Capuchin heights, had been watching

for a fortnight for a good chance of escape. There was a dense fog

on the night of the 12th-13th: taking advantage of it O’Donnell

came down with his brigade, made a circuit round the town, crossed

the Oña and struck straight away into the plain of Salt, which,

being the most open and exposed, was also the least guarded section

of the French lines of investment. He broke through the chain of

vedettes almost without firing, and came rushing before dawn into

Souham’s head-quarters camp on the heights of Aguaviva. The battalion

sleeping there was scattered, and the general forced to fly in his

shirt. O’Donnell swept off his riding-horses and baggage, as also

some prisoners, and was out of reach in half an hour, before the

rallying fractions of the French division came up to the rescue of

their chief. By six o’clock the escaping column was in safety in the

mountains by Santa Coloma, where it joined the miqueletes of Milans.

For this daring exploit O’Donnell was made a major-general by the

Supreme Junta. His departure was a great relief to Alvarez, who had

to husband every mouthful of food, and had already put both the

garrison and the townsfolk on half-rations of flour and horseflesh.

Augereau was in every way inferior as an officer to St. Cyr. An old

soldier of fortune risen from the ranks, he had little education

or military science; his one virtue was headlong courage on the

battlefield, yet when placed in supreme command he often hesitated,

and showed hopeless indecision. He had been lucky enough to earn

a great reputation as Napoleon’s second-in-command in the old

campaigns of Italy in 1796-7. Since then he had made his fortune by

becoming one of the Emperor’s most zealous tools and flatterers.

He was reckoned a blind and reckless Bonapartist, ready to risk

anything for his master, but spoilt his reputation for sincerity by

deserting him at the first opportunity in 1814. He was inclined to

a harsh interpretation of the laws of war, and enjoyed a doubtful

reputation for financial integrity. Yet he was prone to ridiculous

self-laudatory proclamations and manifestos, written in a bombastic

strain which he vainly imagined to resemble his master’s thunders of

the _Bulletins_. Scraps of his address to the citizens of Gerona may

serve to display his fatuity--

‘Unhappy inhabitants--wretched victims immolated to the caprice

and madness of ambitious men greedy for your blood--return to your

senses, open your eyes, consider the ills which surround you! With

what tranquillity do your leaders look upon the graves crammed with

your corpses! Are you not horror-struck at these cannibals, whose

mirth bursts out in the midst of the human hecatomb, and who yet dare

to lift their gory hands in prayer towards the throne of a God of

Peace? They call themselves the apostles of Jesus Christ! Tremble,

cruel and infamous men! The God who judges the actions of mortals is

slow to condemn, but his vengeance is terrible.... I warn you for the

last time, inhabitants of Gerona, reflect while you still may! If you

force me to throw aside my usual mildness, your ruin is inevitable. I

shall be the first to groan at it, but the laws of war impose on me

the dire necessity.... I am severe but just. Unhappy Gerona! if thy

defenders persist in their obstinacy, thou shalt perish in blood and

flame.

(Signed) AUGEREAU.’

Stuff of this sort was not likely to have much effect on fanatics

like Alvarez and his ‘Crusaders.’ If it is so wrong to cause the

deaths of men--they had only to answer--Why has Bonaparte sent his

legions into Spain? On the Marshal’s line of argument, that it is

wrong to resist overwhelming force, it is apparently a sin before God

for any man to attempt to defend his house and family against any

bandit. There is much odious and hypocritical nonsense in some of

Napoleon’s bulletins, where he grows tender on the miseries of the

people he has conquered, but nothing to approach the maunderings of

his copyist.

Augereau found the army about Gerona showing not more than 12,000

bayonets fit for the field--gunners and sappers excluded. The men

were sick of the siege, and it would seem that the Marshal was

forced, after inspecting the regiments and conferring with the

generals, to acquiesce in St. Cyr’s decision that any further

assaults would probably lead to more repulses. He gave out that

he was resolved to change the system on which the operations had

hitherto been conducted, but the change amounted to nothing more

than that he ordered a slow but steady bombardment to be kept up,

and occasionally vexed the Spaniards by demonstrations against the

more exposed points of the wall. It does not appear that either of

these expedients had the least effect in shaking the morale of the

garrison. It is true that during October and November the hearts of

the Geronese were commencing to grow sick, but this was solely the

result of starvation and dwindling numbers. As to the bombardment,

they were now hardened to any amount of dropping fire: on October

28 they celebrated the feast of San Narciso, their patron, by a

procession all round the town, which was under fire for the whole

time of its progress, and paid no attention to the casualties which

it cost them.

Meanwhile, when the second half of October had begun, Blake made

the third and last of his attempts to throw succours into Gerona.

It was even more feebly carried out than that of September 26, for

the army employed was less numerous. Blake’s force had not received

any reinforcement to make up for the men lost in the last affair,

a fact that seems surprising, since Valencia ought now to have

been able to send him the remainder of the regiments which had

been reorganized since the disasters of June. But it would seem

that José Caro, who was in command in that province, and the local

Junta, made excuses for retaining as many men as possible, and cared

little for the danger of Gerona, so long as the war was kept far

from their own frontier. It was, at any rate, with no more than

10,000 or 12,000 men, the remains of his original force, that Blake

once more came forward on October 18, and threatened the blockading

army by demonstrations both from the side of La Bispal and that of

Santa Coloma. He had again collected a considerable amount of food

at Hostalrich, but had not yet formed a convoy: apparently he was

waiting to discover the weakest point in the French lines before

risking his mules and his stores, both of which were by now very

hard to procure. There followed a fortnight of confused skirmishing,

without any battle, though Augereau tried with all his might to force

on a general engagement. One of his Italian brigades was roughly

handled near La Bispal on the twenty-first, and another repulsed near

Santa Coloma on the twenty-sixth, but on each occasion, when the

French reinforcements came up, Blake gave back and refused to fight.

On November 1 the whole of Souham’s division marched on Santa Coloma,

and forced Loygorri and Henry O’Donnell to evacuate it and retire to

the mountains. Souham reported that he had inflicted a loss of 2,000

men on the Spaniards, at the cost of eleven killed and forty-three

wounded on his own side! The real casualty list of the two Spanish

divisions seems to have been somewhat over 100 men[57].

[57] See Souham’s dispatch, striving to make the combat into

a very big business, in Belmas, ii, Appendix no. 72, and cf.

Arteche, vii. pp. 430-1.

Nothing decisive had taken place up to November 7, when Augereau

conceived the idea that he might make an end of Blake’s fruitless but

vexatious demonstrations, by dealing a sudden blow at his magazines

in Hostalrich. If these were destroyed it would cost the Spaniards

much time to collect another store of provisions for Gerona.

Accordingly Pino marched with three brigades to storm the town,

which was protected only by a dilapidated mediaeval wall unfurnished

with guns, though the castle which dominated it was a place of

considerable strength, and proof against a _coup de main_. Only one

of Blake’s divisions, that of Cuadrado, less than 2,000 strong,

was in this quarter, and Augereau found employment for the others

by sending some of Souham’s troops against them. The expedition

succeeded: while Mazzuchelli’s brigade occupied the attention of

Cuadrado, the rest of the Italians stormed Hostalrich, which was

defended only by its own inhabitants and the small garrison of the

castle. The Spaniards were driven up into that stronghold after a

lively fight, and all the magazines fell into Pino’s hands and were

burnt. At a cost of only thirty-five killed and sixty-four wounded

the food, which Blake had collected with so much difficulty, was

destroyed[58]. Thereupon the Spanish general gave up the attempt to

succour Gerona, and withdrew to the plain of Vich, to recommence

the Sisyphean task of getting together one more convoy. It was not

destined to be of any use to Alvarez and his gallant garrison, for

by the time that it was collected the siege had arrived at its final

stage.

[58] See Pino’s and Augereau’s dispatches in Belmas’s Appendices,

nos. 73 and 74.

The Geronese were now reaching the end of their strength: for the

first time since the investment began in May some of the defenders

began to show signs of slackening. The heavy rains of October and

the commencement of the cold season were reducing alike troops and

inhabitants to a desperate condition. They had long used up all their

fuel, and found the chill of winter intolerable in their cellars and

casemates. Alvarez, though reduced to a state of physical prostration

by dysentery and fever, was still steadfast in heart. But there was

discontent brewing among some of his subordinates: it is notable, as

showing the spirit of the time, that the malcontents were found among

the professional soldiers, not among the citizens. Early in November

several officers were found holding secret conferences, and drawing

up an address to the local Junta, setting forth the desperate state

of the city and the necessity for deposing the governor, who was

represented as incapacitated for command by reason of his illness: it

was apparently hinted that he was going mad, or was intermittently

delirious[59]. Some of the wild sayings attributed to Alvarez during

the later days of the siege might be quoted as a support for their

representations. To a captain who asked to what point he was expected

to retire, if he were driven from his post, it is said that he

answered, ‘to the cemetery.’ To another officer, the first who dared

to say that capitulation was inevitable because of the exhaustion

of the magazines, he replied, ‘When the last food is gone we will

start eating the cowards, and we will begin with you.’ Though aware

that their conspiracies were known, the malcontents did not desist

from their efforts, and Alvarez made preparations for seizing and

shooting the chiefs. But on the night of November 19 eight of them,

including three lieutenant-colonels[60], warned by a traitor of their

approaching fate, fled to Augereau’s camp. Their arrival was the

most encouraging event for the French that had occurred since the

commencement of the siege. They spoke freely of the exhaustion of the

garrison, and said that Alvarez was mad and moribund.

[59] Alvarez’s letter to Blake of Nov. 3 printed in Arteche’s

Appendix, no. 18 of his vol. vii, gives this account of the first

discovery of plots.

[60] Of whom two, strangely enough, had been specially mentioned

for courage at the September assault.

It was apparently this information concerning the desperate state

of the garrison which induced Augereau to recommence active siege

operations. He ordered up ammunition from Perpignan to fill the

empty magazines, and when it arrived began to batter a new breach in

the curtain of Santa Lucia. On December 2 Pino’s Italians stormed

the suburb of La Marina, outside the southern end of the town, a

quarter hitherto unassailed, and made a lodgement therein, as if to

open a new point of attack. But this was only done to distract the

enemy from the real design of the Marshal, which was nothing less

than to cut off the forts on the Capuchin heights from Gerona by

seizing the redoubts, those of the ‘Chapter’ and the ‘City,’ which

covered the steep upward path from the walls to the group of works on

the hilltop. At midnight on December 6 the voltigeur and grenadier

companies of Pino’s division climbed the rough southern face of the

Capuchin heights, and surprised and escaladed the ‘Redoubt of the

City,’ putting the garrison to the sword. Next morning the batteries

of the forts above and the city below opened a furious fire upon the

lost redoubt, and Alvarez directed his last sally, sending out every

man that he could collect to recover the work. This led to a long

and bloody fight on the slopes, which ended most disastrously for

the garrison. Not only was the sortie repulsed, but in the confusion

the French carried the Calvary and Chapter redoubts, the other works

which guarded the access from Gerona to the upper forts. On the

afternoon of December 7 the communication with them was completely

cut off, and as their garrisons possessed no separate magazines, and

had been wont to receive their daily dole from the city, it was clear

that they must be starved out. They had only food for forty-eight

hours at the moment[61].

[61] Napier (ii. 249) says that the sortie was so far

successful that the Geronese opened the way for the garrison

of the Constable fort to escape into the city. But I can find

no authority for this in either the French or the Spanish

narratives, see especially Vacani.

The excitement of the sally had drained away the governor’s last

strength: he took to his bed that evening, was in delirium next day,

and on the morning of the ninth received the last sacraments of the

Church, the doctors having declared that his hours were numbered. His

last conscious act was to protest against any proposal to surrender,

before he handed over the command to the senior officer present,

General Juliano Bolivar. Had Alvarez retained his senses, it is

certain that an attempt would have been made to hold the town, even

when the starving garrisons of the forts should have surrendered.

But the moment that his stern hand was removed, his successor,

Bolivar, called together a council of war, to which the members of

the Junta, no less than the officers commanding corps, were invited.

They voted that further resistance was impossible, and sent out

Brigadier-General Fournas, the man who had so well defended Monjuich,

to obtain terms from Augereau. On the morning of the tenth the

Marshal received him, and dictated a simple surrender, without any of

the favourable conditions which Fournas at first demanded. His only

concession was that he offered to exchange the garrison for an equal

number of the unhappy prisoners from Dupont’s army, now lying in

misery on the pontoons at Cadiz, if the Supreme Junta concurred. But

the bargain was never ratified, as the authorities at Seville were

obdurate.

On the morning of December 11 the survivors of the garrison marched

out, and laid down their arms on the glacis of the Mercadal. Only

3,000 men came forth; these looked like living spectres, so pale,

weak, and tattered that ‘the besiegers,’ as eye-witnesses observed,

‘felt ashamed to have been held at bay so long by dying men.’ There

were 1,200 more lying in the hospitals. The rest of the 9,000 who

had defended the place from May, or had entered with Garcia Conde in

September, were dead. A detailed inspection of figures shows that

of the 5,723 men of Alvarez’s original command only 2,008 survived,

while of the 3,648 who had come later there were still 2,240 left: i.

e. two-thirds of the old garrison and one-third of the succours had

perished. The mortality by famine and disease far exceeded that by

the sword: 800 men had died in the hospitals in October, and 1,300

in November, from mere exhaustion. The town was in a dreadful state:

about 6,000 of the 14,000 inhabitants had perished, including nearly

all the very young and the very old. 12,000 bombs and 8,000 shells

had been thrown into the unhappy city: it presented a melancholy

vista of houses roofless, or with one or two of the side-walls

knocked in, of streets blocked by the fallen masonry of churches or

towers, under which half-decayed corpses were partially buried. The

open spaces were strewn with broken muskets, bloody rags, wheels of

disabled guns and carts, fragments of shells, and the bones of horses

and mules whose flesh had been eaten. The stench was so dreadful that

Augereau had to keep his troops out of the place, lest infection

should be bred among them. In the magazines nothing was found save a

little unground corn; all the other provisions had been exhausted.

There were also 168 cannon, mostly disabled; about 10,000 lb. of

powder, and a million musket cartridges. The military chest handed

over contained 562 reals--about 6_l._ sterling.

Augereau behaved very harshly to the garrison: many feeble or

diseased men were made to march to Perpignan and perished by the

way. The priests and monks of the ‘Crusade’ were informed that they

were combatants, and sent off with the soldiery. But the fate of the

gallant Governor provokes especial indignation. Alvarez did not die

of his fever: when he was somewhat recovered he was forwarded to

Perpignan, and from thence to Narbonne, where he was kept for some

time and seemed convalescent. Orders then came from Paris that he

was to be sent back to Spain--apparently to be tried as a traitor,

for it was alleged that in the spring of 1808 he had accepted the

provisional government installed by Murat. He was separated from his

aide-de-camp and servants, and passed on from dungeon to dungeon

till he reached Figueras. The day after his arrival at that place he

was found dead, on a barrow--the only bed granted him--in the dirty

cellar where he had been placed. It is probable that he perished

from natural causes, but many Spaniards believed that he had been

murdered[62].

[62] For details of this disgraceful cruelty, see Arteche’s

‘Elogio’ on Alvarez in the proceedings of the Madrid Academy.

The Emperor Napoleon himself must bear the responsibility, as

it was by orders from Paris that Alvarez was sent back from

France to Figueras. Apparently he was to be tried at Barcelona,

and perhaps executed. There is no allusion to the matter in the

_Correspondance de Napoléon_.

Great as the losses of the garrison of Gerona had been, they were

far exceeded, both positively and proportionately, by those of the

besieging army. The French official returns show that on June 15 the

three divisions charged with the attack, those of Verdier, Morio, and

Lecchi, had 14,456 bayonets, and the two divisions of the covering

army, those of Souham and Pino, 15,732: there were 2,637 artillerymen

and engineers over and above these figures. On December 31, twenty

days after the surrender, and when the regiments had been joined by

most of their convalescents, the three siege-divisions counted 6,343

men, the covering divisions 11,666, and the artillery and engineers,

2,390.

This shows a loss of over 13,000 men; but on examination the deficit

is seen to be even larger, for two new battalions from France had

just joined Verdier’s division in December, and their 1,000 bayonets

should be deducted from his total. It would seem, then, that the

capture of Gerona cost the 7th Corps about 14,000 men, as well as

a whole campaigning season, from April to December. The attack on

Catalonia had been brought to a complete standstill, and when Gerona

fell the French occupied nothing but the ruined city, the fortresses

of Rosas and Figueras hard by the frontier, and the isolated

Barcelona, where Duhesme, with the 6,000 men of his division, had

been lying quiescent all the summer and autumn. Such a force was too

weak to make detachments to aid St. Cyr or Augereau, since 4,000 men

at least were needed for the garrison of the citadel and the outlying

forts, and it would have been hopeless for the small remainder to

take the field. Duhesme only conducted one short incursion to

Villafranca during the siege of Gerona. In the last months of the

year Barcelona was again in a state of partial starvation: the food

brought in by Cosmao’s convoy in the spring had been exhausted, while

a second provision-fleet from Toulon, escorted by five men-of-war,

had been completely destroyed in October. Admiral Martin surprised it

off Cape Creus, drove ashore and burnt two line-of-battle ships and

a frigate, and captured most of the convoy. The rest took refuge in

the harbour of Rosas, where Captain Halliwell attacked them with the

boats of the squadron and burnt them all[63].

[63] For details, see James’s _Naval History_, v. pp. 142-5.

While Gerona was enduring its last month of starvation, those whose

care it should have been to succour the place at all costs were

indulging in a fruitless exchange of recriminations, and making

preparations when it was all too late. Blake, after retiring to Vich

on November 10, informed the Junta of Catalonia that he was helpless,

unless more men could be found, and that they must find them. Why

he did not rather insist that the Valencian reserves should be

brought up, and risk stripping Tarragona and Lerida of their regular

garrisons, it is hard to say. This at any rate would have been in his

power. The Catalan Junta replied by summoning a congress at Manresa

on November 20, to which representatives of every district of the

principality were invited. The congress voted that a levy _en masse_

of all the able-bodied men from seventeen to forty-five years of age

should be called out[64], and authorized a loan of 10,000,000 reals

for equipping them. They also wrote to Seville, not for the first

time, to demand reinforcements from the Central Junta. But the battle

of Ocaña had just been fought and lost, and Andalusia could not

have spared a man, even if there had been time to transport troops

to Tarragona. All that the Catalans received was honorary votes of

approval for the gallant behaviour of the Geronese. The levy _en

masse_ was actually begun, but there was an insuperable difficulty

in collecting and equipping the men in winter time, when days were

short and roads were bad. The weeks passed by, and Gerona fell long

before enough men had been got together to induce Blake to try a

new offensive movement. Why was the congress not called in September

rather than in November? Blake had always declared that he was too

weak to risk a battle with the French for the raising of the siege,

but till the last moment the Catalans contented themselves with

arguing with him, and writing remonstrances to the Central Junta,

instead of lending him the aid of their last levies.

[64] The Proclamation of Nov. 29 ordering this levy, written in a

very magniloquent style, may be found in Belmas, Appendix no. 81.

One or two points connected with this famous siege require a word

of comment. It is quite clear that St. Cyr during its early stages

did not try his honest best to help Verdier. During June and July

his covering army was doing no good whatever at Vich: he pretended

that he had placed it there in order to ward off possible attacks

by Blake. But it was matter of public knowledge that Blake was far

away in Aragon, engaged in his unhappy campaign against Suchet, and

that Coupigny, left at Tarragona with a few thousand men, was not a

serious danger. St. Cyr could have spared a whole division more for

the siege operations, without risking anything. If he had done so,

Gerona could have been approached on two sides instead of one, the

Mercadal front might have been attacked, and the loose blockade,

which was all that Verdier could keep up, for want of more men, might

have been made effective. But St. Cyr all through his military career

earned a reputation for callous selfishness and habitual leaving

of his colleagues in the lurch. On this occasion he was bitterly

offended with Verdier, for giving himself the airs of an equal, and

corresponding directly with the Emperor. There can be no doubt that

he took a malicious pleasure in seeing his failures. It is hardly

disguised in his clever and plausible _Journal des Opérations de

l’Armée de Catalogne en 1808-1809_[65].

[65] Napoleon’s comments on the operations of his generals

are always interesting, though sometimes founded on imperfect

information, or vitiated by predispositions. Of St. Cyr’s

campaign he writes [Disp. no. 16,004] to Clarke, his Minister of

War:

‘Il faut me faire un rapport sérieux sur la campagne du général

Gouvion Saint-Cyr en Catalogne: (1) Sur les raisons qui l’ont

porté à évacuer cette province, lorsque Saragosse était prise

et sa jonction faite avec le maréchal Mortier. (2) Sur ce qu’il

s’est laissé attaquer par les Espagnols, et ne les a jamais

attaqués, et sur ce que, après les avoir toujours battus par la

valeur des troupes, il n’a jamais profité de la victoire. (3) Sur

ce qu’il a, par cet esprit d’égoisme qui lui est particulier,

compromis le siège de Gérone: sur ce qu’il n’a jamais secouru

suffisamment l’armée assiégeante, l’a au contraire attirée à

lui, et a laissé ravitailler la ville. (4) Sur ce qu’il a quitté

l’armée sans permission, sous le vain prétexte de maladie.’

The first point seems unjust to St. Cyr. From his position

in front of Tarragona, after Valls, he had no real chance of

combining his operations with the army of Aragon. But the other

three charges seem well founded.

Verdier, on the other hand, seems to have felt all through that he

was being asked to perform a task almost impossible, when he was

set to take Gerona with his own 14,000 men, unaided by the covering

army. His only receipt for success was to try to hurry on the matter

by delivering desperate blows. Both the assault on Monjuich on July

8 and that on the city on September 19 were premature; there was

some excuse for the former: Verdier had not yet realized how well

Alvarez could fight. But the second seems unpardonable, after the

warning received at Monjuich. If the general, as he declared before

delivering his assault, mistrusted his own troops, he had no right

to order a storm at all, considering his experience of the way in

which the Spaniards had behaved in July. He acted on the fallacious

theory that a practicable breach implies a town that can be taken,

which is far from being the case if the garrison are both desperate

and ingenious in defending themselves. The only way to deal with

such a resolute and capable adversary was to proceed by the slow and

regular methods of siegecraft, to sap right up to the ditch before

delivering an assault, and batter everything to pieces before risking

a man. This was how Monjuich was actually taken, after the storm had

failed. Having neither established himself close under the walls, nor

subdued the flanking fires from the Calvary and Chapter redoubts, nor

ascertained how far the Spaniards had prepared inner defences for

themselves, he had no right to attack at all.

As to Blake, even after making all possible allowances for the

fact that he could not trust his troops--the half-rallied wrecks

of Maria and Belchite--for a battle in the field, he must yet be

pronounced guilty of feebleness and want of ingenuity. If he could

never bring up enough regulars to give him a chance of facing St.

Cyr, the fault was largely his own: a more forcible general would

have insisted that the Valencian reserves should march[66], and would

have stripped Lerida and Tarragona of men: it could safely have

been done, for neither Suchet nor Duhesme was showing any signs of

threatening those points. He might have insisted that the Catalan

Junta should call out the full levy of _somatenes_ in September

instead of in November. He might also have made a better use of

the irregulars already in the field, the bands of Rovira, Milans,

and Claros. These miqueletes did admirable service all through the

siege, by harassing Verdier’s rear and cutting off his convoys, but

they were not employed (as they should have been) in combination

with the regulars, but allowed, as a rule, to go off on excursions

of their own, which had no relation to the main objects of Blake’s

strategy. The only occasion on which proper use was made of them was

when, on September 1, they were set to threaten Verdier’s lines,

while Garcia Conde’s convoy was approaching Gerona. It may be pleaded

in the Spanish general’s defence that it was difficult to exact

obedience from the chiefs: there was a distinct coolness between the

regulars and the irregulars, which sometimes led to actual quarrels

and conflicts when they met. But here again the reply is that more

forcible captain-generals were able to control the miqueletes, and if

Blake failed to do so, it was only one more sign of his inadequacy.

It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that he mismanaged matters,

and that if in his second and third attempts to relieve Gerona he had

repeated the tactics of his first, he would have had a far better

chance of success. On September 1 only did he make any scientific

attempt to distract the enemy’s attention and forces, and on that

occasion he was successful. Summing things up, it may be said that he

was not wrong to refuse battle with the troops that he had actually

brought up to Gerona: they would undoubtedly have been routed if he

had risked a general engagement. His fault was that he did not bring

up larger forces, when it was in his power to do so, by the exercise

of compulsion on the Catalan and Valencian Juntas. But these bodies

must share Blake’s responsibilities: they undoubtedly behaved in

a slack and selfish fashion, and let Gerona perish, though it was

keeping the war from their doors for a long eight months.

[66] The Valencian troops at Maria were eleven battalions, viz.

Savoia (three), 1st and 3rd Cazadores de Valencia (two), America

(two), Voluntarios de Valencia (one), 1st of Valencia (three).

Of these only Savoia (now two batts. only) and Voluntarios

de Valencia turned up for the relief of Gerona. Along with

them came two fresh regiments, 2nd Cazadores of Orihuela, and

Almanza, which had not been at Maria. But these were Murcian, not

Valencian, troops.

All the more credit is due to Alvarez, considering the way in which

he was left unsuccoured, and fed with vain promises. A less constant

soul would have abandoned the defence long before: the last two

months of resistance were his sole work: if he had fallen sick in

October instead of December, his subordinates would have yielded

long before. But it is not merely for heroic obstinacy that he must

be praised. Every detail of the defence shows that he was a most

ingenious and provident general: nothing was left undone to make the

work of the besiegers hard. Moreover, as Napier has observed, it

is not the least of his titles to merit that he preserved a strict

discipline, and exacted the possible maximum of work from soldier

and civilian alike, without the use of any of those wholesale

executions which disgraced the defence of Saragossa. His words were

sometimes truculent, but his acts were just and moderate. He never

countenanced mob-law, as did Palafox, yet he was far better obeyed by

the citizens, and got as good service from them as did the Aragonese

commander. He showed that good organization is not incompatible with

patriotic enthusiasm, and is far more effective in the hour of danger

than reckless courage and blind self-sacrifice.

SECTION XVII: CHAPTER IV

THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGN OF 1809: TAMAMES, OCAÑA, AND ALBA DE TORMES

As early as August 30, when Wellington had not fully completed his

retreat from Almaraz and Jaraicejo to Badajoz and Merida, the central

Junta had already begun to pester him and his brother, the Ambassador

at Seville, with plans for a resumption of the offensive in the

valley of the Tagus. On that day Martin de Garay, the Secretary of

State, wrote to represent to Wellesley that he had good reason to

believe that the troops of Victor, Mortier, and Soult were making

a general movement to the rear, and that the moment had arrived

when the allied armies in Estremadura and La Mancha should ‘move

forward with the greatest activity, either to observe more closely

the movements of the enemy, or to attack him when circumstances may

render it expedient[67].’ The French movement of retreat was wholly

imaginary, and it is astonishing that the Spanish Government should

have been so mad as to believe it possible that ‘their retrograde

movement may have originated in accounts received from the North,

which compel the enemy either to retire into the interior of France,

or to take up a position nearer to the Pyrenees.’ On a groundless

rumour, of the highest intrinsic improbability, they were ready to

hurl the newly-rallied troops of Eguia and Venegas upon the French,

and to invite Wellington to join in the advance. Irresponsible

frivolity could go no further. But the Junta, as has been already

said, were eager for a military success, which should cause their

unpopularity to be forgotten, and were ready to seize on any excuse

for ordering their troops forward. This particular rumour died

away--the French were still in force on the Tagus, and, as a matter

of fact, the only movement northwards on their part had been the

return of Ney’s corps to Salamanca. But though the truth was soon

discovered, the Junta only began to look out for new excuses for

recommencing active operations.

[67] De Garay to Wellesley in _Wellesley Dispatches_, p. 92.

Wellington, when these schemes were laid before him, reiterated

his refusal to join in any offensive campaign, pointed out that

the allied forces were not strong enough to embark on any such

hazardous undertaking, and bluntly expressed his opinion that ‘he

was much afraid, from what he had seen of the proceedings of the

Central Junta, that in the distribution of their forces they do

not consider military defence and military operations so much as

political intrigue, and the attainment of petty political objects.’

He then proceeded to make an estimate of the French armies, to show

their numerical superiority to the allies; in this he very much

under-estimated the enemy’s resources, calculating the whole force

of the eight corps in Spain at 125,000 men, exclusive of sick and

garrisons not available for active service. As a matter of fact there

were 180,000 men, not 125,000, with the Eagles at that moment, after

all deductions had been made, so that his reasoning was far more

cogent than he supposed[68]. But this only makes more culpable the

obstinate determination of the Junta to resume operations with the

much inferior force which they had at their disposal.

[68] Wellington to Wellesley, from Merida, Sept. 1, 1809.

Undismayed by their first repulse, the Spanish ministers were soon

making new representations to Wellesley and Wellington, in order to

induce them to commit the English army to a forward policy. They sent

in repeated schemes for supplying Wellington with food and transport

on a lavish scale[69]; but he merely expressed his doubts as to

whether orders that looked admirable on paper would ever be carried

out in practice. He consented for the present to remain at Badajoz,

as long as he could subsist his army in its environs, but warned

the Junta that it was more probable that he would retire within the

Portuguese border, for reasons of supply, than that he would join in

another campaign on the Tagus.

[69] See the details in Wellesley to Canning, Sept. 2, 1809.

Despite of all, the government at Seville went on with its plans for

a general advance, even after they recognized that Wellington was

not to be moved. A grand plan of operations was gradually devised

by the War-Minister Cornel and his advisers. Stated shortly it was

as follows. The army in La Mancha, which Venegas had rallied after

the disaster of Almonacid, was to be raised to a strength of over

50,000 men by the drafting into it of a full two-thirds of Cuesta’s

old army of Estremadura. On September 21 Eguia marched eastwards up

the Guadiana, with three divisions of infantry and twelve or thirteen

regiments of cavalry, to join Venegas[70]. The remaining force,

amounting to two divisions of infantry and 2,500 cavalry, was left

in Estremadura under the Duke of Albuquerque, the officer to whom

the government was obliged to assign this army, because the Junta of

Badajoz pressed for his appointment and would not hear of any other

commander. He was considered an Anglophil, and a friend of some of

the Andalusian malcontents, so the force left with him was cut down

to the minimum. All the old regular regiments were withdrawn from

him, save one single battalion, and he was left with nothing save

the newly-raised volunteer units, some of which had behaved so badly

at Talavera[71]. His cavalry was soon after reduced by the order to

send a brigade to join the Army of the North, so that he was finally

left with only five regiments of that arm or about 1,500 sabres. Of

his infantry, about 12,000 strong, over 4,000 were absorbed by the

garrison of Badajoz, so that he had only 8,000 men available for

service in the field.

[70] His head quarters moved from Truxillo on the seventeenth,

were at La Serena on the twenty-first, and joined the army of La

Mancha about October 1.

[71] See the list of Albuquerque’s army in Appendix no. 2. There

had been twenty-one regular battalions in Cuesta’s army in June.

Twenty of these marched off with Eguia, leaving only one (4th

Walloon Guards) with Albuquerque.

Eguia, on the other hand, carried with him to La Mancha some 25,000

men, the picked corps of the Estremaduran army; and, as the remains

of Venegas’s divisions rallied and recruited after Almonacid,

amounted to rather more than that number, the united force exceeded

50,000 sabres and bayonets. With this army the Junta intended to

make a direct stroke at Madrid, while Albuquerque was directed to

show himself on the Tagus, in front of Almaraz and Talavera, with

the object of detaining at least one of the French corps in that

direction. It was hoped, even yet, that Wellington might be induced

to join in this demonstration. If once the redcoats reappeared at the

front, neither Soult nor Mortier could be moved to oppose the army of

La Mancha. Meanwhile Ney and the French corps in Leon and Old Castile

were to be distracted by the use of a new force from the north,

whose composition must be explained. The Junta held that the last

campaign had failed only because the allies had possessed no force

ready to detain Soult and Ney. If they had not appeared at Plasencia,

Wellington, Cuesta, and Venegas would have been able to drive King

Joseph out of his capital. Two months later the whole position was

changed, in their estimation, by the fact that Spain once more

possessed a large ‘Army of the Left,’ which would be able to occupy

at least two French corps, while the rest of the allies marched again

on Madrid. That such a force existed did indeed modify the aspect of

affairs. La Romana had been moved to Seville to become a member of

the Junta, but his successor, the Duke Del Parque, was collecting a

host very formidable as far as numbers went. The old army of Galicia

had been reformed into four divisions under Martin de la Carrera,

Losada, Mahy, and the Conde de Belveder--the general whose name was

so unfortunately connected with the ill-fought combat of Gamonal.

These four divisions now comprised 27,000 men, of whom more than half

were newly-raised Galician recruits, whom La Romana had embodied in

the depleted cadres of his original battalions, after Ney and Soult

had evacuated the province in July. A few of the ancient regiments

that had made the campaign of Espinosa had died out completely--their

small remnants having been drafted into other corps[72]. On the other

hand there were a few new regiments of Galician volunteers--but La

Romana had set his face against the creation of such units, wisely

preferring to place his new levies in the ranks of the old battalions

of the regular army[73]. In the main, therefore, the new ‘Army of

the Left’ represented, as far as names and cadres went, Blake’s

original ‘Army of Galicia[74].’ It had the same cardinal fault as

that army, in that it had practically no cavalry whatever: the single

dragoon regiment that Blake had owned (La Reina) having been almost

completely destroyed in 1808[75]. Each division had a battery; the

guns, of which La Romana’s army had been almost destitute in the

spring, had been supplied from England, and landed at Corunna during

the summer.

[72] The only regiments of Blake’s original army that seem to be

completely dead in October 1809 are 2nd of Catalonia, Naples,

Pontevedra, Compostella. Naples had been drafted into Rey early

in 1809. Of the others I can find no details.

[73] The new Galician regiments which appear in the autumn of

1809 are Monforte de Lemos, Voluntarios de la Muerte, La Union,

Lovera, Maceda, Morazzo.

[74] For the full muster-roll of Del Parque’s army in October,

see Appendix no. 4.

[75] Some small fraction of it reappeared in the campaign of 1809.

But the Galician divisions, though the most numerous, were not

the only units which were told off to the new ‘Army of the Left.’

Asturias had been free of invaders since Ney and Bonnet retired from

its borders in June 1809. The Central Junta ordered Ballasteros to

join the main army with the few regular troops in the principality,

and ten battalions of the local volunteers, a force of over 9,000

men. The Asturian Junta, always very selfish and particularist in

its aims, made some protests but obeyed. Nine of its less efficient

regiments were left behind to watch Bonnet.

Finally the Duke Del Parque himself had been collecting fresh levies

about Ciudad Rodrigo, while the plains of Leon lay abandoned by

the French during the absence of Ney’s corps in the valley of the

Tagus. Including the garrison of Rodrigo he had 9,000 men, all in new

units save one old line battalion and one old militia regiment[76].

Deducting the 3,500 men which held the fortress, there were seven

battalions--nearly 6,000 bayonets--and a squadron or two of horse

available for the strengthening of the field army. These were now

told off as the ‘5th Division of the Army of the Left’; that of

Ballasteros was numbered the 3rd Division.

[76] One battalion of Majorca, and the Militia battalion of

Segovia.

The Galician, Asturian, and Leonese divisions had between them less

than 500 horsemen. To make up for this destitution the Central Junta

directed the Duke of Albuquerque to send off to Ciudad Rodrigo, via

the Portuguese frontier, a brigade of his cavalry. Accordingly

the Prince of Anglona marched north with three regiments[77], only

1,000 sabres in all, and joined Del Parque on September 25. Thus at

the end of that month the ‘Army of the Left’ numbered nearly 50,000

men--all infantry save 1,500 horse and 1,200 gunners. But they were

scattered all over North-Western Spain, from Oviedo to Astorga, and

from Astorga to Ciudad Rodrigo, and had to be concentrated before

they could act. Nor was the concentration devoid of danger, for the

French might fall upon the Asturians or the Leonese before they had

joined the Galician main body. As a matter of fact the 50,000 never

took the field in one mass, for Del Parque left a division under

Mahy to protect Galicia, and, when these regiments and the garrison

of Rodrigo were deducted, he had but 40,000 in all, including sick

and men on detachment. This, nevertheless, constituted a formidable

force--if it had been in existence in July, Soult and Ney could never

have marched against Wellington with their whole strength, and the

Talavera campaign might have had another end. But the troops were

of varying quality--the Leonese division was absolutely raw: the

Galicians had far too many recruits with only two months’ training in

their ranks, the Estremaduran cavalry had a bad record of disasters.

A general of genius might have accomplished something with the Army

of the Left--but Del Parque, though more cautious than many of his

compeers, was no genius.

[77] Borbon, Sagunto, and Granaderos de Llerena, 1,053 sabres in

October. These regiments had newly rejoined the Estremaduran army

from the rear.

The Junta had a deeply-rooted notion that if sufficient pressure were

applied to Wellesley and Wellington, they would permit Beresford’s

Portuguese army, now some 20,000 strong, to join Del Parque for

the advance into the plains of Leon. They had mistaken their men:

Wellington returned as peremptory a refusal to their request for the

aid of the Portuguese troops as to their demand that his own British

army should advance with Albuquerque to the Tagus[78].

[78] See Wellington to Wellesley, from Badajoz, Oct. 30, 1809.

Nothing could be more hazardous than the plan finally formulated

at the Seville War Office for the simultaneous advance of the

armies of La Mancha, the North, and Estremadura. Even if it had

been energetically supported by Wellington and Beresford, it

would have been rash: converging operations by several armies

starting from distant bases against an enemy concentrated in their

midst are proverbially disastrous. In this particular plan three

forces--numbering in all about 110,000 men, and starting from

points so far apart as Ciudad Rodrigo, Truxillo, and the Passes

by La Carolina, were to fall upon some 120,000 men, placed in a

comparatively compact body in their centre. A single mistake in the

timing of operations, the chance that one Spanish army might outmarch

another, or that one of the three might fail to detain any hostile

force in its front (as had happened with Venegas during the Talavera

Campaign) was bound to be ruinous. The French had it in their power

to deal with their enemies in detail, if the least mischance should

occur: and with Spanish generals and Spanish armies it was almost

certain that some error would be made.

Meanwhile the Junta made their last preparation for the grand stroke,

by deposing Venegas from the command of the united army in La Mancha.

Eguia held the interim command for a few days, but was to be replaced

by Areizaga, an elderly general who had never commanded more than

a single division, and had to his credit only courage shown in a

subordinate position at the battle of Alcañiz. He was summoned from

Lerida, and came hastily to take up his charge.

The sole advantage which the Spaniards possessed in October 1809

was that their enemy did not expect to be attacked. A month after

Talavera matters had apparently settled down for the whole autumn, as

far as the French generals could calculate. With the knowledge that

the Austrian War was over, and that unlimited reinforcements could

now be poured into Spain by his brother, King Joseph was content to

wait. He had refused to allow Soult to make his favourite move of

invading Portugal in the end of August, because he wished the Emperor

to take up the responsibility of settling the next plan of campaign,

and of determining the number of new troops that would be required to

carry it out. The French corps, therefore, were in a semicircle round

Madrid: Soult and Mortier in the central Tagus Valley at Plasencia

and Talavera, Victor in La Mancha, with Sebastiani supporting him at

Toledo and Aranjuez, Ney at Salamanca, Dessolles and the Royal Guard

as a central reserve in the capital. This was a purely defensive

position, and Joseph intended to retain it, till the masses of troops

from Germany, with the Emperor himself perchance at their head,

should come up to his aid. It does not seem to have entered into his

head that the enemy would again take the offensive, after the fiasco

of the Talavera campaign, and the bloody lesson of Almonacid.

In September and the early days of October the French hardly moved

at all. Ney left his corps at Salamanca, and went on a short leave

to Paris on September 25, so little was any danger expected in the

plains of Leon. The charge of the 6th corps was handed over to

Marchand, his senior divisional general. There was an even more

important change of command pending--Jourdan had been soliciting

permission to return to France ever since July. He had been on

excellent terms with King Joseph, but found it hard to exact

obedience from the marshals--indeed he was generally engaged in a

controversy either with Victor or with Soult. The Emperor was not

inclined to allow him to quit Spain, but Jourdan kept sending in

applications to be superseded, backed by medical certificates as

to his dangerous state of health. Finally he was granted leave to

return, by a letter which reached him on October 25, just as the new

campaign was beginning to develop into an acute phase. But he gladly

handed over his duties to Soult, who thus became ‘major-general’ or

chief of the Staff to King Joseph, and departed without lingering or

reluctance for France, glad to be quit of a most invidious office[79].

[79] For Jourdan’s personal views, see his _Mémoires_, ed.

Grouchy, p. 282.

Before Jourdan’s departure there had been some small movements of

the French troops: hearing vague rumours of the passage eastward of

Eguia’s army, King Joseph ordered a corresponding shift of his own

troops towards that quarter. Soult and the 2nd Corps were ordered

from Plasencia to Oropesa and Talavera, there relieving Mortier and

the 5th Corps, who were to push up the Tagus toward Toledo. This

would enable Victor to call up Sebastiani’s cavalry and two of his

infantry divisions from Toledo into La Mancha. Having thus got

together some 25,000 men, Victor advanced to Daimiel, and pressed in

the advanced posts of the main Spanish army on October 15. Eguia, who

was still in temporary command, since Areizaga had not yet arrived,

made no attempt to stand, but retired into the passes of the Sierra

Morena. This apparent timidity of the enemy convinced the Marshal

that nothing dangerous was on hand in this quarter. He drew back

his army into cantonments, in a semicircle from Toledo to Tarancon,

leaving the cavalry of Milhaud and Paris out in his front.

Nothing more happened in La Mancha for a fortnight: but on the other

wing, in the kingdom of Leon, matters came to a head sooner. About

the middle of September the bulk of the Galician army, the divisions

of Losada, Belveder and La Carrera, had moved down the Portuguese

frontier via Alcanizas, and joined Del Parque at Ciudad Rodrigo. On

the twenty-fifth of the same month the Prince of Anglona, with the

cavalry brigade from Estremadura, also came in to unite himself to

the Army of the Left. Del Parque had thus 25,000 infantry and 1,500

horse concentrated. He had still to be joined by Ballasteros and the

Asturians, who had to pick their way with caution through the plains

of Leon. Mahy and the 4th division of the Galicians had been left in

the passes above Astorga, to cover the high-road into Galicia. He

had a vanguard in Astorga, under Santocildes, and the town, whose

walls had been repaired by the order of La Romana, was now capable of

making some defence.

Facing Del Parque and his lieutenants there were two distinct forces.

The 6th Corps, now under Marchand, was concentrated at Salamanca.

Having received few or no drafts since its return from Galicia it was

rather weak--its twenty-one battalions and four cavalry regiments

only counted at the end of September some 13,000 bayonets and 1,200

sabres[80] effective--the sick being numerous. In the north of Leon

and in Old Castile Kellermann was in charge, with an independent

force of no great strength: his own division of dragoons, nearly

3,000 sabres, was its only formidable unit. The infantry was composed

of three Swiss battalions, and four or five French battalions, which

had been left in garrisons in Old Castile when the regiments to

which they belonged went southward in the preceding winter[81].

The whole did not amount to more than 3,500 bayonets. The dragoons

were very serviceable in the vast plains of Leon, but it was with

difficulty, and only by cutting down garrisons to a dangerous extent,

that Kellermann could assemble a weak infantry brigade of 2,000 men

to back the horsemen.

[80] See the table given by Sprünglin on p. 366 of his _Mémoires_.

[81] Apparently Kellermann had at this moment a battalion each of

the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Swiss, a battalion of the Garde de Paris,

one each of the 12th Léger and 32nd Line, and one or two of the

122nd.

It was nevertheless on Kellermann’s side, and by the initiative of

the French, that the first clash took place in north-western Spain.

Hearing vague reports of the movement of the Galician divisions

towards Ciudad Rodrigo, Kellermann sent General Carrié, with two

regiments of dragoons and 1,200 infantry, to occupy Astorga, being

ignorant apparently that it was now garrisoned and more or less

fortified. Carrié found the place occupied, made a weak attack upon

it on October 9, and was beaten off. He was able to report to his

chief that the Spaniards (i. e. Mahy’s division) were in some force

in the passes beyond.

At much the same moment that this fact was ascertained Del Parque

began to move: he had been lying since September 24 at Fuente

Guinaldo in the highland above Ciudad Rodrigo. On October 5 he

made an advance as far as Tamames, on the by-road from Rodrigo to

Salamanca which skirts the mountains, wisely avoiding the high-road

in the more level ground by San Martin del Rio and Castrejon. He had

with him his three Galician divisions and his 1,500 horse, but he

had not brought forward his raw Leonese division under Castrofuerte,

which still lay by Rodrigo. On hearing of the duke’s advance Marchand

sent out reconnaissances, and having discovered the position of the

Spaniards, resolved at once to attack them. On October 17 he started

out from Salamanca, taking with him his whole corps, except the two

battalions of the 50th regiment, which were left to garrison the town.

On the afternoon of the next day Marchand came in sight of the enemy,

who was drawn up ready to receive him on the heights above Tamames.

The French general had with him nineteen battalions, some 12,000

bayonets--his 1,200 horse, and fourteen guns. Del Parque had 20,000

Galician infantry, Anglona’s cavalry, and eighteen guns: his position

was so strong, and his superiority in infantry so marked, that he was

probably justified in risking a battle on the defensive.

Tamames, an unwalled village of moderate size, lies at the foot of a

range of swelling hills. Its strategical importance lies in the fact

that it is the meeting-place of the two country roads from Ciudad

Rodrigo to Salamanca _via_ Matilla, and from Ciudad Rodrigo to Bejar

and the Pass of Baños _via_ Nava Redonda. Placed there, Del Parque’s

army threatened Salamanca, and had a choice of lines of retreat,

the roads to Rodrigo and to the passes into Estremadura being both

open. But retreat was not the duke’s intention. He had drawn up his

army on the heights above Tamames, occupying the village below with

a battalion or two. On the right, where the hillside was steeper,

he had placed Losada and the 2nd Division: on the left, where the

ridge sinks down gently into the plain, was Martin de la Carrera

with the Vanguard Division. The Conde de Belveder’s division--the

third--formed the reserve, and was drawn up on the reverse slope,

behind La Carrera. The Prince of Anglona’s cavalry brigade was out on

the extreme left, partly hidden by woods, in the low ground beyond

the flank of the Vanguard.

Marchand, arriving on the ground in the afternoon after a march of

fourteen miles from Matilla, was overjoyed to see the enemy offering

battle, and attacked without a moment’s hesitation. His arrangements

much resembled those of Victor at Ucles--though his luck was to be

very different. It was clear that the Spanish left was the weak

point, and that the heights could be turned and ascended on that side

with ease. Accordingly Maucune’s brigade (six battalions in all)[82]

and the light cavalry, strengthened by one regiment of dragoons, were

ordered to march off to the right, to form in a line perpendicular

to that of Del Parque, and break down his flank. When this movement

was well developed, Marcognet’s brigade (six battalions)[83] was to

attack the Spanish centre, to the east of the village of Tamames,

while the 25th Léger (two battalions) was to contain the hostile

right by a demonstration against the high and difficult ground in

that direction. Marchand kept in reserve, behind his centre, the 27th

and 59th of the Line (six battalions) and his remaining regiment

of dragoons. The vice of this formation was that the striking

force--Maucune’s column--was too weak: it would have been wise to

have strengthened it at the expense of the centre, and to have made a

mere demonstration against the heights above the village of Tamames,

as well as on the extreme French left.

[82] 6th Léger (two batts.), 69th Line (three batts.), and one

battalion of _voltigeurs réunis_.

[83] 39th and 76th of the Line.

Maucune accomplished his flank march undisturbed, deployed in front

of La Carrera’s left and advanced against it. The Spanish general

threw back his wing to protect himself, and ordered his cavalry

to threaten the flank of the advancing force. But he was nearly

swept away: when the skirmishing lines were in contact, the French

brigadier ordered his cavalry to charge the centre of the Spanish

division: striking in diagonally, Lorcet’s Hussars and Chasseurs

broke La Carrera’s line, and captured the six guns of his divisional

artillery. Almost at the same moment Anglona’s cavalry came in upon

Maucune’s flank; but being opposed by two battalions of the 69th in

square, they received but one fire and fled hastily to the rear.

Maucune then resumed his march up the hill, covering his flank with

his horsemen, and pushing La Carrera’s broken line before him. But at

the head of the slope he met Belveder’s reserve, which let the broken

troops pass through their intervals, and took up the fight steadily

enough. The French were now opposed by triple numbers, and the combat

came to a standstill: Maucune’s offensive power was exhausted, and

he could no longer use his cavalry on the steep ground which he had

reached.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF TAMAMES. Oct. 18, 1809.]

Meanwhile, on seeing their right brigade opening the combat with

such success, the two other French columns went forward, Marcognet

against the Spanish centre, Anselme of the 25th Léger against the

extreme right. But the ground was here much steeper: Losada’s

Galician division stood its ground very steadily, and Marcognet’s

two regiments made an involuntary halt three-quarters of the way up

the heights, under the full fire of the two Spanish batteries

there placed and the long line of infantry. The officers made several

desperate attempts to induce the columns to resume their advance, but

to no effect. They fell in great numbers, and at last the regiments

recoiled and descended the hill in disorder. Losada’s battalions

pursued them to the foot of the slope, and the Spanish light troops

in the village sallied out upon their flank, and completed their

rout. Marcognet’s brigade poured down into the plain as a disordered

mass of fugitives, and were only stayed when Marchand brought up the

27th and 59th to their rescue. Del Parque wisely halted the pursuing

force before it came into contact with the French reserves, and took

up again his post on the heights.

Meanwhile the 25th Léger, on the extreme French right, had not

pressed its attack home, and retreated when the central advance was

repulsed. Maucune, too, seeing the rout to his left, withdrew from

the heights under cover of his cavalry, carrying off only one of the

Spanish guns that he had taken early in the fight, and leaving in

return a disabled piece of his own on the hill.

The battle was fairly lost, and Marchand retired, under cover of

his cavalry along the Salamanca road. The enemy made no serious

attempt to pursue him in the plain, where his horsemen would have

been able to act with advantage. The French had lost 1,300 or 1,400

men, including 18 officers killed, and a general (Lorcet) and 54

officers wounded[84]. Marcognet’s brigade supplied the greater part

of the casualties; the 76th lost its eagle, seven officers killed and

fifteen wounded: the 39th almost as many. The cavalry and Maucune’s

brigade suffered little. The very moderate Spanish loss was 713

killed and wounded, mostly in La Carrera’s division.

[84] Marchand in his dispatch says 1,300 men in all were lost,

and a gun; he makes no mention of the eagle. His aide-de-camp,

Sprünglin, who has a good account of the battle in his _Mémoires_

(pp. 370-1), gives the total of 1,500. The Spaniards exaggerated

the loss to 3,000.

This was the first general action since Baylen in which the Spaniards

gained a complete victory. They had a superiority of about seven

to four in numbers, and a good position; nevertheless the troops

were so raw, and the past record of the Army of the Left was so

disheartening, that the victory reflects considerable credit on the

Galicians. The 6th Corps was reckoned the best of all the French

units in Spain, being entirely composed of old regiments from the

army of Germany. It is not too much to say that Ney’s absence was

responsible for the defeat of his men. Marchand attacked at three

points, and was weak at each. The Marshal would certainly have

massed a whole division against the Spanish left, and would not have

been stopped by the stout resistance made by Belveder’s reserve. A

demonstration by a few battalions would have ‘contained’ Losada’s

troops on the left, where the ground was too unfavourable for a

serious attack[85].

[85] ‘La perte de cette affaire fut entièrement due à la faute

que fit le Général Marchand de multiplier ses attaques, et de

s’engager par petits paquets. Tout le monde se mêlait de donner

son avis, et on remarquait l’absence de M. le Maréchal,’ says

Sprünglin in p. 371 of his _Mémoires_.

On the 19th of October the beaten army reached Salamanca by a

forced march. Marchand feared that the enemy would now manœuvre

either by Ledesma, so as to cut him off from Kellermann and the

troops in the north, or by Alba de Tormes, so as to intercept his

communication with Madrid. In either case he would have to retreat,

for there was no good defensive ground on the Tormes to resist an

army coming from the west. As a matter of fact Del Parque moved by

Ledesma, for two reasons: the first was that he wished to avoid the

plains, fearing that Kellermann might have joined the 6th Corps

with his cavalry division. The second was that, by moving in this

direction, he hoped to make his junction with Ballasteros, who had

started from the Asturias to join him, and had been reported to have

moved from Astorga to Miranda del Duero, and to be feeling his way

south-eastward. The juncture took place: the Asturian division, after

an unsuccessful attempt to cut off the garrison of Zamora on the

seventeenth, had marched to Ledesma, and met the main army there. Del

Parque had now 28,000 men, and though still very weak in cavalry,

thought himself strong enough to march on Salamanca. He reached it on

October 25 and found it evacuated. Marchand, learning that Kellermann

was too far off to help him, and knowing that no reinforcements

from Madrid could reach him for many days, had evacuated the town

on the previous evening. He retired towards Toro, thus throwing up

his communications with Madrid in order to make sure of joining

Kellermann. This seems doubtful policy, for that general could only

aid him with 4,000 or 5,000 men, and their joint force would be

under 20,000 strong. On the other hand, by retiring on Peñaranda or

Medina de Campo, and so approaching the King’s army, he could have

counted on picking up much larger reinforcements, and on resuming the

struggle with a good prospect of success.

As a matter of fact Jourdan, on hearing of the disaster of Tamames,

had dispatched, to aid the 6th Corps, Godinot’s brigade of Dessolles’

division, some 3,500 bayonets, from Madrid, and Heudelet’s division

of the 2nd Corps, about 4,000 strong, from Oropesa, as well as a

couple of regiments of cavalry. He made these detachments without

scruple, because there was as yet no sign of any activity on the part

of the Spanish armies of La Mancha and Estremadura. A week later he

would have found it much more hazardous to weaken his front in the

valley of the Tagus. These were the last orders issued by Jourdan,

who resigned his post on October 31, while Soult on November 5

arrived at Madrid and replaced him as chief of the staff to King

Joseph.

Del Parque, not unnaturally elated by his victory, now nourished

ambitious ideas of clearing the whole of Leon and Old Castile of

the enemy, being aware that the armies of La Mancha and Estremadura

ought now to be on the move, and that full occupation would be found

ere long for the French corps in the valley of the Tagus. He ordered

up his 5th Division, the raw Leonese battalions of Castrofuerte,

from Ciudad Rodrigo, and made vehement appeals to the Portuguese

Government to lend him the whole of Beresford’s army for a great

advance up the Douro. The Regency, though much pressed by the Spanish

ambassador at Lisbon, gave a blank refusal, following Wellington’s

advice to have nothing to do with offensive operations in Spanish

company[86]. But part of Beresford’s troops were ordered up to

the frontier, not so much to lend a moral support to Del Parque’s

advance[87] as to be ready to defend their own borders in the event

of his defeat. Showing more prudence than Wellington had expected,

Del Parque did not push forward from Salamanca, when he became

certain that he would have to depend on his own forces alone. Even

after the arrival of his reserves from Rodrigo he remained quiet,

only pushing out reconnaissances to discover which way the enemy had

gone. He had, in fact, carried out his part in the Central Junta’s

plan of campaign, by calling the attention of the French to the

north, and distracting troops thither from the King’s army. It was

now the time for Albuquerque and Areizaga to take up the game, and

relieve him. Marchand meanwhile had retired across the Douro, and

taken up an extended line behind it from Zamora to Tordesillas--a

front of over forty miles--which it would have been impossible to

hold with his 13,000 men against a heavy attack delivered at one

point. But he was hardly in position when Kellermann arrived, took

over the command, and changed the whole plan of campaign (November

1). He had left two battalions to guard Benavente, two to hold

Valladolid, and had only brought up his 3,000 dragoons and 1,500

infantry. Seeing that it was absolutely necessary to recover the

line of communication with Madrid, he ordered the 6th Corps to leave

Zamora and Toro, mass at Tordesillas, and then cross the Douro to

Medina del Campo, the junction point of the roads from Madrid,

Segovia, Valladolid, and Toro. To this same place he brought up his

own small force, and having received Godinot’s brigade from Madrid,

had thirty-four battalions and eighteen squadrons concentrated--about

23,000 men. Though not yet joined by the other troops from the

south--Heudelet’s division--he now marched straight upon Salamanca

in two columns, one by Cantalapiedra, the other by Fuente Sauco,

intending to offer battle to Del Parque.

[86] Del Parque’s demands had begun as early as the end of

September, see Wellington to Castlereagh, Badajoz, Sept. 29,

_Dispatches_, v. 200-1, and cf. Wellington to Forjaz, Oct. 15,

ibid. 223.

[87] Wellington to Beresford, Nov. 16, 1809.

But the duke, much to the surprise of every one, utterly refused

to fight, holding the plain too dangerous for an army so weak in

cavalry as his own, and over-estimating the enemy’s force at 36,000

men[88]. He retired from Salamanca, after having held it less than

a fortnight, on November 5, and took not the road to Ciudad Rodrigo

but that to Bejar and the Pass of Baños, as if he were about to

pass the mountains into Estremadura[89]. This was an excellent

move: the French could not pursue him in force without evacuating

Old Castile and Leon, which it would have been impossible for them

to contemplate. For when Kellermann had concentrated his troops to

strike at Salamanca, there was nothing left behind him in the vast

upland save a battalion or two at Benavente, Valladolid, and Burgos.

Mahy, from Galicia, and the Asturians might have overrun the whole

region unopposed. As it was, the whole of the provinces behind the

Douro showed signs of bursting out into insurrection. Julian Sanchez,

the Empecinado, and other guerrillero chiefs, whose names were soon

to be famous, raised large bands during the absence of the normal

garrisons, and swept the country-side, capturing convoys and cutting

the lines of communication between Vittoria, Burgos, and Valladolid.

Porlier came down with a flying column from the Asturias, assaulted

Palencia, and threatened Burgos. The French governors on every side

kept reporting their perilous position, when they could get a message

through to Madrid[90].

[88] He sent this estimate to Wellington, see the latter to

Beresford, Badajoz, Nov. 16.

[89] The Junta afterwards contemplated bringing him down to join

Albuquerque, via Plasencia, which was free of French troops,

since Soult had moved to Oropesa. But this does not seem to have

been thought of so early as Nov. 5.

[90] See Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6, for these

movements.

Realizing that he must cover his rear, or the whole of Old Castile

would be lost to the insurgents, Kellermann, after occupying

Salamanca on November 6, left the 6th Corps and Godinot’s brigade

distributed between Ledesma, Salamanca, and Alba de Tormes, watching

Del Parque, and returned in haste with his own troops to the Douro.

He commenced to send out flying columns from Valladolid to deal with

the guerrilleros, but did not work too far afield, lest he might be

called back by a new forward movement on the part of the Army of

the Left. But in a few days he had to recast all his arrangements,

for--as Del Parque had calculated--the campaign in La Mancha had

just opened, and the position of the French in Leon and Old Castile

was profoundly affected by the new developments.

In the south, as we have already explained, the Junta designed

Albuquerque’s army of Estremadura to be a mere demonstrating force,

while Areizaga’s 55,000 men were to strike the real blow. The

Estremaduran troops, as was proper, moved early to draw the attention

of the enemy. Albuquerque’s first division under Bassecourt--6,000

infantry and 600 horse--was on the Tagus from Almaraz to Meza

de Ibor: his second division under St. Juan and the rest of his

cavalry--some 4,000 in all--were moving up from Truxillo. Bassecourt

began by sending a small force of all arms across the river at

Almaraz, to drive in Soult’s outposts and spread reports abroad in

all directions that he was acting as the vanguard to Wellington’s

army, which was marching up from Badajoz. Unfortunately the full

effect that he desired was not produced, because deserters informed

Soult that the British Army was still quiescent on the Guadiana[91].

The French made no movement, and left the 2nd Corps alone to watch

Albuquerque.

[91] Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6. The deserters were a

body of twenty-one men of the Walloon Guards, who had enlisted

from Dupont’s prisoners in order to get a chance of escaping:

they reached Oropesa on Oct. 25.

Meanwhile Areizaga, within a few days of assuming the command of the

army of La Mancha, commenced his forward movement. On November 3,

having concentrated his eight divisions of infantry and his 5,700

horse at Santa Cruz de Mudela, at the foot of the passes, he gave

the order to advance into the plains. The head quarters followed the

high-road, with the train and three divisions: the rest, to avoid

encumbering the _chaussée_, marched by parallel side-roads, but were

never more than ten miles from their Commander-in-Chief: at any rate

Areizaga avoided the sin of dispersion. His army was the best which

had been seen under the Spanish banners since Tudela. The men had all

been furnished with new clothes and equipment since August, mainly

from English stores landed at Cadiz. There were sixty guns, and

such a body of cavalry as had never yet been collected during the

war. The value of the troops was very unequal; if there were many

old battalions of the regular army, there were also many new units

composed of half-trained Andalusian levies. The cavalry included the

old runaways of Medellin, and many other regiments of doubtful value.

The morale was on the whole not satisfactory. ‘I wish I had anything

agreeable to communicate to you from this army’ wrote Colonel Roche,

a British officer attached to Areizaga’s staff, to Wellington. ‘The

corps which belonged to the original army of La Mancha are certainly

in every respect superior to those from Estremadura, and from

everything that I can learn none of those abuses which were to be

lamented in the army of Estremadura existed here--or, at least, in

a much less degree. But nothing can exceed the general discontent,

dissatisfaction, and demoralization of the mass of the people and of

the army. How can anybody who has the faculty of reason separate the

inefficiency, intrigue, bad organization, and consequent disasters

of the army from the source of all those evils in the Junta? There

is not a man of the least reflection who, as things now stand, has a

hope of success; and this is the more melancholy, because the mass of

the people are just as inveterate in their resentment and abhorrence

of the French as at the first hour of the revolution[92].’ The fact

seems to have been that the superior officers doubted the wisdom of

taking the offensive according to the Junta’s orders, and had no

confidence in Areizaga, who was only known as a fighting general, and

had no reputation for skill. The rank and file, as Arteche remarks,

were disposed to do their duty, but had no confidence in their

luck[93]. Their government and not their generals must take the major

part of the blame for the disaster that followed.

[92] Roche to Wellington, from Santa Cruz de la Mudela,

_Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, vi. 394. Cf. also the same

to the same, vi. 414.

[93] _Historia de la Guerra de la Independencia_, vii. 283.

Areizaga was well aware that his best chance was to strike with

extreme boldness and vigour, and to dash into the midst of the French

before they could concentrate. Hence his march was at first conducted

with great rapidity and decision; between the 3rd and the 8th of

November he made nearly fifteen miles a day, though the roads were

somewhat broken up by the autumn rains. On the eighth he reached

La Guardia, eighty miles from his starting-point, and his advanced

cavalry under General Freire had its first skirmish with a brigade of

Milhaud’s dragoons at Costa de Madera, near Dos Barrios. The Spanish

horse deployed in such numbers that the French were compelled to move

off in haste and with some loss, though they had beaten off with ease

the first two or three regiments which had gone forward against them.

The Spanish advance had been so rapid and so unexpected that Soult

and King Joseph had been taken completely by surprise. On November

6 the Marshal had reported to Paris that ‘the troops on the Tagus

and in La Mancha are up to the present unmolested, and as, from all

I can learn, there is no prospect of the enemy making any offensive

movement on that side, I intend to form from them a strong flying

column to hunt the brigands in the direction of Burgos[94].’ Only

four days later he had to announce that an army of at least 40,000

men was close in front of Aranjuez, and not more than thirty-five

miles from Madrid, and that he was hurrying together troops from all

quarters to make head against them. At the moment indeed, there was

nothing directly between Areizaga’s vanguard at La Guardia and the

Spanish capital, save the Polish division of the 4th Corps stationed

at Aranjuez, and Milhaud’s five regiments of dragoons at Ocaña. If

the Spaniard had pushed on for three days more at his starting pace,

he might have crossed the Tagus, and have forced King Joseph to

fight, close in front of Madrid, with an imperfectly assembled army.

On the ninth and tenth Leval’s Germans were in march from Toledo to

Aranjuez to join Sebastiani’s Poles: Mortier’s first division was

hurrying from Talavera to Toledo, and his second division was making

ready to follow. The 2nd Corps, despite Albuquerque’s demonstration

in front of Almaraz, was preparing to quit Oropesa, in order to

replace Mortier’s men at Talavera. Victor, in the meanwhile, with

the First Corps, was lying in front of Toledo at Ajofrin, with his

cavalry at Mora and Yebenes: he reported that no hostile force had

come his way, but that he had ascertained that a large army had

marched past his front along the great _chaussée_ from Madridejos to

Aranjuez. He was in a position to attack it in rear and flank, if

there was a sufficient force gathered in its front to justify him in

closing[95].

[94] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 6.

[95] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 10.

But on reaching La Guardia, Areizaga seemed suddenly to realize

the dangers of his movement. No doubt it was the news that Victor

was almost in his rear that paralysed him, but he halted on the

ninth, when a bold advance would certainly have enabled him to seize

Aranjuez, by evicting the small force under Milhaud and Sebastiani.

For three fatal days, the 9th, 10th, and 11th of November, the

Spanish main body remained halted in a mass at La Guardia, as if for

the special purpose of allowing the enemy to concentrate. On the

eleventh Areizaga at last began to move again: he sent forward the

whole of his cavalry, supported by Zayas and his Vanguard division,

to press back the force in his front. They found Milhaud’s five

regiments of dragoons ranged in line of battle before the small town

of Ocaña, and supported by Sebastiani’s Polish infantry. Freire

advanced, using his triple superiority of numbers to turn both flanks

of the French cavalry; Milhaud, after some partial charges, retired

behind the Poles, who formed a line of six battalion squares. The

Spanish horse made a half-hearted attempt to attack them, but were

repelled by their rolling fire before they came to close quarters,

and drew back. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and the

Spanish infantry was only just beginning to come up. Zayas and Freire

agreed that it was too late to begin a second attack, and put off

fighting till the next morning. But during the night the French

evacuated Ocaña and retired to Aranjuez, wisely judging that it would

be insane to wait for the arrival of the Spanish main body. They had

lost about fifty men, Freire’s cavalry just over two hundred.

Next day [November 12], Areizaga brought up the whole of his army to

Ocaña, and his cavalry reconnoitred up to the gates of Aranjuez and

the bridge of Puente La Reyna. Sebastiani made ready to defend them,

and having been joined by the German division from Toledo, wrote to

Soult to say that he would resist to the last extremity, in order

to gain time for the arrival of Victor’s corps and the other troops

which were marching up from the west and north[96]. The attack

which he expected was never delivered. Areizaga, nervous about the

presence of the 1st Corps on his flank, had resolved to shift his

army eastward to get further away from it. Abandoning his line of

communication by La Guardia and Madridejos, he marched his whole

force by cross-roads parallel to the Tagus up to La Zarza, and seized

the fords of Villamanrique, twenty-five miles above Aranjuez, on the

Madrid-Albacete road. If Victor, as he supposed, had been manœuvring

on his flank, this movement would have cut him off from his base in

Andalusia, and have left him only the mountains of Murcia as a line

of retreat. But, as a matter of fact, the 1st Corps was no longer at

Ajofrin or Mora, but had been called behind the Tagus, so that his

retreat was safer than he supposed.

[96] Sebastiani to Soult, night of the twelfth-thirteenth, from

Aranjuez.

Soult and King Joseph, meanwhile, had been completing their

concentration. They had written to Kellermann, ordering him to send

back to Madrid without delay the brigade of Dessolles’ division

under Godinot which had been lent him, and to spare them as well one

infantry brigade of the 6th Corps. These troops were too far off

to be available at once; but of the remainder of their units the

Royal Guard and Spanish battalions of King Joseph, with Dessolles’

remaining brigade, were moved out to support Sebastiani. Victor

had been brought back across the Tagus, and was also marching on

Aranjuez. Mortier’s corps was concentrated at Toledo, while the 2nd

Corps was in motion from Oropesa to Talavera, having discovered no

signs of a serious advance on the part of Albuquerque. The care of

Madrid was handed over to the incomplete French division of the 4th

Corps[97], some of whose battalions were dispersed at Guadalajara,

Alcala, Segovia, and other garrisons. Paris’s light cavalry of the

same corps was also at this moment watching the roads to the east of

Madrid.

[97] It had still no divisional general, and was officially known

by the name of ‘Sebastiani’s division’--regiments 28th, 32nd,

58th, 75th.

On the twelfth Areizaga threw Lacy’s division across the Tagus,

and laid down two pontoon bridges near Villamanrique, so as to be

able to bring over his whole army in the shortest possible time.

But the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth were days of storm,

the river rose high, and the artillery and train stuck fast on the

vile cross-roads from Ocaña over which they were being brought. In

consequence less than half the Spanish army was north of the Tagus

on November 15, though the advance cavalry pushed on to the line of

the Tajuna, and skirmished with Paris’s _chasseurs_ about Arganda.

It seemed nevertheless that Areizaga was committed to an advance

upon Madrid by the high-road from Albacete, wherefore Soult blew up

the bridges of Aranjuez and Puente la Reyna, and ordered Victor to

march from Aranjuez on Arganda with the 1st Corps, nearly 20,000 men,

purposing to join him with the King’s reserves and to offer battle on

the Tajuna, while Mortier and Sebastiani’s Poles and Germans should

fall upon the enemy’s flank. But this plan was foiled by a new move

upon Areizaga’s part; he now commenced a retreat as objectless as his

late advance. Just as Victor’s cavalry came in touch with his front,

he withdrew his whole army across the Tagus, destroyed his bridges,

and retired to La Zarza on the seventeenth, evidently with the

intention of recovering his old line of communication with Andalusia,

via Ocaña and Madridejos.

The moment that this new departure became evident, Soult reversed

the marching orders of all his columns save Victor’s, and bade them

return hastily to Aranjuez, where the bridge was repaired in haste,

and to cross the Tagus there, with the intention of intercepting

Areizaga’s line of retreat and forcing a battle on him near Ocaña.

Victor, however, had got so far to the east that it would have wasted

time to bring him back to Aranjuez, wherefore he was directed to

cross the river at Villamanrique and follow hard in Areizaga’s rear.

On the morning of the eighteenth Milhaud’s and Paris’s cavalry,

riding at the head of the French army, crossed the Tagus at Aranjuez,

and pressing forward met, between Ontigola and Ocaña, Freire’s

horsemen moving at the head of Areizaga’s column, which on this

day was strung out between La Zarza and Noblejas, marching hastily

westward towards the high-road. The collision of Milhaud and Freire

brought about the largest cavalry fight which took place during the

whole Peninsular War. For Milhaud and Paris had eight regiments,

nearly 3,000 men, while three of Freire’s four divisions were

present, to the number of over 4,000 sabres. On neither side was any

infantry in hand.

Sebastiani, who had come up with the light cavalry of his corps, was

eager for a fight, and engaged at once. Charging the Spanish front

line with Paris’s light horse, he broke it with ease: but Freire came

on with his reserves, forming the greater part of them into a solid

column--an odd formation for cavalry. Into this mass Milhaud charged

with four regiments of dragoons. The heaviness of their formation

did not suffice to enable the Spaniards to stand. They broke when

attacked, and went to the rear in disorder, leaving behind them

eighty prisoners and some hundreds of killed and wounded. The French

lost only a few scores, but among them was Paris, the not unworthy

successor of the adventurous Lasalle in command of the light cavalry

division attached to the 4th Corps.

Moving forward in pursuit of the routed squadrons, Sebastiani

approached Ocaña, but halted on discovering that there was already

Spanish infantry in the town. The head of Areizaga’s long column had

reached it, while the cavalry combat was in progress: the rest was

visible slowly moving up by cross-roads from the east. Soult was

at once apprised that the enemy’s army was close in his front--so

close that it could not get away without fighting, for its train and

rearguard were still far behind, and would be cut off if the main

body moved on without making a stand.

Areizaga, though he had shown such timidity when faced by

Sebastiani’s 9,000 men at Aranjuez, and by Victor’s 20,000 on the

Tajuna, now offered battle to the much more formidable force which

Soult was bringing up. He was indeed compelled to fight, partly

because his men were too weary to move forward that night, partly

because he wished to give time for his train to arrive and get on to

the _chaussée_.

On the morning of the nineteenth his army was discovered drawn up in

two lines on each side of the town of Ocaña. There were still some

46,000 infantry and 5,500 cavalry under arms despite of the losses

of the late week[98]. The oncoming French army was smaller; though

it mustered 5,000 horse it had only 27,000 foot--the Germans and

Poles of Sebastiani, Mortier with nearly the whole of the 5th Corps,

a brigade of Dessolles’ division, the King’s guards, and the cavalry

of Milhaud, Paris, and Beauregard[99]. Victor was too far off to be

available; having found the flooded Tagus hard to cross, he was on

this day barely in touch with the extreme rearguard of Areizaga’s

army which was escorting the train. Being nearly twenty miles from

Ocaña, he could not hope to arrive in time for the general action, if

it was to be delivered next morn. If Areizaga stood firm for another

day, Victor would be pressing him from the flank and rear while the

main army was in his front: but it was highly probable that Areizaga

would not stand, but would retreat at night; all his previous conduct

argued a great disinclination to risk a battle. Wherefore Soult and

the King, after a short discussion[100], agreed to attack at once,

despite their great numerical inferiority. In the open plain of La

Mancha a difference of 16,000 or 17,000 infantry was not enough to

outweigh the superior quality and training of the French army.

[98] Colborne, in a letter dated December 5, says ‘we had 46,100

infantry and nearly 6,000 cavalry drawn out, in a very bad

position.’ He was present all through the campaign, but wrote no

full report.

[99] Viz.

Mortier’s Infantry Divisions (Girard and Gazan),

twenty-two batts. [one regiment deducted] about 12,000 men

Sebastiani’s Polish Division and German

Division (under Werlé and Leval) ” 8,000 ”

Rey’s Brigade of Dessolles’ Division of the

Central Reserve ” 3,500 ”

The King’s Reserves, viz. four guard battalions

and three others ” 3,500 ”

Milhaud’s Dragoons, five regiments ” 1,800 ”

Paris’s Light Cavalry, attached to 4th Corps,

three regiments ” 1,000 ”

Beauregard’s Cavalry of the 5th Corps, four

regiments ” 1,500 ”

The King’s Cavalry, one regiment of the Guards,

one of Chasseurs ” 700 ”

Artillery, Sappers, &c. ” 1,500 ”

------

Total about 33,500 men

[100] Joseph declared that he urged instant attack when Soult

advised waiting for Victor. See his letter in vol. vii of

Ducasse’s _Life and Correspondence of Joseph Napoleon_.

There is, so to speak, no position whatever at Ocaña: the little

unwalled town lies in a level upland, where the only natural feature

is a ravine which passes in front of the place; it is sufficiently

deep and broad at its western end to constitute a military obstacle,

but east of the town gradually grows slighter and becomes a mere

dip in the ground. Areizaga had chosen this ravine to indicate the

line of his left and centre; but on his right, where it had become

so shallow as to afford no cover, he extended his troops across and

beyond it. The town was barricaded and occupied, to form a central

support to the line. There were olive-groves in the rear of Ocaña

which might have served to hide a reserve, or to mark a position for

a rally in case a retreat should become necessary. But Areizaga had

made no preparation of this sort. His trains, with a small escort,

had not arrived even on the morning of the nineteenth, but were still

belated on the cross-roads from Noblejas and La Zarza.

The order of the Spanish army in line of battle is difficult to

reconstruct, for Areizaga uses very vague language in the dispatch

in which he explained his defeat, and the other documents available,

though they give detailed accounts of some of the corps, say little

or nothing of others. It seems, however, that Zayas, with the

vanguard division, formed the extreme left, behind the deepest part

of the ravine, with a cavalry brigade under Rivas on its flank and

rear. He had the town of Ocaña on his right. Then followed in the

line, going from left to right, the divisions of Vigodet, Giron,

Castejon, and Lacy. Those of Copons, Jacomé, and Zerain appear

to have formed a second line in support of the other four[101].

Vigodet’s left was in the town of Ocaña and strongly posted, but

the other flank, where Lacy lay, was absolutely in the air, with no

natural feature to cover it. For this reason Areizaga placed beyond

it Freire, with the whole of the cavalry except the brigade on the

extreme left under Rivas. Unfortunately the Spanish horse, much

shaken by the combat of the preceding day, was a weak protection for

the flank, despite its formidable numbers. The sixty guns of the

artillery were drawn out in the intervals of the infantry divisions

of the first and second line.

[101] This order seems the only one consistent with the sole

sentence in Areizaga’s dispatch to the Junta in which he explains

his battle-array: ‘Inmediatamente formé por mi mismo la primera

linea en direccion de Ocaña, colocando por la izquierda la

division de Vigodet, defendida por la frente de la gran zanja,

y por su derecha las divisiones de Giron, Castejon y Lacy: la

de Copons formaba martillo, junta á las tapias de la villa,

inmediata á la de Giron, y las demás la secunda linea á distancia

competente para proteger á la primera.’ The unnamed divisions

which must have lain beyond Copons in the right of the second

line are Jacomé and Zerain.

Soult’s plan of attack was soon formed. The ravine made the Spanish

left--beyond Ocaña--inaccessible, but also prevented it from taking

any offensive action. The Marshal therefore resolved to ignore it

completely, and to concentrate all his efforts against the hostile

centre and right, in the open ground. The scheme adopted was a

simple one: Sebastiani’s Polish and German divisions were to attack

the Spanish right wing, and when they were at close quarters with

the enemy the main mass of the French cavalry was to fall upon

Freire’s horse, drive it out of the field, and attack on the flank

the divisions already engaged with the infantry. For this purpose

Milhaud’s, Paris’s, and Beauregard’s regiments, more than 3,500

sabres, were massed behind the Poles and Germans. For a time their

march would be masked by olive-groves and undulations of the ground,

so that they might come in quite suddenly upon the enemy. Mortier

with his first division--that of Girard--and a regiment of Gazan’s,

followed in the rear of the Polish and German infantry, to support

their frontal attack. Dessolles, with his own brigade and Gazan’s

remaining one, took post opposite Ocaña, ready to fall upon the

Spanish centre, when the attack to his left should have begun to make

way. He had in his front the massed artillery of the 4th and 5th

Corps, thirty guns under Senarmont, which took ground on a low knoll

above the great ravine, from which they could both play upon the town

of Ocaña and also enfilade part of the Spanish line to its immediate

right--Vigodet’s division and half of Giron’s. Finally the King, with

his guards and other troops, horse and foot, were placed to the right

rear of Dessolles, to act as a general reserve, or to move against

Zayas if he should attempt to cross the ravine and turn the French

right.

The plan, despite of some checks at the commencement, worked in a

satisfactory fashion. The German and Polish divisions of Leval and

Werlé attacked Lacy’s and Castejon’s divisions, which gave back

some little way, in order to align themselves with Vigodet who

was sheltered by the slight eastern end of the ravine. The enemy

followed and brought up six guns to the point to play upon the new

position which the Spaniards had taken up. The forward movement was

continuing, when suddenly to the surprise of the French, Lacy’s,

Castejon’s, and Giron’s men, leaving their places in the line, made

a furious counter-charge upon the Poles and Germans, drove them

back for some distance, and threw them into disorder. This movement

was no result of Areizaga’s generalship: he had betaken himself

to the summit of the church-tower of Ocaña, an inconvenient place

from which to issue orders, and practically left his subordinates

to fight their own battle. Mortier was forced to bring forward

Girard’s division to support his broken first line. It was hotly

engaged with Lacy and Giron, when suddenly it felt the Spaniards

slacken in their fire, waver, and break. This was the result of the

intervention of a new force in the field. The great mass of French

squadrons, which had been sent under Sebastiani to turn the Spanish

right, had now come into action. Arriving close to Freire’s cavalry

before it was discovered, it fell on that untrustworthy corps, and

scattered it to the winds in a few minutes. Then, while three or four

regiments followed the routed horsemen, the rest turned inwards upon

the hostile infantry. The flanks of the first and second lines of

Areizaga’s right were charged simultaneously, and hardly a regiment

had time to get into square. Brigade after brigade was rolled up

and dispersed or captured; the mass of fugitives, running in upon

the troops that were frontally engaged with Girard, wrecked them

completely. Of the five divisions of the Spanish left, a certain

number of steady regiments got away, by closing their ranks and

pushing ahead through the confusion, firing on friend and foe alike

when they were hustled. But many corps were annihilated, and others

captured wholesale. The last seems to have been the fate of nearly

the whole of Jacomé’s division of the second line, as hardly a single

unit from it is reported as rallied a month later, and the French

accounts speak of a whole column of 6,000 men which laid down its

arms in a mass before the light cavalry of the 4th Corps. Just as the

Spanish right broke up, Dessolles with his two brigades, followed

by the King’s reserve, crossed the ravine and attacked the town of

Ocaña, and the two divisions--Vigodet and Copons--which lay in first

and second line immediately to the east of it. These retired, and got

away in better order than their comrades to the right. Of all the

Spanish army only Zayas’s vanguard division, on the extreme left, now

remained intact. Areizaga had sent it an order to cross the ravine

and attack the French right, when he saw his army beginning to break

up. Then, a few minutes later, he sent another order bidding it close

to the right and cover the retreat. After this the Commander-in-Chief

descended from his tower, mounted his horse, and fled. Zayas

carried out the second order, moved to the right, and found himself

encompassed by masses of fugitives from Giron’s, Castejon’s, and

Lacy’s broken divisions, mixed with French cavalry. He sustained,

with great credit to himself and his troops, a rearguard action for

some miles, till near the village of Dos Barrios, where his line was

broken and his men at last mixed with the rest of the fugitives[102].

[102] The only detailed accounts of the Spanish movements that

I have discovered are the divisional reports of Lacy and Zayas,

both in the Foreign Office archives at the Record Office.

Areizaga’s dispatch is so vague as to be nearly useless.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF OCAÑA. Nov. 19, 1809.]

The whole routed multitude now streamed wildly over the plain, with

the French cavalry in hot pursuit. Thousands of prisoners were

taken, and the chase only ended with nightfall. The fugitives headed

straight for the Sierra Morena, and reached it with a rapidity even

greater than that which they had used in their outward march a

fortnight before. Victor’s cavalry arrived in time to take up the

pursuit next morning: they had on their way to the field captured the

whole of the trains of the Spanish army, on the road from Noblejas

to Ocaña. The losses of Areizaga’s army were appalling; about 4,000

killed and wounded and 14,000 prisoners. Thirty flags and fifty out

of the sixty guns had been captured. When the wrecks of the army had

been rallied in the passes, three weeks after the battle, only some

21,000 infantry[103] and 3,000 horse were reported as present. The

divisions of Lacy, Jacomé, and Zerain had practically disappeared,

and the others had lost from a third to a half of their numbers. The

condition of the cavalry was peculiarly disgraceful; as it had never

stood to fight, its losses represent not prisoners, for the most

part, but mere runaways who never returned to their standards. The

French had lost about 90 officers and 1,900 men, nearly all in the

divisions of Leval, Werlé, and Girard[104]. The cavalry, which had

delivered the great stroke and won the battle, suffered very little.

Mortier had been slightly wounded, Leval and Girard severely.

[103] Viz. Zayas, Vigodet, and Castejon, about 4,000 men each,

Copons 3,000, Giron 2,500, remains of the other three divisions

about 3,500. From the returns in the Madrid War Office.

[104] Martinien’s lists of officers killed and wounded show that

the German division lost 19 officers, the Polish division 23,

Girard’s division 28--in all 70 out of the total of 94 officers

hit in the whole army.

Even allowing for the fact that Areizaga had been the victim of the

Junta’s insensate resolve to make an offensive movement on Madrid,

it is impossible to speak with patience of his generalship. For a

combination of rashness and vacillation it excels that of any other

Spanish general during the whole war. His only chance was to catch

the enemy before they could concentrate: he succeeded in doing this

by his rapid march from the passes to La Guardia. Then he waited

three days in deplorable indecision, though there were only 10,000

men between him and Madrid. Next he resumed his advance, but by the

circuitous route of Villamanrique, by taking which he lost three days

more. Then he halted again, the moment that he found Victor with

20,000 men in his front, though he might still have fought at great

advantage. Lastly he retreated, yet so slowly and unskilfully that he

was finally brought to action at Ocaña by the 34,000 men of Mortier

and Sebastiani. He was sent out to win a battle, since Madrid could

not be delivered without one, and knew that he must fight sooner or

later, but threw away his favourable opportunities, and then accepted

an action when all the chances were against him. For he must have

known by this time the miserable quality of his cavalry, yet gave

battle in a vast plain, where everything depended on the mounted

arm. In the actual moment of conflict he seems to have remained in a

hypnotized condition on his church-tower, issuing hardly an order,

and allowing the fight to go as it pleased. Yet he was, by all

accounts, possessed of personal courage, as he had proved at Alcañiz

and elsewhere. Apparently responsibility reduced him to a condition

of vacillating idiocy. Perhaps the most surprising fact of the whole

business is that the Junta retained him in command after his fiasco,

thanked him for his services, and sent him an honorary present--as it

had done to Cuesta after Medellin with somewhat better excuse. He was

its own man, and it did not throw him over, even when he had proved

his perfect incompetence.

To complete the narrative of the deplorable autumn campaign of 1809,

it only remains to tell of the doings of Albuquerque and Del Parque.

The former played his part with reasonable success; he was ordered

to distract the attention of the enemy from the army of La Mancha,

and did what he could. Having got some 10,000 men concentrated at

Almaraz, he sent one column over the Tagus to demonstrate against

the 2nd Corps from beyond the river, and with another threatened

the bridge of Talavera from the near side. But Heudelet, now in

command of the 2nd Corps, soon found that there was no reality in

his demonstration, and that he was not supported by the English,

though he had given out that Wellington was close in his rear. After

skirmishing around Talavera from the 17th to the 22nd of November,

the Duke hastily recrossed the river on hearing the news of Ocaña,

and resumed his old positions.

Del Parque’s campaign was more vigorous and more unfortunate. While

he lay in the passes above Bejar and Baños, he got early news of the

withdrawal of Godinot’s and Marcognet’s troops toward Madrid, when

Soult summoned them off to reinforce the main army. He reasoned that

since he had now only the 6th Corps, shorn of one of its brigades,

in his front, he might repeat the success of Tamames, for Marchand

was weaker than he had been in October, while he himself was far

stronger. Accordingly he disregarded an order from the Junta to

extend his operations southward, and to join Albuquerque in the

valley of the Tagus. Instead, he marched once more upon Salamanca

on November 18, the day before the disaster of Ocaña. He drove in

an outlying brigade of Marchand’s force from Alba de Tormes, and

pressed it vigorously back towards the main body. Conscious that with

his 10,000 men he could not hope to face 30,000, Marchand promptly

evacuated Salamanca on December 19, and retired, just as he had done

in October, behind the Douro, concentrating his whole corps at Toro.

He sent urgent demands for help both to Kellermann at Valladolid,

and to Soult at Madrid. By the time that they arrived Areizaga had

been dealt with, and the army in New Castile could spare as many

reinforcements as were required. Marcognet’s brigade, the one which

had been borrowed from the 6th Corps, was first sent back from

Segovia, the point which it had reached in its southward march, and

Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps was ordered by Soult to follow.

Meanwhile Del Parque, still ignorant of the disaster in the south,

had occupied Salamanca on November 20, and on the following day moved

out towards Cantalapiedra and Medina del Campo, with the object of

throwing himself between Marchand and Kellermann and the capital.

This was an excellent move, and, but for what had happened at Ocaña,

might have had considerable results, since the Army of the Left ought

to have made an end of the small French force in Old Castile.

Kellermann, however, had seen the danger of Marchand’s retreat to

Toro, and had directed him to close in towards the east, and to

occupy Medina del Campo, as the strategical point that must be held

in order to maintain touch with Madrid. Thus it chanced that on

November 23 Labassée’s brigade and four regiments of cavalry, coming

from Tordesillas, reached Medina del Campo just as Marcognet’s

brigade, returning from Segovia, came into the town from the other

side. They had hardly met when the approach of Del Parque’s army

along the Salamanca road was reported. The two French brigadiers

thought for a moment of fighting, and the cavalry was ordered to

press back the Spanish advanced guard. They drove off with ease

Anglona’s horsemen, who rode at the head of the long column, but

were repulsed by Ballasteros’s infantry, which formed square in good

style, and drove them off with a rolling fire of musketry. Seeing

that the whole Spanish army was coming up, Marcognet and Labassée

then evacuated Medina del Campo, and retired to Valdestillas.

With one push more the Spaniards could have cut the line between

Valladolid and Madrid.

On November 24 the whole 6th Corps and Kellermann’s dragoons, with a

battalion or two from the garrisons of Old Castile, were concentrated

at Puente de Duero, with their van at Valdestillas. If attacked, they

must have gone behind the Douro and abandoned all touch with Madrid;

for there were not more than 16,000 men in line, and they were forced

to take the defensive. But, to their surprise, Del Parque made no

advance. He had heard on that morning of the disaster of Ocaña, and

guessed that reinforcements for Kellermann must already be on the

march. Wherefore he resolved to regain the mountains without delay,

and to give up Salamanca and his other conquests. With this prudent

resolve he broke up from Medina del Campo, and marched hastily away

in retreat, making, not for Salamanca, which was too much in the

plains to please him, but for Alba de Tormes. He had gained a day’s

start by his prompt action, but on the twenty-sixth Kellermann set

off in pursuit, leaving orders for the troops that were expected from

Madrid to follow him.

On the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh the French cavalry failed

even to get in touch with Del Parque’s rearguard, and found nothing

but a few stragglers on the road. But on the afternoon of the

twenty-eighth the leading squadrons reported that they had come upon

the whole Spanish army encamped in a mass around the town of Alba de

Tormes. The duke had flattered himself that he had shaken off his

pursuers, and was surprised in a most unfortunate position. Two of

his divisions (Ballasteros and Castrofuerte) were beyond the Tormes,

preparing to bivouac on the upland above it. The other three were

quartered in and about the town, while the cavalry was watching the

road, but had fallen in so close to the main body that its vedettes

gave very short notice of the approach of the enemy. Kellermann was

riding with the leading brigade of his cavalry--Lorcet’s _chasseurs_

and hussars; the six regiments of dragoons were close behind him, so

that he had over 3,000 sabres in hand; but the infantry was ten miles

to the rear. If he waited for it, Del Parque would have time to cross

the river and take up a defensive position behind it. The French

general, therefore, resolved to risk a most hazardous experiment,

an attack with unsupported cavalry upon a force of all arms, in the

hope of detaining it till the infantry should come up. The Spaniards

were getting into line of battle in a hurry, Losada’s division on the

right, Belveder’s and La Carrera’s on the left, the cavalry--1,200

sabres at most--in their front. The divisions beyond the river were

only beginning to assemble, and would take some time to recross the

narrow bridge: but 18,000 men were on the right bank prepared to

fight.

Without a moment’s delay Kellermann ordered Lorcet’s brigade to

charge the Spanish right and centre: it was followed by the six

regiments of dragoons in three successive lines, and the whole mass

came down like a whirlwind upon Del Parque’s front, scattering his

cavalry to the winds, and breaking the whole of Losada’s and the

right of Belveder’s divisions. A battery of artillery, and nearly

2,000 prisoners were taken. The wrecks of the broken divisions fell

back into Alba de Tormes, and jammed the bridge, thus preventing the

divisions on the further side from recrossing it. Kellermann then

rallied his squadrons, and led them against La Carrera’s division and

the remaining battalions of that of Belveder. These troops, formed in

brigade-squares upon a rising ground, held out gallantly and repulsed

the charge. But they were cut off from the bridge, which they could

only reach by a dangerous flank movement over rough ground. By

continually threatening to repeat his attacks, Kellermann kept them

from moving off, till, two hours and a half after the action had

begun, the French infantry and guns commenced to come up. La Carrera

saw that it would be fatal to await them, and bade his division

retreat and reach the bridge as best it could. This was naturally

done in disorder, and with some loss; but it was already growing

dusk, and the bulk of the Spanish left got away.

While the Spaniards were defiling over the bridge, Marchand’s leading

brigade attacked Alba, out of which it drove some rallied troops of

Losada’s division, who held the town to cover La Carrera’s retreat.

This was done with ease, for Del Parque had not brought over his two

intact divisions, preferring to use them as a second line behind

which the others could retire. Alba was stormed, and two guns, which

had been placed behind a barricade at its main exit, were taken by

the French.

Here the fighting stopped: the Spaniards had lost five flags, nine

guns, most of their baggage, and about 3,000 killed or taken--no

very ruinous deductions from an army of 32,000 men. The French

casualties were less than 300 in all[105]. Del Parque was determined

not to fight again next morning, and bade his army make off under

cover of the night. The disorder that followed was frightful: the

three divisions that had been in the battle dispersed, and went

off in all directions, some towards Ciudad Rodrigo, others towards

Tamames, others by the hill-road that leads towards Tala and the

Pass of Baños. Many of the raw Leonese troops, though they had not

been engaged, also left their colours in the dark[106]. It was a

full month before Del Parque could collect his whole army, which,

when it had been reorganized, was found to number 26,000 men,

despite all its misfortunes. It would seem, therefore, that beside

the losses in the battle some 3,000 men must have gone off to their

homes. The duke fixed his head quarters at San Martin de Trebejos

in the Sierra de Gata, and dispersed his infantry in cantonments

about Bejar, Fuenteguinaldo, and Miranda de Castanar. Having only

the ruined region around Coria and Plasencia, and the small district

about Ciudad Rodrigo, to feed them, these troops suffered dreadful

privations during the winter, living on half-rations eked out with

edible acorns. By the middle of January they had lost 9,000 men from

fever, dysentery, and starvation.

[105] Martinien’s lists show 4 officers killed and 14 wounded.

[106] There is a long report by Del Parque in the Record

Office, in which he states that the panic was caused by a stray

party of his own routed cavalry dashing in among the rearguard

in the dark, and crying that the French were pursuing them.

He afterwards court-martialled and shot some cavalrymen for

cowardice.

Despite all this, it is fair to say that Del Parque’s campaign

contrasts most favourably with that of Areizaga. He showed a laudable

prudence when he twice evacuated Salamanca rather than fight a

battle in the plain. His victory of Tamames was most creditable,

showing that when prudently conducted, and ranged in a well-chosen

hill-position, his army could give a good account of itself. But

for the disaster of Alba de Tormes his record might be considered

excellent. There, it is true, he committed a grave mistake, by

separating his army into two halves by the river when his enemy was

in pursuit. But in his defence it may be urged that his cavalry

ought to have had vedettes out for ten or fifteen miles to the rear,

and to have given him long warning of the approach of the French.

And when the enemy’s horse did make its sudden appearance, it was

contrary to the laws of probability that it would attack at once,

without waiting for its infantry and guns. Kellermann’s headlong

charge was a violation of all rules, a stroke of inspiration which

could not have been foreseen. If the Spanish cavalry had been of

any use whatever, and if Losada’s division had only known how to

form square in a hurry, it ought to have been beaten off. But the

resisting-power of a Spanish army was always a doubtful quantity.

Kellermann resolved to take the risk of attacking, and was rewarded

by a victory on which he was not entitled to reckon. He would

probably have justified his tactics by urging that failure could have

no severe penalty, for the Spaniards could not pursue him if he were

repulsed, while success would bring splendid results. This was true:

and if his infantry had been five miles more to the front, he might

have captured the whole of La Carrera’s division.

SECTION XVIII

THE CONQUEST OF ANDALUSIA

CHAPTER I

THE CONSEQUENCES OF OCAÑA. DECEMBER 1809-JANUARY 1810

The news of the disaster of Ocaña gave a death-blow to the Central

Junta. Its attempt to win back its lost credit by an offensive

campaign against Madrid having ended in such a lamentable

fashion, there was nothing left for it but to acquiesce in its

own supersession by the oft-discussed national Cortes. But that

assembly was not to meet till March 1, 1810--a date still four

months in the future,--and even its form and constitution had not

yet been settled. For it would have been absurd to have called it

together in the ancient and unrepresentative shape,--a legacy from

the time of Charles V,--in which it had been wont to meet under the

Bourbon kings. Many regions had few or no members; decayed mediaeval

towns of Old Castile had more deputies than the most populous

provinces. Moreover, it had yet to be settled how that larger half

of the realm which was now occupied by the French was to elect its

representatives. The commission was still sitting to determine these

vital points, and in this moment of dismay the day of the assembly

of the Cortes seemed very far distant. The French might be following

hard on the heels of Areizaga’s broken host, and might enter Seville,

long before it had been decided what sort of a Cortes was to take

over the power from the hands of the discredited Central Junta.

That most unhappy government, therefore, had to face both an acute

constitutional crisis and an acute military crisis. Something had

to be done without delay to satisfy public opinion concerning the

convocation of the Cortes, or the revolution which had been checked

by Wellesley’s aid in September would certainly burst forth again.

But even more pressing was the necessity for rallying and reinforcing

the army which had been crushed at Ocaña, before the French should

resume their advance. The actual administrative power was for

the moment in the hand of the first of those temporary executive

committees to which the Junta had agreed to delegate its authority by

the decree of September 19. This body, composed of six members, among

whom La Romana was numbered, had come into office on November 1. The

rest of the Junta were only too eager to throw on their comrades the

weight of the responsibility which should have fallen upon them all.

The executive committee was accused on all sides of slow and feeble

action. It published, as soon as possible, the details concerning

the constitution of the forthcoming Cortes, which (in pursuance of

the recommendation of the commission of inquiry) was to consist

of two classes of members, elected representatives who were to be

allotted in due proportion to all the provinces of the realm, and

‘privilegiados’ or chosen individuals from the nobility and the

higher clergy. The American colonies were to be given members no less

than the mother country, but their numbers were to be small. Such

an arrangement seemed to foreshadow a double-chambered legislature,

resembling that of Great Britain, and British precedents had no doubt

been running in the minds of the framers of the constitution. But--as

we shall see--the Cortes, when it actually met, took no such shape.

The mandate for the election of the assembly was duly published;

and so far public opinion was to a certain extent satisfied, for it

was clear that the Central Junta was at last about to abdicate. But

though the majority of the Spanish people were contented to wait,

provided that the executive committee should show signs of rising to

the occasion, and doing its best as an _interim_ government, there

were some politicians who saw in the crisis only an opportunity

for pushing their private ambitions. Those veteran intriguers, the

Conde de Montijo and Francisco Palafox, undismayed by the failure

of the September plot, began to make arrangements with the Seville

demagogues for a fresh attempt at a _coup d’état_. Their plots seem

to have distracted Romana and his colleagues from their obvious

military duties--the conspirator at home is always the enemy who

looms most large before the eyes of a weak government. But after some

search both were discovered, arrested and imprisoned.

Meanwhile the executive committee, with the Junta’s approval, issued

a long series of edicts concerning the reorganization of the army,

and the defence of Andalusia from the French attack, which might at

any moment begin. The ‘Army of the Centre,’ of which Areizaga was

still, strange to say, left in command, was to be raised to 100,000

men by a strenuous conscription. The press was to be all-embracing,

married men, novices in monasteries, persons in minor orders, only

sons of widows, all the classes hitherto exempt, were to be subject

to it. To provide funds the clergy were ordered to send in to the

mint all church plate save such as was strictly necessary for the

celebration of the sacraments, and all private citizens were bidden

to contribute one half of their table-silver. In order to provide

teams for the artillery--which had lost nearly all its horses and

guns at Ocaña--a strict requisition for draught animals was begun all

over Andalusia. Engineers were sent out to fortify all the passes

of the Sierra Morena, with permission to exact forced labour from

the peasantry of the hill country. Three members of the Junta--Rabe,

Riquelme and Campo Sagrado--were sent to Areizaga’s head quarters at

La Carolina as ‘field deputies,’ to stir up or support the energy of

the commander-in-chief. This was a device borrowed from the practice

of the French Revolution, and had no better effect than might have

been expected. As in 1793, the ‘Representatives on Mission’ were

either useless or positively harmful. They either wished to thrust

amateurish plans of their own upon the military men, or at least

distracted them by constant inquisitorial supervision.

On the whole the effect of this volley of violent decrees was small.

With six months to carry them out they might, no doubt, have produced

great results. But within nine weeks after the disaster of Ocaña

the French had commenced their attack, and in that space of time

little had been accomplished. The money was beginning to come in, the

recruits were being collected, but had not been armed or clothed,

still less drilled. Of the fortifications in the passes many had

been sketched out, but only a few had begun to take tangible shape.

To man them there was still only the wrecks of Areizaga’s old army,

which had hardly begun to receive its drafts of conscripts. Its

whole force at the New Year did not exceed 30,000 men, and these were

distributed over a front of more than 150 miles, for not only the

main group of passes in front of La Carolina had to be watched, but

also the eastern ingress into Andalusia by Baeza and Ubeda, and the

western defiles from Almaden and Benalcazar, which lead directly down

on to Cordova. The whole country-side was in a state of desperate

turmoil and excitement, yet very little in the way of practical

defence had been completed by the middle of January.

Meanwhile, in accordance with the ridiculous constitution of the

‘executive committee,’ half of its members went out of office at the

New Year, and were succeeded by other individuals of the Junta. Among

those superseded was La Romana, who was now directed to go off to

Valencia as captain-general. The Junta seems to have considered that

he would be less dangerous in company with his brother José Caro in

that province, than when posted at the seat of government, with his

brother to back him by threats of Valencian military interference.

Yet La Romana did not depart, and was still lingering at Seville when

the French crossed the Sierra Morena.

There was a larger military problem before the Junta and the new

‘executive committee’ than the mere defence of Andalusia. The whole

arrangement of the national armies had to be recast in consequence of

the black day of Ocaña. The corps of Del Parque and Albuquerque, as

well as all the smaller outlying bodies of troops, had to receive new

orders. Above all it was necessary to discover what were the plans of

Wellington, for the present position of the British army at Badajoz

was the most important factor in the whole situation. As long as it

remained there, in support of the small force under Albuquerque which

was guarding the passages of the Tagus at Almaraz and Arzobispo, the

western section of the front of Andalusia was secure. The defence of

the eastern section, too, was in no small degree helped by the fact

that Wellington’s solid troops were in a position to march up the

Guadiana, and to threaten the flank of any French army which might

intend to attack the Despeña-Perros, or any other of the passes which

lead from La Mancha down to the Andalusian plains.

It was a terribly disquieting fact for the Junta that, even before

Ocaña had been fought and lost, Wellington had begun to announce his

intention of leaving Badajoz and retiring within the boundaries of

Portugal. He had paid a flying visit to Seville on the 2nd-4th[107]

of November, just as Areizaga’s unhappy advance into La Mancha

was commencing. The project had been concealed from him[108], and

when he learnt of it he had expressed his entire disapprobation

of it, and had refused to give any promise to support the Spanish

armies in their offensive movements. For this reason he had been

bitterly provoked when Areizaga and Albuquerque both wrote him, a

little later, to say that they had been promised the assistance of

his army by the Junta[109]. He had consistently prophesied ill of

the adventure, and had recorded his opinion that both Del Parque

and Areizaga would probably lose their armies. In a dispatch of

November 20, six days before the news of Ocaña reached him, he

had announced his definite intention of leaving Badajoz with the

main body of his army, and transferring himself to the north of

the Tagus, where, by posting himself in the Portuguese province of

Beira, he would cover the high-roads to Lisbon from Old Castile. This

decision was founded on his belief that when the French had made

an end of Areizaga and Del Parque--a contingency which he regarded

as almost certain[110]--they would strike at Lisbon and not at

Seville. He had good reasons for holding this view; it was exactly

consonant with Napoleon’s own plan, which was only abandoned by

reason of King Joseph’s pleadings with his brother. For, from the

French standpoint, it was far more profitable to conquer Portugal

and to expel the British army from the Peninsula, than to overrun

Andalusia. Wellington and his troops formed the one solid nucleus of

resistance which still remained; it was clear that the dispersion of

the miserable wrecks of Areizaga’s host would present no difficulty.

And not only was it advisable, from the Emperor’s point of view,

to destroy the most formidable hostile force still surviving, but

the balance of strategical advantage was all in favour of subduing

Portugal, before Andalusia should be invaded. For Portugal flanks

the attack on southern Spain, and a good army based upon it could

check the advance on Seville and Cadiz by demonstrations aimed at

Valladolid or Madrid, which might wreck or delay the conquest of

Andalusia. It may be objected that Andalusia also flanks the attack

on Portugal; but the objection had no validity since the day of

Ocaña, as the Junta had now no longer any striking force in hand. It

would be many months before Areizaga’s host was in a proper condition

for undertaking even cautious defensive operations. A French attack

on Portugal, therefore, would be practically unmolested by external

interference.

[107] He then pushed on to Cadiz, where he was on the 6th-7th,

spent a night at Seville again on the 9th-10th, and was back at

Badajoz on the 11th of November. At Cadiz he parted with his

brother, who was just embarking for England, to take up his place

in the new Ministry.

[108] As late as Oct. 28 he had written to Colonel Roche, the

British officer attached to the staff of the Army of the Centre,

to beg him to press on the newly-arrived Areizaga the necessity

of adopting a defensive posture, and risking nothing. From the

wording of the letter it is clear that no hint of the orders

sent to Areizaga from Seville had reached Badajoz. _Wellington

Dispatches_, v. 248-9, see also the dispatch to Castlereagh on p.

267.

[109] See Wellington to Roche, and to B. Frère, Badajoz, Nov. 19.

_Dispatches_, v. 292-3 and 294.

[110] ‘Nothing can save them save a victory by Areizaga, and

the possession of Madrid, _which are the most improbable of

events_.... If Del Parque and Albuquerque are destroyed, _which

is not unlikely, indeed pretty certain_ ... we must make our

arrangements for the defence of Portugal.’ Wellington to

Beresford, Nov. 20, 1809.