At the present moment the strength of the French troops in Spain was

not sufficient to provide two armies for offensive purposes, the one

destined to march on Seville, the other on Lisbon. The numbers at the

front had not appreciably increased since the autumn, though already

the reinforcements which the Emperor had set upon the march, after

concluding his peace with Austria, had begun to appear at Bayonne,

and to cross the Bidassoa. But in December and January the roads were

bad, the days short, and provisions hard to procure. Hence Wellington

reckoned that, till the spring should arrive, the allies would have

to face no more than the forces which were already opposed to them.

When, however, the campaigning season should have come round, and the

reinforcements from Germany should have been incorporated with the

old Army of Spain, he thought that Portugal would be the enemy’s main

objective. It was therefore his intention to withdraw his army, or

at least the greater part of it, from Spanish Estremadura, and to

arrange it so as to cover Lisbon, even though by making this movement

he was weakening the left flank of the defence of Andalusia. If he

had to choose between the interests of Portugal and those of Spain,

he was prepared to sacrifice the latter. His reasons were simple: (1)

he considered Portugal more important in the grand strategy of the

defence of the Peninsula than Andalusia; (2) he regarded it as more

defensible, and he had already--as we shall presently see--sketched

out and commenced the construction of his great lines of Torres

Vedras, in which his trust as a final impregnable stronghold was

already fixed; (3) he held that although Great Britain was pledged

to assist both Spain and Portugal, yet her moral obligation to the

latter was far more binding, since Portugal had placed herself

entirely in the hands of her allies, had put her army at their

disposal, and had contributed all her resources to the common cause,

while the Spanish Junta had shown a jealous and suspicious spirit,

had refused to show confidence in Great Britain, and had persisted in

carrying out a military policy of its own, which led to a consistent

series of disasters; (4) the Portuguese army, though its fighting

power was not as yet ascertained, could be at least relied upon for

obedience; experience had shown that the promises of the Spaniards

could not be trusted, and that any campaign undertaken in their

company might be wrecked by some incalculable piece of slackness or

miscalculation[111].

[111] Wellington’s arguments must be culled from his various

dispatches to Lord Liverpool and other ministers in November

and December 1809. For the first of the motives quoted above

see Wellington to Liverpool Dec. 9. ‘The object in occupying

this proposed position [in Beira] is to be at the point of the

defence of Portugal, to divert the attention of the French from

the South of Spain, when they shall receive their reinforcements,

and thus to give time to the Spanish Government to repair

their losses.... It is absolutely necessary to cross the Tagus

immediately, as it may be depended upon that the enemy’s first

effort, after receiving his reinforcements, will be upon the

troops to the North of the Tagus.’ Very much the same opinion is

expressed in the earlier dispatch to Lord Liverpool of November

14. Expressions of Wellington’s conviction that it was impossible

to co-operate with the Junta or the Spanish generals may be found

_passim_ in all his confidential letters. See for example that to

Sir J. Anstruther, pp. 386-8 of _Supplementary Dispatches_, vol.

vi.

Accordingly on November 20 Wellington declared his intention of

withdrawing his army--save one single division--to the north of the

Tagus, and of placing it at various points in the province of Beira,

so as to cover all the practicable roads to Lisbon from the side

of Old Castile. On the twenty-sixth he sent formal notice of his

intentions to Seville, well knowing the storm of indignation that

would be roused thereby. At the same time he advised the Junta to

reinforce Albuquerque’s army of Estremadura with troops drawn from

Del Parque, adding that to keep Albuquerque well to the front, in his

present positions at Almaraz and Arzobispo, was the best means of

protecting the western approaches of Andalusia. Del Parque’s corps,

whose reason for existence was the ‘containing’ of the French troops

in Old Castile, would be able to spare troops to strengthen the

army of Estremadura, because the English host, in its new position,

would be behind it, and opposed to the forces under Kellermann and

Marchand, which had hitherto had nothing in their front but the ‘Army

of the Left.’ Moreover, it would be an appreciable relief to Del

Parque, who was finding the greatest difficulty in feeding his army

in the thinly-peopled mountain region between Ciudad Rodrigo and

Bejar, to be freed from the burden of maintaining one or two of his

five divisions.

The Junta, as might have been expected, took Wellington’s

determination to remove from Badajoz with the worst of graces. They

could hardly have failed to do so, when one of his main reasons for

departing, barely concealed in his dispatches to them, was his fear

of getting involved in their operations, and his reluctance to place

his troops in line with the Spanish armies. Nor could they have

been expected to agree with his strategical view that Lisbon, not

Cadiz, would be the main objective of the grand advance of the French

armies, when the spring should come round. To every man or body of

men their own possible dangers naturally seem more imminent and more

interesting than those of their neighbours. The departure of the

English from Badajoz was formally announced to the Junta on November

26, and began to be carried out on December 8, when the brigade of

Guards marched for Portalegre, and was followed on successive days by

the other brigades of the army. By the 24th of December Wellington

and his staff alone were left in the Estremaduran fortress, and next

day his head quarters were at Elvas, across the frontier. The second

division, under Hill, halted at Abrantes, where Wellington intended

to leave it, as the nucleus of a covering force which was to guard

Lisbon from any possible attack from the south side of the Tagus. The

rest of the army pursued its way across the mountains of Beira, and

by January 3, 1810, head quarters were at Coimbra, and the main body

of the British troops was beginning to take up billets in the small

towns of the valley of the Mondego.

Convinced that no more was to be hoped from Wellington, the Executive

Committee issued their orders for a new arrangement of the line of

defence of Andalusia. Albuquerque was ordered to leave no more than

a small corps of observation on the Tagus, in front of Almaraz,

and to bring back the main body of the army of Estremadura to the

line of the Guadiana, in order to link his right wing to the left

of Areizaga’s forces. On December 24 his new head quarters were

at Don Benito, and he had some 8,000 men collected there and at

the neighbouring town of Merida; the rest of his small army was

furnishing the garrison of Badajoz, and the detached force on the

Tagus, whose duty was to watch the movements of the French 2nd Corps,

which still lay in its old post at Talavera, and remained entirely

quiescent.

From Albuquerque’s post at Don Benito there was a gap of seventy-five

miles to the next force in the Spanish line. This consisted of the

wrecks of the two old divisions of Copons and Zerain from the army

of Areizaga, not more than 4,500 strong[112]. They were encamped at

Pozo Blanco and at Almaden, the mining town on the Alcudia, where the

frontiers of Estremadura, Andalusia, and La Mancha meet. This place

lies near the northern exit of the two passes, the Puerto Blanco and

Puerto Rubio which lead down from La Mancha on to Cordova, the one

by Villaharta, the other by Villanueva de la Jara and Adamuz. Both

are difficult, both pass through a desolate and uninhabited country,

but either of them might conceivably serve for the passage of an

army. Sixty miles east of Almaden was the main body of the rallied

Army of the Centre, occupying the group of passes which lie around

the high-road from Madrid to Andalusia. Head quarters were at La

Carolina, the central point upon which the routes from most of these

passes converge. About 13,000 men were disposed in front, covering

the main _chaussée_ through the Despeña-Perros, and the side defiles

of the Puerto del Rey and the Puerto del Muradal. Here Areizaga had

concentrated the remains of the divisions of Zayas, Castejon, Giron

and Lacy, of which the last two were mere wrecks, while the two

former counted about 4,000 bayonets apiece. Finally, some fifteen

miles off to the right, the remnants of the divisions of Vigodet and

Jacomé, perhaps 6,000 men in all, covered the two easternmost passes

from La Mancha, those of Aldea Quemada and Villa Manrique, which

descend not upon La Carolina, but on Ubeda and Linares, the towns at

the headwaters of the Guadalquivir in the extreme north-eastern angle

of the Andalusian plain. Areizaga’s artillery was all in the passes,

placed in the various new entrenchments which were being thrown up.

His cavalry had for the most part been sent back to recruit and

reform itself in the interior of the province, being useless in the

mountains.

[112] The papers in the Madrid archives show that Copons had

about 3,000 men, Zerain (whose division had been almost entirely

destroyed) about 1,500.

The mere description of this disposition of forces is sufficient to

show the hopeless condition of the defence of Andalusia. Areizaga

was trying to cover every possible line by which the French might

advance, with the result that his army and that of Albuquerque were

strung out on a front of 150 miles, and could not concentrate 15,000

men on any single point. The passes which they were trying to guard

were not only numerous, but in several cases very practicable,

where roads lay not between cliffs or precipices, but over slopes

which could be ascended by infantry on each side of the pass. The

fortifications and the troops holding them could be turned by enemies

who took the trouble to climb the side acclivities. It was clear that

if the French chose to attack the Sierra Morena with no more than the

60,000 men who had been concentrated after the battle of Ocaña, they

could bring an overwhelming force to bear on any one or two of the

passes which they might select, while leaving the garrisons of the

rest alone, or threatening them with trifling demonstrations. If

the enemy should choose to strike by Almaden at Cordova, the Spanish

centre and right wing would be cut off from their retreat on Seville,

and would have to take refuge in the kingdom of Murcia. If the

Despeña-Perros and its neighbours should turn out to be the selected

objective, Areizaga’s right wing must suffer the same fate. And, if

driven from the passes, the army would have to encounter, in the

broad plain behind, the overpowering force of French cavalry which

King Joseph could bring up. The problem set before the defence was

a hopeless one, and most of the generals under Areizaga were aware

of the fact--as indeed were the rank and file. Disaster was bound to

follow if the enemy managed his business with ordinary prudence.

[Illustration: _Spanish Infantry 1808_

(_Showing the old Bourbon uniform_)]

SECTION XVIII: CHAPTER II

THE CONQUEST OF ANDALUSIA. KING JOSEPH AND HIS PLANS

When considering the action of the French after the victory of

Ocaña, it is necessary to remember that King Joseph and Soult were

not in the position of ordinary invaders, who have just succeeded in

demolishing the last army of their enemy. In wars of a normal type

the victor knows that the vanquished will sue for terms when further

resistance appears hopeless; he proceeds to dictate the cessions of

territory or payments of indemnities that he thinks proper, as the

price of peace. But it was not a profitable treaty which Napoleon

desired: he had put it out of his own power to end the war in such a

fashion, when he declared his brother King of Spain. For him there

was no Spanish government in existence save that which he had set up

at Madrid: the Central Junta, and the Cortes when it should meet,

were mere illegal assemblies, with which he could not deign to enter

into negotiations. It was now perfectly clear that the Spaniards

would never submit of their own accord. Their position in December

1809, desperate as it might be, was no worse than it had been in the

March of the same year. Areizaga’s army had suffered no more at Ocaña

than had those of Cuesta and Cartaojal nine months before, on the

disastrous fields of Medellin and Ciudad Real. Indeed, there were

probably more men actually in line to defend Andalusia in December

than there had been in April. Moreover, in the early spring Soult had

been in the full career of conquest in Portugal, and nothing save

Cradock’s insignificant force appeared to prevent his onward march

to Lisbon. At mid-winter, on the other hand, the flank of Andalusia

was covered by Wellington’s victorious army, and by the reorganized

Portuguese host of Beresford. If the Junta had refused to listen to

the insidious advances of Sotelo in April[113], there was no reason

to suppose that it would lend a ready ear to any similar advocate of

submission in December. Indeed, its every action showed a resolve to

fight out the losing game to the end.

[113] See vol. ii. pp. 168-9.

Joseph Bonaparte would never be King of Spain till every province was

held down by French bayonets. Not only must each corner of the land

be conquered, but after conquest it must be garrisoned. For, where

there was no garrison, insurrection burst out at once, and the weary

process of pacification had to be repeated.

It was this last fact that restrained King Joseph from following up

his pursuit of the wrecks of the Spanish army to the Sierra Morena,

and the gates of Seville, on the morning after Ocaña. To make up

the host that had defeated Areizaga, and the other smaller force

that was dealing with Del Parque in Leon, the King had been forced

to concentrate all his divisions, and the consequence had been that

the control of the broad tracts behind him had been lost. We have

already had occasion to mention[114] that throughout Old Castile and

Leon, the open country was now in the hands of the guerrilleros,

who had been growing in force and numbers ever since the time of

Talavera, and had risen to the height of their confidence after the

day of Tamames, and Del Parque’s repeated occupation of Salamanca.

Navarre, and many parts of New Castile were equally disturbed, and

Aragon, which Suchet had tamed during the autumn, was beginning

once more to move. There were no French troops in the disturbed

regions save scanty garrisons at Burgos, Valladolid, Benavente,

Avila, Segovia, Guadalajara, Palencia, Tudela, Tafalla, and a few

other strategic points. These were cut off from each other, and from

Madrid, save when a governor sent out his messenger with an escort

many hundreds strong, and even such a force had often to fight its

way through half a dozen bands before reaching its destination. The

garrisons themselves were not always safe: so powerful were the

bands of some of the guerrillero chiefs that they aspired to waging

regular war, and did not confine themselves to blocking the roads, or

intercepting couriers and convoys. The Empecinado, whose sphere of

activity lay on the borders of Old and New Castile, got possession

of Guadalajara for a day, though he retired when reinforcements

from Madrid were reported to be approaching. Somewhat later, the

younger Mina--‘the Student,’ as he was called to distinguish him

from his more celebrated uncle Espoz, stormed the town of Tafalla,

and shut up the remains of its garrison in its castle, while the

flying-columns of the governor of Navarre were seeking him in every

other direction. He too, like the Empecinado, had to seek safety in

retreat and dispersion, when his exploit drew in upon him forces sent

from Suchet’s army of Aragon.

[114] See page 83.

The activity of the guerrilleros did not merely constitute a military

danger for King Joseph. It affected him in another, and an equally

vexatious, fashion, by cutting off nearly all his sources of revenue.

While the open country was in the hands of the insurgents, he could

raise neither imposts nor requisitions from it. The only regular

income that he could procure during the later months of 1809 was

that which came in from the local taxes of Madrid, and the few other

large towns of which he was in secure possession. And save in the

capital itself, his agents and intendants had to fight hard with the

military governors to secure even this meagre pittance[115]. The

King could not command a quarter of the sum which he required to pay

the ordinary expenses of government. His courtiers and ministers,

French and Spanish, failed to receive their salaries, and the Spanish

army, which he was busily striving to form, could not be clothed

or armed, much less paid. Nothing vexed Joseph more than this: he

wished to make himself independent of his brother’s generals, by

raising a large force of his own, which should be at his personal

disposition. He formed the _cadre_ of regiment after regiment, and

filled them with deserters from the foreign troops of the Junta, and

with any prisoners who could be induced to enlist under his banners

in order to avoid transportation to France. But the recruits, when

sent to join the new regiments, disappeared for the most part within

a few weeks. Joseph thought that it was from lack of pay and proper

sustenance, and raged at the idea that, but for the want of money,

he might have at his disposition a formidable army of his own. But he

deceived himself: the ‘juramentados’ had for the most part no desire

save to desert and rejoin their old colours: the real renegades were

few. In the ranks of the Junta’s army the soldier was even worse

clothed, fed, and paid than in that of Joseph. No amount of pampering

would have turned the King’s Spanish levies into loyal servants.

[115] For a typical example of the relations of French governors

and the King’s officials see Thiébault’s account of his quarrel

with Amoros in his autobiography, iv. 350-5. Cf. Miot de Melito,

chapters xi-xii of vol. ii.

Pending the reduction to order of the country-side of the two

Castiles, which he vainly hoped to see accomplished during the next

six months, Joseph found only one expedient for raising money. It was

a ruinous one, and could not be repeated. This was the confiscation

of property belonging to all persons who were in the service of

the Junta, and of all the religious orders. This would have given

him vast sums, if only he could have found buyers. But it was not

easy to persuade any one to pay ready cash for lands overrun by

the guerrilleros, or for houses in towns which were practically in

a state of siege, and were also subject to a grinding taxation.

Property of immense value had to be alienated for wholly inadequate

sums. The _afrancesados_, whom Joseph was most anxious to conciliate,

got such payment as he could afford, mainly in the form of vain

grants of property which they could not turn to account. The only

ready money which was in circulation was that which came from the

coining down, at the Madrid mint, of the considerable amount of

plate belonging to the monasteries and the churches on which the

King had laid hands. Naturally, he was regarded as a sacrilegious

robber by his unwilling subjects--though few, or none, murmured when

the Central Junta filled its exchequer by similar expedients. But

the Junta had not decreed the abolition of the religious orders--it

only purported to be raising a patriotic loan from their resources.

A minister of Joseph sums up the situation sufficiently well in

three sentences. ‘Spanish public opinion was inexorable: it rejected

everything coming from us--even benefits: thus the King and his

councillors spent themselves in fruitless labours. Nothing answered

their expectations, and the void in the Treasury, the worst danger,

showed no sign of diminution. On the contrary, the financial distress

increased every day, and the unpleasant means which we were compelled

to employ in order to supply the never-ceasing wants of the army

completely alienated the nation from us[116].’

[116] Miot de Melito, ii. p. 351.

The orders issued by the King and Soult after the battle of Ocaña,

show that they had no immediate intention of pursuing Areizaga’s

routed host, and entering Andalusia at its heels--tempting though

such a policy might be from the purely military point of view. After

Victor and the 1st Corps had joined him, on the day following the

battle, Joseph had nearly 60,000 men in hand. But his first move was

to disperse this formidable army: Gazan’s division of Mortier’s corps

was at once hurried off towards the north, to reinforce Kellermann in

Leon--for the battle of Alba de Tormes had not yet taken place, and

it was thought that the 6th Corps needed prompt assistance. Laval’s

division of Sebastiani’s corps was detached in another direction,

being told off to escort to Madrid, and afterwards to Burgos and

Vittoria, the vast mass of prisoners taken at Ocaña. Milhaud, with

his own dragoons, and an infantry brigade taken from Sebastiani’s

corps, was directed to push eastwards by way of Tarancon, and then

to march on Cuenca, where it was reported that many of the fugitives

from Areizaga’s army had rallied. The brigade of Dessolles’ division

which had been present at Ocaña and Joseph’s own troops returned to

Madrid, in company with their master. When the capital was again

adequately garrisoned, numerous flying-columns were sent out from

it, to clear the roads, and disperse the guerrilleros. Mortier, with

that part of the 5th Corps which had not been detached under Gazan,

was drawn back to Toledo. Thus of all the troops which had been

concentrated on November 20th, only Victor’s corps and the Polish

division, with the cavalry brigade of the 4th Corps, were retained in

La Mancha, facing the Sierra Morena. The 1st Corps was pushed forward

to Ciudad Real and its neighbourhood, with its advanced cavalry

watching the passes. The Poles remained at Ocaña and La Guardia,

with Perreymond’s three regiments of light horse in front of them at

Madridejos[117].

[117] For all these details see Soult’s dispatches to the

Minister of War at Paris, dated Nov. 21 and Nov. 24, from

Aranjuez and Madrid. Perreymond had received the cavalry brigade

of the 4th Corps when Paris fell in action.

In the dispatch which detailed to the Minister of War at Paris this

disposition of the army, Soult explained his reasons for holding

back. It was a more pressing necessity to restore order in the

provinces of the interior than to pursue the wrecks of Areizaga’s

force, which was so completely dispersed that no further danger

need be feared from it. Before undertaking any large general scheme

of operation, the King thought it best to consult his imperial

brother as to his wishes. It was rumoured that Napoleon himself

might appear on the scene within a few weeks, and it was certain

that the first columns of reinforcements from Germany, which might

prove to be the heralds of his approach, were just about to cross

the Bidassoa. Moreover, it would be prudent to discover what had

become of Albuquerque and of the English, before any great move to

the southward was made, as also to make an end of the army of Del

Parque, by means of the reinforcements which had just been sent to

Kellermann[118].

[118] Soult to Clarke, Nov. 21: ‘Sa Majesté a pensé qu’il était

inutile qu’elle s’engageât vers la Sierra Morena, à la poursuite

des débris de l’armée de la Manche, qu’on ne pourra plus joindre,

et qui se sauvent individuellement sur toutes les directions,

d’autant plus que tout porte à croire qu’il y aura encore des

mouvements sur la droite, et qu’il convient de se mettre en

mesure de repousser les nouveaux corps [Albuquerque, Del Parque,

and the English] qui pourraient se présenter pour la forcer. Il

est aussi pressant de prendre des dispositions pour rétablir

l’ordre et la tranquillité dans les provinces de l’intérieur, et

pour assurer la liberté des communications. Après la bataille

d’Ocaña le roi a aussi en vue de se mettre en mesure d’attendre

que Sa Majesté L’Empereur ait jugé à propos de faire connaître

ses intentions sur les opérations ultérieures qui devront être

faites.’ The entirely false supposition that Albuquerque and the

English were on the move was, as Soult afterwards explained, due

to a dispatch received from Heudelet at Talavera, who sent in an

alarming report that Wellington was expected at Truxillo in a few

days. As to the idea that Del Parque might join Albuquerque, the

Junta had actually given him an order to do so (see page 97), but

he had ignored it, and marched on Salamanca.

Within three weeks the situation had changed, and many of the reasons

which had induced the King and Soult to adopt a waiting policy had

disappeared. On November 28th, as we have already seen, Kellermann

routed Del Parque at Alba de Tormes, though he had not yet received

the succours which Gazan was bringing up to his aid. The Army of the

Left being no longer a source of danger, Kellermann not only sent

orders to Gazan--who had reached Segovia--to return to New Castile,

since he was no longer wanted in the North, but presently sent back

to the King Rey’s brigade of Dessolles’ division which had been lent

him early in November. Thus 10,000 men who had been detached came

back under the King’s control[119], and were once more available for

offensive operations.

[119] At the New Year Gazan had 6,600 men present with the

eagles, Rey 4,100. See Tables at the end of this volume.

Still more important was the fact that in the first days of December

the reinforcements from Germany had at last begun to cross the

Pyrenees, and were arriving in Navarre and Biscay in enormous

numbers. Two strong divisions, commanded by Loison and Reynier and

counting more than 20,000 bayonets, had already appeared, and the

head of the interminable column which followed them had reached

Bayonne. It was certain that at least 90,000 men were on the march,

to fill up the void in Old Castile which had been causing the King

and Soult so much trouble. The roads would soon be cleared, the

isolated garrisons relieved, and the communications with Madrid

made safe. The newly arrived generals had received orders to sweep

every valley on their southward march, and to disperse every band

of guerrilleros[120]. Another possible source of danger, which had

preoccupied the minds of Joseph and his Major-general after Ocaña,

had also been removed. The English had made no forward movement

towards the Tagus; they were reported to be still quiescent at

Badajoz, and rumours (which afterwards turned out to be correct)

had already reached the French head quarters, to the effect that

Wellington was just about to retire into Portugal. Moreover,

Milhaud’s expedition to Tarancon and Cuenca, and the excursions of

the flying-columns sent out from Madrid, had all proved successful.

The insurgents had been dispersed with ease, wherever they had been

met with.

[120] See Orders for Loison (in Napoleon to Berthier of Dec.

9), and for Reynier (in Napoleon to Berthier, Dec. 14), in the

_Correspondance_. Reynier was superseded by Lagrange, and sent to

command the 2nd Corps a little later.

Of all the reasons for delay which were valid on November 20th there

was now none left unremoved save the most important of all. The

Emperor had not yet made his intentions known; though pressed to

declare his will by every letter sent by his brother or by Soult,

he gave no answer as to a general plan of campaign. Several of his

dispatches had reached Madrid: they were full of details as to the

troops which he was sending across the Pyrenees, they contained some

advice as to finance, and some rebukes for the King concerning petty

matters of administration[121], but there was no permission, still

less any order, to invade Andalusia or Portugal; nor did Napoleon

deign to state that he was, or was not, coming to Spain in person.

It was only when Joseph received the first dispatch opening up the

matter of the divorce of Josephine[122], that he was able to guess

that, with such an affair on hand, his brother would not set out for

the Peninsula during the winter or the early spring.

[121] The Emperor scolds his brother for not sending to Paris the

flags taken at Ocaña, and for calling Sebastiani’s 3rd Division

‘the Polish division’ instead of ‘the division of the Grand Duchy

of Warsaw!’

[122] In a dispatch dated from the Trianon on Dec. 17.

By the middle of December Joseph had made up his mind that it would

be politic to attack Andalusia without delay. He had won over Soult

to his ideas--the Marshal having now abandoned the plan, which he had

urged so strongly in the autumn, that Lisbon not Seville should be

the objective of the next French advance. It is easy to understand

the King’s point of view--he wished rather to complete the conquest

of his own realm, by subduing its wealthiest and most populous

province, than to do his brother’s work in Portugal, where he had

no personal interest. It is less obvious why Soult concurred with

him--as a great strategist he should have envisaged the situation

from the military rather than the political point of view. Apparently

Joseph had won him over by giving him all that he asked, and treating

him with effusive courtesy: their old quarrels of the preceding

summer had been entirely forgotten. At any rate Soult had now become

the ardent advocate of the invasion of Andalusia, though--as his

predecessor Jourdan tersely puts it--‘the English army being now the

only organized force in a state to face the imperial troops, and its

presence in the Peninsula being the thing that sustained the Spanish

government and gave confidence to the Spanish people, I imagine that

we ought to have set ourselves to destroy that army, rather than to

have disseminated our troops in garrisoning the whole surface of

Spain[123].’ The same thought was in the Emperor’s mind when he wrote

in January--too late to stop the Andalusian expedition--that ‘the

only danger in Spain is the English army; the rest are partisans who

can never hold the field against us[124].’

[123] Jourdan, _Mémoires_, p. 294.

[124] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 31, 1810--giving directions

which could not be carried out, because the invasion of Andalusia

had begun ten days before the dispatch had been written.

On the 14th of December, 1809, Soult at last made a formal appeal,

in a dispatch to Berthier, for leave to commence the march on

Seville. ‘At no time since the Spanish War began,’ he wrote, ‘have

circumstances been so favourable for invading Andalusia, and it

is probable that such a movement would have the most advantageous

results. I have already informed your Excellency that preparations

would be made for this movement, while we waited for his Majesty to

deign to make known to us his supreme will.’ Soult adds that if only

Loison’s division of the reinforcements may be brought up to Burgos,

and a second division sent to Saragossa, in order to free Suchet for

field service, the invasion can be begun, as soon as the army in New

Castile has completed its equipment and received its drafts.

No direct reply was received to this dispatch, nor to several

subsequent communications, in which Soult and Joseph set forth the

arrangements which they were making, always subject to the Imperial

approval, for concentrating an army for the Andalusian expedition.

Strange as it may appear, it was only in a letter written on January

31, 1810, when the King had already crossed the Sierra Morena, that

Napoleon vouchsafed a word concerning the all-important problem[125].

It is clear that he had ample time to have stopped it, if such

had been his will; the ultimate responsibility, therefore, lay

with him. But he refrained from ordering it, or from approving it,

thus reserving to himself all the possibilities of _ex-post-facto_

criticism. Since no prohibition came, Joseph made up his mind to

strike; it was natural that he should be fascinated by the idea

of conquering in person the one great province of Spain which

remained intact. A brilliant campaign, in which he would figure

as commander-in-chief as well as king, might at last convince the

Spaniards of his capacity. He was prepared to play the part of a

merciful and generous conqueror. At the worst the revenues of the

wealthy Andalusia would be a godsend to his depleted treasury.

[125] Soult writes plaintively to Berthier, from Madrid, on

January 1, 1810: ‘Le Roi croit ne pouvoir différer davantage:

ainsi il se met en mesure d’exécuter les dispositions générales

de l’Empereur, lorsque Sa Majesté aura daigné les faire

connaître; et il est vraisemblable qu’avant que la Sierra Morena

soit passée, les ordres, qui out été demandés depuis plus d’un

mois, seront parvenus.’ But the order never came.

Two plans were drawn up for the invasion. The first was more

cautious, and more consonant with the strict rules of strategy. The

second was bolder and promised more immediate results. According to

the first the King was to concentrate his main army in La Mancha, and

to threaten the passes, while two great flanking columns carried out

the preliminary conquest of Estremadura and Valencia. Mortier was to

march with the 5th and 2nd Corps upon Badajoz, to crush Albuquerque,

and to occupy the valley of the Guadiana. Simultaneously Suchet

was to make a push from Aragon into Valencia with the bulk of his

corps, while his place at Saragossa was to be taken by a large force

drawn from the newly-arrived reinforcements from France. Only when

Badajoz and Valencia had fallen, and Suchet and Mortier could advance

parallel with him on either flank, was the King to march against

Seville. The weak point of the scheme was that either Badajoz or

Valencia might make a long resistance; if their garrisons fought like

that of Gerona the central advance on Andalusia might be delayed for

an indefinite time.

The second plan, the one that was adopted, was to leave the 2nd

Corps alone to watch Albuquerque and Estremadura, to order Suchet

to advance against Valencia, but to strike straight at Seville,

without waiting for the completion of either the Estremaduran or the

Valencian operations. In the original draft for this campaign[126],

nearly the whole of the King’s army was to concentrate at Almaden

and Ciudad Real, and from thence to strike straight at Cordova, by

the difficult and little-used passes of the central Sierra Morena.

Meanwhile Sebastiani, with no more than a single infantry division

and Milhaud’s dragoons, was to demonstrate against the main group

of passes in front of La Carolina, along the line of the high-road

from Madrid, so as to distract the attention of the Spaniards from

the real point of attack. More than 50,000 men were to descend

suddenly on Cordova, for the whole of the 1st and 5th Corps,

Dessolles’ Reserve division, the King’s Guard, and Latour-Maubourg’s

dragoons, were to march in a mass by the unexpected route via

Almaden, Villanueva de la Jara, and Adamuz. The Spanish centre would

undoubtedly be broken, and it was probable that Cordova, Seville, and

Cadiz would be carried by the first rush, for Areizaga’s army would

be cut off from them and driven eastward towards Murcia.

[126] It may be found set forth in full in Soult’s dispatch to

Berthier of Jan. 1, 1810.

The plan, an admirable one from the point of view of strategy, had

to be abandoned, for it was found that the country between Almaden

and Cordova was so absolutely barren and uninhabited, and the roads

so bad, that it would be impossible to carry a very large body of

troops across it at mid-winter. It was doubtful whether the passes

were practicable for artillery; it was certain that no food could

be obtained, and the train required to carry rations for 50,000 men

would be so large and heavy that it would probably stick fast in the

mountains.

On January 11, when Mortier, Dessolles, and the rest of the army had

already moved out of their cantonments and taken the road for La

Mancha, the revised draft of the plan of campaign was issued. It was

inferior in unity of conception to the first plan, and did not seem

likely to produce such good results; but it had the merit of being

practicable. By this scheme Victor alone was to march on Cordova,

with the 22,000 men of the 1st Corps: he was to endeavour to take his

artillery with him, but if the passes proved too rough, he was to

send it back by Almaden to join the main army. Mortier, Dessolles,

Sebastiani, Milhaud, and the King’s Reserves were to strike at the

group of passes in front of La Carolina, and to drive the Spaniards

out of them: it was hoped that they would thrust Areizaga’s host

into the arms of Victor, who would be descending into the valley of

the Guadalquivir just in time to meet the enemy retiring from the

defiles. For this operation the King was to take with him rather more

than 40,000 men.

It may be remarked that this plan divided the French army into two

separate columns entirely destitute of lateral communications,

and that, if the Spaniards had been stronger, considerable danger

would have been incurred. Areizaga might have concentrated every

man against one or other of the columns, and have brought it to a

stand, while merely observing the other. But to do so he would have

required a far larger force than he actually possessed: he had, as

we have seen, only 23,000 men under arms, and even if he collected

every available bayonet in one mass, either half of the French army

was strong enough to meet and to beat him. The King, therefore, was

running no real risk when he divided up his troops. As a matter of

fact, Areizaga had made matters easy for the enemy, by splitting his

small and dilapidated host into three sections--Zerain, with 4,500

men only, was on Victor’s road; the head quarters, with 13,000 men,

were at La Carolina opposite the King; Vigodet with 6,000, was far to

the right in the eastern passes[127]. Disaster was inevitable from

the first moment of the campaign.

[127] See for details pages 111-12.

On January 7 King Joseph and Soult moved out from Madrid in the wake

of the columns of Dessolles and the Royal Guard, which had already

started. On the 8th they were at Toledo, on the 11th at Almagro, near

Ciudad Real; here they conferred with Victor, and, in consequence of

his reports concerning the state of the passes in the direction of

Cordova, recast their plans, and adopted the scheme of operations

which has just been detailed. On the following day Victor and his

corps marched from Ciudad Real for Almaden, to carry out the great

turning movement. The main army waited for six days to allow him to

get far forward on his rugged route, and only on the 18th started out

to deliver the frontal attack on the Despeña-Perros and the other

passes in front of La Carolina.

It may be mentioned that Joseph had left behind him to garrison

Madrid the French division of the 4th Corps[128], and not Dessolles’

troops, who had been wont to occupy the capital during the earlier

operations. Both Dessolles’ and Joseph’s own reserves, his Royal

Guard and a strong brigade of his newly-raised Spanish army, joined

in the invasion. Since the German division of the 4th Corps was still

absent, escorting the prisoners of Ocaña, it resulted that Sebastiani

had with him only his Polish division, his cavalry, and some details

sufficient to muster up a total of just 10,000 men. His corps was

never properly reassembled during the whole of the rest of the war,

as some of the regiments which he now left behind never rejoined him

in Andalusia, but were left in garrison in New Castile till 1812, and

practically became part of the ‘Army of the Centre.’

[128] With the exception of the 58th Regiment, which went on with

Sebastiani to the front.

Besides the garrison of Madrid, Joseph left to cover his rear the

whole 2nd Corps, still under the provisional command of Heudelet,

which lay at Talavera and was charged to watch Albuquerque. If the

rumour of the departure of the English from Badajoz were true,

there would be no danger in this quarter. But Joseph was not yet

quite certain that Wellington had retired into Portugal. The only

serious preoccupation which vexed his mind, at the moment when he was

preparing to attack, was the idea that the English might still come

up by Truxillo and join Albuquerque in a raid on Madrid. Heudelet,

the constant purveyor of false information, did his best to scare his

master on January 13, by sending him a report that Wellington was

still at Badajoz with 23,000 men[129]. But later and more trustworthy

news from other quarters, showing that the English army had marched

off for Abrantes long before Christmas, at last set the King’s mind

at rest on this all-important topic.

[129] Heudelet, writing from Talavera on Jan. 13, assured the

King that he had certain information, by English deserters, that

Wellington’s army, 16,000 foot and 7,000 cavalry, was at Merida,

Badajoz, and Elvas on Dec. 31. As a matter of fact, the army had

marched off between Dec. 9 and Dec. 20, and Wellington himself

had retired into Portugal on Christmas Eve. On the day when

Heudelet wrote he and his head quarters were at Vizeu, in the

Beira.

There was nothing to be feared from the west when Wellington had

taken his departure. Albuquerque’s small force was powerless, and if

Del Parque moved down from the Sierra de Francia into the valley of

the Tagus, the 6th Corps could make a corresponding movement. Ney

had now returned to take command at Salamanca, and the confidence

of his troops, shaken somewhat by Marchand’s incapable leadership,

was now restored. Behind Ney and Kellermann were the innumerable

battalions of the new reinforcements from Germany, the head of whose

column had now reached Burgos. The King’s rear, therefore, was well

guarded when he began his great offensive movement against Andalusia.

SECTION XVIII: CHAPTER III

ANDALUSIA OVERRUN: CADIZ PRESERVED. JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1810

On the 19th of January, 1810, the unfortunate Areizaga began to

receive from all quarters dispatches which left him no doubt that

the fatal hour had arrived, and that the whole of his line, from

Villamanrique on the east to Almaden on the west, was about to be

assailed by the enemy. From every point on his front of 150 miles,

his subordinates sent him in reports to the effect that strong

hostile columns had come up, and had thrust in their outposts.

Indeed, Zerain, from his remote cantonment on the extreme left, had

announced that an overwhelming force, coming from the direction of

Ciudad Real, had beaten him out of the town of Almaden as early as

the 15th, and had compelled him to retire towards the south-west,

leaving the direct road to Cordova uncovered. This was, of course,

the corps of Victor, whose flanking movement was already threatening

to cut the line of communication between La Carolina and Seville.

But it would take some days for the 1st Corps to pass the rugged

defiles of the Sierra de Los Pedroches, which lie between Almaden

and the valley of the Guadalquivir. An even more pressing danger

seemed to be foreshadowed from the less-remote right of the Spanish

line, where Vigodet reported, from the pass of Villamanrique, that

he had been driven in to his final fighting position at Montizon, by

a French column marching up from Villanueva de los Infantes. In the

centre, the enemy had advanced to Santa Cruz de la Mudela, where the

roads to all the group of passes about the Despeña-Perros branch off,

but had not yet shown how many of them he intended to use. Areizaga

could not determine whether some of the French movements were mere

demonstrations, or whether every one of them portended a real attack

on the morrow. Zerain was too far off to be helped; but Vigodet’s

demands for assistance were so pressing that the Commander-in-Chief

sent off to his aid, on the night of the 19th, the one division

which he had hitherto kept in reserve at La Carolina, the 4,000

bayonets of Castejon. This left him only three divisions--those of

Zayas, Lacy, and Giron, not more than 9,000 men in all, to defend the

high-road to Madrid and the subsidiary passes on its immediate flank.

[Illustration: ANDALUSIA, to illustrate the Campaign of 1810.]

As a matter of fact, the appearance of the French advanced guards

implied a genuine attack at every possible point of access.

King Joseph had resolved to carry the whole of the defiles by a

simultaneous onslaught on the morning of the 20th. His policy seems

to have been one of very doubtful wisdom, for it would have been

as effective to pierce the Spanish line at one point as at four,

and he could have concentrated an overwhelming force, and have

been absolutely certain of success, if he had launched his main

body at one objective, while demonstrating against the rest. He

had preferred, however, to cut up his army into four columns, each

of which assailed a different pass. Sebastiani, on the extreme

French left, separated by a gap of twenty miles from the main

column, was the enemy who had driven in Vigodet at the opening of

the Villamanrique pass. He had with him the remains of his own 4th

Corps--of which such a large proportion had been left behind in New

Castile,--a body of about 10,000 men[130]. His orders were to force

the defile in his front, and to descend into the plain in the rear of

the Spanish centre, by way of Ubeda and Linares, so as to cut off the

enemy’s retreat towards Murcia, and to envelop him if he should hold

the Despeña-Perros too long.

[130] Viz. by the ‘morning states’ of January 15, in the French

War Office, Sebastiani had: Polish Division, 4,809 men; 58th of

the Line, 1,630 men; Milhaud’s Dragoons, 1,721 men; Perreymond’s

Light Horse, 1,349 men; Artillery and Engineers, 569 men; or a

total of 10,078 sabres and bayonets.

Next to Sebastiani in the French line was a column composed of

Girard’s division of the 5th Corps, the King’s Guards, and the

Spanish regiments in Joseph’s service[131]. It was nearly 14,000

strong, and advanced straight up the Madrid _chaussée_, aiming at

the Despeña-Perros and the Spanish centre. If the enemy should fight

well, and if the flanking movements should fail, this column would

have the hardest work before it: for, unlike the minor passes to east

and west, the Despeña-Perros becomes in its central length a narrow

and precipitous defile, easily capable of defence. The Spaniards had

run entrenchments across it, and had mined the road at more than

one point. But its fatal weakness lay in the fact that the by-paths

from the western passes descend into it to the rear of the point

where these obstructions had been placed. If they were seized by the

advancing French, the fortifications across the _chaussée_ would

prove a mere trap for the troops which held them.

[131] Strength apparently: Girard, 7,040; Royal Guards, about

2,500; Spaniards, about 2,000; Cavalry, about 1,500; Artillery,

&c., 800.

Mortier, with Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps and Dessolles’

troops, about 15,000 strong, was told off to assail these flanking

defiles on the Spanish left[132]. The two passes are the Puerto del

Rey and the Puerto del Muradal. The former got its name from Alfonso

VIII, who in 1212 had turned the position of the Almohad Sultan

Mohammed-abu-Yakub by this route, and so forced him to the decisive

battle of Navas de Tolosa, a few miles to the rear. In 1810 it was a

tortuous and rough road, but practicable for artillery: the slopes

on either side of it, moreover, were not inaccessible to infantry.

A mile or two to its left, nearer the Despeña-Perros, was the still

rougher path of the Puerto del Muradal, which was practicable for

infantry but not for guns. Between this defile and the entrenchments

across the Madrid _chaussée_, the crest of the Sierra was accessible

to troops advancing in loose order and prepared for a stiff climb:

the Spanish engineers had therefore placed a large earthwork on its

culminating point, known as the Collado de Valdeazores. Giron’s

weak division of no more than 3,200 bayonets was entrusted with the

defence both of the Puerto del Rey and the Puerto del Muradal. Those

of Lacy and Zayas, about 5,000 in all, held the Despeña-Perros and

the entrenchments on each side of it. Areizaga lay behind them, with

a reserve of 1,000 men at most--having sent off Castejon and his

division to join Vigodet on the preceding night, he had no more with

him than his personal guard, the ‘Batallón del General’, and some

detached companies.

[132] Gazan’s division, forming the third French column, had

6,414 bayonets; Dessolles’, the extreme right-hand column, 8,354.

Mortier, like the good general that he was, did not confine his

operations to an attack against the narrow fronts of the two passes,

but assailed the rough hillside on each side of them, sending out

whole battalions deployed as skirmishers to climb the slopes. Of

Gazan’s division, one brigade marched against the Puerto del Muradal,

but the other went up, in open order, on the space between the Puerto

and the Spanish redoubt at the Collado de Valdeazores. Similarly,

Dessolles attacked the Puerto del Rey with a few battalions, but sent

the rest up the less formidable portions of the flanking slopes.

Girard and the King’s Reserves, meanwhile, did not press their attack

on the Despeña-Perros, till the troops on their right had already

begun to drive the enemy before them.

The results of these tactics might have been foreseen from the first:

Giron’s 3,200 men, attacked by 15,000, were driven in at a pace that

ever grew more rapid. They could not defend the passes, because the

slopes on each side were turned by the enemy. Their line was broken

in two or three places, and they fled in haste down the rear of

the Sierra, to escape being captured by flanking detachments which

were pushing on at full speed to head them off. The moment that the

Despeña-Perros was turned by Mortier’s movement, the troops occupying

it had to retreat at headlong speed, just as Girard was commencing

his attack on them. All did not retire with sufficient promptness:

the battalion in a redoubt on the Collado de los Jardines, on the

right flank of the high-road, was cut off and captured _en masse_.

All the guns in the pass were taken, there being no time to get them

away down the steep road in their rear. After two hours of scrambling

rather than fighting, the main passages of the Sierra Morena were in

the hands of the French. The mines on the high-road had been fired

when the retreat was ordered, but did not wreck the _chaussée_ in

such a way as to prevent the enemy from pursuing. The losses of the

Spaniards were no more than a few hundreds killed and wounded, and

500 prisoners; those of the French were less than 100 in all[133].

There had, in truth, been hardly the semblance of a battle.

[133] Soult’s statement that he lost ‘some 25 men’ (Soult

to Berthier, Jan. 21) is no doubt a little exaggerated. But

Martinien’s invaluable tables show that Mortier’s corps, which

did nearly all the fighting, lost only _two_ officers out of 549

present, probably, therefore, it lost no more than forty men.

Dessolles must have lost about the same.

The full results of the disaster were only developed next day: the

troops which had defended the central passes escaped, though in

dreadful disorder. But those further to their right were destined

to a worse fate. While Mortier and the King were forcing the great

defiles, Sebastiani had been fighting all day with Vigodet, in the

defiles about Montizon and St. Esteban del Puerto. He had no such

superiority in numbers over his enemy as had the King on the main

field of operations[134], hence his progress was slower, and his

victory, though complete, was not so prompt and crushing. Vigodet

and his 6,000 men were dispersed by the afternoon, and fled down the

valley of the Guadalen towards the plains, with Sebastiani’s cavalry

in pursuit. Having fought much longer than Lacy and Giron, their

losses were heavier than those of the central division--probably

1,000 killed, wounded, or taken. Shortly after, there appeared on

the scene, moving along the steep hill-path from La Carolina, the

Spanish division of Castejon, which had been sent off on the previous

night to support Vigodet. It found the St. Esteban position in the

possession of the French, and turned hastily back to rejoin Areizaga.

But, while it had been on the march, the Commander-in-Chief and his

army had been routed, and La Carolina was in the hands of the French.

Castejon found himself enclosed between Sebastiani and the King, in

a most perilous position. On the morning of the 21st, he tried to

escape by the by-path to Linares, but on arriving near that place

found that Mortier’s troops were already across his road. A brigade

of Sebastiani’s corps was in hot pursuit in his rear, and Castejon,

seeing himself thus enclosed, surrendered at Arquillos, with his

whole intact division of over 4,000 men and ten guns.

[134] Of his whole 10,000 men only 6,400 were infantry, and

Vigodet (with the wrecks of Jacomé’s division) had nearly as many.

Already, before the capture of this Spanish corps, the King and

Sebastiani had joined hands, their reconnoitring parties having met

in the valley of the Guadalen. On learning of the complete success

of both columns, Joseph and Soult resolved to urge the pursuit in

two separate directions. Sebastiani was told to push forward by

way of Ubeda and Baeza to Jaen, while the main column marched by

Baylen on Andujar and Cordova. It was hoped that news of Victor would

soon be received: if all had gone well, he would have reached the

Guadalquivir somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cordova, so as to be

in the rear of any Spanish force that might have retreated from La

Carolina in the direction of Seville.

As a matter of fact, however, both Vigodet and also Areizaga with the

wreck of the troops from the central passes, had abandoned any hope

of covering Seville, and had retreated southwards on Jaen. There was

no force whatever left upon the Cordova road, and the King met no

resistance upon the 22nd or the 23rd. On the latter day Sebastiani,

arriving in front of Jaen, found the Spanish commander-in-chief with

some 7,000 or 8,000 men prepared to defend the town. He attacked at

once, and routed these dispirited troops, who made little or no show

of resistance. Practically the whole force went to pieces: the French

captured forty-six guns, mostly those of the reserve-park of the Army

of Andalusia, which had been deposited in Jaen. Of the wrecks of that

unhappy force, Areizaga carried off a small remnant to Guadix in the

eastern mountains, near the borders of Murcia. Lacy, with another

fraction, retired on Granada. But the large majority had left their

colours, and dispersed to their homes.

King Joseph and Soult meanwhile, advancing unopposed along the

high-road to Cordova and Seville, got into touch at Andujar with

the advanced cavalry of Victor on the night of the 22nd of January.

The march of the 1st Corps had been toilsome in the extreme, but

almost unopposed save by the difficulties of the road. After driving

Zerain’s little detachment out of Almaden on the 15th, they had

hardly seen an enemy. Zerain and his colleague Copons had retired by

the road towards Seville south-westward. Victor, though he sent out

flying parties of cavalry to threaten Benalcazar and Hinojosa, to

his right, had really pushed further to the left, on the easternmost

of the two rough passes which lead to Cordova. The day after

leaving Almaden he had sent his artillery back to La Mancha, the

dilapidated and abandoned road to which he had committed himself

proving absolutely impracticable for anything that travelled on

wheels. But he pushed on with his infantry and horsemen, and passing

Santa Eufemia, Torrecampo and Villanueva de la Jara, came down into

the plain of the Guadalquivir at Adamuz, fifteen miles to the east

of Cordova, on January 21st, the day after Soult and King Joseph

had forced the Despeña Perros and the Puerto del Rey. Wishing to

get into touch with them before attacking Cordova, he halted his

infantry, but sent out his cavalry to the gates of that city on the

one side, and on the other to Montoro and Andujar, where they met

the vedettes of the main army on the evening of the 22nd. Thus the

French host was once more concentrated: the march on Seville could

be continued without delay. Victor now became the advanced guard: he

entered Cordova, which opened its gates without resistance, on the

24th. There was no Spanish force in front of the French army, since

Zerain and Copons had retired towards Seville by a road far to the

west, while the wrecks of Areizaga’s army had been driven off in a

south-easterly direction.

Soult and King Joseph, therefore, had leisure to plan out the

remainder of their campaign without any disturbance from the enemy.

On the 25th[135] they resolved to detach Sebastiani and his 10,000

men for the conquest of Granada, to leave Dessolles’ division at

Cordova and Andujar, but to march on Seville in a single mass with

the remaining 50,000 sabres and bayonets of the Army of Andalusia.

The desire to seize the capital from which the Junta had so long

defied him, seems to have mastered every other idea in the mind of

the intrusive King. The rebel government should be captured, or at

least forced to take refuge in Portugal or the sea. Then at last

the provinces would submit, the regular armies would lay down their

arms, the guerrillero bands would disperse to their homes, and he

might reign as a real king, not as the mere tool of his imperious

brother. The capture of Seville would be the last act but one of

the drama: after that he would become the national monarch of a

submissive people, and carry out all the schemes of vague benevolence

on which his mind was wont to dwell in his more hopeful hours. That

the resistance would continue, even if Seville were his own and the

Junta were scattered and discredited, he did not dream. And Seville,

he knew, must fall; to defend it there could be, as he concluded,

nothing but a half-armed mob, backed by the few thousand dispirited

soldiers who had fled before Victor from the western section of

the Sierra Morena. Even if the rebel capital made itself a second

Saragossa, he had at his disposal an army double the strength of that

which had reduced the obstinate Aragonese city.

[135] For details of their plans see the dispatch of Soult to

Berthier, from Andujar under the date of that day.

In subsequent years critics, wise after the event, never tired of

declaiming against the policy which Joseph and Soult approved on

January 25, 1810. It was easy in 1811 or 1812 to point out that a

division or two might have been spared from the victorious army to

execute a march upon Cadiz, while the main force was dealing with

Seville. The island-fortress, which was to defy the French during

the next three years, might have been caught while it was still

ungarrisoned and panic-stricken, if only the invaders had detached

a column from Carmona, where the road from Cordova bifurcates to

Seville on the right and Cadiz on the left. It is certain that,

if any suggestion to that effect was made at the time, Soult,

Mortier, and the other generals present at the council of war passed

it over[136]. The fact was that Seville loomed large before the

imaginations of them all: Cadiz seemed but a secondary affair at

the moment. It appeared probable that the whole of the scattered

forces of the enemy would mass themselves to defend the insurgent

capital. On January 25th, when the original plan was drawn up, no one

realized that there was a Spanish army approaching, whose presence

in Andalusia had not yet become known, or that the general of that

army would deliberately leave Seville to its fate, as incapable of

defence and doomed to destruction, and hasten by forced marches to

throw himself into the island-city which was destined to become the

new capital of insurgent Spain. Unable to foresee such a development,

Joseph wrote to his brother on January 27 that Seville would probably

submit without fighting, and that he would then enter Cadiz ‘_sans

coup férir_.’

[136] There was a considerable controversy among French military

writers as to whether the omission to march on Cadiz was the

fault of Soult or of the King. The authors of _Victoires et

Conquêtes_, having put all the blame on the latter (vol. xx. page

7), his friends hastened to reply. His aide-de-camp Bigarré,

who was present with him at the time, explicitly says in his

autobiography (pp. 265-6) that the King raised the point, but

was talked down by Soult and Dessolles. Miot de Melito (ii. 385)

bears witness to the same effect, saying that he heard Soult

clinch his argument by crying ‘Qu’on me réponde de Séville, moi

je réponds de Cadix.’ Both say that the final decision was made

at Carmona. See also Ducasse’s _Correspondance du roi Joseph_,

vii. 142-3, and x. pp. 395-6, where the same story is given by

the King himself.

Albuquerque’s operations, which ultimately turned out to be the

most important section of the Andalusian campaign, need a word of

explanation. It will be remembered that, early in January, he had

assembled, at Don Benito and Medellin, the small field-force that he

could command, after providing the garrison of Badajoz and leaving a

detachment above Almaraz to watch the French 2nd Corps. It did not

amount to more than 8,000 men, of which some 1,000 were cavalry. His

position at Don Benito was intended to protect the flank of Zerain

and Copons, who lay to his right, covering the passes that lead from

Almaden on to Cordova. On January 15th he received from Zerain the

news that he was about to be attacked at Almaden by a French column

of at least 20,000 men. The Duke promptly began to march eastward to

join his colleague, and reached Campanario on January 16th. Here he

was met by the information that Zerain had been driven out of Almaden

on the preceding day, and had drawn back by Benalcazar and Hinojosa

on to the Seville road. Copons from Pozo Blanco was retiring in the

same direction. The Duke thereupon concluded that his duty was to

fall back by a route parallel to that of Victor’s advance, and to

draw nearer to Seville, strengthening himself as he approached that

city by Zerain’s and Copons’ small corps.

Accordingly he sent off three of his weakest battalions to strengthen

the garrison of Badajoz, which was very small at the moment, directed

his artillery (with a cavalry escort) to take the good but circuitous

high-road to Seville by Merida, Los Santos, and Santa Olalla, and

started off across the mountains with his infantry and 500 horse.

Marching very rapidly, though the roads were bad and the days short,

he moved by Zalamea and Maguilla to Guadalcanal, on the borders

of Andalusia, which he reached on January 18th. Here he received

from the Central Junta an absurd order, apparently based on the

idea that he was still at Campanario, which bade him stop Victor’s

advance, by falling on his flank and rear by the road to Agudo and

Almaden. But since the marshal had seized Almaden on the 15th, and

was known to have moved southward from thence, it was clear that he

must now be more than half-way to Cordova: if the Army of Estremadura

plunged back into the mountains to seek Agudo and Almaden, it would

only reach them on the 22nd or 23rd, and Victor would be at the

gates of Cordova on the 21st. The Junta’s order was so hopelessly

impracticable that the Duke took upon himself to disobey it, and

wrote in reply that he should move so as to place himself between

Victor and Seville, and would cover the Andalusian capital ‘so far as

was possible with the small force at his disposition.’

Accordingly Albuquerque, instead of returning northward into the

Estremaduran mountains, moved a stage further south, to El Pedroso,

on the road from Guadalcanal to Seville, and sent orders to Copons

and Zerain to join him with their small divisions. Two days later

he received the order which should have been sent him on the 18th,

instead of the insane directions that were actually given; by it

he was directed to march on Seville with all speed. On the 23rd,

therefore, he arrived at the ferry of Cantillana, twenty miles

north of Seville: here he received news that his artillery and its

escort had safely completed its round, and were about to cross the

Guadalquivir at Rinconada, fifteen miles to the south. At Cantillana,

however, the Duke got the last dispatch which the Central Junta ever

issued; it was dated on the 23rd, a few hours before the members

dispersed and fled. By this he was directed to march not on Seville

but on Cordova, which at the moment the document came to hand--the

morning of the 24th--had just been occupied by Victor.

That day Albuquerque crossed the Guadalquivir and occupied Carmona,

where he was joined by his artillery, and by part of Copons’

division, but not (apparently) by Zerain’s, which had retired into

Seville. He had now about 10,000 men, of whom 1,000 were horsemen,

and 20 guns. From Carmona he threw out a cavalry screen on all

sides: his vedettes on the 27th struck French cavalry at Ecija,

and were driven in; they reported that the enemy was advancing

in enormous force from Cordova--as was indeed the case. Meanwhile

news had come up from Seville that the Junta had fled on the night

of the 23rd-24th, that anarchy reigned in the city, and that a new

revolutionary government had been installed. There was no longer any

legitimate executive from which orders could be received. Albuquerque

had to make up his mind whether he would retire into Seville, and

put himself at the disposition of the mob and its leaders, or

whether he should seek some safer base of operations. Without a

moment’s hesitation he resolved to leave the Andalusian capital to

itself, and to retire on Cadiz, which he knew to be ungarrisoned,

yet to be absolutely impregnable if it were properly held. This wise

resolution, it may be said without hesitation, saved the cause of

Spain in the south. If Cadiz had been left unoccupied there would

have been no further resistance in Andalusia.

But we must return to the operations of the French. On the 25th

Victor had advanced from Cordova, taking the direct road to Seville

via La Carlota and Ecija, while Mortier and the Royal Guard followed

him at short intervals. The Duke of Belluno occupied Ecija on the

27th and Carmona on the 28th. On these two days his advanced guard

got into contact with Albuquerque’s cavalry screen, and learnt from

prisoners that the Army of Estremadura, whose presence in Andalusia

thus became known, was in front of them[137]. On reaching Carmona

Victor obtained the still more important news that Albuquerque, after

staying in that place for two days, had not retired into Seville,

as might have been expected, but had marched southward to Utrera on

the road to Cadiz, leaving the greater city uncovered. On the night

of the 29th the leading division of Victor’s corps, the dragoons of

Latour-Maubourg, appeared in front of Seville, and reported that

works were being hastily thrown up around it on all sides[138], and

that they had been fired on by masses of armed irregulars at every

point where they had pushed forward vedettes towards its suburbs[139].

[137] See Soult to Berthier, from Carmona, Jan. 31.

[138] Soult, in his dispatch of Jan. 31, says that the advanced

guard of the 1st Corps appeared before Seville _hier au soir_,

i. e. on the 30th. But the Spanish authorities give the evening

of the 29th as the true date, and seem to be correct. Possibly

Soult is speaking of the first solid force of infantry, and

does not count the cavalry as a real advanced guard, but only

as a reconnoitring force. As Latour-Maubourg was at Carmona on

the 28th, it seems certain that he must have reached Seville

(eighteen miles only from Carmona) on the 29th, not the 30th.

[139] Napier (ii. 298) seems unjust to the arrangements of the

King and Soult when he writes: ‘From Andujar to Seville is only

100 miles, and the French took ten days to traverse them, a

tardiness for which there appears no adequate cause.’ He then

attributes it to King Joseph’s wish to make spectacular entries,

and to display his benevolence to the Andalusian towns. But the

facts are wrong. Joseph reached Andujar late on Jan. 22; Victor’s

cavalry was in front of Seville on Jan. 29: this makes seven,

not ten, days: and the distance by the direct road via Ecija and

Carmona is not 100, but 130 miles. A rate of eighteen miles a day

is no bad record for an army advancing through a hostile country,

even if it is meeting with no actual resistance. And January days

are short, with sunrise late and sunset early.

Seville was at this moment, and had been now for six days, in a state

of chaos. The Central Junta had absconded on the 23rd, taking along

with it both its Executive Committee and the Ministers of State.

The panic had begun on the 18th, when the news had come in that

Victor’s corps had thrust Zerain out of Almaden three days before,

and was marching on Cordova. It had grown worse two days later, when

Areizaga reported that another French army was marching against the

Despeña-Perros. The Junta published a proclamation on the 20th,

exhorting the Andalusians to have no fear, for Albuquerque had been

directed to fall on Victor’s flank, and Del Parque with the Army of

Castile was on the march to join him, so that the enemy would be

forced to turn back to guard himself. Such orders were indeed sent,

but any man of sense could see that they must arrive too late. If

Victor was at Almaden on the 15th, he might be at Cordova on the

21st: if King Joseph was at the foot of the passes on the 19th, he

might be across them on the 20th. What use, therefore, would be a

summons sent to Albuquerque in Estremadura, or to Del Parque in the

mountains between Bejar and Ciudad Rodrigo? The French would be

in the valley of the Guadalquivir long before Del Parque had even

received his orders to move. As a matter of fact, that general got

his dispatch on January 24, the day that Victor entered Cordova, and

even Albuquerque was informed of the Junta’s behests only on the

18th, when he reached Guadalcanal.

The obvious ineptitude which the Government had shown, and the

imminent peril to which Seville was exposed, gave another chance

to the local conspirators, who had already twice prepared a

_pronunciamento_ against the Junta. On the 22nd riots broke out, and

demagogues were preaching at every street corner the necessity for

deposing these incapable rulers, and substituting for them a regency

of true patriots, and a Committee of Public Safety, which should

show the energy in which the Junta had been so lacking. The people

clamoured at the doors of the Arsenal, asking for muskets and cannon,

they mustered outside the prisons where Palafox, Montijo, and other

chiefs who had been arrested for their earlier plots, were still

confined. Many of the members of the Junta left Seville on this and

the following day, on the plausible pretext that it was necessary for

them to betake themselves to Cadiz--which, by a decree of Jan. 13,

had been designated as the meeting-place of the approaching National

Cortes--in order to make preparations for the meeting of that august

assembly. Indeed, the Junta had been directed to meet at Cadiz on

February 1 for that purpose. The news that King Joseph had forced the

passes of the Sierra Morena, which came to hand early on the 22nd,

sufficed to make an end of any shadow of power which the Junta still

possessed. Next day those members who had hitherto stuck to their

post, and the Ministers, left the town with elaborately contrived

secrecy. Seville fell into the hands of the mob, who, led by a

Capuchin friar riding on a mule and brandishing a crucifix, burst

open the prisons and the Arsenal, armed themselves, and nominated

a new ‘Supreme National Junta.’ Its executive was to be composed

of Palafox and Montijo, the Marquis of La Romana, General Eguia,

and Francisco Saavedra, an aged and respectable person, who had

been president of the old Junta of Seville, the original committee

which had been suppressed by the Central Junta. He is said to have

been used as a mere tool by Palafox and Montijo, and to have been

disgusted by their acts. This new, and obviously illegal, Government

issued decrees stigmatizing the fugitive ‘Centralists’ as cowards

and traitors, and claiming authority not only over Andalusia, but

over all Spain. They ordered the calling out of the levy _en masse_,

and issued commissions displacing generals and governors in all the

provinces. One of these documents declared Del Parque removed from

the command of the Army of the Left, and named La Romana as his

successor. The marquis, glad to escape from the tumult, rode off

at once, presented himself at the head quarters of the Castilian

army, and was recognized without difficulty as its chief--though his

authority might well have been contested if any general had chosen to

take up the cause of the discredited Central Junta.

But that unhappy body had no longer a single friend: its members

were mobbed and arrested on their flight from Seville to Cadiz; its

President the Archbishop of Laodicea, its Vice-President the Conde

de Altamira, and the War Minister Cornel were seized at Xeres by a

frantic mob, and would have been murdered, if General Castaños, whom

the Junta had treated so badly in December 1808, had not arrived

in time to save their lives. Twenty-three members reached Cadiz,

and there, by a proclamation dated January 29th, abdicated their

authority, and nominated a Regency, to which they resigned their

power, and the duty of receiving and welcoming the expected Cortes.

The Regents were Castaños, the Bishop of Orense, Admiral Escaño,

Saavedra--the president of the new and illegal Junta at Seville--and

Fernandez de Leon, an American Treasury-official, who was to

represent the Colonies[140]. It will be noted that the nominators

were wise enough to refrain from appointing any of their own number

to serve in the Regency.

[140] After a very short tenure of office Fernandez de Leon was

superseded by Lardizabal, another American.

Meanwhile, the duty of resisting the first shock of the French

advance fell not on the Regency, but on the Revolutionary Government

which had installed itself in power at Seville. These usurpers proved

themselves quite as incapable as the men whom they had superseded.

When once in possession of power, Palafox and his friends had to

count up their resources: they had at their disposal an armed mob

of 20,000 men, and a mere handful of regular troops, consisting of

the regiments which had served as the guards of the late Junta, and

four or five isolated battalions from the division of Zerain, which

had finally sought refuge in Seville. These troops seem to have been

about 4,000 strong at the most[141]. There was an immense quantity

of artillery from the arsenal; it had been dragged out to line the

new earthworks, on which the populace was busily engaged, but not two

hundred trained gunners existed to man the batteries. It was hoped

that Albuquerque’s Estremaduran army would come to their aid, but--as

we have already seen--the Duke deliberately refused to acknowledge

the authority of the Seville Junta, and, instead of falling back upon

the city, marched southwards to Utrera on the Cadiz road, leaving the

great _chaussée_ Ecija-Carmona-Seville open to the French.

[141] It is difficult to make out what precisely were the

battalions in Seville on January 23-29. But they certainly

included a battalion of the 1st Walloon Guards [the Junta’s old

guard], with 1st and 2nd of España and Barbastro from Zerain’s

division. It is almost certain that most of Zerain’s other

battalions were with these three.

On the 28th, the leaders of the Junta having taken stock of their

position, and discovered its danger (for the lines which the people

had thrown up would have required 50,000 men to man them, and not

half that force was forthcoming even if every rioter armed with

a musket was counted), copied in the most ignominious fashion

the prudence or cowardice of the Central Junta, which they had

so fiercely denounced five days before. Under the cover of the

night Eguia, Montijo, Saavedra, and Palafox absconded from Seville

without taking leave of their followers. Saavedra fled to Cadiz,

where it is surprising to find that he was made a member of the new

Regency, Palafox to Albuquerque’s camp, Montijo to the southern

mountains, where (as he announced) he was intending to collect an

army of succour for Seville. When, therefore, on the next evening

Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons appeared before the entrenchments of the

city, there was no longer any responsible government to turn the

ardour of the multitude to account. Nevertheless, mobs, headed by

frantic friars, ran to the entrenchments, and discharged musketry and

cannon-shot at every French vedette that showed itself.

On the afternoon of the 30th, Victor appeared to reinforce

Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry, bringing with him the bulk of the

infantry of the 1st Corps. The King, Soult, and Mortier were close

behind[142]. On this day it had been settled at a Council-of-War

held at Carmona that the whole of the army should march on Seville,

leaving Cadiz alone for the present, and detaching only a brigade of

cavalry to pursue the army of Albuquerque. On the next morning Victor

received assurances, from persons who had escaped from the city,

that it was doubtful whether he would be opposed, since the mob was

panic-stricken at the flight of its leaders, and the senior military

officers were convinced that resistance was impossible. Certain that

the defence would be feeble, if any were offered, Soult gave orders

that the 1st Corps should storm the lines on February 1st. But no

military operations were necessary: on the evening of January 31st

the corporation of Seville had sent out a deputation to negotiate for

surrender. They offered to admit the enemy, if they were guaranteed

security of life and property for all who should submit, and a

promise that no extraordinary war-contribution should be levied on

their city. To this the King, who was anxious to enter the place

as a pacific conqueror, without storm or bloodshed, gave an eager

consent. While the civil authorities were treating with Victor, the

small body of regular troops in Seville, under the Visconde de Gand,

quietly left the place by the bridge leading to the western side of

the Guadalquivir, and retreated in haste toward the Condado de Niebla

and the borders of Portugal.

[142] Dessolles’ division had been left behind at Cordova and

Andujar, to garrison Upper Andalusia, and to extend a helping

hand to Sebastiani, if he should meet with any resistance in his

conquest of the kingdom of Granada.

On the afternoon of February 1, Joseph entered Seville in triumph at

the head of his Guard, and lodged himself in the Alcazar, the old

residence of the Kings of Spain. He was welcomed by a deputation

which comprised some persons of mark. The impression made on the

citizens by the conduct of the two Juntas, and the turbulence of

the mob which had ruled during the last eight days, had been so

deplorable that a considerable number of the Sevillians despaired of

the national cause, and rushed to acknowledge the usurper. Indeed,

there were more ‘Josefinos’ found in this city than in any other

corner of Spain. The ‘intrusive king’ released a number of political

prisoners, whom the last Junta had arrested on suspicion of treason.

Apparently this suspicion had been well grounded, as many of the

captives, headed by the Swiss generals Preux and Reding[143], did

homage to Joseph, and accepted office under him.

[143] Younger brother of the victor of Baylen.

Encouraged by these defections to his cause, and by the fact that

deputations had presented themselves from Cordova and Jaen to bespeak

his protection, Joseph hastened to publish an absurd address to his

army, couched in the magniloquent style which all French writers of

proclamations at this time were wont to borrow from their Emperor.

‘The barriers placed by Nature between the North and the South of

Spain have fallen. You have met with friends only beyond the Sierra

Morena. Jaen, Cordova, Seville have flung open their gates.... The

King of Spain desires that between the Pillars of Hercules a third

pillar shall arise, to recall to posterity, and to the navigators of

both the new and the old world, the memory of the officers and men of

that French army which drove back the English, saved thirty thousand

Spaniards, pacified the ancient Baetica, and regained for France her

natural allies.’ The rather puzzling passage concerning the ‘thirty

thousand Spaniards saved’ refers to the prisoners of Ocaña and the

Sierra Morena, whom the French, according to the King, ‘recognized as

brethren led astray by the common enemy. You spared them, and I have

received them as my children.’

Some elation in the King’s language was, perhaps, pardonable at the

moment. The moral effect of the surrender of Seville was considerable

in France, England, and the rest of Europe, though less in Spain than

elsewhere. The tangible trophies of the conquest were enormous--the

place had been the central arsenal of Spain, and the amount of

artillery, ammunition, and warlike equipment captured was very

large. The cannon-foundry and other military factories were taken

over in excellent condition, and kept the French army of Andalusia

well supplied during the three years of its existence. Tobacco to

the value, as it was said, of £1,000,000 was found in the great

central magazine, and quinine, quicksilver, and other commodities of

government monopoly to a considerable additional sum. Nothing had

been done, since the news of the passage of the Sierra Morena had

arrived, to destroy or remove all this valuable state property.

On the day following their entry into Seville, Joseph and Soult

directed Victor to march in pursuit of Albuquerque, and to take

possession of Cadiz. So complete had been the _débâcle_ of the

Spanish armies since the Andalusian campaign began, that it seems

to have been supposed that the Army of Estremadura would offer no

serious resistance, even if it should succeed in throwing itself into

Cadiz before it was overtaken. Marching with laudable expedition, the

Duke of Belluno covered the eighty-three miles between Seville and

Cadiz in four days, and presented himself in front of the place on

the evening of February 5th. But Albuquerque, unmolested in his march

from Utrera, had arrived on the 3rd, bringing with him not only his

own troops and those of Copons, but several recruit-battalions picked

up at Xeres, Lebrija, San Lucar, and Puerto Santa Maria, where they

had been organizing. He had some 12,000 men in all, not counting the

civic militia of Cadiz, which had hitherto been its sole garrison.

Cadiz, in the days when the practicable range of the heaviest

artillery did not exceed 2,500 yards, was one of the strongest places

in the world. The town lies on the extreme point of a long sandy

peninsula, which runs out into the sea from the Isla de Leon, a large

island separated from the mainland of Andalusia by the salt-water

channel of the Rio Santi Petri, an arm of the sea varying from 300 to

400 yards in breadth, and flowing through marshes which make access

to its banks very difficult. The Isla, protected by this enormous

wet ditch, has a front towards the continent of about seven miles,

from the naval arsenal of La Carraca at its north end to the Castle

of Santi Petri at its south. Batteries had already been thrown up

at all the commanding points, and Albuquerque had broken the only

bridge, that of Zuazo, which crossed the marsh and the Rio. It would

be impossible to pass the channel save by collecting great quantities

of boats, and these would have to move under artillery fire. Venegas,

the military governor of Cadiz, had already ordered all the vessels,

small and great, of the villages round the bay to be destroyed or

brought across to the city. Moreover, there were a score of gunboats

in the channel, manned from the Spanish fleet, which could be used

to oppose any attempt to cross the Rio. Indeed, naval assistance to

any amount was available for the defence of Cadiz: there were a dozen

Spanish and four English line-of-battle ships in the harbour. All

through the three long years while the French lay in front of the

Isla, no attempt was ever made to throw a force in boats across the

channel: the venture seemed too hazardous.

If, however, Victor had, by some expedient, succeeded in crossing

the Rio, there were two lines of defence behind it, of far greater

strength than that formed by this outer ditch of the Cadiz works.

The triangular Isla de Leon forms with its apex a long sand-spit,

which projects for four miles into the Atlantic. Half way along it

the breadth of the spit is contracted to no more than 200 yards,

and here there was a continuous entrenchment from water to water,

called the Cortadura, or the battery of San Fernando, armed with many

heavy guns. Supposing this isthmus to have been passed, there lies,

two miles further along the sand-spit, the outer enceinte of Cadiz

itself, with a front of not more than 400 yards in breadth, and deep

water on either side.

Cadiz had been captured more than once in earlier wars, but always by

an enemy who could attack from the sea. Neither the Isla de Leon nor

the San Fernando line could be held against an attack supported by a

fleet which came close in shore, and battered the works from flank

and rear, or landed troops behind them. The sea, it may be remarked,

is four fathoms deep to within a short distance (about 300 yards) of

the shore, all along the south front of the Isla and the Isthmus,

so that there was nothing to prevent a fleet coming close to the

works. But against any naval attack Cadiz was, in 1810, absolutely

secured by the predominance of the English fleet. There was no armed

French vessel nearer than Bayonne or Barcelona, nor any possibility

of bringing one round. All that was done by the besiegers in a three

years’ leaguer was to build some gunboats in the northern inlets of

the bay, and these they never dared to bring out into the open water.

The real danger to Cadiz lay not from the sea side, nor on the Isla

front, but from the inner side of the harbour and the east. Here a

long spit of land runs out from beside the town of Puerto Real in

the direction of Cadiz. It is called the Trocadero, from a village

situated on its south-eastern side. At its extreme point is a fort

named San José, while another fort, named San Luis, lies alongside

of the other on a low mud-island. In advance of both, built right in

the marsh, and surrounded by water at high-tide, was a third called

Matagorda. These three forts were the outer defences of the harbour

against a naval attack, and could cross fires with the town batteries

and a castle called Puntales, which lies on the easternmost point

of the isthmus, a mile from the battery of San Fernando. Matagorda

is only 1,200 yards from Puntales, and 3,000 yards from the eastern

point of the city of Cadiz. If the French took possession of it, and

of the neighbouring San José and San Luis, they could bombard the

Puntales castle and all the neighbouring section of the Isthmus,

to the grave danger and discomfort of all who had to pass between

the city and the Isla de Leon. They would also be able to annoy

ships lying in all the eastern reaches of the great harbour. But

before Victor arrived in front of Cadiz, San José, San Luis, and

Matagorda were blown up, with the leave of the governor Venegas, by a

detachment of seamen from the British fleet. There could, therefore,

be no trouble from this direction, unless the enemy succeeded in

restoring and rearming the three forts,--no easy task under the fire

of the Puntales castle and the fleet. It was not till some months

had passed that the struggle began for these ruined works, the only

points from which the defence could be seriously incommoded.

On his first arrival Victor summoned the town, and received a prompt

and angry answer of refusal from the governor and the local Junta.

The marshal inspected the city’s outer defences, and was forced to

report to the King at Seville that it seemed that nothing could

be done against the place till he had brought up heavy artillery,

and built himself boats. Joseph, unwilling to believe anything

that contradicted the hopes of complete triumph that he had been

nourishing ever since the passage of the Sierra Morena, came up to

Puerto Santa Maria, on the bay of Cadiz, looked at the situation,

did not find it reassuring, and wrote to his imperial brother to

propose that he should send out his Toulon fleet to attack the place

on the sea side[144]. Napoleon, still smarting under the memory of

how Admiral Martin had destroyed an important section of that fleet

in the preceding October, ignored this proposal. He did not forget,

though his brother had apparently done so, the fact that the British

Mediterranean fleet was still in existence.

[144] ‘Sire, il paraît que Cadix veut se défendre. Nous verrons

dans quelques jours ce qu’elle fera lorsque nous aurons quelques

batteries montées. Si votre Majesté pouvait disposer de l’escadre

de Toulon, l’occasion pourrait être bonne.’ Joseph to Napoleon,

Sta. Maria, Feb. 18.

Thus the position in front of Cadiz assumed the shape which it was to

maintain for months, and even for years. Victor’s corps could provide

enough men to observe the whole shore of the bay, and to blockade

the garrison. But the Spaniards recovered their courage when they

saw the enemy reduced to inactivity, and began ere long to receive

reinforcements. The first to arrive were 3,000 of the regular troops

which had been at Seville. This corps, under the Visconde de Gand,

had escaped westward after the capitulation, and, though pursued

by a brigade of Mortier’s corps, reached Ayamonte, at the mouth of

the Guadiana, and there took ship for Cadiz. Somewhat later there

arrived some troops sent by Wellington. The Spaniards in their day of

disaster had forgotten their old jealousy about Cadiz, and asked for

aid. Wellington, though loath to spare a man from Portugal, sent them

in the early days of February three British[145] and two Portuguese

battalions from Lisbon, under General William Stewart. So promptly

were these troops shipped and landed, that they arrived at Cadiz

between the 10th and the 15th of February, to the number of about

3,500 bayonets[146]. Thus the town was placed in security from any

_coup de main_ on Victor’s part.

[145] 79th, 2nd batt. 87th, and 94th regiments, and the 20th

Portuguese line regiment.

[146] See Wellington to Bart. Frère and General Stewart, from

Torres Vedras, Feb. 5th, and Vizeu, Feb. 27, 1810.

[Illustration: CADIZ AND ITS ENVIRONS.]

The internal situation in Cadiz, however, left much to be desired.

The town had elected a local Junta of defence, of which the governor

Venegas was made President, and this body had frequent disputes

with the new Regency, nominated by the Central Junta at the time

of its abdication, and also with Albuquerque, whom Venegas did not

wish to recognize as his hierarchical superior. The local body could

make a fair show of objections to recognizing the legitimacy of the

Regency: the old Central Junta itself had a doubtful origin, and the

government nominated by those of its members who had taken refuge in

Cadiz could not claim a clear title. But to raise the point at this

moment of crisis was factious and unpatriotic, and the conduct of the

local Junta became merely absurd when it tried to arrogate to itself

authority extending outside its own city, and to issue orders to

the outlying provinces, or the colonies of America. Still worse, it

refused to issue clothing and footgear to Albuquerque’s army, whose

equipment had been worn out by the long march from Estremadura, or

to subsidize the military hospitals, though it had a considerable

stock both of money and of military stores at its disposition. At the

end of February the Regency nominated Venegas Viceroy of Mexico, and

having bought him off with this splendid piece of preferment, made

Albuquerque his successor in the governorship of Cadiz. But even thus

they did not succeed in getting proper control over the city, for the

Junta refused to allow the Duke to place his head quarters within the

walls, or to issue orders to the civic militia. A _modus vivendi_

was only reached when the Regents made an ignominious pact with the

local oligarchy, by which the latter, in return for recognizing their

legitimate authority, and undertaking to pay and feed the garrison,

were granted the control of the port-revenues and other royal taxes

of Cadiz, as well as of all the subsidies arriving from America. How

the functions of government became still further complicated, when

the members of the long-expected Cortes began to arrive, and to claim

their rights as the sole legitimate representatives of the nation,

must be told in another chapter[147].

[147] For a scathing account of the conduct of the Cadiz Junta

and its doings see Schepeler, vol. iii. 550-5. Napier very

rightly calls it ‘an imperious body without honour, talents, or

patriotism’ (ii. 334).

Leaving matters at a deadlock in and about Cadiz, we must turn back

to the operations of the French in the outlying parts of Andalusia.

Sebastiani, it will be remembered, had taken Jaen on January 23rd.

He was directed to march from thence on Granada and Malaga, to

scatter the remains of Areizaga’s army, and to subdue the valleys

of the Sierra Nevada and the long sea-coast below them. All this

he accomplished with ease. On the 28th he routed at Alcala la Real

a force composed of some of Areizaga’s fugitives, which had been

joined by Freire and all the cavalry of the Andalusian army. These

regiments, which had been cantoned in the valley of the Guadalquivir,

since they were useless in the passes, had been collected by Freire

to the number of 2,000 sabres. They were routed and dispersed by

Milhaud’s and Perreymond’s dragoons and chasseurs, losing over 500

men and the whole of their artillery. The survivors dispersed, and

retired in small parties eastward, only rallying in the province of

Murcia. That same evening Sebastiani pushed on towards Granada, and

was met by a deputation of its magistrates, who brought the keys of

the city and a promise of submission. The French vanguard entered it

next day. Lacy, who had taken refuge there with the small remains

of his division, retired to Guadix. Sebastiani levied a military

contribution of 5,000,000 reals on the city, placed a garrison of

1,500 men in the Alhambra, and marched with a mixed force on Malaga,

the only place in this quarter where organized resistance showed

itself. Here the local magistrates had been deposed by a popular

rising, and several thousand irregulars had been collected by a

Colonel Abello, a Capuchin friar named Fernando Berrocal, and three

brothers, notaries, of the name of San Millan. They seized the passes

of the Sierra de Alhama, and called all the hill-country to arms.

Sebastiani, marching by Antequera, cleared the passes on February

5th, beat the half-armed insurgent bands outside the suburbs of

Malaga, and stormed the town. He exacted a contribution of 12,000,000

reals, and hung the three San Millans and several other leading

insurgents. After this he extended his troops along the coast, and

occupied Velez Malaga, Motril, and Almunecar. The roads and the

towns were his, but many of the insurgents took to the hills, and

maintained a guerrilla warfare, which never ceased throughout the

next three years. There were always bands on foot in the Alpujarras

and the Sierra de Ronda, though the 4th Corps expended much energy

in hunting them down.

Meanwhile Giron, Lacy, Freire, and the rest of the fugitive generals

had retired eastward. They had now come under the orders of Blake,

who superseded Areizaga and took over charge of 3,000 or 4,000

dispirited men at Guadix on January 30th. He retired at once within

the borders of the kingdom of Murcia. Small parties and stragglers

continued to come in for many weeks, and by March there were 10,000

foot and 1,500 horse collected--all in the worst state of equipment,

and thoroughly demoralized by their late disasters.

We must now turn to the other end of Andalusia: King Joseph, when

departing to inspect the outworks of Cadiz, had left Mortier in

command in this quarter. The Marshal, after hunting the little force

of the Visconde de Gand out of the Condado de Niebla, had been

directed to deal a stroke at Badajoz. Accordingly, leaving a brigade

in Seville and another in the Condado, he marched with one infantry

division and his light cavalry into Estremadura. He reached Olivenza

with 9,000 men, and summoned Badajoz on February 12th, but he had

arrived too late. A considerable Spanish force was now before him,

the old host of Del Parque, which the Central Junta had called down

to the Guadiana when the original Army of Estremadura marched under

Albuquerque to succour Andalusia. How Mortier and La Romana, the

successor of Del Parque, dealt with each other in the months of the

spring must be told in a later chapter[148].

[148] See Section xix, chapter iv of this volume.

The King, meanwhile, spent the months of February and March in a

circular tour through Andalusia, where he affected to perceive

nothing but friendly feeling among the inhabitants. He visited

Ronda, Malaga, Granada, Jaen, celebrating _Te Deums_, and giving

bull-fights and banquets. It is certain that a sufficient show of

submission was made to nourish his happy illusions as to the finality

of his conquest. Threats or bribes induced many notables to present

themselves at his receptions, and it seems that a considerable

portion of the Andalusians hoped to save themselves from the rapacity

of the military authorities by professing an enthusiasm for the

King. He, for his part, did his best to protect them--but he was

soon gone, and the native officials whom he appointed were powerless

against Sebastiani, the church plunderer, and Soult, the judicious

collector of works of art. ‘At the very moment when the King was

lavishing assurances and promises,’ writes his devoted servant Miot,

‘and everywhere extolling the thorough disinterestedness of France,

severe and crushing exactions were being laid on the provinces in our

occupation. An iron hand was grinding them to the dust. The King was

powerless to resist the open violation of the promises which he was

daily giving[149].’

[149] Miot, ii. 432. Compare Joseph’s hysterical letter to

the Emperor (Ducasse, vii. 236): ‘La pacification générale de

l’Andalousie sera opérée.... Mais, sire, au nom du sang français

et du sang espagnol rappelez Loison, Kellermann, Thouvenot! Ces

hommes nous coûtent bien cher!’ It is curious that he, in the

same letter, quotes as ‘hommes honnêtes,’ along with Mortier,

Suchet, and Reynier, both Soult and Sebastiani, who were

plunderers on as large a scale as Kellermann or Loison.

Open resistance, however, had ceased, save at Cadiz and in the

inaccessible recesses of the Sierra Nevada. Andalusia had been

subdued from end to end, and neither the King nor Soult yet realized

that a lamentable strategic mistake had been made when 70,000 veteran

troops had been pinned down to garrison the newly conquered realm,

while Portugal and Wellington’s army remained untouched. In their

conception, as in that of the Emperor, the conquest of Portugal was

to be sufficiently provided for by the new reinforcements which were

now pouring over the Ebro, to the number of over 100,000 sabres and

bayonets.

SECTION XIX

THE PORTUGUESE CAMPAIGN OF 1810.

THE PRELIMINARIES: JANUARY-AUGUST 1810

CHAPTER I

THE MILITARY GEOGRAPHY OF PORTUGAL

The continual existence of Portugal down to the present day in

face of the persistent hostility and immensely superior force of

its neighbour Spain seems at first sight to be one of the most

inexplicable phenomena in modern history. It appears all the more

astounding when we remember that the lesser kingdom was once

conquered, and held down for sixty years, by the greater power.

Few states have won back and maintained their independence in such

masterful fashion as did Portugal, in the long ‘War of Independence’

that followed the insurrection of 1640 under the house of Braganza.

But intense national spirit and heroic obstinacy on the part of the

smaller people are not sufficient to account for the survival of the

Portuguese kingdom as a separate entity. Its geography, which at the

first sight seems hopelessly unfavourable to its defence, turns out

on investigation to be eminently suitable for resistance against an

attack from the east. On a first glance at the map it appears as if

Portugal was composed of no more than the lower valleys of three

great Spanish rivers, the Douro, the Tagus, and the Guadiana, so

that the state which owns three-quarters of the course of each of

these streams has but to send down its armies from the uplands of

Leon and New Castile, to conquer the narrow land which lies about

their estuaries. But nothing can be more deceptive than the map, when

the Iberian Peninsula is in question. As we observed in our earlier

volume[150], the rivers of Spain and Portugal are not highways, or

lines of communication, but barriers--torrents sunk in gorges cut

deep below the level of the face of the land. The chief roads, with

few exceptions, avoid, instead of courting, the neighbourhood of

the great streams. The leading routes which descend from Spain into

Portugal in no case follow the lines of the Douro or the Tagus.

Though the coast-plains, which form the heart of the kingdom of

Portugal, its most wealthy and populous regions, lie about the mouths

of those rivers, it is not by descending their banks that conquest

or trade arrives most easily at its goal. As a matter of fact, Spain

and Portugal turn their backs upon each other: the smaller realm

looks out upon the sea; her strength and wealth lie upon the Atlantic

coast: the inland that touches Spain is rugged and unpeopled, in many

parts a mere waste of rock and heath. Nor, on the other hand, do

Leon and New Castile look towards Portugal: the real ports of Madrid

are Valencia and Alicante, not Lisbon, and that not from political

reasons, but simply because those are the points where the sea can

be reached with the minimum of mountain and desert to be passed

through. The way down from the central tableland of Spain to the

Mediterranean is less difficult than the way down to the Atlantic.

Hence comes the fact that the high-roads leading from Spain into

Portugal are so surprisingly few, and that the two main alternative

routes from Madrid to Lisbon run, the one much further north, the

other much further south, than might have been expected. There is not

now, and never has been, any straight road down the Tagus between

the two capitals, obvious though the line looks upon the map. The

two main gates of Portugal are at Almeida and Elvas; at Alcantara,

which appears the natural point of approach, there is but the most

miserable of posterns--as Junot discovered in November 1807, much to

his discomfiture. Marshal Berwick had made the same experience in

1705, during the War of the Spanish Succession[151].

[150] See vol. i. pp. 75, 76.

[151] A student of the War of the Spanish Succession is always

surprised to see how much fighting took place on fronts which

were left severely alone by the English and French in 1809-12.

In the old wars between Spain and Portugal the whole land frontier of

the smaller kingdom was exposed to attacks from the larger. But the

circumstances of 1810 differed from those of 1705 or 1762 or 1801,

in that the subsidiary campaigns in the extreme north and south,

which had always accompanied the main clash along the frontiers of

Beira and Alemtejo, could not on this occasion take place. The French

were no longer in possession of Galicia, from which the Spaniards had

been wont to demonstrate against Oporto, nor, at the other extremity

of the line, had they a firm grip on Huelva, and the Condado de

Niebla, from which alone an attack could be directed against the

remote southern province of Algarve.

Portugal presents three sections of frontier to an invader coming

from the side of Spain. The northernmost, that from the mouth of the

Minho to Miranda-de-Douro, was not within the scope of operations

in 1810. It can only be approached from Galicia; that province was

not subdued, nor had the French any intention of dealing with it

till after they should have dealt with Portugal. An invasion of

the Tras-os-Montes and the Entre-Douro-e-Minho would have been an

objectless operation: they would fall of themselves if once Lisbon

were captured and the English expelled from the Peninsula. A move

against Oporto by some flanking division of the invading army might

have been conceivable, but such an attempt would be made, if made at

all, from the south of the Douro, through northern Beira, and not

through the mountains of the Tras-os-Montes.

There remain two other sections of the Portuguese frontier: the

one from the Douro to the Tagus, and the other from the Tagus to

the Guadiana. Both of these were accessible to the French in 1810,

since they were in possession alike of the plains of Leon and of La

Mancha, and of northern Andalusia. It was open to them to choose one

or the other front for attack, or to attack both at once. Lisbon

being the objective, it was clear that an attack on the northern or

Beira frontier possessed a paramount advantage over an attack on

the southern or Alemtejo frontier. A successful advance north of

the Tagus brings the invader directly to the gates of Lisbon; one

south of the Tagus brings him only to the heights of Almada, where

he is separated from the Portuguese capital by the broad estuary of

the Tagus. Napoleon’s power, like that of the devil in mediaeval

legends, ended at the edge of the salt water; and in face of the

naval strength which the English always maintained at Lisbon, a

victorious French army camped on the heights of Almada would be

almost as far from final success as when it started from Spain. The

1,900 yards of strait which protected the Portuguese capital could

not be crossed. The most that the invader could accomplish would

be to worry the ships in the port, and the lower quarters of the

city, by a distant bombardment, if he could bring up heavy guns from

Spain[152]. For nearly twenty miles inland from Lisbon the estuary of

the Tagus expands into a broad brackish lagoon four to eleven miles

broad, a complete protection against any attack from the east. Only

at Alhandra does this inland sea contract, and for some further miles

northward from that point the eastern bank of the Tagus is formed

by broad salt-marshes (_lezirias_) cut up by countless channels of

water, and practically inaccessible. It is only at Salvaterra, thirty

miles north of Lisbon, that the Tagus assumes its ordinary breadth,

and becomes an ordinary military obstacle. From that point upwards

an invader from the Andalusian side might endeavour to cross it,

and it presents no more difficulties than any other broad river.

But, though even Rhines and Danubes may be passed in the face of

an enemy, the operation is not one which a prudent general courts,

and the Tagus is broad, absolutely bridgeless, and fickle in the

extreme in its alternations of high and low water. To fight one’s

way from the valley of the Guadiana in order to meet such a problem

at the end does not seem inviting. And even if the Tagus is passed,

there are still thirty miles of road, including some formidable

defensive positions, between the invader and Lisbon[153]. Yet there

was one contingency under which an advance on the left bank of the

river might be advantageous to the invader, and so possible was this

contingency that Wellington from the very first had declared that

he thought it probable that the French would move troops in that

direction. If the Anglo-Portuguese army were drawn away to the Beira

frontier, between Tagus and Douro, in order to resist a front attack

delivered from the plains of Leon, and if it became involved in an

active campaign somewhere far to the north, on the line of the Coa,

or the Mondego, or the Alva, a subsidiary French force, striking

south of the Tagus from the direction of Spanish Estremadura, might

give dreadful trouble. If it could cross the Tagus anywhere between

Abrantes and Salvaterra, it might get between the Anglo-Portuguese

army and its base, and either fall upon its rear or capture Lisbon.

For this reason Wellington, so far back as October 1809, had made

up his mind that, if the French had an army on foot anywhere in

the direction of Badajoz and Elvas, he must leave a considerable

proportion of his own forces to watch them, and to defend, if need

be, the line of the lower Tagus[154]. As long as the enemy had not

yet subdued Badajoz and the neighbouring fortresses, and while

there was still a strong Spanish army in that quarter, the need for

precaution was not so pressing. Nevertheless, all through the summer

of 1810 Wellington kept Hill with one English and one Portuguese

division at Portalegre, south of the Tagus, though he withdrew this

detachment when Masséna marched on Coimbra. Matters were much more

perilous after the battle of the Gebora and the fall of Badajoz in

February 1811. From that time onward, all through 1811 and 1812,

nearly a third of the Anglo-Portuguese army was kept in the Alemtejo,

first under Beresford, then under Hill, in order to guard against

the possible stab in the back from the French army of Andalusia.

[152] See Map of the Lines of Torres Vedras, in Section xx of

this volume, for the environs of Lisbon.

[153] Eliot, in his very judicious remarks on p. 100 of his

_Defence of Portugal_, published just before Masséna’s invasion,

sums up the situation with--‘a passage may without any difficulty

be forced to the left bank of the Tagus: but then the enemy is as

far from the accomplishment of his project as before, the river

forming an insuperable barrier if well defended.’

[154] Wellington to Col. Fletcher, commanding Royal Engineers,

Oct. 20, 1809 (_Dispatches_, v. 235): ‘The enemy will probably

attack on two distinct lines, the one south, the other north of

the Tagus, and the system of defence must be founded upon this

general basis.... His object will be, by means of the corps south

of the Tagus, to turn the positions which we shall take up in

front of the corps north of that river, to cut off from Lisbon

the corps opposed to him, and to destroy it by an attack in front

and rear. This can be avoided only by the retreat of the right,

centre, and left of the allies to a point at which (from the

state of the river) they cannot be turned, by the passage of the

Tagus by the enemy’s left corps.’

Six days later (_Disp._ v. 245) Wellington wrote to Admiral

Berkeley in similar terms: ‘It is probable that in the event

of the enemy being enabled to invade this country in force, he

will make his main attack by the right of the Tagus: but he

will employ one corps on the left of the river, with the object

of embarrassing, if not of preventing, the embarcation of the

British army.’

But the attack south of the Tagus was in Wellington’s, and also, we

may add, in Napoleon’s conception[155], only a secondary operation.

The main invasion was almost inevitably bound to take place on the

Beira, not on the Alemtejo frontier. Between Fregeneda, where the

Portuguese border line quits the Douro, to the pass of Villa Velha

on the Tagus there is a distance of somewhat more than 100 miles.

The division between Portugal and Spain does not lie along any

well-marked natural feature, such as a mountain range or a broad

river--though two small sections of the frontier are coincident with

the insignificant streams of the Elga and the Agueda. It is rather

drawn, in a somewhat arbitrary and haphazard fashion, through the

midst of the desert upland, where Spain and Portugal turn their

backs to each other. For the only piece of flat plain-land on the

whole border is that from the Douro to Almeida, a mere ten or twelve

miles, and immediately behind the Coa, only three or four miles

from Almeida, the mountains begin. The rest of the frontier runs

through thinly-peopled, barren highlands, from which the Coa, the

Mondego, the Zezere, and the Ponçul fall away towards Portugal, and

the Agueda and the Alagon towards Spain. The mountains are not,

for the most part, very high--the culminating peak of the Serra da

Estrella is only 6,540 feet--but they are singularly rugged and

scarped, and much cleft by ravines, along whose sides the few roads

crawl miserably, in constant precipitous dips and rises. This broad

belt of upland, one long series of defiles for an invader, is some

hundred miles broad, and does not cease till Coimbra, on the one

side, or Abrantes, on the other, is reached: only then does the

plain-land begin, and the country-side become fertile and thickly

peopled. Only from those points onward is it possible for an army

to live on the local produce: in the upland it must carry its food

with it; for a single division would exhaust in a day the stores of

the poor villages of the mountains; and the small poverty-stricken

towns of Guarda, Celorico, Sabugal, Penamacor, and Idanha have few

resources. Castello Branco and Vizeu are the only two places in the

upland where there is a valley of some breadth and richness, which

can supply an army for many days. In this simple fact lies the

explanation of the difficulties of the Portuguese campaigns of 1810

and 1811. Both the invader and the defender must bring their food

with them, and protracted operations can only be kept up by means

of incessant convoys from the rear. The campaign not infrequently

became a starving-match, and the combatant who first exhausted his

provisions had to retire, and to disperse his divisions in search of

the wherewithal to live. Thanks to Wellington’s providence it was

always the French who were forced to this expedient.

[155] So much so that in _Corresp._, xx. p. 552, we find him

informing Masséna that Badajoz and Elvas need not be touched till

after Lisbon has fallen. The first contrary view, ordering a

demonstration on the Lower Tagus, appears in the dispatch on p.

273 of vol. xxi.

The Beira frontier is divided into two sections by the range of

mountains which crosses the border at right angles, half way between

Douro and Tagus: it is known as the Sierras de Gata and de Jarama

while in Spain, as the Serra da Estrella when it reaches Portugal.

Its central ganglion lies between the high-lying towns of Sabugal

and Penamacor in Portugal and the pass of Perales in Spain. From

this point run off the great spurs which separate the valleys of

the Ponçul, the Zezere, the Agueda, the Coa, and the Alagon. An

invader must make his choice whether he will advance into Portugal

south or north of the Serra da Estrella: to attempt to do so on both

sides of the range would be risking too much, if there is an enemy

of any strength in the field, since the columns to the right and to

the left would be hopelessly separated, and liable to be beaten in

detail. In the whole Peninsular War there was only one invasion made

by the southern route, that of Junot in the winter of 1807-8. It was

successful because it was absolutely unopposed. Nevertheless the

French lost many men, had to leave their artillery behind them, and

only arrived with the shadow of an army at Abrantes. It is true that

Junot chose absolutely the worst path that could be found between the

Serra da Estrella and the Tagus--the pass of Rosmarinhal, close above

the latter river--and that he would have fared not quite so badly if

he had marched from Zarza on Idanha and Castello Branco. But even at

the best this region is most inhospitable: there are points where

water is not procurable on stretches of eight or ten miles, others

where the main road is so steep that a six-pounder requires not

only a dozen horses but the assistance of fifty men to get it up the

slope. Except in the immediate neighbourhood of Castello Branco, the

country-side is almost uninhabited[156]. The whole ‘corregidoria,’

which took its name from that town, and extended from the Elga to the

Zezere, had only 40,000 souls in its broad limits--it was forty miles

long by thirty broad, the size of a large English county. Junot’s

experiences served as a warning to his successors, and no French

army during the rest of the war endeavoured to cross this corner of

Portugal when advancing on Lisbon. Castello Branco was seized once or

twice by a raiding force, but it was never used as the starting-point

of an army making a serious attempt to advance towards the Portuguese

capital.

[156] The above notes on the Castello Branco country and its

roads are mostly derived from Eliot’s _Defence of Portugal_.

Eliot has marched all over the region; see his pages 78-81.

There remains to be considered only the section of the frontier

between the Douro and the Serra da Estrella, the front on which

Masséna’s great blow was delivered in the autumn of 1810. It was

a region which had from the earliest times been the battle-ground

of the Spanish and Portuguese. Half a dozen times since the Middle

Ages armies from the plains of Leon had invaded the Beira on this

front. Such campaigns always began with a siege of Almeida, the

sentinel-fortress pushed out in front of the mountains to face the

Spanish Ciudad Rodrigo. Almeida generally fell--it is too advanced a

position for safety, and (as Dumouriez remarked in his military study

of Portugal) its value would have doubled if it had only been placed

upon the west instead of the east bank of the Coa, close to the

friendly mountains, and not on the outskirts of the perilous plain.

But rare, indeed, were the occasions on which the Spaniard succeeded

in piercing the broad belt of tangled upland beyond Almeida, and

appearing at the gates of Coimbra or Oporto.

[Illustration: CENTRAL PORTUGAL.]

There are four lines of further advance open to an invader who has

captured Almeida. The first, a march on Oporto via Pinhel and Lamego,

may be mentioned only to be dismissed from consideration. It is of

no use to an army which aims at Lisbon, and proposes to conquer

Portugal by a blow at its heart. Masséna, whose directions were to

drive the British into the sea in the shortest and most effective

fashion, could not have contemplated such a secondary object as the

capture of Oporto for a moment. There remain three other roads to be

investigated.

(1) The road north of the river Mondego, by Celorico, Vizeu, Bussaco,

and Coimbra. (2) The corresponding and parallel road south of the

Mondego, from Celorico by Chamusca, Maceira and Ponte de Murcella to

Coimbra. (3) The road which, striking south from Celorico, crosses

the headwaters of the Zezere, by Belmonte and Fundão, and then,

climbing the Serra de Moradal, descends to Castello Branco, and from

thence reaches Abrantes by the Sobreira Formosa. It may be remarked,

by the way, that nothing in all the geography of Portugal seems more

astonishing than that there should not be a fourth alternative road,

one down the long valley of the Zezere, which, running in a straight

line from Belmonte to Abrantes, looks on the map as if it ought to

be a main artery of communication, and seems to indicate the obvious

road to Lisbon from Almeida, since a straight line drawn between

these points would run along the river for some forty miles. But as a

matter of fact there was neither a first nor a second-rate road down

the Zezere: the only towns on its course, Covilhão and Belmonte, lie

hard by its sources, and its central reaches were almost uninhabited.

The only good line of communication running near it is a by-road or

duplication of the third route mentioned above, called the _Estrada

Nova_, which, leaving the upper Zezere at Belmonte, keeps high up

the side of the Serra de Moradal, and rejoins the Castello Branco

road at Sobreira Formosa. This route was much employed by Wellington

in later years, as a military road from north to south, usable even

when Castello Branco was threatened by the French. But in 1810 he

had ordered it to be rendered impassable, and this had been done by

making several long cuttings at points where the track passed along

precipices, the whole roadway being blown or shovelled down into

the gulf below[157]. The French were, of course, unaware of this,

and Masséna is said by his confidant Foy to have taken the _Estrada

Nova_ into serious consideration, and to have decided against it

because of the necessity for forcing the passage of the Zezere when

the defiles were passed, and for laying siege to Abrantes[158].

A far more practical objection was its extreme wildness: it runs

along an absolutely uninhabited mountain-side, and the neighbourhood

is destitute not only of food but of water for great sections of

its length. This Masséna ought to have known, if his Portuguese

advisers had been competent. Apparently he was wholly unaware of its

character, just as he was necessarily ignorant of the fact that his

prescient adversary had blasted away huge sections of it, so that it

was absolutely impassable for guns or wagons, as also that earthworks

had been carefully constructed to cover the point where it debouches

on to the Zezere.

[157] For the perilous adventure among these cuttings of a

small French column which crossed the Estrada Nova, that which

escorted Foy back to Santarem in Feb. 1811, see the autobiography

of General Hulot, pp. 325-33. A considerable number of men and

horses fell down these cuttings in a forced night-march, and in

all several hundred men of Foy’s column perished, starved and

storm-beaten on this inhospitable road. The survivors only got

through by cutting a slippery foot-track along the precipices:

nothing on wheels could have passed that way.

[158] In Foy’s interesting minute of his conversation with

Napoleon about the invasion, on Nov. 23, 1810, when he had taken

home Masséna’s dispatches: ‘Montrez-moi les deux routes de Ponte

de Murcella et de Castello Branco,’ says the Emperor. Then after

a pause: ‘Et l’Estrada Nova? Pourquoi Masséna n’a-t-il pas

débouché par l’Estrada Nova?’--‘Sire, à cause d’Abrantès et du

Zézère.’--‘Oui, Masséna a bien fait; maintenant il faut prendre

Abrantès: Elvas ne nous servirait de rien.’ See Foy’s _Mémoires_,

p. 111.

The Castello Branco road, therefore, with this dependent by-road,

the Estrada Nova, was practically left out of consideration by

the Marshal. There remains the choice between the two northern

routes, Celorico-Vizeu-Coimbra, and Celorico-Chamusca-Ponte de

Murcella-Coimbra. Both traverse rough ground--but ground less rough

than that to be found on some parts of the Castello Branco road.

Along both there is an intermittent belt of cultivated land, and

not unfrequent villages. Both are intersected by many good military

positions, on which a defending army can offer battle to an invader

with advantage. In especial, the northern road strikes and climbs the

granite ridge of Bussaco with every disadvantage for the attacking

side, and the southern road is contracted into a difficult defile

at the passage of the Alva near Ponte de Murcella. On the whole,

however, this last is the better line for advance:--the strongest

testimonial to the fact is that Wellington expected Masséna to take

it, and erected at the passage of the Alva almost[159] the only

earthworks, save those of the lines of Torres Vedras, which he

constructed in his preparations for the reception of the invader.

When he first heard that the Marshal was moving forward from

Almeida to Celorico, and was clearly aiming at the Mondego valley,

he announced that he should endeavour to stop the invader on the

Alva[160], not apparently thinking it at all probable that Masséna

would move by Vizeu and the north bank of the Mondego. On realizing

that this was really his adversary’s design, he observed with some

exultation that, while there were certainly many bad roads in

Portugal, the enemy had taken decidedly the worst of those open to

him[161]; moreover, he had committed himself to attack the heights

of Bussaco, the most formidable position in the whole of northern

Portugal. How the French commander came to make this choice we shall

discuss in its proper place. Suffice it to say that Wellington had

not realized how bad was Masséna’s information, how worthless his

maps, and--what is most surprising of all--how entirely destitute of

local knowledge were the Portuguese traitors--Alorna, Pamplona, and

the other renegade officers--whom the Emperor had sent as guides and

advisers to the Marshal. And in truth, the unsuspected ignorance of

Masséna and his advisers added an incalculable element of chance to

the problem set before Wellington. He was obliged to make his plans

on the hypothesis that the enemy would make the correct move: and not

unfrequently the enemy, for reasons which the English general could

not possibly foresee, made the wrong one.

[159] There were some others thrown up on the extreme lower

course of the Zezere, by Barca Nova and Punhete, to guard against

a possible but unlikely use of the Castello Branco road by the

enemy.

[160] Wellington to Hill (_Disp._, vi. p. 441), Sept. 15.

[161] Wellington to Chas. Stuart, Sept. 18.

The French invasion was bound to commence with a preliminary

clearance of the outlying fortresses still in the hands of the

Spaniards. These to some extent protected the Portuguese frontier

in 1810, though they had been built with the express purpose, not

of protecting, but of threatening it, and had never before been

attacked by an enemy coming from the east. Only three of these

fortresses were of any importance--Astorga, Ciudad Rodrigo, and

Badajoz. The other strongholds of Spanish Estremadura, Alcantara

(which had stood a siege in the War of the Spanish Succession),

Albuquerque, Olivenza, were either not in a state of defence at all,

or were hopelessly antiquated, and little suited to face modern

artillery and modern siegecraft.

Astorga lies so far to the north that it might have been neglected

without much peril to the French scheme of invasion. But the Emperor

had ordered that it should be reduced before the great enterprise

began: it gave the Spanish army of Galicia a foothold in the plains

of Leon, from which it might operate against Masséna’s rear, if he

should pass it by. Its capture, too, was considered a matter of

small difficulty, for it was but a mediaeval walled town, to which

some hasty outworks had been added during the last year. It will be

remembered that when Moore passed that way in January 1809, Astorga

had been treated by both sides as an open town, and no attempt had

been made to garrison or defend it. Since then La Romana had repaired

its dilapidated enceinte, stockaded its suburbs, and armed it with

guns brought from Ferrol. As late as January 11, 1810, Napoleon

seems hardly aware of this fact: in a dispatch of that date he

orders Loison to make his head quarters there, evidently under the

impression that it is not held by the Spaniards, or at least that

it is a place which they will evacuate at the first appearance of a

serious attack[162]. It is only in March that he writes to Junot that

Astorga must be besieged and taken, in order to occupy the attention

of the Galicians and to thrust them back into their mountains[163].

[162] _Nap. Corresp._, xx. p. 117. Napoleon to Berthier.

[163] Ibid., p. 271.

Ciudad Rodrigo was a more serious business. It was a regular

fortress, though only one of the second class; its prestige, as the

only Spanish stronghold on the Portuguese frontier, was great. It

commands the whole southern stretch of the plains of Leon, being

the only place out of the control of an invader who is superior in

cavalry, and therefore master of the defenceless _Tierra de Campos_.

There was also a small Spanish army depending upon it, and clinging

to the skirts of the Sierra de Gata. This was the division of Martin

de la Carrera, which had been left behind when the greater part

of Del Parque’s Army of the Left marched down into Estremadura in

January 1810, in order to replace there the troops which had gone

off to the defence of Cadiz. It was clear that Ciudad Rodrigo must

be taken, and Martin de la Carrera brushed away or destroyed, before

any serious attempt to invade Portugal was begun. If the Emperor

thought that such a remote place as Astorga was worth his notice,

it was obvious that he would regard Ciudad Rodrigo as absolutely

indispensable to his designs. It was for its reduction that he gave

Masséna the great battering train of fifty heavy guns, with 2,500

artillerymen and sappers, which was assigned to him, independent of

the artillery of the three corps of the Army of Portugal.