[Sidenote: 1706.]
From Flanders it is necessary to return to the Peninsula, where
we left Peterborough bewailing his enforced inaction. Nothing is
more remarkable in the story of these Peninsular campaigns than the
utter want of unity in design between the forces of the Allies in
Catalonia and in Portugal. Even in England the British troops in
these two quarters were treated, for purposes of administration,
as two distinct establishments, which might have been divided
by the whole breadth of the Atlantic instead of by twice the
breadth of England. Yet the fault could hardly be attributed to
any English functionary, civil or military. Galway was as anxious
as Peterborough to advance to Madrid; but the Portuguese were
terrified at the prospect of moving far from their frontier, while
the eyes of King Charles ever rested anxiously on the passes by
which French reinforcements might advance into Catalonia. In such
circumstances it was not easy to accomplish an effective campaign.
[Sidenote:
Dec. 26, 1705.
--------------
Jan. 6, 1706.
]
The Spaniards of the Austrian party, as has been told, had by the
winter of 1705 gained a precarious hold on the whole province of
Valencia. Just before the close of the year came intelligence
that the Spanish General de las Torres had crossed the northern
frontier from Arragon into Valencia and had laid siege to San
Mateo. The town was important, inasmuch as it commanded the
communications between Catalonia and Valencia, but it was held
by no stronger garrison than thirty of the Royal Dragoons and a
thousand Spanish irregular infantry under Colonel Jones. This
officer defended himself as well as he could, but at once begged
urgently for reinforcements. King Charles thereupon appealed for
help to Peterborough, who forthwith ordered General Killigrew to
march with his garrison from Tortosa and cross the Ebro, while he
himself, riding night and day from Barcelona, caught up the column
at the close of the first day's march. King Charles had represented
the force of Las Torres as but two thousand strong, and had added
that thousands of peasants were up in arms against it. Peterborough
now discovered that the Spaniards numbered four thousand foot and
three thousand horse, while the thousands of armed peasantry were
wholly imaginary. His own force consisted of three weak British
battalions, the Thirteenth, Thirty-fifth, and Mountjoy's Foot,
together with one hundred and seventy of the Royal Dragoons, in all
thirteen hundred men. With such a handful his only hope of success
must lie in stratagem.
[Sidenote:
Dec. 28, 1705.
--------------
Jan. 8, 1706.
]
Advancing southward with all speed he split up his minute army
into a number of small detachments, and pushing them forward
by different routes arrived early in the morning, unseen and
unsuspected, at Traguera, within six miles of the enemy's camp.
That same day a spy was captured by the enemy and brought before
Las Torres. On him was found a letter from Peterborough to
Colonel Jones, written in the frankest and easiest style. "I am
at Traguera," so it ran in effect, "with six thousand men and
artillery. You may wonder how I collected them; but for transport
and secrecy nothing equals the sea. Now, be ready to pursue Las
Torres over the plain. It is his only line of retreat, for I have
occupied all the passes over the hills. You will see us on the
hill-tops between nine and ten. Prove yourself a true dragoon, and
have your miquelets (irregulars) ready for their favourite plunder
and chase." The spy, being threatened with death, offered to betray
another messenger of Peterborough's who was lying concealed in
the hills. This second spy was captured, and a duplicate of the
same letter was found on him. The pair of them were questioned,
when the first protested that he knew nothing of the strength of
Peterborough's force, while the other declared that the despatch
spoke truth. Suddenly came intelligence from the Spanish outposts
that the enemy was advancing in force in several columns, and
presently the red-coats appeared at different points on the
hill-tops, making a brave show against the sky. Las Torres became
uneasy. His depression was increased by the accidental explosion
of one of his own mines before San Mateo; and he hastily ordered
an immediate retreat. Whereupon out came Jones with his garrison,
and turned the retreat into something greatly resembling a flight;
while Peterborough with his thirteen hundred men walked quietly
into San Mateo and took possession of the whole of the enemy's
camp and material of war. The trick, for the whole incident of
the captured spies had been carefully preconcerted, had proved a
brilliant success.
Las Torres, though disagreeably shaken, was recovering his
equanimity when, on the second day of the retreat, a friendly spy
came to warn him that an English force was marching parallel to his
left flank, was already in advance of him, and was likely to cut
off his retreat by seizing the passes into the plain of Valencia.
The warning was scouted as ridiculous, but the spy offered, if two
or three officers would accompany him, to prove that he was right.
Two officers, disguised as peasants, were accordingly guided to
a point already indicated by the spy, where they were promptly
captured by a picquet of ten of the Royal Dragoons. The spy,
however, undertook to produce liquor, the dragoons succumbed or
seemed to succumb to their national failing, and the three captives
slipped out, took three of the dragoons' horses and galloped back
with all speed to Las Torres to confirm the spy's story. Their
escape did not prompt them to make the least of their adventure;
the housings of the horses testified incontestably to the actual
presence of English dragoons; and Las Torres broke up his camp on
the spot and hurried away once more. Once again the tricks of the
eccentric Englishman had been successful; for the friendly spy was
in reality a Spanish officer in his own army; and though there were
undoubtedly ten English dragoons, who had been specially sent for
the purpose, in advance of Las Torres at that particular moment,
yet there were no more English within twenty miles of them.
[Sidenote:
1
Jan. --.
12
]
Las Torres was still retreating southward by the coast-road, and
Peterborough was making a show of pursuit by marching wide on his
right flank, when a pressing message reached him from King Charles.
A French force of eight thousand men was advancing into Catalonia
from Roussillon; a second force of four or five thousand men under
Count Tserclaes de Tilly was threatening Lerida, and a third
under Marshal Tessé was marching through Arragon upon Tortosa.
Seeing that the King was urgent for help in Catalonia, but intent
on pursuing his own design in Valencia, Peterborough resolved
to send his infantry to the coast at Vinaroz, to be transported
if necessary by sea. The men, though ragged, shoeless, and much
distressed by long marches through the wintry days, left him very
unwillingly. Then summoning the garrison of Lerida[340] and a
reinforcement of Spaniards to follow him to Valencia, Peterborough
resumed the pursuit of Las Torres with one hundred and fifty
dragoons.
[Sidenote: January.]
He was too late to save Villa Real, which Las Torres took by
treachery, and having taken massacred the entire male population;
but while always concealing his own weakness he contrived by
incessant harassing of the enemy's rear to inflict considerable
loss and annoyance. Thus in due time he reached Nules, three
days' march from the city of Valencia, a town of considerable
strength, where Las Torres had left arms sufficient to equip a
thousand of the townsmen. Peterborough marched straight up to
the gate with his handful of dragoons. The townspeople manned the
walls and opened fire, but were speedily checked by a message
from Peterborough, bidding them send out a priest or a magistrate
instantly on pain of having their walls battered down and every
soul put to the sword, in revenge for Villa Real. Some priests who
knew him at once came out to him. "I give you six minutes," said
Peterborough to the trembling cassocks. "Open your gates or I spare
not a soul of you." The gates were quickly opened, and the General,
riding in at the head of his tattered dragoons, demanded immediate
provision of rations and forage for several thousand men.
The news soon reached Las Torres, who was little more than an hour
ahead, and for the third time his unfortunate army was hurried
out of camp and condemned to a weary retreat from an imaginary
enemy. Peterborough, however, after taking two hundred horses
from Nules, left the town to ponder over its fright and retired
to Castallon de la Plana. Having there raised yet another hundred
horses he ordered the Thirteenth Foot to march from Vinaroz to
Oropesa and went thither himself to inspect them. The men marched
in but four hundred strong, with red coats ragged and rusty,
yellow facings in tatters, yellow breeches faded and torn, shoes
and stockings in holes or more often altogether wanting. "I wish,"
said Peterborough when the inspection was over, "that I had horses
and accoutrements for you, to try if you would keep up your good
reputation as dragoons." The men doubtless glanced at their sore
and unshod feet, and silently agreed. Presently they were marched
up to the brow of a neighbouring hill, where to their amazement
they found four hundred horses awaiting them, all fully equipped.
The officers received commissions according to their rank in the
mounted service, two or three only being detached to raise a new
battalion in England; and thus within an hour Barrymore's Foot
became Pearce's Dragoons.
[Sidenote: January.]
[Sidenote:
January 24
----------
February 4.
]
Peterborough now called in such additional weak battalions of
British as he could, and having collected a total force of three
thousand men, one-third of it mounted, prepared to outwit a new
general, the Duke of Los Arcos, who had superseded Las Torres. The
relief of Valencia was Peterborough's first object, but to effect
this he had first to gain possession of Murviedro, which lay on his
road and was occupied by the enemy, and that, too, in such a way
that Los Arcos should not move out against him in the open plain
and crush him by superior numbers. It was a difficult problem,
and it was only solved by a trick too elaborate and lengthy to be
detailed here. The plan was very clever, so clever as almost to
transcend the bounds of what is fair in war, but it was completely
successful; and on the 4th of February Peterborough marched into
Valencia without firing a shot.
[Sidenote:
March 23
--------
April 3.
]
[Sidenote: April.]
[Sidenote:
April 30
--------
May 11.
]
He now cultivated the friendship of the priests and something more
than the friendship of the ladies of Valencia, thereby combining
pleasure with business and obtaining the best of information.
Las Torres, who had once more superseded Los Arcos, presently
appeared on the scene again, bringing four thousand men by land
and a powerful siege-train by sea for the reduction of the city.
Peterborough pounced upon the train directly after it had been
landed and captured the whole of it; then sending twelve hundred
men against the four thousand he surprised them, routed them, and
took six hundred prisoners. But the pleasant and exciting life at
Valencia was interrupted by an urgent summons to assist in the
defence of Barcelona. King Lewis, at the entreaty of his grandson
Philip, had resolved to make a great effort to recover it; and
thus it was that at the beginning of April Marshal Tessé appeared
before the city with twenty-five thousand men, and three days later
began the siege in form. The garrison consisted of less than four
thousand regular troops, the backbone of which were eleven hundred
British of the Guards and the Thirty-fourth Foot. Weak as it was
this little force made a gallant resistance, but the odds were
too great against it, and but for the arrival of Peterborough it
could not have held out for more than a fortnight. Even after his
coming it was well-nigh overpowered; for of the three thousand
troops that he brought with him the most part were employed chiefly
in harassing Tessé's communications from the rear. The siege was
finally raised on the advent of a relieving squadron under Admiral
Leake, which so much discouraged Tessé that he abandoned the whole
of his siege-train and retired once more over the French frontier.
Nothing now remained but to take advantage of this piece of good
fortune. Peterborough had always favoured a dash on Madrid, and had
twice urged this course upon King Charles in vain. He now pressed
it for a third time with success, and presently sailed for Valencia
with eleven thousand men. With immense trouble he procured horses
and accoutrements to convert some of his infantry into dragoons,
and then pushing forward a detached force of English he succeeded
by the beginning of July in capturing Requena and Cuença and
opening the road for King Charles to Madrid.
[Sidenote:
20
March --.
31
]
[Sidenote:
May 27
-------
June 7.
]
[Sidenote:
16
June --.
27
]
Meanwhile, after enormous delay, the English and Portuguese had
actually begun operations from the side of Portugal against Marshal
Berwick. On the 31st of March Lord Galway and General das Minas
left Elvas with nineteen thousand men[341] and advanced slowly
northward, forcing back Berwick, whose army was much inferior in
number, continually before them. Alcantara, Plasencia, and Ciudad
Rodrigo yielded to them after slight resistance; and by the 7th
of June the Allied army had reached Salamanca, a country which
two regiments, the Second and the Ninth, were to know better a
century later. Then turning east it marched straight upon Madrid
and entered the city on the 27th of June. So far all was well. The
advance from Portugal had been singularly slow, but the capital
had been reached. King Philip had retired to Burgos, and King
Charles had been proclaimed in Madrid. The object of the War of the
Succession seemed to have been fulfilled in Spain.
[Sidenote:
4
July --.
15
]
[Sidenote:
7
July --.
18
]
[Sidenote:
July 26
---------
August 6.
]
At this juncture, however, the operations for no particular
reason came to an end. Galway, without a thought apparently of
following up Berwick, halted for a fortnight in Madrid, where the
Portuguese troops behaved disgracefully, and then moving a short
distance north-eastward took up a strong position at Guadalaxara.
King Charles after immense delay suddenly altered the route which
Peterborough had marked out for him and insisted on marching to
Madrid through Arragon, even so not reaching Saragossa till the
18th of July. Meanwhile the whole of the country through which
Galway had marched rose in revolt against the House of Austria.
Berwick, reinforced from France to twice the strength of Galway,
cut him off from Madrid, and reproclaimed King Philip; and when
Charles and Peterborough with three thousand men at last joined
Galway on the 6th of August, the Archduke found that he must
prepare not for triumphant entry into Madrid, but for what promised
to be a difficult and perilous retreat.
[Sidenote:
17
Sept. --.
28
]
Peterborough was for a sudden spring at Alcala and so on Madrid,
but being over-ruled retired to Italy to raise a loan for the army.
Galway, whose army had been so much reduced by sickness as to
number, with Peterborough's reinforcement, but fourteen thousand
men, still lingered close to Madrid for nearly a month in the vain
hope of seeing the tide turn in his favour. Finally, being cut
off from his base in Portugal, he marched for Valencia and the
British fleet, Berwick troubling him no further than by occasional
harassing of his rearguard. On crossing the Valencian frontier he
distributed his force into winter quarters; an example which, after
the reduction of Carthagena and of sundry small strongholds, was
imitated by Berwick at the end of November.
So closed the year 1706, memorable for two of the most brilliant,
even if in some respects disappointing, campaigns ever fought
simultaneously by two British generals.
[Sidenote: 1707.]
Unexpected reinforcements from Britain came opportunely to revive
the hopes of the Archduke Charles at the opening of the new
year. It will be remembered that in the summer of 1706 a project
for a descent on the Charente had been matured in England, for
which Marlborough had detached certain of his battalions after
Ramillies. The plan being considered doubtful of success, the
destination of the expedition was altered to Cadiz. A storm in
the Bay of Biscay, however, dispersed the fleet, which was only
reassembled at Lisbon after very great delay, and after waiting in
that port for two months was directed to place its force at the
disposal of Galway.[342] In December 1706 Peterborough returned
from Italy to Valencia to attend the councils of war respecting
the next campaign. The general outlook in the Peninsula was not
promising. Marlborough indeed opined that nothing could save Spain
but an offensive movement against France from the side of Italy,
and Peterborough, adopting the same view, strongly advocated
a defensive campaign. He was overruled, and since his endless
squabbles with his colleagues and his military conduct in general
had been called in question in England, he was shortly after
relieved of his command and returned to England.
[Sidenote: March.]
[Sidenote:
March 30
--------
April 10.
]
[Sidenote: April.]
After his departure the Archduke Charles and the English commanders
fell at variance over their alternative plans, with the result
that Charles withdrew with the whole of the Spanish troops to
Catalonia. Galway and Das Minas then decided first to destroy
Berwick's magazines in Murcia, and this done to march up the
Guadalaviar, turn the head-waters of the Tagus, and so move on to
Madrid. Though the reinforcements had reached the Valencian coast
in January it was not until the 10th of April that Galway crossed
the Murcian frontier and after destroying one or two magazines laid
siege to Villena. While thus engaged he heard that Berwick having
collected his army was advancing towards Almanza, some five and
twenty miles to the north-east, and that the Duke of Orleans was
on his way to join him with reinforcements. Thereupon Galway and
Das Minas resolved to advance and fight him at once, apparently
without taking pains to ascertain what the numbers of his army
might actually be. Berwick had with him twenty-five thousand men,
half French, half Spanish, besides a good train of artillery.
Galway, owing to the frightful mortality on board the newly-arrived
transports, had but fifteen thousand, of which a bare third were
British, half were Portuguese, and the remainder Dutch, German,
and Huguenot. Considering how poorly the Portuguese had behaved on
every occasion so far, the result of an open attack against such
odds could hardly be doubtful.
[Sidenote:
14
April --.
25
]
Berwick on his side drew up his army in the usual two lines on a
plain to the south of Almanza, his right resting on rising ground
towards Montalegre, his left on a height overlooking the road to
Valencia, while his right centre was covered by a ravine which
gradually lost itself on level ground towards his extreme right
flank. The force was formed according to rule with infantry in the
centre and cavalry on each flank, the Spaniards taking the right
and the French the left. At midday, after a march of eight miles,
Galway approached to within a mile of the position, and formed his
line of battle according to the prescribed methods. The Portuguese,
with poor justice, claimed the post of honour on the right wing,
so that the British and Dutch took the left, though with several
Portuguese squadrons among them in the second line. But finding
himself weak in cavalry Galway made good the deficiency, after the
manner of Gustavus Adolphus, by interpolating battalions of foot
among his horse.[343]
At three o'clock in the afternoon Galway opened the attack without
preliminary fire of artillery by leading an advance of the horse
on his left wing. He was driven back at first by sheer weight of
numbers; but the Sixth and Thirty-third Foot, which were among
the interpolated battalions, came up, and by opening fire on the
left flank of the Spanish horse gave the English squadrons time
to rally and by an effective charge to drive the Spaniards back
in confusion. Meanwhile, the rest of the English foot on the
left centre fell, heedless of numbers, straight upon the hostile
infantry and drove them back in confusion upon their second line.
The Guards and the Second Foot following up their success broke
through the second line also and pursued the scattered fugitives to
the very walls of Almanza. So far as the Allied left was concerned
the battle was going well.
But meanwhile the Portuguese on the right remained motionless;
and Berwick lost no time in launching his left wing of horse upon
them. Then the first line of Portuguese horse turned and ran, the
second line also turned and ran, and the first line of infantry
was left to bear the brunt alone. For a time the battalions stood
up gallantly enough, but the odds were too great, and they were
presently overwhelmed and utterly dispersed. Then Berwick brought
up his French, both horse and foot, against the victorious British
on his right. The British cavalry had suffered heavily in the first
attack, all four regiments having lost their commanding officers,
and in spite of all their efforts they were borne back and swept
away by the numbers of the French squadrons. The infantry,
surrounded on all sides, fought desperately and repeatedly repulsed
the enemy's onset, but being overpowered by numbers, were nearly
all of them, English, Dutch, and Germans, cut down or captured.
By great exertions Galway, who was himself wounded, brought off
some remnant of them in good order and retreated unpursued to
Ontiniente, some twenty miles distant. The guns also were saved;
but a party of two thousand infantry which had been brought off the
field by General Shrimpton was surrounded on the following day and
compelled to lay down its arms.
In this action, which lasted about two hours, Galway lost about
four thousand killed and wounded and three thousand prisoners. The
British alone lost eighty-eight officers killed, and two hundred
and eighty-six captured, of whom ninety-two were wounded. The
Sixth regiment had but two officers unhurt out of twenty-three,
the Ninth but one out of twenty-six, and other regiments[344]
suffered hardly less severely. The simple fact was that, as the
bulk of the Portuguese would not fight, the action resolved itself
into an attack of eight thousand British, Dutch, and Germans upon
thrice their number of French and Spaniards, in an open plain; and
the defeat, though decisive, was in no sense disgraceful except
to the Portuguese. The most singular circumstance in this fatal
day was that the French were commanded by an Englishman, Berwick,
and the English by a Frenchman, the gallant but luckless Ruvigny.
The battle of course put an end to further operations on the side
of the Allies. Galway, with such troops as he could collect,
retired to the Catalonian frontier, and set himself to reorganise
a force to defend the lines of the Segre and Ebro, while Berwick
methodically pursued the reduction of Valencia and in December
retired, according to rule, into winter quarters. So swiftly did
disaster follow on the first brilliant successes in the Peninsula.
Since we shall not again see Peterborough in the field this chapter
should not be closed without a few sentences as to his peculiar
methods. These were outwardly simple enough. Good information to
discover his enemy's weak points, deception to put him off his
guard, the deepest secrecy lest that enemy should grow suspicious,
most careful thinking out of details so that every unit of an
insignificant force should know its duty precisely and do it,
exact divination of the probable results of each successive step,
and extreme suddenness and rapidity in execution; such were, so
far as they can be set down, the secrets of his success. In a
word, his was the principle of making war by moral rather than by
physical force, by scaring men into the delusion that they were
beaten rather than by actually beating them. It is a difficult
art, of which the highest exponent was produced by the Navy a
century later in the person of Lord Dundonald; and it is curious
to note that both men were troubled by exactly the same defects.
Peterborough was difficult, cantankerous, quarrelsome and eaten
up by exaggerated appreciation of self. His letters were so
interminably long and tedious, containing indeed little besides
abuse of his colleagues, that they exhausted the patience even of
Marlborough. In fact, it seems to be impossible for this type of
man to work harmoniously with his equals, however he may be adored
by his subordinates. The Duke of Wellington summed up Peterborough
as a brilliant partisan, but his contemporaries thought more
highly of him. Eugene declared that he thought like a general,
and Marlborough himself acknowledged that he had predicted the
ill consequences of the operations which, contrary to his advice,
were undertaken in Spain. But whatever his merit as a general
and a leader, he, like all of his kind, is a man of whom we take
leave without regret, turning gladly from the fitful, if dazzling
flashes of his eccentric genius, to the steady glowing light which
illuminates every action of the great Duke of Marlborough.
AUTHORITIES.--It is well known that the exploits of Peterborough
rest principally on Carleton's _Memoirs_, and that the authority
of these _Memoirs_ is disputed. Colonel Frank Russell in his
_Life of Peterborough_ of course makes him a hero, Colonel
Arthur Parnell in his _War of the Succession in Spain_ refuses
to allow him any merit. Mr. Stebbing in his _Peterborough_ (Men
of Action Series) treats the controversy with strong good sense,
and I have not hesitated to follow his view. I must none the
less acknowledge my obligations to all three of these writers,
and particularly to Colonel Parnell, who has gone deeply into
the history of the war, taken immense pains to ascertain which
British regiments were engaged at every action, and has furnished
a most copious list of authorities. The _Mémoires de Berwick_ are
most trustworthy on the French side, and the _Richards Papers_
(Stowe Coll. B.M.), as Colonel Parnell says, most important.