to see Verdier launch his whole available infantry force upon the
shattered western and southern fronts of the city. The assault was
made under much more favourable conditions than that of June 16, since
the strength of the storming columns was more than doubled, and the
defences had been terribly mishandled by the bombardment. On the other
hand the garrison was in no degree shaken in spirit: the fire of the
last twenty-four hours had been much more dangerous to buildings than
to men, and the results of the first assault had given the defenders
a confidence which they had not felt on the previous occasion. Hence
it came to pass that of the six columns of assault not one succeeded
in making a permanent lodgement within the walls. Even the isolated
castle of Aljafferia and the convent of San José, just outside the
Porta Quemada, were finally left in the hands of the besieged, though
the latter was for some hours held by the French. The hardest fighting
was at the Portillo gate, where the assaulting battalions more than
once reached the dilapidated earthwork that covered the ingress to the
north-western part of the city. It was here that there occurred the
well-known incident of the ‘Maid of Saragossa.’ The gunners at the
small battery in the gate had been shot down one after another by the
musketry of the assailants, the final survivors falling even before
they could discharge the last gun that they had loaded. The infantry
supports were flinching and the French were closing in, when a young
woman named Agostina Zaragoza, whose lover (an artillery sergeant) had
just fallen, rushed forward, snatched the lighted match from his dying
hand, and fired the undischarged twenty-four-pounder into the head of
the storming column[123]. The enemy was shaken by a charge of grape
delivered at ten paces, the citizens, shamed by Agostina’s example,
rushed back to reoccupy the battery, and the assault was beaten off.
Palafox states that the incident occurred before his own eyes: he gave
the girl a commission as sub-lieutenant of artillery, and a warrant for
a life-pension: she was seen a year later by several English witnesses,
serving with her battery in Andalusia[124].
[123] Sir Charles Vaughan was introduced to the heroine by
Palafox while he was staying in Saragossa in October. He
describes her as ‘a handsome young woman of the lower class,’ and
says that when he met her she was wearing on her sleeve a small
shield of honour with the name ‘Zaragoza’ inscribed on it. The
fact that the dead sergeant was her lover is given by Palafox
in his short narrative of the siege, which ought to be a good
authority enough.
[124] Napier, with all his prejudice against the Spaniards, does
not venture to absolutely reject the story. ‘Romantic tales
of women rallying the troops and leading them forward at the
most dangerous period of the siege were current; their truth
may be doubted. Yet when suddenly environed with horrors, the
sensitiveness of women, driving them to a kind of frenzy, might
have produced actions above the heroism of men’ (i. 45). W.
Jacob, M.P., in his _Travels in the South of Spain in 1809-10_
(p. 123), says that he met Agostina at Seville, wearing a blue
artillery tunic, with one epaulette, over a short skirt; she was
present when Lord Wellesley entered Seville, and was welcomed by
the Junta.
The fruitless attack of July 2 cost the French 200 killed and 300
wounded. The Saragossan garrison lost somewhat less, in spite of
the bombardment, since they had been fighting under cover against
enemies who had to expose themselves whenever they got near the wall.
Verdier resolved for the future to shun attempts at escalade, and to
begin a regular siege. He commenced on the third of July to construct
parallels, for a main attack on the southern side of the place, and
a secondary attack on the north-western. He also threw a detachment
across the Ebro [July 11], to close the hitherto undisturbed access to
the city through the suburb of San Lazaro and the stone bridge. The
force which could be spared for this object from an army of no more
than 12,000 or 13,000 men was not really sufficient to hold the left
bank of the Ebro, and merely made ingress and egress difficult without
entirely preventing it. On two or three occasions when considerable
bodies of Spaniards presented themselves, the French could do no more
than skirmish with them and try to cut off the convoys which they were
bringing to the city. They could not exclude them, and for the whole
remainder of the siege the communications of the Saragossans with the
open country were never entirely closed[125].
[125] Foy exaggerates considerably when he says that from July
12 onward ‘the blockade of Saragossa was complete’ (iii. 300).
Reinforcements entered on several subsequent occasions.
By July 15, Verdier’s trenches were commencing to work up close
to the walls, and the next ten days of the month were occupied in
desperate struggles for the convents of San José, of the Capuchins and
Trinitarians, which lie outside the city near the Carmen and Porta
Quemada gates. By the twenty-fourth the French had occupied them,
connected them with their approaches, and begun to establish in them
breaching batteries. Another, but less powerful, attack was directed
against the Portillo gate. The mortars and howitzers bombarded the
city continuously from the first to the third. But it was not till the
dawn of August 4 that the heavy guns were ready to begin their task of
battering down the gates and walls of Saragossa. After five hours of
steady firing the Spanish batteries were silenced, and several breaches
had been made, mostly in or about the Convent of Santa Engracia, at the
southernmost point of the city. The streets behind it had been terribly
shattered by the previous bombardment, and many buildings destroyed,
notably the central hospital, from which the Spaniards had to remove,
under a terrible hail of shells, more than 500 sick and wounded, as
well as a number of lunatics and idiots: the institution had been used
as an asylum before the outbreak of the war. Many of these unfortunate
creatures were destroyed by the besiegers’ fire[126], as were also no
small number of the wounded and of their doctors and nurses.
[126] Caballero and Toreño put the distressing scenes at the
hospital and the escape of the lunatics during the assault on the
4th, but Arteche seems more correct in placing them during the
bombardment of the preceding day.
Palafox and his brother the marquis remained near Santa Engracia,
trying to encourage their followers to repair the barricades behind
the breaches, and to loophole and strengthen those of the houses
which still stood firm. But amid the dreadful and unceasing storm
of projectiles it was hard to keep the men together, and most of
the projected retrenchments were battered down before they could be
finished. At two o’clock in the afternoon of the fourth, Verdier let
loose his storming columns, composed of four Polish and nine French
battalions[127]. They were directed in three bodies against three
separate breaches, the easternmost in the Convent of Santa Engracia,
the second at the gate of the same name, the third more to the left,
in the wall near the gate of the Carmen. All three were successful
in forcing their way into the city: the defences had been completely
shattered, and at one point 300 continuous yards of the outer wall had
fallen. The Spaniards clung for some time to the cloisters and church
of Santa Engracia, but were at last expelled or exterminated, and 1,000
yards of the _enceinte_ with the adjoining buildings were in the hands
of the French.
[127] I find in the _Vaughan Papers_ the following note: ‘General
Lefebvre-Desnouettes was residing at Cheltenham on parole,
having been taken prisoner at Benavente by Lord Paget. I went to
Cheltenham on May 27, 1809, for the express purpose of seeing
the general. He told me that he had advanced at first with no
more than 3,000 men, but that after General Verdier joined him,
the French force employed against Saragossa was 15,000 men. I
understood that in the attack of July 2 and the previous fighting
they lost 2,000 men, and that their total loss in the whole siege
was 4,000, including three generals wounded.’ _Nap. Corresp._
(xvii. 389, 426) calls the whole force before Saragossa on August
2, 17,300 men. But there seems to have been present in all only--
(1) Lefebvre-Desnouettes’ column:
{ 2nd of the Vistula (1st and 2nd batts.) 1376
Brigade { 70th of the line (3rd batt.) 379
Grandjean { 4th _bataillon de marche_ 581
{ 6th ditto 655 = 2991
{ 1st of the Vistula (1st and 2nd batts.) 1243
Brigade { 1st supplementary regiment of the Legions
Habert { of Reserve (1st and 2nd batts.) 1030
{ 47th of the line (3rd batt.) 420
{ 15th ditto (4th batt.) 411 = 3104
{ Regiment of Polish Lancers 717
Cavalry { 5th _escadron de marche_ 217 = 934
(2) Division of Gomez Freire:
14th Provisional Regiment (1st, 2nd, and
3rd batts.) 1173
7th _bataillon de marche_ 334
5th Portuguese infantry 265
Portuguese Cazadores 288 = 2060
(3) Column of Colonel Piré (arrived June 29):
3rd of the Vistula (1st and 2nd batts.) 1332
National Guards _d’élite_ (two batts.) 971
3rd, 8th, and 9th _escadrons de marche_ 275 = 2578
(4) Bazancourt’s Brigade (arrived August 1):
14th of the line (1st and 2nd batts.) 1488
44th ditto (1st and 2nd batts.) 1614
11th _escadron de marche_ 205 = 3307
(5) Artillery and train 561 = 561
------
Total 15,535
These are mainly Belmas’s figures. He mentions a battalion of
the 16th of the line as present at the great assault. There
must be some error here, as that regiment was not in Spain. It
is probably a misprint for the 70th of the line, which is not
mentioned by him as present, though it certainly was so.
It was at this moment, apparently, that Verdier sent in a
_parlementaire_ with the laconic note--‘Head Quarters, Santa Engracia.
Capitulation?’ To which Palafox returned the well-known reply--‘Head
Quarters, Saragossa. War to the knife[128].’
[128] The story sounds theatrical, but is vouched for by good
authorities, Vaughan and Palafox himself, who chose the words
for the type of the reverse of the medal that was issued to the
defenders of Saragossa (see Arteche, ii. 394).
All through the afternoon of the fourth of August, the French slowly
pushed their way up the streets which lead northward towards the
Coso, the main thoroughfare of Saragossa. They could only get forward
by storming each house, and turning each barricade that offered
resistance, so that their progress was very slow. While inflicting
terrible losses on the Spaniards, they were also suffering very heavily
themselves. But they drove a broad wedge into the city, till finally
they reached and crossed the Coso, halfway between the southern wall
and the river. In the streets beyond the Coso their impetus seemed to
have exhausted itself: many of the men were too tired to press forward
any longer; others turned aside to plunder the churches and the better
sort of houses[129]. Verdier tried to cut his way to the great bridge,
so as to divide the defenders into two separate bodies, and was so far
successful that many of the Spaniards began to troop off across the
river into the suburb of San Lazaro. But he himself was wounded, his
main column lost its way in the narrow side-streets, and the attack
died down.
[129] Napier maintains (i. 45) that the city was saved only
because the French fell to pillaging, a contention which seems
very unjust to the Saragossans.
In the late afternoon there was almost a suspension of hostilities, and
the firing slackened for a space. But at last the Aragonese, encouraged
by the exhaustion of their enemies, began to resume the offensive.
The fugitives who had crossed to the northern side of the Ebro were
hustled together and driven back by their leaders, while a loaded gun
was placed on the bridge to prevent their return. The garrison of
the eastern front, which had not been seriously attacked, sent all
the reinforcements that it could spare into the centre of the town.
At dusk masses of Spaniards debouched from the neighbourhood of the
two cathedrals, and began to assail the positions held by the French
beyond the line of the Coso. The first charge into the open street is
recorded to have been led by a monk[130] and sixteen peasants, every
one of whom were killed or wounded; but endless reinforcements poured
out of every lane, and the exhausted French began to lose ground.
The fighting was of that deadly sort in which the question has to be
settled, whether the defenders of the houses in a street can shoot down
their assailants, exposed in the roadway, before the latter can burst
into each separate dwelling and exterminate its garrison in detail.
Often the French held the upper stories long after the Spaniards had
seized the ground floor, and the staircases had to be stormed one after
the other. It was natural that in such struggles the defenders should
receive no quarter. Though the fight raged with many variations of
fortune in all the central parts of the city, there was after a time
no doubt that the Aragonese were gaining ground. The French detachments
which had penetrated furthest into the place were gradually cut off and
exterminated; the main bodies of the columns drew back and strengthened
themselves in two large stone buildings, the convents of San Francisco
and San Diego. At nightfall they retained only a wedge-like section of
the city, whose apex near San Francisco just touched the southern side
of the Coso, while its base was formed by the line of wall between the
gates of Santa Engracia and the Carmen.
[130] Perhaps his name, Fray Ignacio de Santaromana, deserves as
much remembrance as that of Agostina. His conduct in a critical
moment was just as inspiring and told as much as hers (see
Arteche, ii. 406).
The French had lost nearly 2,000 men in the struggle: the engineer
Belmas gives the total as 462 killed and 1,505 wounded[131], more than
a fifth of the troops which had actually been engaged in the assault.
Among the Saragossans, who before the street-fighting began had been
subjected to a severe bombardment for many hours, the casualties must
have been nearly as great. But they could spare combatants more easily
than their enemies: indeed they had more men than muskets, and as each
defender fell there was a rush of the unarmed to get possession of his
weapon.
[131] Arteche accuses Belmas of giving only 505 wounded,
remarking that Verdier stated the higher number of 900. But my
edition of Belmas (Paris, 1836) distinctly says ‘quinze cent
cinq blessés’ (ii. 64). Napier gives no figures at all: Thiers,
understating French losses in his usual style, speaks of 300 dead
and 900 wounded.
During the night of August 4-5 both sides, fatigued though they were,
set to work to cover themselves with barricades and works constructed
with the débris of ruined houses. In the morning both French and
Spaniards had rough but continuous lines of defence, those of the
latter circling round those of the former, with nothing but the
width of a narrow street between them. Wherever there was anything
approaching an open space cannon had been brought up to sweep it. Where
the houses still stood firm, communications had been made between them
by breaking holes through the party walls. In the streets the corpses
of both sides lay thick, for under the deadly cross-fire no one dared
venture out to remove them: in a day or two the sanitary conditions
would be horrible.
Meanwhile both besiegers and besieged were too exhausted to undertake
any more serious operations, and the fighting sank to little more than
a desultory fusillade between enemies equally well protected by their
defences. Such interest as there was in the operations of August 5-6
lay outside the walls of Saragossa. On the afternoon of the day of
the great assault a column of Spanish troops from Catalonia--two line
battalions and 2,000 or 3,000 new levies and armed peasants--arrived at
Villamayor on the north of the Ebro, only seven miles from the city.
It escorted a much-desired convoy of ammunition, for the supplies in
the city were running very low. While the fighting was still raging
in the streets Palafox rode out of the suburb of San Lazaro with 100
dragoons and joined this force. On the next morning (August 5) he
skirmished with the French troops which lay beyond the Ebro, and passed
into the city one veteran battalion and a few wagons of munitions. He
then proposed to attack the detached French brigade (that of Piré)
with his whole remaining force on the next day, in order to clear the
northern front, and to send the rest of his convoy--no less than 200
wagons--into Saragossa. But on the same night he received news of the
battle of Baylen and the surrender of Dupont’s army. Moreover, he was
informed that a division of the army of Valencia, under Saint-March,
was on the way to reinforce him. This induced him to halt for two days,
to see whether the French would not raise the siege without further
fighting.
Verdier had got the same intelligence at the same hour, with orders
to be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice, and to avoid entangling
himself in further engagements. He was preparing to withdraw, when on
the seventh he received supplementary dispatches from Madrid, with
directions to hold on for the present, and to keep the Saragossans
occupied, without, however, compromising himself too much. Accordingly
he resumed the bombardment, and began to throw into the city an immense
number of shells: for he saw that when his retreat was definitely
ordered, he would not be able to carry off with him the vast stores of
munitions that he had accumulated in his camp.
[Illustration: Saragossa.]
Seeing that the French did not move, Palafox attacked the covering
force on the left bank of the Ebro on August 8. His enemies were very
inferior in numbers and had been told not to risk anything, considering
the delicate state of affairs. Accordingly the relieving force crossed
the river Gallego, pushed back Piré’s 2,000 men in a long skirmishing
fight, and ultimately established themselves on ground just outside
the suburb of San Lazaro: the convoy, under cover of the fighting,
successfully entered the city over the great bridge. That night Verdier
withdrew Piré’s brigade across the river, thus leaving the whole
northern front of the place free from blockade. Clearly this could only
mean that he was about to raise the siege, but for five days more he
continued to ravage the central parts of the city with his bombs, and
to bicker at the barricades with the Saragossans. But on the thirteenth
the Spaniards noted that his camps seemed to be growing empty, and on
the fourteenth a series of explosions told them that he was abandoning
his siege works. Santa Engracia and the other points held inside the
city were all destroyed on that day, and the ammunition which could not
be carried off was blown up. The guns which had been pressed forward
into the ruined streets were spiked and left behind, as it would have
been impossible to extricate them under the Spanish fire. Of those in
the outer batteries some were thrown into the canal, others disabled by
having their trunnions knocked off, others merely spiked. Altogether
no less than fifty-four pieces, all more or less injured, but many
susceptible of repair, were left behind to serve as trophies for the
Saragossans.
Finally Verdier withdrew by slow marches up the Ebro to Tudela, where
he took post on August 17. He had lost in all over 3,500 men in his
long-continued struggle with the heroic city. The Aragonese must have
suffered at least as much, but the figures are of course impossible to
verify. They said that their casualties amounted to no more than 2,000,
but this must surely be an understatement, for Palafox says that by
August 1 there were of his original 7,000 levies only 3,500 left under
arms. Even allowing for heavy diminution by desertion and dispersion,
this implies very serious losses in action, and these seven Aragonese
battalions formed only a part of the garrison, which counted 13,000 men
on August 13. Probably the unembodied citizens and peasants suffered
in a still heavier proportion than troops which had received even a
small measure of organization. If the whole losses came to 4,500 it
would not be surprising--but nothing can be stated with certainty.
Yet whatever were their sufferings, the Saragossans had turned over
a new page in the history of the art of war. They had defended for
two months an unfortified place, by means of extemporized barricades,
retrenchments, and earthworks, and had proved their ability to resist
even a formidable train of siege artillery. If the news of Dupont’s
disaster had not arrived in time to save them, they would no doubt have
succumbed in the end, as must any besieged place which is not sooner or
later relieved from the outside. But meanwhile they had accomplished
a rare feat: almost unaided by regular troops, almost destitute of
trained artillerymen and engineers, they had held at bay a force which
Napoleon at the commencement of the siege would have supposed to be
equal to the task of conquering not only Aragon, but the whole eastern
side of the Iberian Peninsula.
SECTION III: CHAPTER III
OPERATIONS IN THE NORTH: BATTLE OF MEDINA DE RIO SECO
While Lefebvre-Desnouettes and Verdier were making their long series of
attacks on Saragossa, matters were coming to a head in the north-west
of Spain. The army of Galicia had at last descended into the plains,
and commenced to threaten the right flank of Bessières and the
communications between Burgos and Madrid. This forward movement was due
neither to the Galician Junta, nor to the officer whom they had placed
in command of their army, but to the obstinate persistence of Cuesta,
who had not in the least learnt the lesson of caution from his defeat
at Cabezon, and was eager to fight a pitched battle with all the forces
that could be collected in Northern Spain.
The resources at hand were not inconsiderable: in Galicia, or on the
way thither from Portugal, were no less than thirty-nine battalions
of regular infantry--though most of them were very weak: there were
also thirteen battalions of embodied militia, some thirty guns, and a
handful of cavalry (not more than 150 sabres). The Junta had placed
in command, after the murder of the captain-general Filanghieri, a
comparatively young general--Joachim Blake, one of those many soldiers
of fortune of Irish blood who formed such a notable element in the
Spanish army. When the insurrection broke out he had been merely
colonel of the regiment named ‘the Volunteers of the Crown’: he had
never had more than three battalions to manage before he found himself
placed at the head of the whole Galician army. Though a most unlucky
general--half a dozen times he seems to have been the victim of ill
fortune, for which he was hardly responsible--Blake was in real merit
far above the average of the Spanish commanders. He had neither the
slackness nor the arrogance which were the besetting sins of so many
of the Peninsular generals: and his dauntless courage was not combined
with recklessness or careless over-confidence. He showed from the first
very considerable organizing power: all his efforts were directed to
the task of inducing the Junta and the people of Galicia to allow him
to draft the crowds of recruits who flocked to his banner into the old
regiments of the line and the militia, instead of forming them into new
corps. With some trouble he carried his point, and was able to bring
up to their full complement most of the old battalions: of new units
very few[132] were created. When he took the field it was only the old
_cadres_ thus brought up to strength that accompanied him, not raw and
unsteady troops of new organization.
[132] The best known was the _batallon literario_, composed of
the students of the University of Santiago.
After hastily concentrating and brigading his army at Lugo, Blake led
them to the edge of the mountains which divide Galicia from the plains
of Leon. It was his original intention to stand at bay on the hills,
and force the French to attack him. With this object he occupied the
passes of Manzanal, Fuencebadon, and Puebla de Sanabria, the only
places where roads of importance penetrate into the Galician uplands
[June 23]. His whole field force, distributed into four divisions and a
‘vanguard brigade’ of light troops, amounted to some 25,000 men fit for
the field: in addition, 8,000 or 10,000 new levies were being organized
behind him, but he refused--with great wisdom--to bring them to the
front during his first movements.
On Blake’s left flank were other Spanish troops: the Junta of the
Asturias had raised some 15,000 men: but these--unlike the Galician
army--were utterly raw and untrained. Of old troops there was but one
single militia battalion among them. The Junta had dispersed them in
small bodies all along the eastern and southern side of the province,
arraying them to cover not only the high road from Madrid and Leon to
Oviedo, but every impracticable mule-path that crosses the Cantabrian
Mountains. By this unwise arrangement the Asturian army was weak at
every point: it was impossible to concentrate more than 5,000 men for
the defence of any part of the long and narrow province. The fact was
that the Junta looked solely to the defence of its own land, and had
no conception that the protection of the Asturias should be treated as
only a section of the great problem of the protection of the whole of
Northern Spain.
While the Galicians and the Asturians were taking up this purely
defensive attitude, they had forgotten to reckon with one factor in
their neighbourhood. Right in front of them lay the old Captain-General
of Castile, with the wrecks of the army that had been so signally
routed at Cabezon. He had retired to Benavente on the Esla, and there
had halted, finding that he was not pursued by Lasalle. Here he
reorganized his scattered Castilian levies into three battalions, and
raised three more in the province of Leon. He had still 300 or 400
regular cavalry, but not a single gun. Quite undismayed by his late
defeat, he persisted in wishing to fight in the plain, and began to
send urgent messages both to Blake and to the Juntas of Asturias and
Galicia, begging them to send down their armies from the hills, and
aid him in making a dash at Valladolid, with the object of cutting off
Bessières’ communications with Madrid, and so disarranging the whole
system of Napoleon’s plan for the conquest of Spain.
The Asturians, partly from a well-justified disbelief in Cuesta’s
ability, partly from a selfish desire to retain all their troops for
the defence of their own province, refused to stir. They sent the
Captain-General a modest reinforcement, two battalions of the newly
raised regiment of Covadonga, but refused any more aid. Instead, they
suggested that Cuesta should fall back on Leon and the southern slope
of the Asturian hills, so as to threaten from thence any advance of the
French into the plains of Leon.
But the Galician Junta showed themselves less unyielding. Despite of
the remonstrances of Blake, who was set on maintaining the defensive,
and holding the passes above Astorga, they consented to allow their
army to move down into the plain of Old Castile and to join Cuesta.
After some fruitless remonstrances Blake moved forward with the bulk of
his host, leaving behind him his second division to hold the passes,
while with the other three and his vanguard brigade he marched on
Benavente [July 5].
On July 10 the armies of Galicia and Castile met at Villalpando, and a
brisk quarrel at once broke out between their commanders. Cuesta was
for attacking the French at once: Blake pointed out that for an army
with no more than thirty guns and 500 or 600 cavalry to offer battle
in the plains was sheer madness. The Irish general had the larger
and more effective army, but Cuesta was thirteen years his senior as
lieutenant-general, and insisted on assuming command of the combined
host in accordance with the normal rules of military precedence. After
some fruitless resistance Blake yielded, and the whole Spanish army
moved forward on Valladolid: all that Cuesta would grant on the side
of caution was that the third Galician division, 5,000 strong, should
be left as a reserve at Benavente. Even this was a mistake: if the two
generals were to fight at all, they should have put every available man
in line, and have endeavoured at all costs to induce the Asturians also
to co-operate with them. They might have had in all for the oncoming
battle 40,000 men, instead of 22,000, if the outlying troops had been
collected.
A blow from the north-west was precisely what Napoleon at Bayonne
and Savary at Madrid had been expecting for some weeks. Both of them
were perfectly conscious that any check inflicted on Bessières in
Old Castile would wreck the whole plan of invasion. So much of the
marshal’s _corps d’armée_ had been distracted towards Saragossa, that
it was clearly necessary to reinforce him. From Madrid Savary sent up
half of the troops of the Imperial Guard which had hitherto been in
the capital--three battalions of fusiliers (first regiment) and three
squadrons of cavalry[133]. Napoleon afterwards blamed him severely for
not having sent more, saying that from the mass of troops in and about
Madrid he might have spared another complete division--that of Gobert,
the second division of Moncey’s corps. Without its aid the Emperor
half-expected that Bessières might be checked, if the Galicians came
down in full force[134]. He himself sent up from Bayonne nearly all the
troops which were at that moment under his hand, ten veteran battalions
just arrived from Germany, forming the division of General Mouton.
[133] Oddly enough, in the Duke of Rovigo’s own _Mémoires_ the
statement is made that these troops arrived too late to fight at
Rio Seco, a curious error (ii. 248).
[134] See the dispatch of July 13, to Savary, and that of the
same day to King Joseph (_Nap. Corresp._, 14,191).
The reinforcements being hurried on to Bessières by forced marches,
that general found himself on July 9 at the head of a force with
which he thought that he might venture to attack Blake and Cuesta. If
they had brought with them all their troops, and had called in the
Asturians, it is probable that the marshal would have found himself too
weak to face them: fortunately for him he had only five-ninths of the
army of Galicia and Cuesta’s miserable levies in front of him. His
own fighting force was formed of odd fragments of all the divisions
which formed his _corps d’armée_: large sections of each of them were
left behind to guard his communications with France, and others were
before Saragossa. Bessières marched from Burgos with the brigade of the
Imperial Guard: at Palencia he picked up Lasalle’s cavalry with half
Mouton’s newly arrived division of veterans (the second brigade was
left at Vittoria) and a small part of Merle’s division, which had been
hastily brought over the mountains from Santander to join him. There
was also present the larger half of Verdier’s division, of which the
rest was now in Aragon with its commander[135].
[135] Bessières’ army seems to have consisted of the following
elements:--
_Infantry._
_Cavalry._
(1) One regiment of the Fusiliers of the Imperial
Guard (three batts.) 1,900
Three squadrons of cavalry of the Imperial Guard 300
(2) From Verdier’s Division:
Ducos’ {13th Provisional Regiment (four batts.) 2,000
Brigade {14th Provisional Regiment (one batt.)[a] 500
Sabathier’s {17th Provisional Regiment (four batts.) }
Brigade {18th Provisional Regiment (four batts.)[b] } 2,800
(3) From Merle’s Division:
D’Armagnac’s {47th of the Line (one batt.)[c] }
Brigade {3rd Swiss Regiment (one batt.) } 1,600
(4) From Mouton’s Division:
Reynaud’s {4th Léger (three batts.) }
Brigade {15th of the Line (two batts.)[d] } 3,000
(5) Lasalle’s Cavalry Brigade:
10th Chasseurs}
22nd Chasseurs} 850
------ -----
11,800 1,150
We may add 750 men for the five batteries of artillery and
the train, and so get a total strength of 13,700. Napoleon
(_Corresp._, 14,213) called the force 15,000.
[a] The other three batts. of the 14th were with Verdier at
Saragossa. This odd battalion was in the battle attached to
D’Armagnac’s brigade. Merle was given Ducos’ and D’Armagnac’s
brigades to make up a division.
[b] These battalions were much weakened by detachments.
[c] A very strong battalion: it was 1,200 strong on June 1, and
must still have had 1,000 bayonets.
[d] Both regiments were incomplete, having dropped men at
Vittoria and Burgos.
On the evening of July 13, Lasalle’s light cavalry got in touch with
the outposts of the Spaniards near Medina de Rio Seco, and reported
that Blake and Cuesta were present in force. On the next morning
Bessières marched before daybreak from Palencia, and just as the
day was growing hot, discovered the enemy drawn up on rising ground
a little to the east of the small town which has given its name to
the battle. Blake had 15,000 infantry and 150 cavalry with twenty
guns[136]; Cuesta 6,000 infantry and 550 cavalry, but not a single
cannon. They outnumbered Bessières by nearly two to one in foot
soldiery, but had little more than half his number of horse, and only
two-thirds as many guns.
[136] In the _Vaughan Papers_ I find a ‘Journal of the operations
of General Blake,’ by some officer of his staff, unnamed. It
gives the force of the Galician army at Rio Seco as follows:--
_Officers._
_Sergeants._
_Drummers,&c._
_Veteran rank and file._
_Recruits._
_Total._
Vanguard:
Gen. Count Maceda 75 81 76 1,678 277 = 2,187
1st Division:
Gen. Cagigal 186 194 166 4,795 1315 = 6,470
4th Division:
Marquis Portago 188 185 144 3,208 2281 = 5,818
Head-quarters Guard:
Volunteers of Navarre 29 30 43 681 -- = 754
--- --- --- ------ ----- ------
478 490 429 10,362 3,873 = 15,229
This total only differs by 26 from that given by Arteche (ii. 654).
A more prudent general than Cuesta would have refused to fight at all
with an army containing in its ranks no less than 9,000 recruits, and
almost destitute of cavalry. But if fighting was to be done, a wise man
would at any rate have chosen a good position, where his flanks would
be covered from turning movements and inaccessible to the enemy’s very
superior force of horsemen. The old Captain-General cared nothing for
such caution: he had merely drawn up his army on a gentle hillside,
somewhat cut up by low stone walls, but practicable for cavalry at
nearly every point. His flanks had no protection of any kind from the
lie of the ground: behind his back was the town of Medina de Rio Seco,
and the dry bed of the Sequillo river, obstacles which would tend to
make a retreat difficult to conduct in orderly fashion. But a retreat
was the last thing in Cuesta’s thoughts.
[Illustration: Battle of Medina de Rio Seco. July 14, 1808.]
Bad as was the position selected, the way in which it was occupied was
still more strange. The Captain-General had divided his host into two
halves, the one consisting of the first division of the army of
Galicia and of the vanguard brigade, the other of the fourth Galician
division and the raw ‘Army of Castile.’ Blake with the first-named
force was drawn up in a short, compact formation, three lines deep,
at the south-eastern front of the hill, the ‘Plateau of Valdecuevas,’
as it is called. His right looked down into the plain, his left, in
the centre of the plateau, stood quite ‘in the air.’ But nearly a mile
to his left rear, and quite out of sight, lay the other half of the
army, just too far off to protect Blake’s exposed flank if it should be
attacked, and in a very bad position for defending itself. Why Cuesta
ranged his left wing (or second line, if it may so be called) low down
on the reverse slope of the plateau, and in a place where it could not
even see Blake’s corps, it is impossible to conceive. Toreño hazards
the guess that, in his arrogant confidence, he placed Blake where he
would have to bear the stress of the battle, and might probably lose
ground, intending to come up himself with the left wing and restore the
fight when his colleague should be sufficiently humbled. Such a plan
would not have been outside the scope of the old man’s selfish pride.
Bessières, marching up from the east, came in sight of the Spaniards
in the early morning. He at once deployed his whole army, and advanced
in battle array over the plain. In front was a slight cavalry screen
of Lasalle’s chasseurs; next came Mouton’s division, deployed to the
right, and Merle’s division, with Sabathier’s brigade, to the left of
the country-road which leads, over the plateau, towards Medina de Rio
Seco. The Imperial Guard, horse and foot, and the bulk of Lasalle’s
cavalry brigade were in reserve behind the centre. On getting near
the enemy’s position, Bessières soon discovered the two halves of the
Spanish army and the broad gap which lay between them. His mind was at
once made up: he proposed to contain Cuesta with a small force, and
to fall upon and envelop Blake with the rest of his army before the
Captain-General of Castile could come to his aid. This excellent plan
was carried out to the letter, thanks to the incapacity of Cuesta.
Not far east of the plateau of Valdecuevas lay an isolated eminence,
the mound of Monclin: on it the marshal drew up the greater part of
his artillery (twenty guns) which began to batter Blake’s front line:
the Galician batteries replied, and held their own though outnumbered
by two to one. Then Sabathier’s eight weak battalions deployed and
commenced a cautious attack upon Blake’s front: this was not to be
pressed home for a time. Meanwhile Merle’s seven battalions pushed into
the fight, continuing Sabathier’s line to the south-west and trying to
envelop Blake’s southern flank. They forced the Galicians to throw back
their right wing, and to keep continually extending it, in order to
avoid being turned. The Spaniards fought not amiss, and for some hour
or more the battle was almost stationary.
Meanwhile, far to the French right, Mouton’s five battalions were
executing a cautious demonstration against Cuesta’s forces, across
the northern folds of the plateau. The old general allowed himself to
be completely occupied by this trifling show of attack, and made no
movement to aid Blake’s wing. The gap between him and his colleague was
not filled up. Then came the sudden development of Bessières’ plan:
Sabathier and Merle were told to attack in earnest, and while Blake was
deeply engaged with their fifteen battalions, Lasalle rode into the
open space on the left of the Galicians, formed up the 22nd _chasseurs
à cheval_ at right angles to the Spanish line, and charged in furiously
upon Blake’s flank. The unfortunate troops on whom the blow fell were
deployed in line, and utterly unprepared for a cavalry shock from the
side. The first battalion which received the attack broke at once and
ran in upon the second[137]: in a few minutes Blake’s whole left wing
fell down like a pack of cards, each corps as it fled sweeping away
that next to it. The French infantry, advancing at the same moment, ran
in with the bayonet, seized the Spanish guns, and hustled the Galicians
westward along the plateau in a mob. Blake’s troops were only saved
from complete destruction by the steadiness of a Navarrese battalion,
which formed square to cover the retreat, and at the cost of one-third
of its strength allowed the other corps to get a long start in their
flight. They retired due west, and crossed the Sequillo to the south of
the town of Rio Seco before they could be rallied.
[137] The flank battalion which started the rout was the
‘Regiment of Buenos Ayres,’ a provisional corps which had been
formed out of the prisoners lately returned from England, who
had been captured during our unlucky South American expedition,
before Whitelock’s final fiasco (see the ‘Journal of Blake’s
Operations,’ in the _Vaughan Papers_).
It was now the turn of Cuesta to suffer. The moment that Blake was
disposed of, Bessières marched over the hill towards the other half
of the Spanish army: leaving some of Lasalle’s cavalry and Sabathier’s
brigade to pursue the routed corps, he formed the whole of his
remaining troops in a line, bringing up the reserve of the Imperial
Guard to make its centre, while Mouton formed the right wing and the
two brigades of Merle the left. Cuesta, outnumbered and attacked down
hill, would have done wisely to retreat and to seek for shelter in and
behind the town of Rio Seco in his immediate rear. But he had prepared
a new surprise for the enemy; as they descended upon him they were
astonished to see his front line, the eight battalions which formed
the fourth Galician division, form itself into columns of attack and
slowly commence to climb the hill with the object of attacking their
right and centre. Meanwhile Cuesta’s handful of cavalry rode out on
the northern end of the line and fell upon the skirmishers of Mouton’s
division, whom it chased back till it was met and driven off by the
three squadrons of the Imperial Guard.
The uphill charge of the fourth Galician division was a fine but an
utterly useless display of courage. They were attacking nearly double
their own numbers of victorious troops, who outflanked them on both
wings and tore them to pieces with a concentric fire of artillery
to which they could not respond. The regiments at each end of the
line were soon broken up, but in the centre two battalions of picked
grenadiers[138] actually closed with the French, captured four guns
of the Imperial Guard, and forced back the supporting infantry of the
same corps for a short space, till Bessières hurled upon them the three
squadrons of the Guard-Cavalry, which broke them and swept them down
hill again.
[138] In accordance with the unwise practice prevailing in most
Continental armies, Blake had massed the grenadier companies of
all his line regiments into two battalions, to act as a select
reserve.
Seeing his attack fail, Cuesta bade his last reserve, the raw Castilian
and Leonese levies, retreat behind the river and the town of Medina de
Rio Seco, which they did without much loss, covered to a certain extent
by the two Asturian battalions, the only part of Cuesta’s own force
which was seriously engaged.
The ‘Army of Castile,’ therefore, had no more than 155 casualties, but
the two Galician divisions had suffered heavily. They left behind them
on the field nearly 400 dead, and over 500 wounded, with some 1,200
prisoners. The ten guns of Blake’s wing had all been captured, and with
them several pairs of colours. In addition more than a thousand of the
Galician recruits had dispersed, and could not be rallied. Altogether
Blake’s army had lost over 3,000 men. The French, as might have been
expected, had suffered comparatively little: they had 105 killed and
300 wounded, according to Foy; other historians give even smaller
figures.
A vigorous pursuit might have done much further harm to the defeated
Spaniards; but Bessières’ men had been marching since two in the
morning, and fighting all through the mid-day. They were much fatigued,
and their commander did not press the chase far beyond the river.
But the town of Rio Seco was sacked from cellar to garret, with much
slaying of non-combatants and outrages of all kinds[139], a fact very
discreditable to the marshal, who could have stopped the plunder had he
chosen.
[139] When Stuart and Vaughan passed through Medina in September,
they were given many harrowing details by the local authorities.
The defeated generals met, a little to the west of the battle-field,
and after a bitter altercation, in which Blake used the plainest words
about Cuesta’s generalship, parted in wrath. The Galicians retired by
the way they had come, and joined the division which had been left
behind three days before; they then went back to the passes above
Astorga, abandoning a considerable amount of stores at Benavente.
Cuesta took the army of Castile to Leon, retiring on the Asturias
rather than on Galicia.
Bessières’ well-earned victory was creditable to himself and his
troops, but the way had been made easy for him by the astounding
tactical errors of the Captain-General of Castile. The rank and file of
the Spanish army had no reason to be ashamed of their conduct: it was
their commander who should have blushed at the reckless way in which he
had sacrificed his willing troops. Handled by Cuesta the best army in
the world might have been defeated by inferior numbers.
The strategical results of the battle of Rio Seco were great and
far-reaching. All danger of the cutting of the communications between
Madrid and Bayonne was averted, and Napoleon, his mind set at rest
on this point, could now assert that Dupont’s position in Andalusia
was henceforth the only hazardous point in his great scheme of
invasion[140]. It would clearly be a very long time before the army of
Galicia would again dare to take the offensive, and meanwhile Madrid
was safe, and the attempt to conquer Southern Spain could be resumed
without any fear of interruption. Bessières, after such a victory,
was strong enough not to require any further reinforcements from the
central reserve in and about the capital.
[140] See his remarks in the document of July 21, _Nap.
Corresp._, 14,223.
The most obvious result of Rio Seco was that King Joseph was now able
to proceed on his way to Madrid, and to enter the city in triumph.
After receiving the homage of the Spanish notables at Bayonne, and
nominating a ministry, he had crossed the frontier on July 9. But he
had been obliged to stop short at Burgos, till Bessières should have
beaten off the attack of Blake and Cuesta: his presence there had been
most inconvenient to the marshal, who had been forced to leave behind
for his protection Rey’s veteran brigade of Mouton’s division, which he
would gladly have taken out to the approaching battle.
When the news of Medina de Rio Seco arrived at Burgos, the usurper
resumed his march on Madrid, still escorted by Rey’s troops. He
travelled by short stages, stopping at every town to be complimented
by reluctant magistrates and corporations, who dared not refuse
their homage. The populace everywhere shut itself up in its houses
in silent protest. Joseph’s state entry into Madrid on July 20 was
the culminating point of the melancholy farce. He passed through the
streets with a brilliant staff, between long lines of French bayonets,
and amid the blare of military music. But not a Spaniard was to be seen
except the handful of courtiers and officials who had accepted the new
government. The attempts of the French to produce a demonstration, or
even to get the town decorated, had met with passive disobedience. Like
Charles of Austria when he entered Madrid in 1710, Joseph Bonaparte
might have exclaimed that he could see ‘a court, but no people’ about
him. But he affected not to notice the dismal side of the situation,
assumed an exaggerated urbanity, and heaped compliments and preferment
on the small section of _Afrancesados_ who adhered to him.
The usurper had resolved to give himself as much as possible the air
of a Spanish national king. Of all his Neapolitan court he had brought
with him only one personage, his favourite Saligny, whom he had made
Duke of San Germano. The rest of his household was composed of nobles
and officials chosen from among the herd which had bowed before him at
Bayonne. There were among them several of the late partisans of King
Ferdinand, of whom some had frankly sold themselves to his supplanter,
while others (like the Duke of Infantado) were only looking for an
opportunity to abscond when it might present itself. The first list
of ministers was also full of names that were already well known in
the Spanish bureaucracy. Of the cabinet of Ferdinand VII, Cevallos the
minister of Foreign Affairs, O’Farrill at the War Office, Piñuela at
the ministry of Justice, were base enough to accept the continuation
of their powers by the usurper. Urquijo, who took the Secretaryship of
State, was an old victim of Godoy’s, who had once before held office
under Charles IV. Mazarredo, who was placed at the ministry of Marine,
was perhaps the most distinguished officer in the Spanish navy. But
Joseph imagined that his greatest stroke of policy was the appointment
as minister of the Interior of Gaspar de Jovellanos, the most prominent
among the Spanish liberals, whose reputation for wisdom and patriotism
had cost him a long imprisonment during the days of the Prince of the
Peace. The idea was ingenious, but the plan for strengthening the
ministry failed, for Jovellanos utterly refused to take office along
with a clique of traitors and in the cabinet of a usurper. Yet even
without him, the body of courtiers and officials whom Joseph collected
was far more respectable, from their high station and old experience,
than might have been expected--a fact very disgraceful to the Spanish
bureaucrats.
In less troublous times, and with a more legitimate title to the
crown, Joseph Bonaparte might have made a very tolerable king. He
was certainly a far more worthy occupant of the throne than any of
the miserable Spanish Bourbons: but he was not of the stuff of which
successful usurpers are made. He was a weak, well-intentioned man, not
destitute of a heart or a conscience: and as he gradually realized all
the evils that he had brought on Spain by his ill-regulated ambition,
he grew less and less satisfied with his position as his brother’s
tool. He made long and untiring efforts to conciliate the Spaniards,
by an unwavering affability and mildness, combined with a strict
attention to public business. Unfortunately all his efforts were
counteracted by his brother’s harshness, and by the greed and violence
of the French generals, over whom he could never gain any control. It
is a great testimony in his favour that the Spanish people despised
rather than hated him: their more violent animosity was reserved for
Napoleon. His nominal subjects agreed to regard him as a humorous
character: they laughed at his long harangues, in which Neapolitan
phrases were too often mixed with the sonorous Castilian: they insisted
that he was blind of one eye--which did not happen to be the case.
They spoke of him as always occupied with the pleasures of the table
and with miscellaneous amours--accusations for which there was a very
slight foundation of fact. They insisted that he was a coward and a
sluggard--titles which he was far from meriting. He was, they said,
perpetually hoodwinked, baffled, and bullied, alike by his generals,
his ministers, and his mistresses. But they never really hated him--a
fact which, considering the manner of his accession, must be held to be
very much to his credit.
But the first stay of the ‘Intrusive King,’ as the Spaniards called
him, in his capital, was to be very short. He had only arrived there
on July 20: his formal proclamation took place on the twenty-fourth.
He had hardly settled down in the royal palace, and commenced a
dispute with the effete ‘Council of Castile’--which with unexpected
obstinacy refused to swear the oath to him and to the constitution of
Bayonne--when he was obliged to take to flight. On the twenty-fourth
rumours began to be current in Madrid that a great disaster had taken
place in Andalusia, and that Dupont’s army had been annihilated. On the
twenty-eighth the news was confirmed in every particular. On August 1,
the King, the court, and the 20,000 French troops which still remained
in and about the capital, marched out by the northern road, and took
their way towards the Ebro. This retreat was the result of a great
council of war, in which the energetic advice of Savary, who wished to
fight one more battle in front of the capital, with all the forces that
could be concentrated, was overruled by the King and the majority of
the generals. ‘A council of war never fights,’ as has been most truly
observed.
SECTION III: CHAPTER IV
DUPONT IN ANDALUSIA: THE CAPITULATION OF BAYLEN
We left General Dupont at Andujar, on the upper course of the
Guadalquivir, whither he had retired on June 19 after evacuating
Cordova. Deeply troubled by the interruption of his communications
with Madrid, and by the growing strength displayed by the Spanish army
in his front, he had resolved that it was necessary to draw back to
the foot of the Sierra Morena, and to recover at all costs his touch
with the main French army in the capital. He kept sending to Murat (or
rather to Savary, who had now superseded the Grand-Duke) persistent
demands for new orders and for large reinforcements. Most of his
messengers were cut off on the way by the insurgents, but his situation
had become known at head quarters, and was engrossing much of Savary’s
attention--more of it indeed than Napoleon approved. The Emperor wrote
on July 13 that the decisive point was for the moment in Castile, and
not in Andalusia, and that the best way to strengthen Dupont was to
reinforce Bessières[141].
[141] See Foy (iv. 45), and _Nap. Corresp._, 14,192, where the
Emperor goes so far as to say: ‘Si le Général Dupont éprouvait
un échec, cela ait de peu de conséquence. Il n’aurait d’autre
résultat que de lui faire repasser les montagnes’ (i.e. the
Sierra Morena).
Such had not been Savary’s opinion: frightened at the isolation in
which Dupont now lay, he sent to his assistance the second division
of his corps, 6,000 men under General Vedel, all recruits of the
‘legions of reserve,’ save one single battalion of Swiss troops. The
division was accompanied by Boussard’s cavalry, the 6th Provisional
Dragoons, some 600 strong. Vedel made his way through La Mancha without
difficulty, but on entering the Despeña Perros defiles found his
passage disputed by a body of insurgents--2,000 peasants with four
antique cannon--who had stockaded themselves in the midst of the pass.
A resolute attack scattered them in a few minutes, and on reaching La
Carolina on the southern slope of the mountains Vedel got in touch
with Dupont, who had hitherto no notice of his approach [June 27].
Instead of leaving the newly arrived division to guard the passes,
Dupont called it down to join him in the valley of the Guadalquivir.
With the assistance of Vedel’s troops he considered himself strong
enough to make head against the Spanish army under Castaños, which was
commencing to draw near to Andujar. Keeping his original force at that
town--a great centre of roads, but a malarious spot whose hospitals
were already crowded with 600 sick,--he placed Vedel at Baylen, a
place sixteen miles further east, but still in the plain, though the
foot-hills of the Sierra Morena begin to rise just behind it. To
assert himself and strike terror into the insurgents, Dupont ordered
one of Vedel’s brigades to make a forced march to Jaen, the capital
of a province and a considerable focus of rebellion. This expedition
scattered the local levies, took and sacked Jaen, and then returned in
safety to Baylen [July 2-3].
Meanwhile Castaños was drawing near: he had now had a month in which to
organize his army. Like Blake in Galicia, he had used the recruits of
Andalusia to fill up the gaps in the depleted battalions of the regular
army. But less fortunate than his colleague in the north, he had not
been able to prevent the Juntas of Seville and Granada from creating a
number of new volunteer corps, and had been obliged to incorporate them
in his field army, where they were a source of weakness rather than of
strength. His total force was some 33,000 or 34,000 men, of whom 2,600
were cavalry, for in this arm he was far better provided than was the
army of the North. The whole was organized in four divisions, under
Generals Reding, Coupigny, Felix Jones (an Irish officer, in spite of
his Welsh name), and La Peña. In addition there was a flying brigade of
new levies under Colonel Cruz-Murgeon, which was pushed forward along
the roots of the mountains, at a considerable distance in front of the
main body: it was ordered to harass Dupont’s northern flank and to cut
his communications with Baylen and La Carolina.
With 16,000 or 17,000 men, including nearly 3,500 cavalry, Dupont
ought to have been able to contain Castaños, if not to beat him.
The proportion of his forces to those of the enemy was not much
less than that which Bessières had possessed at Medina de Rio Seco.
But, unfortunately for himself and his master, Dupont was far from
possessing the boldness and the skill of the marshal. By assuming not
a vigorous offensive but a timid defensive along a protracted front,
he threw away his chances. The line which he had resolved to hold was
that of the Upper Guadalquivir, from Andujar to the next passage up
the river, the ferry of Mengibar, eight miles from Baylen. This gave a
front of some fifteen miles to hold: but unfortunately even when drawn
out to this length the two divisions of Barbou and Vedel did not cover
all the possible lines of attack which Castaños might adopt. He might
still march past them and cut them off from the defiles of the Morena,
by going a little higher up the river and crossing it near Baeza and
Ubeda. Dupont was wrong to take this line of defence at all: unless he
was prepared to attack the army of Andalusia in the open, he should
have retired to Baylen or to La Carolina, where he would have been able
to cover the passes for as long as he might choose, since he could not
have had either of his flanks turned.
Meanwhile he was gratified to hear that further reinforcements were
being sent to him. Unreasonably disquieted about Andalusia, as Napoleon
thought, Savary proceeded to send a third division to aid Dupont. This
was Gobert’s, the second of Moncey’s corps: it started from Madrid
not quite complete, and left strong detachments at the more important
towns along the road through La Mancha. Though originally seventeen
battalions strong, it reached the northern slope of the Sierra Morena
with only ten. Savary had not intended it to go any further: he had
told Dupont that it was to be used to cover his retreat, if a retreat
became necessary, but not for active operations in Andalusia. But
disregarding these directions Dupont commanded Gobert to cross the
Morena and come down to join Vedel: this he did, bringing with him
nine ‘provisional battalions[142]’ and the second provisional regiment
of cuirassiers, perhaps 5,000 men in all. There were now over 20,000
French on the south side of the mountain, a force amply sufficient to
deal with Castaños and his 33,000 Andalusians [July 7]. But they were
still widely scattered. Dupont lay at Andujar with 9,000 or 10,000
sabres and bayonets: Vedel was sixteen miles away at Baylen, with 6,000
men, of whom 2,000 under General Liger-Belair were pushed forward to
the ferry of Mengibar. Gobert was at La Carolina, at the foot of the
passes, with five battalions about him, and a sixth encamped on the
summit of the defile. He had sent forward the remainder of his division
(the four battalions of the sixth provisional regiment, and half the
second provisional cuirassiers) to join Dupont at Andujar, so that he
had not more than 2,800 bayonets and 350 cavalry with him.
[142] Of Gobert’s division the 5th provisional regiment and
the Irish battalion never marched south. The 6th, 7th, and 8th
provisional regiments--twelve battalions--formed the column;
they left one battalion at Madridejos, another at Manzanares.
One more remained in the pass at the Puerto del Rey; nine and
the cuirassiers (700 strong) descended into the plains. See for
details Cabany’s _Baylen_, p. 115.
Castaños, meanwhile, had brought up his whole army, with the exception
of the flying corps of Cruz-Murgeon, to a line close in front of
Andujar: the heads of his columns were at Arjona and Arjonilla, only
five miles from Dupont. On July 11 the Spanish generals held a council
of war at Porcuña, and drew out their plan of operations. Since the
enemy seemed to be still quiescent, they resolved to attack him in
his chosen position behind the river. Castaños, in person--with the
divisions of Jones and La Peña, 12,000 strong--undertook to keep
Dupont employed, by delivering an attack on Andujar, which he did not
intend to press home unless he got good news from his second and third
columns. Meanwhile, six miles up the river, Coupigny with the second
division, nearly 8,000 strong, was to attempt to cross the Guadalquivir
by the ford of Villa Nueva. Lastly, Reding with the first division, the
best and most numerous of the whole army, 10,000 strong, was to seize
the ferry of Mengibar and march on Baylen. Here he was to be joined by
Coupigny, and the two corps were then to fall upon the rear of Dupont’s
position at Andujar, while Castaños was besetting it in front. It was
their aim to surround and capture the whole of the French division,
if its general did not move away before the encircling movement was
complete. Meanwhile the flying column of Cruz-Murgeon, about 3,000
strong, was to cross the Guadalquivir below Andujar, throw itself into
the mountains in the north, and join hands with Reding and Coupigny
behind the back of Dupont.
This plan, though ultimately crowned with success, was perilous in the
highest degree. But Castaños had seriously underestimated the total
force of Dupont, as well as misconceived his exact position. He was
under the impression that the main body of the French, which he did
not calculate at more than 12,000 or 14,000 men, was concentrated at
Andujar, and that there were nothing more than weak detachments at
Mengibar, Baylen, or La Carolina. These, he imagined, could not stand
before Reding, and when the latter had once got to the northern bank of
the river, he would easily clear the way for Coupigny to cross. But as
a matter of fact Vedel had 6,000 men at Mengibar and Baylen, with 3,000
more under Gobert within a short march of him. If the Spanish plan had
been punctually carried out, Reding should have suffered a severe check
at the hands of these two divisions, while Dupont could easily have
dealt with Castaños at Andujar. Coupigny, if he got across at Villa
Nueva, while the divisions on each side of him were beaten off, would
have been in a very compromised position, and could not have dared to
push forward. But in this curious campaign the probable never happened,
and everything went in the most unforeseen fashion.
On July 13 the Spanish plan began to be carried out, Reding marching
for Mengibar and Coupigny for Villa Nueva. Castaños kept quiet at
Arjonilla, till his lieutenants should have reached the points which
they were to attack. On the same day Dupont received the news of
Moncey’s repulse before Valencia, and made up his mind that he must
persevere in his defensive attitude, without making any attempt to
mass his troops and fall upon the enemy in his front[143]. Just at
the moment when his enemies were putting the game into his hands, by
dividing themselves into three columns separated from each other by
considerable gaps, he relinquished every intention of taking advantage
of their fault.
[143] Dupont considered that Savary’s intention was to stop
all offensive movements whatever: ‘Le général-en-chef me fait
entrevoir que nous aurons peut-être à garder notre position
jusqu’à ce que Valence et Saragosse soient soumises’ (Dupont to
Vedel, July 13).
On July 14 Reding appeared in front of the ferry of Mengibar, and
pushed back beyond the river the outlying pickets of Liger-Belair’s
detachment. He made no further attempt to press the French, but Dupont,
disquieted about an attack on this point, ordered Gobert to bring down
the remains of his division to Baylen, to join Vedel. Next morning
the Spaniards began to develop their whole plan: Castaños appeared
on a long front opposite Andujar, and made a great demonstration
against the position of Dupont, using all his artillery and showing
heads of columns at several points. Coupigny came down to the river
at Villa Nueva, and got engaged with a detachment which was sent
out from Andujar to hold the ford. Reding, making a serious attempt
to push forward, crossed the Guadalquivir at Mengibar and attacked
Liger-Belair. But Vedel came up to the support of his lieutenant, and
when the Swiss general found, quite contrary to his expectation, a
whole division deployed against him, he ceased to press his advance,
and retired once more beyond the river.
Nothing decisive had yet happened: but the next day was to be far more
important. The operations opened with two gross faults made by the
French: Dupont had been so much impressed with the demonstration made
against him by Castaños, that he judged himself hopelessly outnumbered
at Andujar, and sent to Vedel for reinforcements. He bade him send a
battalion or two, or even a whole brigade, if the force that he had
fought at Mengibar seemed weak and unenterprising[144]. This was an
error, for Castaños only outnumbered the French at Andujar by two or
three thousand men, and was not really to be feared. But Vedel made a
worse slip: despising Reding overmuch, he marched on Baylen, not with
one brigade, but with his whole division, save the original detachment
of two battalions under Liger-Belair which remained to watch Mengibar.
Starting at midnight, he reached Andujar at two on the afternoon of
the sixteenth, to find that Castaños had done no more than repeat his
demonstration of the previous day, and had been easily held back.
Cruz-Murgeon’s levies, which the Spanish general had pushed over the
river below Andujar, had received a sharp repulse when they tried to
molest Dupont’s flank. Coupigny had made an even feebler show than his
chief at the ford of Villa Nueva, and had not passed the Guadalquivir.
[144] Dupont to Vedel, evening of July 15.
But Reding, on the morning of the sixteenth, had woken up to unexpected
vigour. He had forded the river near Mengibar, and fallen on
Liger-Belair’s detachment for the second time. Hard pressed, the French
brigadier had sent for succour to Baylen, whither Gobert had moved down
when Vedel marched for Andujar. The newly arrived general came quickly
to the aid of the compromised detachment, but he was very weak, for he
had left a battalion at La Carolina and sent another with a squadron
of cuirassiers to Liñares, to guard against a rumoured movement of
the Spaniards along the Upper Guadalquivir. He only brought with him
three battalions and 200 cavalry, and this was not enough to contain
Reding. The 4,000 men of the two French detachments were outnumbered
by more than two to one; they suffered a thorough defeat, and Gobert
was mortally wounded. His brigadier, Dufour, who took over the command,
fell back on Baylen, eight miles to the rear. Next morning, though not
pressed by Reding, he retired towards La Carolina, to prevent himself
being cut off from the passes, for he credited a false rumour that the
Spaniards were detaching troops by way of Liñares to seize the Despeña
Perros.
Dupont heard of Gobert’s defeat on the evening of the sixteenth. It
deranged all his plans, for it showed him that the enemy were not
massed in front of Andujar, as he supposed, but had a large force
far up the river. Two courses were open to him--either to march on
Baylen with his whole army in order to attack Reding, and to reopen
the communications with La Carolina and the passes, or to fall upon
Castaños and the troops in his immediate front. An enterprising officer
would probably have taken the latter alternative, and could not have
failed of success, for the whole French army in Andalusia save the
troops of Belair and Dufour was now concentrated at Andujar, and not
less than 15,000 bayonets and 3,000 sabres were available for an attack
on Castaños’ 12,000 men[145]. Even if Coupigny joined his chief, the
French would have almost an equality in numbers and a great superiority
in cavalry and guns. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the
Spaniards would have suffered a defeat, and then it would have been
possible to expel Reding from Baylen without any danger of interference
from other quarters.
[145] Dupont’s available force at this moment consisted of the
following troops. The numbers given are their original strength,
from which deductions must of course be made:--
Infantry--Barbou’s Division:
Chabert’s { 4th Legion of Reserve (three batts.) 3,084
Brigade { 4th Swiss Regiment (one batt.) 709
{ Marines of the Guard (one batt.) 532
Pannetier’s { 3rd Legion of Reserve (two batts.) 2,057
Brigade { Garde de Paris (two batts.) 1,454
Schramm’s } Swiss regiments of Reding and Preux (four batts.) 2,000
Brigade }
Vedel’s Division:
Poinsot’s { 5th Legion of Reserve (three batts.) 2,695
Brigade { 3rd Swiss Regiment 1,174
Cassagnes’ { 1st Legion of Reserve (one batt.) [two batts.
Brigade { detached under Liger-Belair] 1,003
From Gobert’s Division:
6th Provisional Regiment (four batts.) 1,851
Cavalry--Frésia’s Division:
Privé’s { 1st Provisional Dragoons 778
Brigade { 2nd ditto 681
Dupré’s { 1st Provisional _Chasseurs à Cheval_ 556
Brigade { 2nd ditto 623
Boussard’s { 6th Provisional Dragoons 620
Brigade {
From Rigaud’s Brigade:
Half the 2nd Provisional Cuirassiers 341
Artillery, &c. (36 guns) 900
------
21,058
Allowing a deduction of 3,000 men for sick and previous losses,
there remain 15,000 bayonets and 3,000 sabres.
But, in a moment of evil inspiration, Dupont chose to deprive himself
of the advantage of having practically his whole army concentrated
on one spot, and determined to copy the error of the Spaniards by
splitting his force into two equal halves. He resolved to retain his
defensive position in front of Andujar, and to keep there his original
force--Barbou’s infantry and Frésia’s horse. But Vedel with his own
men, the four battalions from Gobert’s division which were at Andujar,
and 600 cavalry, was sent off to Baylen, where he was directed to rally
the beaten troops of Dufour and Liger-Belair, and then to fall upon
Reding and chase him back beyond the Guadalquivir[146].
[146] ‘Je vous prie, mon cher général, de vous porter le plus
rapidement possible, sur Baylen, pour y faire votre jonction avec
le corps qui a combattu aujourd’hui à Mengibar, et qui s’est
replié sur cette ville.... J’espère que demain l’ennemi sera
rejeté sur Mengibar, au delà du fleuve, et que les postes de
Guarroman et de la Caroline resteront en sûreté; ils sont d’une
grande importance’ (Dupont to Vedel, night of July 16). In these
orders lies the foundation of the disaster.
On the morning, therefore, of July 17 Vedel set out with some 6,000
men and marched to Baylen. Arriving there he found that Dufour had
evacuated the place, and had hurried on to La Carolina, on the false
hypothesis that Reding had pushed past him to seize the passes. As a
matter of fact the Spaniard had done nothing of the kind: after his
success at Mengibar, he had simply retired to his camp by the river,
and given his men twenty-four hours’ rest. It was a strange way to
employ the day after a victory--but his quiescence chanced to have the
most fortunate effect. Vedel, on hearing that Dufour had hastened
away to defend La Carolina and the passes, resolved to follow him.
He was so inexcusably negligent that he did not even send a cavalry
reconnaissance towards Mengibar, to find out whether any Spanish force
remained there. Had he done so, he would have found Reding’s whole
division enjoying their well-earned siesta! In the direction of La
Carolina and the passes there was no enemy save a small flanking column
of 1,800 raw levies under the Count of Valdecañas, which lay somewhere
near Liñares.
[Illustration: Battle of Baylen July 19, 1808, at the moment of
Dupont’s third attack.]
[Illustration: Part of Andalusia, between Andujar and the Passes.
July 19, 1808.]
On the night of the seventeenth, Vedel and his men, tired out by a long
march of over twenty miles, slept at Guarroman, halfway between Baylen
and La Carolina. Dufour and Liger-Belair had reached the last-named
place and Santa Elena, and had found no Spaniards near them. On the
morning of the eighteenth Vedel followed them, and united his troops
to theirs. He had then some 10,000 or 11,000 men concentrated in and
about La Carolina, with one single battalion left at Guarroman to keep
up his touch with Dupont. The latter had been entirely deceived by the
false news which Vedel had sent him from Baylen--to the effect that
Reding and his corps had marched for the passes, in order to cut the
French communications with Madrid. Believing the story, he forwarded
to his subordinate an approval of his disastrous movement[147], and
bade him ‘instantly attack and crush the Spanish force before him, and
after disposing of it return as quickly as possible to Andujar, to deal
with the troops of the enemy in that direction.’ Unfortunately, as we
have seen, there was no Spanish corps at all in front of Vedel; but by
the time that he discovered the fact it was too late for him to rejoin
Dupont without a battle[148]. His troops were tired out with two
night marches: there were no supplies of food to be got anywhere but at
La Carolina, and he decided that he must halt for at least twelve hours
before returning to join Dupont.
[147] ‘J’ai reçu votre lettre de Baylen. D’après le mouvement
de l’ennemi, le général Dufour a très-bien fait de regagner de
vitesse sur La Caroline et sur Ste-Hélène, pour occuper la tête
des gorges. Je vois avec plaisir que vous vous hâtez de vous
réunir à lui, afin de combattre avec avantage.... Si vous trouvez
l’ennemi à La Caroline ou sur tout autre point, tâchez de le
battre, pour venir me rejoindre et repousser ce qui est devant
Andujar’ (Dupont to Vedel, night of July 17).
[148] Vedel had now with him the following troops:--
(1) His own whole division [he had rallied the two detached
battalions of Liger-Belair] 6,800
(2) Nine battalions of Gobert’s division (four from Baylen,
three which had fought at Mengibar under Dufour, two
from Liñares and La Carolina) 4,350
(3) Cavalry { 6th Provisional Dragoons 620
{ Half 2nd Provisional Cuirassiers 340
Artillery, &c. (18 guns) 500
------
12,610
Deduct 2,500 for losses in action at Mengibar and sick, and about
10,000 remain.
Meanwhile, on the morning of the eighteenth, Reding’s 9,500 men, of
whom 750 were cavalry, had been joined by Coupigny and the second
Andalusian division, which amounted to 7,300 foot and 500 horse.
Advancing from Mengibar to attack Baylen, they found to their surprise
that the place was unoccupied: Vedel’s rearguard had left it on the
previous afternoon. Reding intended to march on Andujar from the rear
on the next day, being under the full belief that Vedel was still with
Dupont, and that the troops which had retired on La Carolina were only
the fragments of Gobert’s force. For Castaños and his colleagues had
drawn up their plan of operations on the hypothesis that the enemy were
still concentrated at Andujar.
Reding therefore, with some 17,000 men, encamped in and about Baylen,
intending to start at daybreak on July 19, and to fall on Dupont from
behind, while his chief assailed him in front. But already before
the sun was up, musket-shots from his pickets to the west announced
that the French were approaching from that direction. It was with the
head and not with the rear of Dupont’s column that Castaños’ first
and second divisions were to be engaged, for the enemy had evacuated
Andujar, and was in full march for Baylen.
On the night of the seventeenth Dupont had received the news that Vedel
had evacuated Baylen and gone off to the north-east, so that a gap of
thirty miles or more now separated him from his lieutenant. He had
at first been pleased with the move, as we have seen: but presently
he gathered, from the fact that Castaños did not press him, but only
assailed him with a distant and ineffective cannonade, that the main
stress of the campaign was not at Andujar but elsewhere. The Spanish
army was shifting itself eastward, and he therefore resolved that
he must do the same, though he would have to abandon his cherished
offensive position, his entrenchments, and such part of his supplies as
he could not carry with him. Having made up his mind to depart, Dupont
would have done wisely to start at once: if he had gone off early on
the morning of the eighteenth, he would have found Reding and Coupigny
not established in position at Baylen, but only just approaching from
the south. Probably he might have brushed by their front, or even have
given them a serious check, if he had fallen on them without hesitation.
But two considerations induced the French general to wait for the
darkness, and to waste fourteen invaluable hours at Andujar. The first
was that he hoped by moving at night to escape the notice of Castaños,
who might have attacked him if his retreat was open and undisguised.
The second was that he wished to carry off his heavy baggage train:
not only had he between 600 and 800 sick to load on his wagons, but
there was an enormous mass of other impedimenta, mainly consisting of
the plunder of Cordova. French and Spanish witnesses unite in stating
that the interminable file of 500 vehicles which clogged Dupont’s march
was to a very great extent laden with stolen goods[149]. And it was
the officers rather than the men who were responsible for this mass of
slow-moving transport.
[149] Against Cabany’s defence of Dupont on this point there
must be set the impression of almost every French witness from
Napoleon downwards.
It was not therefore till nine in the evening of the eighteenth that
the French general thought fit to move. After barricading and blocking
up the bridge of Andujar--he dared not use gunpowder to destroy it for
fear of rousing Castaños--he started on his night march. He had with
him thirteen battalions of infantry and four and a half regiments of
cavalry, with twenty-four guns, in all about 8,500 foot soldiers and
2,500 horse, allowing for the losses which he had sustained in sick
and wounded during the earlier phases of the campaign[150]. His march
was arranged as follows:--Chabert’s infantry brigade led the van:
then came the great convoy: behind it were the four Swiss battalions
under Colonel Schramm, which had lately been incorporated with the
French army. These again were followed by Pannetier’s infantry brigade
and Dupré’s two regiments of _chasseurs à cheval_. The rearguard
followed at some distance: it was composed of two and a half regiments
of heavy cavalry, placed under the command of General Privé, with
the one veteran infantry battalion which the army possessed, the 500
Marines of the Guard, as also six _compagnies d’élite_ picked from
the ‘legions of reserve.’ From the fact that Dupont placed his best
troops in this quarter, it is evident that he expected to be fighting
a rearguard action, with Castaños in pursuit, rather than to come
into contact with Spanish troops drawn up across his line of march.
He was ignorant that Reding and Coupigny had occupied Baylen on the
previous day--a fact which speaks badly for his cavalry: with 2,500
horsemen about him, he ought to have known all that was going on in his
neighbourhood. Probably the provisional regiments, which formed his
whole mounted force, were incapable of good work in the way of scouting
and reconnaissances.
[150] Of the troops which we have recapitulated on page 182 there
still remained with Dupont the whole of Barbou’s infantry, four
of the five regiments of Frésia’s cavalry (the fifth had marched
with Vedel), half of the 2nd Provisional Cuirassiers, and the
two Swiss regiments of Reding and Preux. The original total of
these corps had been 13,274. There remained about 11,000, for
that number can be accounted for after the battle. The official
Spanish dispatch gave 8,242 unwounded prisoners and 2,000
casualties.
The little town of Baylen is situated in a slight depression of a
saddle-backed range of hills which runs southward out from the Sierra
Morena. The road which leads through it passes over the lowest point in
the watershed, as is but natural: to the north and south of the town
the heights are better marked: they project somewhat on each flank, so
that the place is situated in a sort of amphitheatre. The hill to the
south of Baylen is called the Cerrajon: those to the north the Cerro
del Zumacar Chico, and the Cerro del Zumacar Grande. All three are bare
and bald, without a shrub or tree: none of them are steep, their lower
slopes are quite suitable for cavalry work, and even their rounded
summits are not inaccessible to a horseman. The ground to the west of
them, over which the French had to advance, is open and level for a
mile and a half: then it grows more irregular, and is thickly covered
with olive groves and other vegetation, so that a force advancing over
it is hidden from the view of a spectator on the hills above Baylen
till it comes out into the open. The wooded ground is about two and
a half miles broad: its western limit is the ravine of a mountain
torrent, the Rumblar (or Herrumblar, as the aspirate-loving Andalusians
sometimes call it). The road from Andujar to Baylen crosses this
stream by a bridge, the only place where artillery can pass the rocky
but not very deep depression.
It is necessary to say a few words about the ground eastward from
Baylen, as this too was not unimportant in the later phases of the
battle. Here the road passes through a broad defile rather than a
plain. It is entirely commanded by the heights on its northern side,
where lies the highest ground of the neighbourhood, the Cerro de San
Cristobal, crowned by a ruined hermitage. The difference between the
approach to Baylen from the west and from the east, is that on the
former side the traveller reaches the town through a semicircular
amphitheatre of upland, while by the latter he comes up a V-shaped
valley cut through the hills.
Reding and Coupigny were somewhat surprised by the bicker of musketry
which told them that the French had fallen upon their outposts. But
fortunately for them their troops were already getting under arms,
and were bivouacking over the lower slopes of the hills in a position
which made it possible to extemporize without much difficulty a line
of battle, covering the main road and the approaches to Baylen. They
hastily occupied the low amphitheatre of hills north and south of the
town. Reding deployed to the right of the road, on the heights of the
Cerro del Zumacar Chico, Coupigny to its left on the Cerrajon. Their
force was of a very composite sort--seventeen battalions of regulars,
six of embodied militia, five of new Andalusian levies. The units
varied hopelessly in size, some having as few as 350 men, others as
many as 1,000. They could also dispose of 1,200 cavalry and sixteen
guns. The greater part of the latter were placed in battery on the
central and lowest part of the position, north and south of the high
road and not far in front of Baylen. The infantry formed a semicircular
double line: in front were deployed battalions near the foot of the
amphitheatre of hills; in rear, higher up the slope or concealed behind
the crest, was a second line in columns of battalions. The cavalry were
drawn up still further to the rear. Finally, as a necessary precaution
against the possible arrival of Vedel on the scene from La Carolina,
Reding placed seven battalions far away to the east, on the other side
of Baylen, with cavalry pickets out in front to give timely notice of
any signs of the enemy in this quarter. These 3,500 men were quite out
of the battle as long as Dupont was the only enemy in sight.
Before it was fully daylight General Chabert and his brigade had thrust
back the Spanish outposts. But the strength of the insurgent army was
quite unknown to him: the morning dusk still lay in the folds of the
hills, and he thought that he might possibly have in front of him
nothing but some flying column of insignificant strength. Accordingly,
after allowing the whole of his brigade to come up, Chabert formed a
small line of attack, brought up his battery along the high road to the
middle of the amphitheatre, between the horns of the Spanish position,
and made a vigorous push forward. He operated almost entirely to the
south of the road, where, opposite Coupigny’s division, the hill was
lower and the slope gentler than further north.
To dislodge 14,000 men and twenty guns in position with 3,000 men
and six guns was of course a military impossibility. But Chabert had
the excuse that he did not, and could not, know what he was doing.
His attempt was of course doomed to failure: his battery was blown
to pieces by the Spanish guns, acting from a concentric position,
the moment that it opened. His four battalions, after pushing back
Coupigny’s skirmishing line for a few hundred yards, were presently
checked by the reserves which the Spaniard sent forward. Having come to
a stand they soon had to retire, and with heavy loss. The brigade drew
back to the cover of the olive groves behind it, leaving two dismounted
guns out in the open.
Behind Chabert the enormous convoy was blocking the way as far back as
the bridge of the Rumblar. Five hundred wagons with their two or four
oxen apiece, took up, when strung along the road, more than two and a
half miles. Dupont, who rode up at the sound of the cannon, and now
clearly saw the Spanish line drawn up on a front of two miles north and
south of the road, realized that this was no skirmish but a pitched
battle. His action was governed by the fact that he every moment
expected to hear the guns of Castaños thundering behind him, and to
find that he was attacked in rear as well as in front. He accordingly
resolved to deliver a second assault as quickly as possible, before
this evil chance might come upon him. With some difficulty the Swiss
battalions, Dupré’s brigade of light cavalry, and Privé’s dragoons
pushed their way past the convoy and got into the open. They were
terribly tired, having marched all night and covered fifteen miles
of bad road, but their general threw them at once into the fight:
Pannetier’s brigade and the Marines of the Guard were still far to the
rear, at or near the bridge of the Rumblar.
Dupont’s second attack was a fearful mistake: he should at all costs
have concentrated his whole army for one desperate stroke, for there
was no more chance that 6,000 men could break the Spanish line than
there had been that Chabert’s 3,000 could do so. But without waiting
for Pannetier to come up, he delivered his second attack. The four
Swiss battalions advanced to the north of the road, Chabert’s rallied
brigade to the south of it: to the right of the latter were Privé’s
heavy cavalry, two and a half regiments strong, with whom Dupont
intended to deliver his main blow. They charged with admirable vigour
and precision, cut up two Spanish battalions which failed to form
square in time, and cleared the summit of the Cerrajon. But when,
disordered with their first success, they rode up against Coupigny’s
reserves, they failed to break through. Their own infantry was too far
to the rear to help them, and after a gallant struggle to hold their
ground, the dragoons and cuirassiers fell back to their old position.
When they were already checked, Chabert and Schramm pushed forward to
try their fortune: beaten off by the central battery of the Spanish
line and its infantry supports, they recoiled to the edge of the olive
wood, and there reformed.
The French were now growing disheartened, and Dupont saw disaster
impending over him so closely that he seems to have lost his head, and
to have retained no other idea save that of hurling every man that he
could bring up in fruitless attacks on the Spanish centre. He hurried
up from the rear Pannetier’s brigade of infantry, leaving at the bridge
of the Rumblar only the single battalion of the Marines of the Guard.
At eight o’clock the reinforcements had come up, and the attack was
renewed. This time the main stress was at the northern end of the line,
where Pannetier was thrown forward, with orders to drive Reding’s right
wing off the Cerro del Zumacar Grande, while the other battalions
renewed their assault against the Spanish centre and left. But the
exhausted troops on the right of the line, who had been fighting since
daybreak, made little impression on Coupigny’s front, and Reding’s
last reserves were brought forward to check and hold off the one fresh
brigade of which Dupont could dispose.
The fourth attack had failed. The French general had now but one intact
battalion, that of the Marines of the Guard, which had been left with
the baggage at the bridge over the Rumblar, to protect the rear against
the possible advent of Castaños. As there were still no signs of an
attack from that side, Dupont brought up this corps, ranged it across
the road in the centre of the line, and drew up behind it all that
could be rallied of Chabert’s and Pannetier’s men. The whole formed a
sort of wedge, with which he hoped to break through the Spanish centre
by one last effort. The cavalry advanced on the flanks, Privé’s brigade
to the south, Dupré’s to the north of the road. Dupont himself, with
all his staff around him, placed himself at the head of the marines,
and rode in front of the line, waving his sword and calling to the men
that this time they must cut their way through [12.30 P.M.].
All was in vain: the attack was pressed home, the marines pushed up to
the very muzzles of the Spanish cannon placed across the high road, and
Dupré’s chasseurs drove in two battalions in Reding’s right centre.
But the column could get no further forward: the marines were almost
exterminated: Dupré was shot dead: Dupont received a painful (but not
dangerous) wound in the hip, and rode to the rear. Then the whole
attack collapsed, and the French rolled back in utter disorder to the
olive groves which sheltered their rear. The majority of the rank and
file of the two Swiss regiments in the centre threw up the butts of
their muskets in the air and surrendered--or rather deserted--to the
enemy[151].
[151] That the desertion was pretty general is shown by the
fact that of 2,000 men of these corps only 308 were recorded as
prisoners in the Spanish official returns. If 300 more had been
killed and wounded, 1,400 must have deserted. Hardly any officers
were among those who went over to the enemy; Schramm, their
commander, was wounded.
At this moment, just as the firing died down at the front, a lively
fusillade was heard from another quarter. Cruz-Murgeon’s light column,
from the side of the mountains, had come down upon the Rumblar bridge,
and had begun to attack the small baggage-guard[152] which remained
with the convoy. All was up. Cruz-Murgeon was the forerunner of La
Peña, and Dupont had not a man left to send to protect his rear. The
battalions were all broken up, the wearied infantry had cast themselves
down in the shade of the olive groves, and could not be induced even to
rise to their feet. Most of them were gasping for water, which could
not be got, for the stream-beds which cross the field were all dried
up, and only at the Rumblar could a drink be obtained. Not 2,000 men
out of the original 11,000 who had started from Andujar could be got
together to oppose a feeble front to Reding and Coupigny. It was only
by keeping up a slow artillery fire, from the few pieces that had not
been silenced or dismounted, that any show of resistance could be made.
When the attack from the rear, which was obviously impending, should be
delivered, the whole force must clearly be destroyed.
[152] Three companies of Pannetier’s brigade.
Wishing at least to get some sort of terms for the men whom he had
led into such a desperate position, Dupont at two o’clock sent his
aide-de-camp, Captain Villoutreys, one of the Emperor’s equerries, to
ask for a suspension of hostilities from Reding. He offered to evacuate
Andalusia, not only with his own troops but with those of Vedel and
Dufour, in return for a free passage to Madrid. This was asking too
much, and if the Spanish general had been aware of the desperate state
of his adversary, he would not have listened to the proposal for a
minute. But he did not know that La Peña was now close in Dupont’s
rear, while he was fully aware that Vedel, returning too late from the
passes, was now drawing near to the field from the north. His men were
almost as exhausted as those of Dupont, many had died from sunstroke in
the ranks, and he did not refuse to negotiate. He merely replied that
he had no power to treat, and that all communications should be made
to his chief, who must be somewhere in the direction of Andujar. He
would grant a suspension of arms for a few hours, while a French and a
Spanish officer should ride off together to seek for Castaños.
Dupont accepted these terms gladly, all the more so because La Peña’s
division had at last reached the Rumblar bridge, and had announced its
approach by four cannon-shots, fired at regular intervals, as a signal
to catch Reding’s ear. It was with the greatest difficulty that the
commander of the fourth Andalusian division could be got to recognize
the armistice granted by his colleague; he saw the French at his
mercy, and wanted to fall upon them while they were still in disorder.
But after some argument he consented to halt. Captain Villoutreys,
accompanied by the Spanish Colonel Copons, rode through his lines to
look for Castaños.
The Spanish commander-in-chief had displayed most blameworthy torpidity
on this day. He had let Dupont slip away from Andujar, and did not
discover that he was gone till dawn had arrived. Then, instead of
pursuing at full speed with all his forces, he had sent on La Peña’s
division, while he lingered behind with that of Felix Jones, surveying
the enemy’s empty lines. The fourth division must have marched late
and moved slowly, as it only reached the Rumblar bridge--twelve miles
from Andujar--at about 2 p.m. It could easily have been there by 8 or 9
a.m., and might have fallen upon Dupont while he was delivering one of
his earlier attacks on the Baylen position.
At much the same moment that Villoutreys and Copons reached Castaños
at Andujar, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, the second half
of the French army at last appeared upon the scene. General Vedel had
discovered on the eighteenth that he had nothing to fear from the side
of the passes. He therefore called down all Dufour’s troops, save
two battalions left at Santa Elena, united the two divisions at La
Carolina, and gave orders for their return to Baylen on the following
morning. Leaving the bivouac at five o’clock Vedel, with some 9,000 or
9,500 men, marched down the defile for ten miles as far as the village
of Guarroman, which he reached about 9.30 or 10 a.m.[153] The day was
hot, the men were tired, and though the noise of a distant cannonade
could be distinctly heard in the direction of Baylen, the general told
his officers to allow their battalions two hours to cook, and to rest
themselves. By some inexplicable carelessness the two hours swelled to
four, and it was not till 2 p.m. that the column started out again, to
drop down to Baylen. An hour before the French marched, the cannonade,
which had been growling in the distance all through the mid-day rest,
suddenly died down. Vedel was in nowise disturbed, and is said to have
remarked that his chief had probably made an end of the Spanish corps
which had been blocking the road between them.
[153] There is some dispute as to the exact hours of Vedel’s
start and halt: I have adopted, more or less, those given by
Cabany. Vedel himself, when examined by the court-martial, said
‘qu’il ne pouvait pas préciser l’heure,’ which is quite in
keeping with the rest of his doings.
After this astonishing display of sloth and slackness, Vedel proceeded
along the road for ten miles, till he came in sight of the rear of the
Spanish position at Baylen. His cavalry soon brought him the news that
the troops visible upon the hillsides were enemies: they consisted of
the brigade which Reding had told off at the beginning of the day to
hold the height of San Cristobal and the Cerro del Ahorcado against
a possible attack from the rear. It was at last clear to Vedel that
things had not gone well at Baylen, and that it was his duty to press
in upon the Spaniards, and endeavour to cut his way through to his
chief. He had begun to deploy his troops across the defile, with the
object of attacking both the flanking hills, when two officers with a
white flag rode out towards him. They announced to him that Dupont had
been beaten, and had asked for a suspension of hostilities, which had
been granted. La Peña’s troops had stayed their advance, and he was
asked to do the same.
Either because he doubted the truth of these statements, or because
he thought that his appearance would improve Dupont’s position, Vedel
refused to halt, and sent back the Spanish officers to tell Reding
that he should attack him. This he did with small delay, falling
on the brigade opposed to him with great fury. Boussard’s dragoons
charged the troops on the lower slopes of the Cerro del Ahorcado, and
rode into two battalions who were so much relying on the armistice
that they were surprised with their arms still piled, cooking their
evening meal. A thousand men were taken prisoners almost without firing
a shot[154]. Cassagnes’ infantry attacked the steep height of San
Cristobal with less good fortune: his first assault was beaten off,
and Vedel was preparing to succour him, when a second white flag came
out of Baylen. It was carried by a Spanish officer, who brought with
him De Barbarin, one of Dupont’s aides-de-camp. The general had sent a
written communication ordering Vedel to cease firing and remain quiet,
as an armistice had been concluded, and it was hoped that Castaños
would consent to a convention. The moment that his answer was received
it should be passed on; meanwhile the attack must be stopped and the
troops withdrawn.
[154] Apparently they were the 1st battalion of the Irlanda
regiment, and the militia of Jaen, according to the narrative of
Maupoey and Goicoechea (Arteche, ii. 512).
Vedel obeyed: clearly he could do nothing else, for Dupont was his
hierarchical superior, and, as far as he could see, was still a free
agent. Moreover, De Barbarin told him of the very easy terms which
the commander-in-chief hoped to get from Castaños. If they could be
secured it would be unnecessary, as well as risky, to continue the
attack. For La Peña might very possibly have annihilated the beaten
division before Vedel could force his way to its aid, since horse and
foot were both ‘fought out,’ and there was neither strength nor spirit
for resistance left among them. Vedel therefore was justified in his
obedience to his superior, and in his withdrawal to a point two miles
up the La Carolina road.
Meanwhile Villoutreys, the emissary of Dupont, had reached the camp of
Castaños at Andujar[155] late in the afternoon, and laid his chief’s
proposals before the Spaniard. As might have been expected, they were
declined--Dupont was in the trap, and it would have been absurd to let
him off so easily. No great objection was made to the retreat of Vedel,
but Castaños said that the corps caught between La Peña and Reding must
lay down its arms. Early next morning (July 20) Villoutreys returned
with this reply to the French camp.
[155] Or, according to some authorities, met Castaños at the
first post-house out of Andujar, on the Baylen road.
Dupont meanwhile had spent a restless night. He had gone round the
miserable bivouac of his men, to see if they would be in a condition
to fight next morning, in the event of the negotiations failing. The
result was most discouraging: the soldiers were in dire straits for
want of water, they had little to eat, and were so worn out that they
could not be roused even to gather in the wounded. The brigadiers and
colonels reported that they could hold out no prospect of a rally
on the morrow[156]. Only Privé, the commander of the heavy-cavalry
brigade, spoke in favour of fighting: the others doubted whether even
2,000 men could be got together for a rush at the Spanish lines. When
an aide-de-camp, whom Vedel had been allowed to send to his chief,
asked whether it would not be possible to make a concerted attack on
Reding next morning, with the object of disengaging the surrounded
division, Dupont told him that it was no use to dream of any such
thing. Vedel must prepare for a prompt retreat, in order to save
himself; no more could be done.
[156] No one confesses the demoralization of the French troops
more than Foy. ‘Dupont voulait combattre encore.... Mais pour
exécuter des résolutions vigoureuses il fallait des soldats à
conduire. Or, ces infortunés n’étaient plus des soldats; c’était
un troupeau dominé par les besoins physiques, sur lequel les
influences morales n’avaient plus de prise. La souffrance avait
achevé d’énerver les courages.’
At dawn, nothing having been yet settled, La Peña wrote to Dupont
threatening that if the 1,000 men who had been captured by Vedel on
the previous day were not at once released, he should consider the
armistice at an end, and order his division to advance. The request
was reasonable, as they had been surprised and taken while relying on
the suspension of arms. Dupont ordered his subordinate to send them
back to Reding’s camp. Castaños meanwhile was pressing for a reply to
his demand for surrender: he had brought up Felix Jones’s division
to join La Peña’s in the early morning, so that he had over 14,000
men massed on the right bank of the Rumblar and ready to attack[157].
Dupont was well aware of this, and had made up his mind to surrender
when he realized the hopeless demoralization of his troops. Early in
the morning he called a council of war; the officers present, after a
short discussion, drew up and signed a document in which they declared
that ‘the honour of the French arms had been sufficiently vindicated
by the battle of the previous day: that in accepting the enemy’s terms
the commander-in-chief was yielding to evident military necessity:
that, surrounded by 40,000 enemies, he was justified in averting by
an honourable treaty the destruction of his corps.’ Only the cavalry
brigadier Privé, refused to put his name to the paper, on which
appear the signatures of three generals of division, of the officers
commanding the artillery and engineers, of two brigadiers, and of three
commanders of regiments.
[157] Namely, 6,600 of La Peña’s men, 5,400 of Jones’s, and 2,500
or 3,000 of Cruz-Murgeon’s flying column.
After this formality was ended Generals Chabert and Marescot rode out
from the French camp and met Castaños. They had orders to make the
best terms they could: in a general way it was recognized that the
compromised division could not escape surrender, and that Vedel and
Dufour would probably have to evacuate Andalusia and stipulate for a
free passage to Madrid. The Spaniards were not, as it seems, intending
to ask for much more. But while they were haggling on such petty points
as the forms of surrender, and the exemption of officers’ baggage
from search, a new factor was introduced into the discussion. Some
irregulars from the Sierra Morena came to Castaños, bringing with them
as a prisoner an aide-de-camp of Savary[158]. They had secured his
dispatch, which was a peremptory order to Dupont to evacuate Andalusia
with all his three divisions, and fall back towards Madrid. This put
a new face on affairs, for Castaños saw that if he conceded a free
retreat to Vedel and Dufour, he would be enabling them to carry out
exactly the movement which Savary intended. To do so would clearly be
undesirable: he therefore interposed in the negotiations, and declared
that the troops of these two generals should not be allowed to quit
Andalusia by the road which had been hitherto proposed. They must be
sent round by sea to some port of France not immediately contiguous
with the Spanish frontier.
[158] His name was Captain de Fénelon (Cabany, p. 178).
Chabert and Marescot, as was natural, declaimed vehemently against
this projected change in the capitulation, and declared that it was
inadmissible. But they were answered in even more violent terms by
the turbulent Conde de Tilly, who attended as representative of the
Junta of Seville. He taunted them with their atrocities at the sack
of Cordova, and threatened that if the negotiations fell through no
quarter should be given to the French army. At last Castaños suggested
a compromise: he offered to let Dupont’s troops, no less than those of
Vedel, return to France by sea, if the claim that the latter should be
allowed to retreat on Madrid were withdrawn. This was conceding much,
and the French generals accepted the proposal.
Accordingly Castaños and Tilly, representing the Spaniards, and Chabert
and Marescot, on behalf of Dupont, signed preliminaries, by which it
was agreed that the surrounded divisions should formally lay down
their arms and become prisoners of war, while Vedel’s men should not
be considered to have capitulated, nor make any act of surrender. Both
bodies of men should leave Andalusia by sea, and be taken to Rochefort
on Spanish vessels. ‘The Spanish army,’ so ran the curiously worded
seventh article of the capitulation, ‘guarantees them against all
hostile aggression during their passage.’ The other clauses contain
nothing striking, save some rather liberal permissions to the French
officers to take away their baggage--each general was to be allowed two
wheeled vehicles, each field officer or staff officer one--without its
being examined. This article caught the eye of Napoleon, and has been
noted by many subsequent critics, who have maintained that Dupont and
his colleagues, gorged with the plunder of Cordova, surrendered before
they needed, in order to preserve their booty intact. That they yielded
before it was inevitable we do not believe: but far more anxiety than
was becoming seems to have been shown regarding the baggage. This
anxiety finds easy explanation if the Spanish official statement, that
more than £40,000 in hard cash, and a great quantity of jewellery and
silver plate was afterwards found in the _fourgons_ of the staff and
the superior officers, be accepted as correct[159].
[159] It will be found in the _Gazeta de Madrid_ of October 9,
1808. It is stated that 60,000 dollars in silver and 136,000
dollars in gold, besides much plate and jewellery, were found in
the _fourgons_ of Dupont and his staff.
The fifteenth clause of the capitulation had contents of still more
doubtful propriety: it was to the effect that as many pieces of church
plate had been stolen at the sack of Cordova, Dupont undertook to make
a search for them and restore them to the sanctuaries to which they
belonged, if they could be found in existence. The confession was so
scandalous, that we share Napoleon’s wonder that such a clause could
ever have been passed by the two French negotiators; if they were aware
that the charge of theft was true (as it no doubt was), shame should
have prevented them from putting it on paper: if they thought it false,
they were permitting a gratuitous insult to the French army to be
inserted in the capitulation.
While the negotiations were going on, Dupont sent secret orders to
Vedel to abscond during the night, and to retreat on Madrid as fast as
he was able. Chabert and Marescot had of course no knowledge of this,
or they would hardly have consented to include that general’s troops in
the convention. In accordance with his superior’s orders, and with the
obvious necessities of the case, Vedel made off on the night of July
20-21, leaving only a screen of pickets in front of his position, to
conceal his departure from the Spaniards as long as was possible. On
the return of his plenipotentiaries to his camp on the morning of the
twenty-first, Dupont learnt, to his surprise and discontent, that they
had included Vedel’s division in their bargain with Castaños. But as
that officer was now far away--he had reached La Carolina at daybreak
and Santa Elena by noon--the commander-in-chief hoped that his troops
were saved.
The anger of the Spaniards at discovering the evasion of the second
French division may easily be imagined. Reding, who was the first to
become aware of it, sent down an officer into Dupont’s camp, with the
message that if Vedel did not instantly return, he should regard the
convention as broken, and fall upon the surrounded troops: he should
give no quarter, as he considered that treachery had been shown, and
that the armistice had been abused. Dupont could not hope to make a
stand, and was at the enemy’s mercy. He directed his chief of the
staff to write an order bidding Vedel to halt, and sent it to him by
one of his aides-de-camp, accompanied by a Spanish officer. This did
not satisfy Reding, who insisted that Dupont should write an autograph
letter of his own in stronger terms. His demand could not be refused,
and the two dispatches reached Vedel almost at the same hour, as he was
resting his troops at Santa Elena before plunging into the passes.
Vedel, as all his previous conduct had shown, was weak and wanting in
initiative. Some of his officers tried to persuade him to push on, and
to leave Dupont to make the best terms for himself that he could. Much
was to be said in favour of this resolve: he might have argued that
since he had never been without the power of retreating, it was wrong
of his superior to include him in the capitulation. His duty to the
Emperor would be to save his men, whatever might be the consequences to
Dupont. The latter, surrounded as he was, could hardly be considered a
free agent, and his orders might be disregarded. But such views were
far from Vedel’s mind: he automatically obeyed his chief’s dispatch and
halted. Next day he marched his troops back to Baylen, in consequence
of a third communication from Dupont.
On July 23 Dupont’s troops laid down their arms with full formalities,
defiling to the sound of military music before the divisions of La
Peña and Jones, who were drawn up by the Rumblar bridge. On the
twenty-fourth Vedel’s and Dufour’s troops, without any such humiliating
ceremony, stacked their muskets and cannon on the hillsides east of
Baylen and marched for the coast. When the two corps were numbered it
was found that 8,242 unwounded men had surrendered with Dupont: nearly
2,000 more, dead or wounded, were left on the battle-field; seven or
eight hundred of the Swiss battalions had deserted and disappeared.
With Vedel 9,393 men laid down their arms[160]. Not only did he deliver
up his own column, but he called down the battalion guarding the
Despeña Perros pass. Even the troops left beyond the defiles in La
Mancha were summoned to surrender by the Spaniards, and some of them
did so, though they were not really included in the capitulation, which
was by its wording confined to French troops in Andalusia. But the
commanders of three battalions allowed themselves to be intimidated
by Colonel Cruz-Murgeon, who went to seek them at the head of a few
cavalry, and tamely laid down their arms[161].
[160] This total of 17,635, given in the Spanish returns, seems
absolutely certain. It tallies very well with the original
figures of the French divisions, when losses in the campaign
are allowed for. I find in the _Vaughan Papers_ a contemporary
Spanish scrap of unknown provenance, giving somewhat different
figures, as follows:--Dupont’s corps: unwounded prisoners,
6,000; killed and wounded on the field, 3,000; Swiss deserters,
1,200; sick captured in the hospitals, 400; making a total of
10,600. Whittingham, the English attaché in Castaños’ camp, gives
another set:--unwounded prisoners, 5,500; killed and wounded,
2,600; Swiss deserters, 1,100; making 9,200. But both of these
are confessedly rough estimates, though made on the spot. As to
the other French prisoners, the Vaughan document says that 9,100
surrendered with Vedel, 800 in the passes, and 700 more in La
Mancha.
[161] Battalions surrendered at Santa Cruz, and at Manzanares.
But the officer in command at Madridejos refused to be cajoled,
and retreated on Madrid.
The Spaniards had won their success at very small cost. Reding’s
division returned a casualty list of 117 dead and 403 wounded, in
which were included the losses of the skirmish of July 16 as well as
those of the battle of the nineteenth. Coupigny lost 100 dead and 894
wounded. La Peña’s and Cruz-Murgeon’s columns, which had barely got
into touch with the French when the armistice was granted, cannot have
lost more than a score or two of men. The total is no more than 954.
There were in addition 998 prisoners captured by Vedel when he attacked
from the rear, but these were, of course, restored on the twentieth, in
consequence of the orders sent by Dupont, along with two guns and two
regimental standards.
Castaños, a man of untarnished honour, had every intention of carrying
out the capitulation. The French troops, divided into small columns,
were sent down to the coast, or to the small towns of the Lower
Guadalquivir under Spanish escorts, which had some difficulty in
preserving them from the fury of the peasantry. It was necessary to
avoid the large towns like Cordova and Seville, where the passage of
the unarmed prisoners would certainly have led to riots and massacres.
At Ecija the mob actually succeeded in murdering sixty unfortunate
Frenchmen. But when the troops had been conducted to their temporary
destinations, it was found that difficulties had arisen. The amount of
Spanish shipping available would not have carried 20,000 men. This was
a comparatively small hindrance, as the troops could have been sent off
in detachments. But it was more serious that Lord Collingwood, the
commander of the British squadron off Cadiz, refused his permission for
the embarkation of the French. He observed that Castaños had promised
to send Dupont’s army home by water, without considering whether he
had the power to do so. The British fleet commanded the sea, and was
blockading Rochefort, the port which the capitulation assigned for the
landing of the captive army. No representative of Great Britain had
signed the convention[162], and she was not bound by it. He must find
out, by consulting his government, whether the transference of the
troops of Dupont to France was to be allowed.
[162] There had been a British attaché, Captain Whittingham, at
Castaños’ head quarters. The French negotiators had tried to
induce him to approve the terms of capitulation. But he very
wisely refused, having no authority to do so.
On hearing of the difficulties raised by Collingwood, Castaños got
into communication with Dupont, and drew up six supplementary articles
to the convention, in which it was stipulated that if the British
Government objected to Rochefort as the port at which the French troops
were to be landed, some other place should be selected. If all passage
by sea was denied, a way by land should be granted by the Spaniards.
This agreement was signed at Seville on August 6, but meanwhile the
Junta was being incited to break the convention. Several of its more
reckless and fanatical members openly broached the idea that no faith
need be kept with those who had invaded Spain under such treacherous
pretences. The newspapers were full of tales of French outrages, and
protests against the liberation of the spoilers of Cordova and Jaen.
Matters came to a head when Dupont wrote to Morla, the Captain-General
of Andalusia, to protest against further delays, and to require
that the first division of his army should be allowed to sail at
once [August 8]. He received in reply a most shameless and cynical
letter[163]. The Captain-General began by declaring that there were
no ships available. But he then went on to state that no more had
been promised than that the Junta would request the British to allow
the French troops to sail. He supposed that it was probable that a
blank refusal would be sent to this demand. Why should Britain allow
the passage by sea of troops who were destined to be used against her
on some other point of the theatre of war? Morla next insinuated
that Dupont himself must have been well aware that the capitulation
could not be carried out. ‘Your Excellency’s object in inserting
these conditions was merely to obtain terms which, impossible as they
were to execute, might yet give a show of honour to the inevitable
surrender.... What right have you to require the performance of these
impossible conditions on behalf of an army which entered Spain under a
pretence of alliance, and then imprisoned our King and princes, sacked
his palaces, slew and robbed his subjects, wasted his provinces, and
tore away his crown?’
[163] This will be found printed at length in the Appendix of
Papers relating to Baylen.
After a delay of some weeks Lord Collingwood sent in to the Junta the
reply of his government. It was far from being of the kind that Morla
and his friends had hoped. Canning had answered that no stipulations
made at Baylen could bind Great Britain, but that to oblige her
allies, and to avoid compromising their honour, she consented to
allow the French army to be sent back to France, and to be landed
in successive detachments of 4,000 men at some port between Brest
and Rochefort (i.e. at Nantes or L’Orient). It is painful to have to
add that neither the Junta of Seville nor the Supreme Central Junta,
which superseded that body, took any steps to carry out this project.
Dupont himself, his generals, and his staff, were sent home to France,
but their unfortunate troops were kept for a time in cantonments in
Andalusia, then sent on board pontoons in the Bay of Cadiz, where
they were subjected to all manner of ill usage and half-starved, and
finally dispatched to the desolate rock of Cabrera, in the Balearic
Islands, where more than half of them perished of cold, disease, and
insufficient nourishment[164]. Vedel’s men were imprisoned no less than
Dupont’s, and the survivors were only released at the conclusion of the
general peace of 1814.