Vanguard Brigade, General Mendizabal 2,884
1st Division, General Figueroa 4,018
3rd Division, General Riquelme 4,789
4th Division, General Carbajal 3,531
Reserve Brigade, General Mahy 3,025
------
Total 18,247
The detached corps being--
2nd Division, General Martinengo 5,066
Asturian Division, General Acevedo 7,633
Blake had seized Bilbao on October 11: it is astonishing therefore
to find that he made no forward movement till the twenty-fourth. By
this sluggishness he sacrificed his chance of crushing Merlin before
he could be reinforced, and--what was far worse--allowed the leading
columns of the ‘Grand Army’ to reach Irun. If he had pressed forward
on the twelfth or thirteenth, they would still have been many marches
away, trailing across Guyenne and Gascony. Having once put his hand to
such a dangerous manœuvre as that of pushing between the French flank
and the northern sea, Blake was most unwise to leave the enemy time to
divine his object and to concentrate against him. A rapid stroke at
Durango and Bergara, so as to cut the great high-road to France in the
rear of Bessières, was his only chance. Such an attempt would probably
have landed him in ultimate disaster, for the enemy (even before the
‘Grand Army’ arrived) were far more numerous than he supposed. He
had valued them at 40,000 men, while they were really 64,000 strong.
But having framed the plan, he should at least have made a strenuous
attempt to carry it out. It is possible to explain but not to excuse
his delay: his army was not equipped for a winter campaign, and the
snow was beginning to lie on the upper slopes of the Cantabrian hills
and the Pyrenees. While he was vainly trying to obtain great-coats
and shoes for his somewhat tattered army, from the Central Junta or
the English, and while he was accumulating stores in Bilbao, the days
slipped by with fatal rapidity.
It was not till October 24 that he at last moved forward from Bilbao,
and committed himself to the now hopeless task of clearing the way to
Durango and Bergara. On that day his advanced guard drove Merlin’s
outlying posts from their positions, and came face to face with the
French main body, drawn out on the hillsides of Baquijano, a few miles
in front of Durango. The enemy expected him to attack next day, but he
had just received confused notices from the peasantry to the effect
that enormous reinforcements had reached Irun and San Sebastian, and
were within supporting distance of the comparatively small force with
which he had hitherto been dealing. This information threw him back
into the condition of doubt and hesitation from which he had for a
moment emerged, and he proceeded to halt for another full week in
front of the Durango position. Yet it was clear that there were only
two rational alternatives before him: one was to attack Merlin and
Verdier before they could draw succour from the newly arrived corps.
The other was to fall back at once to a position in which he could not
be enveloped and outflanked, i.e. to retire behind Bilbao, holding that
town with nothing more than a small detachment which could easily get
away if attacked. But Blake did nothing, and waited in the supremely
dangerous post of Zornoza, in front of Durango, till the enemy fell
upon him at his leisure.
The troops whose arrival at Irun had been reported consisted of the
two leading divisions of the 4th Corps, that of Lefebvre, and of the
whole of the 1st Corps, that of Victor. The former, arriving as early
as October 18, only seven days after Blake captured Bilbao, marched
westward, and replaced Merlin and Verdier in the Durango position. The
troops of these two generals were directed by King Joseph to rejoin
their proper commanders when relieved, so Verdier led the Guards back
to the central reserve, while Merlin reported himself to Ney, at La
Guardia. To compensate Lefebvre for their departure, and for the
non-arrival of his third division, that of Valence, which still lay far
to the rear, Villatte’s division of the 1st Corps was sent to Durango.
Marshal Victor himself, with his other two divisions, took the road to
Vittoria, and from thence, at the King’s orders, transferred himself to
Murguia, on the cross-road over the mountains to Bilbao. Here he was in
a position to strike at Blake’s rear, after driving off the 4,000 men
of Acevedo’s Asturian division, who (as it will be remembered) had been
told off by the Spanish General to cover this road[429].
[429] There is a clear and precise account of all these moves in
the _Mémoires_ of Jourdan, who was still acting as Joseph’s chief
of the staff (pp. 79-81).
King Joseph, inclining for once to a bold stroke, wished to push Victor
across the hills on to Bilbao, while Lefebvre should advance along
the high-road and drive Blake into the trap. Bessières at the same
moment might move a division by Orduña and Oquendo, and place himself
at Valmaceda, which Blake would have to pass if he escaped from Victor
at Bilbao. This plan was eminently sound, for there was no doubt that
the two marshals, who had at their disposal some 35,000 men, could
easily have brushed out of their way the two divisions under Acevedo
and Martinengo which Blake had left behind him in the passes. Nothing
could have prevented them from seizing Bilbao and Valmaceda, and the
Spanish army would have been surrounded and captured. At the best some
part of it might have escaped along the coast-road to Santander, if its
commander detected ere it was too late the full danger of his position.
This scheme, however, was not carried out: Bessières, Victor, and
Ney showed themselves opposed to it: Napoleon had announced that he
intended ere long to appear in person, and that he did not wish to
have matters hurried before his arrival. His obsequious lieutenants
refused to concur in any great general movement which might not win
his approval. Victor, in particular, urged that he had been ordered to
have the whole of the 1st Corps concentrated at Vittoria, and that if
he marched northward into Biscay he would be violating his master’s
express command[430]. Joseph and Jourdan, therefore, resolved to defer
the execution of their plan for the annihilation of Blake, and sent
orders to Lefebvre to maintain his defensive position at Durango, and
make no forward movement. In so doing they were acting exactly as the
Emperor desired.
[430] Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, p. 79.
They had forgotten, however, to reckon with the personal ambition of
the old Duke of Dantzig. Lefebvre, in spite of his many campaigns, had
never before had the chance of fighting on his own account a pitched
battle of the first class. The Spanish army had been lying before him
for a week doing nothing, its commander being evidently afraid to
attack. Its force was not very great--indeed it was outnumbered by
that of the Marshal whose three divisions counted not less than 21,000
bayonets[431]. Noting with the eye of an old soldier Blake’s indecision
and obvious timidity, he could not resist the temptation of falling
upon him. Notwithstanding the King’s orders, he resolved to strike,
covering his disobedience by a futile excuse to the effect that he
had observed preparations for taking the offensive on the part of the
enemy, and that his outposts had been attacked.
[431] He had
Sebastiani’s Division, 28th (three batts.), 32nd, 58th
(two batts. each), and 75th of the Line (three batts.) 5,808
Leval’s Division, seven German and two Dutch battalions 8,347
Villatte’s Division, 27th, 63rd, 94th, and 95th of the
Line (each of three batts.) 7,169
------
Total 21,324
Arteche gives twelve German battalions (iii. 491); but the
Frankfort Regiment had only one battalion, those of Nassau,
Baden, and Darmstadt two each. The figures are those of the
return of Oct. 10.
Blake’s army lay before him, posted in three lines, with the village of
Zornoza to its rear. In front, on a range of comparatively low hills,
was the ‘Vanguard Brigade,’ drawn up across the road with the 1st
Division of Galicia to its left on somewhat higher ground. They were
supported by the 3rd and 4th Divisions, while the ‘Reserve Brigade’
occupied the houses of Zornoza to the rear of all. There were only six
guns with the army, as Blake had sent the rest of his artillery to the
rear, when advancing into the mountains: this single battery lay with
the Vanguard on the lower heights. The whole amounted to 19,000 men, a
slight reinforcement having just come to hand by the arrival of the 1st
Catalonian Light Infantry[432], the advanced guard of La Romana’s army
from the Baltic. That general, having landed at Santander on October
11, had reorganized his force as the ‘5th Division of the army of
Galicia’ and sent it forward under his senior brigadier, the Conde de
San Roman. But only the single Catalonian battalion had passed Bilbao
at the moment when Lefebvre delivered his attack.
[432] It counted 1,066 bayonets when entering on the campaign,
and was attached to the Vanguard.
The plan of the Marshal’s advance was quite simple. The division of
Villatte drove in the front line of the Spanish right, and then spread
itself out on a long front threatening to turn Blake’s flank. That
of Sebastiani, formed in a single dense column, marched along the
high-road at the bottom of the valley to pierce the Spanish centre;
meanwhile Leval’s Germans attacked the left wing of the enemy, the
1st Division of the army of Galicia[433]. A dense fog, a common
phenomenon in the Pyrenees in the late autumn, hid the advance of
the French, so that they were close upon the front line of Blake’s
army before they were observed. The first line was easily driven in,
but the whole army rallied on the heights of San Martin and stood at
bay. Lefebvre cannonaded them for some time, without meeting with any
reply, for Blake had hurried off his single battery to the rear when
his first line gave way. Then the Marshal sent in the ten battalions
of the division of Sebastiani, who completely cut through the Spanish
centre, and left the two wings in isolated and dangerous positions.
Without waiting for further developments, Blake gave way and ordered
a retreat on Bilbao and Valmaceda. His intact wing-divisions covered
the retreat, and though badly beaten he got away with very small loss,
no more than 300 killed and wounded, and about the same number of
prisoners. The French casualties were insignificant, not amounting in
all to more than 200 men. The whole combat, indeed, though 40,000 men
were on the field, was very short and not at all costly. The fact was
that Blake had been surprised, and had given way at the first push,
without making a serious attempt to defend himself. His sending away
the guns, at the very commencement of the action, makes it sufficiently
clear that he did not hope for ultimate success, and was already
contemplating a retreat on Bilbao. His army, if properly handled, could
have made a much more creditable fight; in fact it was tactically
beaten rather than defeated by force of arms. It made its retreat in
very fair order, and was irritated rather than cowed by the check which
it had received. English eye-witnesses vouch for the steadiness and
good spirit shown by the troops[434].
[433] Captain Carroll, an eye-witness, gives a good account of
this action in his report to General Leith, dated from Valmaceda
on Nov. 2.
[434] Report of Captain Carroll in papers of 1809 in the Record
Office.
Immediately after giving orders for a general retreat behind the river
Nervion, Blake had sent dispatches to the two divisions of Acevedo
and Martinengo, which were covering his flank against a possible
turning movement from the valley of the Ebro. They were told to save
themselves, by falling back at once to Bilbao and joining the main
army in its retreat. The part of the Asturian division which lay at
Orduña succeeded in carrying out this order. But the remainder of
Acevedo’s men and the whole of those of Martinengo--some 8,000 bayonets
in all--were at Villaro, a point higher up in the mountains, on a
much more difficult road, and closer to the French. They received
Blake’s dispatch too late, and on pushing down the northern side of
the pass which they had been holding, they learnt at Miravalles, only
ten miles from Bilbao, that the latter town was in the hands of the
French. Blake had evacuated it on the early morning of November 1, and
Lefebvre had occupied it on the same night. Urging his pursuit some
way beyond Bilbao in the hope of overtaking Blake, the duke pushed as
far as Valmaceda: but even here the Galician army would make no stand,
but fell back still further westward to Nava. Seeing that he could
not reach his adversary, Lefebvre left the division of Villatte at
Valmaceda to observe Blake, and returned with those of Sebastiani and
Leval to Bilbao, to feed and rest his men in the town, after four days
of marching in the mountains with very insufficient supplies. This
was a very dangerous step, for Blake had been outmanœuvred rather than
beaten, and was still far too strong to be contained by a mere 7,000
men.
When therefore Acevedo and his column drew near to Bilbao, they learnt
that 13,000 French troops blocked their road towards Blake [Nov. 3].
They drew back a little up the pass, keeping very quiet, and very
fortunately failed to attract the attention of Lefebvre, who thought at
the most that there were some bands of stragglers in the mountains on
his left.
But their situation was still most uncomfortable, for their rearguard
began to report that French troops were pushing up from Vittoria and
entering the southern end of the defile in which they were blocked.
King Joseph had been much vexed to hear of Lefebvre’s disobedience
to his orders at Zornoza, but, wishing to draw what profit he could
from the victory, sent Victor up the Murguia--Orduña road, with
orders to cut in upon the line of Blake’s retreat. This the Duke of
Belluno failed to accomplish, on account of the rapidity with which
the Spanish army had retired. But reaching Amurrio, a few miles beyond
Orduña, he came upon the flank of Acevedo’s column, whose head was
blocked at Miravalles, ten miles further north, by the presence of
Lefebvre at Bilbao. If either marshal had realized the situation, the
8,000 Spaniards, caught in a defile without lateral issues, must have
surrendered _en masse_. But Victor had only one division with him, the
other was far behind: and imagining that he had chanced upon the whole
of Blake’s army he came to a dead stop, while Lefebvre, not yet aware
of Victor’s approach, did not move at all. Acevedo wisely kept quiet,
and tried to slip across Victor’s front towards Orantia and the river
Salcedon: meanwhile the news of his situation reached Blake.
That general was never wanting in personal courage, and had been deeply
distressed to hear that his flanking detachment had been cut off.
Realizing Acevedo’s danger he resolved to make a sudden ‘offensive
return’ against Lefebvre, and to endeavour to clear for a moment the
road from Miravalles to Valmaceda, by which his subordinate could
escape. On the night of November 4 he concentrated his whole army,
which had now been raised to 24,000 men by the arrival of the main
body of La Romana’s division from Santander. At dawn on the fifth he
fell upon the enemy in his front, by the two roads on each side of the
river Salcedon, sending one division[435] and the ‘Vanguard Brigade’
to attack Valmaceda, and two[436] and the ‘Reserve Brigade’ by Orantia
along the southern bank of the stream. Villatte had been holding both
these paths; but on seeing the heavy forces deployed against him, he
withdrew from Orantia and concentrated at Valmaceda. This left the
path clear for Acevedo, who escaped along the hillsides without being
molested by Victor’s advanced guard, and got into communication with
his chief. The inactivity of Victor is inexplicable: when he saw the
Asturian division pushing hastily across his front, he should have
attacked it at all costs; but though he heard plainly the cannonade of
Villatte’s fight with Blake at Valmaceda, he held back, and finally
retired on Orduña when Acevedo had got out of sight[437]. His only
excuse was that he had heard the distant roar of battle die down,
and concluded therefore that Villatte (who as he supposed might be
supported by the whole of Lefebvre’s corps) must have been victorious.
[435] The 4th Division.
[436] The 1st and 3rd Divisions. See the dispatches of Captain
Carroll from Valmaceda, dated Nov. 5, in the Record Office.
[437] Napoleon, furious at the escape of the Asturians,
administered a fiery rebuke to the Marshal. ‘He had left one of
his own divisions, exposed by Lefebvre’s imprudence, to run the
risk of annihilation. He had never gone to the front himself to
look at Acevedo, but had allowed the reconnoitring to be done
by an incapable subordinate. His guess that Villatte had been
victorious and did not need help was absurd; why should the dying
down of the fire mean that the French were successful rather than
beaten? The first principles of the art of war prescribe that a
general should march toward the cannon, when he knows that his
colleagues are engaged’ (_Nap. Corresp._, 14,445).
As a matter of fact the isolated French division had almost suffered
the fate that should have befallen the Asturians. Driven out of
Valmaceda by Blake, it was falling back on Guenes when it came across
Acevedo’s men marching on the opposite side of the Salcedon to join
their comrades. Thereupon the Asturian general threw some of his
men[438] across the stream to intercept the retiring column. Villatte
formed his troops in a solid mass and broke through, but left behind
him one gun (an eight-pounder), many of his baggage-wagons, and 300
prisoners. That he escaped at all is a fine testimony to his resolution
and his capable handling of his troops, for he had been most wantonly
exposed to destruction by Victor’s timidity and Lefebvre’s carelessness
[November 5].
[438] One battalion of Segovia and two of volunteers of Galicia.
On hearing of Villatte’s desperate situation, the Duke of Dantzig had
realized the consequences of his unjustifiable retreat to Bilbao, and
marched up in hot haste with the divisions of Sebastiani and Leval. He
was relieved to find that Villatte had extricated himself, and resolved
to punish Blake for his unexpected offensive move. But he was unable
to do his adversary much harm: the Galician general had only advanced
in order to save Acevedo, and did not intend to engage in any serious
fighting. When Lefebvre moved forward he found that the Spaniards
would not stand. Blake had pushed out two flanking divisions to turn
the position at Guenes, on to which Villatte had fallen back, and had
his main body placed in front of it. But when Lefebvre advanced, the
whole Galician army fell back, only fighting two rearguard actions on
November 7, in which they suffered small loss. On the next day there
was a more serious engagement of the same sort at Valmaceda, to which
the Galicians had withdrawn on the previous night. The troops with
which Blake covered his retreat were hustled out of the town with the
loss of 150 killed and wounded, and 600 missing[439]. In his dispatches
the Spanish general explains that he retreated not because he could
not have made a better resistance, but because he had used up all his
provisions, and was prevented by the bad weather and the state of the
roads from drawing further supplies from Santander and Reynosa, the
two nearest points at which they could be procured. For Western Biscay
had been eaten bare by the large forces that had been crossing and
re-crossing it during the last two months, and was absolutely incapable
of feeding the army for a single day. The men too were in a wretched
condition, not only from hunger[440] but from bad equipment: hardly
any of them had received great-coats, their shoes were worn out, and
sickness was very prevalent. An appreciable number of the raw Galician
and Asturian levies deserted during the miserable retreat from Guenes
and Valmaceda to Espinosa de los Monteros, the next point on the
Bilbao-Reynosa road at which Blake stood at bay. When he reached that
place he was short of some 6,000 men, less from losses in battle than
from wholesale straggling. Moreover he was for the moment deprived of
the aid of the greater part of one of his divisions. This was the 4th
Galician division, that of General Carbajal: it had formed the extreme
left of the army, and had lain nearest to the sea during the fighting
about Guenes and Valmaceda. Cut off from the main body, a large portion
of it had retreated by the coast-road towards Santander, and only a
fraction of it had rejoined the commander-in-chief[441]. The total of
Blake’s forces would have been nearly 40,000[442], if his army had been
still at the strength with which each corps started on the campaign.
But for its decisive battle he had no more than 23,000 in hand.
[439] This engagement, unmentioned by Napier, Thiers, and most
other historians, will be found in detail in Carroll’s dispatch
and Arteche (iii. 273, 274).
[440] Indeed they were only saved from starvation by receiving
at Espinosa 250 mules laden with biscuit, from English ships at
Santander, which General Leith had pushed across the mountains.
Blake in a letter of Nov. 9 to Leith (Record Office) acknowledges
that this kept his men alive.
[441] I gather from a comparison of the muster-rolls of the
Galician army in October and in December, that four battalions
rejoined Blake and six escaped towards Santander.
[442] He had originally (see the table on p. 403)--
Galician troops (four divisions and two brigades) 23,313
The Asturian Division of Acevedo 7,633
La Romana’s troops from the Baltic (the infantry only) 5,294
Cavalry and artillery (400 and 1,000 respectively) 1,400
------
37,640
From this have to be deducted--
Losses in battle and by desertion 6,000
The cavalry, all the artillery save one battery, and
two battalions guarding the same, all still to the
rear towards Reynosa 2,400
Two battalions of regiment Del Rey with Malaspina,
at Villarcayo 1,000
Part of the 4th Division, cut off and retreating on
Santander 2,200
------
11,600
This leaves 26,040 available at Espinosa; the real figure was
probably somewhat smaller.
Beyond Valmaceda he had been pursued no longer by Lefebvre, but by
Victor. The latter, soundly rebuked by the Emperor for his inactivity
on November 5, had advanced again from Orduña, had picked up the
division of Villatte--which properly belonged to his corps--and had
then taken the lead in pressing Blake. Lefebvre, reduced to his
original force--the 13,000 men of Sebastiani and Leval, followed as
far as the end of the defile of El Berron, and then turned off by a
flanking road which reaches the upper valley of the Ebro at Medina
de Pomar. He intended to strike at Villarcayo and Reynosa, and to
intercept Blake’s retreat at one of these two points. If he arrived
there before the Galicians, who would be delayed by the necessity of
fighting continual rearguard actions with Victor, he hoped that the
whole of the Spanish army might be surrounded and captured.
[Illustration: Battle of Espinosa. November 11th, 1808.]
In this expectation he was disappointed, for matters came to a head
before he was near enough to exercise any influence on the approaching
battle. On November 10 Blake turned to bay: his rearguard, composed of
the troops from the Baltic, had been so much harassed and detained by
the incessant attacks of Victor’s leading division, that its commander,
the Conde de San Roman, sent to the general to ask for aid. Unless
supported by more troops he would be surrounded and cut off. Tempted
by the strong defensive position in front of the picturesque old town
of Espinosa de los Monteros, Blake directed the rearguard to take
post there, and brought up the whole of the rest of his army into
line with them. At this point the high-road along the river Trueba,
after passing through a small plain (the Campo de Pedralva), reaches a
defile almost blocked by the little town of Espinosa, for steep hills
descending from each flank narrow the breadth of the passage to half
a mile. Here Blake occupied a semicircular position of considerable
strength. The troops of San Roman took post at its southern end, on
a hill above the high-road, and close to the river’s edge. The line
was prolonged to the north of them, across the narrow space of level
ground, by the Vanguard Brigade (Mendizabal) and the 3rd Division
(Riquelme). Where the ground begins to rise again lay the 1st Division
(Figueroa), and on the extreme left, far to the north, the Asturians
of Acevedo occupied a lofty ridge called Las Peñucas. Here they were
so strongly placed that it seemed unlikely that they could either be
turned or dislodged by a frontal attack. The rest of the army formed a
second line: the Reserve Brigade (Mahy) was in the rear of the centre,
in the suburb of Espinosa. The 2nd Division (Martinengo) and the small
remains of the 4th Division lay behind San Roman, near the Trueba, to
support the right wing, along the line of the high-road. The whole
amounted to something between 22,000 and 23,000 men, but there were
only six guns with the army--the same light battery which had fought
at Zornoza. They were posted on the right-centre, with Mendizabal’s
brigade, in a position from which they could sweep the level ground in
front of Espinosa. Blake also called up to his aid the one outlying
force that was within reach, a brigade under General Malaspina, which
lay at Villarcayo, guarding the dépôt which had been there established.
But these 2,500 men and the six guns which they had with them were
prevented, as we shall see, from reaching the field[443].
[443] Malaspina had two battalions of Del Rey, and the Betanzos
and Monterrey militia. (Journal of Blake’s Operations in the
_Vaughan Papers_.)
The position of Espinosa was most defensible: its projecting wings
were each strong, and its centre, drawn far back, could not prudently
be attacked as long as the flanking heights were in the hands of the
Spaniards. But the pursuing French were under the impression that the
Galician army was so thoroughly demoralized, and worn out by hunger
and cold, that it would not stand. Victor had with him the infantry of
his own corps, some 21,000 strong: Villatte’s division, which led the
pursuit, dashed at the enemy as soon as it came upon the field. Six
battalions drew up opposite the Spanish centre, to contain any sally
that it might make, while the other six swerved to the left and made
a desperate attack on the division from the Baltic, which held the
heights immediately above the banks of the Trueba[444]. San Roman’s
troops, the pick of the Spanish army, made a fine defence, and after
two hours of hard fighting retained their position.
[444] Puthod’s brigade of Villatte’s division, the 94th and 95th
of the Line.
At this moment--it was about three o’clock in the short winter
afternoon--Victor himself came on the scene, bringing with him
his other two divisions, the twenty-two battalions of Ruffin and
Lapisse. The Marshal was anxious to vindicate himself from the
charge of slackness which his master had made against him for his
conduct on November 5, and pushed his men hastily to the front. Nine
fresh battalions--a brigade of Ruffin’s and a regiment of Lapisse’s
division--attacked again the heights from which Villatte had been
repulsed[445]. There followed a very fierce fight, and Blake only
succeeded in holding his ground by bringing up to the aid of the
regiments from the Baltic the whole of his 3rd Division and part of
his 2nd. At dusk the heights were still in Spanish hands, and Victor’s
corps was obliged to draw back into the woods at the foot of the
position.
[445] The 9th Léger and 24th of the Line from Ruffin’s division,
and the 54th from that of Lapisse, each three battalions strong.
This engagement was most creditable to Blake’s army: the lie of
the ground was in their favour, but considering their fatigue and
semi-starvation they did very well in repulsing equal numbers of the
best French troops. They were aided by the reckless manner in which
Villatte and Victor attacked: it was not consonant with true military
principles that the van should commit itself to a desperate fight
before the main body came up, or that a strong position should be
assailed without the least attempt at a preliminary reconnaissance.
Next day the Marshal, taught caution by his repulse, resumed the
action in a more scientific fashion. He came to the conclusion that
Blake would have been induced by the battle of the previous day,
to strengthen his right, and in this he was perfectly correct. The
Spaniard had shifted all his reserves towards the high-road and the
banks of the Trueba, expecting to be attacked on the same ground as on
the previous day. But Victor, making no more than a demonstration on
this point, sent the greater part of Lapisse’s division to attack the
extreme left of Blake’s line--the Asturian troops who held the high
ridge to the north of Espinosa. Here the position was very strong,
but the troops were not equal in quality to the veteran battalions
from the Baltic[446]. When the French pressed up the hill covered
by a thick cloud of skirmishers, the Asturians fell into disorder.
Their general, Acevedo, and his brigadiers, Quiros and Valdes, were
all struck down while trying to lead forward their wavering troops.
Finally the whole division gave way and fled down the back of the hill
towards Espinosa. Their rout left the enemy in possession of the high
ground, which completely commanded the Spanish centre, and General
Maison, who had led the attack, fully used his advantage. He fell upon
the Galician 1st Division from the flank, while at the same moment
Victor ordered his entire line to advance, and assailed the whole of
Blake’s front. Such an assault could not fail, and the Spaniards gave
way in all directions, and escaped by fording the Trueba and flying
over the hillsides towards Reynosa. They had to abandon their six guns
and the whole of their baggage, which lay parked behind Espinosa. The
losses in killed and wounded were not very heavy--indeed many more were
hurt in the hard fighting of November 10 than in the rout of November
11: it is probable that the whole of the Spanish casualties did not
exceed 3,000 men: nor were many prisoners captured, for formed troops
cannot pursue fugitives who have broken their ranks and taken to the
hills. The main loss to Blake’s army came from straggling and desertion
after the battle, for the routed battalions, when once scattered over
the face of the country, did not easily rally to their colours. When
Blake reassembled his force at Reynosa he could only show some 12,000
half-starved men out of the 23,000 who had stood in line at Espinosa.
The loss in battle had fallen most heavily on the division from the
Baltic--their commander, San Roman, with about 1,000 of his men had
fallen in their very creditable struggle on the first day of the
fight[447]. Victor’s triumph had not been bloodless: in the repulse of
the tenth the fifteen battalions which had tried to storm the heights
had all suffered appreciable losses: the total of French casualties on
the two days cannot have fallen below 1,000 killed and wounded.
[446] It is fair to the Asturians to mention that eight of their
ten battalions were raw levies; there were among them only one
regular and one militia battalion of old formation.
[447] It is necessary to protest against the groundless libel
upon this corps in which Napier indulges (i. 257) when he says:
‘It has been said that Romana’s soldiers died Spartan-like, to
a man, in their ranks; yet in 1812 Captain Hill of the Royal
Navy, being at Cronstadt to receive Spaniards taken by the
Russians during Napoleon’s retreat, found the greater portion
were Romana’s men captured at Espinosa; they had served Napoleon
for four years, passed the ordeal of the Moscow retreat, and were
still 4,000 strong.’ This is ludicrous: the eight battalions of
the Baltic division landed in Spain 5,294 strong; a month after
Espinosa they still figured for 3,953 in the muster-rolls of the
army of Galicia (see the morning state in Arteche, iv. 532).
Only 1,300 were missing, so Victor, clearly, cannot have taken
4,000 prisoners. Captain Hill’s (or Napier’s) mistake lies in not
seeing that the Russian prisoners of 1812 belonged to the 5,000
men of La Romana’s army (regiments of Guadalajara, Asturias, and
the Infante) which did not succeed in escaping from Denmark in
1808, and remained perforce in Napoleon’s ranks.
To complete the story of Blake’s retreat, it is only necessary to
mention that the detached brigade under Malaspina, which he had called
up from Villarcayo to Espinosa, was never able to rejoin. On its way it
fell in with Marshal Lefebvre’s corps, marching to outflank the retreat
of the Galician army. Attacked by Sebastiani’s division, Malaspina had
to turn off and make a hasty and isolated retreat, sacrificing his six
guns. The driving away of his small force was the only practical work
done in this part of the campaign by the 4th Corps: its long turning
movement was rendered useless by Blake’s rapid retreat across its front
to Reynosa.
SECTION VII: CHAPTER IV
NAPOLEON CROSSES THE EBRO: THE ROUT OF GAMONAL: SOULT’S PURSUIT OF BLAKE
After resting for only thirty-six hours at Bayonne the Emperor, as we
have already seen, pushed on to Vittoria, where he arrived on November
6. He found in and about that ancient city the bulk of the Imperial
Guard, his brother Joseph’s reserves, the light cavalry of Beaumont and
Franceschi, and the heavy cavalry of Latour-Maubourg and Milhaud. The
divisions of Marchand and Bisson, which were to complete the corps of
Ney, were close behind him, so that he had under his hand a mass of at
least 40,000 men. The 2nd Corps, which Bessières had so long commanded,
was in front of him at Pancorbo, just beyond the Ebro. Victor and
Lefebvre, very busy with Blake, lay on his right hand with some 35,000
men. The troops which had hitherto been under Ney, with Moncey’s
3rd Corps, were on his right--the former at Logroño, the latter at
Caparrosa and Lodosa. They were in close touch with the armies of
Castaños and Palafox.
All was ready for the great stroke, and on the day of his arrival the
Emperor gave orders for the general advance, bidding Bessières (whose
corps formed his vanguard) to march at once on Burgos and sweep out
of it whatever troops he might find in his front. Napoleon imagined
that the force in this section of the Spanish line would turn out
to be Pignatelli’s ‘Army of Castile,’ but that very untrustworthy
body had ceased to exist, and had been drafted into the ranks of the
army of Andalusia[448]. It was really with the newly arrived army of
Estremadura that the 2nd Corps had to deal.
[448] See pp. 393-4, and _Nap. Corresp._, 14,443.
Everything seemed to promise a successful issue to the Emperor’s plan:
the enemy had only a trifling force in front of him at Burgos. Palafox
and Castaños were still holding their dangerous advanced positions
at Sanguesa and Calahorra. Blake was being pursued by Victor, while
Lefebvre was marching to intercept him. The only _contretemps_ that had
occurred was the temporary check to Villatte’s division on November 5,
which had been caused by the carelessness of the Duke of Dantzig and
the unaccountable timidity of the Duke of Belluno. But by the seventh
their mistakes had been repaired, and Blake was once more on the run,
with both marshals in full cry behind him. The Emperor found time to
send to each of them a letter of bitter rebuke[449], but told them to
push on and catch up the army of Galicia at all hazards. Upon Moncey,
on the other hand, he imposed the duty of keeping absolutely quiet
in his present position: his share in the game would only begin when
Castaños and Palafox should have been turned and enveloped by troops
detached from the central mass of the army.
[449] That to Victor will be found in _Nap. Corresp._, 14,445.
The total stay of the Emperor in Vittoria covered parts of four days.
All this time he was anxiously expecting decisive news from Victor and
Lefebvre, but it had not yet arrived when he set forth. He waited, also
in vain, for the news that Bessières had occupied Burgos: but that
marshal did not show the decision and dash which Napoleon expected from
him: finding that there was infantry in the place, he would not risk
an action without his master’s presence, and merely contented himself
with pushing back the Spanish outposts, and extending his cavalry on
both flanks. It is possible that his slackness was due to chagrin
on receiving the intelligence that he was about to be superseded in
command of the 2nd Corps by Soult, whom the Emperor had summoned out
of Germany, and who was due at the front on the ninth. Bessières was
to be compensated by being given the command of the reserve-cavalry
of the army, five splendid divisions of dragoons, of which four were
already on the Ebro. But this post, which would always keep him at
the Emperor’s heels, was probably less attractive to him than the
more independent position of chief of a corps complete in all arms.
He was probably loth to leave the divisions with which he had won the
victory of Medina de Rio Seco. Be this as it may, he was told to attack
Burgos on the sixth, and on the ninth he had not yet done so. On the
morning of that day Soult arrived, alone and on a jaded post-horse,
having outridden even his aides-de-camp[450], who did not join him
till twenty-four hours later. He at once took over command of the 2nd
Corps, and proceeded next day to carry out the Emperor’s orders by
attacking the enemy.
[450] For details of their ride against time, see the _Mémoires_
of St. Chamans, his senior aide-de-camp (p. 107).
The supersession of Bessières was not the only change which was made
during the few days while the Emperor lay at Vittoria. He rearranged
the internal organization of several of the corps, altered the
brigading of that of Moncey, and turned over to other corps most of the
troops which had hitherto served under Ney, leaving to that marshal
little more than the two newly arrived divisions from Germany (those of
Lagrange and Marchand).
The troops destined for the march on Burgos counted some 70,000 men,
but only the 2nd Corps and the cavalry of Milhaud and Franceschi were
in the front line. These 18,000 bayonets and 6,500 sabres were amply
sufficient for the task. Behind followed fourteen battalions of the
Imperial Guard and the cavalry of that corps, the two divisions of
Ney’s 6th Corps, the division of Dessolles from King Joseph’s reserve,
and two and a half divisions of reserve cavalry--an enormous mass of
troops, of which nearly 20,000 were veteran cavalry from Germany,
a force invaluable for the sweeping of the great plains of Old
Castile[451].
[451] The figures here given are mainly those indicated by
Napoleon in his dispatch of Nov. 8 (_Nap. Corresp._, 14,456),
supplemented from the morning state of the army on Oct. 10:--
2nd Corps (Marshal Soult):
Division Mouton (Merle) 6,000
Division Bonnet 4,500
Division Merle (Verdier) 7,000
Cavalry of Lasalle 2,000
6th Corps (Marshal Ney):
Division Marchand }
Division Lagrange (late Bisson) } 17,000
Cavalry of Colbert (detached at this moment) 2,000
From King Joseph’s Reserve, Division Dessolles 6,000
Imperial Guard { fourteen battalions of infantry 8,000
{ cavalry 3,500
Cavalry Brigade (Beaumont) belonging to the 1st Corps 1,200
Latour-Maubourg’s Division of Dragoons (six regiments) 3,700
Milhaud’s Division of Dragoons (three regiments) 2,500
Franceschi’s Light Cavalry (four regiments) 2,000
Lahoussaye’s Division of Dragoons (four regiments) 2,000
------
Total 67,400
When we turn to enumerate the forces opposed to the Emperor at Burgos,
the disproportion between the two armies appears ludicrous. Down to
November 6 the only Spanish troops in that ancient city consisted of
two battalions, one from the reserves of the army of Galicia, the other
from the army of Castile[452]. They numbered 1,600 men, and had four
guns with them. If Bessières had attacked on the sixth, he would have
found no more than this miserable detachment to oppose him. But on
November 7 there arrived from Madrid the 1st Division of the army of
Estremadura under the Conde de Belvedere, 4,000 foot and 400 horse with
twelve guns. On the next day there came up the greater part of the 2nd
Division of the same army, about 3,000 infantry and two regiments of
hussars. On the tenth, therefore, when Soult attacked, Belvedere--who
took the command as the senior general present--had about 8,600
bayonets, 1,100 sabres, and sixteen guns under his orders.
[452] These battalions were those of Tuy and Benavente, the first
a militia battalion, the second a new volunteer corps.
Down to November 2 the army of Estremadura had been commanded by Don
Joseph Galluzzo, Captain-General of that province--the officer who
had given so much trouble to Dalrymple by his refusal to desist from
the futile siege of Elvas. He had been repeatedly ordered to bring
his army up to Madrid, but did not arrive till the end of October.
On the twenty-ninth of that month he marched for Burgos, his three
divisions, 13,000 men in all, following each other at intervals of a
day. But on November 2 he received orders to lay down his command and
return to Aranjuez, to answer some charges brought against him by the
Supreme Junta. No successor was nominated to replace him, and hence
the conduct of the army fell into the hands of the Conde de Belvedere,
the chief of the 1st Division, a rash and headstrong young aristocrat
with no military experience whatever. His family influence had made
him a general at an age when he might reasonably have expected to lead
a company, and he found himself by chance the interim commander of an
army: hence came the astonishing series of blunders that led to the
combat of Gamonal.
Belvedere’s army was still incomplete, for his 3rd Division had only
reached Lerma, thirty miles back on the Madrid road, when the French
cavalry came forward and began to press in his outposts. Clearly a
crisis was at hand, and the Count had to consider how he would face it.
Isolated with 10,000 men on the edge of the great plain of Old Castile,
and with an enemy of unknown strength in front of him, he should have
been cautious. If he attempted a stand, he should at least have taken
advantage of the ancient fortifications of Burgos and the broken ground
near the city. But with the most cheerful disregard of common military
precautions, the Count marched out of Burgos, advanced a few miles,
and drew up his army across the high-road in front of the village of
Gamonal. He was in an open plain, his right flank ill covered by the
river Arlanzon, which was fordable in many places, his left completely
‘in the air,’ near the village of Vellimar. In front of the line was a
large wood, which the road bisects: it gave the enemy every facility
for masking his movements till the last moment. Belvedere had ranged
his two Estremaduran batteries on the centre: he had six battalions
in his first line, including two of the Royal Guards--both very
weak[453]--with a cavalry regiment on each flank. His second line was
formed of four battalions--two of them Galician: two more battalions,
the four Galician guns, and his third cavalry regiment were coming up
from the rear, and had not yet taken their post in the second line when
the short and sudden battle was fought and lost[454].
[453] Each mustered less than 400 bayonets.
[454] To show how strange is Napier’s statement (i. 254) that the
army of Estremadura consisted of ‘the best troops then in Spain,’
and that it was therefore disgraceful that they ‘fought worse
than the half-starved peasants of Blake,’ we may perhaps give the
list of Belvedere’s little force: it consisted of--
1st Division (General de Alos):
*4th battalion of the Spanish Guards }
One battalion of Provincial Grenadiers of Estremadura }
*Regiment of Majorca (two batts.) } 4,160
*2nd Regiment of Catalonia (one batt.) }
One company of Sharpshooters }
2nd Division (General Henestrosa):
*4th battalion of the Walloon Guards }
Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.) }
Volunteers of Valencia de Alcantara (one batt.) } 3,300
Volunteers of Zafra (one batt.) }
Galician troops: Battalions of Tuy and Benavente 1,600
Cavalry: 2nd, 4th, and 5th Hussars (called respectively
‘Lusitania,’ ‘Volunteers of Spain,’ and ‘Maria Luisa’) 1,100
Artillery: two and a half batteries 250
Sappers: one battalion 550
------
Total 10,960
Only the cavalry and the five battalions marked with a star were
regulars.
Soult came on the scene during the hours of the morning, with the
light-cavalry division of Lasalle deployed in his front. Then followed
the dragoons of Milhaud, and three infantry divisions of the 2nd
Corps--Mouton in front, then Merle, then Bonnet bringing up the rear.
When he came upon the Spaniards, arrayed on either side of the road,
the Marshal was able with a single glance to recognize the weakness of
their numbers and their position. He did not hesitate for a moment, and
rapidly formed his line of battle, under cover of the wood which lay
between the two armies. Milhaud’s division of dragoons rode southward
and formed up on the banks of the Arlanzon, facing the Spanish right:
Lasalle’s four regiments of light cavalry composed the French centre:
the twelve battalions of Mouton’s division deployed on the left, and
advanced through the wood preceded by a crowd of tirailleurs. There was
no need to wait for Merle and Bonnet, who were still some way to the
rear.
The engagement opened by a discharge of the two Spanish batteries,
directed at those of Mouton’s men who were advancing across the
comparatively open ground on each side of the high-road. But they had
hardly time to fire three or four salvos before the enemy was upon
them. The seven regiments of cavalry which formed the left and centre
of the French army had delivered a smashing charge at the infantry
opposed to them in the plain. The regiment of Spanish hussars which
covered their flank was swept away like chaff before the wind, and
the unfortunate Estremaduran and Galician battalions had not even
time to throw themselves into squares before this torrent of nearly
5,000 horsemen swept over them. They received the attack in line,
with a wavering ill-directed fire which did not stop the enemy for a
moment. Five battalions were ridden down in the twinkling of an eye,
their colours were all taken, and half the men were hewn down or made
prisoners[455]. The remnant fled in disorder towards Burgos. Then
Milhaud’s dragoons continued the pursuit, while Lasalle’s chasseurs
swerved inwards and fell upon the flank of the surviving half of
Belvedere’s army. At the same moment the infantry of Mouton attacked
them vigorously from the front. The inevitable result was the complete
rout and dispersion of the whole: only the battalion of Walloon Guards
succeeded in forming square and going off the field in some order. The
rest broke their ranks and poured into Burgos, in a stream of fugitives
similar to that which was already rushing through the streets from the
other wing. The sixteen Spanish guns were all captured on the spot,
those of the second line before they had been unlimbered or fired a
single shot.
[455] As ill luck would have it four of these five battalions in
the plain were raw levies, the Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.)
and of Tuy and Benavente. They had not skill enough even to form
square.
Belvedere, who was rash and incompetent but no coward, made two
desperate attempts to rally his troops, one at the bridge of the
Arlanzon, the other outside the city; but his men would not halt for a
moment: their only concern was to get clear of the baggage-train which
was blocking the road in the transpontine suburb. A little further on
the fugitives met the belated battalions of Valencia and Zafra, which
had been four or five miles from the field when the battle was lost.
The Commander-in-chief tried to form them across the road, and to rally
the broken troops upon them: but they cried ‘Treason,’ pretended that
their cartridge-boxes were empty, broke their ranks, and headed the
flight. Ere night they had reached Lerma, thirty miles to the rear,
where the 3rd Division of Estremadura had just arrived.
Napoleon was probably using less than his customary exaggeration when
he declared in his _Bulletin_ that he had won the combat of Gamonal
at the cost of fifteen killed and fifty wounded. It is at any rate
unlikely that his total of casualties exceeded the figure of 200.
The army of Estremadura on the other hand had suffered terribly:
considering that its whole right wing had been ridden down by cavalry,
and that the pursuit had been urged across an open plain for nine
miles, it may well have lost the 2,500 killed and wounded and the
900 prisoners spoken of by the more moderate French narrators of the
fight[456]. It is certain that it left behind twelve of the twenty-four
regimental standards which it carried to the field, and every one of
its guns[457].
[456] It is fair to say, however, that Jourdan asserts that
their loss was only about 1,500 (_Mémoires_, p. 85). There is no
Spanish estimate of any authority. Napoleon in his _Bulletin_
claimed 3,000 killed and 3,000 prisoners, one of his usual
exaggerations.
[457] There were only sixteen field-guns with the army, yet
Napoleon says that he took twenty-five (_Nap. Corresp._, 14,478).
If this figure is correct (which we may doubt) there must have
been some guns of position taken in the city of Burgos. But of
the twelve flags there is no question: they were forwarded to
Paris two days later (_Nap. Corresp._, 14,463).
The French army celebrated its not very glorious victory in the
usual fashion by sacking Burgos with every attendant circumstances
of misconduct. They were so much out of hand that the house next to
that in which the Emperor had taken up his quarters for the night was
pillaged and set on fire, so that he had to shift hastily into another
street[458].
[458] _Mémoires_ of St. Chamans (Soult’s senior aide-de-camp),
p. 110. Compare the _Journal_ of Fantin des Odoards (p. 189)
for the scenes of horror in and about the town. The scattered
corpses of Spaniards, cut down as they fled, covered the road for
half-a-day’s march beyond Burgos.
The night of the tenth was devoted to plunder, but on the following
morning Bonaparte resumed without delay the execution of his great
plan, and hurried out to the south the heavy masses of cavalry which
were to sweep the plains of Old Castile. Lasalle’s division pushed on
to Lerma, from which the shattered remnants of the army of Belvedere
hastily retired. Milhaud’s dragoons were directed on Palencia,
Franceschi’s light cavalry more to the west, along the banks of the
Urbel and the Odra. Nowhere, save at Lerma, was a single Spanish
soldier seen, but it is said that some of Milhaud’s flying parties
obtained vague information of the advance of Sir John Moore’s English
army beyond the frontier of Portugal. His vanguard was reported to
be at Toro, an utter mistake, for the expeditionary force had not
really passed Salamanca on the day when the rumour was transmitted to
the Emperor[459]. There is no sign in his dispatches of any serious
expectation of a possible British diversion.
[459] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,496, contains this false report.
On the same day on which the cavalry poured down into the plains of
Castile, the Emperor began also to execute the great flanking movements
which were to circumvent the armies of Blake and Castaños and to drive
the one into the Bay of Biscay and the other against the Pyrenees.
On the afternoon of the eleventh Soult, with the three divisions
of Mouton, Merle, and Bonnet, and Debelle’s cavalry brigade[460],
was directed to make forced marches upon Reynosa, by the hilly road
that passes by Urbel and Olleros[461]. It was hoped that he might
reach Reynosa before Blake, whose retreat towards the west was being
closely pressed by Victor and Lefebvre. If he failed to catch the
army of Galicia, the Marshal was to push on across the mountains, and
occupy the important harbour-town of Santander, where it was known
that British stores had been landed in great quantities. Milhaud was
to co-operate in this movement by sending from Palencia one of his
brigades of dragoons, to cut the road from Reynosa to Saldaña, by which
the Emperor considered it likely that Blake would send off his heavy
baggage and guns when he heard of Soult’s approach[462]. Two days after
dispatching Soult to the north-west, the Emperor gave orders for the
other great turning movement, which was destined to cut off the army of
Castaños. On the thirteenth Marshal Ney, with one division of his own
corps (that of Marchand) and with the four regiments of Dessolles from
the central reserve, together with the light cavalry of Beaumont, had
marched from Burgos, in the wake of Lasalle’s advance. On the sixteenth
he reached Aranda de Duero, and, having halted there for two days, was
then directed to turn off from the high-road to Madrid, and march by
Osma and Soria so as to fall upon the rear of Castaños, who was still
reported to be in the neighbourhood of Tudela[463]. If he could succeed
in placing himself at Tarazona before the enemy moved, the Emperor
considered that the fate of the Spanish ‘Army of the Centre’ was sealed.
[460] This brigade did not properly belong to the 2nd Corps, but
to Franceschi’s division of reserve cavalry. Lasalle, with the
proper cavalry division of the 2nd Corps, was being employed
elsewhere.
[461] This was done on November 11, and not (as Arteche says) on
the thirteenth. The proof may be found in the itinerary given by
St. Chamans in his _Mémoires_ (p. 110). On the thirteenth the
Marshal was already at Canduelas, close to Reynosa.
[462] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,467 and 14,477. Napoleon to Bessières,
Nov. 13 (at two, midnight), and to Milhaud, Nov. 16 (at three,
midnight).
[463] These orders will be found in _Nap. Corresp._, 14,489.
While the movements of Soult and Ney were developing, Napoleon remained
at Burgos. He stayed there in all for ten days, while his army passed
by, each corps that arrived pressing forward along the high-road to
Madrid by Lerma as far as Aranda. His advance on the Spanish capital
was not to begin till he was certain how Blake and Castaños had fared,
and whether there was any considerable body of the enemy interposed
between him and the point at which he was about to strike. Meanwhile
his correspondence shows a feverish activity devoted to subjects of the
most varied kind. A good many hours were devoted to drawing up a scheme
for the restoration of the citadel of Burgos: it was the Emperor’s own
brain which planned the fortifications that proved such an obstacle
to Wellington four years later in September, 1812. It was in these
days also that Napoleon dictated the last reply sent to Canning with
regard to the peace negotiations that had been started at Erfurt. At
the same moment he was commenting on the _Code Napoléon_, organizing
the grand-duchy of Berg, ordering the assembly of Neapolitan troops for
a descent on Sicily, regulating the university of Pisa, and drawing
up notes on the internal government of Spain for the benefit of his
brother Joseph[464]. But the most characteristic of all his actions
was a huge piece of ‘commandeering’ of private property. Burgos was
the great distributing centre for the wool-trade of Spain: here lay
the warehouses of the flock-masters, who owned the great herds of
merino sheep that feed upon the central plateaux of Castile. There
were 20,000 bales of wool in the city, not government stores but
purely private accumulations. The Emperor seized it all and sold it in
France, gloating over the fact that it was worth more than 15,000,000
francs[465].
[464] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,465, 14,488-91, 14,472, 14,482, 14,503,
and 14,499 respectively.
[465] For this barefaced robbery see the _Sixth Bulletin of the
Army of Spain_, published at Madrid on December 14, and also
Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, pp. 85, 86; cf. Arteche, iii. 325.
Neither of the flanking expeditions which the Emperor sent out quite
fulfilled his expectations, but that of Soult was worked far more
successfully than that of Ney. The Duke of Dalmatia’s corps marched
sixty miles over bad Spanish roads in three days--a great feat for
infantry--and reached Canduelas close to Reynosa on November 13. If
Blake had not already been flying for his life before Victor, he must
have been intercepted. But he had made such headlong speed that he
had already reached Reynosa only twenty-four hours after his defeat
at Espinosa. He had hoped to refit and reorganize his army by means
of the vast accumulation of stores collected there, for he had left
both Victor and Lefebvre far behind, and calculated on getting several
days’ rest. His first act was to begin to evacuate his artillery,
baggage, and wounded on to Leon by the road of Aguilar del Campo and
Saldaña. He intended to follow with the infantry[466], but on the
morning of November 14 Soult’s advanced cavalry came upon the flank
of the great slow-moving convoy, and captured a considerable part of
it. The Asturian general, Acevedo, lying wounded in his carriage,
was slain, it is said, by Debelle’s dragoons, along with many other
unfortunates. Much of the artillery and all the baggage was taken.
The news of this disaster showed Blake that his only road into the
plain was cut: no retreat on Leon was any longer possible. At the same
moment the approach of Victor along the Espinosa road and of Lefebvre
along the Villarcayo road was reported to him. It seemed as if he was
doomed to destruction or capture, for all the practicable roads were
cut, and the army, though a little heartened up by two days of regular
rations at Reynosa, was in the most disorganized condition. But making
a desperate appeal to the patriotism of his men, Blake abandoned all
his stores, all his wheeled vehicles, even his horses, and struck up
by a wild mountain track into the heart of the Asturian hills. He went
by the gorge of Cabuerniga, along the rocky edge of the Saja torrent,
and finally reached the sea near Santillana. This forced march was
accomplished in two days of drenching rain, and without food of any
kind save a few chestnuts and heads of maize obtained in the villages
of this remote upland. If anything was needed to make Blake’s misery
complete it was to be met, at Renedo[467] [November 15], by the news
that he was superseded by La Romana, who came with a commission from
the Junta to take command of the army of Galicia. After the receipt of
the intelligence of Zornoza, the Government had disgraced the Irish
general, and given his place to the worthy Marquis. But the latter did
not assume the command for some days, and it was left to Blake to get
his army out of the terrible straits in which it now lay. On nearing
the coast he obtained a little more food for his men from the English
vessels that had escaped from Santander[468], waited for his stragglers
to come up, and, when he had 7,000 men collected, resumed his march. He
sent the wrecks of the Asturian division back to their own province,
but resolved to return with the rest of his army to the southern side
of the Cantabrian Mountains, so as to cover the direct road from Burgos
to Galicia. He had quite shaken off his pursuers, and had nothing to
fear save physical difficulties in his retreat. But these were severe
enough to try the best troops, and Blake’s men, under-fed, destitute
of great-coats and shoes, and harassed by endless marching, were in a
piteous state: although they had not thrown away their muskets, very
few had a dry cartridge left in their boxes[469]. An English officer
who accompanied them described them as ‘a half-starved and straggling
mob, without officers, and all mixed in utter confusion[470].’ The snow
was now lying deep on the mountains, and the road back to the plains of
Leon by Potes and Pedrosa was almost as bare and rough as that by which
the troops had saved themselves from the snare at Reynosa. Nevertheless
Blake’s miserable army straggled over the defile across the Peñas de
Europa, reached the upper valley of the Esla, and at last got a few
days of rest in cantonments around Leon. Here La Romana took up the
command, and by December 4 was at the head of 15,000 men. This total
was only reached by the junction of outlying troops, for there had
come into Leon a few detachments from the rear, and that part of the
artillery and its escort which had escaped Soult’s cavalry at Aguilar
del Campo. Of Blake’s original force, even after stragglers had come
up, there were not 10,000 left: that so many survived is astonishing
when we consider the awful march that they had accomplished[471].
Between November 1 and 23 they had trudged for three hundred miles
over some of the roughest country in Europe, had crossed the watershed
of the Cantabrian Mountains thrice[472] (twice by mere mule-tracks),
wading through rain and snow for the greater part of the time, for the
weather had been abominable. For mere physical difficulty this retreat
far exceeded Moore’s celebrated march to Corunna, but it is fair to
remember that Blake had shaken off his pursuers at Reynosa, while the
English general was chased by an active enemy from first to last.
[466] Leith, Nov. 16, from Cabezon de Sal (in the Record Office).
[467] Not Arnedo as in Napier (i. 257).
[468] See letter of General Leith (dated from San Vincente de la
Barquera, Nov. 17), in the Record Office.
[469] General Leith to Sir John Moore, from Renedo on Nov. 15 (in
the Record Office).
[470] It is from that officer’s dispatches alone that we glean
some details of this miserable retreat. There is nothing of the
kind in Toreño, Arteche, or any other Spanish authority that I
have found.
[471] Of La Romana’s army of 15,626 men (Dec. 4) about 5,000
belonged to regiments which had not been present at Espinosa,
including the battalions of Tuy, Betanzos, Monterrey, Santiago,
Salamanca, the 3rd Volunteers of Galicia, and the _Batallon
del General_, the artillery reserve, and a number of detached
companies that had been left behind at Reynosa, Astorga, and
Sahagun before Blake marched on Bilbao on October 11.
[472] Once between Valmaceda and Espinosa, once between Reynosa
and Renedo, once between Potes and Pedrosa.
While the unhappy army of Galicia was working out its salvation over
these rough paths, Soult’s corps had fared comparatively well. On
reaching Reynosa on November 14 the Duke of Dalmatia had come into
possession of an enormous mass of plunder, the whole of the stores
and munitions of Blake’s army. Among the trophies were no less than
15,000 new English muskets and thirty-five unhorsed field-guns. The
food secured maintained the 2nd Corps for many days: it included, as
an appreciative French consumer informs us, an enormous consignment of
excellent Cheshire cheese, newly landed at Santander[473]. At Reynosa
Soult’s arrival was followed by that of Victor and Lefebvre, who rode
in at the head of their corps the day after the place had been occupied
[November 15]. There was no longer any chance of catching Blake, and
the assembly of 50,000 men in this quarter was clearly unnecessary.
The Emperor sent orders to Victor to march on Burgos and join the main
army, and to Lefebvre to drop down into the plains as far as Carrion,
from whence he could threaten Benavente and Leon[474]. Soult, whose men
were much less exhausted than those of the other two corps, was charged
with the occupation of Santander and the pursuit of Blake. He marched
by the high-road to the sea, just in time to see seventeen British
ships laden with munitions of war sailing out of the harbour[475]. But
he captured, nevertheless, a large quantity of valuable stores, which
were too heavy to be removed in a hurry [November 16].
[473] _Mémoires_ of Gen. St. Chamans, p. 111.
[474] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,496 (Napoleon to Berthier, from Burgos,
Nov. 20).
[475] Leith mentions this in his letter from Cabezon de Sal, Nov.
16.
The Marshal left Bonnet’s division at Santander, with orders to clear
the surrounding district and to keep open the road to Burgos. With the
rest of his troops he marched eastward along the coast, trying to get
information about Blake’s movements. At San Vincente de la Barquera
he came upon the wrecks of the Asturian division which Blake had left
behind him when he turned south again into the mountains. They fled
in disorder the moment that they were attacked, and the principality
seemed exposed without any defence to the Marshal’s advance. But
Soult did not intend to lose touch with his master, or to embark on
any unauthorized expedition. When he learnt that the Galician army
had returned to the plains he followed their example, and crossed the
Cantabrian Mountains by a track over the Sierras Albas from Potes to
Cervera, almost as impracticable as the parallel defile over which
Blake had escaped. Coming down on to the upper valley of the Pisuerga
he reached Saldaña, where he was again in close communication with
Lefebvre.
Blake and his army might now be considered as being out of the game;
they were so dispersed and demoralized that they required no more
attention. But there was as yet no news of Ney, who had been sent to
execute the turning movement against Castaños, which corresponded to
the one that Soult had carried out against the Galicians. Meanwhile
more troops continued to come up to Burgos, ready for the Emperor’s
great central march on Madrid. King Joseph and his Guards had arrived
there as early as the twelfth; Victor came down from Reynosa on the
twenty-first[476], and on the same day appeared the division of
dragoons commanded by Lahoussaye[477]. The belated corps of Mortier
and Junot were reported to be nearing Bayonne: both generals received
orders to march on Burgos, after equipping their men for a serious
winter campaign. Independent of the large bodies of men which were
still kept out on the two flanks under Soult and Lefebvre, Moncey and
Ney, there would soon be 100,000 bayonets and sabres ready for the
decisive blow at the Spanish capital.
[476] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,502: on the twenty-first the 1st Corps
was at Tardajos, outside Burgos.
[477] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,501.
SECTION VII: CHAPTER V
TUDELA
Having narrated the misfortunes of Blake and of Belvedere, we must
now turn to the eastern end of the Spanish line, where Castaños and
Palafox had been enjoying a brief and treacherous interval of safety,
while their friends were being hunted over the Cantabrian Mountains
and the plains of Old Castile. From October 26-27--the days when Ney
and Moncey drove Castaños’ advanced troops back over the Ebro--down
to November 21, the French in Navarre made no further movement. We
have seen that it was essential to Napoleon’s plan of campaign that
the armies of Andalusia and Aragon should be left unmolested in the
dangerous advanced position which they were occupying, till measures
should have been taken to cut them off from Madrid and to drive them
back against the roots of the Pyrenees. The Emperor had left opposite
to them the whole of Moncey’s corps, one division of Ney’s corps (that
of Lagrange), and the cavalry of Colbert and Digeon[478]--in all about
27,000 bayonets and 4,500 sabres. They had strict orders to act merely
as a containing force: to repel any attack that the Spaniards might
make on the line of the Ebro or the Aragon, but not to advance till
they should receive the orders from head quarters.
[478] Colbert’s brigade belonged to Ney’s corps; Digeon’s
dragoons were part of the reserve-cavalry of Latour-Maubourg.
The initiative therefore had passed back to the Spanish generals:
it was open to them to advance once more against the enemy, if they
chose to be so foolish. Their troops were in very bad order for an
offensive campaign. Many of them (like Blake’s men) had never received
great-coats or winter clothing, and were facing the November frosts
and the incessant rain with the light linen garments in which they had
marched up from the south. An English observer, who passed through
the camps of Palafox and Castaños at this moment, reports that while
the regulars and the Valencian troops seemed fairly well clad, the
Aragonese, the Castilians, and the Murcians were suffering terribly
from exposure. The Murcians in especial were shivering in light
linen shirts and pantaloons, with nothing but a striped _poncho_ to
cover them against the rain[479]. Hence came a terrible epidemic of
dysentery, which thinned the ranks when once the autumn began to melt
into winter. The armies of Castaños and Palafox should have counted
53,000 men at least when the fighting at last began. It seems doubtful
whether they actually could put much over 40,000 into the field.
Castaños claims that at Tudela his own ‘Army of the Centre’ had only
26,000 men in line, and the Aragonese about 16,000. It is probable that
the figures are almost correct.
[479] Unpublished diary of Sir Charles Vaughan, then riding with
the staff of Palafox.
Nevertheless, the generals assumed the responsibility of ordering a
general advance. We have shown in an earlier chapter that after the
arrival of the three deputies from Madrid, and the stormy council of
war at Tudela on November 5, a new plan of offensive operations was
adopted. It was not quite so mad as the scheme that had been drafted
in October, for seizing the passes of the Pyrenees and surrounding the
whole French army. Castaños and Palafox, it will be remembered, were
to mass the bulk of their forces between Tudela and Caparrosa, cross
the Aragon, and deliver a frontal attack upon the scattered fractions
of the corps of Moncey at Peralta, Falces, and Lodosa. There would
have been something to say for this plan if it had been proposed in
September, or early in October; but on November 5 it was hopeless, for
it ignored the fact that 80,000 French troops had entered Biscay and
Navarre since the middle of October, and that Napoleon himself had
reached Vittoria. To advance now was to run into the lion’s mouth.
The armies of Andalusia and Aragon were just beginning to concentrate
when, on November 8, a dispatch came in from Blake announcing his
disaster at Zornoza, and his hurried retreat beyond Bilbao. The same
day there arrived a correct report of the arrival of the Emperor and
great masses of French troops at Vittoria, with an inaccurate addition
to the effect that they were being directed on Logroño and Lodosa, as
if about to cross the Central Ebro and fall upon the left flank of the
army of Andalusia[480].
[480] The best picture of Castaños’ head quarters at this time is
to be found in the diary of General Graham, printed in his _Life_
by Delavoye.
Castaños, in his _Vindication_, published to explain and defend
his movements during this campaign, stated that his first impulse
was to march by Logroño and Haro to meet the enemy, or to hasten by
Agreda and Soria to interpose himself between the Emperor and Madrid.
But, on second thoughts, he resolved that it was more necessary to
endeavour to beat the French in his immediate front, and that it would
be better to persevere in the plan, drawn up on November 5, for a blow
at Moncey. A sharp thrust delivered on this point would distract the
attention of the Emperor from Blake, and draw him off the direct road
to Madrid. Meanwhile, however, on November 11 Castaños fell ill, and
took to his bed at Cintruenigo. While he was thus disabled, the deputy
Francisco Palafox took the astounding step of issuing orders in his
own name to the divisional generals both of the Andalusian and the
Aragonese armies. Nothing like this had been seen since the days in
the French Revolutionary War, when the ‘Representatives on Mission’
used to overrule the commands of the unhappy generals of the Republic.
Before the concentration of the armies was complete, the Deputy ordered
the assumption of the offensive at all points in the line: he directed
O’Neille, whom he incorrectly supposed to be already at Caparrosa,
to attack Moncey at once; bade Grimarest, with the 2nd Andalusian
division, to cross the Ebro at Calahorra; La Peña to threaten Milagro;
and Cartaojal, with a small flanking brigade, to demonstrate against
the French troops who lay at Logroño. These orders produced utter
confusion, for some of the generals obeyed, while others sent the
answer that they would not move without the permission of their proper
chiefs, Castaños and Joseph Palafox. The former got his first notice of
the Deputy’s presumptuous action by letters from La Peña, delivered to
his bedside, in which he was asked whether he had given his sanction
to the project for crossing the Ebro[481]. As a matter of fact only
Grimarest and Cartaojal moved: the former was sharply repulsed at the
fords opposite Calahorra: the latter, more fortunate, skirmished with
Lagrange’s division, in front of Logroño, without coming to any harm
[November 13].
[481] See Graham’s _Diary_, p. 280. This is far the best
authority for the chaotic movements of the Spaniards during these
weeks. Some allowance, perhaps, should be made for Graham’s
dislike for the Palafox brothers.
It was now three days since the Emperor had routed Belvedere at
Gamonal and entered Burgos, and two days since Blake had been beaten
at Espinosa. The conduct of the generals who had charge of the last
intact army that Spain possessed, seems all the more insane when we
reflect on the general condition of affairs. For on the fourteenth the
mad advance which Francisco Palafox advocated was resumed, Castaños
on his sick bed not having had sufficient energy to lay an embargo
on the moving forward of his own troops. On the fourteenth O’Neille
arrived at Caparrosa and drove out of it Moncey’s advanced posts, while
Grimarest and La Peña received new instructions--to push up the Ebro
and attack Lodosa, which O’Neille was at the same moment to assail from
the other side of the stream. Thus the great river was to be placed
between the two halves of the army, which had no communication except
by the bridge of Tudela, far to the rear of both. ‘This seems rather
a hazardous undertaking,’ wrote Graham in his diary, ‘affording the
enemy an opportunity of attacking on whichever side of the river he
chooses with superior force.’ But the only thing that prevented it from
being attempted was the sudden refusal of O’Neille to advance beyond
Caparrosa unless he were provided with 50,000 rations of biscuit, and
reinforced at once with 6,000 bayonets from the Army of the Centre
[November 18]. As if the situation were not already sufficiently
complicated, Castaños had on the preceding day received unofficial
intelligence[482] from Madrid, to the effect that the Central Junta
had determined to depose him, and to appoint the Marquis of La Romana
general-in-chief of the Army of the Centre as well as of the Army of
Galicia. This really made little difference, as the Marquis was at
this moment with Blake’s corps (he had joined it at Renedo on the
fifteenth), so that he could not issue any orders for the troops
on the Ebro, from whom he was separated by the whole French army.
Castaños remained at the head of the Andalusians till he was formally
superseded, and it was he who was destined to fight the great battle
that was now impending. It is hard to say what might have happened had
the French held back for a few days more, for now, at the last moment,
Joseph Palafox suddenly harked back to his old plan for an advance
on Pampeluna and the roots of the Pyrenees, and proposed to Castaños
that the whole of the Andalusian army save La Peña’s division should
assist him[483]. Castaños and Coupigny strongly opposed this mad idea,
and submitted an entirely different scheme to the Captain-General of
Aragon, inviting him to bring all his forces to Calahorra, and to join
the Army of the Centre in taking up a defensive position behind the
Ebro.
[482] By a letter from Lord William Bentinck, at Madrid (see
Graham’s _Diary_, p. 281).
[483] It is most difficult to unravel all these projects and
counter-projects: I have followed Graham, who was always at the
side of Castaños, supplementing him with that general’s own
vindication, and with Butron’s narrative.
The two plans were being hotly debated, when news arrived which proved
decisive. The French were at last on the move, and their columns
were pouring out of Logroño and Lodosa along the southern bank of
the Ebro, heading for Calahorra and Tudela [November 21]. On the
same day a messenger arrived from the Bishop of Osma, bearing the
intelligence that a French corps (he called it that of Dessolles,
but it was really Ney) had marched up the head-waters of the Douro
to Almazan, and was heading for Soria and Agreda, with the obvious
intention of falling upon the rear of the Army of the Centre. If
Castaños remained for a moment longer at Calahorra, he would clearly
be caught between the two French armies. He should have retired at
once in the direction of Saragossa, before Ney could reach him: but
instead he took the dangerous half-measure of falling back only as far
as the line Tudela-Tarazona. This was a safer position than that of
Calahorra-Arnedo, but still sufficiently perilous, for the enveloping
corps from the south could still reach his rear by a long turning
movement through Xalon and Borja.
[Illustration: Battle of Tudela. November 23, 1808.]
If the position from Tudela, on the banks of the Ebro, to Tarazona at
the foot of the Sierra de Moncayo was to be held, the army of Castaños
needed strong reinforcements, for the line was ten miles long, and
there were but 26,000 men to occupy it. The Army of Aragon must be
brought up also, and Castaños wrote at once to O’Neille at Caparrosa,
inviting him to hasten to cross the Ebro and occupy Tudela and its
immediate vicinity. The dispatch reached the Irish general late on
the afternoon of the twenty-first, but he refused to obey without the
permission of his own commander, Joseph Palafox. Thus the night of
November 21-22 was lost, but next morning the Aragonese Captain-General
appeared from Saragossa, and met Castaños and Coupigny. They besought
him to bid O’Neille join the Army of the Centre, but at first he
refused, even when the forward march of Moncey and the flanking
movement of Ney had been explained to him. He still clung to his wild
proposal for a blow at Pampeluna, ‘talking,’ says Colonel Graham, ‘such
nonsense as under the present circumstances ought only to have come
from a madman[484].’ But at the last moment he yielded, and at noon on
the twenty-second wrote orders to O’Neille to bring his two divisions
to Tudela, and to form up on the right of the Army of Andalusia. When
the Aragonese host at last got under weigh, the hour was so late that
darkness was falling before the bridge of Tudela was passed. O’Neille
then had an unhappy inspiration: he ordered his men to defer the
crossing of the Ebro till the following morning, and to cook and encamp
on the northern bank. Half of the line which Castaños intended to hold
next day was still ungarnished with troops when the dawn broke, and
soon it was discovered that the French were close at hand.
[484] Graham’s _Diary_, p. 284.
The approaching enemy were not, as Castaños and Palafox supposed,
under the command of Moncey and Ney. The latter was carrying out his
turning movement by Soria: the former was for the moment superseded.
The Emperor regarded the Duke of Conegliano as somewhat slow and
overcautious, and for the sudden and smashing blow which he had
planned had chosen another instrument. This was Marshal Lannes, who
had crossed the Pyrenees with the ‘Grand Army,’ but had been detained
for a fortnight at Vittoria by an accident. His horse had fallen with
him over a precipice, and he had been so bruised and shaken that his
life was despaired of. It appears that the celebrated surgeon Larrey
cured him by the strange device of sewing up his battered frame in the
skin of a newly flayed sheep[485]. By November 20 he was again fit for
service, and set out from Logroño with Lagrange’s division of Ney’s
corps, Colbert’s light cavalry, and Digeon’s dragoons. Moncey joined
him by the bridge of Lodosa, bringing his whole corps--four divisions
of infantry and one of cavalry. The protection of Navarre had been
handed over to General Bisson, the governor of Pampeluna.
[485] See Larrey’s _Mémoires de Chirurgie Militaire_.
Lannes met with no opposition whatever in his march to Tudela, and
easily reached Alfaro on the twenty-second. Here he learnt that the
Spaniards were awaiting him beyond the river Queiles, drawn up on a
very long front between Tudela and Tarazona. On the morning of the
twenty-third he came in sight of them, and deployed for an attack: the
state of utter disorder in which the enemy lay gave the best auguries
for the success of the imperial arms.
Castaños had placed the troops under his immediate command at Tarazona
and Cascante, which were destined to form the left and centre of his
position: the remainder of it, from Cascante to Tudela, was allotted
to the Aragonese and to the Murcian division of the Army of Andalusia,
which had been across the Ebro in O’Neille’s company, and was now
returning with him. Till they came up Castaños had only under his
hand two complete divisions of his ‘Army of the Centre,’ and some
small fragments of two others. The complete divisions were those of
Grimarest (No. 2) and La Peña (No. 4), each of which had been increased
in numbers but not in efficiency by having allotted to it some of the
battalions of the ‘Army of Castile,’ which had been dissolved for its
bad conduct at Logroño on October 26. There had at last begun to arrive
at the front a considerable part of the other two Andalusian divisions,
which had first been detained beyond the Sierra Morena by the Junta of
Seville, and then kept some time in Madrid to complete their equipment.
Two battalions of these belated troops had at last appeared on October
30, and ten more had since come up[486]. But the bulk of the 1st and
3rd Divisions was still absent, and no more than 5,500 men from them
had been added to Castaños’ army. The mixed brigade formed from these
late arrivals seems to have been under General Villariezo, of the 1st
Division. The whole force amounted to about 28,000 men, of whom 3,000
were horsemen, for the army of Andalusia was stronger in the cavalry
arm than any other of the Spanish hosts. But of these the Murcian and
Valencian division of Roca (formerly that of Llamas) was with O’Neille,
and had not yet reached the field; while five battalions, from the
dissolved Castilian army, were far away on the left in the mountains of
Soria, whither Castaños had detached them under General Cartaojal, with
orders to observe the French corps which was coming up on his rear.
[486] Of the 1st Division there seem to have arrived one
battalion each of the regiments Reina, Jaen, Irlanda, and
Barbastro, and the Jaen Militia. Of the 3rd Division one
battalion each of Campo Mayor, Volunteers of Valencia, and the
Militia of Plasencia, Guadix, Lorca, Toro, and Seville (No. 1).
The other half of the Spanish army consisted of the missing division
of the Army of the Centre--that of Roca--and the two divisions
belonging to Palafox--those of O’Neille and Saint March--the former
composed mainly of Aragonese[487], the latter almost entirely of
Valencian troops. None of the Aragonese reserves from the great camp
at Saragossa had yet come upon the scene. But the two divisions in the
field were very strong--they must have had at least 17,000 men in their
ranks. On November 1 they were more than 18,000 strong, and, two months
after--when they had passed through the disaster of Tudela, and had
endured ten days of the murderous siege of Saragossa--they still showed
14,000 bayonets. We cannot calculate them at less than 17,000 men for
the battle of November 23. On the other hand, there were hardly 600
cavalry in the whole corps.
[487] But with one Valencian and two Murcian battalions: see
Appendix.
It would appear then that Castaños must have had some 45,000 men
in line, between Tarazona and Tudela, when Lannes came up against
him[488]. The French marshal, on the other hand, had about 34,000.
On the difference in quality between the two armies we have no need
to dilate: even the two divisions of the conscripts of 1807, which
served in Moncey’s corps, were old soldiers compared to the armies of
Aragon and Castile, or a great part of that of Andalusia. Moreover, as
in all the earlier battles of the Peninsular War, the Spaniards were
hopelessly outmatched in the cavalry arm. There was no force that could
stop the 4,500 or 5,000 horsemen of Colbert, Digeon, and Wathier[489].
[488] The troops should have numbered--
2nd Division of the Army of Andalusia [Grimarest] (five
battalions of regulars, four of militia, and four of new
levies) about 6,000
4th Division of the Army of Andalusia [La Peña] (seven
battalions of regulars, three of militia, and three of
new levies) about 7,500
Mixed brigade of the 1st and 3rd Divisions [Villariezo] (six
battalions of regulars and six of militia) about 5,500
5th Division (Murcians and Valencians) [Roca] (eight
battalions of regulars, two of militia, and seven of new
levies) 6,500
Castilian battalions distributed between the other divisions,
or detached on the left [Cartaojal] 8,000
O’Neille’s Division of the Army of Aragon (three battalions
of regulars, five battalions of Aragonese, and three of
Valencian and Murcian new levies) 9,000
Saint March’s Division of the Army of Aragon (three
battalions of regulars, one of militia, and ten of
Valencian new levies) 8,000
Cavalry (3,000 Andalusians, 600 Aragonese) 3,600
Artillery 1,800
------
55,900
Minus the detachment of Cartaojal, about 3,000 3,000
------
Total 52,900
But we must make large deductions for sickness (which had fallen
heavily on the ill-clothed men), for loss in previous actions,
desertion, and detachments; e.g. some of Roca’s division were on
the Lower Ebro.
[489] The French army consisted of--
Moncey’s Corps:
Maurice Mathieu’s Division (twelve battalions) 7,000
Musnier’s Division (eight battalions) 5,500
Morlot’s Division (six battalions) 4,000
Grandjean’s (late Frère’s) Division (eight battalions) 5,000
Cavalry of Wathier (three regiments) 1,600
Ney’s Corps:
Lagrange’s Division 6,000
Colbert’s Cavalry (three regiments) 2,200
Reserve Cavalry:
Digeon’s Brigade of Dragoons (two regiments) 1,200
Artillery, &c. 1,200
------
Total 33,700
These figures are mainly taken from Napoleon’s dispatch, No.
14,456, of Nov. 8. They do not include the Irish, Prussian, and
Westphalian battalions of Moncey’s corps garrisoning Pampeluna
and San Sebastian.
The position Tudela-Tarazona, which Castaños intended to hold, is of
enormous length--about ten and a half miles in all. Clearly 45,000
men in the close order that prevailed in the early nineteenth century
were inadequate to hold it all in proper strength. Yet if the points
on which the French were about to attack could be ascertained in
good time, the distances were not so great but that the army could
concentrate on any portion of the line within three hours. But to make
this practicable, it was necessary firstly that Castaños should keep
in close touch with the enemy by means of his cavalry--he had quite
enough for the purpose--and secondly that he should have all his men
massed at suitable points, from which they could march out to the
designated fighting-ground at short notice. The Spanish troops were,
now as always, so slow at manœuvring that the experiment would be a
dangerous one, but this was the only way in which the chosen position
could possibly be held. The ground was not unfavourable; it consisted
of a line of gentle hills along the south bank of the river Queiles,
which commanded a good view over the rolling plain across which the
French had to advance. On the extreme right was the town of Tudela,
covered by a bold hill--the Cerro de Santa Barbara--which overhangs the
Ebro. Thence two long ridges, the hills of Santa Quiteria and Cabezo
Malla, extend for some two and a half miles in a well-marked line: this
section formed the right of the position. From the left of the Cabezo
Malla as far as the little town of Cascante--four miles--the ground is
less favourable; indeed, it is fairly flat, and the line is indicated
mainly by the Queiles and its irrigation-cuts, behind which the Spanish
centre was to form[490]. From Cascante westward as far as Tarazona--a
distance of four miles or a little over--the position is better marked,
a spur of the Sierra de Moncayo coming down in a gentle slope all along
the southern bank of the little Queiles. The centre, between the Cabezo
Malla and Cascante, was obviously the weak point in the position, as
the only obstacle to the enemy’s advance was the river, which was
fordable by all arms at every point along this dangerous four miles.
[490] The town and the hill, unlike the rest of the position, are
on the _north_ bank of the Queiles.
The disaster which Castaños was to suffer may be ascribed to two
mistakes, one of which was entirely within his own control, while the
other was due to the stupidity of O’Neille. With 3,000 cavalry in
hand, the Commander-in-chief ought to have known of every movement
of the French for many hours before they drew near to the position.
It would then have been in his power to concentrate on those parts
of the line where the attack was about to be delivered. But instead
of sending out his horse ten miles to the front, Castaños kept them
with the infantry[491], and the first notice of the approach of Lannes
was only given when, at nine in the morning, a regiment of Wathier’s
cavalry rode right up to the town of Tudela, driving in the outposts
and causing great confusion. To the second cause of disaster we have
already had occasion to allude: on the night of the twenty-second
O’Neille had (contrary to his orders) encamped north of the Ebro. His
17,000 men began to defile over the bridge next morning in a leisurely
fashion, and were still only making their way to their designated
positions when Lannes attacked. In fact the Spanish line of battle was
never formed as had been planned: the various brigades of the Army of
Aragon were hurried one after another on to the heights south-west of
Tudela, but entirely without system or order: the lower ground to the
left of the Cabezo Malla was never occupied at all, and remained as a
gap in the centre of the line all through the battle.
[491] It is impossible to acquit Castaños of the charge of
carelessness on this point. Doyle’s letter of the night of Nov.
22 is conclusive: ‘Not one soldier has been left to observe the
motions of the enemy, or to check the progress of his advanced
guard, common pickets excepted, which are pushed a little outside
the town. I confess I have not a shade of doubt that the enemy
will attack at daybreak, and confusion must naturally ensue’
(Doyle’s correspondence in the Record Office). It is seldom that
a military prophecy is so exactly fulfilled.
Lannes, who was aware that the Spaniards were intending to fight at
Tudela, had marched at dawn from his camps in front of Alfaro in two
columns. One, composed of Moncey’s corps, with Wathier’s cavalry at
its head, came by the high-road near the Ebro. The other, composed of
the two independent cavalry brigades of Colbert and Digeon, and of
Lagrange’s division, was more to the west, and headed for Cascante. The
Marshal had no intention of attacking the left of the Spanish line in
the direction of Tarazona, which he left entirely to itself. He met not
a single Spanish vedette till Wathier’s cavalry ran into the pickets
immediately outside Tudela.
Castaños was in the town, engaged in hurrying the march of the
Aragonese troops across the great bridge of the Ebro, when the
fusillade broke out. The unexpected sound of musketry threw the troops
into great excitement, for they were jammed in the narrow mediaeval
lanes of Tudela when the sounds of battle came rolling down from the
Cerro de Santa Barbara. The Commander-in-chief himself was caught
between two regiments and could not push his way out to the field for
some time. But the men were quite ready to fight, and hurried to the
front as fast as they were able. Roca’s Valencian division (the 5th
of the Andalusian army) had been the first to cross the Ebro: it was
pushed up to the Cerro de Santa Barbara, and reached its summit just in
time to beat off the leading brigade, one from Morlot’s division, which
was ascending the hill from the other side. Saint March’s battalions,
who had crossed the bridge next after Roca, were fortunate enough to
be able to deploy and occupy the hill of Santa Quiteria before they
were attacked. But O’Neille’s Aragonese and Murcians were less lucky:
they only succeeded in seizing the Cabezo Malla ridge after driving off
the skirmishers of Maurice Mathieu’s French division, which had come
up next in succession to Morlot, and was just preparing to mount the
slope. But the position was just saved, and the Army of Aragon was by
ten o’clock formed up along the hills, with its right overhanging the
Ebro and its left--quite in the air--established on the Cabezo Malla.
The front was somewhat over two miles in length, and quite defensible;
but the troops were in great disorder after their hurried march, and
the generals were appalled to find that the Army of the Centre had not
moved up to join them, and that there was a gap of three miles between
the Cabezo Malla and the nearest of the Andalusian divisions. Castaños
perceived this fact and rode off, too late, to bring up La Peña from
Cascante to fill the void. Palafox was not on the field: he had gone
off at daybreak (still in high dudgeon that his scheme for an attack by
Pampeluna had been overruled) and was far on the road to Saragossa.
It is clear that Lannes’ first attack was unpremeditated and
ill-arranged: he had been tempted to strike when his vanguard only
had come up, because he saw the Spanish position half empty and the
Aragonese divisions struggling up in disorder to occupy it. Hence came
his first check: but the preliminary skirmish had revealed to him the
existence of the fatal gap between the two Spanish armies, and he was
now ready to utilize it. While Castaños was riding for Cascante, the
divisions of Musnier, Grandjean, and Lagrange were coming upon the
field, and Lannes was preparing for a second and more serious attack.
Meanwhile the fortune of the day was being settled on the left.
When the army of Lannes appeared in the plain, La Peña at Cascante
should have marched at once towards the Aragonese, and Grimarest and
Villariezo from Tarazona should have moved on Cascante to replace La
Peña’s division at that place. Neither of them stirred, though the
situation was obvious, and though they presently received orders from
Castaños to close in to their right. La Peña was the most guilty, for
the whole battle-field was under his eye: he would not move because he
had before him Digeon’s and Colbert’s cavalry, and was afraid to march
across their front in the open plain, protected only by the shallow
Queiles. He had 8,000 or 9,000 Andalusian and Castilian infantry, and
1,500 horse, but allowed himself to be neutralized by two brigades of
dragoons. All that he did in response to the summons to move eastward
was to send two battalions to occupy the hamlet of Urzante, a mile to
his right. There was still a space of three miles between him and Saint
March. This scandalous and cowardly inaction is in keeping with the
man’s later career: it was he who in 1811 betrayed Graham at Barossa,
and fled back into safety instead of stopping to assist his allies. On
this occasion he lay for four hours motionless, while he watched the
French forming up for a second attack on the Army of Aragon. Cowed by
the 3,000 dragoons in his front, he made no attempt to march on the
Cabezo Malla to O’Neille’s assistance. Grimarest’s conduct was almost
equally bad: he was further from the scene of fighting, and could
not, like La Peña, see the field: but it is sufficient to say that he
received Castaños’ order to march on Cascante at noon, and that he did
not reach that place--four miles distant--till dusk.
The Commander-in-chief himself was most unlucky: he started for
Cascante about noon, intending to force his divisional generals to draw
near the battle-field. But as he was crossing the gap between O’Neille
and La Peña he was sighted by some French cavalry, who were cautiously
pushing forward through the unoccupied ground. He and his staff were
chased far to the rear by this reconnoitring party, and only shook
them off by riding hard and scattering among the olive groves. Unable
to reach Cascante, he was returning towards Tudela, when he received a
hasty note from General Roca to the effect that the right wing of the
army had been broken, and the heights of Santa Barbara lost.
When his three belated divisions had appeared Lannes had drawn up his
army in two lines, and flung the bulk of it against the Aragonese,
leaving only Colbert’s and Digeon’s dragoons and the single division of
Lagrange to look after La Peña and the rest of the Army of Andalusia.
Instead of sending forward fresh troops, Lannes brought up to the
charge for a second time the regiments of Maurice Mathieu and Morlot.
Behind the latter Musnier deployed, behind the former Grandjean, but
neither of these divisions, as it turned out, was to fire a shot or to
lose a man. While Morlot with his six battalions once more attacked
the heights above the city, Maurice Mathieu with his twelve attempted
both to push back O’Neille and to turn his flank by way of the Cabezo
Malla. After a short but well-contested struggle both these attacks
succeeded. Morlot, though his leading brigade suffered heavily,
obtained a lodgement on top of the Cerro de Santa Barbara, by pushing
a battalion up a lateral ravine, which had been left unwatched on
account of its difficulty. Others followed, and Roca’s division broke,
poured down the hill into Tudela, and fled away by the Saragossa
road. Almost at the same moment O’Neille’s troops were beaten off
the Cabezo Malla by Maurice Mathieu, who had succeeded in slipping a
battalion and a cavalry regiment round their left flank, on the side of
the fatal gap. Seeing the line of the Aragonese reeling back, General
Lefebvre-Desnouettes, to whom Lannes had given the chief command of
his cavalry, charged with three regiments of Wathier’s division at the
very centre of the hostile army. He burst through between O’Neille and
Saint March’s troops, and then wheeling outward attacked both in flank.
This assault was decisive. The whole mass dispersed among the olive
groves, irrigation-cuts, and stone fences which cover the plain to the
south of Tudela. A few battalions kept their ranks and formed a sort of
rearguard, but the main part of Roca’s, Saint March’s, and O’Neille’s
levies fled straight before them till the dusk fell, and far into the
night. Some of them got to Saragossa next day, though the distance was
over fifty miles.
Meanwhile La Peña’s futile operations in front of Cascante had gone
on all through the afternoon. He had at first nothing but cavalry in
front of him, but about three o’clock Lagrange’s division, which had
been the last to arrive on the field of all the French army, appeared
in his direction. Its leading brigade marched into the gap, wheeled
to its right, and drove out of Urzante the two isolated battalions
which La Peña had placed there in the morning. They made a gallant
resistance[492], but had to yield to superior numbers and to fall back
on the main body at Cascante[493]. Here they found not only La Peña but
also Grimarest, and Villariezo’s mixed brigade, for these officers had
at last deigned to obey Castaños’ orders and to close in to the right.
There was now an imposing mass of troops collected in this quarter,
at least 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse, but they allowed themselves to
be ‘contained’ by Lagrange’s single division and Digeon’s dragoons.
Colbert, with the rest of the cavalry, had ridden through the gap and
gone off in pursuit of the Aragonese. The remaining hour of daylight
was spent in futile skirmishing with Lagrange, and after dark La Peña
and Grimarest retired unmolested to Borja, by the road which skirts
the foot of the Sierra de Moncayo. They were only disturbed by a panic
caused by the blowing up of the reserve ammunition of the Army of the
Centre. Some of the troops took the explosion for a sudden discharge
of French artillery, broke their ranks, and were with difficulty
reassembled.
[492] Graham witnessed this and reports in his _Diary_ (p. 285)
that ‘the two regiments that had been sent down into the plain
behaved uncommonly well.’
[493] I agree with Schepeler and the Spanish witnesses in holding
that on this side the French did very little; their great
advance, as Schepeler says, ‘ist nur Bulletinformel und weiter
nichts.’
It is impossible to speak too strongly of the shameful slackness and
timidity of La Peña and his colleagues. If they had been tried for
cowardice, and shot after the manner of Admiral Byng, they would not
have received more than their deserts. That 20,000 men, including the
greater part of the victors of Baylen, should assist, from a distance
of four miles only, at the rout of their comrades of the Army of
Aragon, was the most deplorable incident of all this unhappy campaign.
From the astounding way in which the Andalusian army had been
mishandled, it resulted that practically no loss--200 killed and
wounded at the most--was suffered in this quarter, and the troops
marched off with their artillery and wagons, after blowing up their
reserve ammunition and abandoning their heavy baggage in their
camps[494]. The Aragonese had, of course, fared very differently.
They lost twenty-six guns--apparently all that they had brought
to the field--over 1,000 prisoners, and at least 3,000 killed and
wounded[495]. That the casualties were not more numerous was due
to the fact that the plain to the south of Tudela was covered with
olive-groves, and irrigation-cuts, which checked the French cavalry and
facilitated the flight of the fugitives.
[494] The 3,000 men of Cartaojal’s troops, which had been
detached to watch Ney in the direction of Agreda, were cut off
from the rest of the Army of the Centre, and ran great risks. But
they ultimately escaped and rejoined the main body.
[495] Only Saint March’s casualties are preserved. They amounted
to 1,328. Roca and O’Neille must have suffered in proportion.
Lannes, it is clear, did not entirely fulfil Napoleon’s expectations.
He did not take full advantage of the gap between O’Neille and La Peña,
and wasted much force in frontal attacks which might have been avoided.
If he had thrust two divisions and all his horse between the fractions
of the Spanish army, before ordering the second attack of Maurice
Mathieu and Morlot, the victory would have been far more decisive, and
less costly. The loss of the 3rd Corps was 44 killed and 513 wounded;
that of Lagrange’s division and the dragoons has not been preserved,
but can have been but small--probably less than 100 in all--though
Lagrange himself received a severe hurt in the arm. The only regiment
that suffered heavily was the 117th, of Morlot’s division, which,
in turning Roca off the Cerro de Santa Barbara, lost 303 killed and
wounded, more than half the total casualties of the 3rd Corps.
Lannes had carried out indifferently well the part of the Emperor’s
great plan that had been entrusted to him; but this, as we have seen,
was only half of the game. When Castaños and the Aragonese were routed,
they ought to have found Marshal Ney at their backs, intercepting their
retreat on Saragossa or Madrid. As a matter of fact he was more than
fifty miles away on the day of the battle, and arrived with a tardiness
which made his flanking march entirely futile. The orders for him to
march from Aranda on Soria and Tarazona had been issued on November
18[496], and he had been warned that Lannes would deliver his blow
on the twenty-second. But Ney did not receive his instructions till
the nineteenth, and only set out on the twentieth. When once he was
upon the move he made tremendous marches, for on the twenty-first he
had reached Almazan, more than sixty miles from his starting-point:
by dusk on the twenty-second he had pushed on to Soria[497], where
he halted for forty-eight hours on account of the utter exhaustion
of his troops. He had pushed them forward no less than seventy-eight
miles in three days, a rate which cannot be kept up. Hence he was
obliged to let them spend the twenty-third and twenty-fourth in Soria:
at dawn on the twenty-fifth they set out again, and executed another
terrible march. It is thirty miles from Soria to Agreda, in the heart
of the Sierra de Moncayo, where the 6th Corps slept on that night, and
every foot of the way was over villainous mountain roads. Hence Ney
only reached Tarazona early on the twenty-sixth, three days after the
battle; yet it cannot be said that he had been slow: he had covered 121
miles in six and a half days, even when the halt at Soria is included.
This is very fair marching for infantry, when the difficulties of the
country are considered. Napoleon ungenerously ascribed the escape of
Castaños to the fact that ‘Ney had allowed himself to be imposed upon
by the Spaniards, and rested for the twenty-second and twenty-third
at Soria, because he chose to imagine that the enemy had 80,000 men,
and other follies. If he had reached Agreda on the twenty-third,
according to my orders, not a man would have escaped[498].’ But, as
Marshal Jourdan very truly remarks in his _Mémoires_, ‘Calculating the
distance from Aranda to Tarazona via Soria, one easily sees that even
if Ney had given no rest to his troops, it would have been impossible
for him to arrive before the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, that is
to say, twenty-four hours after the battle. It is not he who should be
reproached, but the Emperor, who ought to have started him from Aranda
two days earlier[499].’
[496] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,489.
[497] Ibid., 14,504.
[498] Napoleon to Joseph Napoleon, from Aranda, Nov. 27 (_Nap.
Corresp._, 14, 518).
[499] Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, p. 92.
Blind admirers of Bonaparte have endeavoured to make out a case against
Ney, by accusing him of having stopped at Soria for three days in
order to pillage it--which he did not, though he made a requisition
of shoes and cloth for great-coats from the municipality. If he is
really to blame, it is rather for having worked his men so hard on the
twentieth to the twenty-second that they were not fit to march on the
twenty-third: he had taken them seventy-eight miles on those three
days, with the natural result that they were dead beat. If he had
contented himself with doing sixteen or eighteen miles a day, he would
have reached Soria on the twenty-third, but his men would have been
comparatively fresh, and could have moved on next morning. Even then he
would have been late for the battle, as Jourdan clearly shows: the fact
was that the Emperor asked an impossibility of him when he expected
him to cover 121 miles in four days, with artillery and baggage, and a
difficult mountain range to climb[500].
[500] Ney’s march and its difficulties can be studied in the
_Mémoires_ of Roca, then a captain in the 2nd Hussars, who shared
this march with the 6th Corps.
Meanwhile the routed forces of O’Neille, Roca, and Saint March joined
at Mallen, and retreated along the high-road to Saragossa, accompanied
for part of the way by Castaños; while those of La Peña, Grimarest, and
Villariezo marched by Borja to La Almunia on the Xalon, where their
General-in-chief joined them and directed them to take the road to
Madrid, not that which led to the Aragonese capital. On the night of
the twenty-fifth the Army of Andalusia, minus the greater part of the
wrecks of Roca’s division[501], was concentrated at Calatayud, not much
reduced in numbers, but already suffering from hunger--all their stores
having been lost at Cascante and Tarazona--and inclined to be mutinous.
The incredible mismanagement at Tudela was put down to treachery, and
the men were much inclined to disobey their chiefs. It was at this
unhappy moment that Castaños received a dispatch from the Central Junta
dated November 21, which authorized him to incorporate the divisions
of O’Neille and Saint March with the army of Andalusia, leaving only
the Aragonese under the control of Palafox. This order, if given a
month earlier, would have saved an enormous amount of wrangling and
mismanagement. But it was now too late: these divisions had retired on
Saragossa, and the enemy having interposed between them and Castaños,
the authorization remained perforce a dead letter.
[501] Only 1,500 of them, with Roca himself, followed Castaños.
Lannes had directed Maurice Mathieu, with the divisions of Lagrange and
Musnier, to follow the Andalusians by Borja, while Morlot and Grandjean
pursued the Aragonese on the road of Mallen. The chase does not seem
to have been very hotly urged, but on each road a certain number of
stragglers were picked up. Ney, reaching Borja on the twenty-sixth with
the head of his column, found himself in the rear of Maurice Mathieu,
and committed to the pursuit of Castaños. Their vanguard reached
Calatayud on the twenty-seventh, and learnt that the Army of the Centre
had evacuated that city on the same morning, and was pressing towards
Madrid, with the intention of taking part in the defence of the capital.
Ney, taking with him Lagrange’s infantry and Digeon’s and Colbert’s
cavalry from the troops which fought at Tudela, and adding them to the
two divisions of Marchand and Dessolles, which had formed his turning
column, urged the pursuit as fast as he was able. Twice he came up with
the Spanish army: on each occasion Castaños sacrificed his rearguard,
which made a long stand and was terribly mauled, while he pushed ahead
with his main body. At this cost the army was saved, but it arrived in
New Castile half starved and exhausted, and almost as much demoralized
as if it had been beaten in a pitched battle. A few days later many of
the battalions burst into open mutiny, when they were ordered to retire
into the mountains of Cuenca. But at least they had escaped from Ney
by rapid marching, and still preserved the form and semblance of an
army.
Meanwhile Napoleon, on his side, had begun to operate against Madrid
with a speed and sureness of stroke that made futile every attempt of
the Spaniards to intervene between him and his goal. The moment that
the news of Tudela reached him (November 26) he had hurled his main
body upon the capital, and within eight days it was in his hands. The
march of the army of Andalusia to cover Madrid was (though Castaños
could not know it) useless from the first. By hurrying to the aid of
the Junta, through Siguenza and Guadalajara, he was merely exposing
himself for a second time to destruction. His troops were destined to
escape from the peril in New Castile, by a stroke of fortune just as
notable as that which had saved them from being cut off on the day
after Tudela. But he, meanwhile, was separated from his troops, for on
arriving at Siguenza he was met by another dispatch from the Junta,
which relieved him of the command of the army of the Centre, and bade
him hasten to Head Quarters, where his aid was required by the Central
Committee for War. Handing over the troops to the incapable La Peña,
Castaños hastened southward in search of the Junta, whose whereabouts
in those days of flight and confusion it was not easy to find.
SECTION VII: CHAPTER VI
PASSAGE OF THE SOMOSIERRA: NAPOLEON AT MADRID
After completing his arrangements for the two sweeping flank-movements
that were destined to entrap Blake and Castaños, the Emperor moved
forward from Burgos on November 22, along the great road to Madrid by
Lerma and Aranda de Duero. His advance was completely masked by the
broad screen of cavalry which had gone on in front of him. Lasalle
was ahead, Milhaud on the right flank, and covered by them he moved
with ease across the plain of Old Castile. He brought with him a very
substantial force, all the Imperial Guard, horse and foot, Victor
and his 1st Corps, and the reserve-cavalry of Latour-Maubourg and
Lahoussaye. King Joseph and his household troops were left behind
at Burgos, to preserve the line of communication with Vittoria and
Bayonne. The flanks were quite safe, with Ney and Moncey lying out
upon the left, and Soult and Lefebvre upon the right. In a few
days--supposing that the armies of Blake and Castaños fell into the
snare, or were at least broken and scattered--the Emperor hoped to
be able to draw in both Ney and Lefebvre to aid in his enveloping
attack upon Madrid. Nor was this all: the corps of Mortier and Junot
were now approaching the Pyrenees, and would soon be available as a
great central reserve. The whole force put in motion against Madrid
was enormous: the Emperor had 45,000 men under his own hand: Ney and
Lefebvre could dispose of 40,000 more: Mortier and Junot were bringing
up another 40,000 in the rear. Omitting the troops left behind on the
line of communication and the outlying corps of Soult and Moncey, not
less than 130,000 men were about to concentrate upon Madrid.
The Emperor halted at Aranda from November 23 to 28, mainly (as
it would seem) to allow the two great flanking operations to work
themselves out. When Soult reported that Blake’s much-chased army had
dissolved into a mere mob, and taken refuge in the fastnesses of the
Asturias, and when Lannes sent in the news of Tudela, the Emperor saw
that it was time to move. On the twenty-eighth he marched on Madrid,
by the direct high-road that crosses the long and desolate pass of the
Somosierra.
Meanwhile the Spaniards had been granted nineteen days since the rout
of Gamonal in which to organize the defence of their capital--a space
in which something might have been done had their resources been
properly applied and their commanders capable. It is true that even if
every available man had been hurried to Madrid, the Emperor must still
have prevailed: his numbers were too overwhelming to be withstood. But
this fact does not excuse the Junta for not having done their best
to hold him back. It is clear that when the news of Gamonal reached
them, on the morning of the twelfth, orders should have been sent to
Castaños to fall back on the capital by way of Calatayud and Siguenza,
leaving Palafox and the Aragonese to ‘contain’ Moncey as long as
might be possible. Nothing of the kind was done, and the army of the
Centre--as we have seen--was still at Tudela on the twenty-third. There
was another and a still more important source of aid available: the
English army from Portugal had begun to arrive at Salamanca on November
13: its rearguard had reached that city ten days later. With Sir John
Moore’s designs and plans of campaign we shall have to deal in another
chapter. It must suffice in this place to say that he was now within
150 miles of Madrid by a good high-road: the subsidiary column under
Hope, which had with it nearly the whole of the British artillery, was
at Talavera, still nearer to the capital. If the Junta had realized
and frankly avowed the perils of the situation, there can be no doubt
that they would have used every effort to bring Moore to the defence
of Madrid. Seven or eight good marches could have carried him thither.
But the Spaniards did nothing of the kind: refusing to realize the
imminence of the danger, they preferred to urge on Mr. Frere, the newly
arrived British minister, a scheme for the union of Moore’s forces with
Blake’s broken ‘Army of the Left[502].’ They suggested that Hope’s
division might be brought up to reinforce the capital, but that the
rest of the British troops should operate in the valley of the Douro.
This proposition was wholly inadmissible, for Hope had with him all
Moore’s cavalry and most of his guns. To have separated him from his
chief would have left the latter incapable of any offensive movement.
Hope declined to listen to the proposal, and marched via the Escurial
to join the main army[503].
[502] Mr. Frere to General Moore (from Aranjuez, Nov. 25);
compare the letter of Martin de Garay (secretary of the Junta) to
Mr. Frere, dated Nov. 24: ‘If the English troops form a junction
with the Army of the Left, we compose a formidable body of
70,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, a force with which we shall
be certain of our blow, which we never could be by any different
conduct.’
[503] Morla used many arguments to induce Hope to direct his
men on Madrid, when the English general rode in from Talavera
to discuss the situation with the Spanish authorities. Hope, of
course, pleaded the duty of obedience to his chief.