The fact was that the Junta still persisted in the foolish belief that

Napoleon had no more than 80,000 men disposable in Northern Spain,

instead of the 250,000 who were really at his command. They looked

on the French advance to Burgos as a mere reconnaissance in force

made by a single corps, and in this notion the imbecile Belvedere

did his best to confirm them, by stating in his dispatch that the

force which had routed him amounted to no more than 3,000 horse and

6,000 infantry[504]. Instead of calling in Castaños and making a

desperate appeal for aid to Moore, the Junta contented themselves with

endeavouring to reorganize the wrecks of the army of Estremadura, and

pushing forward the belated fragments of the 1st and 3rd Andalusian

divisions, which still lingered in Madrid, as well as the few Castilian

levies that were now available for service in the field. Nothing can

show their blind self-confidence more clearly than their proclamation

of November 15, put forward to attenuate the ill effects on the

public mind of the news of the rout of Gamonal. ‘The Supreme Junta

of Government’--so runs the document--‘in order to prevent any more

unhappy accidents of this kind, has already taken the most prudent

measures; it has nominated Don Joseph Heredia to the command of the

army of Estremadura: it has ordered all the other generals of the Army

of the Right to combine their movements: it has given stringent orders

for the prompt reinforcement of the above-named army.... There is every

hope that the enemy, who now boasts of having been able to advance as

far as Burgos, will soon be well chastised for his temerity. And if

it is certain--as the reports from the frontier assure us--that the

Emperor of the French has come in person to inspect the conduct of

his generals and his troops in Spain, we may hope that the valiant

defenders of our fatherland may aspire to the glory of making him

fly, with the same haste with which they forced his brother Joseph to

abandon the throne and the capital of which he vainly thought that he

had taken possession[505].’

[504] Belvedere’s dispatch to the Junta (_Madrid Gazette_ of Nov.

15).

[505] Proclamation of the Supreme Junta, published in the _Madrid

Gazette_ of Nov. 15, 1808.

Since they systematically undervalued the number of Napoleon’s host,

and refused to believe that there was any danger of a serious attack on

Madrid during the next few days, it was natural that the Junta should

waste, in the most hopeless fashion, the short time of respite that

was granted to them between the rout of Gamonal and Napoleon’s advance

from Aranda. They hurried forward the troops that were close at hand to

hold the passes of the watershed between Old and New Castile, and then

resumed their usual constitutional debates.

The forces available for the defence of Madrid appear absurdly small

when we consider the mighty mass of men that Bonaparte was leading

against them. Nearly half of the total was composed of the wrecks of

the Estremaduran army. Belvedere, as it will be remembered, had brought

back to Lerma the remains of his 1st and 2nd Divisions, and rallied

them on his intact 3rd Division. The approach of Lasalle’s cavalry on

November 11 scared them from Lerma, and the whole body, now perhaps

8,000 or 9,000 strong, fell back on Aranda. From thence we should have

expected that they would retire by the high-road on Madrid, and take

post in the pass of the Somosierra. But the Estremaduran officers

decided to retreat on Segovia, far to the left, leaving only a handful

of men[506] to cover the main line of access to the capital. It looks

as if a kind of ‘homing instinct’ had seized the whole army, and

compelled them to retire along the road that led to their own province.

The only explanation given by their commanders was that they hoped to

pick up in this direction many of the fugitives who had not rallied to

their main body (one cannot say to their colours, for most of them had

been captured by the French) on the day after Gamonal[507]. At Segovia

the unhappy Belvedere was superseded by Heredia, whom the Junta had

sent down from Aranjuez to reorganize the army.

[506] Arteche says that ‘all the intact troops,’ i.e. the whole

3rd Estremaduran division, fell back on the Somosierra. But

this is incorrect, for a dispatch of General Trias (_Madrid

Gazette_ of November 22) shows that he only took two or three

battalions to the pass, and even some of these must afterwards

have gone onto Segovia, for only one Estremaduran corps (the

Badajoz Regiment) is found in the list of San Juan’s little army

(Arteche, iii. 496).

[507] See Arteche, iii. 321. The fugitives fled so far and wide

that Blake rallied 157 of the regiment of Tuy at Leon! Leith Hay

found them all over the country-side on November 15.

The other troops available for the defence of Madrid consisted mainly

of the belated fractions of the army of Andalusia, which Castaños had

summoned so many times to join him on the Ebro, but which were still,

on November 15, in or about Madrid. They were supposed to be completing

their clothing and equipment, and to be incorporating recruits. But

considering the enormous space of time that had elapsed since Baylen,

it is not unfair to believe that the true reason for their detention in

the capital had been the Junta’s wish to keep a considerable body of

troops in its own immediate neighbourhood. It was convenient to have

regiments near at hand which had not passed under the control of any

of the generals commanding the provincial armies. There were in Madrid

no less than nine battalions of the original division of Reding--all

regulars and all corps who had distinguished themselves at Baylen[508].

Of the 3rd Division there were two regular and two old militia

battalions[509]. The remainder of the available force in the capital

consisted of four battalions of new levies raised in the capital (the

1st and 2nd Regiments of the ‘Volunteers of Madrid’), of one new corps

from Andalusia (the 3rd Volunteers of Seville), and of fragments of

four regiments of cavalry[510]. The whole division, twelve thousand

strong, was placed under the charge of General San Juan, a veteran

of good reputation[511]. But he was only a subordinate: the supreme

command in Madrid was at this moment in dispute between General Eguia,

who had just been appointed as head of the whole ‘Army of Reserve,’ and

the Marquis of Castelar, Captain-General of New Castile. The existence

of two rival authorities on the spot did not tend to facilitate the

organization of the army, or the formation of a regular plan of

defence. Eguia, succeeding at last in asserting his authority, ordered

San Juan with his 12,000 men to defend the Somosierra, while Heredia

with the 9,000 Estremadurans was to hold the pass of the Guadarrama,

the alternative road from Old Castile to Madrid via Segovia and San

Ildefonso. These 21,000 men were all that could be brought up to resist

Napoleon’s attack, since the Junta had neglected to call in its more

distant resources. It is clear that from the first they were doomed to

failure, for mountain chains are not like perpendicular walls: they

cannot be maintained merely by blocking the roads in the defiles. Small

bodies of troops, entrenched across the actual summit of the pass, can

always be turned by an enemy of superior numbers; for infantry can

easily scramble up the flanking heights on each side of the high-road.

These heights must be held by adequate forces, arranged in a continuous

line for many miles on each side of the defile, if the position is

not to be outflanked. Neither Heredia nor San Juan had the numbers

necessary for this purpose.

[508] These corps were the Walloon Guards (3rd batt.), Reina (two

batts.), Jaen (two batts.), Corona (two batts.), Irlanda (two

batts.)--much the larger half of the original 1st Division of

Andalusia, and all old corps (see the lists in Arteche, iii. 496).

[509] The regiment of Cordova (two batts.) and the provincial

militia of Alcazar and Toledo.

[510] Two squadrons each of ‘Principe’ and ‘Voluntarios de

Madrid,’ one each of Alcantara and Montesa. The whole amounted to

no more than 600 sabres.

[511] Napier’s description of the ‘Army of Reserve’ is very

incomplete: he says that ‘Belvedere’s army rallied part in the

Somosierra and part on the side of Segovia. The troops which

had been detained in Madrid from Castaños’ army were forwarded

to the Somosierra; those left behind from Cuesta’s levies (the

Castilians) went to Segovia’ (i. 259). But, as we have seen, only

one regiment of Belvedere’s men went to the Somosierra, and the

Castilians (Madrid Volunteers) marched thither and not to Segovia.

It was open to Napoleon to attack both the passes, or to demonstrate

against one while concentrating his main force on the other, or to

completely ignore the one and to turn every man against the other. He

chose the last-named alternative: a few cavalry only were told off

to watch the Estremadurans at Segovia, though Lefebvre and the 4th

Corps were ultimately sent in that direction. The main mass of the

army marched from Aranda against the Somosierra. San Juan had not

made the best of his opportunities: he had done no more than range

his whole artillery across the pass at its culminating point, with a

shallow earthwork to protect it. This only covered the little plateau

at the head of the defile: the flanking heights on either side were

not prepared or entrenched. They were steep, especially on the right

side of the road, but nowhere inaccessible to infantry moving in

skirmishing order. At the northern foot of the pass lies the little

town of Sepulveda, which is reached by a road that branches off from

the Madrid _chaussée_ before it commences to mount the defile. To this

place San Juan pushed forward a vanguard, consisting of five battalions

of veteran line troops[512], a battery, and half his available cavalry.

It is hard to see why he risked the flower of his little army in this

advanced position: they were placed (it is true) so as to flank any

attempt of the French to advance up the high-road. But what use could

there be in threatening the flank of Napoleon’s 40,000 men with a small

detached brigade of 3,500 bayonets? And how were the troops to join

their main body, if the Emperor simply ‘contained’ them with a small

force, and pushed up the pass?

[512] One battalion of Walloon Guards, two each of the regiments

of Jaen and Irlanda, and three squadrons of the regiments of

Montesa and Alcantara, with six guns, all under Colonel Sarden

(colonel of the Montesa Regiment).

Napoleon left Aranda on November 28: on the twenty-ninth he reached

Boceguillas, near the foot of the mountains, where the Sepulveda

road joins the great _chaussée_, at the bottom of the pass. After

reconnoitring the Spanish position, he sent a brigade of fusiliers of

the Guard, under Savary, to turn the enemy out of Sepulveda. Meanwhile

he pushed his vanguard up the defile, to look for the position of San

Juan. Savary’s battalions failed to dislodge Sarden’s detachment before

nightfall: behind the walls of the town the Spaniards stood firm, and

after losing sixty or seventy men Savary drew off. His attack was not

really necessary, for the moment that the Emperor had seized the exit

of the defile, the force at Sepulveda, on its cross-road, was cut off

from any possibility of rejoining its commander-in-chief, and stood

in a very compromised position. Realizing this fact, Colonel Sarden

retreated in the night, passed cautiously along the foot of the hills,

and fell back on the Estremaduran army at Segovia. The only result,

therefore, of San Juan’s having made this detachment to threaten the

Emperor’s flank, was that he had deprived himself of the services of a

quarter of his troops--and those the best in his army--when it became

necessary to defend the actual pass. He had now left to oppose Napoleon

only six battalions of regulars, two of militia, and seven of raw

Castilian and Estremaduran levies: the guns which he had established in

line across the little plateau, at the crest of the pass, seem to have

been sixteen in number. The Emperor could bring against him about five

men to one.

The high-road advances by a series of curves up the side of the

mountain, with the ravine of the little river Duraton always on its

right hand. The ground on either flank is steep but not inaccessible.

Cavalry and guns must stick to the _chaussée_, but infantry can push

ahead with more or less ease in every direction. There were several

rough side-tracks on which the French could have turned San Juan’s

position, by making a long circling movement. But Bonaparte disdained

to use cautious measures: he knew that he had in front of him a very

small force, and he had an exaggerated contempt for the Spanish levies.

Accordingly, at dawn on the thirtieth, he pushed up the main defile,

merely taking the precaution of keeping strong pickets of infantry out

upon the flanking heights.

When, after a march of about seventeen miles up the defile, the French

reached the front of San Juan’s position, the morning was very far

spent. It was a dull November day with occasional showers of rain, and

fogs and mists hung close to the slopes of the mountains. No general

view of the ground could be obtained, but the Emperor made out the

Spanish guns placed across the high-road, and could see that the

heights for some little way on either hand were occupied. He at once

deployed the division of Ruffin, belonging to Victor’s corps, which

headed his line of march. The four battalions of the 96th moved up the

road towards the battery: the 9th Léger spread out in skirmishing order

to the right, the 24th of the Line to the left. They pressed forward

up the steep slopes, taking cover behind rocks and in undulations

of the ground: their progress was in no small degree helped by the

mist, which prevented the Spaniards from getting any full view of

their assailants. Presently, for half a mile on each flank of the

high-road, the mountain-side was alive with the crackling fire of

the long lines of tirailleurs. The ten French battalions were making

their way slowly but surely towards the crest, when the Emperor rode

to the front. He brought up with him a battery of artillery of the

Guard, which he directed against the Spanish line of guns, but with

small effect, for the enemy had the advantage in numbers and position.

Bonaparte grew impatient: if he had waited a little longer Ruffin’s

division would have cleared the flanking heights without asking for

aid. But he was anxious to press the combat to a decision, and had

the greatest contempt for the forces in front of him. His main idea

at the moment seems to have been to give his army and his generals

a sample of the liberties that might be taken with Spanish levies.

After noting that Victor’s infantry were drawing near the summit of

the crest, and seemed able to roll back all that lay in front of them,

he suddenly took a strange and unexpected step. He turned to the

squadron of Polish Light Horse, which formed his escort for the day,

and bade them prepare to charge the Spanish battery at the top of the

pass. It appeared a perfectly insane order, for the Poles were not 100

strong[513]: they could only advance along the road four abreast, and

then they would be exposed for some 400 yards to the converging fire of

sixteen guns. Clearly the head of the charging column would be vowed to

destruction, and not a man would escape if the infantry supports of the

battery stood firm. But Bonaparte cared nothing for the lives of the

unfortunate troopers who would form the forlorn hope, if only he could

deliver one of those theatrical strokes with which he loved to adorn a

_Bulletin_. It would be tame and commonplace to allow Victor’s infantry

to clear the heights on either side, and to compel the retreat of the

Spanish guns by mere outflanking. On the other hand, it was certain

that the enemy must be growing very uncomfortable at the sight of the

steady progress of Ruffin’s battalions up the heights: the Emperor

calculated that San Juan’s artillerymen must already be looking over

their shoulders and expecting the order to retire, when the crests

above them should be lost. If enough of the Poles struggled through to

the guns to silence the battery for a moment, there was a large chance

that the whole Spanish line would break and fly down hill to Buitrago

and Madrid. To support the escort-squadron he ordered up the rest of

the Polish regiment and the _chasseurs à cheval_ of the Guard: if the

devoted vanguard could once reach the guns 1,000 sabres would support

them and sweep along the road. If, on the other hand, the Poles were

exterminated, the Guard cavalry would be held back, and nothing would

have been lost, save the lives of the forlorn hope.

[513] Seven officers and eighty men, to be exact (see Ségur,

_Mémoires_, iii. 282). It does not seem to be generally known

that the Poles were not yet lancers. They were only armed with

the lance three months later (see _Nap. Corresp._, 14,819, giving

the order to that effect), and were at this moment properly

styled _Chevaux-Légers Polonais_ only. Almost every narrative of

the Somosierra that I have read calls them lancers; Napier is an

exception.

General Montbrun led the Polish squadron forward for about half the

distance that separated them from the guns: so many saddles were

emptied that the men hesitated, and sought refuge in a dip of the

ground where some rocks gave them more or less cover from the Spanish

balls. This sight exasperated the Emperor: when Walther, the general

commanding the Imperial Guard, rode up to him, and suggested that he

should wait a moment longer till Victor’s tirailleurs should have

carried the heights on each side of the road, he smote the pommel of

his saddle and shouted, ‘My Guard must not be stopped by peasants, mere

armed banditti[514].’ Then he sent forward his aide-de-camp, Philippe

de Ségur, to tell the Poles that they must quit their cover and charge

home. Ségur galloped on and gave his message to the _chef d’escadron_

Korjietulski: the Emperor’s eye was upon them, and the Polish officers

did not shrink. Placing themselves at the head of the survivors of

their devoted band they broke out of their cover and charged in upon

the guns, Ségur riding two horses’ lengths in front of the rest.

There were only 200 yards to cross, but the task was impossible; one

blasting discharge of the Spanish guns, aided by the fire of infantry

skirmishers from the flanks, practically exterminated the unhappy

squadron. Of the eighty-eight who charged four officers and forty men

were killed, four officers (one of them was Ségur) and twelve men

wounded[515]. The foremost of these bold riders got within thirty yards

of the guns before he fell.

[514] All this narrative comes from Philippe de Ségur, who must

be followed in preference to the 13th _Bulletin_ and all the

witnesses who allege that the Poles did reach the battery. He, if

any one, knew what really happened (_Mémoires_, iii. 281-5). His

account of the whole business is in close accord with that of De

Pradt, who was also an eye-witness.

[515] The frightful proportion of killed to wounded came,

of course, from the fact that the casualties were caused by

artillery fire.

Having thus sacrificed in vain this little band of heroes, Bonaparte

found himself forced, after all, to wait for the infantry. General

Barrois with the 96th Regiment, following in the wake of the lost

squadron, seized the line of rocks behind which the Poles had taken

refuge before their charge, and began to exchange a lively musketry

fire with the Spanish battalions which flanked and guarded the guns.

Meanwhile the 9th and 24th Regiments on either side had nearly reached

the crest of the heights. The enemy were already wavering, and

falling back before the advance of Barrois’ brigade, whose skirmishers

had struggled to the summit just to the right of the grand battery

on the high-road, when the Emperor ordered a second cavalry charge.

This time he sent up Montbrun with the remaining squadrons of the

Polish regiment, supported by the _chasseurs à cheval_ of the Guard.

The conditions were completely changed, and this second attack was

delivered at the right moment: the Spaniards, all along the line,

were now heavily engaged with Victor’s infantry. When, therefore, the

horsemen rode furiously in upon the guns, it is not wonderful that they

succeeded in closing with them, and seized the whole battery with small

loss. The defenders of the pass gave way so suddenly, and scattered

among the rocks with such speed, that only 200 of them were caught and

ridden down. The Poles pursued those of them who retired down the road

as far as Buitrago, at the southern foot of the defile, but without

inflicting on them any very severe loss; for the fugitives swerved off

the path, and could not be hunted down by mounted men among the steep

slopes whereon they sought refuge. The larger part of the Spaniards,

being posted to the left of the _chaussée_, fled westward along the

side of the mountain and arrived at Segovia, where they joined the army

of Estremadura. With them went San Juan, who had vainly tried to make

his reserve stand firm behind the guns, and had received two sword-cuts

on the head from a Polish officer. Only a small part of the army fled

to the direct rear and entered Madrid.

The story of the passage of the Somosierra has often been told as if

it was an example of the successful frontal attack of cavalry on guns,

and as if the Poles had actually defeated the whole Spanish army.

Nothing of the kind occurred: Napoleon, as we have seen, in a moment

of impatience and rage called upon the leading squadron to perform an

impossibility, and caused them to be exterminated. The second charge

was quite a different matter: here the horsemen fell upon shaken troops

already closely engaged with infantry, and broke through them. But if

they had not charged at all, the pass would have been forced none the

less, and only five minutes later than was actually the case[516]. In

short, it was Ruffin’s division, and not the cavalry, which really

did the work. Napoleon, with his habitual love of the theatrical and

his customary disregard of truth, wrote in the 13th _Bulletin_ that

the charge of the Polish Light Horse decided the action, and that

they had lost only eight killed and sixteen wounded! This legend has

slipped into history, and traces of its influence will be found even in

Napier[517] and other serious authors.

[516] The real course of events is best given by Ségur (iii.

295), who writes as follows: ‘Pendant que notre charge avait

attiré sur elle les feux de l’ennemi, le général Barrois avait

profité de cette diversion. Il s’était avancé jusqu’à le rocher,

notre point de départ. Là, poussés en avant par l’empereur pour

recommencer ma charge, treize de ses grenadiers avaient été

abattus par le feu de la redoute. Alors, rétrogradant derrière

le roc, il avait envoyé quelques compagnies à l’escalade des

hauteurs à notre droite, puis lui-même, à la tête de sa brigade,

y était monté.... Les Espagnols, se voyant près d’être abordés,

avaient déchargé leurs armes, et, se débandant aussitôt, ils

s’étaient mis a fuir à toutes jambes. Au même moment à sa gauche

le bruit de la canonnade avait cessé. C’était alors que le

régiment entier de lanciers Polonais, recommençant la charge

prématurée de notre escadron détruit, avait achevé, sans autre

perte, d’enlever la position. Les canons, quelques officiers

et 150 à 200 Espagnols seulement purent être atteints, tant la

dispersion de l’armée devant les quatre bataillons de Barrois

avait été subite et rapide.’

[517] He describes it as if ‘a position nearly impregnable, and

defended by 12,000 men, had been abandoned to the wild charge of

a few squadrons, whom two companies of steady infantry could have

stopped’ (i. 268).

The combat of the Somosierra, in short, is only an example of the

well-known fact that defiles with accessible flank-slopes cannot be

held by a small army against fourfold numbers. To state the matter

shortly, fifteen battalions of Spaniards (five of them regular

battalions which had been present at Baylen) were turned off the

heights by the ten battalions of Ruffin: the cavalry action was only

a spectacular interlude. The Spanish infantry, considering that there

were so many veteran corps among them, might have behaved better.

But they did not suffer the disgrace of being routed by a single

squadron of horse as Napoleon asserted; and if they fought feebly their

discouragement was due, we cannot doubt, to the fact that they saw the

pass packed for miles to the rear with the advancing columns of the

French, and knew that Ruffin’s division was only the skirmishing line

(so to speak) of a great army.

On the night of November 30, Napoleon descended the pass and fixed

his head quarters at Buitrago. On the afternoon of December 1 the

advanced parties of Latour-Maubourg’s and Lasalle’s cavalry rode up to

the northern suburbs of Madrid: on the second the French appeared in

force, and the attack on the city began.

The Spanish capital was, and is, a place incapable of any regular

defence. It had not even, like Valencia and Saragossa, the remains of

a mediaeval wall: its development had taken place in the sixteenth

century, when serious fortifications had gone out of date. Its streets

were broad and regular, unlike the tortuous lanes which had been the

real strength of Saragossa. Nothing separates the city from its suburbs

save ornamental gates, whose only use was for the levy of octroi

duties. Madrid is built in a level upland, but there is a rising ground

which dominates the whole place: it lies just outside the eastern limit

of the city. On it stood the palace of the Buen Retiro (which gives its

name to the height), and several other public buildings, among them the

Observatory and the royal porcelain manufactory, known as La China.

The latter occupied the more commanding and important section of the

summit of the hill. Between the Retiro and the eastern side of the city

lies the public park known as the Prado, a low-lying open space laid

out with fountains, statues, and long avenues of trees. Three broad and

handsome streets[518] run eastward and terminate in the Prado, just

opposite the Retiro, so that cannon planted either by the palace or

by La China can search them from end to end. This was so obvious that

Murat, during his occupation of Madrid in April and May, had built

three redoubts, one large and two small, facing down into the city

and armed with guns of position. The inhabitants of Madrid had partly

dismantled them after the departure of the French--and did themselves

no harm thereby, for these earthworks were useless for defence against

an enemy from without: they could be employed to overawe the city but

not to protect it[519].

[518] The Calle de Alcala, Calle de Atocha, and Carrera de San

Geronimo.

[519] This description is mainly from Vaughan’s unpublished diary

(p. 230).

Ever since the rout of Gamonal, those members of the Junta who were

gifted with ordinary foresight must have realized that it was probable

that the Emperor would appear ere long before the gates of the capital.

But to avoid alarming the excitable populace, the fact was concealed as

long as possible, and it was given out that Madrid would be defended

at the impregnable Somosierra. It was not till November 25 that any

public measures for the fortification of the capital were spoken of.

On that day the Junta issued a proclamation placing the charge of the

capital in the hands of the Marquis of Castelar, Captain-General of New

Castile, and of Don Tomas de Morla, the officer who had won a name by

bombarding and capturing the French fleet at Cadiz in June. Under their

directions, preparations were begun for putting the city in a state

of defence. But the military men had a strong and well-founded belief

that the place was indefensible, and that all efforts made to fortify

it were labour thrown away: the fight must be made at the Somosierra,

not at the gates of Madrid. It was not till the news of the rout of San

Juan’s army on the thirtieth came to hand, that any very serious work

was executed. But when this disaster was known there was a sudden and

splendid outburst of energy. The populace, full of vindictive memories

of May 2, were ready and willing to fight, and had no conception of

the military weakness of their situation. If Saragossa had defended

itself street by street, why, they asked, should not Madrid do the

same? Their spirits were so high and their temper so ferocious, that

the authorities realized that they must place themselves at the head of

the multitude, or be torn to pieces as traitors. On December 1 a Junta

of Defence was formed, under the presidency of the Duke of Infantado,

in which Morla and Castelar were given a large and heterogeneous mass

of colleagues--magistrates, officers, and prominent citizens forming

an unwieldy body very unfit to act as an executive council of war. The

military resources at their disposal were insignificant: there was

a handful of the fugitives from the Somosierra--Castelar estimated

them as not more than 300 or 400 in all[520]--and two battalions of

new levies from the south, which had arrived only on the morning of

December 1. The organized forces then were not more than 2,500 or 3,000

in all. But there was a vast and unruly mob of citizens of Madrid and

of peasants, who had flocked into the city to aid in its defence.

Weapons rather than men were wanting, for when 8,000 muskets from the

Arsenal had been served out, the supply ran short. All private persons

owning firearms of any description were invited to hand them in to the

Junta: but this resource soon failed, and finally pikes were served

out, and even mediaeval weapons from the royal armoury and the family

collections of certain grandees. How many men, armed in one way or

another, took part in the defence of Madrid will never be known--it

cannot have been less than 20,000, and may have amounted to much more.

[520] This must have been an under-estimate. More than 1,500 of

the Somosierra troops had joined the army of Infantado by the New

Year.

Not merely the combatants, but the whole population of both sexes

turned themselves with absolute frenzy to the work of fortification.

In the two days which they had at their disposal they carried out an

enormous and ill-compacted scheme for surrounding the whole city with

lines. In front of each of the gates a battery was established, formed

of earth reveted with paving-stones: to connect these a continuous

wall was made, by joining together all the exterior houses of the town

with earthworks, or with piles of stones and bricks pulled down from

buildings in the suburbs. On several fronts ditches were excavated:

the more important streets were blocked with barricades, and the

windows and doors of exposed buildings were built up. There were

very few engineers at the disposal of the Junta of Defence, and the

populace in many places worked not under skilled guidance but by the

light of nature, executing enormous but perfectly useless works. ‘The

batteries,’ wrote a prominent Spanish witness, ‘were all too small:

they were so low that they did not prevent the gates and streets which

they defended from being enfiladed: the guns being placed _en barbette_

were much exposed, and were dominated by the artillery which the enemy

afterwards placed on the high ground [i.e. the Retiro heights]. The low

parapets and the want of proportion between them and their banquettes

left the infantry unsheltered: indeed they were harmed rather than

helped by the works, for the splinters of the paving-stones which

formed the parapets proved more deadly to the garrison than did the

enemy’s cannon-balls. The batteries were too low at the flanks, and

placed so close to the buildings in their rear that the guns could

not easily be worked nor the infantry supports move freely. The gates

behind being all of hewn stone, every ball that struck them sent such

a shower of fragments flying that the effect was like grape: it forced

the defenders to lie flat, and even then caused terrible loss[521].’ It

may be added that not only were the works unscientifically executed,

but that the most tiresome results were produced by the misguided

energy of persons who threw up barricades, or dug cuttings, behind

them, so that it was very hard to send up reinforcements, and quite

impossible to withdraw the guns from one battery for use in another.

[521] Report on the defences of Madrid, by the Duke of Infantado,

quoted in Arteche (iii. 400, 401).

It was natural that these self-taught engineers should neglect the one

most important point in the defences of Madrid. The Retiro heights were

the key of the city: if they were lost, the whole place lay open to

bombardment from the dominating ground. But nothing was done here, save

that the old French works round the factory of La China were repaired,

the buildings of the palace, barracks, and hospital in the vicinity

barricaded, and a low continuous earthwork constructed round the summit

of the hill. It should have been turned into a regular entrenched camp,

if the city was really to be defended.

The Junta of Defence did its best to preserve order and introduce

discipline: all the armed men were paraded in the Prado, told off

into bands, and allotted their posts around the circumference of the

city. But there were many idle hands, and much confusion: it was

inevitable that mobs should collect, with the usual consequences. Cries

of ‘Treason’ were raised, some houses were sacked, and at least one

atrocious murder was committed. The Marquis of Perales was president

of the sub-committee which the Junta had appointed to superintend the

manufacture and distribution of ammunition. Among the cartridges given

out to the people some were found in which sand had been substituted

for powder--probably they were relics of some petty piece of peculation

dating back to the times of Godoy. When this was discovered, a furious

mob ran to the house of the marquis, beat him to death, and dragged his

corpse through the streets on a hurdle[522].

[522] Napier calls Perales ‘a respectable old general’; but as

Toreño remarks (i. 305), he was neither old, nor a military

officer of any rank, nor respectable. He was a man of fashion

noted for his licentious life, and the mob which murdered him

is said to have been headed by his discarded mistress. Arteche

suggests that the sand-cartridges were constructed for the

purpose of ruining him, and that the whole business was a piece

of private vengeance. The marquis had once been a very popular

character among the lower classes, but had lost credit by showing

politeness to Murat.

If the populace of Madrid was full of blind self-confidence, and

imagined that it had the power to beat off the assault of Napoleon, its

leaders were in a much more despondent frame of mind. Morla was one of

those who had joined the patriotic party merely because he thought it

was the winning side: he was deeply disgusted with himself, and was

already contemplating the traitorous desertion to the enemy which has

covered his name with eternal disgrace. Castelar seems to have been

weak and downhearted. The Duke of Infantado was enough of a soldier

to see the hopeless inefficiency of the measures of defence which had

been adopted. The only chance of saving Madrid was to hurry up to its

aid the two field-armies which were within touch--the old Andalusian

divisions (now under La Peña), which, by orders of the Supreme Junta,

were marching from Calatayud on the capital, and the routed bands of

Heredia and San Juan at Segovia. Urgent appeals were sent to both of

these hosts to press forward without delay: Infantado himself rode out

to meet the army of the Centre, which on this day [Dec. 1] had not long

passed Siguenza in its retreat, and was still nearly eighty miles from

the capital. He met it at Guadalajara on the next day, in very bad

condition, and much reduced by long marches and starvation: with the

colours there were only 9,000 foot and 2,000 horse, and these were in

a state of half-developed mutiny. The rest of the 20,000 men who had

escaped from Tudela were ranging in small bands over the country-side,

in search of food, and were not rallied for many days. There was not

much to be hoped for from the army of the Centre, and it was evident

that it could not reach Madrid till December 3 or 4. The troops of San

Juan and Heredia were not so far distant, but even they had fifty-five

miles to march from Segovia, and--as it turned out--the capital had

fallen before either of the field-armies could possibly come to its

aid. Still more fruitless were the attempts made at the last moment to

induce Sir John Moore to bring up the British expeditionary force from

Salamanca--he was 150 miles away, and could not have arrived before

December 7, three days after the capitulation had been signed.

Napoleon dealt with the insurgents of Madrid in a very summary manner.

On December 1--as we have already seen--his vedettes appeared before

the city: on the morning of the second the dragoons of Lahoussaye and

Latour-Maubourg came up in force and invested the northern and eastern

fronts of the city. At noon the Emperor himself appeared, and late in

the afternoon the infantry columns of Victor’s corps. December 2 was

one of Bonaparte’s lucky days, being the anniversary of Austerlitz, and

he had indulged in a faint hope that an open town like the Spanish

capital might do him the courtesy of surrendering without a blow,

like Vienna in 1805, or Berlin in 1806. Accordingly he sent a summons

to the Junta in the afternoon; but the Spaniards were in no mood for

yielding. General Montbrun, who rode up to the gates with the white

flag, was nearly mobbed by enraged peasants, and the aide-de-camp who

took the dispatch into the city was only saved from certain death by

the exertions of some Spanish officers of the line. The Junta sent him

back with the haughty reply that ‘the people of Madrid were resolved to

bury themselves under the ruins of their houses rather than to permit

the French troops to enter their city.’

Since the ‘sun of Austerlitz’ was not destined to set upon the

triumphal entry of the Emperor into the Spanish capital, it became

necessary to prepare for the use of force. As a preliminary for an

attack on the following morning, Lapisse’s division of Victor’s corps

was sent forward to turn the Spaniards out of many isolated houses in

front of their line of entrenchments, which were being held as advanced

posts. The ground being cleared, preparations could be made for the

assault. The moment that Bonaparte cast eyes on the place, he realized

that the heights of the Retiro were the key of the position. Under

cover of the night, therefore, thirty guns were ranged in line opposite

the weak earthworks which crowned the eminence. Artillery in smaller

force was placed in front of several of the northern and eastern

gates of the city, to distract the attention of the garrison from the

critical point. Before dawn the Emperor sent in another summons to

surrender, by the hands of an artillery officer who had been captured

at the Somosierra. It is clear that he wished, if possible, to enter

Madrid without being obliged to deliver up the city to fire and sword:

it would be unfortunate if his brother’s second reign were to begin

under such unhappy conditions. But it is hard to understand how he

could suppose that the warlike frenzy of the Spaniards would have died

down between the afternoon of December 2 and the dawn of December 3.

All the reply that he obtained was a proposal from the Captain-General

Castelar, that there should be a suspension of arms for twelve hours.

The sole object of this delay was to allow the Spanish field-armies

time to draw nearer to Madrid. Recognizing the fact--which was obvious

enough--the Emperor gave orders for an immediate assault. A cannonade

was opened against the gates of Los Pozos, the Recoletos, Fuencarral,

and several others on the northern and eastern sides of the city.

Considerable damage was done to the Spanish defences, but these

attacks were all subsidiary. The real assault was delivered against

the Retiro heights. The heavy cannonade which was directed against the

Spanish works soon opened several breaches. Then Villatte’s division

of Victor’s corps was sent in to storm the position, a feat which it

accomplished with the greatest ease. The garrison of this all-important

section of the defences consisted of a single battalion of new

levies--the Regiment of Mazzaredo--and a mass of armed citizens. They

were swept out of their works, and pursued downhill into the Prado.

Pressing onward among the avenues and fountains, Villatte’s division

took in the rear the defenders of the three neighbouring gates, and

then, pushing in among the houses of the city, made a lodgement in the

palace of the Duke of Medina Celi, and several other large buildings.

There was now nothing between the French army and the heart of Madrid

save the street-barricades, which the populace had thrown up behind the

original lines of defence.

If Napoleon had chosen to send into the fight the rest of Victor’s

corps, and had pushed forward the whole of his artillery to the edge

of the captured heights, with orders to shell the city, there can be

little doubt that Madrid might have been stormed ere nightfall. Its

broad streets did not give the facilities of defence that Saragossa

had possessed, and the Emperor had at his disposal not a weak and

heterogeneous army, such as Verdier had commanded, but more than 40,000

veteran troops. His artillery, too, had on the Retiro a vantage-ground

such as did not exist outside the Aragonese capital. Nevertheless the

Emperor did not press the attack, and once more sent in a demand for

the surrender of the place, at about eleven in the morning of December

3.

The populace of Madrid did not yet recognize its own forlorn state,

and was keeping up a vigorous fusillade at the gates and behind the

barricades. It had suffered severe loss from the French artillery,

owing to the unscientific construction of the defences, but was not

yet ready to yield. But the Junta was in a very different frame of

mind: the military men thoroughly understood the situation, and

were expecting to see a hundred guns open from the crest of the

Retiro within the next few minutes. Their civilian colleagues, the

magistrates, and local notables were looking forward with no enviable

feelings to the conflagration and the general sack that seemed to be

at hand. In short the idea of rivalling Saragossa was far from their

thoughts. When Napoleon’s letter, offering ‘pardon to the city of

Madrid, protection and security for the peaceful inhabitants, respect

for the churches and the clergy, oblivion for the past,’ was delivered

to the Junta, the majority decided to treat with him. They sent out as

negotiators General Morla, representing the military element, and Don

Bernardo Iriarte[523], on behalf of the civil authorities. Napoleon

treated these delegates to one of those scenes of simulated rage which

he was such an adept at producing--his harangue was quite in the style

of the famous allocutions to Lord Whitworth and to Metternich. It was

necessary, he thought, to terrify the delegates. Accordingly he let

loose on Morla a storm of largely irrelevant abuse, stringing together

accusations concerning the bombardment of the French fleet at Cadiz,

the violation of the Convention of Baylen, the escape of La Romana’s

troops from the Baltic, and (strangest of all!) the misconduct of the

Spanish troops in Roussillon during the war of 1793-5. He ended by

declaring that unless the city had been surrendered by six o’clock on

the following morning, every man taken in arms should be put to the

sword.

[523] Not ‘another military officer,’ as Napier says.

Morla was a very timid man[524], moreover he was already meditating

submission to King Joseph: he returned to the Junta in a state of

absolute collapse, and gave such a highly coloured account of the

Emperor’s wrath, and of the number of the French army, that there

was no further talk of resistance. The main difficulty was to stop

the promiscuous firing which was still going on at the outposts, and

to induce the more exasperated section of the mob to quit the city

or to lay down their arms. Many of them took the former alternative:

the Marquis of Castelar, resolved to avoid captivity, got together

his handful of regular troops, and fled in haste by the road towards

Estremadura: he was followed by some thousands of peasants, and by

a considerable number of persons who thought themselves too much

compromised to be able to remain behind. Having got rid of the

recalcitrants, the Junta drew up a form of capitulation in eleven

articles, and sent it out to the French camp. Napoleon, anxious above

all things to get possession of the city as soon as possible, accepted

it almost without discussion, though it contained many clauses entirely

inappropriate to such a document. As he did not intend to observe

any of the inconvenient stipulations, he did not care to waste time

in discussing them[525]. Morla and Fernando de Vera, governor of the

city, came back with the capitulation duly ratified by Berthier, and

next morning the gates were opened, a division under General Belliard

marched in, and the Spaniards gave up their artillery and laid down

their muskets without further trouble. After the spasmodic burst of

energy which they had displayed during the last four days, the citizens

showed a melancholy apathy which surprised the conquerors. There was

no riot or confusion, nor were any isolated attempts at resistance

made. Hence the occupation of Madrid took place without any scenes of

bloodshed or pillage, the Emperor for his part keeping a very stern

hand upon the soldiery, and sending in as small a garrison as could

safely be allotted to the task.

[524] ‘Hombre de corazon pusilánime, aunque de fiera y africana

figura,’ says Toreño (i. 307).

[525] The first clause of the Capitulation was to the effect

that no religion save the Catholic Apostolic Roman faith should

be tolerated! The second provided that all government officials

should be continued in the tenure of their offices. Clearly such

articles were absurd in a military capitulation, and the second

was impossible to execute, as the conqueror must necessarily

place in office such persons as he could trust. But the amnesty

articles (Nos. 4 and 11) could have been observed, and were not.

Madrid having fallen after no more than two days of resistance, the

two Spanish field-armies which were marching to its aid were far too

late to be of any use. The army of the Centre under La Peña had reached

Guadalajara at nightfall on December 2: there it was met by the Duke

of Infantado, who had come out from Madrid to hurry on the troops. At

his solicitation the wearied and disorganized host, with Ney’s corps

pressing hard on its heels, marched for San Torcaz and Arganda, thus

placing itself in a most dangerous position between the Emperor and the

corps that was in pursuit. Fortunately La Peña got early news of the

capitulation, and swerving southward from Arganda, made for the passage

of the Tagus at Aranjuez. But Bonaparte had sent out part of Victor’s

corps to seize that place, and when the army of the Centre drew near,

it found French troops in possession [December 6]. With Ney behind,

Victor in front, and Bessières’ cavalry ranging all over the plain of

New Castile, the Spaniards were in grave danger. But they escaped by

way of Estremera, crossed the ferries on the Upper Tagus, and finally

rallied--in a most miserable and disorganized condition--at Cuenca.

The artillery, unable to leave the high-road, had been sent off three

days before, from Guadalajara towards the kingdom of Murcia, almost

without an escort: by a piece of extraordinary luck it escaped without

seeing an enemy.

The doings of the disorganized divisions of San Juan and Heredia, which

had marched from Segovia on December 2, were much more discreditable.

Late on the third they reached the Escurial, some thirty miles from

Madrid, and were met by fugitives from the capital, who reported that

the Retiro had been stormed, and that the Junta of Defence was debating

about a surrender. The two commanders were doubting whether they ought

not to turn back, when their troops broke out into mutiny, insisting

that the march on Madrid must be continued. After a scene of great

disorder the generals gave in, and resumed their advance on the morning

of the fourth, just at the moment when Morla was opening the gates

to Napoleon. They had only gone a few miles when certain news of the

capitulation was received. There followed a disgraceful scene; the cry

of treason ran down the ranks: some battalions disbanded themselves,

others attacked their own officers, and the whole mass dissolved and

went off in panic to Talavera, leaving its artillery abandoned by the

wayside. They had not even seen a French vedette, or fired a single

shot, yet they fled in utter rout for sixty miles, and only halted

when they could run no further. Seven or eight thousand men out of the

two armies were got together at Talavera, on the sixth; but when, next

morning, San Juan attempted to take up the command again, they raised

the idiotic cry that he wished to lead them forward into the midst of

Napoleon’s armies in order to force them to surrender! The unfortunate

general was hunted down, shot as he was trying to escape from a window,

and hung from a large elm-tree just outside the town. This was the most

disgraceful scene of the whole campaign in 1808. It was not for some

days later that the remnants of this miserable army were reduced to

some shadow of discipline, and consented to march under the command of

new generals.

It is clear that even if Madrid had held out for a day or two more, by

dint of desperate street-fighting, it would have got no effective aid

from the armies in the field. We cannot therefore say that the Junta of

Defence did much harm by its tame surrender. From the military point

of view Madrid was indefensible: on the other hand it was eminently

desirable, from the political point of view, that Napoleon should not

enter the place unopposed, to be received, as at Vienna or Berlin, by

obsequious deputations mouthing compliments, and bearing the keys of

the city on silver salvers. It was far better, in the long run, for

Spain and for Europe that he should be received with cannon-balls, and

forced to fight his way in. This simple fact made all his fictions

to the effect that he was only opposed by the rabble, the monks,

and the agents of England appear absurd. He could not, after this,

pretend to introduce his brother Joseph as a legitimate sovereign

quietly returning to his loyal capital. So much was secured by the two

days’ resistance of Madrid: on the other hand, when once the French

were inside the city, and further resistance would have ended merely

in general pillage and conflagration, it would have required more

than Spartan resolution for the Junta to go on fighting. If Madrid

had been burnt like Moscow, the moral effect on Spain and on Europe

would, no doubt, have been enormous. But the heterogeneous council

of war, composed of dispirited officers and local notables trembling

for their homes, could hardly be expected to see this. They yielded,

considering that they had already done enough by way of protest--and

even with Saragossa in our mind we should be loth to say that their

capitulation was culpable. The one shameful thing about the surrender

was that within a few days both Morla, the military head of the

defence, and several of the chief civil officials, swore allegiance to

Joseph Bonaparte, and took service under him. Such treason on the part

of prominent men did more to encourage the invader and to dishearten

Spain and her allies than the loss of half a dozen battles. For, when

once desertion begins, no one knows where it will stop, and every man

distrusts his neighbour as a possible traitor. Madrid, as we have

already said, was not a true national capital, nor was its loss a

fatal blow; but that its chief defenders should shamelessly throw over

the cause of their country, and join the enemy, was a symptom of the

most dire and deadly sort. But, fortunately, the fate of the country

was not in the hands of its corrupt bureaucracy, but in those of its

much-enduring people.

SECTION VIII

THE CAMPAIGN OF SIR JOHN MOORE

CHAPTER I

NAPOLEON AT MADRID

From December 4 to December 22 the Emperor remained fixed in the

neighbourhood of Madrid. He did not settle down in the royal palace,

and it would seem that he made no more than one or two hurried visits

of inspection to the city[526]. He established himself outside the

gates, at Chamartin, a desolate and uncomfortable country house of the

Duke of Infantado, and devoted himself to incessant desk-work[527].

It was here that he drew up his projects for the reorganization of

the kingdom of Spain, and at the same time set himself to the task of

constructing his plans of campaign against those parts of the Peninsula

which still remained unsubdued. In seventeen days, uninterrupted by

the cares of travel, Bonaparte could get through an enormous amount of

business. His words and deeds at this period are well worth studying,

for the light that they throw alike on his own character and on his

conceptions of the state and the needs of Spain.

[526] Not, as the Spaniards whispered, because he feared the

stiletto of some fanatical monk, but because he wished to leave

the place clear for his brother Joseph. For the curious story of

his visit to the royal palace, and long study of the portrait of

Philip II, see Toreño, i. 309.

[527] For the discomforts of Chamartin see the _Mémoires sur la

Révolution d’Espagne_ of De Pradt. Though belonging to one of

the richest nobles of Spain, it had not a single fireplace, and

the imperial courtiers and aides-de-camp had to shiver in the

ante-rooms over miserable _braseros_.

His first act was to annul the capitulation which he had granted to the

inhabitants of Madrid. Having served its purpose in inducing the Junta

to yield, it was promptly violated. ‘The Spaniards have failed to carry

it out,’ he wrote, ‘and I consider the whole thing void[528].’ Looking

at the preposterous clauses which he had allowed to be inserted in the

document, there can be no doubt that this was his intention at the very

moment when he ratified it. It was a small thing that he should break

engagements, such as those in which he had promised not to quarter

troops in the monasteries (Article 7), or to maintain all existing

officials in their places (Article 2). But having guaranteed security

for their life and property, freedom from arrest, and free exit at

their pleasure, to such persons as chose to remain behind in the city,

it was shameless to commence his proceedings with a proscription and

a long series of arrests. The list of persons declared traitors and

condemned to loss of life and goods was not very long: only ten persons

were named, and seven of these were absent from Madrid. But the three

others, the Prince of Castelfranco, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and the

Count of Altamira, were seized and dispatched into France, sentenced to

imprisonment for life.

[528] ‘La capitulation, n’ayant pas été tenue par les habitants

de Madrid, est nulle,’ Napoleon to Belliard, Dec. 5 (_Nap.

Corresp._, 14,534). He scolds Belliard for having allowed the

document to be printed and placarded on the walls. Every copy was

to be torn down at once. In what respect the Spaniards had broken

the treaty he does not state. He may have referred to the evasion

of Castelar’s troops.

The arrests were a much more serious matter. In flagrant contravention

of the terms of surrender, Bonaparte put under lock and key all the

members of the Council of the Inquisition on whom he could lay hands,

irrespective of what their conduct had been during the reign of the

Supreme Junta. He also declared all the superior officers of the army

resident in Madrid, even retired veterans, to be prisoners of war,

and liable to answer with their necks for the safety of the captives

of Dupont’s corps. Among them was discovered an old French _émigré_,

the Marquis de Saint-Simon, who had entered the service of Charles

IV as far back as 1793, and had taken part in the last campaign. The

Emperor refused to consider him as a Spaniard, declared that he was

one of his own subjects, had him tried by court-martial, and condemned

him to death. All this was to lead up to one of those odious comedies

of magnanimity which Bonaparte sometimes practised for the benefit of

the editor of the _Moniteur_. Saint-Simon’s daughter was admitted to

the imperial presence to beg for her father’s life, and the master

of the world deigned to commute the punishment of the ‘traitor’ to

imprisonment for life in the mountain-fortress of Joux[529]. This was

a repetition of the Hatzfeldt affairs at Berlin, and Saint-Simon was

treated even worse than the unfortunate Prussian nobleman of 1806.

Truly the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel!

[529] Cf. _Nap. Corresp._, 14,708, with De Pradt (p. 205-6) and

Arteche (iii. 432).

Among other persons who were arrested were Don Arias Mon, president of

the Council of Castile, the Duke of Sotomayor, and about thirty other

notables: some were ultimately sent away to France, others allowed to

go free after swearing allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte.

All these measures were designed to strike terror into the hearts of

the Spaniards. But at the same time the Emperor issued a series of

decrees--in his own name and not in that of his brother, the titular

king--which were intended to conciliate them by bestowing upon them

certain tangible benefits. He knew that there existed the nucleus of

a Liberal party in Spain, and hoped to draw it over to his side by

introducing certain much-needed reforms in the administration of the

country. With this object he removed the tiresome inter-provincial

octroi duties, abolished all feudal dues and all rights of private

jurisdiction, declared that all monopolies should be annulled, and

forbade all assignments of public revenues to individuals. Such

measures would have seemed excellent to many good Spaniards, if they

had been introduced by a legitimate ruler: but coming from the hand

of a foreign conqueror they were without effect. Moreover there

was hardly a square mile of Spanish territory, outside Madrid and

the other towns held by the French, where Napoleon’s writs could

run. Every village which was unoccupied was passively or actively

disobedient. The reforms, therefore, were but on paper. Another series

of decrees, which appeared at the same time, were in themselves quite

as justifiable as those which were concerned with administrative

changes, but were certain to offend nine-tenths of the Spanish nation.

They dealt with the Church and its ministers. The most important was

one which declared (with perfect truth) that there were far too many

monasteries and nunneries in Spain, and that it was necessary to cut

them down to one-third of their existing number. The names of those

which were destined to survive were published: to them the inmates of

the remaining institutions were to be transferred, as vacancies arose.

The suppressed convents were to become the property of the state. Part

of their revenues was to be devoted to raising the salaries of the

secular clergy, so that every parish priest should have an income of

2,400 reals (about £25). Monks or nuns who might choose to leave the

monastic life were to be granted a small pension[530]. At the same

time the Inquisition was abolished ‘as dangerous to the crown and to

civil authority,’ and all its property confiscated. In Madrid there was

seized 2,453,972 reals in hard cash--about £25,000; the smallness of

the amount much surprised the French, who had vague ideas concerning

the fabulous wealth of the institution[531].

[530] For details see the decree in _Nap. Corresp._, 14,528. The

last-named clause curiously resembles a provision of Henry VIII

of England, at the Dissolution of 1536.

[531] Cf. _Nap. Corresp._, 14,563, and De Pradt, _Mémoires_, &c.,

p. 205.

The only results of these measures were that every Spaniard was

confirmed in his belief that Napoleon was a concealed atheist and an

irreconcilable enemy of all religion. Could anything else be expected

of one who (in spite of his _Concordats_ and _Te Deums_) was after

all a child of the Revolution? The man who had persecuted the Pope

in January, 1808, would naturally persecute the monks of Spain in

December. As to the Inquisition, its fate inspired no rejoicing: it

had been effete for many years: there was not a prisoner in any of

its dungeons. Indeed it had enjoyed a feeble popularity of late, for

having refused to lend itself as a tool to Godoy. The only result of

Napoleon’s decree for its abolition was that it acquired (grotesque

as the idea may seem) considerable credit in the eyes of the majority

of the Spanish people, as one of the usurper’s victims. Never was

work more wasted than that which the Emperor spent on his reforms of

December, 1808. They actually tended to make old abuses popular with

the masses, merely because he had attempted to remove them. As to the

possibility of conciliating the comparatively small body of Liberals,

he was equally in error: they agreed with the views of Jovellanos:

reforms were necessary, but they must come from within, and not be

imposed by force from without. They were Spaniards first and reformers

afterwards. The only recruits whom Bonaparte succeeded in enrolling

for his brother’s court were the purely selfish bureaucrats who would

accept any government--who would serve Godoy, Ferdinand, Joseph, a red

republic, or the Sultan of Turkey with equal equanimity, so long as

they could keep their places or gain better ones.

The Emperor had a curious belief in the power of oaths and phrases over

other men, though he was entirely free himself from any feebleness of

the kind. He took considerable pains to get up a semblance of national

acceptance of his brother’s authority, now that his second reign was

about to begin. Joseph had appeared at Chamartin on December 2[532]:

but he was not allowed to re-enter Madrid for many days. The Emperor

told him to stay outside, at the royal palace of the Pardo, till things

were ready for his reception. This was not at all to the mind of the

King, who took his position seriously, and was deeply wounded at being

ordered about in such an arbitrary fashion. He sent in a formal protest

against the publication of the decrees of December 4: his own name,

he complained, not that of his brother, ought to have appeared at

the bottom of all these projects of reform. He had never coveted any

crown, and least of all that of Spain: but having once accepted the

position he could not consent to be relegated into a corner, while all

the acts of sovereignty were being exercised by his brother. He was

ready to resign his crown into the hands from which he had received

it: but if he was not allowed to abdicate, he must be allowed to reign

in the true sense of the word. It made him blush with shame before his

subjects[533] when he saw them invited to obey laws which he had never

seen, much less sanctioned. Napoleon refused to accept this abdication:

he looked at matters from an entirely different point of view. He was

master of Spain, as he considered, not merely by the cession made at

Bayonne, but by the new title of conquest. He intended to restore

Joseph to the throne, but till he had done so he saw no reason why he

should not exercise all the rights of sovereignty at Madrid. If, in

a moment of pique, he said that his brother might exchange the crown

of Spain for that of Italy, or for the position of lieutenant of the

Emperor in France during his own numerous absences, there is clear

evidence that these were empty words. His dispatches show not the least

sign of any project for the future of Spain other than the restoration

of Joseph; and while the latter was at the Pardo he was continually

receiving notes concerning the reorganization of the Spanish army and

finances, which presuppose his confirmation on the throne within the

next few days[534].

[532] Napier (i. 273) makes a curious blunder in saying that he

remained at Burgos.

[533] This odd phrase is used by Joseph himself in his letter of

Dec. 8, sent from the Pardo, after he had received the decrees

issued on Dec. 4 by his brother.

[534] There is a complete _catena_ of letters and dispatches

from Dec. 4 to Dec. 22, in which the retention of Joseph as

king is presupposed: (1) 14,531 [Dec. 5] advises him to raise a

Spanish army; (2) 14,537 [Dec. 7] advises the Spaniards to ‘make

their King certain of their love and confidence’; (3) 14,543

[Dec. 9], the allocution to the Corregidor, bids the Madrileños

swear fidelity on the Sacrament to their King; (4) 14,558 [Dec.

13] speaks of the knitting up again of the bonds which attach

Joseph’s subjects to their sovereign; (5) 14,593 [Dec. 18] gives

the King advice as to the reorganization of his finances. None of

them could have been written if there had been any real intention

of ousting Joseph from the throne.

It would seem that Napoleon’s real object in keeping his brother off

the scene, and acting as if he intended to annex Spain to France as

a vassal province, was merely to frighten the inhabitants of Madrid

into a proper frame of mind. If they remained recalcitrant, and

refused to come before him with petitions for pardon, they were to be

threatened with a purely French military government. If they bowed the

knee, they should have back King Joseph and the mockery of liberal

and constitutional monarchy which he represented. So much we gather

from the Emperor’s celebrated proclamation of December 7, and his

allocution to the Corregidor and magistrates of Madrid two days later.

Both of these addresses are in the true Napoleonesque vein. In the

first we read that if the people of Spain prefer ‘the poisons which the

English have ministered to them’ to the wholesome régime introduced

from France, they shall be treated as a conquered province, and Joseph

shall be removed to another throne. ‘I will place the crown of Spain on

my own brow, and I will make it respected by evil-doers, for God has

given me the strength and the force of will necessary to surmount all

obstacles.’ In the second, which is written in a mood of less rigour,

the inhabitants of Madrid are told that nothing could be easier than to

cut up Spain into provinces, each governed by a separate viceroy. But

if the clergy, nobles, merchants, and magistrates of the capital will

swear a solemn oath upon the Blessed Sacrament to be true and loyal for

the future to King Joseph, he shall be restored to them and the Emperor

will make over to him all his rights of conquest. We cannot stop to

linger over the other details of these addresses: one of the most

astounding statements in them is that the quarrel between King Charles

and King Ferdinand had been hatched by the English ministry[535], and

that the Duke of Infantado, acting as their tool, was plotting to make

Spain England’s vassal, ‘an insensate project which would have made

blood run in torrents’! But this mattered little, as within a few weeks

every English soldier would have been cast out of the Peninsula, and

Lisbon no less than Saragossa, Valencia, and Seville would be flying

the French flag[536].

[535] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,547, p. 108.

[536] Napier (i. 273) prints Bonaparte’s allocution in full,

with the astonishing comment that it ‘was an exposition of the

principles upon which Spain was to be governed, and it forces

reflection upon the passionate violence with which men resist

positive good, to seek danger, misery, and death rather than

resign their prejudices.’ Is the desire for national independence

a prejudice? And should it be easily resigned for ‘positive

good,’ e.g. administrative reform?

In accordance with the Emperor’s command, the notables of Madrid,

civil and ecclesiastical, were compelled to go through the ceremony of

swearing allegiance to King Joseph on the Holy Sacrament, which was

exposed for several days in every church for this purpose. Apparently

a very large number of persons were induced, by terror or despair, to

give in their formal submission to the intrusive King. Three pages of

the _Madrid Gazette_ for December 15 are filled with the names of the

deputies of the ten quarters and sixty-four _barrios_ of the city, who

joined in the formal petition for the restoration to them of ‘that

sovereign who unites so much kindness of heart with such an interest in

the welfare of his subjects, and whose presence will be their joy.’

Satisfied with this declaration, and pretending to take it as the

expression of the wishes of every Spaniard who was not the paid agent

of England or the slave of the Inquisition, the Emperor was graciously

pleased to restore Joseph to all his rights. Great preparations were

made for his solemn entry, which was celebrated with considerable state

in the month of January.

But his plans for the reorganization of Spain only formed a part

of the Emperor’s work at Chamartin. He was also busied in the

reconcentration of his armies, for the purpose of overrunning those

parts of the Peninsula which still remained unconquered. On the very

morrow of the fall of Madrid he had pushed out detachments in all

directions, to cover all the approaches to the capital, and to hunt

down any remnants of the Spanish armies which might still be within

reach[537]. He was particularly hopeful that he might catch the army

of the Centre, which, with Ney and Maurice Mathieu at its heels, was

coming in from the direction of Siguenza and Calatayud. To intercept

it the fusiliers of the Guard marched for Alcala, one of Victor’s

divisions for Guadalajara, and another for Aranjuez; while Bessières

with the Guard cavalry, and one of Latour-Maubourg’s brigades of

dragoons, swept all the country around the Tajuna and the Tagus.

But, as we have already seen, La Peña’s famishing men ultimately got

away in the direction of Cuenca. When it was certain that they had

escaped from the net, Napoleon rearranged his forces on the eastern

side of Madrid. Bessières, with Latour-Maubourg’s whole division of

dragoons[538], occupied cantonments facing at once towards Cuenca and

towards La Mancha: the Marshal’s head quarters, on December 11, were

at Tarancon. Of Victor’s infantry, one division (Ruffin) marched on

Toledo, which opened its gates without resistance; another, that of

Villatte, remained at Aranjuez with an advanced guard at Ocaña, a few

miles further south. The third division of the 1st Corps, that of

Lapisse, remained at Madrid. Ney’s troops were also at hand in this

quarter: when La Peña had finally escaped from him, he was told to

leave the division of Dessolles at Guadalajara and Siguenza. These

forces were destined to keep open the communications between Madrid and

Aragon, where the siege of Saragossa was just about to begin. With his

other two divisions, those of Marchand and Maurice Mathieu[539], Ney

was directed to march into Madrid: he was to form part of the mass of

troops which the Emperor was collecting, in and about the capital, for

new offensive operations. For this same purpose the 4th Corps, that of

Lefebvre, was brought up from Old Castile: the Marshal with his two

leading divisions, those of Sebastiani and Leval, arrived in Madrid on

December 9: his third division, that of Valence, composed of Poles,

was some way to the rear, having only reached Burgos on December 1.

But by the thirteenth the whole corps was concentrated at Madrid. A

few days later the divisions of Sebastiani and Valence were pushed on

to Talavera, as if to form the advanced guard of an expedition against

Estremadura, while that of Leval remained in Madrid[540]. Talavera had

been occupied, before the Duke of Dantzig’s arrival, by the cavalry

of Lasalle and Milhaud, who drove out of it without difficulty the

demoralized troops that had murdered San Juan. This mob, now under the

orders of Galluzzo, the Captain-General of Estremadura, fled behind the

Tagus and barricaded the bridges of Arzobispo and Almaraz, to cover its

front.

[537] _Nap. Corresp._, 14,525.

[538] I cannot speak for certain as to the moment at which

Digeon’s brigade of dragoons, which had been lent to Lannes for

the Tudela campaign, rejoined Latour-Maubourg. But probably it

came across with Ney, as it was with its division by Dec. 28

(Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, p. 138).

[539] The latter had taken over Lagrange’s division after Tudela.

[540] This division was incomplete, having left behind in Biscay

two Dutch and one German battalions.

It will thus be seen that the troops of Victor, Lefebvre, and

Dessolles, with the cavalry of Latour-Maubourg, Lasalle, and Milhaud

thrown out in front of them, formed a semicircle protecting Madrid to

the east, the south, and the south-west. On the north-west, in the

direction of the Guadarrama and the roads towards the kingdom of Leon,

the circle was completed by a brigade of Lahoussaye’s division of

dragoons, who lay in and about Avila[541]. In the centre, available for

a blow in any direction, were the whole of the Imperial Guard (horse

and foot), Ney’s corps, Lapisse’s division of Victor’s corps, and

Leval’s division of Lefebvre’s corps, besides King Joseph’s Guards--a

total of at least 40,000 men. It only needed the word to be given,

and these troops (after deducting a garrison for Madrid) could march

forward, either to join Lefebvre for a blow at Lisbon, or Victor for a

blow at Seville.

[541] The other brigade was astray near Toledo, contrary to the

Emperor’s intention: _Nap. Corresp._, 14,594, orders it to march

on Talavera.

Meanwhile there were still reinforcements coming up from the rear:

the belated corps of Mortier, the last great instalment of the army

of Germany, had at last reached Vittoria, accompanied by the division

of dragoons of Lorges. The Marshal was directed to take his corps to

Saragossa, in order to assist Lannes and Moncey in the siege of that

city; but the dragoons were sent to Burgos on the road to Madrid.

Moreover Junot’s corps, after having been refitted and reorganized

since its return from Portugal, was also available. Its leading

division, that of Delaborde, had crossed the Bidassoa on December 4,

and had now reached Burgos. The other two divisions, those of Loison

and Heudelet (who had replaced Travot at the head of the 3rd Division)

were not far behind. They could all be brought up to Madrid by the

first day of January. The last division of reserve cavalry, Millet’s

four regiments of dragoons, was due a little later, and had not yet

crossed the frontier.

That the Emperor believed that there was no serious danger to be

apprehended from the side of Leon and Old Castile, is shown by the

fact that he allotted to these regions only the single corps of Soult.

Nor had the Duke of Dalmatia even the whole of his troops in hand, for

the division of Bonnet was immobilized in Santander, and only those of

Merle and Mermet were near his head quarters at Carrion. The cavalry

that properly belonged to his corps were detached, under Lasalle, in

New Castile. Instead of them he had been assigned the four regiments

forming the division of Franceschi[542]. He was promised the aid of

Millet’s dragoons when they should arrive, but this would not be for

some three weeks at the least. Nevertheless, with the 15,000 foot and

1,800 or 2,000 light cavalry at his disposal, Soult was told that he

commanded everything from the Douro to the Bay of Biscay, and that he

might advance at once into Leon, as there was nothing in his way that

could withstand him[543]. As far as the Emperor knew, the only hostile

force in this direction was the miserable wreck of Blake’s army, which

had been rallied by La Romana on the Esla. In making this supposition

he was gravely mistaken, and if Soult had obeyed his orders without

delay, and advanced westward from Carrion, he would have found himself

in serious trouble; for, as we shall presently see, the English from

Salamanca were in full march against him at the moment when the Emperor

dispatched these instructions. It was in the valley of the Douro,

and not (as Bonaparte intended) in that of the Tagus that the next

developments of the winter campaign of 1808 were to take place.

[542] 8th Dragoons, 22nd Chasseurs, 1st Supplementary regiment of

Chasseurs, and Hanoverian Chasseurs.

[543] Cf. _Nap. Corresp._, 14,581 (of Dec. 10, 1808, but wrongly

dated Dec. 17 in the collection), the rough draft of the

dispatch to be sent to Soult, with the full document, which was

fortunately captured on its way to Carrion, and fell into the

hands of Sir John Moore. It is printed in the original French in

James Moore’s account of his brother’s campaign (London, 1809).

The documents tally accurately, but Berthier has expanded, as was

his wont, Napoleon’s short phrases.

It remains only to speak of the north-east. The Emperor was determined

that Saragossa should pay dearly for the renown that it had won during

its first siege. He directed against it not only Moncey’s force, the

troops which had won Tudela, but the whole of Mortier’s 5th Corps. One

of its divisions was to take post at Calatayud, relieving Musnier’s

eight battalions at that point, and to keep open (with the aid of

Dessolles) the road from Saragossa to Madrid: but the rest would be

available to aid in the siege. More than 40,000 men were to be turned

against Palafox and the stubborn Aragonese. With Catalonia we need not

deal in this place: the operations in the principality had little or no

connexion with those in the rest of Spain. St. Cyr and Duhesme, with

the 7th Corps, had to work out their own salvation. They were not to

expect help from the Emperor, nor on the other hand were they expected

to assist him for the present, though it was hoped that some day they

might invade Aragon from the side of Lerida.

Looking at the disposition of the French troops on December 15-20, we

can see that the Emperor had it in his power to push the central mass

at Madrid, supported by the oncoming reserves under Junot and Lorges,

either to support Lefebvre on the road to Lisbon, or Victor on the road

to Seville. As a matter of fact there can be no doubt that the former

was his intention. He was fully under the impression that the English

army was at this moment executing a hasty retreat upon Portugal, and

he had announced that his next move was to hurl them into the sea.

‘Tout porte à penser que les Anglais sont en pleine marche rétrograde,’

he wrote to Soult on December 10. On December 12 he issued in his

_Bulletin_ the statement that the ‘English are in full flight towards

Lisbon, and if they do not make good speed the French army may enter

that capital before them[544].’ If anything was wanted to confirm the

Emperor in his idea that the English were not likely to be heard of in

the north, it was the capture by Lasalle’s cavalry of eight stragglers

belonging to the King’s German Legion near Talavera. ‘When we catch

Hanoverians the English cannot be far off,’ he observed[545], and made

all his arrangements on the hypothesis that Moore would be met in the

valley of the Tagus, and not in that of the Douro. In so doing he was

breaking one of his own precepts, that censuring generals ‘qui se font

des tableaux’ concerning their enemy’s position and intentions, before

they have sufficient data upon which to form a sound conclusion. All

that he really knew about Moore and his army was that they had reached

Salamanca in the middle of November, and had been joined towards the

end of the month by Hope’s column that marched--as we shall presently

relate--via Badajoz and the Escurial. Of the existence of this last

division we have clear proof that Bonaparte was aware, for he inserted

a silly taunt in the _Bulletin_ of December 5 to the effect that ‘the

conduct of the British had been dishonourable. Six thousand of them

were at the Escurial on November 20: the Spaniards hoped that they

would aid in the defence of the capital of their allies. But they did

not know the English: as soon as the latter heard that the Emperor

was at the Somosierra they beat a retreat, joined the division at

Salamanca, and retired towards the sea-coast.’ There is also no doubt

that the Emperor had received intelligence of a more or less definite

sort concerning the landing of Baird’s division at Corunna. It is

vaguely alluded to in the 10th _Bulletin_, and clearly spoken of in

the _Madrid Gazette_ of December 17[546]. But though aware of the

existence of all the three fractions of the British army, Bonaparte

could draw no other deduction from the facts at his disposal than

that the whole of them would promptly retreat to Portugal, when the

passage of the Somosierra and the fall of Madrid became known to

their commander-in-chief. Lisbon, he thought, must be their base of

operations, and on it they must retire: he had forgotten that one of

the advantages of sea-power is that the combatant who possesses it can

transfer his base to any port that he may choose. So far from being

tied to Lisbon was Moore, that he at one moment contemplated making

Cadiz his base, and finally moved it to Corunna.

[544] See the statement in the _Madrid Gazette_ for Dec. 12

(p. 1576). It is not in the _Correspondance de Napoléon_, and

contains invaluable details as to the placing of the French army

on that day.

[545] ‘Le général Lasalle a pris huit Hanovriens.... Puisqu’il a

pris des Hanovriens, cela sent la proximité des Anglais’ (_Nap.

Corresp._, 14,551, Dec. 12). These must have been stragglers from

Hope’s division, which had passed Talavera at least a fortnight

before. The Germans with it were the 3rd Light Dragoons, K.G.L.

[546] Napoleon seems to have got the knowledge of Baird’s arrival

from the London newspapers. An English brigantine, called the

_Ferret_, ran into Santander, under the impression that it was

still in Spanish hands. On board were many journals, with details

about the Cintra Court of Inquiry, and about the reinforcements

for Spain. Long extracts from them were reprinted in the _Madrid

Gazette_ for the second half of December. The danger of the press

already existed!

With pre-conceived ideas of this sort in his head, the Emperor was

preparing to push on his main body in support of the advanced troops

under Lefebvre and Lasalle on the road to Estremadura and Portugal.

Victor meanwhile was to guard against the unlikely chance of any move

being made on Madrid by the shattered ‘Army of the Centre’ from Cuenca,

or by new Andalusian levies. Already Lasalle’s horsemen were pushing on

to Truxillo and Plasencia, almost to the gates of Badajoz and to the

Portuguese frontier, when unexpected news arrived, and the whole plan

of campaign was upset.

Instead of retiring on Lisbon, Sir John Moore had pushed forward

into the plains of Old Castile, and was advancing by forced marches

to attack the isolated corps of Marshal Soult. Bonaparte was keenly

alive, now as always, to the danger of a defeat in the valley of the

Douro. Moreover the sight of a British army in the field, and within

striking distance, acted on him as the red rag acts upon the bull.

No toil or trouble would be too great that ended in its destruction,

and looking at his maps the Emperor thought that he saw the way to

surround and annihilate Moore’s host. Throwing up without a moment’s

delay the whole plan for the invasion of Portugal, he marched for the

passes of the Guadarrama with every man that was disposable at Madrid.

His spirits were high, and the event seemed to him certain. He sent

back to his brother Joseph the command to put in the Madrid newspapers

and circulate everywhere the news that 36,000 English troops were

surrounded and doomed to destruction[547]. Meanwhile, with 50,000 men

at his back, he was marching hard for Arevalo and Benavente.

[547] I know no better way of displaying the Napoleonesque method

than the printing opposite each other of his dispatches 14,620

and 14,626, both addressed to Joseph Bonaparte. For the benefit

of the newspapers the English army was to be overstated by 10,000

or 12,000 men!

14,620. 14,626.

Faites mettre dans les journaux Leur force _réelle_ est de 20,000

et répandre partout que 36,000 à 21,000 infanterie, et de 4,000

Anglais sont cernés. Je suis à 5,000 de cavalerie avec une

sur leurs derrières tandis que quarantaine de pièces de canon.

le maréchal Soult est devant

eux.

SECTION VIII: CHAPTER II

MOORE AT SALAMANCA

It will be remembered that on October 6, 1808, the command of the

British forces in Portugal had passed into the hands of Sir John Moore,

to the entire satisfaction of Wellesley and the other officers who had

served under those slow and cautious generals Sir Hew Dalrymple and

Sir Harry Burrard. The moment that the news of Vimiero was received,

and long before the details of the Convention of Cintra could come to

hand, the Government had determined to send on the victorious British

army into Spain, and to assist it with heavy reinforcements from home.

Dalrymple was even informed that he might cross the frontier at once,

if he chose, without waiting for any detailed instructions from the War

Office[548]. Wellesley, as we have seen, thought that his chief should

have done so without delay, and observed that if _he_ had charge of

affairs the army would be at Madrid by October 1[549].

[548] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, Sept. 2, 1808: ‘As circumstances

may come to your knowledge which might render the immediate

employment of your disposable forces in the north of Spain of the

utmost importance to the common cause, without waiting for orders

from hence, I am to inform you that you should not consider

the present instructions as depriving you of the latitude of

discretion which you now possess, without waiting for express

orders from hence.’

[549] See p. 274.

Yet when Moore took over the command, he found that little or nothing

had been done to carry out this design. The delay was partly occasioned

by the tardy evacuation of Portugal by Junot’s troops: the last of

them, as we have seen[550], did not leave the Tagus till the month

of October had begun. But it was still more due to the leisurely and

feeble management of Dalrymple, who would not march without detailed

and definite orders from home. He might well have begun to move his

brigades eastward long before the last small detachments of the French

had disappeared. But when on October 6 Dalrymple’s successor looked

around him, he found that the whole army was still concentrated in the

neighbourhood of Lisbon, save Hope’s two brigades, and these had been

sent forward to the frontier not so much for the purpose of entering

Spain, as for that of bringing moral force to bear on General Galluzzo,

and compelling him to abandon his ridiculous siege of Elvas. Two things

had been especially neglected by Dalrymple--the exploration of the

roads that lead from Portugal into Spain, and the pressing on of the

formation of a proper divisional and regimental transport for the army.

It is strange to find that he had remembered the existence of both of

these needs: his dispatches speak of his intention to send officers

both towards Badajoz and into Beira, and he asserts that ‘the army is

in high order and fit to move when required[551].’ Yet his successor

had to state that as a matter of fact no body of information about the

routes and resources of Portugal and Spain had been collected, and that

the scheme for moving and feeding the army had not been drawn up. ‘When

I shall pass the frontier of Portugal,’ wrote Moore to Castlereagh,

‘it is impossible for me at this instant to say: it depends on a

knowledge of the country which I am still without, and on commissariat

arrangements yet unmade[552].’ We may grant that Dalrymple had been

somewhat handicapped by the fact that his army had been landed,

in the old haphazard British fashion, without any proper military

train. We may also concede that no one could have foreseen that the

Portuguese and Spanish governments would be unable to supply any useful

information concerning the main roads and the resources of their own

countries. But the whole month of September had been at the disposal of

the late commander-in-chief, and he, with his quartermaster-general,

Murray, must take the blame of having failed to accomplish in it all

that might have been done. Within a fortnight after the Convention of

Cintra had been signed, British officers ought to have explored every

road to the frontier, and to have reported on their facilities. Yet

on October 6 Moore could not find any one who could tell him whether

the roads Lisbon-Sabugal-Almeida, and Lisbon-Abrantes-Castello Branco

were or were not practicable for artillery! And this was in spite of

the fact that a British detachment had actually marched from Lisbon

to Almeida, in order to receive the surrender of the garrison of

that fortress. The fact would seem to be that Dalrymple had placed

his confidence in the native governments of the Peninsula. He vainly

imagined that the Portuguese engineers could supply him with accurate

details concerning the roads and resources of Beira and the Alemtejo.

He sent a very capable officer--Lord William Bentinck--to Madrid, and

entered into communication with the Spanish government. From them

he hoped that he might get some account of the plan of campaign in

which his army was to join, a list of the routes which it would be

convenient for him to use, and details as to the way in which he could

collect and carry provisions. As a matter of fact he could only obtain

a quantity of vague and generally useless suggestions, some of which

argued an astonishing ignorance of military affairs in those who made

them. If there had been a Spanish commander-in-chief, Dalrymple might

have extracted from him his views about the campaign that must shortly

begin. But the Junta had steadfastly refused to unite the charge of

their many armies in the hands of a single general: they told Lord

William that he might make inquiries from Castaños: but the Andalusian

general could only speak for himself. It was not he, but a council

of war, that would settle the plan of operations: he could only give

Bentinck the conclusions that had been arrived at after the abortive

meeting of generals that had taken place on September 5. In answer to

a string of questions administered to him by Dalrymple’s emissary,

as to the routes that the British army had better follow, and the

methods of supply that it had better adopt, he could only reply that

he was at present without good maps, and could not give the necessary

information in detail. He could only refer Bentinck to the newly formed

Commissariat Board (_Junta de Víveres_), which ought to be able to

designate the best routes with reference to the feeding of the army and

the establishment of magazines[553]. Of course this board turned out

to know even less than Castaños himself. Nothing whatever was done for

the British army, with the exception that a certain Colonel Lopez was

sent to its head quarters to act as the representative of the _Junta

de Víveres_. It does not seem that he was able to do anything for the

expeditionary force that they could not have done for themselves. In

this way the whole time that Dalrymple had at his disposal had been

wasted in the long correspondence with Madrid, and not a soldier had

passed the frontier when Moore took up the command.

[550] See p. 283, dealing with the garrison of Elvas.

[551] Dalrymple to Castlereagh, Sept. 27.

[552] Moore to Castlereagh from Lisbon, Oct. 9, 1808.

[553] The very interesting (and sometimes very sensible) replies

of Castaños to Bentinck will be found in the latter’s letter to

Dalrymple (Oct. 2).

Meanwhile, it ought at least to have been possible to make preparations

in Portugal, even if nothing could be done in Spain. But the question

of transport and commissariat was a very difficult one. The British

army had struggled from Mondego Bay to Lisbon with the aid of the

small ox-wagons of the country-side, requisitioned and dismissed from

village to village. But clearly a long campaign in Spain could not

be managed on these lines. A permanent provision of draught and pack

animals was required, and natives must be hired to drive them. The few

regular enlisted men of the Royal Wagon Train who had reached Portugal

were only enough to take care of the more important military stores.

Moreover their wagons turned out to be much too heavy for the roads of

the Peninsula, and had to be gradually replaced by country carts[554].

The great mass of the regimental baggage and the food had always to be

transported on mules, or vehicles bought or hired from the peasantry.

The Portuguese did not care to contract to take their animals over the

frontier, and it was most difficult to collect transport of any kind,

even with the aid of the local authorities. When once Moore’s dreadful

retreat began, his drivers and muleteers deserted their wagons and

beasts, and fled home, resolved that if they must lose their property

they would not lose their lives also[555].

[554] Moore to Castlereagh from Salamanca, Dec. 10, 1808.

[555] A good account of the difficulties of transport in Moore’s

army will be found in Quartermaster Surtees’s _Twenty-five Years

in the Rifle Brigade_. Placed in charge of the baggage and beasts

of the 2/95th, he found it absolutely impossible to keep the

native drivers from absconding, even when they had to sacrifice

their beasts to do so (pages 81-82).

In later years Wellington gradually succeeded in collecting a large

and invaluable army of Spanish and Portuguese employés, who--in their

own fashion--were as good campaigners as his soldiery, and served him

with exemplary fidelity even when their pay was many months in arrear.

But in 1808 this body of trained camp-followers did not exist, and

Moore had the greatest difficulty in scraping together the transport

that took him forward to Salamanca. As to commissariat arrangements,

he found that even though he divided his army into several small

columns, and utilized as many separate routes as possible, it was not

easy for the troops to live. The commissariat officers, sent on to

collect magazines at the various halting-places, were so inexperienced

and so uniformly ignorant of the Portuguese tongue, that even where

they were energetic they had the greatest difficulty in catering for

the army. Wellesley, as we have already seen[@repeated 556 note],

had been complaining bitterly of their inefficiency during the short

Vimiero campaign. Moore, more gracious in his phrases, wrote that ‘we

have a Commissariat extremely zealous, but quite new and inexperienced

in the important duties which it falls to their lot to perform.’ This

was but one of the many penalties which England had to pay for her long

abstention from continental warfare on a large scale. It is easy to

blame the ministry, the permanent officials in London, or the executive

officials on the spot[556]. But in reality mere want of knowledge of

the needs of a great land-war accounts for most of the mistakes that

were committed. To lavish angry criticism on individuals, as did the

Opposition papers in England at the time, was almost as unjust as it

was useless. The art of war, in this as in its other branches, had to

be learnt; it was not possible to pick it up by intuition. Nothing can

be more interesting than to look through the long series of orders and

directions drawn up by the quartermaster-general’s department between

1809 and 1813, in which the gradual evolution of order out of chaos by

dint of practical experience can be traced. But in October, 1808, the

process was yet in its infancy.

[556] See p. 231.

It was with the greatest difficulty, therefore, that Moore got his

army under weigh. He found it, as he wrote to Castlereagh, ‘without

equipment of any kind, either for the carriage of the light baggage

of regiments, artillery stores, commissariat stores, or any other

appendage of an army, and without a magazine formed on any of the

routes by which we are to march[557].’ Within ten days, however, the

whole force was on the move. The heavy impedimenta were placed in store

in Lisbon: it was a thousand pities that the troops did not leave

behind their women and children, whose presence with the regiments was

destined to cause so many harrowing scenes during the forced marches

of the ensuing winter. They were offered a passage to England, but the

greater part refused it, and the colonels (from mistaken kindness)

generally allowed them to march with their corps.

[557] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9, 1808.

The direction in which the army was to move had been settled in a

general way by the dispatches sent from Castlereagh to Dalrymple in

September[558]. It was to be held together in a single mass and sent

forward to the Ebro, there to be put in line with Blake and Castaños.

An attempt on the part of the Junta to distract part of it to Catalonia

had been firmly and very wisely rejected. The French were still on

the defensive when the plan was drawn out, and Burgos had been named

as the point at which the British troops might aim. It was very close

to the enemy, but in September neither English nor Spanish statesmen

were taking into consideration the probability of the advent of the

Emperor, and his immediate assumption of the offensive. They were

rather dreaming of an advance towards the Pyrenees by the allied

armies. If the large reinforcements which were promised to Moore were

destined to land at Corunna, rather than at Gihon or Santander, it was

merely because these latter ports were known to be small and destitute

of resources, not because they were considered to be dangerously

near to the French. La Romana’s division, it will be remembered, was

actually put ashore at Santander: it is quite possible that Sir David

Baird’s troops might have been sent to the same destination, but for

the fortunate fact that it was believed that it would be impossible

to supply him with transport from the bare and rugged region of

the Montaña. Corunna was selected as the landing-place for all the

regiments that were to join Moore, partly on account of its safe and

spacious port, partly because it was believed that food and draught

animals could be collected with comparative ease from Galicia.

[558] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, Sept. 2, 1808.

More than 12,000 men, including three regiments of cavalry (the arm

in which the force in Portugal was most deficient) and a brigade of

the Guards, had been drawn from the home garrisons. The charge of this

fine division had been given to Sir David Baird[559], an officer with

a great Indian reputation, but comparatively unpractised in European

warfare. They were embarked at Harwich, Portsmouth, Ramsgate, and Cork

at various dates during September and October, and on the thirteenth

of the latter month the main body of the force reached Corunna. By

some stupid mismanagement at home the cavalry, the most important part

of the expedition, were shipped off the last, and did not arrive till

three weeks[560] after the rest of the troops had reached Spain.

[559] It is fair to this distinguished officer to state that his

dispatches and letters show no trace whatever of the irascible

and impracticable temper that has been attributed to him. They

are most sensible, cautious, and prudent, and not at all what

might have been expected from the hero of the story of ‘the lad

that was chained to our Davie.’

[560] The 7th and 10th Hussars apparently on Nov. 7, the 15th

Hussars on Nov. 12. See Baird to Castlereagh, Nov. 8 and 13, 1808.

By October 18 Moore reported that the greater part of his troops

were already in motion, and as Baird’s infantry had reached Corunna

on the thirteenth, it might have been expected that the junction

of their forces would have taken place in time to enable them to

play a part in the defensive campaign against Napoleon which ended

in the fall of Madrid on December 4. If the troops had marched

promptly, and by the best and shortest routes, they might have easily

concentrated at Salamanca by the middle of November: Napier suggests

the thirteenth[561] as a probable day, and considering the distances

the date seems a very reasonable one. At that moment Gamonal and

Espinosa had only just been fought and lost: Tudela was yet ten days

in the future: sixteen days were to elapse before the Somosierra was

forced. It is clear that the British army, which at Salamanca would

have been only seven marches (150 miles) from Madrid, and four marches

(eighty miles) from Valladolid, might have intervened in the struggle:

whether its intervention might not have ended in disaster, considering

the enormous forces of the French[562], is another matter. But the

British Government intended that Moore and Baird should take part in

the campaign: the Junta had been told to expect their help: and for the

consolidation of the alliance between the two nations it was desirable

that the help should be given in the most prompt and effective fashion.

[561] Napier, i. 347.

[562] It is to be remembered that Baird’s cavalry would not have

been up till Nov. 20-25, owing to its tardy start from England.

Nothing could have been more unlucky.

There is no possibility of asserting that this was done. Moore and

Baird did not join till December 20: no British soldier fired a single

shot at a Frenchman before December 12[563]. The whole army was so

much out of the campaign that Bonaparte never could learn what had

become of it, and formed the most erroneous hypotheses concerning

its position and intentions. We may frankly say that not one of his

movements, down to the fall of Madrid, was in the least influenced by

the fact that there was a British force in Spain.

[563] At the skirmish at Rueda on that date.

That this circumstance was most unfortunate from the political point

of view it would be childish to deny. It gave discontented Spaniards

the opportunity of asserting that they had been deserted and betrayed

by their allies[564]. It afforded Bonaparte the chance, which he did

not fail to take, of enlarging upon the invariable selfishness and

timidity of the British[565]. It furnished the critics of the ministry

in London with a text for declamations against the imbecility of its

arrangements. It is true that after the fall of Madrid Moore was

enabled, by the new situation of affairs, to make that demonstration

against the French lines of communication in Castile which wrecked

Napoleon’s original plan of campaign, and saved Lisbon and Seville. But

this tardy though effective intervention in the struggle was a mere

afterthought. Moore’s original plan had been to make a tame retreat

on Lisbon, when he discovered that he was too late to save Madrid. It

was a mere chance that an intercepted dispatch and an unfounded rumour

caused him to throw up the idea of retiring into Portugal, and to

strike at the Emperor’s flank and rear by his famous march on Sahagun.

Without this piece of good fortune he would never have repaired the

mischief caused by the lateness of his original arrival on the scene.

How that late arrival came to pass it is now our duty to investigate.

[564] See the letters from Spanish officers in the _Madrid

Gazette_ for Dec. 19, 1808.

[565] See the Dec. 5 _Bulletin_, and the inspired articles in the

_Madrid Gazette_ for Dec. 14.

As far as Moore’s own army was concerned, the loss of time may be

ascribed to a single cause--a mistake made in the choice of the roads

by which the advance into Spain was conducted. It was the original

intention of the British general to march on Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo

by three parallel routes, those by Coimbra and Celorico, by Abrantes,

Castello Branco, and Guarda, and by Elvas, Alcantara, and Coria[566].

He was compelled to utilize the last-named road, which was rather

circuitous and notoriously bad, by the fact that Dalrymple had left

Hope’s two brigades at Elvas, and that any advance from that place

into the kingdom of Leon could only be directed across the bridge

of Alcantara. If Moore had stuck to this original resolve, and used

none but these three roads, his army might have been concentrated at

Salamanca on or about November 13. This could have been done with

ease if all the reserve artillery and heavy baggage had taken the

Coimbra-Celorico road, the easiest of the three, and nothing but an

irreducible minimum had been allowed to follow the columns which went

by the other routes. It would have been necessary also to move the

troops in masses of not less than a brigade, and to keep them well

closed up.

[566] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9: ‘The march from this will be

by the three roads Coimbra, Guarda, and Alcantara.’

Moore had the best intentions: he cut down the baggage to what

he considered the smallest practicable bulk, and started off the

leading regiments on the Coimbra route as easily as October 11, two

days after he had taken over the command[567]. ‘I am sufficiently

aware,’ he wrote, ‘of the importance of even the name of a British

army in Spain, and I am hurrying as much as possible[568].’ Then

followed an irreparable mistake: it was all-important to find

out which of the roads was most suitable for artillery and heavy

baggage. Moore consulted the available officers of the old Portuguese

army, and received from them the almost incredibly erroneous

information that neither the Coimbra-Celorico-Almeida road nor the

Abrantes-Guarda-Almeida road was practicable for artillery. It would

seem that he also sought information from the officers whom Dalrymple

had sent out into the province of Beira, and that their answers tallied

with those of the Portuguese[569], for he wrote to Castlereagh that

‘every information agreed that neither of them was fit for artillery or

could be recommended for cavalry.’ General Anstruther, then in command

at Almeida, must take a considerable share in the blame that has to be

distributed to those who failed to give the Commander-in-chief accurate

information, for he more than any one else had been given the chance

of trying these roads. But whatever may be the proportion in which the

censure must be distributed, a certain amount must be reserved for

Moore himself. He ought on first principles to have refused to believe

the strange news that was brought to him. It might have occurred to

him to ask how heavy guns of position had found their way to the

ramparts of Almeida, the second fortress of Portugal, if there was

no practicable road leading to it. A few minutes spent in consulting

any book dealing with Portuguese history would have shown that in the

great wars of the Spanish Succession, and again in that of 1762[570],

forces of all arms had moved freely up and down the Spanish frontier,

in the direction of Celorico, Guarda, Sabugal, and Castello Branco.

Even a glance at Dumouriez’s _Account of the Kingdom of Portugal_, the

one modern military book on the subject then available, would have

enabled Moore to correct the ignorant reports of the natives. Strangest

of all, there seems to have been no one to tell him that, only four

months before, Loison, in his campaign against the insurgents of Beira,

had taken guns first from Lisbon to Almeida, then from Almeida to

Pezo-de-Ragoa and Vizeu, and finally from Almeida to Abrantes[571].

It is simply astounding that no one seems to have remembered this

simple fact. In short, it was not easily pardonable in any competent

general that he should accept as possible the statement that there

was no road for artillery connecting the capital of Portugal and the

main stronghold of its north-eastern frontier. Moore did so, and in a

fortnight was bitterly regretting his credulity. ‘If anything adverse

happens,’ he wrote to his subordinate Hope, ‘I have not necessity to

plead: the road we are now travelling [Abrantes-Villa Velha-Guarda]

reached Guarda, and as far as I have already seen the road presents

few obstacles, and those easily surmounted. This knowledge was only

acquired by our own officers: when the brigade was at Castello Branco,

it was still not certain that it could proceed[572].’ What made the

case worse was that another of the three roads, the one by Coimbra

and Celorico, was far easier than that by Guarda. Both Wellesley and

Masséna took enormous trains of artillery and baggage over it in 1810,

without any particular difficulty[573].

[567] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9.

[568] Ibid., Oct. 11.

[569] Moore also consulted Colonel Lopez, the Spanish officer

who had been sent to his head quarters by the Junta, as being

specially skilled in roads and topography. But Lopez disclaimed

any knowledge, and could only say that Junot’s artillery had been

nearly ruined by the roads between Ciudad Rodrigo and Abrantes.

[570] e.g. in 1706 Lord Galway took over forty guns, twelve of

which were heavy siege-pieces, from Elvas by Alcantara and Coria

to Ciudad Rodrigo. In 1762 the Spaniards took no less than ninety

guns from Ciudad Rodrigo by Celorico and Sabugal to Castello

Branco, and thence back into Spain.

[571] Napier does not seem to know this, and distinctly states

(i. 102) that Loison had no guns.

[572] Moore to Hope, from Almeida, Nov. 8.

[573] In endeavouring to excuse Moore, Napier takes the strange

course of making out that the Guarda road, though usable, as

experience showed, was ‘in a military sense, non-practicable’

from its difficulties. This will not stand in face of Moore’s

words quoted above. Of the Coimbra-Celorico road he omits all

mention (i. 345).

Misled by the erroneous reports as to the impracticability of the

Portuguese roads, Moore took the unhappy step of sending six of the

seven batteries of his corps, his only two cavalry regiments, and

four battalions of infantry to act as escort[574], by the circuitous

high-road from Elvas to Madrid. In order to reach Salamanca they were

to advance almost to the gates of the Spanish capital, only turning

off at Talavera, in order to take the route by the Escurial, Espinar,

and Arevalo. To show the result of this lamentable divagation, it is

only necessary to remark that from Lisbon to Salamanca via Coimbra

is about 250 miles: from Lisbon to Salamanca via Elvas, Talavera,

and Arevalo is about 380 miles: i.e. it was certain that the column

containing all Moore’s cavalry and nearly all his guns would be at

least seven or eight days late at the rendezvous, in a crisis when

every moment was of vital importance. As a matter of fact the head of

the main column reached Salamanca on November 13: the cavalry and guns

turned up on December 4. It would not be fair, however, to say that

the absence of Hope’s column delayed the advance of the whole army for

so much as three weeks. It was only the leading regiments from Lisbon

that appeared on November 13. However carefully the march of the rest

had been arranged, the rear could not have come in till several days

later: indeed the last brigade did not appear till the twenty-third:

this delay, however, was owing to bad arrangements and preventable

accidents. But it cannot be denied that the twelve days Nov. 23-Dec. 4

were completely sacrificed by the non-arrival of the cavalry and guns,

without which Moore very wisely refused to move forward. If the army

had been concentrated--Baird could easily have arrived from Corunna

ere this--it would have been able to advance on November 23, and the

campaign would undoubtedly have been modified in its character, for

the Emperor would have learnt of the arrival of Moore upon the scene

some days before he crossed the Somosierra and started on his march for

Madrid. There can be no doubt that he would have changed his plans on

receiving such news, for the sight of a British army within striking

distance would have caused him to turn aside at once with a large part

of his army. Very probably he might have directed Lefebvre, Victor, and

the Imperial Guard--all the disposable forces under his hand--against

Moore, and have left Madrid alone for the present as a mere secondary

object. It is impossible to deny that disaster to the British arms

might have followed: on the other hand Moore was a cautious general, as

his operations in December showed. He would probably have retired at

once to the mountains, and left the Emperor a fruitless stern-chase,

such as that which actually took place a month later. But whether

he would have fallen back on the route to Portugal, or on the route

to Galicia, it is impossible to say: everything would have depended

on the exact development of Napoleon’s advance, but the first-named

alternative is the more probable[575].

[574] These were the 2nd, 36th, 71st, and 92nd Foot.

[575] Napier has a long note, in justification of Moore, to the

effect that if the concentration point of the British army had

been Burgos instead of Salamanca, Hope’s detour would have cost

no waste of time, and would have been rather profitable than

otherwise. But Moore distinctly looked upon the movement as a

deplorable necessity, not as a proper strategical proceeding.

‘It is a great round,’ he wrote to Castlereagh on October 27,

when announcing this modification of his original plan, ‘and

will separate the corps, for a time, from the rest of the army:

_but there is no help for it_.’ Moreover he stated, in this same

letter, that he would not move forward an inch from Salamanca

till Hope should have reached Espinar, on the northern side of

the Guadarrama Pass. At a later date he announced that he should

not advance till Hope had got even nearer to him, and made his

way as far as Arevalo [letter of Nov. 24]. He was too good a

general to dream of a concentration at Burgos, when once he had

ascertained the relative positions of the Spanish and the French

armies, for that place was within a couple of marches of the

enemy’s outposts at Miranda and Logroño. There is, in short, no

way of justifying Hope’s circular march, when once it is granted

that the roads of Northern Portugal were not impracticable for

artillery. Moore knew this perfectly well, as his letter to Hope,

which we have quoted on p. 495 shows. No arguments are worth

anything in his justification when he himself writes ‘if anything

adverse happens, I have not necessity to plead.’ This is the

language of an honest man, conscious that he has made a mistake,

and prepared to take the responsibility. Napier’s apology for him

(i. 345-7) is but ingenious and eloquent casuistry.

The erroneous direction given to Moore’s cavalry and guns, however,

was not the only reason for the late appearance of the British army

upon the theatre of war. Almost as much delay was caused by a piece

of egregious folly and procrastination, for which the Spaniards

were wholly responsible. When Sir David Baird and the bulk of his

great convoy arrived in the harbour of Corunna on October 13, he was

astonished to find that the Junta of Galicia raised serious objections

to allowing him to land. Their real reason for so doing was that

they wished the British troops to disembark further east, at Gihon

or Santander. They did not realize the military danger of throwing

them ashore in places so close to the French army, nor did it affect

them in the least when they were told that the equipment of Baird’s

force in those barren regions would be almost impossible. All that

they cared for was to preserve Galicia from the strain of having to

make provisions for the feeding and transport of a second army, when

all its resources had been sorely tried in supplying (and supplying

most indifferently) the troops of Blake. They did not, however, make

mention of their real objections to Baird’s disembarkation in their

correspondence with him, but assumed an attitude of very suspicious

humility, stating that they considered their functions to have come

to an end now that the Central Junta had met, and that they thought

it beyond their competence to give consent to the landing of such a

large body of men without explicit directions from Aranjuez. Baird

could not offer to land by force, in face of this opposition. He did

not, however, move off to Santander (as the Galicians had hoped), but

insisted that an officer should be promptly dispatched to the Supreme

Junta. This was done, but the delay in receiving an answer was so

great that thirteen days were wasted: the Galician officer bearing

the consent of the central government travelled (so Moore complained)

with the greatest deliberation, as if he were carrying an unimportant

message in full time of peace[576]. The first regiments, therefore,

only landed on October 26, and it was not till November 4 that all

the infantry were ashore. Thus they were certain to be late at the

rendezvous in the plains of Leon. Nor was this all: the Supreme Junta

had suggested that, in order to facilitate the feeding of the division,

Baird should send it forward not in large masses but in bodies of 2,000

men, with a considerable interval between them. The advice was taken,

and in consequence the troops were soon spread out over the whole

length of road between Corunna and Astorga. The greatest difficulty was

found in equipping them for the march: Galicia, always a poor country,

had been almost stripped of mules and carts to supply Blake. It was

absolutely impossible to procure a sufficient train for the transport

of Baird’s food and baggage. He was only able to gather enough beasts

to carry his lighter impedimenta from stage to stage, by the offer of

exorbitant rates of hire. He vainly hoped to complete his equipment

when he should have reached the plains. Part of his difficulties was

caused by lack of money: the Government at home had not realized that

only hard cash would circulate in Spain: dollars in abundance were

to come out in the _Tigre_ frigate in a few weeks: meanwhile it was

expected that the Spaniards would gladly accept British Government

bills. But so little was paper liked in the Peninsula that only £5,000

or £6,000 in dollars could be raised at Corunna[577]: without further

resources it would have been impossible to begin to push the army

forward. The feat was only accomplished by borrowing 92,000 dollars

from the Galician Junta. For this act, carefully ignored by Napier,

they deserve a proper recognition: it shows a much better spirit than

might have been expected after their foolish behaviour about the

disembarkation. Shortly after, Baird succeeded in getting £40,000 from

Mr. Frere, the new minister to Madrid, who chanced to arrive at Corunna

with £410,000 in cash destined for the Spanish government. Finally on

November 9 the expected ship came in with the 500,000 dollars that had

been originally intended to be divided between Corunna and Lisbon,

and Baird had as much money as he could possibly require, even when

mules and draught-oxen had risen to famine prices in Galicia[578]. If

he still found it hard to move, it was because this poor and desolate

province was really drained dry of resources[579].

[576] Moore to Bentinck from Salamanca, Nov. 13, 1808.

[577] Baird to Castlereagh, Oct. 14, 1808.

[578] Napier knew the correspondence of Baird by heart. It is

therefore most unfair in him to suppress the loan made by the

Galician Junta, which appears in Sir David’s letters of Oct. 22,

29, and Nov. 13, as also the receipt of the 500,000 dollars sent

by the British Government in the _Tigre_, which is acknowledged

in the letter of Nov. 9. He implies that the only sums received

were £40,000 from Mr. Frere and £8,000 from Sir John Moore. The

simple fact is that no good act done by a Spanish Junta or a Tory

minister is ever acknowledged by Napier.

[579] After reading Sir Charles Vaughan’s diary, showing how hard

he and Mr. Stuart found it to procure enough draught animals to

take their small party from Corunna to Madrid, in September,

1808, I cannot doubt that by October the collecting of the

transport for a whole army was an almost impossible task in

Galicia.

But what between the Junta’s folly in hindering the landing of the

troops, and the unfortunate lack of money in the second half of

October, all-important time was lost. Baird ought to have been near

Salamanca by November 13: as a matter of fact he had only reached

Astorga with three brigades of infantry and some artillery, but without

a single mounted man to cover his march, on November 22. There he

received, to his infinite dismay, the news that Blake had been routed

at Espinosa on November 11, and Belvedere at Gamonal on November 10.

There was now no Spanish army between him and the French: the latter

might be advancing, for all he knew, upon Leon. He heard of Soult being

at Reynosa, and Lefebvre at Carrion: if they continued their advance

westward, they would catch him, with the 9,000 infantry of the Corunna

column, marching across their front on the way to Salamanca. Appalled

at the prospect, he halted at Astorga, and, after sending news of his

situation to Moore, began to prepare to retreat on Corunna, if the

marshals should continue their movement in his direction. This, as

we have already seen, they did not: Napoleon had no knowledge of the

position of the British troops, and instead of ordering the dukes of

Dalmatia and Dantzig to push westward, moved them both in a southerly

direction. Soult came down to Sahagun and Carrion: Lefebvre, on being

relieved by the 2nd Corps, moved on Madrid by way of Segovia. Thus

Baird, left entirely unmolested, was in the end able to join Moore.

It is time to turn to the movements of that general. After sending

off Sir John Hope on his unhappy circular march by Badajoz and the

Escurial, he set out from Lisbon on October 26. He took with him the

whole force in Portugal, save a single division which was left behind

to protect Lisbon, Elvas, and Almeida while a new native army was

being reorganized. This detachment was to be commanded by Sir John

Cradock, who was just due from England: it comprised four battalions

of the German Legion, a battalion each of the 9th, 27th, 29th, 31st,

40th, 45th, and 97th Foot, the wrecks of the 20th Light Dragoons,

and six batteries of artillery--about 9,000 men in all. The rest,

twenty-five battalions of infantry, two cavalry regiments and seven

batteries, marched for Spain. Two brigades under Beresford took the

good road by Coimbra and Celorico to Almeida: three under Fraser went

by Abrantes and Guarda, taking with them the single battery which Moore

had retained with his main body, in order to try whether the roads of

Eastern Portugal were as bad as his advisers had reported. Two brigades

under General Paget, starting from Elvas, not from Lisbon, separated

themselves from Hope and marched on Ciudad Rodrigo by Alcantara and

Coria. The general himself followed in the track of Fraser, whom he

overtook and passed in the neighbourhood of Castello Branco[580].

[580] It may perhaps be worth while to give the composition and

brigading of Moore’s army on the march from Lisbon and Elvas to

Salamanca.

There marched by Coimbra and Almeida, Beresford [1/9th, 2/43rd,

2/52nd] #/ and Fane [1/38th, 1/79th, 2/95th]. By Abrantes and

Guarda went Bentinck [1/4th, 1/28th, 1/42nd, and four companies

5/60th] and Hill [1/5th, 1/32nd, 1/91st]: this column took with

it one battery: it was followed by two isolated regiments,

the 1/6th and 1/50th. The corps which marched from Elvas by

Alcantara, under Paget, was composed of the brigades of Alten

(1st and 2nd Light Battalions of the K. G. L.) and Anstruther

20th, 1/52nd, 1/95th. The 3rd Regiment joined the army from

Almeida, where it was in garrison, and the 1/82nd came up

late from Lisbon. It was originally intended that Bentinck

and Beresford should form a division under Fraser, Anstruther

and Alten a division under Paget. Of the troops which reached

Salamanca the 3rd and 5/60th were sent back to Portugal.

The original brigading of Baird’s force was:--Cavalry Brigade (Lord

Paget) 7th, 10th, and 15th Hussars. 1st Brigade (Warde) 1st and 3rd

batts. of the 1st Foot Guards. 2nd Brigade (Manningham) 3/1st, 1/26th,

2/81st. 3rd Brigade (Leith) 51st, 2/59th, 76th. Light Brigade (R.

Crawfurd) 2/43rd, 1/95th, 2/95th (detachments). The 2/14th and 2/23rd

were also present, perhaps as a brigade under Mackenzie.

All these arrangements were temporary, and at Sahagun, as we shall see,

the whole army was recast. A complete table of Moore’s army, with its

final organization, force, and losses, will be found in the Appendix.