CHAPTER V.

THE PENINSULAR WAR.

Reference has already been made to the conflict maintained for six years

by Great Britain against France for the liberation of Spain and

Portugal, which has since been known in history as the Peninsular war.

It had its origin in two events which occurred during the autumn of 1807

and the spring of 1808. The first was the secret treaty of Fontainebleau

concluded between France and Spain at the end of October, 1807; the

second was the outbreak of revolutionary movements at Madrid, followed

by the intervention of Napoleon in March, April, and May, 1808. The

treaty of Fontainebleau was a sequel of the vast combination against

Great Britain completed by the peace of Tilsit, under which the

continental system was to be enforced over all Europe. Portugal, the

ally of this country and an emporium of British commerce, was to be

partitioned into principalities allotted by Napoleon, the house of

Braganza was to be exiled, and its transmarine possessions were to be

divided between France and Spain, then ruled by the worthless Godoy in

the name of King Charles IV. Whether or not the subjugation of the whole

peninsula was already designed by Napoleon, his troops, ostensibly

despatched for the conquest of Portugal under the provisions of the

treaty, had treacherously occupied commanding positions in Spain, when

the populace of Madrid rose in revolt, and, thronging the little town of

Aranjuez, where the court resided, frightened the king into abdication.

His unprincipled son, Ferdinand, was proclaimed in March, 1808, but

Murat, who now entered Madrid as commander-in-chief of the French troops

in that city, secretly favoured the ex-King Charles. In the end, both he

and Ferdinand were enticed into seeking the protection of Napoleon at

Bayonne. Instead of mediating or deciding between them, Napoleon soon

found means to get rid of both. They were induced or rather compelled to

resign their rights, and retire into private life on large pensions; and

Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain on his brother Joseph, whose

former kingdom of Naples was bestowed on Murat.

In the meantime, sanguinary riots broke out afresh at Madrid, hundreds

of French were massacred, and the insurrection, as it was called, though

sternly put down by Murat, spread like wildfire into all parts of Spain.

A violent explosion of patriotism, resulting in anarchy, followed

throughout the whole country. Napoleon was taken by surprise, but the

combinations which he matured at Bayonne for the conquest of Spain were

as masterly as those by which he had well-nigh subdued the whole

continent, except Russia. He established a base of operations in the

centre of the country, and organised four campaigns in the north-west,

north-east, south-east, and south. Savary, who had succeeded Murat at

Madrid, was supposed to act as commander-in-chief, but was really little

more than a medium for transmitting orders received from Napoleon at

Bayonne. The campaign of Duhesme in Catalonia was facilitated by the

treacherous seizure of the citadel of Barcelona in the previous

February. It was not long, however, before effective aid was rendered on

the coast by the British fleet under Collingwood, and especially by Lord

Cochrane in the _Impérieuse_ frigate; the undisciplined bands of

Catalonian volunteers were reinforced by regular troops from Majorca and

Minorca; the fortress of Gerona made an obstinate resistance; the siege

of it was twice raised, and Barcelona, almost isolated, was now held

with difficulty.

[Pageheading: _FRANCE OCCUPIES THE PENINSULA._]

Marshal Moncey vainly besieged Valencia, while Generals

Lefebvre-Desnoëttes and Verdier were equally unsuccessful before

Zaragoza. In the plains of Leon, Marshal Bessières gained a decisive

victory over a superior force of Spaniards under Cuesta and Blake, at

Medina de Rio Seco, on July 14. Having thus secured the province of

Leon, and the great route from Bayonne to Madrid, he was advancing on

Galicia when his progress was arrested by disaster in another quarter.

General Dupont, commanding the southern army, found himself nearly

surrounded at Baylen, and solicited an armistice, followed by a

convention, under which, "above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid

down their arms before a raw army incapable of resisting half that

number, if the latter had been led by an able man".[42] The convention,

signed on July 20, stipulated for the transport of the French troops to

France, but its stipulations were shamefully violated; some were

massacred, others were sent to sicken in the hulks at Cadiz, and

comparatively few lived to rejoin their colours. Meanwhile a so-called

"assembly of notables," summoned to Bayonne, consisting of ninety-one

persons, all nominees of Napoleon, assumed to act for the whole nation,

had accepted the nomination of Joseph Bonaparte as king, and proceeded

to adopt a constitution. On July 20, the very day of the capitulation of

Baylen, Joseph entered Madrid, and on the 24th was proclaimed King of

Spain and the Indies. But the military prestige of the grand army

received a fatal blow in the catastrophe, of which the immediate effect

was the retirement of Joseph behind the Ebro, and the ultimate effects

were felt in the later history of the war.

At this moment almost the whole of Portugal was in possession of the

French. In November, 1807, under peremptory orders from Napoleon, Junot

with a French army and an auxiliary force of Spaniards, but without

money or transport, had marched with extraordinary rapidity across the

mountains to Alcantara in the valley of the Tagus. He thence pressed

forward to Lisbon, hoping to anticipate the embarkation of the royal

family for Brazil, which, however, took place just before his arrival

and almost under his eyes. With his army terribly reduced by the

hardships and privations of his forced march, he overawed Lisbon and

issued a proclamation that "the house of Braganza had ceased to reign".

A fortnight later a Spanish division occupied Oporto, and meanwhile

another Spanish division established itself in the south-east of

Portugal, but, as the French stragglers came in and reinforcements

approached, Junot felt himself strong enough to cast off all disguise;

he suppressed the council of regency, took the government into his own

hands, and levied a heavy war contribution. During the early months of

1808 he was employed in reorganising his own forces, and the resources

of Lisbon, where an auxiliary Russian fleet of nine ships was lying

practically blockaded. In a military sense, he was successful, but the

rapacity of the French, the contagion of the Spanish uprising, the

memory of the old alliance with England, and the proximity of English

fleets, stirred the blood of the Portuguese nation into ill-concealed

hostility. The Spanish commander at Oporto withdrew his troops to

Galicia, and the inhabitants declared for independence. Their example

was followed in other parts of Portugal. Junot acted with vigour,

disarmed the Spanish contingent at Lisbon, and sent columns to quell

disturbances on the Spanish frontiers, but he soon realised the

necessity of concentration. He therefore resolved to abandon most of the

Portuguese fortresses, limiting his efforts to holding Lisbon, and

keeping open his line of communication with Spain.

[Pageheading: _VIMEIRO AND CINTRA._]

Such was the state of affairs in the Peninsula when Sir Arthur Wellesley

landed his army of some 12,000 men on August 13, 1808. He had been

specially designated for the command of a British army in Portugal by

Castlereagh, then secretary for war and the colonies, who fully

appreciated his singular capacity for so difficult a service. Sir John

Moore, who had just returned from the Baltic, having found it hopeless

to co-operate with Gustavus IV. of Sweden, was sent out soon afterwards

to Portugal with a corps of some 10,000 men. Both these eminent soldiers

were directed to place themselves under the orders not only of Sir Hew

Dalrymple, the governor of Gibraltar, as commander-in-chief, but of Sir

Harry Burrard, when he should arrive, as second in command. Wellesley

had received general instructions to afford "the Spanish and Portuguese

nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France," and was

empowered to disembark at the mouth of the Tagus. Having obtained

trustworthy information at Coruña and Oporto, he decided rather to begin

his campaign from a difficult landing-place south of Oporto at the mouth

of the Mondego, and to march thence upon Lisbon. He was opportunely

joined by General Spencer from the south of Spain, and chose the

coast-road by Torres Vedras. At Roliça he encountered a smaller force

under Delaborde, sent in advance by Junot to delay his progress, and

routed it after a severe combat. Delaborde, however, retreated with

admirable tenacity, and Wellesley, expecting reinforcements from the

coast, pushed forward to Vimeiro, without attempting to check the

concentration of Junot's army. There was fought, on August 21, the first

important battle of the Peninsular war. The British troops, estimated at

16,778 men (besides about 2,000 Portuguese), outnumbered the French

considerably, but the French were much stronger in cavalry, and boldly

assumed the offensive, confident in the prestige derived from so many

victories in Italy and Germany. Wellesley's position was strong, but the

attack on it was skilfully designed and pressed home with resolute

courage. It was repelled at every point of the field, and the French,

retiring in confusion, might have been cut off from Lisbon. But Burrard,

who had just landed and witnessed the battle without interfering, now

absolutely refused to sanction a vigorous pursuit.

On the following day he was superseded in turn by Dalrymple. The new

commander determined to await the arrival of Moore, whose approach was

reported, but who did not disembark his whole force until the 30th. In

the meantime, overtures for an armistice were received from Junot, and

ultimately resulted in the so-called "convention of Cintra," though it

was first drafted at Torres Vedras and was ratified at Lisbon. Under

this agreement the French army was to surrender Lisbon intact with other

Portuguese fortresses, but was allowed to return to France with its arms

and baggage at the expense of the British government. Having dissented

from the military decision which had enabled Junot to negotiate, instead

of capitulating, Wellesley also dissented from certain terms of the

convention. He was, however, party to it as a whole, and afterwards

justified its main conditions as securing the evacuation of Portugal at

the price of reasonable concessions. This was not the feeling of the

British public, which loudly resented the escape of the French army and

insisted upon a court of inquiry. The verdict of this court saved the

military honour of all three generals, but its members were so divided

in opinion on the policy of the convention that no authoritative

judgment was pronounced. Napoleon felt no such difficulty in condemning

Junot for yielding too much, and the inhabitants of Lisbon were

infuriated not only by the loss of their expected vengeance, but also by

the shameless plunder of their public and private property by the

departing French. Under a separate convention, the Russian fleet, long

blockaded in the Tagus, was surrendered to the British admiral, but

without its officers or crews.

The capitulation of Baylen paralysed for a time the aggressive movements

of France in Spain. Catalonia remained unconquered, even Bessières

retreated, and Joseph, as we have seen, abandoned Madrid. Happily for

the French, the Spaniards proved quite incapable of following up their

advantages, and though a "supreme junta" was assembled at Aranjuez, it

wasted its time in vain wrangling, and did little or nothing for the

organisation of national defence. Meanwhile, Napoleon was pouring

veteran troops from Germany into the north of Spain, where they repulsed

the Spanish levies in several minor engagements. On October 14 he left

Erfurt, where he had renewed his alliance with the tsar, and reached

Bayonne on November 3. His simple but masterly plan of campaign was

already prepared, and was carried out with the utmost promptitude. On

November 10-11, one of three Spanish armies was crushed at Espinosa; on

the former day another was routed at Gamonal; on the 23rd the third was

utterly dispersed at Tudela. Napoleon himself remained for some days at

Burgos, awaiting the result of these operations; on December 4, after a

feeble resistance, he entered Madrid in triumph, and stayed there

seventeen days, which he employed with marvellous activity in maturing

fresh designs, both civil and military, for securing his power in Spain.

[Pageheading: _ADVANCE OF SIR JOHN MOORE._]

Already, on October 7, Sir John Moore had taken over the command of the

British forces. He probably owed his appointment to George III., who

seems on this occasion to have overruled his foreign and war ministers,

Canning and Castlereagh. In spite of his unwillingness to offer the

appointment to Moore, Castlereagh gave him the most loyal and efficient

support during the whole campaign; and this loyalty to Moore was one of

the reasons for Canning's desire to remove Castlereagh from the war

office, which, as we have seen, led to the famous duel between those two

statesmen. It was at first intended that Moore should co-operate with

the Spanish armies which were then facing the French on the line of the

Ebro. For this purpose he was to have the command of 21,000 troops

already in Portugal and of about 12,000 who were being sent by sea to

Coruña under Sir David Baird. Burrard was to remain in Portugal with

another 10,000. Nothing had been done before Moore was appointed to the

command to provide the troops with their necessary equipment or their

commander with the necessary local information. The departure of the

troops was therefore slow. By October 18 the greater part of the British

troops in Portugal were in motion, but the whole army had not left

Lisbon till the 29th. The main body travelled by fairly direct routes to

Salamanca, where Moore arrived on November 13, but he was induced by

information, which proved to be incorrect, to send his cavalry and guns

with a column under Hope, by the more circuitous high road through Elvas

and Talavera. When this route was adopted it was anticipated that the

different divisions of the British army would be able to unite at, or

near, Valladolid. But the advance of the French rendered this

impossible, and Hope ultimately joined Moore at Salamanca on December 4.

Baird suffered from even more vexatious delays. Though the greater part

of his convoy had arrived at Coruña on October 13, the local junta would

not permit them to land without express orders from the central junta at

Aranjuez. Consequently the disembarkation did not begin till the 26th

and was only finished on November 4. Transport and equipment were

difficult to obtain, and on November 22 Baird was still only at Astorga.

There exaggerated reports of the French advance induced him to halt, but

by Moore's orders he continued his march. On the 28th the news of the

defeat of Castaños at Tudela reached Moore at Salamanca. Co-operation

with a Spanish army now appeared impossible, and even a junction with

Baird seemed too hazardous to attempt. Moore therefore, ordered Baird to

retire on Coruña and to proceed to Lisbon by sea, and, while waiting

himself at Salamanca for Hope, made preparations for a retreat to

Portugal. On December 5, the day after his junction with Hope, Moore

determined to continue his advance. He had received news of the

enthusiastic preparations for the defence of Madrid but did not know of

its fall, and he considered that the Spanish enthusiasm justified some

risk on the part of the British troops. He accordingly recalled Baird,

whose infantry had retired to Villafranca, though his cavalry were still

at Astorga. On the 9th came the news of the fall of Madrid, but Moore

believed that an attack on the French lines of communication might still

prove useful, and on the 11th the advance was renewed. Moore himself

left Salamanca on the 13th. On the 12th he learned for the first time

from some prisoners the true strength of the French army, 250,000 of all

arms, and also discovered that the enemy were in complete ignorance of

the position of his own army. Next day an intercepted despatch showed

him that he might possibly be able to cut off Soult in an isolated

position at Saldaña. Having at last effected a junction with Baird's

corps on the 19th he reached Sahagun on the 21st, and was on the point

of delivering his attack under favourable conditions, though his triumph

must have been short-lived.

His real success was of another order. He had anticipated that Napoleon

would postpone everything to the opportunity of crushing a British army,

and the ultimate object of his march to Sahagun was to draw the French

away from Lisbon and Andalusia. He was not disappointed. Napoleon at

last divined that Moore was not flying in a south-westerly direction,

but carrying out a bold manoeuvre in a north-easterly direction. He

instantly pushed division after division from various quarters by forced

marches upon Moore's reported track, while he himself followed with

desperate efforts across the snow-clad mountains between Madrid and the

Douro. Apprised of his swift advance, and conscious of his own vast

inferiority in numbers, Moore had no choice but to retreat without a

moment's delay upon Benevente and Astorga. He was now sufficiently far

north to prefer to retire upon Galicia rather than upon Portugal. The

retreat began on the 24th and was executed with such rapidity that on

January 1, 1809, Napoleon gave up the pursuit at Astorga, leaving it to

be continued by Soult. Whether he was influenced by intelligence of

fresh armaments on the Danube, or of dangerous plots in Paris, must

remain uncertain, but it is highly probable that he saw little honour to

be won in a laborious chase of a foe who might prove formidable if

brought to bay.

Moore's army, disheartened as it was by the loss of a brilliant chance,

and demoralised as it became under the fatigues and hardships of a most

harassing retreat, never failed to repel attacks on its rear, where

Paget handled the cavalry of the rear-guard with signal ability,

especially in a spirited action near Benevente. In spite of some

excesses, tolerable order was maintained until the British force, still

25,000 strong, reached Astorga, and was joined by some 10,000 Spaniards

under Romaña. Thenceforward, all sense of discipline was abandoned by so

many regiments that Moore described the conduct of his whole army as

"infamous beyond belief," though it is certain that some regiments, and

notably those of the reserve, should be excepted from this sweeping

condemnation. Drunkenness, marauding, and other military crimes grew

more and more general as the main body marched "in a drove" through

Villafranca to Lugo, where Moore vainly offered battle, and onwards to

Betanzos on the sea-coast. There a marvellous rally was effected,

stragglers rejoined the ranks in unexpected numbers, the _moral_ of the

soldiery was restored as the fearful strain of physical misery was

relaxed, and by January 12, 1809, all the divisions of Moore's army were

safely posted in or around Coruña. Bad weather had delayed the fleet of

transports ordered round from Vigo, but it ran into the harbour on the

14th, and the sick and invalids were sent on board.

[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF CORUÑA._]

Moore was advised to make terms for the embarkation of his entire

command, but he was too good a soldier to comply. Those who took part in

the battle of Coruña on the 16th, some 15,000 men in all, were no

unworthy representatives of the army which started from Lisbon three

months earlier. Soult, with a larger force, assumed the offensive, and

made a determined attack on the British position in front of the harbour

and town of Coruña. He was repulsed at all points, but Moore was

mortally, and Baird severely, wounded on the field. Hope, who took

command, knowing that Soult would soon be reinforced, wisely persisted

in carrying out Moore's intention, evacuated Coruña, and embarked his

army for England during the night and the following day. His losses were

estimated by Hope at above 700, killed and wounded; those of the enemy

were twice as great. Thus victory crowned a campaign which otherwise

would have done little to satisfy the popular appetite for tangible

success. The original object of supporting the Spanish resistance in the

north had been rendered impossible of fulfilment by Napoleon's victories

when Moore had barely crossed the Spanish frontier, and in this sense

the expedition must be regarded as a failure, though its commander was

in no sense responsible for its ill-success. On the other hand,

considered as a skilful diversion, the expedition was highly successful.

It drew all the best French troops and generals into the north-west

corner of Spain, leaving all the other, and far richer, provinces to

recover their power of resistance.[43]

The spirit in which Napoleon had entered upon this contest is well

illustrated in two sentences of his address to the citizens of Madrid.

"The Bourbons," he said, "can no longer reign in Europe," and "No power

under the influence of England can exist on the continent". The

counter-proclamations of Spanish juntas were more prolix and equally

arrogant, but one of them reveals the secret of national strength when

it asserts that "a whole people is more powerful than disciplined

armies". The British estimate of Napoleon's Spanish policy was tersely

expressed by the Marquis Wellesley in the house of lords, "To him force

and fraud were alike; force, that would stoop to all the base artifices

of fraud; and fraud, that would come armed with all the fierce violence

of force".

[Pageheading: _WELLESLEY TAKES COMMAND._]

For three months after the battle of Coruña, the Peninsular war, as

regards the action of Great Britain, was all but suspended. Two days

before that battle, a formal treaty of peace and alliance between Great

Britain and the Spanish junta, which had withdrawn to Seville, was

signed at London. Sir John Cradock was in command of the British troops

at Lisbon, and took up a defensive position there, with reinforcements

from Cadiz, awaiting the approach of Soult, who had captured Oporto by

storm, and of Victor, who was in the valley of the Tagus. At the request

of the Portuguese, Beresford had been sent out to organise and command

their army. Early in 1809 the Spaniards were defeated with great

slaughter at Ucles, Ciudad Real, and Medellin; Zaragoza was taken after

another siege, and still more obstinate defence; and the national cause

seemed more desperate than ever. On April 2, however, Sir Arthur

Wellesley, who had returned home after the convention of Cintra, was

appointed to the command-in-chief of our forces in the Peninsula.

Before leaving England, he left with the ministers a memorandum on the

conduct of the war which, viewed by the light of later events, must be

accounted a masterpiece of foresight and sagacity. When it was laid

before George III., his natural shrewdness at once discerned its true

value, and he desired its author to be informed of the strong impression

which it had produced on his mind.

Wellesley, indeed, could not estimate beforehand the vast numerical

superiority of the French while the rest of Europe was at peace, or the

impotent vacillations of Spanish juntas, or the "mulish obstinacy" of

Spanish generals, which so often wrecked his plans and spoiled his

victories. Nor could he foresee the advantages which he would derive

from the resources of guerilla warfare, the mutual jealousies of the

French marshals, and the sudden recall of the best French troops for

service in Germany and Russia. But his prescient and practical mind

firmly grasped the dominant facts of the position--that Portugal,

guarded by the ocean on the west and by mountain ranges on the east, was

far more accessible to the British navy than to the French army; that,

under British officers, its troops might be trained into an effective

force; and that, with it as a basis, Great Britain might ultimately

liberate the whole Peninsula. "I have always been of opinion," Wellesley

said in this memorandum, "that Portugal might be defended, whatever

might be the result of the contest in Spain; and that in the meantime

the measures adopted for the defence of Portugal would be highly useful

to the Spaniards in their contest with the French." On this simple

principle all his detailed recommendations were founded, and he

expressed a deliberate belief that, if 30,000 British troops were

supported by an equal number of Portuguese regulars, and a reserve of

militia was provided, "the French would not be able to overrun Portugal

with less than 100,000 men". This forecast was verified, and upon its

essential wisdom the fate of the Peninsular war, with all its

consequences, may be said to have depended.[44]

Wellesley landed at Lisbon on April 22, and was received with the utmost

demonstrations of joy and confidence. He found not only the capital but

the whole country in a state of tumult, if not of anarchy, due to a

growing despair of the national cause. His arrival rekindled the embers

of patriotism, and on May 5 he reviewed at Coimbra a body of troops

consisting of 17,000 British and Germans, with about 8,000 Portuguese.

The next day he marched towards the Douro, and on the 14th he effected

the passage of that river in the face of the French army occupying

Oporto, which the British forthwith recaptured. Soult beat a hasty and

disorderly retreat into Galicia. Having driven Soult out of Portugal,

the British general was encouraged to undertake a further advance into

Spain, where Joseph with Victor and Sébastiani had collected a much

larger army to bar the approaches to Madrid than Wellesley, relying on

Spanish intelligence, had been led to expect. During June and the first

days of July, he moved by Abrantes and the Tagus valley as far as

Plasencia, little knowing that Soult was about to sweep round his rear,

with 50,000 men, and intercept his communications with Lisbon. On July

10 he held a conference with the Spanish general Cuesta, who insisted on

making an aggressive movement with his own troops only, and met with a

repulse.

[Pageheading: _THE TALAVERA CAMPAIGN._]

On the 27th, the combined armies of Wellesley and Cuesta, numbering

respectively about 20,000 British and 35,000 Spanish, confronted 46,000

French troops, under Victor, in a strong position behind Talavera.[45]

The Spanish forces occupied the right and the British the left of this

position. Joseph was present, and disregarding the counsels of Jourdan,

his proper military adviser, authorised Victor to assume the offensive.

He failed in two preliminary attacks on the 27th, but renewed them on

the 28th, when a general engagement ensued. The whole brunt of the

battle fell upon the British troops, who gallantly withstood a desperate

onset, first on their left and then on their centre and right, until the

French quitted the field in confusion. The Spaniards, posted in

entrenchments nearer Talavera itself, did and suffered comparatively

little. Some of their regiments fled disgracefully, but the rest held

their ground, and Wellesley in his despatch spoke favourably of their

behaviour.[46] Perhaps the part which they played may be roughly

estimated by their losses, amounting to 1,200, as compared with 6,268

British and nearly 9,000 French. Wellesley, after further experience of

Spanish co-operation, made up his mind to dispense with it altogether in

future.

The victory of Talavera won for Wellesley the rank of viscount, to which

he was raised on September 4, with the title of Wellington. Although the

victory revived the respect of foreign nations for the prowess of

British arms, it was otherwise fruitless, and its sequel was fairly open

to criticism. Wellesley found that Soult, with Ney and Mortier, had

circumvented him, and that he must retreat through Esdremadura, on the

south of the Tagus, upon Badajoz. Cuesta, who had advocated bolder

counsels, undertook to guard the rear, and to protect the British

wounded at Talavera. But he soon found it necessary to abandon that

position. Fifteen hundred of the wounded were left behind, and were

humanely treated by the French generals. Wellesley's retreat over the

mountains was attended with great hardship and loss, for want of

supplies either from Spain or from the coast, and his long encampment in

the malarious valley of the Guadiana about Badajoz swelled the number of

his sick to a frightful extent. It was not until December, when it got

into better cantonments on Portuguese soil, that the British army,

triumphant at Talavera, recovered either its health or its _moral_.

Napoleon boasted, in a memorandum to be inserted in the Paris journals,

that Wellington had really been beaten in Spain, and that "if affairs

there had been properly conducted not an Englishman would have escaped".

Without going quite so far as this, the parliamentary opposition in

England made the least of the victory and the most of the retreat, which

unfortunately coincided in time with the wreck of the Walcheren

expedition. Even Wellington's best friends in England began to lose

heart, as did many of his own officers. He remained undaunted, and

having established his headquarters on the high ground between the Tagus

and the Douro, meditated designs which, slowly matured, bore good fruit

in later years.

It is difficult to understand the inaction of Wellington for so many

months after the Talavera campaign, without taking into account not only

the difficulty of obtaining sufficient recruits and stores from England

after the waste of both at the mouth of the Scheldt, but the greatly

increased strength of the French in Spain during the long interval

between the Wagram campaign and the Russian expedition. At the close of

1809 all the fortresses of Spain had fallen into the enemy's hands, and

all her principal armies had been defeated and dispersed in successive

battles of which the greatest was that of Ocaña in the month of

November. Suchet was master of Aragon and the east of Spain, nor was he

dislodged from it until the end of the war; Andalusia was nearly

conquered; Cadiz was only saved by the self-reliant courage of the Duc

d'Albuquerque, baffling the intrigues and treachery of the supreme junta

there assembled; and Napoleon was preparing a fresh army to overrun

Portugal, under the command of Masséna. The Perceval ministry, in which

Liverpool had taken Castlereagh's post of secretary for war and the

colonies, adopting an optimistic tone at home, practically told

Wellington that he must shift for himself; and he braced himself up to

do so with extraordinary fortitude.

He remained watching the gathering storm from the heights of Guarda,

south-west of Almeida, and commanding two great roads from Spain into

Portugal, but his thoughts were equally fixed upon the vast and famous

lines of Torres Vedras, which he was constructing for the defence of

Lisbon. His force, including the Portuguese regulars, did not exceed

50,000 men; that of the French under Ney, Reynier, and Junot consisted

of about 70,000, but they were not equally capable of being concentrated

on a single point. The Portuguese militia, too, were being gradually

disciplined, and the Portuguese civil authorities were being gradually

schooled into the new lesson of sweeping their own country bare of all

supplies before the coming French invasion. Wellington did not even

strike a blow to save Ciudad Rodrigo, which Masséna took on July 10,

1810. But it was no part of his plan that Almeida should capitulate, as

it did shortly afterwards, partly owing to the accidental explosion of a

magazine, and partly as was suspected, to an act of treachery. Still,

Masséna delayed until urged by Napoleon, and deceived by false

intelligence, he launched forth, at the beginning of September, on an

enterprise which proved fatal to his reputation. Both he and Wellington

issued appeals to the Portuguese nation, the contrast between which is

significant. The French marshal, echoing the prevailing note of his

master's proclamation, denounced Great Britain as the enemy of all

Europe; Wellington called upon the Portuguese to remember their actual

experience of French rapacity and outrage.

[Pageheading: _BUSSACO AND TORRES VEDRAS._]

The object of Masséna was to reach Coimbra before Wellington. His

manoeuvres to outflank Wellington's left were skilfully devised, but

the British army marched steadily down the valley of the Mondego,

carrying with it the population of the district, and took its stand on

the ridge of Bussaco, north of Coimbra, barring Masséna's progress.

There was fought, on September 27, 1810, a battle as deadly as that of

Talavera, and more decisive in its consequences. The French, as usual,

were the assailants; the English and the Portuguese stood at bay. Never,

in any of their brilliant victories, did French troops show more heroic

daring than in this assault under Reynier on the British right, and

under Ney on the British left. Both columns forced their way up bare

heath-clad slopes, and reached the summit, whence they were only driven

back after repeated charges. Their loss in killed and wounded exceeded

4,500, that of the allies was about 1,300. The French generals threw the

blame of defeat upon each other, but, in fact, the skill of Masséna

converted a defeat into an episode in his victorious advance. On the

following day, he again found a way of turning Wellington's left, and,

in an intercepted despatch, he naturally treated this as a compensation

for the repulse at Bussaco, which he did not disguise. Compelled to

retire once more with a vast drove of encumbered, panic-stricken, and

famishing Portuguese fugitives, and conscious that no reserves awaited

him, Wellington knew, nevertheless, that he was drawing Masséna further

and further away from his base, to encounter a terrible surprise. For,

so useless had been the French scouts, and so worthless the information

received from Portuguese sources, that no adequate conception of the

obstacle presented by the lines of Torres Vedras had entered the mind of

that experienced strategist.

These elaborate works had been constructed in the course of a year by

thousands of Portuguese labourers, directed by Colonel Fletcher of the

royal engineers, upon a plan carefully thought out and laid down by

Wellington himself. The first and principal chain of fortifications

stretched for nearly thirty miles across the whole promontory between

the river Tagus and the sea, about twenty-five miles north of Lisbon.

The summits of hills were crowned with forts, their sides were escarped

and protected with earthworks, their gorges were blocked with redoubts,

a small river at the foot of them was made impassable by dams; in short,

the utmost advantage was taken of the defences provided by nature, and

these were supplemented by artificial entrenchments. Portuguese

garrisons manned the greater part of the batteries, armed with guns from

the arsenals of Lisbon; British troops were to occupy the most

vulnerable points of attack. There was a second and third range of

fortifications behind the first, in case these should be forced, but no

such emergency arose. When Masséna had carefully inspected the

stupendous barrier reared in front of him, his well-trained eye

recognised it as impregnable: he paused for some weeks under semblance

of blockading the British forces, while he was really scouring the

country for the means of feeding his own; but in November he began to

retreat upon Santarem, Almeida, and Ciudad Rodrigo, with a half-starved

and dispirited army, greatly reduced in numbers during the campaign.[47]

The year 1811 was perhaps the least interesting, yet the most critical

in the history of the Peninsular war. Wellington had not escaped

criticism at home for allowing Masséna to remain so long unmolested near

Santarem. He described himself in a private letter, written in December,

1810, as "safe for the winter at all events". More he could not have

said, knowing, as he did, that Soult was in force before Cadiz, and

might at any moment join Masséna. This, in fact, he did; leaving his

fields of plunder in Andalusia under the positive orders of Napoleon, he

defeated the Spaniards at the Gebora on February 19, and captured

Badajoz, as well as Olivenza. In his absence, Sir Thomas Graham, who

commanded the British troops at Cadiz, sailed thence with La Peña, the

Spanish commander, and a combined force of about 12,000 men, to make a

flank march, and attack the French besiegers, under Victor, in the rear.

A brisk action followed at Barrosa, in which Graham obtained a complete

victory, but the Spanish troops, as usual, remained almost passive; the

beaten army was not pursued, and the siege of Cadiz was not raised.

This city was still the seat of the Spanish national government, but the

feeble junta had been superseded by a national cortes, fairly

representative of the nation, which passed some liberal measures, and

dissolved the so-called regency which assumed to represent Ferdinand.

[Pageheading: _FUENTES D'ONORO AND ALBUERA._]

The two great frontier fortresses of Spain, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz,

were now in the hands of the French. Masséna had regained the Spanish

frontier in March, after frequent combats with the pursuing enemy, and

with heavy losses in men and horses, though he saved every gun except

one. This retreat involved the evacuation of every place in Portugal

except the fortress of Almeida. Wellington's pursuit would have been

still more vigorous, but that his Portuguese troops were half-starved,

and had lost discipline under intolerable privations. His next design

seems to have been the recapture of the fortresses, but he was not

without ulterior hopes--all too premature--of afterwards pushing on to

Madrid and operating in the eastern provinces of Spain. He first

invested Almeida, and, leaving General Spencer to continue the blockade,

proceeded to Elvas in order to concert measures with Beresford for the

siege of Badajoz. Thence he was suddenly recalled northward to repel a

fresh advance of Masséna, strongly reinforced, for the relief of

Almeida. The battle which followed at Fuentes d'Oñoro, south-east of

Almeida, was among the most hardly contested struggles in the whole

Peninsular war. It began on May 3, and, with a day's interval, concluded

on the 5th. The British remained masters of the field, and claimed a

somewhat doubtful victory, which at least secured the evacuation of

Almeida. The garrison of that fortress blew it up by night, and

succeeded, by masterly tactics, in joining the main French army with

little sacrifice of life.

Wellington returned to Badajoz, only to meet with disappointment.

General Cole, acting under Beresford, had retaken Olivenza; but Soult,

with a force of 23,000 men, was marching to succour Badajoz, when he was

encountered by Beresford at Albuera. Beresford's force was numerically

stronger than Soult's, but only 7,000 men were English, the rest being

mostly Spanish. Measured by the proportion of losses to men engaged on

both sides, this fight on May 16, 1811, must rank among the bloodiest on

record. In four hours nearly 7,000 of the allies and 8,000 French were

struck down. The decisive charge of the reserve was inspired and led by

Hardinge, afterwards Governor-General of India; the French were routed,

and Soult was checked, but little was gained by the victors.[48] The

siege of Badajoz, indeed, was renewed, but its progress was slow for

want of proper engines and artillery, and it was abandoned, after two

futile attempts, on June 11. By this time, Marmont had succeeded

Masséna, and was carrying out Napoleon's grand plan for a junction with

Soult's army and a fresh irruption into Portugal. With marvellous

audacity, Wellington offered battle to both marshals, who, happily

ignorant of his weakness, declined it more than once. In truth, he was

never more nearly at the end of his resources than when he went into

winter quarters at the close of 1811, having failed to prevent Marmont

from provisioning Ciudad Rodrigo, and having narrowly escaped being

overwhelmed by a much superior force. His army was greatly reduced by

sickness, he was very ill-supplied from England, and he received no

loyal support from the Portuguese government. Moreover, the French had

apparently extended their hold on Spain, both in the eastern and

northern provinces, while it was reported that Napoleon himself, not

content with dictating orders from afar, would return to complete the

conquest of the Peninsula.

At this juncture, he must have been cheered by the arrival of so able a

lieutenant as Graham from Cadiz, and by the brilliant success of Hill

against a detached body of Marmont's army south of the Tagus. There were

other tendencies also secretly working in favour of the British and

their allies. Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, openly protested

against the extortions which he was enjoined to practise on his

subjects, and went so far as to resign his crown at Paris, though he was

induced to resume it. Again the broken armies of the Spanish had

reappeared in the form of guerilla bands under leaders such as Mina;

they could not be dispersed, since they had no cohesion, and were more

formidable through their extreme mobility than organised battalions.

Above all, the domination of France over Europe was already undermined

and tottering invisibly to its fall. The Tsar Alexander had, as we have

seen, been deeply offended by the preference of an Austrian to a Russian

princess, as the consort of Napoleon, and still more by his imperious

annexation of Oldenburg. Sweden, following the example of Russia, had

begun to rebel against the continental system. A series of internal

reforms had aroused a national spirit, and stealthily created the basis

of a national army in Prussia, and the intense hostility of all North

Germany to France was thinly disguised by the unwilling servility of the

Prussian court. Napoleon, who seldom laboured under the illusions

propagated by his own manifestoes and bulletins, well knew what he was

doing when, in August, 1811, he allowed himself to burst into a storm of

indignation against the Russian ambassador at the Tuileries. From that

moment he clearly premeditated a rupture with Russia, and soon he

withdrew 60,000 of his best troops from Spain, to be employed in that

fatal enterprise of 1812 which proved to be his doom.

[Pageheading: _CAPTURE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO AND BADAJOZ._]

The winter of 1811-12 was spent by Wellington in preparing, with the

utmost secrecy, for the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, as the

first steps in an offensive campaign. In January, 1812, he struck a

sudden blow against the former, and captured it by an assault, attended

with great carnage, on the 19th of that month. In this furious conflict,

lasting but half an hour, Craufurd, the renowned leader of the light

division, fell mortally wounded. Shameful excesses sullied the glory of

a splendid exploit. Marmont immediately drew in his troops towards

Salamanca, leaving Soult in the valley of the Tagus; and Hill, with his

southern army, moved northward. Wellington, who was created an earl in

February, transferred the greater part of his troops to Badajoz, and

began a regular siege, but with very imperfect materials, no organised

corps of sappers and miners, and very few officers skilled in the art of

taking fortified towns. He was greatly delayed on the route by the lack

of transport, and the vexatious obstinacy of the Portuguese authorities,

while time was of the utmost consequence lest any or all of three French

armies should come to raise the siege. Hence the extreme rapidity of his

final operations.

After the capture of an outlying fort, three breaches were made in the

walls, and on the night of April 6, under the cover of thick darkness,

two divisions of British troops descended into the ditch, many carrying

ladders or sacks of hay, and advanced to the foot of the _glacis_. Here

they were almost overwhelmed with a hurricane of fiery missiles, and in

mounting the breaches they had to face not only hand-grenades, trains of

powder, and bursting shells, but a _chevaux-de-frise_ of sabre-blades

crowning the summit. None of these attacks was successful; but another

division under Picton scaled the castle, and a brigade under Walker

effected an entrance elsewhere. After this, the French abandoned the

breaches; the resistance waxed fainter, and at six in the morning,

Philippon, the governor, with his brave garrison, surrendered

unconditionally. The loss of the British and Portuguese in killed and

wounded was stated at the enormous figure of 4,885, and it was avenged

by atrocities prolonged for two days and nights, worse than had followed

the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington ordered the provost marshal

to execute any soldiers found in the act of plunder, but officers vainly

attempted to check their men at the peril of their own lives.

[Pageheading: _SALAMANCA._]

It had been the intention of Wellington to operate next against Soult,

and drive him, if possible, from Esdremadura and Andalusia. But, as

appears from one of his despatches to Lord Liverpool, he was ill

satisfied with the conduct of his allies guarding Ciudad Rodrigo, and

returned to resume command in that region. In the same despatch he

complains bitterly of the niggardly policy of his government in regard

to money and supplies. The same timidity on the part of ministers at

home appears in a letter from Liverpool, almost forbidding him to accept

the command-in-chief of the Spanish armies, which, however, was

conferred upon him later in this year.[49] At present, he decided to

march against Marmont in the plains of Leon. This movement was

facilitated by the success of Hill in surprising a body of French

troops, and seizing the important bridge of Almaraz over the Tagus on

May 19, thereby breaking the French lines of communication and isolating

Marmont's army for a time. Soon afterwards, Salamanca and its forts were

captured by Wellington, but Marmont proved a very formidable opponent,

and, having behind him another army under King Joseph, threatened the

British lines of communication. In the series of manoeuvres which

ensued, Wellington's forces met with more than one reverse, but the

French marshal was determined to win a victory on a large scale.

Wellington had no wish to risk a battle, unless Salamanca or his own

rear should be seriously threatened, and he stood on the defensive, a

little south of Salamanca, with Marmont's army encamped in front of him.

Early on July 22, the French seized one of two hills called the Arapiles

which formed the key of the position and commanded the road to Ciudad

Rodrigo. Marmont then organised complicated evolutions, of which the

ultimate object was to envelop the British right and cut off its

expected retreat. To accomplish this, he extended his own left so far

that it became separated by a gap from his centre. No sooner did

Wellington, with a flash of military insight, perceive the advantage

thus offered than he flung half of his troops upon the French left wing,

and made a vigorous attack with the rest upon the French centre. It was

too late for Marmont, himself wounded, to repair the mistake, the centre

was driven in, and, as was said, 40,000 men were beaten in forty

minutes. General Clausel, who took Marmont's place, showed great ability

in the retreat, but the French army could scarcely have escaped

destruction had not the Spaniards, who were entrusted with a post on the

river Tormes, left the passage open for the flying enemy. Nevertheless,

the battle of Salamanca was the greatest and most decisive yet fought by

the British in the Peninsula; it established the reputation of our army,

and placed Wellington in the first rank of generals. Three weeks later

he entered Madrid in triumph, and was received with the wildest popular

acclamations. Joseph once more abandoned his capital, joined Suchet in

Valencia, and ordered Soult against his will to withdraw from Andalusia

and move in the same direction. This concentration relieved Wellington

from immediate anxieties, but exposed him to a serious danger of being

confronted before long by forces thrice as great as his own. He also

needed reinforcements, and was in still greater want of money.

To students of military history it may seem a very doubtful question

whether, under such circumstances, it was prudent to advance farther

into Spain from his strongholds on the Portuguese frontier. But

Wellington, who had been created a marquis on August 18, judged it

necessary to crush if possible the remainder of Marmont's army which had

retired northward under Clausel. He therefore left Hill with a

detachment to cover Madrid, and marching through Valladolid occupied the

town of Burgos. The castle of that place remained in the hands of a

French garrison 2,000 strong and had been carefully fortified. Here

again we may be permitted to doubt whether, after the experience gained

at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, Wellington did wisely in resolving to

invest and storm a fortress so formidable, without an adequate

siege-train, and with the knowledge that Clausel might rally his forces

in time to relieve it. Wellington himself afterwards admitted to

Liverpool that he had erred in not taking with him the best of his own

troops, and that he did not possess the means of transporting ordnance

and military stores from Madrid and Santander, where there was abundance

of them. The siege lasted a month, from September 19 to October 18; the

garrison offered a most obstinate resistance, inflicting great loss on

the besiegers by sorties, and in the end the attack failed. Souham, with

Clausel, was closing in upon Wellington from the north, Soult from the

south-east; Hill's position at Madrid was untenable, and another retreat

became inevitable. It was the last and most trying in Wellington's

military career. The army which had behaved nobly at Salamanca broke

down under the strain of suffering and depression, like that of Sir John

Moore before Coruña. The enemy was driven back in various rear-guard

actions, but on the march the sense of discipline vanished and shameful

disorders occurred. A scathing reprimand from Wellington, which might

have been written by a French critic and which ought never to have been

made public, threw all the blame of this disorganisation on the

regimental officers, and denied that any scarcity of provisions could be

pleaded in excuse of it.

[Pageheading: _MILITARY REFORMS._]

By the middle of November the campaign ended, and Wellington's

headquarters were at Ciudad Rodrigo. For the present, Spain was still

dominated by the French, but its southern provinces were clear of the

invaders, and elsewhere the tide was already on the turn. The Russian

war cast its shadow beforehand on the Spanish peninsula; the French

army was constantly weakened in numbers and still more in quality, as

conscripts were substituted for veterans, and inferior generals

succeeded to high commands; the Portuguese and Spanish contingents of

the British army were stronger and better disciplined. Wellington

himself, tenacious of his purpose as ever, received heartier support

from home, where Liverpool had become prime minister in June, and had

been succeeded by Bathurst as secretary for war and the colonies; and

though the Marquis Wellesley, no longer in the government, complained

that his brother's operations had been crippled by ministerial apathy,

the Peninsular war, on the eve of its completion, was adopted with pride

and sympathy by the nation.

The last chapter of the Peninsular war opens with the operations

culminating in the battle of Vitoria, and closes with the battle of

Toulouse. Having accepted the office of generalissimo of the Spanish

armies, Wellington repaired to Cadiz during the winter of 1812-13, and

formed the lowest estimate of the make-shift government there carried on

under the dual control of the cortes and the regency. He failed to

obtain a reform of this system, but succeeded in effecting a

reorganisation of the Spanish army, to be in future under his own

command. He next addressed himself, with the aid of Beresford and the

British minister at Lisbon, to amend the monstrous abuses, civil and

military, of Portuguese administration. By the beginning of May, 1813, a

great improvement was visible in the equipment and _moral_ of the

Spanish and Portuguese troops; a vigorous insurrection against the

French occupation had broken out in the province of Biscay, endangering

the great road into Spain; and an Anglo-Sicilian army of 16,000 men,

under Sir John Murray, had repulsed Suchet, hitherto undefeated, at

Castalla on the Valencian coast, without, however, completing their

victory, or capturing any of the French guns in the narrow defile by

which the enemy fled. The want of unity in the command of the French

army, and of harmony between its generals, was more felt than ever now

that Napoleon's master-mind was engrossed in retrieving the awful ruin

of the Russian expedition.

Yet Napoleon's instructions to Joseph show that he had fully grasped the

critical nature of the situation. He enjoined Joseph to mass all his

forces round Valladolid, and imperatively directed that at all hazards

the communications with France should be maintained. The Spanish

guerillas had long rendered communications so insecure that couriers

with despatches had to be escorted by bodies of 250 cavalry or 500

infantry; they were now so effectually intercepted that Napoleon's own

despatch reached Joseph more than two months late, by way of Barcelona

and Valencia. Meanwhile, Joseph was openly accusing Soult, in a letter

to his brother, of criminal ambition--a charge to which he laid himself

open before in Portugal--and did not hesitate to add, "the Duke of

Dalmatia or myself must quit Spain". In England, on the contrary,

parties were at last united in the desire to bring the war to a

triumphant end, and parliament grudged neither men nor money to aid

Wellington's plan of campaign. It was, then, under happier auspices than

in former years that he broke up from his cantonments then stationed on

the Coa, a little to the north-west of Ciudad Rodrigo, and set forward

with 70,000 British and Portuguese troops, besides 20,000 Spaniards, to

drive the French out of Spain. So confident was he of success that, as

Napier relates, he waved his hand in crossing the frontier on May 22,

and exclaimed, "Farewell, Portugal".[50]

[Pageheading: _VITORIA._]

He advanced by the valley of the Douro; then, turning to the north-east,

he compelled the French to evacuate Burgos, and passed the Ebro on June

13. Graham in command of his left wing there joined him, after forcing

his way by immense efforts across the mountains of the Portuguese

frontier. Hill, commanding the right wing of his composite but united

army, was already with him. A depot for his commissariat and a military

hospital were established at Santander, where a British fleet was lying,

and whence he could draw his supplies direct from home. The French army,

under Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, fell back before him by a forced night

march on the 19th and took up its position in front of Vitoria, in the

province of Biscay. Here, on the plain of the river Zadorra, was fought

on the 21st the greatest battle of the Peninsular war. Wellington had

encountered serious physical difficulties in his passage from the valley

of the Ebro to that of the Zadorra; but for once his plans had been

executed with admirable precision, and all his troops arrived at the

appointed time on the field of battle. The French, conscious of their

impending expulsion from Spain, were encumbered by enormous

baggage-trains containing the fruits of five years' merciless spoliation

"not of a province but of a kingdom," including treasures of art from

Madrid and all the provincial capitals, with no less than 5,500,000

dollars in hard cash, besides two years' arrears of pay which Napoleon

had sent to fill the military chest of Joseph's army. A vast number of

vehicles, loaded with the whole imperial and royal treasure, overspread

the plain and choked the great road behind the French position, by which

alone such a mass of waggons could find its way into France.

The French army consisted of about 60,000 men, with 150 pieces of

cannon, but strong detachments, under Foy and Clausel respectively, had

been sent away to guard the roads to Bilbao and Pamplona. The British

army numbered nearly 80,000, inclusive of Portuguese and Spanish, with

90 guns. The French were posted on strong ground, and held the bridges

across the river. Graham, with the left column of the British, made a

circuit in the direction of Bilbao, working round to cut off the French

rear on the Bayonne road. Hill, with the right column, forced the pass

of Puebla, in the latter direction, carried the ridge above it after

much hard fighting, and made good his position on the left flank of the

French. Wellington himself, in the centre, under the guidance of a

Spanish peasant, pushed a brigade across one of the bridges in his

front, weakly guarded, and thus mastered the others; his force then

expanded itself on the plain and bore down all opposition. Graham had

met with a more obstinate resistance from the French right, under

Reille, but at last got possession of the great Bayonne road.

Thenceforward a retreat of the French army, partly encircled, became

inevitable, but it was conducted at first in good order and with

frequent halts at defensible points. The only outlet left open was the

mountain road to Pamplona, and this was not only impracticable for heavy

traffic but obstructed by an overturned waggon. The orderly retreat was

soon converted into a rout; the flying throng made its way across

country and over mountains towards Pamplona, leaving all the artillery,

military stores, and accumulated spoils as trophies of the British

victory.

The value of these was prodigious, but the great mass of booty, except

munitions of war, fell into the hands of private soldiers and

camp-followers. Wellington reported to Bathurst that nearly a million

sterling in money had been appropriated by the rank and file of the

army, and, still worse, that so dazzling a triumph had "totally

annihilated all order and discipline".[51] The loss in the battle had

been about 5,000, but Wellington stated that on July 8 "we had 12,500

men less under arms than we had on the day before the battle". He

supposed the missing 7,500, nearly half of whom were British, to be

mostly concealed in the mountain villages.[52] A large number of

stragglers afterwards rejoined their colours, but too late to aid in an

effectual pursuit of the enemy. The immediate consequence of this great

victory was the evacuation by the French of all Spain south of the Ebro.

Even Suchet abandoned Valencia and distributed his forces between

Tarragona and Tortosa. To his great credit, Wellington addressed to the

cortes an earnest protest against wreaking vengeance on the French party

in Spain, many of whom might have been driven into acceptance of a

foreign yoke "by terror, by distress, or by despair". At the same time,

he vigorously followed up his success by chasing and nearly surrounding

Clausel's division, while Hill invested Pamplona, and Graham drove Foy

across the Bidassoa, in his advance upon the fortress of St. Sebastian.

[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF THE PYRENEES._]

The fortifications of St. Sebastian were in a very imperfect condition,

but the governor, Emmanuel Rey, was nevertheless able to defend the

place with success. Wellington, after laying siege to it, sanctioned a

premature attempt to scale the breaches which cost Graham's force a loss

of more than 500 men. This check was succeeded by another, still more

serious, in the historic pass of Roncesvalles. Napoleon, hearing at

Dresden of the battle of Vitoria, and instantly fathoming its momentous

import, despatched Soult, as "lieutenant of the emperor," to assume

command of all the French armies at Bayonne and on the Spanish frontier,

still amounting nominally to 114,000 men, besides 66,000 under Suchet in

Catalonia. Soult reached Bayonne on July 13, fortified it strongly, and

reorganised his troops with amazing energy, inspiriting them with a

warlike address in the well-known style of Napoleon's proclamations. On

the 25th he set his forces in motion, with the intention of crushing the

British right by a sudden irruption, and relieving Pamplona. He all but

achieved his object, for, by well-concerted and well-concealed

movements, he actually carried the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya, in

spite of a gallant resistance and the French troops were on the point of

pouring down the Pyrenees on the Spanish side, when Wellington arrived

at full speed from his position before St. Sebastian.

He was opportunely reinforced, and gave battle on the rugged heights in

front of Pamplona to a force numerically superior, but for the most part

charging uphill. Never, even at Bussaco, did the French show greater

ardour and _élan_ in attack, and it was only after a series of bloody

hand-to-hand combats on the summits and sides of the mountains that they

were compelled to recoil and rolled backward down the ridge. Baffled in

his attempt to relieve Pamplona, Soult turned westwards towards St.

Sebastian, but was anticipated by Wellington, and faced by three

divisions of Hill on his right. A second engagement followed, in which

the Portuguese earned the chief honours, and 3,000 prisoners were taken.

At last Soult gave orders for a retreat, and in the course of it was all

but entrapped in a narrow valley where he could not have escaped the

necessity of surrender. It is said that he was warned just in time by

the sudden intrusion of three British marauders in uniform; at all

events, he instantly changed his line of march, and ultimately led his

broken army back to France, but in the utmost confusion, and not without

fresh disasters. One of these befell Reille's division in the gorge of

Yanzi, and another the French rear-guard under Clausel, which defended

itself valiantly, but was driven headlong down the northern side of the

Pyrenees from which this series of battles derives its name.

The siege of St. Sebastian was immediately renewed with a far more

powerful battering train, but its defences had also been strengthened by

the indefatigable governor. The final assault took place on August 31,

and rivalled the storming of Badajoz in the murderous ferocity of the

_melée_ at the breaches, as well as in the horrors practised on the

inhabitants by the victorious assailants, which Wellington and Graham

vainly endeavoured to check. So desperate was the defence, and so

insuperable appeared the obstacles to an entrance by the breaches, that

Graham adopted the heroic expedient of causing his artillery to fire a

few feet only over the heads of the forlorn hope, until a clear opening

had been made, and deadly piles of combustibles had been exploded behind

the main breach, blowing into the air 300 of the garrison. A hideous

conflagration destroyed the greater part of the town. A few days later

the castle, to which the governor had retired, yielded to an

irresistible cannonade, and he surrendered at discretion with about

1,200 men. Several hundred wounded, including a large number of British

prisoners, were found there in the hospitals.

On the 30th, the day before St. Sebastian was stormed, Soult attempted a

diversion for its relief by crossing the Bidassoa, and on the following

day he engaged a large body of Spaniards at St. Marcial. On this

occasion Wellington held the British troops in reserve, and the

Spaniards without their aid defeated the French with great slaughter. So

ended a well-planned and well-executed effort to reconquer the Spanish

frontier. Pamplona was still untaken, and Suchet was still in Catalonia,

but no further offensive movement was undertaken by the French against

Spain. Both Soult and Wellington had shown remarkable powers of

generalship, and there was a moment when Soult might have snatched the

prize of victory by raising the siege of Pamplona. But his ultimate

success was hopeless, and his failure was complete. Before the fall of

St. Sebastian and the battle of St. Marcial, Wellington estimated the

French losses at 15,000 men, who could ill be spared in the interval

between Napoleon's last gleam of victory at Dresden and on his signal

defeat at Leipzig.

[Pageheading: _WELLINGTON ENTERS FRANCE._]

But the Peninsular war, in the historical sense, was not yet over.

During the summer of 1813 a mixed force of British, Germans, Spaniards,

and Sicilians had been carrying on an intermittent war against the

French under Suchet in the eastern provinces. Their commander, Sir John

Murray, who had allowed the beaten enemy to escape at Castalla, proved

equally irresolute in an attempt to capture Tarragona, countermanded the

assault, and re-embarked his troops on the approach of Suchet. Soon

afterwards he was superseded by Lord William Bentinck, and Suchet after

the battle of Vitoria was compelled to retire behind the Ebro. Bentinck

renewed the investment of Tarragona, but permitted Suchet without a

battle to relieve it, demolish its fortifications, and withdraw its

garrison at the end of August. An ill-judged advance of the British

general into Catalonia brought about another misfortune, and, upon the

whole, the series of operations conducted against Suchet were by no

means glorious to British arms or generalship, however important their

effect in preventing a large body of French veterans from reinforcing

Soult's army at a critical time in the Western Pyrenees. Wellington

himself inclined to complete the deliverance of Spain by clearing the

province of Catalonia of the invaders, but the British government,

having in view the prospect of crushing Napoleon in Germany, urged him

to undertake an immediate invasion of France. Accordingly he moved

forward on October 7, leaving Pamplona closely blockaded, threw his army

across the Bidassoa on the 8th by a stroke of masterly tactics, forced

the strong French lines on the north side of it, and established himself

on the enemy's soil. Before entering France he issued the most stringent

proclamations against plundering, which he enforced by the sternest

measures, and announced that he would not suffer the peaceful

inhabitants of France to be punished for the ambition of their ruler. On

the 31st the French garrison of Pamplona, despairing of relief,

surrendered as prisoners of war.

The prolonged defence of Pamplona gave Soult time to strengthen his

position on the Nivelle. The lines which he constructed rivalled those

of Torres Vedras, and the several actions by which they were at last

forced and turned were among the most desperate of the whole war. The

first was fought in the early part of November, and resulted in the

occupation by Wellington's army of the great mountain-barrier south of

Bayonne, with six miles of entrenchments along the Nivelle, and of the

port of St. Jean de Luz. A month later Wellington became anxious to

establish his winter-cantonments between the Nive and the Adour, partly

for strategical reasons, and partly in order to command a larger and

more fertile area for his supplies. On December 9, therefore, Hill with

the right wing forded the Nive and drove back the French left upon their

camp in front of Bayonne. Then followed three most obstinate combats on

the 10th, 11th and 13th, in which Soult took the offensive, with Bayonne

as the centre of his operations, and with the advantage of always moving

upon interior lines resting upon a strong fortress. In the first of

these attacks, he surprised and nearly succeeded in overwhelming the

British left, under Hope, now Sir John, before Wellington could bring

other divisions to its support. In the second, he fell suddenly on the

same troops, exhausted by fatigue, and still more or less isolated, but

they were rallied by Hope and Wellington in person, and remained masters

of the field. In the third he concentrated his whole strength upon the

British right under Hill, aided by a thick mist, and by a flood upon the

Nive, which swept away a bridge of boats, and separated Hill from the

rest of the army. Nevertheless, that able general, emulating the noble

example of Hope in the earlier encounters, succeeded in repelling

assault after assault, until Wellington himself appeared with

reinforcements of imposing strength, and converted a stubborn defence

into a victory.

The loss of the allies since crossing the Nive had exceeded 5,000; that

of the French was 6,000, besides 2,400 Germans who deserted to the

British during the night of the 9th in obedience to orders from home.

Ever since he assumed the command Soult had shown military ability of a

rare order. Bayonne, the base of all his operations, was indefensible

before he fortified it. A great proportion of his troops were raw

conscripts, or demoralised by defeat, before he inspired them with his

own courage and vigour. He was practically dependent for subsistence in

his own country on the very system of pillage which had roused a

patriotic frenzy of resentment in Spain and other lands ravaged by

French armies. He now stood at bay in the south of France, as Wellington

had so long stood at bay in Portugal, and continued there during the

early part of 1814 a defensive campaign not unworthy of comparison with

the prodigious exploits of Napoleon himself against the invaders of his

eastern provinces.

[Pageheading: _THE INVESTMENT OF BAYONNE._]

A respite of two months succeeded the battles on the Nive. During this

interval Wellington's difficulty in paying his troops was great, owing

to the enormous drain of specie from England into Central Europe. He was

further embarrassed by the appearance of the Duke of Angoulême, elder

son of Charles, Count of Artois, afterwards Charles X., at his

headquarters. The British government was by no means committed to a

restoration of the Bourbons, and Wellington deprecated the duke's

appearance as at least premature. He therefore insisted upon his

remaining incognito and as a non-combatant at St. Jean de Luz. Soult

was in great straits, not only because he was compelled to "make war

support war" by exorbitant requisitions upon the French peasantry, but

also because the exigencies of Napoleon were such that large drafts of

the best troops were drawn from the army of the south. When hostilities

were resumed in the middle of February, 1814, the Anglo-Portuguese and

Spanish force combined outnumbered the French by nearly five to three,

but Soult retained the decisive advantage of having a strong _point

d'appui_ in Bayonne at the confluence of the Nive and Adour. Careful

preparations were made by Wellington for throwing a large force across

the Lower Adour below Bayonne, in concert with a British fleet. Contrary

winds and a violent surf delayed the arrival of the British gunboats,

but on February 23 Hope sent over a body of his men on a raft of

pontoons in the face of the enemy's flotilla, with the aid of a brigade

armed with Congreve rockets, which had been first used at Leipzig, and

produced the utmost consternation in the French ranks. The gunboats soon

followed, but with the loss of one wrecked and others stranded in

crossing the bar. By the joint exertions of soldiers and sailors a

bridge was then constructed, by which Hope's entire army with artillery

passed over the river, and, two days afterwards, began the investment of

Bayonne.

Meanwhile, the centre and right wing, under the command of Wellington,

had forced a passage across the Upper Adour and threatened Bayonne on

the other side. Leaving a garrison of 6,000 men in Bayonne, Soult took

his stand at Orthez, with an army of about 40,000 men, on the summit of

a formidable ridge. Wellington attacked this ridge on the 27th, with a

force of nearly equal strength in three columns so disposed as to

converge from points several miles distant from each other. The veterans

of the French army, admirably handled, fought with tenacity, and all but

succeeded in foiling the attack before Wellington could bring up his

reserves. The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when

Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left,

Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight. The French loss

greatly exceeded the British, and was soon afterwards swelled by

wholesale desertions; the road to Bordeaux was thrown open, and the

royalist reaction against Napoleon, stimulated by the depredation of

the French troops, ripened into a general revolt.

Meanwhile, Napoleon had lost Germany by the battle of Leipzig; early in

1814 the allied armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had entered

France, and a congress was being held at Châtillon-sur-Seine, to

formulate, if possible, terms of peace. The city of Bordeaux was the

first to declare itself openly in favour of the Bourbons. Wellington

sent a large detachment to preserve order, with strict instructions to

Beresford, who commanded it, to remain neutral, in the event of Louis

XVIII. being proclaimed, pending the negotiations with Napoleon at

Châtillon. But the excitement of the people could not be restrained, and

the arrival of the Duke of Angoulême evoked a burst of royalist

enthusiasm which anticipated by a few weeks only the abdication of

Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The defection of Bordeaux forced Soult to

fall back rapidly on a very formidable position in front of Toulouse.

The British army followed in pursuit, encumbered with a great artillery

and pontoon train. After a lively action at Tarbes, it arrived in front

of Toulouse on March 27, to find the Garonne in flood, and the French

army strongly entrenched around the town, with a prospect of being

joined by 20,000 or 30,000 veterans, under Suchet, from Catalonia.

[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF TOULOUSE._]

The dispositions of Wellington, ending in the battle of Toulouse, on

April 10, have not escaped criticism. Hill, with two divisions and a

Spanish contingent, threw a bridge across the Garonne below Toulouse,

but discovered that he could make no progress in that direction, owing

to the impassable state of the roads. Beresford crossed the river with

18,000 men at another point, but a sudden flood broke up the pontoon

bridge in his rear, and he remained isolated for no less than four days,

exposed to an attack from Soult's whole army. Having missed this rare

opportunity, Soult calmly awaited the attack, with a force numerically

inferior, but with every advantage of position. On the 10th Wellington's

troops advanced in two columns, separated from each other by a perilous

interval of two miles. One of these, including Freyre's Spaniards and

Picton's division, was fairly driven back after furious attempts to

storm the ramparts of the fortified ridge held by the French. Beresford,

however, who in this battle combined generalship with brilliant

courage, restored the fortunes of the day by a dashing advance against

the redoubts on the French right. Having carried these he swept along

the ridge, which became untenable, and Soult withdrew his army within

his second line of defences. Two days later, seeing that Hill menaced

Toulouse on the other side, and fearing that if defeated again he would

lose his only line of retreat along the Carcassonne road, he evacuated

Toulouse by that route, leaving his magazines and hospitals in the hands

of the British army. By so doing he left to Wellington the honour and

prize of victory, but few victories have been so dearly bought, and the

loss in killed and wounded was actually greater on the side of the

victors than on that of the vanquished.

Toulouse received Wellington on the 12th with open arms, and as news

reached him on the same day announcing the proclamation of Louis XVIII.

at Paris, he no longer hesitated to assume the white cockade. Soult

loyally declined to accept the intelligence until it was officially

confirmed, when a military convention was made on the 18th, whereby a

boundary line was established between the two armies. Suchet had already

withdrawn from Spain, and at last recalled the garrisons from those

Spanish fortresses in which Napoleon had so obstinately locked up picked

troops which he sorely needed in his dire extremity. But on the 14th, a

week after Napoleon's abdication, the famous "sortie from Bayonne" took

place, in which each side lost 800 or 900 men, and Hope, wounded in two

places, was made prisoner. For this waste of life the governor of

Bayonne must be held responsible, since he was informed of the events at

Paris by Hope, and instead of awaiting official confirmation, like

Soult, chose to risk the issue of a night combat, which must needs be

deadly and could not be decisive.

Thus ended the Peninsular war. This war on the British side has seldom

been surpassed in the steady adherence to a settled purpose, through

years of discouragement and failure, maintained by the general whose

name it has made immortal. Neither his strategy nor his tactical skill

was always faultless; and afterwards in comparing himself with Soult, he

is reported to have said, that he often got into scrapes, but was

extricated by the valour of his army, whereas Soult, when he got into a

scrape, had no such men to get him out of it. However this might be,

Wellington's foresight in appreciating the place to be filled by the

Peninsular war in the overthrow of Napoleon's domination, and his truly

heroic constancy in striving to realise his own idea will ever

constitute his best claim to greatness. No other man in England or in

Europe discerned as he did, that with Portugal independent and guarded

by the power of Great Britain on its western coast and its eastern

frontier, the permanent conquest of Spain by the French would become

impossible. No one else saw beforehand, what Napoleon discovered too

late, that a war in Portugal and Spain would drain the life-blood of his

invincible hosts, and at length help towards the invasion of France

itself. No other general would have shown equal statesmanship in

managing Spanish juntas and controlling even Spanish guerillas, or equal

forbearance in sparing the French people the evils which a victorious

army might have inflicted upon them.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (3rd edition), i., 123.

[43] For Moore's campaign see Napier, _Peninsular War_, i., pp.

xxi.-xxv., lvii.-lxxvi., 330-44, 431-542, and Oman, _Peninsular War_,

i., 486-602; and compare Moore's _Diary_, edited by Maurice, ii.,

272-398. Sir F. Maurice has not completely answered Professor Oman's

criticisms.

[44] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 261-63 (March 7, 1809).

[45] For the exact figures see Oman, _Peninsular War_, ii., 645-48.

[46] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 536 (July 29, 1809).

[47] For Masséna's lines of march see T. J. Andrews in _English

Historical Review_, xvi. (1901), 474-92.

[48] The battle is picturesquely described by Napier, _Peninsular War_,

iii., 536-66. See also _ibid._, pp. xxxv.-li.

[49] Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii., 318-19.

[50] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (first edition), v., 513.

[51] Wellington, _Dispatches_, x., 473 (June 29, 1813).

[52] _Ibid._, x., 519 (July 9, 1813).