THE FRENCH IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL--BRITISH TO THE
RESCUE--SIR ARTHUR--SIR JOHN MOORE--SPLENDID
GENERALSHIP OF NAPOLEON.
Bold Bonaparte--for bold as well as wicked he was--commanded Portugal
to declare war against England, and to confiscate all British
property she could lay her hands on. The first part of this order
Portugal did not mind obeying, but the last she would not comply
with. Perhaps she feared reprisals.
Now this refusal was just what Napoleon had wished for. Fact is, he
wanted to add Portugal to his own territory.
So now he recalled his ambassador from Lisbon, and marched Junot
right away down at the head of a large army.
The Royal Family fled when this army drew near, all their valuables
being already on board ship. This was what the Scourge of Europe
called a reprisal for our having taken the Danish fleet.
If Bonaparte's real aims were not at first suspected by Spain, they
very soon became apparent enough. He had established himself at the
head of the Portuguese Government, but Spain, after all, was the big
target he was aiming at.
The Queen of Spain and her head minister expected that Napoleon would
clear out of Spain, having taken Portugal. Napoleon had no such
intention. Now the Queen had a husband, King Charles IV., but he was
a mere noodle, and did not count. She also had a son, Ferdinand, who
was, for various reasons, at enmity with her. It was put into this
noodle-king's head that his son wanted to usurp his throne, and he
wrote a simple letter to Bonaparte, telling him that Ferdinand and
his accomplices had been put under arrest, and would be tried and
excluded from the succession.
This was really playing into Napoleon's hand, who seized the pretext
of throwing a great army on the border, nominally to protect the
royal rights of Ferdinand, the Crown Prince. This army entered Spain
in the end of December, 1807, and the Spaniards welcomed it with joy.
At last they would be delivered from the thraldom of the hated
minister and the Queen.
Meanwhile Ferdinand and his father became friendly.
The French army continued to march south and south, and one way or
another got hold of the frontier fortresses. Then they marched
towards Madrid itself, and the terrified King abdicated in favour of
his son Ferdinand.
To make a long story short, the Spaniards at length discovered--when
too late--what sort of a man they had to deal with. Riots broke out
in Madrid, and Frenchmen to the number of about a hundred were killed.
Murat, who commanded the army of occupation, exacted a terrible
vengeance on the unfortunate insurgents. They were driven into the
square, and, while they tried to defend themselves as brave men will,
they were slain by repeated charges of Murat's horse. When they laid
down their arms they were shot in cold blood.
The wolf Napoleon now threw off the sheepskin, and it ended in both
the King and his son being exiled.
But the wolf had still to deal with the patriotic and brave
people--patriotic to a degree. This people rose _en masse_, and a
war of independence was proclaimed by the Spaniards against the
invader, from end to end of their ancient and heroic land.
* * * * *
The noble struggle of Spain and Portugal for freedom forms one of the
romantic dramas in the history of this nineteenth century.
I wish it were mine to tell my readers the whole sad and glorious
story, not in the ponderous English that historians deem it the
correct thing to use, but in language---simple, terse, and plain, yet
pleasant--that even a boy might read.
I do not wonder at my grandfather saying to me so often, "O laddie,
war is a terrible, terrible thing." I was but a child then, and
could only see the glory-side of war.
What a fiend in human form the French General Loison must have been!
At Evora, we are told,* "he acted like the lowest bandit. He robbed
the convents with his own hands. He ransacked the bishop's library,
with some of his officers, to discover concealed valuables behind the
books, tore off the gold and silver clasps, and, on finding but
little treasure, destroyed piles of valuable manuscripts. They took
away gold and silver coins out of the cabinet of medals, and the
jewels that adorned statues and relics, and Loison even filched the
archbishop's ring from his table.
* CASSELL'S _History of England_.
"Never was there a nation, calling itself civilized, which so
universally carried robbery and licentiousness into the countries
which they wantonly invaded."
But while Loison was carrying on thus at Evora, another officer,
called Margaron, was butchering the inhabitants of Leiria.
There they not only killed all they could find--men, women, and
children--but even tore open the graves in search of pillage.
In fact, wherever the French appeared, they appeared as agents of
lust, rapine, and destruction; and the peasantry, roused by their
conduct to a fury of vengeance, fell on them wherever they could find
them, and massacred them without mercy.
But the hour of retribution was at hand.
Probably, reader, being more used to fighting, the people of these
islands were more courageous then than they are now.
In these days, we can hear the screams and wails of men, women, and
children, as they are murdered wholesale in Christian Armenia,
without even dreaming of going to assist them. Their heart-rending
appeals arouse in us not half the sympathy that the pitiful squeals
of a pig being slaughtered do.
But in those sad days the people of these islands responded to the
cry of Spaniards and Portuguese at once.
They would make no more war in either country, but do their best by
sea and land to extinguish the terrible fire-brand Napoleon, who had
set the whole of Europe in a blaze.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, who became afterwards the great and famous Duke
of Wellington, arrived at Corunna, and concerning his doings and
successes there against the French I must refer you to history.
But Sir Arthur was a soldier born, if ever there was one. It was not
simply that he was brave, which he was. A savage may be brave, and
generally is. This general possessed tact and the genius of
painstaking. Had we been as careful with our commissariat during the
Crimean war as Wellesley was with his, our poor troops would not have
died like rotten sheep, succumbing to cold and hunger and disease.
* * * * *
The happy life that my grandfather had led for many months had all
too soon to come to an end. Leonora and he must bid each other
farewell--a long and eternal farewell, it might be. He was going to
take part in the great Peninsular war, and do his duty as no one
doubted for a moment that he would.
So Leonora once more took up her abode with her mother in the cosy
little cottage at Booterstown, and John, her hero, went away to fight
the French.
From his great intimacy with Wellesley's private as From his great
intimacy with Wellesley's private as well as public character, I
think my grandfather must have served for a time under him. Never
could there have been a stricter officer than this general. Yet for
all that he was trusted and beloved by his men, whom he so often led
to battle and to victory.
It is with Sir John Moore's expedition, however, we have at present
most to do.
This brave general had been ordered to advance with his 20,000 men
into Spain as far as Burgos, and there assist the armies to expel the
French. They were, he was given to understand, to receive, later on,
a reinforcement of 10,000 men, then sailing from England to take part
in this unhappy war.
This was in October, 1808.
In the following mouth Napoleon himself crossed the Pyrenees. The
Spaniards had been so far victorious during the previous summer that
they had compelled the enemy to fall back upon and cross the river
Ebro.
Napoleon considered that he himself alone was equal to a whole army,
and there is no doubt this was true enough.
The beaten forces that he would now join lay between the Pyrenees and
the Ebro. He would soon change the tune of the haughty Spaniards,
penetrate the centre of their army and defences, hurl it to right and
to left of him, then advance in a bee-line to Burgos and Madrid
itself.
As an example of what the great game of war is, I may instance
Napoleon's advance upon Burgos. No doubt he had spies everywhere,
and knew where the Spanish armies lay as well as they did themselves.
As in the simple game of draughts, so in the game of war, you must
think ahead. You must think, as it were, with your opponent's mind.
"If I move there," you will say, "what will my opponent do, and what
will be the consequence?"
Napoleon said to himself, "As soon as I reach Vittoria, General
Blake, with the left wing of the Spanish army, will move from the
Ebro, and try to outflank me and cut me off from the Pyrenees. I
hope he will."
Blake did, and marched eastwards.
Had he gone far enough, or so far as to lose his line of retreat, he
would have been surrounded by the French, and his army massacred to a
man.
Luckily for him, the French themselves attacked too soon, and
although Blake was badly beaten at Espinosa, on the upper waters of
the Ebro, he was able to retreat with his sadly beaten forces into
the mountains of Asturias.
Marshal Soult, the great French general, now charged the centre of
the Spanish lines. The battle was bloody while it lasted, but
victory fell to Soult, and Burgos was captured.
General Ney was next despatched to attack the remainder of the
Spanish forces that, like a new broom, were to have swept the enemy
clean out of Spain.
On the 4th of December Napoleon captured Madrid itself.
The Emperor of the French had therefore carried out his little
programme with beautiful tact and precision and completely destroyed
the great Spanish line of defence long before it could be reinforced
by British troops.
Having read so far, you will easily understand the why and the
wherefore of Sir John Moore's unfortunate campaign.
To begin with, this expedition of Moore's was at least a month too
late in starting, and it had difficulties to contend with from the
very first, that were almost insurmountable.
Probably Sir Arthur Wellesley might have made a quicker and more
dashing march, and a better-conducted one. As it was, when Sir John
started from Lisbon he found that he could not procure sufficient
conveyances for his baggage and impedimenta, so that these had to be
cut down to the lowest figure.
Many of the women and children were left behind. It was the custom
in those days to permit the most deserving soldiers' wives to
accompany their husbands, a custom that we nowadays cannot but marvel
at. Women on the war-path make the worst of all species of baggage.
The army was ordered to pay the utmost respect to the people, and to
treat none of their ways and customs with anything like disdain.
The next difficulty was that of provisions. This caused much trouble
and delay, because the French had harried the country through which
they must pass.
The army then had to advance in divisions and by different routes.
The weather was rainy--wet and bad. The roads were in a fearful
condition to drag artillery over, or even for men to march through.
It was not until the 11th of November that Sir John managed to drag
his army across the frontier and reach Ciudad Rodrigo. Two days
after this he entered Salamanca.
At Salamanca Sir John Moore had to make a halt, for two reasons.
First, owing to the abominable condition of the roads, he had been
obliged to send the most of his artillery round by Elvas, and he must
here wait till they joined. Secondly, he had to wait for the
reinforcements which, after innumerable delays, had been permitted to
land at Corunna. These were the 10,000 men under Baird, including
those of the Royals my grandfather was attached to, and which also
included the 42nd--the "gallant Forty-twa."
Ill-luck seemed to cloud, then, this expedition from the very first.
Sir John had expected that he would speedily join the already
victorious armies of Spain, and assist in sweeping the French back
across the Pyrenees. Where were those armies? With what or whom was
he to co-operate?
But he could get no correct information. The Spanish Junta were
taking it easy. They vainly imagined that they hardly now required
the assistance of the British. Were their own victorious troops not
lying defensively on the frontiers? Were not these able to overthrow
the French?
How little they knew the French, or rather Napoleon.
At Salamanca Sir John Moore seemed to be completely befogged, and the
state of his mind at this time was certainly not an enviable one.
Just think of it for a moment, reader. The French were within twenty
leagues of him, having captured--so he was told--Valladolid.
Mr. John Hookham Frere at this time--worse luck--was ambassador at
Madrid. From him poor Sir John Moore could get no information. Sir
David Baird had not got away from Corunna, and Sir John Hope had not
yet got past Madrid with the guns. In fact Moore was isolated.