 
FOOTNOTES [1] I need only mention the diaries of Sir Harry Smith, Blakeney, Shaw, and Tomkinson on our side, and Foy’s private diary and the Memoirs of Fantin des Odoards, St. Chamans, and ThiÉbault on the French. [2] He works out the idea in his letter to Talleyrand of May 16, 1806. [3] Such is the main thesis of chapter I of Napier’s Peninsular War. [4] It is curious to note how often the name of Charlemagne occurs in Napoleon’s letters during the early months of 1806. It is especially common in his correspondence about the relations of the Papacy and the Empire. [5] The negotiations for the Confederation were completed in July, and it was formally constituted on Aug. 1, 1806. [6] See, for example, the very interesting story told by Marshal Jourdan in his MÉmoires (p. 9) of the long conversation which the emperor had with him at Verona on June 16, 1805: ‘Tant pour l’affermissement de ma dynastie que pour la sÛretÉ de France,’ concluded Napoleon, ‘un Bourbon sur le trÔne d’Espagne est un voisin trop dangereux.’ [7] For the full text of this bombastic appeal see Appendix, No. I. Godoy speaks throughout in his own name, not in that of his master. [8] ‘Je jurai dÈs lors qu’ils me la paieraient, que je les mettrais hors d’État de me nuire,’ said Napoleon to De Pradt, eighteen months later (MÉmoires sur la RÉvolution d’Espagne, p. 16). The archbishop’s story is amply borne out by the repeated allusions to this unhappy proclamation in Napoleon’s official justification of his conduct in Spain. The Spanish ambassador at Berlin, Don Benito Pardo, was told by Napoleon at the time that he had forgiven the Proclamation, but could not forget it. [9] Correspondance de NapolÉon, xxxii. 59. [10] The demand was made in the most peremptory fashion, and in almost threatening language. Napoleon writes to Talleyrand that the Spanish division in Tuscany, which was to form part of the expeditionary corps, must march in twenty-four hours after receiving its orders. ‘If they refuse, everything is at an end,’ a most sinister phrase (Napoleon to Talleyrand, March 25, 1807). [11] This was Article IV of the Seven ‘Secret Articles’ of the Treaty of Tilsit. See for this proposal the notes in Vandal’s NapolÉon et Alexandre Ier, vol. i. [12] The first notice of the ‘Corps of Observation of the Gironde’ is to be found in a dispatch of Masserano, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, dated July 30, which gives notice of the approaching concentration at Bayonne. But the quiet movement of troops in this direction had begun long before the Russian war was over. [13] Talleyrand declares in his MÉmoires (i. 349) that Napoleon kept Champagny, his own minister of foreign affairs, in equal darkness. [14] See the text in Appendix, No. II. [15] In the curious exculpatory memoirs which Godoy published in 1835-6, with the aid of d’EsmÉnard, he endeavours to make out that he never desired the principality, and that Napoleon pressed it upon him, because he wished to remove him from about the person of Charles IV. ‘The gift of the principality of the Algarves was a banishment’ (i. 54). This plea will not stand in the face of the fact that Godoy had solicited just such preferment as far back as the spring of 1806; see Arteche, Guerra de la Independencia, i. 148. His real object was to secure a place of refuge at the death of Charles IV. [16] ‘Le Prince de la Paix, vÉritable maire du palais, est en horreur À la nation. C’est un gredin qui m’ouvrira lui-mÊme les portes de l’Espagne’ (FouchÉ, MÉmoires, i. 365). [17] Talleyrand, MÉmoires, i. 308-329. [18] Ibid., i. 378, 379. [19] The princes that occur in Spanish politics, e.g. Eboli or Castelfranco, were holders of Italian, generally Neapolitan, titles. [20] Foy, Guerre de la PÉninsule, ii. 267. [21] See the proofs from papers in the Spanish Foreign Office, quoted in Arteche’s Guerra de la Independencia, i. 148. [22] ToreÑo, i. 86. The story is confirmed by Savary, in his MÉmoires, ii. 221. [23] That Escoiquiz was a clever man, and not the mere intriguer that he is often called, is (I think) shown not only by the impression which he made upon Napoleon (who called him, in jest, le petit XimÉnÈs) and on De Pradt at Bayonne, but still more by his work, the Conversation avec NapolÉon. If he invented it, he must have been a genius, so well has he caught the Emperor’s style; if he only reproduced it he was at least an admirable and picturesque reporter. [24] Observe ‘Papa Mio’ instead of ‘Padre Mio.’ The Spanish text I have printed as Appendix 3 of this volume. Some say that Godoy dictated the wording of the letter, and did not merely insist that a letter of some sort must be written to secure a pardon. In any case the terms were such as no self-respecting person could have signed. The sentence ‘pido À V. M. me perdone por haberle mentido la otra noche,’ the most vile in the whole composition, are omitted by the courtly De Pradt when he translates it into French. [25] There is a very black underplot in the story of Baron Colli. When he was caught the French police sent a spy with his credentials to ValenÇay, to see how far the persons about Ferdinand could be induced to compromise themselves. But the prince’s terror, and abject delation of the supposed baron, stopped further proceedings. [26] Godoy had the impudence to propose to the prince that he should marry Donna Luisa, the younger sister of his own unfortunate wife, and the cousin of the King. Ferdinand found courage to refuse this alliance. [27] The intrigues of Escoiquiz had begun as early as March, 1807, the month in which the letters to the King against Godoy were drafted. The negotiation with Beauharnais began in June. These dates are strongly against the idea that Bonaparte was at the bottom of the whole affair; his hand does not appear till July-August. Indeed he was far away in Eastern Germany when Escoiquiz began his interviews with the ambassador. [28] The manuscript of this decree was in the handwriting of Godoy himself. [29] Cf. Foy and ToreÑo, who agree on this point. Napoleon insinuates as much in his letter to Ferdinand of April 16, 1808: ‘I flatter myself that I contributed by my representations to the happy ending of the affair of the Escurial’ (Nap. Corresp., 13,750). [30] Las Cases, ii. 206. [31] Composed of 6,500 men under General Taranco, marching from Vigo. [32] Composed of 9,500 men under Solano, Captain-General of Andalusia, and marching from Badajoz. [33] Composed of 9,500 men under Caraffa. [34] It is impossible to doubt that Napoleon’s scheme was already in progress as early as October. On Nov. 13 he sent orders for the secret arming and provisioning of all the frontier fortresses of France (Nap. Corresp., 13,343). On Nov. 24 he directed his chamberlain, De Tournon, to spy out the condition of Pampeluna and the other Spanish border strongholds, and to discover the exact distribution of the Spanish army (13,354). Such moves could have but one meaning. [35] Note on this point Talleyrand’s MÉmoires, i. 333, and Nap. Corresp., 13,402 (Napoleon to Joseph Bonaparte, Dec. 17, 1807). [36] In Nap. Corresp., 13,588, will be found the orders to General D’Armagnac to get possession of the citadel by menaces if he can, but if he cannot, by the actual use of force. ‘S’il arrivait que le commandant-gÉnÉral de Navarre se refusÂt À rendre la citadelle, vous employeriez les troupes du MarÉchal Moncey pour l’y forcer.’ [37] It will hardly be believed that Napier, in his blind reverence for Napoleon, omits to give any details concerning the seizure of the fortresses, merely saying that they were ‘taken by various artifices’ (i. 13). It is the particulars which are scandalous as well as the mere fact. [38] Memoirs of Godoy, i. 122. Cf. Arteche, i. 251. [39] That Murat did not dream of the Spanish crown is, I think, fairly well demonstrated by his descendant, Count Murat, in his useful Murat, Lieutenant de l’Empereur en Espagne (1897). But that after once reading the dispatches, Nap. Corresp., 13,588 and 13,589, he failed to see that his brother-in-law’s intention was to seize Spain, is impossible. [40] See the letters of March 22-7 in ToreÑo, Appendix, i. 436-45. [41] Letter of March 27, in ToreÑo, Appendix, i. 441. [42] Ibid., p. 436. [43] Letter of March 26 in ToreÑo, i. 439. [44] The Protest of Charles IV will be found printed in Appendix No. 4. [45] Nap. Corresp., xvi. 500; see also in Documents historiques, publiÉs par Louis Bonaparte (Paris, 1829), ii. 290. [46] It is scarcely necessary to say that the letter which Napoleon is said to have sent Murat on March 29, and which is printed in the MÉmorial de Ste-HÉlÈne, is (as Lanfrey and Count Murat have shown) a forgery composed by Napoleon himself long after. It is quite inconsistent with the offer to Louis Bonaparte, and with other letters to Murat of the same week. [47] It is said that they afterwards turned out to be full of smuggled goods, a private speculation of Savary or his underlings. [48] Savary, in his mendacious autobiography, denies that he persuaded Ferdinand to start for Bayonne. But he is refuted by two contemporary documents. The young king, in his letter of adieu to his father, states that Savary has convinced him of the necessity of going; while Murat in a dispatch to Bonaparte says that ‘Savary has in no small degree contributed to induce the new court to quit Madrid’ [April 8]. [49] For Don Antonio’s habits we have on Talleyrand’s authority some very curious stories. He spent most of his time of captivity at ValenÇay sitting in the library, mutilating illustrated books with his scissors, not to make a scrap-book, but to destroy any engravings that sinned against morals or religion! [50] Cevallos, p. 36. [51] It was the Duke of Infantado who made this exclamation. See Urquijo’s letter to Cuesta in Llorente’s collection of papers on the Bayonne business. [52] Escoiquiz, p. 318. Every student of Napoleon should read the whole of the wonderful dialogue between the Emperor and the Canon of Toledo. [53] Napoleon to Talleyrand, May 6, 1808. [54] Of this interview we have the version of Napoleon himself in a dispatch to Murat, dated May 1; another by Cevallos, Ferdinand’s minister; a third by De Pradt (afterwards Archbishop of Mechlin), then present at Bayonne. [55] Dispatch to Murat of May 5. [56] ‘Prince, il faut opter entre la cession et la mort’ (Cevallos, p. 60). [57] ToreÑo, Appendix, i. 466, 467. [58] The third prisoner was Ferdinand’s uncle, Don Antonio. [59] This letter, eliminated by the editors of the Correspondance de NapolÉon, may be found in Lecestre, Lettres inÉdites de NapolÉon I, i. p. 207. [60] Napoleon, disapproving of Murat’s action on this point, committed himself to two astounding historical statements. ‘Why trouble about the sword,’ he wrote; ‘Francis I was a Bourbon [!] and he was taken by the Italians, not the Spaniards’ [!!] (Nap. Corresp., 13,724). [61] Murat to Napoleon, April 22. [62] Napoleon to Murat, April 26. [63] Murat to Napoleon, April 30. [64] Ibarnavarro’s story, written down by himself on September 27, 1808, can be found printed in full on pp. 457-9 of the Appendix to ToreÑo’s first volume. [65] For a specimen see the document on p. 462 of Count Murat’s Murat en Espagne (Paris, 1897). [66] Napier (i. 15) says that Daoiz and Velarde were ‘in a state of excitement from drink,’ a disgraceful French calumny. How could he bear to reproduce such a libel on these unfortunate officers? [67] The Junta, to soothe the feelings of Madrid, gave out that only 150 Spaniards had fallen. The Moniteur said that 2,000 criminals had been cut down or executed! Murat reported a loss of eighty men only, while Napier says that he has excellent French authority and eye-witnesses to the effect that 750 fell. [68] Proclamations of May 2 and 3: there are originals in the Vaughan Papers. [69] The bad cross-roads Cuenca-Teruel and Molina-Teruel hardly count. [70] He said this to De Pradt (RÉvolutions d’Espagne, p. 224). [72] The minister O’Farrill and General Kindelan were the chief exceptions. [73] So called because it was originally supposed to take the fifth man. [74] The successful and opportune charge of the regimiento del Rey at Talavera was about the only case which ever came under English eyes. [75] Napoleon had an ideal proportion of five guns per 1,000 men. But, as we shall show in the next chapter, while dealing with the French armies, he never succeeded in reaching anything like this standard in the Peninsula. Yet his opponents were always worse off. [76] These last were the rear battalions of the unfortunate Portuguese legion which was in march for the Baltic; they were still on this side of the Pyrenees when the war began, and were hastily utilized against Saragossa. [77] French generals were much addicted to the pernicious practice of massing the grenadier companies of all the regiments of a division, or an army corps, in order to make a picked battalion or brigade, to be used as a reserve. Junot had four such battalions (grenadiers rÉunis) at Vimiero, and Victor three at Barossa. [78] To take a later example, of the three corps d’armÉe (II, VI, VIII) with which MassÉna invaded Portugal in 1810, there were only three regiments with four battalions present; while seventeen had three, eight had two, and ten a single battalion only. [79] Nodier, Souvenirs de la RÉvolution, ii. 233-5. [80] In the campaign of 1810 the 26th, 66th, and 82nd regiments in MassÉna’s army had 5th and 6th battalions in the field. [81] This was done on July 7 (see Nap. Corresp., 14,164). Nos. 1 and 2 became the 114th of the line, 3 and 4 the 115th, 5 and 6 the 116th, 7 and 8 the 33rd lÉger, 9 and 10 the 117th, 11 the 118th, 13 and 14 the 119th, 17 and 18 the 120th. When the 6th, 7th, and 8th were captured at Baylen, new conscripts had to be brought from France to complete the 116th and replace the 33rd lÉger. [82] See Rousset’s excellent La Grande ArmÉe de 1813. [83] The most distinguished of these was the 13th Cuirassiers, a regiment of new formation, which served throughout the war in Aragon and Catalonia, and was by far the best of Suchet’s mounted corps. For its achievements the reader may be referred to the interesting MÉmoires of Colonel de Gonneville. [84] In MassÉna’s army of 1810 the largest cavalry regiment (25th Dragoons) had 650 men. In Suchet’s army in the same year there was one exceptionally strong regiment (4th Hussars) with 759 sabres. [85] The 2nd Provisional Dragoons of Moncey’s corps had no less than 872 men in June, 1808. [86] In this case the low proportion was due to want of horses, not to bad roads. Even the forty-two guns were only produced when BessiÈres had lent MassÉna many teams. [87] I take these figures respectively from ThiÉbault, Fririon, LapÈne, Le Clerc, and Rousset. [88] Diary of Foy, in Girod de l’Ain’s Vie Militaire du GÉnÉral Foy, p. 98. [89] The reader who wishes to see a logical explanation of the phenomenon may find it in the remarks of the Spanish Colonel Moscoso (1812) in Arteche, ii. 394. He explains that the skirmishing line of his compatriots was always too thin to keep back the tirailleurs. The latter invariably pushed their way close up to the Spanish main body, and while presenting in their scattered formation no definite mark for volleys, were yet numerous enough to shoot down so many of their opponents as to shake the Spanish formation before the columns in the rear came up. [90] e.g. Brunswick-Oels and the Chasseurs Britanniques. [91] See Blakeney, A Boy in the Peninsular War, edited by Sturges (1899), pp. 189, 190, for an account of this bloody episode. [92] The reader who is curious as to details of actual bayonet-fighting may consult Grattan for the 88th, and the anonymous ‘T.S.’ of the 71st for Fuentes d’OÑoro, and Steevens of the 20th for Roncesvalles. The charge of Tovey’s company of the latter corps, on the last-mentioned occasion, much resembled one of the incidents of Inkerman. [93] See Foy’s diary in Girod de l’Ain, p. 277. [94] Letter to Lord William Russell, July 31, 1826. [95] Foy, i. 288-90. [96] Foy, i. 296. [97] It was usual to supplement the meagre supply of engineers by officers who volunteered from the line. [98] There were only the ‘Royal Military Artificers’ in very small numbers. The rank and file of the engineer corps did not yet exist. [99] Murat to Napoleon, May 18. [101] It is astonishing to find that Napier (i. 114) expressly denies that Cordova was sacked. Foy (iii. 231), the best of the French historians, acknowledges that ‘unarmed civilians were shot, churches and houses sacked, and scenes of horror enacted such as had not been seen since the Christian drove out the Moor in 1236.’ Captain Baste, the best narrator among French eye-witnesses, speaks of assassination, general pillage, and systematic rape. Cabany, Dupont’s laudatory biographer, confesses (p. 89) to drunkenness and deplorable excesses, and allows that Dupont distributed 300,000 francs as a ‘gratification’ among his general officers. Many of the details given above are derived from the official narrative of the Cordovan municipal authorities printed in the Madrid Gazette. [102] Foy, iii. 233. Cabany (p. 96), on the other hand, says that he was sawn in two between planks. Gille, in his MÉmoires d’un Conscrit de 1808 (p. 85), gives other distressing details. [103] Cuenca lies twenty-five miles off the main Madrid-Valencia road, well to the north of it. [104] Moncey’s delay of a week at Cuenca provoked Savary (now acting for the invalided Murat) to such an extent, that he sent forward the cavalry-general Excelmans, nominally to take charge of Moncey’s vanguard, really to spur the cautious marshal on to action. But Excelmans was captured on the way by peasants, and sent a prisoner to Valencia. [105] Moncey induced a good many of these mercenaries to take service with him; but they deserted him when the time of trouble began. [106] Arteche, Guerra de la Independencia, ii. 150. [107] But only 1,500 were regulars; the rest were newly incorporated levies. [108] Foy, generally a very fair calculator of French casualties, gives the marshal’s losses at 2,000 men in all, which seems rather a high figure. Napier (i. 95) says that he had 800 wounded to carry, which supposes a total loss of 1,100 or 1,200. Thiers’ estimate of 300 is as obviously absurd as most of the other figures given by that historian. No such loss would have stopped a French army—even an army of conscripts. [109] ‘Provincial of Laredo,’ 571 bayonets. [110] They were a battalion each of the 15th, 47th, and 70th of the line, all old troops, and the 2nd ‘Supplementary Regiment of the legions of Reserve,’ two battalions strong, with a regiment of Polish lancers and the 5th escadron de marche. [111] The 1st regiment of the Vistula (two batts.) and the 6th bataillon de marche. [112] Palafox has been so often abused that I take the opportunity of quoting the description of him given by Sir Charles Vaughan, one of the three or four Englishmen who saw him at Saragossa in the day of his power, and the only one who has left his impressions on record. He lived with Palafox for some five weeks in October-November, 1808. ‘This distinguished nobleman is about thirty-four years of age [an overstatement by six years]; his person is of middling stature, his eyes lively and expressive, and his whole deportment that of a perfectly well-bred man. In private life, so far as my daily intercourse gave me an opportunity of judging, his manners were kind, unaffected, and ingratiating. From the great readiness with which he dispatched business, and from the letters and public papers which were written by him with apparent great ease in my presence, I was led to form a very favourable opinion of his talents. There was a quickness in his manner of seizing objects, an impatience until they were accomplished. He was fond of talking of the events of the siege, and anxious to introduce to us men of every class who had distinguished themselves. There was a vivacity in his manner and conversation, an activity in his exertions as an officer, that is rarely met in a Spaniard. It was always a most cheering and interesting thing to ride with him through the streets of Saragossa. The joy and exultation of the people as he passed evidently sprung from the heart. To have acquitted himself to their satisfaction was no mean reward, and forms a sufficient answer to all the unworthy attempts (which I have been disgusted to witness) to depreciate his character’ (Vaughan Papers, from an unpublished journal of 1808). [113] Napier is always hard on Spanish officers and administrators, but I think that of the whole class Palafox receives the most undeserved contumely from his pen. He holds him to have been a mere puppet, whose strings were pulled by obscure Saragossan demagogues like the celebrated Tio Jorge. He even doubts his personal courage. Both Spanish and French historians unite in taking the Captain-general quite seriously, and I think they are right. His best testimonial is the harsh and vindictive treatment that he received at Napoleon’s hands. [114] The chief of these buildings inserted in the wall were the convents or Santa Engracia and the Misericordia, and the cavalry barracks. [115] That Palafox and those about him despaired of the defence is honestly confessed in the Marquis de Lazan’s CampaÑa del verano de 1808. He and his brother ‘had not believed that an open town defended by untrained peasants could defend itself,’ and the news of Lefebvre’s first repulse astonished as much as it pleased them. [116] The Spaniards have called this first attack on Saragossa the action of the Eras del Rey, the name of the meadows outside the Portillo and Carmen gates, in which the French columns massed themselves for the attack. [117] He called them the ‘Regiment of Ferdinand VII,’ and the ‘Second Regiment of the kingdom of Aragon.’ [118] They belonged to the 14th Provisional Regiment, and the accompanying corps were the 4th and 7th bataillons de marche. [119] 3rd Regiment of the Vistula. [120] 3rd, 6th, and 9th escadrons de marche. [121] The Regiment of Estremadura was so weak at the outbreak of hostilities that its three battalions had only 770 men. It had been hastily brought up to 900 bayonets before entering the city. [122] His name was Vincente Falco; he belonged to the artillery. [123] Sir Charles Vaughan was introduced to the heroine by Palafox while he was staying in Saragossa in October. He describes her as ‘a handsome young woman of the lower class,’ and says that when he met her she was wearing on her sleeve a small shield of honour with the name ‘Zaragoza’ inscribed on it. The fact that the dead sergeant was her lover is given by Palafox in his short narrative of the siege, which ought to be a good authority enough. [124] Napier, with all his prejudice against the Spaniards, does not venture to absolutely reject the story. ‘Romantic tales of women rallying the troops and leading them forward at the most dangerous period of the siege were current; their truth may be doubted. Yet when suddenly environed with horrors, the sensitiveness of women, driving them to a kind of frenzy, might have produced actions above the heroism of men’ (i. 45). W. Jacob, M.P., in his Travels in the South of Spain in 1809-10 (p. 123), says that he met Agostina at Seville, wearing a blue artillery tunic, with one epaulette, over a short skirt; she was present when Lord Wellesley entered Seville, and was welcomed by the Junta. [125] Foy exaggerates considerably when he says that from July 12 onward ‘the blockade of Saragossa was complete’ (iii. 300). Reinforcements entered on several subsequent occasions. [126] Caballero and ToreÑo put the distressing scenes at the hospital and the escape of the lunatics during the assault on the 4th, but Arteche seems more correct in placing them during the bombardment of the preceding day. [127] I find in the Vaughan Papers the following note: ‘General Lefebvre-Desnouettes was residing at Cheltenham on parole, having been taken prisoner at Benavente by Lord Paget. I went to Cheltenham on May 27, 1809, for the express purpose of seeing the general. He told me that he had advanced at first with no more than 3,000 men, but that after General Verdier joined him, the French force employed against Saragossa was 15,000 men. I understood that in the attack of July 2 and the previous fighting they lost 2,000 men, and that their total loss in the whole siege was 4,000, including three generals wounded.’ Nap. Corresp. (xvii. 389, 426) calls the whole force before Saragossa on August 2, 17,300 men. But there seems to have been present in all only—
These are mainly Belmas’s figures. He mentions a battalion of the 16th of the line as present at the great assault. There must be some error here, as that regiment was not in Spain. It is probably a misprint for the 70th of the line, which is not mentioned by him as present, though it certainly was so. [128] The story sounds theatrical, but is vouched for by good authorities, Vaughan and Palafox himself, who chose the words for the type of the reverse of the medal that was issued to the defenders of Saragossa (see Arteche, ii. 394). [129] Napier maintains (i. 45) that the city was saved only because the French fell to pillaging, a contention which seems very unjust to the Saragossans. [130] Perhaps his name, Fray Ignacio de Santaromana, deserves as much remembrance as that of Agostina. His conduct in a critical moment was just as inspiring and told as much as hers (see Arteche, ii. 406). [131] Arteche accuses Belmas of giving only 505 wounded, remarking that Verdier stated the higher number of 900. But my edition of Belmas (Paris, 1836) distinctly says ‘quinze cent cinq blessÉs’ (ii. 64). Napier gives no figures at all: Thiers, understating French losses in his usual style, speaks of 300 dead and 900 wounded. [132] The best known was the batallon literario, composed of the students of the University of Santiago. [133] Oddly enough, in the Duke of Rovigo’s own MÉmoires the statement is made that these troops arrived too late to fight at Rio Seco, a curious error (ii. 248). [134] See the dispatch of July 13, to Savary, and that of the same day to King Joseph (Nap. Corresp., 14,191). [135] BessiÈres’ army seems to have consisted of the following elements:—
We may add 750 men for the five batteries of artillery and the train, and so get a total strength of 13,700. Napoleon (Corresp., 14,213) called the force 15,000. Note a: The other three batts. of the 14th were with Verdier at Saragossa. This odd battalion was in the battle attached to D’Armagnac’s brigade. Merle was given Ducos’ and D’Armagnac’s brigades to make up a division. Note b: These battalions were much weakened by detachments. Note c: A very strong battalion: it was 1,200 strong on June 1, and must still have had 1,000 bayonets. Note d: Both regiments were incomplete, having dropped men at Vittoria and Burgos. [136] In the Vaughan Papers I find a ‘Journal of the operations of General Blake,’ by some officer of his staff, unnamed. It gives the force of the Galician army at Rio Seco as follows:—
This total only differs by 26 from that given by Arteche (ii. 654). [137] The flank battalion which started the rout was the ‘Regiment of Buenos Ayres,’ a provisional corps which had been formed out of the prisoners lately returned from England, who had been captured during our unlucky South American expedition, before Whitelock’s final fiasco (see the ‘Journal of Blake’s Operations,’ in the Vaughan Papers). [138] In accordance with the unwise practice prevailing in most Continental armies, Blake had massed the grenadier companies of all his line regiments into two battalions, to act as a select reserve. [139] When Stuart and Vaughan passed through Medina in September, they were given many harrowing details by the local authorities. [140] See his remarks in the document of July 21, Nap. Corresp., 14,223. [141] See Foy (iv. 45), and Nap. Corresp., 14,192, where the Emperor goes so far as to say: ‘Si le GÉnÉral Dupont Éprouvait un Échec, cela ait de peu de consÉquence. Il n’aurait d’autre rÉsultat que de lui faire repasser les montagnes’ (i.e. the Sierra Morena). [142] Of Gobert’s division the 5th provisional regiment and the Irish battalion never marched south. The 6th, 7th, and 8th provisional regiments—twelve battalions—formed the column; they left one battalion at Madridejos, another at Manzanares. One more remained in the pass at the Puerto del Rey; nine and the cuirassiers (700 strong) descended into the plains. See for details Cabany’s Baylen, p. 115. [143] Dupont considered that Savary’s intention was to stop all offensive movements whatever: ‘Le gÉnÉral-en-chef me fait entrevoir que nous aurons peut-Être À garder notre position jusqu’À ce que Valence et Saragosse soient soumises’ (Dupont to Vedel, July 13). [144] Dupont to Vedel, evening of July 15. [145] Dupont’s available force at this moment consisted of the following troops. The numbers given are their original strength, from which deductions must of course be made:—
Allowing a deduction of 3,000 men for sick and previous losses, there remain 15,000 bayonets and 3,000 sabres. [146] ‘Je vous prie, mon cher gÉnÉral, de vous porter le plus rapidement possible, sur Baylen, pour y faire votre jonction avec le corps qui a combattu aujourd’hui À Mengibar, et qui s’est repliÉ sur cette ville.... J’espÈre que demain l’ennemi sera rejetÉ sur Mengibar, au delÀ du fleuve, et que les postes de Guarroman et de la Caroline resteront en sÛretÉ; ils sont d’une grande importance’ (Dupont to Vedel, night of July 16). In these orders lies the foundation of the disaster. [147] ‘J’ai reÇu votre lettre de Baylen. D’aprÈs le mouvement de l’ennemi, le gÉnÉral Dufour a trÈs-bien fait de regagner de vitesse sur La Caroline et sur Ste-HÉlÈne, pour occuper la tÊte des gorges. Je vois avec plaisir que vous vous hÂtez de vous rÉunir À lui, afin de combattre avec avantage.... Si vous trouvez l’ennemi À La Caroline ou sur tout autre point, tÂchez de le battre, pour venir me rejoindre et repousser ce qui est devant Andujar’ (Dupont to Vedel, night of July 17). [148] Vedel had now with him the following troops:—
Deduct 2,500 for losses in action at Mengibar and sick, and about 10,000 remain. [149] Against Cabany’s defence of Dupont on this point there must be set the impression of almost every French witness from Napoleon downwards. [150] Of the troops which we have recapitulated on page 182 there still remained with Dupont the whole of Barbou’s infantry, four of the five regiments of FrÉsia’s cavalry (the fifth had marched with Vedel), half of the 2nd Provisional Cuirassiers, and the two Swiss regiments of Reding and Preux. The original total of these corps had been 13,274. There remained about 11,000, for that number can be accounted for after the battle. The official Spanish dispatch gave 8,242 unwounded prisoners and 2,000 casualties. [151] That the desertion was pretty general is shown by the fact that of 2,000 men of these corps only 308 were recorded as prisoners in the Spanish official returns. If 300 more had been killed and wounded, 1,400 must have deserted. Hardly any officers were among those who went over to the enemy; Schramm, their commander, was wounded. [152] Three companies of Pannetier’s brigade. [153] There is some dispute as to the exact hours of Vedel’s start and halt: I have adopted, more or less, those given by Cabany. Vedel himself, when examined by the court-martial, said ‘qu’il ne pouvait pas prÉciser l’heure,’ which is quite in keeping with the rest of his doings. [154] Apparently they were the 1st battalion of the Irlanda regiment, and the militia of Jaen, according to the narrative of Maupoey and Goicoechea (Arteche, ii. 512). [155] Or, according to some authorities, met CastaÑos at the first post-house out of Andujar, on the Baylen road. [156] No one confesses the demoralization of the French troops more than Foy. ‘Dupont voulait combattre encore.... Mais pour exÉcuter des rÉsolutions vigoureuses il fallait des soldats À conduire. Or, ces infortunÉs n’Étaient plus des soldats; c’Était un troupeau dominÉ par les besoins physiques, sur lequel les influences morales n’avaient plus de prise. La souffrance avait achevÉ d’Énerver les courages.’ [157] Namely, 6,600 of La PeÑa’s men, 5,400 of Jones’s, and 2,500 or 3,000 of Cruz-Murgeon’s flying column. [158] His name was Captain de FÉnelon (Cabany, p. 178). [159] It will be found in the Gazeta de Madrid of October 9, 1808. It is stated that 60,000 dollars in silver and 136,000 dollars in gold, besides much plate and jewellery, were found in the fourgons of Dupont and his staff. [160] This total of 17,635, given in the Spanish returns, seems absolutely certain. It tallies very well with the original figures of the French divisions, when losses in the campaign are allowed for. I find in the Vaughan Papers a contemporary Spanish scrap of unknown provenance, giving somewhat different figures, as follows:—Dupont’s corps: unwounded prisoners, 6,000; killed and wounded on the field, 3,000; Swiss deserters, 1,200; sick captured in the hospitals, 400; making a total of 10,600. Whittingham, the English attachÉ in CastaÑos’ camp, gives another set:—unwounded prisoners, 5,500; killed and wounded, 2,600; Swiss deserters, 1,100; making 9,200. But both of these are confessedly rough estimates, though made on the spot. As to the other French prisoners, the Vaughan document says that 9,100 surrendered with Vedel, 800 in the passes, and 700 more in La Mancha. [161] Battalions surrendered at Santa Cruz, and at Manzanares. But the officer in command at Madridejos refused to be cajoled, and retreated on Madrid. [162] There had been a British attachÉ, Captain Whittingham, at CastaÑos’ head quarters. The French negotiators had tried to induce him to approve the terms of capitulation. But he very wisely refused, having no authority to do so. [163] This will be found printed at length in the Appendix of Papers relating to Baylen. [164] For the horrors of Cabrera, the works of three of the prisoners, Ducor of the Marines of the Guard, and Gille and WagrÉ of Vedel’s division, may be consulted. Their story is deeply distressing. [165] We must deduct the seven battalions (3,500 or 4,000 men) which had been detached to the rear to watch for Vedel’s approach, and were never engaged with Dupont’s troops. [166] See ThiÉbault, ExpÉdition de Portugal, and Foy, iv. 363. [167] Compare Nap. Corresp., 13,608 and 13,620. [168] Foy, iv. 273-4. [169] Nap. Corresp., 14,023 (from Bayonne, May 29). [170] For these incidents, so discreditable to the leading men of Oporto, see Foy, iv. 206, and ToreÑo, i. 152. Most Peninsular historians consign them to oblivion. [171] They re-embodied the old 2nd, 12th, 21st, and 24th battalions of infantry of the line, the 6th Cazadores, and the 6th, 11th, and 12th light cavalry, as well as one or two other old corps whose numbers I cannot identify. [172] Foy, iv. 276; Napier, i. 97. [173] For the twelve resolutions arrived at by the council of war, see the analysis given by ThiÉbault, one of its members. [174] Foy says that of twenty messages sent to Loison only one got through. [175] The 2nd Swiss, and four companies of the 86th regiment. [176] The column comprised the following troops:—
Deducting 1,200 for detached grenadier companies, &c., the whole was well over 7,000. For details, see ThiÉbault’s ExpÉdition de Portugal. [177] The figures of the Portuguese historian, Accursio das Neves, reproduced in Arteche (ii. 35), seem indubitable, as they go into minute accounts of the regiments and fractions of regiments present. It seems clear that the allies had nothing like the 5,000 regular troops of which Foy speaks (iv. 267-8). [178] This fine and not unpromising scheme deserves study (see Alison’s Life of Castlereagh, i. 199-202). [179] I cannot quite credit the story that ToreÑo and Arteche repeat of Pitt’s dying prophecy, that ‘Napoleon could only be overthrown by a national war, and that such a war would probably begin in Spain.’ [180] Wellesley to Castlereagh, June 29, 1808 (Well. Suppl. Disp., vi. 87). [181] For hints on this subject see the letter of W. Wellesley Pole, a kinsman of Sir Arthur, in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches (vi. 171). ‘The desire that has been manifested at Head Quarters for active command will render it natural for all that has passed to be seen through a false medium.... The object of Head Quarters, if it has any object at all, must be to keep down the officer for whom the army has the greatest enthusiasm, and to prevent him from being called by the voice of the nation to the head of the forces upon active service, rather than to crush old officers of known incapacity and want of following.... Dalrymple is a Guardsman; Burrard is a Guardsman; their connexions are closely united to Windsor and Whitehall, and for years have not only been in the most confidential situation about Head Quarters, but have imbibed all their military notions from thence;’ &c. [182] Born in 1755, he was a favourite of the Duke of York, and had acted as his aide-de-camp. At this moment he held a command in the Home District. [183] Castlereagh to Wellington (Well. Disp., iv. 8, 9). [184] Wellesley to Castlereagh, from Corunna, July 21 (Well. Disp., vi. 23-5). [185] Napier’s statement that Wellesley found the Supreme Junta in an extravagant and irrational frame of mind is by no means borne out by the dispatches which he sent off from Oporto on July 25. They rather represent the Portuguese as in a state of pronounced depression of spirits. [186] Wellesley to Castlereagh, from Oporto, July 25 (Well. Disp., vi. 31). [187] For the difficulties of disembarkation see the interesting narrative of Landsheit of the 20th Dragoons, p. 248. He was himself upset in the surf. [188] The force consisted of:—
A total of 12,626 infantry, 394 cavalry, 471 artillery = 13,491; adding forty-five men of the Staff Corps we get 13,536. [189] To understand what Wellesley must have felt, we have only to read his rather captious letter of 1801 (Suppl. Disp., ii. 362) to his own brother concerning his merits, his promotion, and his career. The man who could so write must have felt the blow in the worst way. [190] Well. Disp., iv. 43. [191] Ibid., iv. 59; cf. pp. 168, 169. [192] Ibid., iv. 168. Cf. the returns for Vimiero of men present, with the 180 horsed men brought from Ireland. [193] Ibid., iv. 168. [194] Ibid., iv. 59. [195]The brigading was as follows:—1st Brigade (Hill), 5th, 9th, 38th; 2nd Brigade (Ferguson), 36th, 40th, 71st; 3rd Brigade (Nightingale), 29th, 82nd; 4th Brigade (Bowes), 6th, 32nd; 5th Brigade (C. Crawfurd), 50th, 91st; 6th Brigade (Fane), 45th, 5/60th, 2/95th. Before Vimiero the 45th and 50th changed places (see the narrative of Col. Leach of Fane’s Brigade). It is worth noting that six of these sixteen battalions, as also the 20th Light Dragoons, had just returned from the disheartening work of the Buenos Ayres expedition. They were the 5th, 36th, 38th, 40th, 45th, and 71st. [196] Journal of a Soldier of the 71st Regiment (Edin. 1828), p. 47. [197] Wellesley to Burrard, August 8 (Well. Disp., iv. 53). [198] Napier, i. 197. [199] According to the figures given by the Portuguese historian of the war, Da Luz Soriano, they stood as follows:—
A few troopers of the Lisbon Police Guard, forty-one in all, according to Soriano, deserted Junot and joined the army before Vimiero. Landsheit of the 20th Light Dragoons mentions their arrival, and says that they were put in company with his regiment. This would give 2,375 as the total of the Portuguese whom Trant commanded. [200]Well. Disp. (iv. 78) says 1,400, but in his narrative of RoliÇa Sir Arthur accounts for 1,600, 1,200 in his right and 400 in his centre column. As a middle figure between Wellesley and Soriano, 2,000 would probably be safe. [201] Their allies did not think much of their looks. Col. Leslie describes them thus: ‘The poor fellows had little or no uniform, but were merely in white jackets, and large broad-brimmed hats turned up at one side, some having feathers and others none, so that they cut rather a grotesque appearance’ (p. 40). [202] Delaborde’s numbers at the combat of RoliÇa have been the cause of much controversy. Wellesley in one of his dispatches estimated them at as much as 6,000 men; the unveracious ThiÉbault would reduce them as low as 1,900. But it is possible to arrive at something like the real figures. Delaborde brought out from Lisbon two battalions of the 70th, the 26th Chasseurs À Cheval, and five guns. ThomiÈres joined him from Peniche with the 1st Provisional Light Infantry (a battalion each of the 2nd and 4th LÉger) and with the 4th Swiss. The numbers of these corps had been on July 15:—
But each of the four French corps had given its grenadier company as a contribution to the ‘Reserve Grenadier Battalions’ which Junot had organized. The battalions being on the old nine-company establishment (see Foy’s large table of the ArmÉe d’Espagne, note d) we must deduct one-ninth of each, or about 500 men in all. We have also to allow for six companies of the 4th Swiss sent to garrison Peniche; not for the whole battalion, as Foy says in iv. 306, for there were Swiss in the fight of RoliÇa (Leslie’s Military Journal, p. 43), and at Vimiero in the official state of Junot’s army we find two companies of this corps with Brennier’s brigade. We must deduct, then, three-fourths of them from the force present with Delaborde, i.e. some 740 men. This leaves 4,276 men for the four and a quarter battalions under fire at RoliÇa. Of course Junot’s troops must have had a few men in hospital since July 15, the date of the return which we are using. But they cannot have been many. The 70th had been quiet in its quarters in Lisbon. The other three battalions had been in Loison’s Beira expedition, and had lost some men therein, but all before July 11. If we concede 300 sick on August 16, it is ample. We can allow therefore for 4,000 infantry, 250 cavalry, and some 100 gunners present with Delaborde, i.e. his total force must have been about 4,350 men—a number much closer to Wellesley’s 6,000 than to ThiÉbault’s 1,900; Foy, usually so accurate, is clearly wrong in bringing the figures down to 2,500 (iv. 310). [203] The name of Lieutenant Bunbury, of the 2/95th, perhaps deserves remembrance as that of the first British officer killed in the Peninsular War. [204] Foy, iv. 309. [205] I cannot find the authority for Napier’s statement that Fane joined Ferguson in the second move. He seems still to have acted in the centre. [206] Col. Leslie’s narrative, p. 43. The 4th Swiss was a very discontented corps; individuals of it had begun to desert to the British even before RoliÇa (Leach, p. 44), and a considerable number of them took service in the 60th Rifles after the Convention of Cintra, refusing to return to France. [207] Well. Disp., iv. 83, 87. [208] Foy says only one gun, but Wellesley, who had better opportunities of knowing, says that he took three (Well. Disp., iv. 83). [209] ThiÉbault solemnly states our loss at 2,000 men! MÉmoires, iv. 186. [210] That corps lost no less than 190 officers and men, among whom were six officers taken prisoners. [211] The 5th, 9th, 29th, 82nd, 5/60th, and four companies of the 2/95th, in all 4,635 men. They lost respectively 46, 72, 190, 25, 66, and 42 men, or 441 in all; while the rest of the army (ten British and four Portuguese battalions) only lost the remaining 38 of the total of 479 casualties suffered on the 17th, i.e. were not really engaged. [212] As Foy well puts it, the idea was that ‘le Portugal Était dans Lisbonne, et Lisbonne Était À elle seule tout le Portugal’ (iv. 283). [213] See his curious criticism on Junot, recorded by ThiÉbault in iv. 268, 269 of his MÉmoires. [214] For clearness it may be worth while to give the dislocation of Junot’s army on the day of the battle of Vimiero, adding the force of each unit on July 15, the last available return.
All the four cavalry regiments of Margaron’s division, 1,754 sabres, were present at Vimiero, save one troop of dragoons captured with Quesnel at Oporto. [215] I cannot make out whether this was the 31st or the 32nd LÉger. Foy and ThiÉbault omit to give the detail. [216] Junot had created two of these regiments of grenadiers, each of two battalions. The second was at this moment with Loison. [217] Junot’s numbers at Vimiero are as much disputed as Delaborde’s at RoliÇa. Among the French accounts the figures vary from 12,500 to 9,200. Foy, usually the most conscientious historian, gives 11,500; ThiÉbault, both in his narrative, published in 1816, and in his private MÉmoires, descends to 9,200. Wellesley estimated the army that he had fought at 14,000 (Well. Disp., iv. 101). It will be well to give the corps present, and to examine into their probable strength. Just before the landing of the British they had stood as follows (I have arranged them in their new brigading):—
This is not far from Wellesley’s estimate of 14,000 men. [218] Anstruther’s Brigade from Ramsgate consisted of—
With them the 43rd and 52nd, so famous in many a Peninsular battle-field in the Light Division, made their appearance. [219] Of Acland’s Brigade from Harwich there disembarked—
The ship that bore Colonel Ross and two and a half companies of the 20th had drifted so far off the shore that it did not succeed in getting its freight delivered till late on the twenty-first. [220] It may be well to give Wellesley’s army at Vimiero:—
We have also to add the Portuguese of Trant, 2,000 or 2,100 men, making 18,800 for the whole force. Napier’s estimate on p. 499 of vol. i. of his Peninsular War, is unfortunately quite inaccurate; he has— (1) Omitted to deduct from each regiment the losses at RoliÇa, 474 in all. (2) Counted the 50th Regiment twice. It had been moved from Catlin Crawfurd’s to Fane’s brigade the day after RoliÇa, in exchange for the 45th. Napier has inserted it, and counted it, in both places with its 945 men. (3) Forgotten that Spencer’s artillery, 245 men, had been left behind for want of horses. (4) Omitted (very excusably) to note that two and a half companies of the 20th Regiment were not ashore yet, having drifted away on a disabled transport, so that the regiment is given 135 too strong. There is therefore a total excess of no less than 1,799 British troops. On the other hand, the Portuguese of Trant are probably understated by some 350 bayonets. [221] Leach’s Sketches, p. 50. He was himself on the line of pickets, 200 strong, which held the wooded height from which Junot afterwards viewed the battle. [222] Napier says that the news was brought ‘by a German officer of dragoons, who showed some consternation.’ This statement much offended the news-bearer Landsheit, a sergeant of the 20th Light Dragoons, not an officer. He has left his protest in his interesting autobiography, p. 264. [223] Col. Leslie’s Military Journal, p. 52. [224] Col. Leach’s Sketches, pp. 50, 51. [225] ThiÉbault (iv. 188, 189) expresses (and with reason) his wonder that Junot mixed his divisions so hopelessly, and thinks that it would have been more rational to send Delaborde and his second brigade after Brennier, instead of breaking up Loison’s division by taking the supporting brigade from it. [226] The best narrative of the fight on Vimiero Hill is that in General Anstruther’s ‘Journal,’ printed in the memoir attached to Wyld’s Atlas: Leach and Rifleman Harris give many interesting details. [227] All this comes from the narrative, which I have already utilized in more than one place, of Sergeant Landsheit of the 20th. [228] Taylor, like the heroic Blake, and like Graham the victor of Barossa, was one of Oxford’s few fighting men. Every visitor to Christ Church sees his memorial stone, stating how he had reformed and disciplined the regiment, when it came home a skeleton from the West Indies in 1805, and had practically to be raised anew. Since then it had been in the unfortunate expedition to Buenos Ayres. [229] There is a good account of this charge in the anonymous ‘T.S.’ of the 71st, p. 50. [230] There are clear accounts of this fighting in Col. Leslie’s autobiography, p. 61, as well as in the narrative of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st. [231] Evidence of Col. Torrens at the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 127). [232] Message sent by Ferguson, borne by his aide-de-camp, Captain Mellish (Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry, p. 121). [233] Evidence before the Court of Inquiry of Wellesley (Proceedings, pp. 116, 117), and of Col. Torrens (p. 127). [234] Burrard’s account of his own views before the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, pp. 115, 116, 135). [235] See table of losses at Vimiero in the Appendix. [236] Souvenirs Militaires of Hulot, who commanded one of the two reserve batteries, p. 235: ‘J’Étais ÉtonnÉ de ne pas voir l’ennemi fondre sur mes piÈces,’ &c. [237] Wellesley’s evidence at the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 81). [238] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, July 15 (Well. Disp., iv. 18). [239] This figure, of course, does not include the garrisons of the outlying places, but only those immediately in and about the capital, after the 66th and compagnies d’Élite marched to Torres Vedras. [240] Hulot, MÉmoires Militaires, p. 236. [241] Questions asked of Wellesley by Burrard at the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 133). [242] Wellesley to Mr. Stuart, Aug. 25, 1808 (Well. Disp., iv. 105); Wellesley’s address at the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 132). [243] This is Wellesley’s own view (Well. Disp., iv. 121, 184, 185). [244] Cf. for Junot’s address, Foy, iv. 341, and ThiÉbault. [245] Hulot, Souvenirs Militaires, pp. 235, 236. [246] But it is said that Delaborde urged the possibility of this move. [247] Hulot heard this himself. Kellermann said ‘qu’il allait trouver les Anglais, pour voir À nous tirer de la souriciÈre’ (p. 236). [248] Foy, iv. 344, 345; Well. Disp., iv. 108. [249] See the curious account of the Emperor’s interviews with Legendre and ThiÉbault, the chiefs of the staff to Dupont and Junot, who appeared before him simultaneously at Valladolid in January, 1809. The imperial thunders played so fiercely on the army of Andalusia that the army of Portugal got off easily (ThiÉbault, iv. 247-9). But Napoleon said that the English had saved him the pain of crushing an old friend by sending Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley before a court-martial. [250] Wellesley at the Court of Inquiry (Well. Disp., iv. 189). [251] Wellesley’s evidence before the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 83). [252] Napier, i. 225. [253] Evidence of Wellesley before the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, pp. 87-91). [254] Foy, iv. 352, and ThiÉbault. [255] Article 1 of the armistice mentioned ‘his Imperial and Royal Majesty, Napoleon I,’ though this formula did not recur in the Convention, which only spoke of the ‘French Army.’ [257] For the strange way in which Junot utilized this permission for his personal profit, see page 281. [258] Wellesley to Mr. Stuart, Sept. 1, 1808 (Well. Disp., iv. 121). [259] Dalrymple’s Memoir of the Affairs of Portugal, p. 66. [260] Dalrymple says that he signed the armistice so soon after landing, and with such an incomplete knowledge of the situation in Portugal, that he did not know that Freire’s army was anywhere in his neighbourhood (p. 65). [261] Better known, from his court office, as the Monteiro Mor, which answers to our ‘Master of the Horse.’ [262] See Leite’s indignant letters to Dalrymple in Napier, vol. i. App. xii. De Arce is the real name of the Dearey of whom Napier speaks on p. 245. Cf. Dalrymple’s Memoir, p. 82. [263] Foy, iv. 361, 362; Napier, i. 246, 247. Napier suppresses the part taken in saving the French by the Bishop and by Wilson, to neither of whom were his feelings friendly. Foy acknowledges the services of both. There is a good account of the whole by Wilson, in his papers at the Record Office. [264] Napier, with his customary tenderness for French susceptibilities, has only very general allusions to these disgraceful peculations. My details are mainly from ThiÉbault (iv. 198-200), who frankly confesses everything, and gives many scandalous particulars. He was, as Napoleon wrote, ‘not delicate in money matters.’ [265] Cf. ThiÉbault, Napier, and some curious details given in the Annual Register for 1808, with Proby and Beresford’s Report. [266] For previous acts and plans of this shameless person see ThiÉbault, iv. 151-3. [267] Report of General Beresford and Lord Proby to Sir Hew Dalrymple after the evacuation. [268] For the tumults and murders at the embarkation see Col. Leslie’s Military Journal, pp. 66-76, and Col. Wilkie’s English in Spain, p. 16. [269] See Col. Steevens’ Reminiscences, pp. 54, 55; Col. Wilkie, p. 14; Col. Leslie, pp. 65, 66. [270] Well. Suppl. Disp., vi. 207 (figures given for May 23), and ThiÉbault. [271] Napier, i. 246; Foy, iv. 363. We have already had occasion to note the proclivity of the 2nd Swiss to desert. The 4th Swiss, who had formed the garrison of Elvas, showed exactly the same tendency. [272] A table in the Parliamentary Papers relative to Spain and Portugal shows that the Legion received 163 recruits from this source. The 5/60th obtained a much larger number, having still over 200 Swiss with them in 1809. [273] Wellesley to Lord Castlereagh, Sept. 9 (Well. Disp., iv. 137). In spite of Napier’s denunciation of the Bishop, Wellesley bears good witness in his favour, e.g. iv. 146. [274] Wellesley to the Bishop of Oporto, Sept. 6: ‘I was present during the negotiation of the agreement, and by the desire of the Commander-in-chief I signed it. But I did not negotiate it, nor can I in any manner be considered responsible for its contents’ (Well. Disp., iv. 134). Wellesley to Castlereagh, Oct. 6: ‘I do not consider myself responsible in any degree for the terms in which it was framed, or for any of its provisions.’ [275] Wellesley to Mr. Stuart (Well. Disp., iv. 120). To Lord Castlereagh (iv. 118). To the Duke of Richmond (Suppl. Disp., vi. 129). [276] Wellesley to Dalrymple (Well. Disp., iv. 138). [277] Wellesley to Moore, Sept. 17, 1808 (Well. Disp., p. 142). Moore, as a noted Whig, was imagined not to be a persona grata at head quarters; Wellesley offers, in the most handsome way, to endeavour to smooth matters for him. [278] This letter, written to Castlereagh from Zambujal (Well. Disp., iv. 127-32), is one of the most conclusive proofs of Wellesley’s military genius. He valued the Spanish armies at their true force. He foresaw that Bonaparte would make ‘the driving of the leopard into the sea’ a point of honour, and would send corps on corps into Spain in order to secure it. He even noted that the affairs of Central Europe, ‘of which I have no knowledge whatever,’ would be the only possible reason that might prevent the Emperor from inundating the Peninsula with his legions. He saw that the presence of the British in Leon would be the one thing that would keep the French from subduing Central Spain: a disaster in the Douro valley was the nightmare of the Emperor, as half a dozen of his dispatches show. The first news that Moore was near Valladolid drew Napoleon from Madrid in wild haste, and deferred for six months the conquest of the valley of the Guadiana. [279] Wellesley to Moore, Oct. 8 (Well. Suppl. Disp., vi. 150, 151). [280] The Duke of Richmond to Wellesley, Oct. 12, 1808 (Well. Suppl. Disp., vi. 633). [281] ToreÑo, then acting as agent for the Asturian Junta in London, has much interesting information on this point. He saw the gibbet caricature and papers published with black edges (i. 251). [282] The petitioners ought in fairness to have stated that this was only made in the document setting forth the armistice, and not in the definitive Convention. [283] Not, of course, the Eliot who had defended Gibraltar so well in 1780-3, but his son, the second Lord Heathfield. [284] Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott, ii. 226. [285] Burrard before the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, pp. 115, 116, 135). [286] Dalrymple before the Court of Inquiry (Well. Disp., iv. 178, 180, 181). [287] He calls it ‘a laboured criticism, which nevertheless left the pith of the question entirely untouched’ (Napier, i. 249). I have printed Lord Moira’s plea in an Appendix, to show that it is well-reasoned and practical. [288] The King’s Opinion on the Convention of Cintra, paragraphs 4, 5, and 6. [289] The proceedings terminated Dec. 27, 1808. Wellesley took up the command at Lisbon on April 25, 1809. [290] Napier, History of the Peninsular War, i. 90. [292]They were the following:—
[293] The Spanish garrisons in the Balearic Isles consisted of the following troops:—
[294] Urgel is more accessible from France than from Spain. The easiest path to it is that which, starting from Mont-Louis, crosses the Spanish frontier at Puycerda, and follows the head-water of the Segre to the foot of the hill on which the Seu stands. [295] The population of the Principality in 1803 was 858,000 souls. [296] So called from Miquelot de Prats, the Catalan condottiere who served under Caesar Borgia. From him the light infantry, once called almogavares, got the name of miqueletes. [297] There were 400 Spanish Guards at the fight on the Cabrillas, who must have come from the battalion at Barcelona. [298] I cannot make out the movements of the cavalry regiment of Borbon; it was certainly at Barcelona, 600 strong, in May. But in July it had got down to Andalusia, and was marching with a strength of 401 in the army of CastaÑos. [299] This force was Goulas’s Brigade of Chabran’s Division, viz.:—
[300] Schwartz’s force was:—
[That the detached squadron were cuirassiers is proved by Arteche, ii. 86. The French authorities do not give the regiment.] Foy makes the odd mistake of saying ‘trois bataillons du deuxiÈme Suisse,’ instead of ‘le troisiÈme bataillon du deuxiÈme Suisse.’ There was only one battalion of this regiment with Duhesme. [301] One gun was lost after leaving Esparraguera by the fall of a rickety bridge over the Abrera (Arteche, ii. 93, 94). Foy and other French narrators do not mention this loss. [302] For details see Arteche, ii. 98, 99, and Foy, iv. 150, who adds that Arbos ‘fut pillÉ et rÉduit en cendres, conformÉment aux usages de la guerre’(!)
[304] Napier says that the assault was delivered at seven in the evening, before dark (i. 79); but all the Spanish accounts speak of it as having taken place long after dark, though before midnight (cf. Arteche, ToreÑo, and Minali, quoted by the former); so does Foy (iv. 158), who fixes the hour as ‘between nine and ten.’ [305] Yet he had the hardihood to write to the Emperor that ‘after some slight skirmishing, he did not think it worth while to make a serious attack on Gerona’ (Nap. Corresp., xvii. 347). [306] The Valais was a republic from 1802 till 1810, when it was annexed to the Empire, as the ‘department of the Simplon.’ [307] From Nap. Corresp., 14,092, 14,150, 14,151, and 14,168, we get the composition of this force. They account for the following:
There were also nine companies of gendarmerie and ‘departmental reserves.’ [308] Foy, iv. 165, 166. [309] The Montague, of 74 guns, Captain R. W. Otway. [310] Foy, iv. 169. [311] Neither ToreÑo nor Arteche mentions the trouble caused by this tiresome old man, to whom the delay in succouring Catalonia was due. For the negotiations with him see Lord Collingwood’s correspondence (Life, ii. 291, 292), and Foy (iv. 181). [312] The numbers of these corps before the fighting commenced in June had been:
But as the Italians, Goulas, and the cuirassiers had all been engaged several times, and had suffered serious losses, we must deduct 800 men at least, in order to get the figures of July 17. Foy gives only 6,000. [313] Not on the twenty-fifth, as Napier says (i. 83), following apparently the dates given by Cabanes. I have followed Arteche here, as his search into times and seasons seems more careful than that of any other authority. [314] Collingwood (Correspondence, ii. 271) calls him ‘a fat unwieldy marquess, who, if his principles are good, has a very limited ability.’ [315] For Del Palacio’s intentions see his orders to Caldagues, quoted by Arteche (ii. 622). [316] For a good narrative of these operations see Lord Cochrane’s autobiography, i. 262-5. [317] It is very odd, as Arteche remarks (ii. 611), that none of the contemporary Spanish narratives mention the name of Bolivar. They only speak of La Valeta and O’Donovan as heading the defence. [318] The Barcelona Volunteers under La Valeta led; the Ultonia, under Major Henry O’Donnell, supported. [319] See Cochrane’s autobiography, i. 266. [320] Napier, i. 89. [321] St. Cyr, Journal de l’ArmÉe de Catalogne, 1808-9, p. 15. [322] The notices of the army of Catalonia and its intended operations are not very numerous in Napoleon’s dispatches. Foy accepts Duhesme’s story that he had intended all along to raise the siege after receiving from Bayonne an order to suspend active operations (iv. 177). But it seems difficult to read this into the Emperor’s dispatches; Napoleon received the news of Baylen on Aug. 3, but did not begin pushing large reinforcements on to Catalonia till Aug. 10 (Nap. Corresp., 14,249), nor supersede Duhesme by St. Cyr till Aug. 17 (Nap. Corresp., 14,256). On Aug. 23 he concludes that Duhesme would be best placed at Barcelona, but that Reille must take Gerona with his division, which may be reinforced by that of Chabot, newly arrived at Perpignan, or even by more troops due from Italy in a few weeks. The expectation which he expresses, that Reille alone might very possibly be strong enough to capture the place, is enough to show that he did not intend to raise the siege, but (at most) to order Duhesme to strengthen Lecchi with men drawn off from the leaguer—which is a very different thing from that general’s statement of the case. [323] The Emperor writes to EugÈne Beauharnais that the 10,000 Italians, horse, foot, and artillery, must be ‘un extrait de l’armÉe italienne dans le cas de se faire honneur,’ the best that could be got (Dispatch 14,249, Aug. 10). [324] Napoleon to Jerome, King of Westphalia, July 25 (Nap. Corresp., 14,230): ‘L’Autriche arme: elle nie ses armements, elle arme donc contre nous.... Puisque l’Autriche arme, il faut donc armer. Aussi j’ordonne que la Grande ArmÉe soit renforcÉe. Mes troupes se rÉunissent À Strasbourg, Mayence, Wesel,’ &c. Compare this with the great harangue made to Metternich on August 15 (Nap. Corresp., 14,254) and with Nap. Corresp., 14,248, which discusses the co-operation of Russia in a war with Austria. [325] Napoleon to Clarke, Aug. 3 (Nap. Corresp., 14,242). [326] i.e. Napoleon is aware that they will never allow the army to be taken home by sea, as the capitulation provided. [327] Napoleon to Joseph, Aug. 3 (Nap. Corresp., 14,243): ‘L’Allemagne, l’Italie, la Pologne etc., tout se lie,’ is the Emperor’s phrase. [328] Nap. Corresp., 14,244, 14,272, 14,283. [329] A few words as to Dupont’s fate may be added. His experiences during the next four years throw a curious light on the administration of military justice under the Empire. He, together with Vedel, Chabert, Marescot, Legendre, and the aide-de-camp Villoutreys, were arrested on returning to France, and thrown into prison. They were told to prepare for a trial before the Supreme High Court (Haute Cour ImpÉriale), and a long series of interrogatories was administered to them. A military commission drew up a preliminary report on the case: on reading it the Emperor saw that Dupont had a fair defence to make on all the charges brought against him, with the exception of that of military incapacity. He countermanded the order for a trial, and the prisoners (after nine months of confinement) were released, but left under police surveillance. After Dupont had spent two years and a half of peace in the country-house of a relative, he was suddenly arrested at midnight on Feb. 12, 1812, and given a secret trial, not before a court of justice or a court-martial, but before a special military commission. He was allowed neither counsel nor documents, and forced to defend himself at forty-eight hours’ notice. The judges declared him guilty of having signed a capitulation containing ‘des conditions honteuses et avilissantes,’ but not of having surrendered without necessity, or of having shown cowardice or treason. Since the capitulation had been ‘contrary to the political interests of the Empire, and had compromised the safety of the State,’ while yet ‘there would be grave inconvenience in giving the accused a public trial,’ the court advised the Emperor to deprive Dupont of rank, title, and pension, and to relegate him to the country. The other accused officers might suffer the same penalties. Refusing to consider this a sufficient punishment, Napoleon shut up Dupont in the lonely fort of Joux, in the Jura, where he remained a prisoner till the fall of the Empire. Vedel and Legendre were pardoned, and afterwards served in Italy. Chabert and Villoutreys were put on half-pay. [330] The ‘Note sur la situation actuelle de l’Espagne,’ which forms No. 14,241 of the Correspondance. It is dated at Bordeaux, Aug. 2, the very day on which Villoutreys brought the news of the capitulation.
[332] Lefebvre’s brigade, which belonged to Morlot’s division of Moncey’s corps—it had been lent to BessiÈres for the moment—and Reynaud’s brigade, i.e. 5,300 foot, also two cavalry regiments, making 6,000 in all. [333] Bazancourt’s brigade of two veteran regiments (14th and 44th of the line), the last that had arrived at Saragossa. [334] Note on the situation of Spain, Aug. 5 (Nap. Corresp., 14,245). [335] Napoleon to Clarke, Aug. 5 (Nap. Corresp., 14,244). [336] Napoleon to EugÈne, Aug. 10 (Nap. Corresp., 14,249), and to Clarke (Nap. Corresp., 14,256). [337] Napoleon to Clarke, Aug. 17 (Nap. Corresp., 14,256). [338] Except of course the brigade of fusiliers and the three cavalry regiments which were already in Spain. [339] Or 98,000 to be exact, unless Reille’s force in Roussillon be added. [340] Savary had left the army on Aug. 4, and returned to France. [341] See his MÉmoires (pp. 66, 67) for the situation at this date. [342] He arrived at Irun on Aug. 30 (Madrid Gazette, Sept. 17th, 1808). [343] Proclamation of the Council, dated Aug. 1, published Aug. 2 in the Gazette. There is an original copy of the broadsheet in the Vaughan Papers. [344] On Aug. 9 the reader is invited to believe that Roussillon has risen against Napoleon, and that the peasantry have stormed its frontier-fortress of Bellegarde. [345] i.e. Woolwich. [346] It is hard to agree with Napier’s verdict that ‘The Council was not wanting to itself; the individuals comprising it did not hesitate to seize the reins of power when the French had departed, and the prudence with which they preserved tranquillity in the capital, and prevented all reaction, proves that they were not without merit, and forms a striking contrast to the conduct of the provincial Juntas, under whose savage sway every kind of excess was committed and even encouraged’ (Napier, i. 299). [347] All these quotations come from the documents inserted by ToreÑo in his fifth book (i. 262). [349] Lord Collingwood’s Correspondence, ii. 98. [350] Arteche, ii. 124. [351] ToreÑo, i. 264. [352] This story is told by Lord Collingwood, in an official dispatch to Castlereagh, dated July 29. He states that he knows that the colloquy took place, and clearly had the information from CastaÑos himself (Collingwood Correspondence, ii. 199). [353] Tiradores de EspaÑa, Provincial de Cadiz, Carmona, Baylen, Navas de Tolosa, 3rd and 5th Volunteers of Seville. [354] See Arteche, iii. 118. [355] First cousin to Charles IV, being the son of the Infante Luis, and brother of Godoy’s unfortunate wife. [356] Napier is wrong in hinting that Canning lent himself to the Sicilian scheme (i. 177, 178) in order to disoblige Castlereagh. Collingwood’s dispatches show that he opposed it, as much as did Dalrymple, and thereby won approval from his government (Collingwood Correspondence, ii. 216, 217). [357] He sailed on Nov. 4 (Madrid Gazette). [358] Note the federalist views of the Aragonese Miguel Principe, quoted by Arteche (ii. 121). [359] Both Florida Blanca and Jovellanos were in favour of making Madrid the meeting-place. The Andalusians defeated them. [360] He was born in 1743. [361] For a complete list of the names and professions of the members of the Junta, see the Appendix. [362] See the letters of Doyle quoted in Napier, i. 287. [363] Joseph Bonaparte to Napoleon, Sept. 5, 1808. [364] I find the story of Cuesta’s projected coup d’État (in ToreÑo, i. 267), which was supposed to rest on the authority of CastaÑos alone, completely corroborated in Sir Charles Vaughan’s private diary. On Sept. 15 Vaughan, while passing through Segovia, met Cuesta, who told him ‘that two measures were absolutely necessary: (1) the abolition of the provincial Juntas, and the restoration of the ancient authority of the Captains-General and Real Audiencia; (2) The exercise of military force over the Junta at OcaÑa (i.e. the supreme ‘Central Junta’) sufficient to compel them to elect an executive council of three or five persons to be placed at the head of different departments, and to be responsible to the nation at large.’ This is precisely what Cuesta proposed to CastaÑos. [365] So ToreÑo. Arteche says that he was to concentrate at Aranda. [366] His very elaborate vindication of himself can be read in his pamphlet of September, 1808, which was translated into English in the same winter, and reprinted in London. It contains a good account of the Bayonne business, and many valuable state papers. [367] For these documents see the Madrid Gazette of Oct. 4. [368] Manifesto of the Junta to the Spanish people, Oct. 26. [369] Madrid Gazette of Oct. 18, p. 1,301. [370] Napier is not quite correct in saying (i. 293) that ‘Leon never raised a single soldier for the cause.’ It had three battalions of volunteers (2,400 men) at Rio Seco, and raised four more at Leon, Zamora, Ledesma, and Benavente in September (Madrid Gazette, Sept. 28). But this was a poor contribution for a kingdom of four provinces and 620,000 souls. [371] I see no proof that even this was done. There were only five of them, the Provinciales of Cuenca, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Alcazar de Don Juan, and Siguenza. Toledo and Alcazar had 579 and 595 under arms at the time of Baylen, and only 500 each, apparently, in Nov. 1808. See Arteche, iii. 496. [372] For the Asturians see the table in Arteche (ii. 651): they were still 10,000 strong after having shared in Blake’s disastrous campaign. For the Estremadurans compare the list of regiments raised in the Madrid Gazette of Oct. 21, giving a total of 23,600 men, with the actual morning state of the Estremaduran troops at Madrid on their way to Burgos, 12,846 in all, given in Arteche (iii. 477). [373] Stuart to Moore, from Madrid, Oct. 18, 1808. [374] For details see the tables in Arguelles, and the grants recorded in the Madrid Gazette for September, October, and November. [375] I take these figures as to what had been actually received from Vaughan, who was at Madrid, in constant communication with Stuart and Bentinck. They represent what had been paid over and acknowledged, not what had been promised or provided, and may be taken as accurate. [376] Graham to Moore, from Tudela, Nov. 9, 1808. [377] The Spanish troops, though the best of the whole army, do not seem to have much impressed the German observer with their discipline. See the Mecklenburger Von Suckow’s observations on what he saw of them in his From Jena to Moscow, p. 92. [378] Infantry regiments of Guadalajara and Asturias, of three battalions each. [379] Infantry regiment of Princesa (three battalions), light battalion of Barcelona, and cavalry regiments of Almanza and Villaviciosa. [380] Light battalion of ‘Volunteers of Catalonia.’ [381] Infantry regiment of Zamora, cavalry regiments Del Rey, Algarve, Infante. [382] Arteche, iii. 151. [383] Bourrienne, MÉmoires, viii. 20. [384] Napoleon to Berthier, March 29, 1808 (Nap. Corresp., 13,699). [385] See his words quoted in Arteche, iii. 154. [386] See his interesting little book, A Secret Mission to the Danish Isles in 1808, published at Edinburgh in 1863 by his relative Alexander Fraser. [387] For the banquets given (under imperial orders) by the cities, see Nap. Corresp., 14,291, 14,331. Clearly Napoleon I understood the ‘policy of champagne and sausages’ as well as his nephew. [388] Considering the delicate nature of the political situation, Napoleon’s language to the Austrians was most rude and provocative. See the long interview with Metternich [Aug. 15] reported by Champagny in his dispatch (Nap. Corresp., 14,254): ‘Vous avez levÉ 400,000 hommes: je vais en lever 200,000. La ConfÉdÉration du Rhin, qui avait renvoyÉ ses troupes, va les rÉunir et faire des levÉes. Je rÉtablirai les places de SilÉsie, au lieu d’Évacuer cette province et les États Prussiens, comme je me le proposais. L’Europe sera sur pied, et le plus lÉger incident amÈnera le commencement des hostilitÉs,’ &c. [389] ‘Dans le cas oÙ l’Autriche se mettrait en guerre contre la France, l’Empereur de Russie s’engage À se dÉclarer contre l’Autriche, et À faire cause commune avec la France’ (Article X, clause 2, of the Secret Treaty). [390] Baron Vincent. [391] See the dispatch (Nap. Corresp., 14,380). [392] Napoleon to Champagny (Nap. Corresp., 14,643). [393] Napoleon to Champagny (Nap. Corresp., 14,643). [394] It is strange to find that Napier was convinced that Napoleon had a real desire for peace, and hoped to secure it by the proposals of October, 1808. He writes (i. 210): ‘The English ministers asserted that the whole proceeding was an artifice to sow distrust among his enemies. Yet what enemies were they among whom he could create this uneasy feeling? Sweden, Sicily, Portugal! the notion as applied to them was absurd; it is more probable that he was sincere. He said so at St. Helena, and the circumstances of the period warrant a belief in that assertion.’ But Napier has failed to see that the design was not to ‘sow distrust among his enemies.’ The whole business was intended to influence French public opinion, and in a secondary way the public opinion of all Europe. Bonaparte wished to pose as a friend of peace, and to bestow on England the unenviable rÔle of the selfish fomenter of wars. With many simple folk in France and elsewhere he succeeded, but no Englishman, save one blinded by a dislike for everything Tory, could have been deceived. [396] The Asturias had raised nineteen new battalions: of these eight went forward with Blake, and eleven remained behind. [397] The 4th Galician Division under the Marquis of Portago. [398] The 3rd Galician Division under General Riquelme. [399] All these moves are best described in Marshal Jourdan’s MÉmoires (edited by Grouchy; Paris, 1899), pp. 71-5. [400] Acevedo’s 8,000 Asturians joined Blake at Villarcayo on Oct. 11 (see his dispatch in Madrid Gazette, Oct. 25). [401] I gather from Madrid Gazette (Oct. 21, p. 1,333) that it was still organizing in and about Badajoz on Oct. 6, and did not begin to march till later. [402] Volunteers of Benavente from the army of Castile, and Tuy Militia of Blake’s army. [403] These three Granadan battalions had been sent, along with the rest of the levies of that kingdom, to form part of the division which Reding was leading to Catalonia. They had been replaced by the new Andalusian battalions of Baylen, Navas de Tolosa, and 5th of Seville. [404] CastaÑos himself, in his exculpatory memoir, will not allow that he ever had more than 26,000 men, even including the belated troops of the 1st and 3rd Andalusian divisions which came up in November. [405] See the tables in Arteche, iii. 479, 480. The Regiment of Calatayud was only 310 strong, that of Doyle 306, and that of Navarre 302; on the other hand the 2nd Volunteers of Aragon had 1,302, the 1st Volunteers of Huesca 1,319, and the overgrown ‘Aragonese Fusiliers’ no less than 1,836. [406] 3rd Spanish Guards 609, Estremadura 600, 1st Volunteers of Aragon 1,141. These figures are from a return of Nov. 1, sent to England by Colonel Doyle, then in high favour with Palafox. It may be found in the Record Office. [407] The Valencian and Murcian contributions to the army of Aragon consisted of the following troops:—One old line regiment of three battalions (Volunteers of Castile), the militia battalion of Soria, and of new levies the 1st and 2nd Volunteers of Murcia, the 2nd Volunteers of Valencia, the regiments of Turia (three battalions), Alicante (three battalions), Segorbe (two battalions), Borbon, Chelva, and Cazadores de Fernando VII, the Dragoons of Numancia (an old corps), and two squadrons of new Valencian cavalry. I get these names partly from the return of Nov. 1 in the Record Office at London, partly from Saint March’s return of his killed and wounded at Tudela. Some more Murcian corps started to join Palafox, but were not in time for Tudela, though they took part in the second defence of Saragossa: viz. 3rd and 5th Volunteers of Murcia, the regiment of Florida Blanca, and 1st and 2nd Tiradores of Murcia. Their start from Murcia on Oct. 13 is noted in the Madrid Gazette of 1808 (p. 1,336). [408] Just 14,970, according to the details given in the Madrid Gazette for Oct. 12 (p. 1,379). See my Appendix on the Spanish forces in Oct.-Nov. [409] Madrid Gazette, Oct. 28 (p. 1,381). [410] Ibid., Nov. 1 (p. 1,407). [411] The figures given by Jourdan in his MÉmoires seem quite accurate, and are borne out by all the details in Nap. Corresp.; they are:—
[412] It was originally to be called the 5th, but this title was taken from it, in order that Mortier’s corps might keep its old number. [414] The paper containing them was captured in Joseph’s carriage at Vittoria five years later. It will be found printed in full in Napier (Appendix to vol. i, pp. 453, 454). [415] For an account of this curious affair see the MÉmoires of General Boulart, then an artillery officer under Ney, who discovered the flight of the Castilians and the abandoned mine below the bridge (pp. 202, 203). Oddly enough he gives the wrong date for the incident, Oct. 30 instead of Oct. 27. [416] I cannot find any details as to their redistribution. [417] See Colonel Graham’s Diary, p. 275 (Oct. 30). He reached CastaÑos’ camp on that day. [418] Jourdan in his MÉmoires (p. 77) says that it was Morlot who acted against Lerin, and I follow him rather than those who state that it was Maurice Mathieu. [419] Cf. p. 366 and Graham’s Diary, p. 276. [420] According to ToreÑo; but Graham, who was present in the camp, calls it rheumatism. [421] See Nap. Corresp., 14,312 (xvii. 505, 506), and compare with 14,601 (xviii. 141, 142). [422] Discours prononcÉ le 25 oct. (Nap. Corresp., xviii. 20, 21). [423] Those of Marchand and Bisson, forming the old 6th Corps, with which he fought at Jena and Friedland. [424] Napoleon to Joseph Bonaparte, to Caulaincourt, to EugÈne Beauharnais (vols. xvii, xviii of Nap. Corresp.). [425] The clearest proof which I find in the Napoleon Correspondance of the Emperor’s intention to sweep over the whole Peninsula, with a single rush, is that already in November he was assembling at Bayonne naval officers who were to take charge of the port of Lisbon, and to reorganize the Portuguese fleet. This was a little premature! (See Napoleon to DecrÈs, Minister of Marine, Nap. Corresp., 14,514, vol. xviii.) [426] Napoleon to BessiÈres, Nov. 6: ‘J’ai vu vos dÉpÊches du 5 novembre sur l’existence d’un corps de 24,000 hommes À Burgos. Si cela est, ce ne peut Être que 12,000 hommes de l’armÉe de Castille qui ont ÉvacuÉ LogroÑo, et qui ne sont pas en cas de faire tÊte À 3,000 ou 4,000 de vos gens’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,443, xviii. 38).
[429] There is a clear and precise account of all these moves in the MÉmoires of Jourdan, who was still acting as Joseph’s chief of the staff (pp. 79-81). [430] Jourdan’s MÉmoires, p. 79. [431]He had
Arteche gives twelve German battalions (iii. 491); but the Frankfort Regiment had only one battalion, those of Nassau, Baden, and Darmstadt two each. The figures are those of the return of Oct. 10. [432] It counted 1,066 bayonets when entering on the campaign, and was attached to the Vanguard. [433] Captain Carroll, an eye-witness, gives a good account of this action in his report to General Leith, dated from Valmaceda on Nov. 2. [434] Report of Captain Carroll in papers of 1809 in the Record Office. [435] The 4th Division. [436] The 1st and 3rd Divisions. See the dispatches of Captain Carroll from Valmaceda, dated Nov. 5, in the Record Office. [437] Napoleon, furious at the escape of the Asturians, administered a fiery rebuke to the Marshal. ‘He had left one of his own divisions, exposed by Lefebvre’s imprudence, to run the risk of annihilation. He had never gone to the front himself to look at Acevedo, but had allowed the reconnoitring to be done by an incapable subordinate. His guess that Villatte had been victorious and did not need help was absurd; why should the dying down of the fire mean that the French were successful rather than beaten? The first principles of the art of war prescribe that a general should march toward the cannon, when he knows that his colleagues are engaged’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,445). [438] One battalion of Segovia and two of volunteers of Galicia. [439] This engagement, unmentioned by Napier, Thiers, and most other historians, will be found in detail in Carroll’s dispatch and Arteche (iii. 273, 274). [440] Indeed they were only saved from starvation by receiving at Espinosa 250 mules laden with biscuit, from English ships at Santander, which General Leith had pushed across the mountains. Blake in a letter of Nov. 9 to Leith (Record Office) acknowledges that this kept his men alive. [441] I gather from a comparison of the muster-rolls of the Galician army in October and in December, that four battalions rejoined Blake and six escaped towards Santander.
This leaves 26,040 available at Espinosa; the real figure was probably somewhat smaller. [443] Malaspina had two battalions of Del Rey, and the Betanzos and Monterrey militia. (Journal of Blake’s Operations in the Vaughan Papers.) [444] Puthod’s brigade of Villatte’s division, the 94th and 95th of the Line. [445] The 9th LÉger and 24th of the Line from Ruffin’s division, and the 54th from that of Lapisse, each three battalions strong. [446] It is fair to the Asturians to mention that eight of their ten battalions were raw levies; there were among them only one regular and one militia battalion of old formation. [447] It is necessary to protest against the groundless libel upon this corps in which Napier indulges (i. 257) when he says: ‘It has been said that Romana’s soldiers died Spartan-like, to a man, in their ranks; yet in 1812 Captain Hill of the Royal Navy, being at Cronstadt to receive Spaniards taken by the Russians during Napoleon’s retreat, found the greater portion were Romana’s men captured at Espinosa; they had served Napoleon for four years, passed the ordeal of the Moscow retreat, and were still 4,000 strong.’ This is ludicrous: the eight battalions of the Baltic division landed in Spain 5,294 strong; a month after Espinosa they still figured for 3,953 in the muster-rolls of the army of Galicia (see the morning state in Arteche, iv. 532). Only 1,300 were missing, so Victor, clearly, cannot have taken 4,000 prisoners. Captain Hill’s (or Napier’s) mistake lies in not seeing that the Russian prisoners of 1812 belonged to the 5,000 men of La Romana’s army (regiments of Guadalajara, Asturias, and the Infante) which did not succeed in escaping from Denmark in 1808, and remained perforce in Napoleon’s ranks. [449] That to Victor will be found in Nap. Corresp., 14,445. [450] For details of their ride against time, see the MÉmoires of St. Chamans, his senior aide-de-camp (p. 107). [451] The figures here given are mainly those indicated by Napoleon in his dispatch of Nov. 8 (Nap. Corresp., 14,456), supplemented from the morning state of the army on Oct. 10:—
[452] These battalions were those of Tuy and Benavente, the first a militia battalion, the second a new volunteer corps. [453] Each mustered less than 400 bayonets. [454] To show how strange is Napier’s statement (i. 254) that the army of Estremadura consisted of ‘the best troops then in Spain,’ and that it was therefore disgraceful that they ‘fought worse than the half-starved peasants of Blake,’ we may perhaps give the list of Belvedere’s little force: it consisted of—
Only the cavalry and the five battalions marked with a star were regulars. [455] As ill luck would have it four of these five battalions in the plain were raw levies, the Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.) and of Tuy and Benavente. They had not skill enough even to form square. [456] It is fair to say, however, that Jourdan asserts that their loss was only about 1,500 (MÉmoires, p. 85). There is no Spanish estimate of any authority. Napoleon in his Bulletin claimed 3,000 killed and 3,000 prisoners, one of his usual exaggerations. [457] There were only sixteen field-guns with the army, yet Napoleon says that he took twenty-five (Nap. Corresp., 14,478). If this figure is correct (which we may doubt) there must have been some guns of position taken in the city of Burgos. But of the twelve flags there is no question: they were forwarded to Paris two days later (Nap. Corresp., 14,463). [458] MÉmoires of St. Chamans (Soult’s senior aide-de-camp), p. 110. Compare the Journal of Fantin des Odoards (p. 189) for the scenes of horror in and about the town. The scattered corpses of Spaniards, cut down as they fled, covered the road for half-a-day’s march beyond Burgos. [459] Nap. Corresp., 14,496, contains this false report. [460] This brigade did not properly belong to the 2nd Corps, but to Franceschi’s division of reserve cavalry. Lasalle, with the proper cavalry division of the 2nd Corps, was being employed elsewhere. [461] This was done on November 11, and not (as Arteche says) on the thirteenth. The proof may be found in the itinerary given by St. Chamans in his MÉmoires (p. 110). On the thirteenth the Marshal was already at Canduelas, close to Reynosa. [462] Nap. Corresp., 14,467 and 14,477. Napoleon to BessiÈres, Nov. 13 (at two, midnight), and to Milhaud, Nov. 16 (at three, midnight). [463] These orders will be found in Nap. Corresp., 14,489. [464] Nap. Corresp., 14,465, 14,488-91, 14,472, 14,482, 14,503, and 14,499 respectively. [465] For this barefaced robbery see the Sixth Bulletin of the Army of Spain, published at Madrid on December 14, and also Jourdan’s MÉmoires, pp. 85, 86; cf. Arteche, iii. 325. [466] Leith, Nov. 16, from Cabezon de Sal (in the Record Office). [467] Not Arnedo as in Napier (i. 257). [468] See letter of General Leith (dated from San Vincente de la Barquera, Nov. 17), in the Record Office. [469] General Leith to Sir John Moore, from Renedo on Nov. 15 (in the Record Office). [470] It is from that officer’s dispatches alone that we glean some details of this miserable retreat. There is nothing of the kind in ToreÑo, Arteche, or any other Spanish authority that I have found. [471] Of La Romana’s army of 15,626 men (Dec. 4) about 5,000 belonged to regiments which had not been present at Espinosa, including the battalions of Tuy, Betanzos, Monterrey, Santiago, Salamanca, the 3rd Volunteers of Galicia, and the Batallon del General, the artillery reserve, and a number of detached companies that had been left behind at Reynosa, Astorga, and Sahagun before Blake marched on Bilbao on October 11. [472] Once between Valmaceda and Espinosa, once between Reynosa and Renedo, once between Potes and Pedrosa. [473] MÉmoires of Gen. St. Chamans, p. 111. [474] Nap. Corresp., 14,496 (Napoleon to Berthier, from Burgos, Nov. 20). [475] Leith mentions this in his letter from Cabezon de Sal, Nov. 16. [476] Nap. Corresp., 14,502: on the twenty-first the 1st Corps was at Tardajos, outside Burgos. [477] Nap. Corresp., 14,501. [478] Colbert’s brigade belonged to Ney’s corps; Digeon’s dragoons were part of the reserve-cavalry of Latour-Maubourg. [479] Unpublished diary of Sir Charles Vaughan, then riding with the staff of Palafox. [480] The best picture of CastaÑos’ head quarters at this time is to be found in the diary of General Graham, printed in his Life by Delavoye. [481] See Graham’s Diary, p. 280. This is far the best authority for the chaotic movements of the Spaniards during these weeks. Some allowance, perhaps, should be made for Graham’s dislike for the Palafox brothers. [482] By a letter from Lord William Bentinck, at Madrid (see Graham’s Diary, p. 281). [483] It is most difficult to unravel all these projects and counter-projects: I have followed Graham, who was always at the side of CastaÑos, supplementing him with that general’s own vindication, and with Butron’s narrative. [484] Graham’s Diary, p. 284. [485] See Larrey’s MÉmoires de Chirurgie Militaire. [486] Of the 1st Division there seem to have arrived one battalion each of the regiments Reina, Jaen, Irlanda, and Barbastro, and the Jaen Militia. Of the 3rd Division one battalion each of Campo Mayor, Volunteers of Valencia, and the Militia of Plasencia, Guadix, Lorca, Toro, and Seville (No. 1). [488] The troops should have numbered—
But we must make large deductions for sickness (which had fallen heavily on the ill-clothed men), for loss in previous actions, desertion, and detachments; e.g. some of Roca’s division were on the Lower Ebro. [489] The French army consisted of—
These figures are mainly taken from Napoleon’s dispatch, No. 14,456, of Nov. 8. They do not include the Irish, Prussian, and Westphalian battalions of Moncey’s corps garrisoning Pampeluna and San Sebastian. [490] The town and the hill, unlike the rest of the position, are on the north bank of the Queiles. [491] It is impossible to acquit CastaÑos of the charge of carelessness on this point. Doyle’s letter of the night of Nov. 22 is conclusive: ‘Not one soldier has been left to observe the motions of the enemy, or to check the progress of his advanced guard, common pickets excepted, which are pushed a little outside the town. I confess I have not a shade of doubt that the enemy will attack at daybreak, and confusion must naturally ensue’ (Doyle’s correspondence in the Record Office). It is seldom that a military prophecy is so exactly fulfilled. [492] Graham witnessed this and reports in his Diary (p. 285) that ‘the two regiments that had been sent down into the plain behaved uncommonly well.’ [493] I agree with Schepeler and the Spanish witnesses in holding that on this side the French did very little; their great advance, as Schepeler says, ‘ist nur Bulletinformel und weiter nichts.’ [494] The 3,000 men of Cartaojal’s troops, which had been detached to watch Ney in the direction of Agreda, were cut off from the rest of the Army of the Centre, and ran great risks. But they ultimately escaped and rejoined the main body. [495] Only Saint March’s casualties are preserved. They amounted to 1,328. Roca and O’Neille must have suffered in proportion. [496] Nap. Corresp., 14,489. [497] Ibid., 14,504. [498] Napoleon to Joseph Napoleon, from Aranda, Nov. 27 (Nap. Corresp., 14, 518). [499] Jourdan’s MÉmoires, p. 92. [500] Ney’s march and its difficulties can be studied in the MÉmoires of Roca, then a captain in the 2nd Hussars, who shared this march with the 6th Corps. [501] Only 1,500 of them, with Roca himself, followed CastaÑos. [502] Mr. Frere to General Moore (from Aranjuez, Nov. 25); compare the letter of Martin de Garay (secretary of the Junta) to Mr. Frere, dated Nov. 24: ‘If the English troops form a junction with the Army of the Left, we compose a formidable body of 70,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, a force with which we shall be certain of our blow, which we never could be by any different conduct.’ [503] Morla used many arguments to induce Hope to direct his men on Madrid, when the English general rode in from Talavera to discuss the situation with the Spanish authorities. Hope, of course, pleaded the duty of obedience to his chief. [504] Belvedere’s dispatch to the Junta (Madrid Gazette of Nov. 15). [505] Proclamation of the Supreme Junta, published in the Madrid Gazette of Nov. 15, 1808. [506] Arteche says that ‘all the intact troops,’ i.e. the whole 3rd Estremaduran division, fell back on the Somosierra. But this is incorrect, for a dispatch of General Trias (Madrid Gazette of November 22) shows that he only took two or three battalions to the pass, and even some of these must afterwards have gone onto Segovia,for only one Estremaduran corps (the Badajoz Regiment) is found in the list of San Juan’s little army (Arteche, iii. 496). [507] See Arteche, iii. 321. The fugitives fled so far and wide that Blake rallied 157 of the regiment of Tuy at Leon! Leith Hay found them all over the country-side on November 15. [508] These corps were the Walloon Guards (3rd batt.), Reina (two batts.), Jaen (two batts.), Corona (two batts.), Irlanda (two batts.)—much the larger half of the original 1st Division of Andalusia, and all old corps (see the lists in Arteche, iii. 496). [509] The regiment of Cordova (two batts.) and the provincial militia of Alcazar and Toledo. [510] Two squadrons each of ‘Principe’ and ‘Voluntarios de Madrid,’ one each of Alcantara and Montesa. The whole amounted to no more than 600 sabres. [511] Napier’s description of the ‘Army of Reserve’ is very incomplete: he says that ‘Belvedere’s army rallied part in the Somosierra and part on the side of Segovia. The troops which had been detained in Madrid from CastaÑos’ army were forwarded to the Somosierra; those left behind from Cuesta’s levies (the Castilians) went to Segovia’ (i. 259). But, as we have seen, only one regiment of Belvedere’s men went to the Somosierra, and the Castilians (Madrid Volunteers) marched thither and not to Segovia. [512] One battalion of Walloon Guards, two each of the regiments of Jaen and Irlanda, and three squadrons of the regiments of Montesa and Alcantara, with six guns, all under Colonel Sarden (colonel of the Montesa Regiment). [513] Seven officers and eighty men, to be exact (see SÉgur, MÉmoires, iii. 282). It does not seem to be generally known that the Poles were not yet lancers. They were only armed with the lance three months later (see Nap. Corresp., 14,819, giving the order to that effect), and were at this moment properly styled Chevaux-LÉgers Polonais only. Almost every narrative of the Somosierra that I have read calls them lancers; Napier is an exception. [514] All this narrative comes from Philippe de SÉgur, who must be followed in preference to the 13th Bulletin and all the witnesses who allege that the Poles did reach the battery. He, if any one, knew what really happened (MÉmoires, iii. 281-5). His account of the whole business is in close accord with that of De Pradt, who was also an eye-witness. [515] The frightful proportion of killed to wounded came, of course, from the fact that the casualties were caused by artillery fire. [516] The real course of events is best given by SÉgur (iii. 295), who writes as follows: ‘Pendant que notre charge avait attirÉ sur elle les feux de l’ennemi, le gÉnÉral Barrois avait profitÉ de cette diversion. Il s’Était avancÉ jusqu’À le rocher, notre point de dÉpart. LÀ, poussÉs en avant par l’empereur pour recommencer ma charge, treize de ses grenadiers avaient ÉtÉ abattus par le feu de la redoute. Alors, rÉtrogradant derriÈre le roc, il avait envoyÉ quelques compagnies À l’escalade des hauteurs À notre droite, puis lui-mÊme, À la tÊte de sa brigade, y Était montÉ.... Les Espagnols, se voyant prÈs d’Être abordÉs, avaient dÉchargÉ leurs armes, et, se dÉbandant aussitÔt, ils s’Étaient mis a fuir À toutes jambes. Au mÊme moment À sa gauche le bruit de la canonnade avait cessÉ. C’Était alors que le rÉgiment entier de lanciers Polonais, recommenÇant la charge prÉmaturÉe de notre escadron dÉtruit, avait achevÉ, sans autre perte, d’enlever la position. Les canons, quelques officiers et 150 À 200 Espagnols seulement purent Être atteints, tant la dispersion de l’armÉe devant les quatre bataillons de Barrois avait ÉtÉ subite et rapide.’ [517] He describes it as if ‘a position nearly impregnable, and defended by 12,000 men, had been abandoned to the wild charge of a few squadrons, whom two companies of steady infantry could have stopped’ (i. 268). [518] The Calle de Alcala, Calle de Atocha, and Carrera de San Geronimo. [519] This description is mainly from Vaughan’s unpublished diary (p. 230). [520] This must have been an under-estimate. More than 1,500 of the Somosierra troops had joined the army of Infantado by the New Year. [521] Report on the defences of Madrid, by the Duke of Infantado, quoted in Arteche (iii. 400, 401). [522] Napier calls Perales ‘a respectable old general’; but as ToreÑo remarks (i. 305), he was neither old, nor a military officer of any rank, nor respectable. He was a man of fashion noted for his licentious life, and the mob which murdered him is said to have been headed by his discarded mistress. Arteche suggests that the sand-cartridges were constructed for the purpose of ruining him, and that the whole business was a piece of private vengeance. The marquis had once been a very popular character among the lower classes, but had lost credit by showing politeness to Murat. [523] Not ‘another military officer,’ as Napier says. [524] ‘Hombre de corazon pusilÁnime, aunque de fiera y africana figura,’ says ToreÑo (i. 307). [525] The first clause of the Capitulation was to the effect that no religion save the Catholic Apostolic Roman faith should be tolerated! The second provided that all government officials should be continued in the tenure of their offices. Clearly such articles were absurd in a military capitulation, and the second was impossible to execute, as the conqueror must necessarily place in office such persons as he could trust. But the amnesty articles (Nos. 4 and 11) could have been observed, and were not. [526] Not, as the Spaniards whispered, because he feared the stiletto of some fanatical monk, but because he wished to leave the place clear for his brother Joseph. For the curious story of his visit to the royal palace, and long study of the portrait of Philip II, see ToreÑo, i. 309. [527] For the discomforts of Chamartin see the MÉmoires sur la RÉvolution d’Espagne of De Pradt. Though belonging to one of the richest nobles of Spain, it had not a single fireplace, and the imperial courtiers and aides-de-camp had to shiver in the ante-rooms over miserable braseros. [528] ‘La capitulation, n’ayant pas ÉtÉ tenue par les habitants de Madrid, est nulle,’ Napoleon to Belliard, Dec. 5 (Nap. Corresp., 14,534). He scolds Belliard for having allowed the document to be printed and placarded on the walls. Every copy was to be torn down at once. In what respect the Spaniards had broken the treaty he does not state. He may have referred to the evasion of Castelar’s troops. [529] Cf. Nap. Corresp., 14,708, with De Pradt (p. 205-6) and Arteche (iii. 432). [530] For details see the decree in Nap. Corresp., 14,528. The last-named clause curiously resembles a provision of Henry VIII of England, at the Dissolution of 1536. [531] Cf. Nap. Corresp., 14,563, and De Pradt, MÉmoires, &c., p. 205. [532] Napier (i. 273) makes a curious blunder in saying that he remained at Burgos. [533] This odd phrase is used by Joseph himself in his letter of Dec. 8, sent from the Pardo, after he had received the decrees issued on Dec. 4 by his brother. [534] There is a complete catena of letters and dispatches from Dec. 4 to Dec. 22, in which the retention of Joseph as king is presupposed: (1) 14,531 [Dec. 5] advises him to raise a Spanish army; (2) 14,537 [Dec. 7] advises the Spaniards to ‘make their King certain of their love and confidence’; (3) 14,543 [Dec. 9], the allocution to the Corregidor, bids the MadrileÑos swear fidelity on the Sacrament to their King; (4) 14,558 [Dec. 13] speaks of the knitting up again of the bonds which attach Joseph’s subjects to their sovereign; (5) 14,593 [Dec. 18] gives the King advice as to the reorganization of his finances. None of them could have been written if there had been any real intention of ousting Joseph from the throne. [535] Nap. Corresp., 14,547, p. 108. [536] Napier (i. 273) prints Bonaparte’s allocution in full, with the astonishing comment that it ‘was an exposition of the principles upon which Spain was to be governed, and it forces reflection upon the passionate violence with which men resist positive good, to seek danger, misery, and death rather than resign their prejudices.’ Is the desire for national independence a prejudice? And should it be easily resigned for ‘positive good,’ e.g. administrative reform? [537] Nap. Corresp., 14,525. [538] I cannot speak for certain as to the moment at which Digeon’s brigade of dragoons, which had been lent to Lannes for the Tudela campaign, rejoined Latour-Maubourg. But probably it came across with Ney, as it was with its division by Dec. 28 (Jourdan’s MÉmoires, p. 138). [539] The latter had taken over Lagrange’s division after Tudela. [540] This division was incomplete, having left behind in Biscay two Dutch and one German battalions. [541] The other brigade was astray near Toledo, contrary to the Emperor’s intention: Nap. Corresp., 14,594, orders it to march on Talavera. [542] 8th Dragoons, 22nd Chasseurs, 1st Supplementary regiment of Chasseurs, and Hanoverian Chasseurs. [543] Cf. Nap. Corresp., 14,581 (of Dec. 10, 1808, but wrongly dated Dec. 17 in the collection), the rough draft of the dispatch to be sent to Soult, with the full document, which was fortunately captured on its way to Carrion, and fell into the hands of Sir John Moore. It is printed in the original French in James Moore’s account of his brother’s campaign (London, 1809). The documents tally accurately, but Berthier has expanded, as was his wont, Napoleon’s short phrases. [544] See the statement in the Madrid Gazette for Dec. 12 (p. 1576). It is not in the Correspondance de NapolÉon, and contains invaluable details as to the placing of the French army on that day. [545] ‘Le gÉnÉral Lasalle a pris huit Hanovriens.... Puisqu’il a pris des Hanovriens, cela sent la proximitÉ des Anglais’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,551, Dec. 12). These must have been stragglers from Hope’s division, which had passed Talavera at least a fortnight before. The Germans with it were the 3rd Light Dragoons, K.G.L. [546] Napoleon seems to have got the knowledge of Baird’s arrival from the London newspapers. An English brigantine, called the Ferret, ran into Santander, under the impression that it was still in Spanish hands. On board were many journals, with details about the Cintra Court of Inquiry, and about the reinforcements for Spain. Long extracts from them were reprinted in the Madrid Gazette for the second half of December. The danger of the press already existed! [547] I know no better way of displaying the Napoleonesque method than the printing opposite each other of his dispatches 14,620 and 14,626, both addressed to Joseph Bonaparte. For the benefit of the newspapers the English army was to be overstated by 10,000 or 12,000 men!
[548] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, Sept. 2, 1808: ‘As circumstances may come to your knowledge which might render the immediate employment of your disposable forces in the north of Spain of the utmost importance to the common cause, without waiting for orders from hence, I am to inform you that you should not consider the present instructions as depriving you of the latitude of discretion which you now possess, without waiting for express orders from hence.’ [551] Dalrymple to Castlereagh, Sept. 27. [552] Moore to Castlereagh from Lisbon, Oct. 9, 1808. [553] The very interesting (and sometimes very sensible) replies of CastaÑos to Bentinck will be found in the latter’s letter to Dalrymple (Oct. 2). [554] Moore to Castlereagh from Salamanca, Dec. 10, 1808. [555] A good account of the difficulties of transport in Moore’s army will be found in Quartermaster Surtees’s Twenty-five Years in the Rifle Brigade. Placed in charge of the baggage and beasts of the 2/95th, he found it absolutely impossible to keep the native drivers from absconding, even when they had to sacrifice their beasts to do so (pages 81-82). [557] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9, 1808. [558] Castlereagh to Dalrymple, Sept. 2, 1808. [559] It is fair to this distinguished officer to state that his dispatches and letters show no trace whatever of the irascible and impracticable temper that has been attributed to him. They are most sensible, cautious, and prudent, and not at all what might have been expected from the hero of the story of ‘the lad that was chained to our Davie.’ [560] The 7th and 10th Hussars apparently on Nov. 7, the 15th Hussars on Nov. 12. See Baird to Castlereagh, Nov. 8 and 13, 1808. [561] Napier, i. 347. [562] It is to be remembered that Baird’s cavalry would not have been up till Nov. 20-25, owing to its tardy start from England. Nothing could have been more unlucky. [563] At the skirmish at Rueda on that date. [564] See the letters from Spanish officers in the Madrid Gazette for Dec. 19, 1808. [565] See the Dec. 5 Bulletin, and the inspired articles in the Madrid Gazette for Dec. 14. [566] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9: ‘The march from this will be by the three roads Coimbra, Guarda, and Alcantara.’ [567] Moore to Castlereagh, Oct. 9. [568] Ibid., Oct. 11. [569] Moore also consulted Colonel Lopez, the Spanish officer who had been sent to his head quarters by the Junta, as being specially skilled in roads and topography. But Lopez disclaimed any knowledge, and could only say that Junot’s artillery had been nearly ruined by the roads between Ciudad Rodrigo and Abrantes. [570] e.g. in 1706 Lord Galway took over forty guns, twelve of which were heavy siege-pieces, from Elvas by Alcantara and Coria to Ciudad Rodrigo. In 1762 the Spaniards took no less than ninety guns from Ciudad Rodrigo by Celorico and Sabugal to Castello Branco, and thence back into Spain. [571] Napier does not seem to know this, and distinctly states (i. 102) that Loison had no guns. [572] Moore to Hope, from Almeida, Nov. 8. [573] In endeavouring to excuse Moore, Napier takes the strange course of making out that the Guarda road, though usable, as experience showed, was ‘in a military sense, non-practicable’ from its difficulties. This will not stand in face of Moore’s words quoted above. Of the Coimbra—Celorico road he omits all mention (i. 345). [574] These were the 2nd, 36th, 71st, and 92nd Foot. [575] Napier has a long note, in justification of Moore, to the effect that if the concentration point of the British army had been Burgos instead of Salamanca, Hope’s detour would have cost no waste of time, and would have been rather profitable than otherwise. But Moore distinctly looked upon the movement as a deplorable necessity, not as a proper strategical proceeding. ‘It is a great round,’ he wrote to Castlereagh on October 27, when announcing this modification of his original plan, ‘and will separate the corps, for a time, from the rest of the army: but there is no help for it.’ Moreover he stated, in this same letter, that he would not move forward an inch from Salamanca till Hope should have reached Espinar, on the northern side of the Guadarrama Pass. At a later date he announced that he should not advance till Hope had got even nearer to him, and made his way as far as Arevalo [letter of Nov. 24]. He was too good a general to dream of a concentration at Burgos, when once he had ascertained the relative positions of the Spanish and the French armies, for that place was within a couple of marches of the enemy’s outposts at Miranda and LogroÑo. There is, in short, no way of justifying Hope’s circular march, when once it is granted that the roads of Northern Portugal were not impracticable for artillery. Moore knew this perfectly well, as his letter to Hope, which we have quoted on p. 495 shows. No arguments are worth anything in his justification when he himself writes ‘if anything adverse happens, I have not necessity to plead.’ This is the language of an honest man, conscious that he has made a mistake, and prepared to take the responsibility. Napier’s apology for him (i. 345-7) is but ingenious and eloquent casuistry. [576] Moore to Bentinck from Salamanca, Nov. 13, 1808. [577] Baird to Castlereagh, Oct. 14, 1808. [578] Napier knew the correspondence of Baird by heart. It is therefore most unfair in him to suppress the loan made by the Galician Junta, which appears in Sir David’s letters of Oct. 22, 29, and Nov. 13, as also the receipt of the 500,000 dollars sent by the British Government in the Tigre, which is acknowledged in the letter of Nov. 9. He implies that the only sums received were £40,000 from Mr. Frere and £8,000 from Sir John Moore. The simple fact is that no good act done by a Spanish Junta or a Tory minister is ever acknowledged by Napier. [579] After reading Sir Charles Vaughan’s diary, showing how hard he and Mr. Stuart found it to procure enough draught animals to take their small party from Corunna to Madrid, in September, 1808, I cannot doubt that by October the collecting of the transport for a whole army was an almost impossible task in Galicia. [580] It may perhaps be worth while to give the composition and brigading of Moore’s army on the march from Lisbon and Elvas to Salamanca. There marched by Coimbra and Almeida, Beresford [1/9th, 2/43rd, 2/52nd] and Fane [1/38th, 1/79th, 2/95th]. By Abrantes and Guarda went Bentinck [1/4th, 1/28th, 1/42nd, and four companies 5/60th] and Hill [1/5th, 1/32nd, 1/91st]: this column took with it one battery: it was followed by two isolated regiments, the 1/6th and 1/50th. The corps which marched from Elvas by Alcantara, under Paget, was composed of the brigades of Alten (1st and 2nd Light Battalions of the K. G. L.) and Anstruther 20th, 1/52nd, 1/95th. The 3rd Regiment joined the army from Almeida, where it was in garrison, and the 1/82nd came up late from Lisbon. It was originally intended that Bentinck and Beresford should form a division under Fraser, Anstruther and Alten a division under Paget. Of the troops which reached Salamanca the 3rd and 5/60th were sent back to Portugal. The original brigading of Baird’s force was:—Cavalry Brigade (Lord Paget) 7th, 10th, and 15th Hussars. 1st Brigade (Warde) 1st and 3rd batts. of the 1st Foot Guards. 2nd Brigade (Manningham) 3/1st, 1/26th, 2/81st. 3rd Brigade (Leith) 51st, 2/59th, 76th. Light Brigade (R. Crawfurd) 2/43rd, 1/95th, 2/95th (detachments). The 2/14th and 2/23rd were also present, perhaps as a brigade under Mackenzie. All these arrangements were temporary, and at Sahagun, as we shall see, the whole army was recast. A complete table of Moore’s army, with its final organization, force, and losses, will be found in the Appendix. [581] Moore names one regiment only as an exception. [582] Save two stray battalions, which had started last from Lisbon. [583] There is an undertone of gloom in most of Bentinck’s very capable letters, which contrasts sharply with the very optimistic views expressed by Doyle and most of the other military agents. On Oct. 2 he ‘feels the danger forcibly’ of the want of a single commander for the Spanish armies. On Sept. 30 he remarks that ‘the Spanish troops consider themselves invincible, but that the Spanish Government ought not to be deluded by the same opinion.’ On Nov. 14 ‘he must not disguise that he thinks very unfavourably of the affairs of Spain: the Spaniards have not the means to repel the danger that threatens’: most of his letters are in more or less the same strain. [584] Except with CastaÑos, from whom some sensible but rather vague advice was procured. [585] e.g. in his letter of Nov. 19 Moore speaks of the town of Salamanca as doing its best for him: the clergy were exerting themselves, and a convent of nuns had promised him £5,000. In his Journal he has a testimonial to the fidelity with which the people of Tordesillas protected an English officer from a raiding party of French cavalry. There are some similar notes in British memoirs: e.g. ‘T.S.’ of the 71st expresses much gratitude for the kindness of the people of PeÑaranda, who, when Hope’s division arrived in a drenched and frozen condition, rolled out barrels of spirits into the streets and gave every man a good dram before the regiments marched on. Some towns, e.g. Zamora and Alba de Tormes, behaved well in opposing (though without any hope of success) the French, when they did appear. [586] As to the conduct of the Spaniards I think that the best commentary on it is that of Leith Hay (i. 80-1), who was riding all over Castile and Leon in these unhappy weeks. ‘Thus terminated a journey of about 900 miles, in which a considerable portion of the country had been traversed, under circumstances which enabled me to ascertain the sincere feeling of the people. It is but justice to say that I met with but one sentiment as to the war: that I was everywhere treated with kindness. I mention this as a creditable circumstance to the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and in contradiction to the statements often recorded, unjustly in my opinion, as to the want of faith, supineness, and perfidy of the Spanish people.... Their conduct was throughout distinguished by good faith, if it was at the same time rendered apparently equivocal from characteristic negligence, want of energy, and the deficiency of that moral power that can alone be derived from free institutions and an enlightened aristocracy.’ [587] Moore to Castlereagh from Salamanca, Nov. 24. [588] Ibid., Dec. 8. [589] Moore to Castlereagh from Salamanca, Nov. 24. [590] Moore to Frere from Salamanca, Nov. 27. [591] The notes and diaries of this ancient member of my own College have been of enormous use to me for side-lights on Spanish politics during 1808. His summary of his great ride from Caparrosa in Navarre to Corunna, between November 21 and December 2, is perhaps worth quoting. ‘From Caparrosa to Madrid and from Madrid to Salamanca, with the dispatches for Sir John Moore, containing the defeat of the army commanded by General CastaÑos, I rode post. I stayed the night at Salamanca, and at two o’clock on the following day (Nov. 29) I set out for Astorga with dispatches for Sir D. Baird, and with Sir J. Moore’s dispatches for England. I was detained only six hours at Astorga, and after riding two days and two nights on end arrived at Corunna the evening of Dec. 2. The post-horses at every relay in Spain were at this time so overworked that the journey was tiresome and painful. I had ridden 790 miles from Caparrosa to Corunna in eleven days (Nov. 21 to Dec. 2). I had a night’s rest at Agreda, Cetina, and Salamanca, and two at Madrid.’ Deducting two days in Madrid, the ride was really one of 790 miles in nine days. [592] Moore to Hope from Salamanca, Nov. 28. [593] There is a good, but short, account of this forced march, in bitter cold, to be found in the memoir of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st, one of Hope’s four infantry regiments. He speaks of a curious fact that I have nowhere else seen mentioned, viz. that at PeÑaranda the artillery horses were so done up that Hope buried six guns, and turned their teams to help the other batteries. Apparently they were dug up a few days after by troops sent out from Salamanca, as the tale of batteries is complete when Moore resumed his march. [594] I think that Napier (i. 287-8) somewhat exaggerates the danger which Hope ran in his march from Villacastin to Alba de Tormes. Of course if Lefebvre had been marching on Salamanca, the situation would have been dangerous: but as a matter of fact he was marching on the Guadarrama, which Hope had safely passed on the twenty-eighth. Every mile that the British moved took them further from Lefebvre’s route: his infantry was never within fifty miles of Hope’s convoy: and supposing his brigade of cavalry had got in touch with the British, it could have done nothing serious against a force of all arms in the hands of a very capable general. The ‘4,000 cavalry’ of which Napier speaks were in reality only 1,500. [595] See James Moore’s memoir of his brother, p. 72; compare Napier, i. 292, and Lord Londonderry’s account of his own observations at Salamanca, in his History of the Peninsular War, i. 220, 221. [596] The heavy ammunition and all the sick who could be moved were sent off on Dec. 5, under the escort of the 5/60th. See Moore’s ‘General Orders’ for that day, and Ormsby, ii. 54. [597] Moore to Castlereagh, from Salamanca, Nov. 29. [598] La Romana to Moore, from Leon, Nov. 30. [599] See the ‘morning states’ for the army of Galicia on Dec. 4 and Dec. 14, in Arteche (iv. 532, 533). [600] Martin de Garay to Moore, from Aranjuez, Nov. 28, 1808. [601] This answer is recorded in the despairing appeal which Escalante wrote to Moore from Calzada de BaÑos on Nov. 7, after having started back to join the Junta. The rest of Moore’s arguments can be gathered from his own dispatches. [602] Moore to Frere, from Salamanca, Dec. 6, 1808. [603] See James Moore (p. 86-7), where he vilely mistranslates the letter—even rendering corte by ‘country’; and Napier (i. 291), where the same accusation is formulated. [604] Moore to Castlereagh, from Salamanca, Dec. 5. [605] Stuart to Moore, from Madrid, Nov. 30. [606] ‘I do not know that I can in any way express with less offence the entire difference of our opinions on this subject, than by forwarding what I had already written, in ignorance of the determination [to retreat] which you had already taken’ (Aranjuez, Nov. 30). [607] He had called on Sir John a few days before, while on his way to Madrid to solicit a military post from the Junta. Moore wrote on Nov. 27 to Mr. Stuart, to say that he had seen him and that ‘he never could help having a dislike to people of this description.’ [608] Moore to Castlereagh, from Salamanca, Dec. 5. [609] Moore to Baird, from Salamanca, Dec. 5. [610] Moore to Baird, from Salamanca, Dec. 6. The strange grammar would seem to show that the letter was dashed off in a hurry, and never revised. [611] Charmilly, greatly indignant, published a narrative of the whole, in which he justified himself and his character. It does not alter the main facts of the case. [612] His muster-rolls show 33,000 troops in all, with 29,000 actually present with the colours, but Leith’s brigade and the 82nd, 2,539 men, were not up. [613] Moore to Frere, Dec. 6. The version presented to Parliament has been somewhat expurgated: I quote from that given by James Moore. [614] Frere to Moore, from Truxillo, Dec. 9. [615] Frere to Moore, from Merida, Dec. 14. [616] Moore’s plans between Dec. 6 and 10, the day on which he got news of the fall of Madrid, must be gathered from his rather meagre dispatches to Castlereagh of midnight, Dec. 5, and of Dec. 8; from his much more explicit letters to Frere on Dec. 6 and 10; from that to La Romana on Dec. 8; and most of all from the very interesting and confidential letters to Baird on Dec. 6 and 8. His doubts as to the permanence of the outburst of enthusiasm in Madrid are plainly expressed in nearly every one of these epistles. The terrible under-estimate of Napoleon’s disposable forces is to be found in that to Castlereagh on Dec. 12, where he writes that ‘the French force in Spain may fairly be set down at 80,000 men, besides what is in Catalonia.’ Acting upon this hypothesis, it is no wonder that he was convinced that Bonaparte could not both besiege Madrid and hunt the British army. [617] Consisting of the 51st Regiment, 59th (2nd batt.), and 76th. [618] Except the ‘Light Brigade’ of Baird’s army which had never left Astorga, having been intended to act with the cavalry as a rearguard. [619] The 3rd had been at Ciudad Rodrigo since Oct. 29 guarding communications. [620] They were the 45th (1st batt.) and the 97th. [621] See the tables in the Appendix. It seems to result that the gross total who marched from Corunna and Lisbon was 33,884, that the deduction of 3,938 sick leaves 29,946. Leith’s battalions and the 82nd were 2,539 strong, the men on detachment 1,687: this leaves 25,720 for the actual marching force. [622] As Arteche very truly observes, the letter of La Romana cannot be safely quoted (after the fashion of James Moore on his p. 122) as approving of the retreat on Portugal. He is answering the dispatch of Dec. 6, not that of Nov. 28. [623] Graham to Moore, from Talavera, Dec. 7-8. [624] Moore to Castlereagh, from Salamanca, Dec. 10. [625] There were thirty of these dragoons: with them were fifty infantry, apparently a belated detail or foraging party from Lefebvre’s corps. [626] Berthier speaks as if Mouton were still commanding one of Soult’s divisions, but he was now gone, and Mermet’s name ought to appear. [627] This dispatch, though often published, has been deliberately omitted (like some others) in the Correspondance de NapolÉon, vol. xviii, probably because it shows the Emperor in one of his least omniscient moods. [628] It is clear from Nap. Corresp., 14,614, 14,616-7, that Franceschi actually evacuated Valladolid and retired northwards. Napoleon at first believed that Moore had occupied the place: but 14,620 mentions that no more happened than that 100 hussars swooped down on it on Dec. 19, and carried off the intendant of the province and 300,000 reals (£3,000) from the treasury. This exploit is omitted by nearly every English writer. Only Vivian mentions it in his diary, and says that the lucky captors belonged to the 18th Hussars (Memoirs, p. 94). What became of the money? [629] ToreÑo, being an Asturian, is rather indignant at Romana’s reflection on the Junta of his province, and observes (i. 324) that the Marquis did not take the trouble to ask for help from them, only writing them a single letter during his stay at Leon. But they sent him some tents, and took in some of his sick. From Galicia there was coming for him an enormous convoy with 100 wagons of English boots and clothes: but it was three weeks too late, and had only reached Lugo by Jan. 1. [630] Romana to Moore, from Leon, Dec. 14. [631] Possibly the two light infantry battalions (Catalonia and Barcelona) of the Baltic division. [632] Symes to Baird, from Leon, Dec. 14. Baird, of course, forwarded the letter to Moore. I have cut down the report to one-third of its bulk, by omitting the less important parts. [633] Moore’s diary, quoted in his brother’s memoir of him, pp. 141, 142. [634] Compare Lord Londonderry (a participator in the charge), Vivian, Adam Neale, and on the French side, Colonel St. Chamans, Soult’s aide-de-camp. The British lost only 14 men (Vivian, p. 97). [635] After his return from Spain in January, 1809, Paget eloped with the wife of Henry Wellesley, the younger brother of Wellington. Naturally they could not be placed together for many years, and Paget lost his chance of seeing any more of the war. But at Waterloo he gloriously vindicated his reputation as the best living British cavalry-officer. [636] From Moore’s dispatch to La Romana, written on the twenty-third, we gather that the letter with the news about the French movements came in about six p.m.,and the second one with the report that the Spaniards had reached Mansilla about eight. The latter is acknowledged in a postscript to Moore’s reply to the former. The resolve to retreat was made between six and eight o’clock. [637] Nap. Corresp., 14,577 [Dec. 17], orders Lasalle’s cavalry to push for Plasencia in order to get news of the British army. [638] Napier (i. 304) says that there were 60,000 men present, but it is hard to see how such a number could have been collected on that day at Madrid; and the official account of the review in the Madrid Gazette for Dec. 23 says that 40,000 men appeared, ‘all in beautiful order, and testifying their enthusiasm by their shouts as His Majesty rode past the front of each regiment.’ The Emperor never understated his forces on such occasions: the tendency was the other way. [639] Nap. Corresp., 14,514, to Admiral DecrÈs. Cf. De Pradt, p. 211. [640] Nap. Corresp., 14,553, to BessiÈres, Dec. 12. [641] In Nap. Corresp. there is no trace of movement till the twenty-second. [642] All this can be studied in Nap. Corresp., 14,609, 14,611, 14,614. The march out towards the Escurial is fixed, by the Madrid Gazette of Dec. 23, as having begun late on the twenty-first. [643] This error appears in Nap. Corresp., 14,614 [Dec. 22], ‘si les Anglais veulent tenir À Valladolid’; 14,616 [Dec. 23] says, ‘Les Anglais paraissent Être À Valladolid, probablement avec une avant-garde.’ It is only on Dec. 27 that he writes to King Joseph that they had never been there at all, save with a flying party of 100 light cavalry. [644] This is Napoleon’s own estimate (Nap. Corresp., 14,615). Marshal Jourdan, who was more or less in charge of the whole, as chief of the staff to King Joseph, says that there were in reality only 30,000 men in all (MÉmoires Militaires, p. 130). Not only was Victor’s corps short of the division of Lapisse (which the Emperor had carried off), but Lefebvre’s was also incomplete, as two Dutch and one German battalions of Leval’s division were behind in Biscay, garrisoning Bilbao and other points. King Joseph’s Guards had also left some detachments behind, and were not up to full strength (Nap. Corresp., 14,615). [645] Moore to Baird, from Salamanca, Dec. 6. [646] The phrase will be found in De Pradt, p. 211. [647] Nap. Corresp., 14,620 (Napoleon to King Joseph, Dec. 27). [648] Oddly enough Joseph had anticipated his brother’s orders, by putting in the Madrid Gazette of that very day a notice that a British corps was in the most critical position, that its retreat was cut off, and that ‘London, so long insensible to the woes of Spain, will soon grieve over a disaster that is her own and not that of another.’ [649] Moore to La Romana, from Sahagun, night of Dec. 23-4. [650] Moore to La Romana, from Sahagun, Dec. 24. [651] There is a good account of this dangerous passage in Adam Neale’s Spanish Campaign of 1808. [652] Memoir of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st Highlanders, p. 53. [653] I am again quoting from the admirable narrative of ‘T.S.’, the private in the 71st. Compare Ormsby’s Letters, ii. 92-3, for the wanton plundering. [654] The French did worse, as they burnt the whole castle when they occupied it during the first days of the new year. But that is no justification for the conduct of the British. For a description of the damage done see Ormsby, ii. 102, 103. [655] General Order, issued at Benavente on Dec. 27. [656] Five regiments (7th, 10th, and 15th Hussars, 18th Light Dragoons, 3rd K. G. L.) were being pressed by thirteen French regiments—four each of Lorges’s and Lahoussaye’s, two of Colbert’s, and three of the Guard. [657] Moore to Castlereagh, from Benavente, Dec. 28. [658] Recollections of Rifleman Harris, p. 171. [659] Napoleon (Nap. Corresp., 14,623) says that the regiment of chasseurs was only 300 strong, and their loss only sixty. But the splendid regiments of the Guard cavalry had not yet fallen to this small number of sabres. [660] He was sent to England, and long lived on parole at Cheltenham. While he was there Charles Vaughan called on him, and got from him some valuable information about the first siege of Saragossa, whose history he was then writing. In 1811 Lefebvre broke his parole and escaped to France, where Napoleon welcomed him and restored him to command. [661] Larrey, the Emperor’s surgeon, commenting on sabre-wounds, says that no less than seventy wounded of the chasseurs came under his care on this occasion. [662] In James Moore’s book this gallant officer appears under the English disguise of Major Bagwell, under which I did not at first recognize him (p. 181). Oddly enough Adam Neale makes the same mistake (p. 179). [663] Nap. Corresp., 14,623 (Napoleon to Josephine, from Benavente, Dec. 31), ‘Les Anglais fuient ÉpouvantÉs.’ [664] Nap. Corresp., 14,626 (Napoleon to King Joseph). Joseph is to insert in the Madrid papers letters written from these three places with descriptions of the brigandage practised by the English—‘À Leon ils ont chassÉ les moines.’ No English troops had ever been within thirty miles of Leon! [665] ‘Cette affaire m’a coÛtÉ une soixantaine de mes chasseurs. Vous sentez combien cela m’a ÉtÉ dÉsagrÉable’ (ibid.). [666] Symes to Moore, from La Romana’s camp at Mansilla, Dec. 25. [667] Ibid. [668] All witnesses agree that the army of Galicia was in a most distressing condition. ‘This army was literally half naked and half starved,’ says Adam Neale. ‘A malignant fever was raging among them, and long fatigues, privation, and this mortal distemper made them appear like spectres issuing from a hospital rather than an army’ (p. 181). ‘T.S.’ describes them as ‘looking more like a large body of peasants driven from their homes, and in want of everything, than a regular army ’ (p. 56). The men fit for service are described as being no more than 5,000 strong. [669] ‘We all wished it, but none believed it,’ writes ‘T.S.’ ‘We had been told the same at Benavente, but our movement had no appearance of a retreat in which we were to face about and make a stand: it was more like a shameful flight’ (p. 56). This undoubtedly was the prevailing view in the ranks. [670] Moore to Castlereagh, from Astorga, Dec. 31, 1808. [671] This plea is not to be found in any of Moore’s dispatches, but only in La Romana’s account of the interview which he sent to the Junta. [672] ‘Abandoned from the beginning by everything Spanish, we were equal to nothing by ourselves. From a desire to do what I could, I made the movement against Soult. As a diversion it has answered completely: but as there is nothing to take advantage of it, I have risked the loss of an army to no purpose. I find no option now but to fall down to the coast as fast as I am able.... The army would, there cannot be a doubt, have distinguished itself, had the Spaniards been able to offer any resistance. But from the first it was placed in situations in which, without the possibility of doing any good, it was itself constantly risked’ (Moore to Castlereagh, from Astorga, Dec. 31). [673] Compare Moore to Castlereagh (from Astorga, Dec. 31) with Nap. Corresp., 14,637, and with James Moore’s memoir (p. 184), and ‘T.S.’s autobiography (p. 57). [674] These reasons will be found set forth at length in Nap. Corresp., 14,684 (to King Joseph, Jan. 11), and 14,692 (to Clarke, Jan. 13). [675] There is a distinct allusion to the matter, however, in FouchÉ’s MÉmoires (i. 385). [676] For a long account of all this intrigue see the MÉmoires of Chancellor Pasquier (i. 355, &c.). He says that it was discovered by Lavalette, the Postmaster-General, who sent information to the Viceroy of Italy, in consequence of which a compromising letter from Caroline Bonaparte (at Naples) to Talleyrand was seized. The reproaches which he puts into Napoleon’s mouth must, I fancy, be taken as about as authentic as an oration in Thucydides. [677] There was also at this moment a slight recrudescence of the old agitation of the chouans in the west of France. Movable columns had to be sent out in the departments of the Mayenne and Sarthe. See Nap. Corresp., 14,871-2. [678] This was a temporary brigade, made up of the 3rd Dutch Hussars and a provisional regiment of dragoons. [679] 5th Dragoons and part of the regiment of Westphalian Chevaux-LÉgers; they belonged to the corps-cavalry of Lefebvre. [680] The defence of Toro was headed by a stray English officer. The place was taken by D’Avenay, not by Maupetit as Arteche says. See the MÉmoires of De Gonneville, i. 207. [681] For information on these rather obscure operations consult the MÉmoires of De Gonneville (of D’Avenay’s brigade) and Nap. Corresp., 14,685. [682] There were only two battalions remaining with Loison by Jan. 10. [683] A month after the pursuit of Moore had ended, and the battle of Corunna had been fought, the four infantry divisions of Soult’s corps which were in Galicia had still 19,000 effective bayonets for the invasion of Portugal. The three cavalry divisions were some 5,300 strong. Ney’s corps, which had hardly been engaged, had 16,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. There were still, therefore, 41,300 men in hand of the two corps. It is impossible to make the losses from the long pursuit in the snow and the battle of Corunna less than 4,500 or 5,000 men, when we reflect that Moore lost 6,000, of whom only 2,000 were prisoners, and that Soult suffered at least 1,500 casualties in the Corunna fighting. [684] Nap. Corresp., 14,662. ‘Les hommes pris sur La Romana Étaient horribles À voir,’ says Napoleon, who saw them at Astorga. [685] This is made absolutely certain by his letter of Jan. 13, in which he says that ‘at Lugo I became sensible of the impossibility of reaching Vigo, which is at too great a distance.’ On starting from Astorga, then, he still thought that he might be able to embark at that port. A glance at the map shows that the march Astorga—Lugo—Vigo is two sides of a triangle. If the Vigo route was to be taken, the only rational places to turn on to it are Astorga and Ponferrada. [686] ‘After a time the same difficulties which affect us must affect him [Soult]: therefore the rear once past Villafranca, I do not expect to be molested’ (Moore to Castlereagh, from Astorga, Dec. 31). [687] Consisting of the 20th Foot, and the first battalions of the 28th, 52nd, 91st, and 95th. [688] The reader should note, in the Appendix dealing with the numbers of Moore’s army, the very small proportional losses suffered by the two battalions of the Guards, the 43rd (1st batt.), 4th, 42nd, 71st, 79th, 92nd, 95th (2nd batt.), and the cavalry. [689] I quote from the original in the Record Office, not from the mutilated version printed in the Parliamentary Papers and elsewhere. [690] Blakeney, of the 28th, says: ‘We employed the greater part of Jan. 1 in turning or dragging the drunken men out of the houses into the streets, and sending forward as many as could be moved. Yet little could be effected with men incapable of standing, much less of marching’ (p. 50). [691] ‘T.S.’ of the 71st (Journal, p. 58). [692] Adam Neale, p. 188. Both he and ‘T.S.’ mention the parading of the wounded men along the lines. [693] Cf. Blakeney, Neale, Londonderry, and James Moore. [694] Not the Guia, as the English generally call it. [695] I take my account of the skirmish mainly from Blakeney, whose narrative is admirable. Those of Londonderry, Napier, and Neale do not give so many details. [696] They were the 15th Chasseurs and the 3rd Hussars. [697] Forty-eight is the number given in Cope’s excellent History of the Rifle Brigade. [698] He was shot by Tom Plunket, a noted character in the 95th, from a range that seemed extraordinary to the riflemen of that day. [699] Napoleon’s not very convincing account of the combat (Nap. Corresp., 14,647) runs as follows: ‘Trois mille Ecossais, voulant dÉfendre les gorges de Picros prÈs de Villafranca, pour donner le temps À beaucoup de choses À filer, ont ÉtÉ culbutÉs. Mais le gÉnÉral Colbert pÉtillant de faire avancer sa cavalerie, une balle l’a frappÉ au front, et l’a tuÉ.’ [700] From Adam Neale’s Spanish Campaign of 1808, pp. 190, 191. [701] For French evidence of this see the journal of Fantin des Odoards of the 31st LÉger: ‘Plusieurs jeunes Anglaises devenues la proie de nos cavaliers Étaient mises À l’encan en mÊme temps que les chevaux pris avec elles. J’ai vu, À mon grand scandale, qu’elles n’avaient pas toujours la prÉfÉrence’ (p. 196). Cf. the miserable story of Mrs. Pullen in the Recollections of Rifleman Harris, p. 142. [702] The whole of this story may be found in Londonderry (i. 272), Ormsby (ii. 140), James Moore (p. 190), as well as in Napier. [703] General Orders (Lugo, Jan. 6, 1809). [704] In defence of the unfortunate Galicians, whose patriotism and good faith has been impugned by so many English narrators of the retreat, it is only necessary to quote the reflections of two dispassionate eye-witnesses. Leith Hay (i. 132) writes: ‘To expect that the peasantry were to rush from their houses, and supply the wants of our soldiers with the only provision that they possessed for their own families—who might in consequence be left in the midst of the mountains, at midwinter, to starve—was imagining friendly feeling carried to an unnatural extent, and just as likely to happen as it would have been if, Napoleon having invaded Britain, an English yeoman should have earnestly requested one of our own soldiers to accept the last morsel of bread he had the means of obtaining for his children.’ Ormsby (ii. 162) says, to much the same effect: ‘As to their inhospitable reception of us, and the concealment of provisions, in candour I must be their apologist, and declare my conviction that the charge in many instances is unfounded and in others exaggerated. Do those who are most loud in their complaints honestly think that an army of 30,000 Spaniards would be better received in England than we were in Spain? I doubt it much. The people, dispirited and alarmed, began to look to self-preservation as the primary or sole object of their care. Add to this the horror and dismay which the excesses of our soldiers struck, and you will not be surprised that villages and houses were frequently deserted. Is it a matter of astonishment that the peasantry fled into the recesses of their mountains, intimidated by our presence and confounded by our crimes?’ [705] For instances of kindness shown by the peasantry see Ormsby (ii. 139). On the other hand the educated classes were often sulky, and even insolent, because they thought that Moore was deliberately abandoning Spain from cowardice. See in Ormsby the anecdotes of the Alcalde of Pinhalla (ii. 79) and the Alcalde of Villafranca (ii. 127), as also of the abuse which he got from a ‘furious canon of Lugo,’ on whom he was billeted (ii. 147, 148). [706] Outside Betanzos Paget halted, stopped the marauding stragglers, and had them stripped of their plunder. Blakeney of the 28th saw 1,500 men searched. ‘It is impossible to enumerate the different articles of plunder which they had crammed into their packs and haversacks—brass candlesticks bent double, bundles of common knives, copper saucepans, every kind of domestic utensil, without regard to weight or value’ (p. 92). [707] Adam Neale, p. 196. The same battalion could show 500 bayonets for the battle of Corunna, so the men were not far off, as it would seem. [708] Le Noble (Campagne du MarÉchal Soult, p. 24) says that Franceschi made a ‘charge’ here and took 500 prisoners. The number of prisoners is very probably correct, but it is hardly a ‘charge’ when isolated stragglers are picked up. The rearguard was never molested, and retired without having to fire a shot. [709] This sergeant’s name was William Newman. He was rewarded by an ensign’s commission in the 1st West India Regiment. [710] I think that it must be to this combat that one of the reminiscences of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st relates, though he is vague in his dates. ‘Sleep was stealing over me when I perceived a bustle around me. It was an advanced party of the French. Unconscious of my action I started to my feet, levelled my musket, which I still retained, fired and formed with the other stragglers. There were more of them than of us, but the action and the approach of danger in a shape which we could repel roused our downcast feelings.... While we ran they pursued, the moment we faced about they halted. We never fought but with success, never were attacked but we forced them to retire’ (p. 60). [711] The stragglers’ battle in front of Betanzos is described by Adam Neale (p. 196), Blakeney (pp. 90, 91), and Steevens of the 20th (p. 70), as well as by Napier and the other historians. I find no account of it in Le Noble or the other French narrators, such as Naylies, St. Chamans, or Fantin des Odoards. Le Noble gives instead a wholly fictitious account of an engagement of Franceschi with English cavalry, in which the latter lost a thousand men and five guns (p. 34). As the cavalry had marched for Corunna before Franceschi came up, and lost only about 200 men in the whole campaign, I am quite at a loss to understand what can be the foundation of this romance. [712] Fantin des Odoards gives a vivid and picturesque account of the relief caused to the pursuers, by the sudden plunge into fine spring-like weather, on descending from the snows of the interior (p. 198). [713] There is a good account of the bickering in Blakeney, pp. 102-5. [714] I obtain these figures from the Parliamentary Returns of 1809. [715] There can be no doubt that this strange suggestion was made, as Moore himself mentions it in his dispatch of Jan. 13, the last which he wrote. [716] Paget had just lost his senior brigadier, Anstruther, who died of dysentery in Corunna that day. His second brigade was commanded by Disney. [717] His two brigadiers were Beresford and Fane. [718] The force stood as follows:—
[719] e.g. Le Noble in his Campagne du MarÉchal Soult, 1808-9, p. 41. [720] Blakeney, p. 114. [721] His dispatch to Castlereagh, of Jan. 18, proves that he was wounded before Moore fell. [722] Every student of the Peninsular War should read Charles Napier’s vivid and thrilling account of the storm of Elvina. William Napier reprinted it in vol. i of his brother’s biography. Charles was within an ace of being murdered after surrender, and was saved by a gallant French drummer. [723] Letter of his aide-de-camp Hardinge in James Moore’s Life, p. 220. [724] Erroneously called in most British and French accounts Palavea Abaxo. The latter village is at the foot of the French line, a little to the north. [725] For an account of this combat from the French side see Foy’s report to Delaborde, printed in Girod de l’Ain’s Vie militaire du GÉnÉral Foy (appendix), where the losses of the brigade are given. On the English side the 92nd lost three killed and five wounded (see Gardyne’s History of the 92nd Regiment). The 14th do not separate their battle-losses from those of the retreat in their casualty-returns. They had sixty-six dead and missing in the whole campaign, and put on board at Corunna seventy-two sick and wounded. Probably not more than ten of the former and thirty of the latter were hit in the battle; if the casualties were any larger on January 16 the losses in the retreat must have been abnormally small in the 14th Regiment. [726] Of course the untrustworthy Le Noble does so, and falsifies his map accordingly. [727] Foy’s brigade engaged two battalions of the 70th Regiment, besides three companies of voltigeurs of the 86th; this was all that Delaborde sent forward. There were two chefs de bataillon among the wounded. [728] ‘Chaque armÉe resta sur son terrain,’ says St. Chamans, Soult’s senior aide-de-camp (the man who so kindly entreated Charles Napier, as the latter’s memoirs show). ‘A la nuit, qui seule a pu terminer cette lutte opiniÂtre, nous nous sommes retrouvÉs au point d’oÙ nous Étions partis À 3 heures,’ says Fantin des Odoards, of Mermet’s division (p. 200). ‘Nos troupes furent obligÉes, par des forces supÉrieures, de rentrer dans leurs premiers postes,’ says Naylies, of Lahoussaye’s dragoons (p. 46). [729] Blakeney urges this very strongly (pp. 117, 118); Graham also. [730] It would seem that only the 2nd LÉger and 36th of the Line of Merle, and the 70th of Delaborde, had been seriously engaged. [731] Belmas gives the same number, probably copying Le Noble. [732] Jourdan’s MÉmoires, p. 126. [733] Fantin des Odoards, p. 201. [734] See Marshal Jourdan’s very judicious remark on Soult’s bulletins in his MÉmoires militaires (p. 127). ‘His first dispatch was not that of a general who imagined that he had been successful.’ [735] The inscription was to run: ‘Hic cecidit Iohannes Moore dux exercitus Britannici, in pugna Ianuarii xvi, 1809, contra Gallos a duce Dalmatiae ductos.’ [736] St. Chamans calls him ‘un vieux faible et sans moyens, menÉ par une espÈce de courtisane.’ Mr. Stuart (in a note to Vaughan) describes him as an ‘unscrupulous old rascal.’ [737] Cf. for their losses the Parliamentary Papers for 1809 (pp. 8, 9), and Beamish’s History of the German Legion. [738] In fairness to the government Castlereagh’s dispatches, 92-105 in the Parliamentary Papers for 1809, should be carefully studied. [739] Moore to Castlereagh, from Astorga, Dec. 31, 1808. [742] Moore to Castlereagh, from Salamanca, Nov. 25. [743] Napier, i. 349. [744] ‘Thus ended the career of Sir John Moore, a man whose uncommon capacity was sustained by the purest virtue, and governed by a disinterested patriotism, more in keeping with the primitive than the luxurious age of a great nation. His tall graceful person, his dark searching eyes, strongly defined forehead, and singularly expressive mouth indicated a noble disposition and a refined understanding. The lofty sentiments of honour habitual to his mind were adorned by a subtle playful wit, which gave him in conversation the ascendency which he always preserved by the decisive vigour of his action. He maintained the right with a vehemence bordering on fierceness, and every important transaction in which he was engaged increased his reputation for talent, and confirmed his character as a stern enemy to vice, a steadfast friend to merit, a just and faithful servant of his country. The honest loved him, the dishonest feared him; he did not shun, but scorned and spurned the base, and, with characteristic propriety, they spurned at him when he was dead.... If glory be a distinction, for such a man death is not a leveller!’ (Peninsular War, i. 333.) [745] Of transports fitted for carrying horses Dalrymple only had at this moment those which had brought 180 horses for the 20th Light Dragoons, 300 of the Irish commissariat, and 560 of the 3rd Light Dragoons of the German Legion, which had just arrived with Moore. [746] These articles are shortened of some unimportant verbiage and details. [747] The meaning of this odd and crabbed phrase is shown by the French duplicate of the Convention—‘d’en faire passer le produit en France.’ Murray should have written ‘the proceeds’ instead of ‘the sale.’ [748] Murray’s English does not here translate Kellermann’s French: the latter has ‘dÉtenus en Espagne,’ i.e. ‘at present prisoners in Spain,’ not ‘who may have been detained in Spain.’ For the persons intended were primarily General Quesnel, his staff, and escort, who had been seized in Portugal and then taken into Spain. The clause also covered some French officers and commissaries who had been seized at Badajoz and elsewhere while making their way to Lisbon, at the moment when the insurrection broke out. [749] The hostage for the English army was Col. Donkin. I cannot find out who was the naval hostage. [750] i.e. Junot and his chief officers preferred the hospitalities of a man of war to the hard fare of a transport. [751] Includes fifty-six men drowned on return voyage to England. [752] The 76th Regiment failed to send in its disembarkation return, so that its loss has to be averaged. [753] Includes twenty-two men drowned on return voyage to England. [754] Includes 187 men drowned on return voyage to England. [755] Includes twenty-two drowned on return voyage to England, and nine drowned in Corunna harbour. Transcriber’s note
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