While dealing with the operations of the French armies in the various provinces of Spain, we have observed that at every point the arrival of the news of Dupont’s disaster at Baylen produced notable results. It was this unexpected intelligence that drove the intrusive king out of Madrid within a week of his arrival, and ere the ceremonial of his proclamation had been completed. It brought back BessiÈres from the Esla to the Arlanzon, and raised the siege of Saragossa. Knowing of it Junot summoned his council of war at Torres Vedras with a sinking heart, and Duhesme lacked the confidence to try the ordeal of battle before Gerona. Beyond the Pyrenees its influence was no less marked. Napoleon had imagined that the victory of Rio Seco had practically decided the fate of the Peninsula, and at the moment of Baylen was turning his attention to Austria rather than to Spain. On July 25, five days after Dupont had laid down his arms, he was meditating the reinforcement of his army in Germany, and drafting orders that directed the garrisons of northern France on Mainz and Strasburg[324]. To a mind thus preoccupied the news of the disaster in Andalusia came like a thunderclap. So far was the Spanish trouble from an end, that it was assuming an aspect of primary Meanwhile he had to face the situation: within a few hours of the moment when Villoutreys placed Dupont’s dispatch in his hands, he had so far got over the first spasms of his wrath that he was able to dictate a general plan for the reconcentration of his armies[330]. We have compared the French forces in Spain to a broad wedge, of which the point, directed against the heart of the insurrection, was formed by the three divisions of Dupont’s corps. This point had now been broken off; but the Emperor, still clinging to the idea of the wedge, wished to preserve Madrid and to form in and about it a new army fit for offensive operations. With this force he would strike at the insurgents of Andalusia and Valencia when they marched on the capital, while BessiÈres in the But all these arrangements were futile. Bonaparte at Bordeaux was separated from his brother at the Retiro by so many miles that his orders were grown stale before they reached their destination. His scheme was made out on August 2, but on the preceding day King Joseph and his whole army had evacuated Madrid. The terror of Baylen was upon them, and they were expecting every moment to find themselves attacked by CastaÑos, who was as a matter of fact celebrating triumphal feasts at Seville. With a When Bonaparte learnt that his brother had fled from Madrid and crossed the passes into Old Castile, he was forced to draw out a wholly different scheme from that which he had sketched on August 2. The King, he wrote, with Moncey’s corps, must take post at Aranda, where the Douro is crossed by the high-road from France to Madrid. His army should be strengthened to a force of 30,000 men: meanwhile BessiÈres and Verdier must protect his flanks. The former with 15,000 men should take Valladolid as his head quarters and guard against any attempt of Blake to resume the offensive. As to Verdier, since he had been instructed to abandon the siege of Saragossa—a grave blunder—he must be drawn back as far as Tudela on the Middle Ebro. From that point he would easily be able to ‘contain’ the tumultuary army It was from Rochefort and on August 5 that Napoleon sent off his orders to his brother to stay his retreat at Aranda de Duero, and to keep BessiÈres at Valladolid and Verdier at Tudela. Once more the distances of space and time were too much for him. Before the dispatch from Rochefort came to hand, Joseph and Savary had already abandoned Aranda: they left it on the sixth and by the ninth were at Burgos. At that city they were met by BessiÈres, who according to the King’s orders had fallen back from The head quarters were established at Miranda: the troops of BessiÈres and Moncey were massed at that place and at LogroÑo, with a strong detachment across the Ebro at Pancorbo, and some cavalry lying out as far as Burgos: Verdier’s army, after finally raising the siege of Saragossa, fell back on Milagro, the point where the Aragon falls into the Ebro. Thus some 70,000 men were concentrated on a comparatively short and compact front, covering the two great roads which lead to France by Vittoria and by Pampeluna. Against any frontal attack from the direction of Madrid the position was very strong. But a glance at the map shows that the flanks were not properly protected: there was nothing to prevent Blake from turning the extreme right by an advance into Biscay, or to prevent Palafox from turning the extreme left by a march on Pampeluna via Tafalla or Sanguesa. If either of these moves were made by a powerful force, the army on the Ebro would be compelled either to abandon its positions in order to go in pursuit, or else to leave them occupied by a detachment insufficient to resist a serious attack along the line of the high-road from Madrid. Both those operations were ultimately taken in hand by the Spaniards, but it was at too late an hour, when the reinforcements from Germany had begun to arrive, and when ample means were at the disposal of the French generals for repulsing flank attacks, without drawing off men from the line of the Ebro. The astounding slowness of the Spaniards, and the lamentable want of union between the commanders of the various provincial armies, ruined any chance that there might have been of success. The troops of King Joseph were safely installed in their defensive positions by August 15. On that day the leading columns of the Spanish army had only just arrived at Madrid. It was not till a month later that the number of troops brought forward to the line of the Ebro approached the total strength of the host of the intrusive King. The offensive operations of Blake SECTION VI: CHAPTER IICREATION OF THE ‘JUNTA GENERAL’ On August 1, Madrid had seen the last of the French: yet it was not till the thirteenth that the Spanish troops appeared before the gates of the capital. Even then it was not the victorious army of Andalusia which presented itself, but only the Valencian corps of Llamas, a mere division of 8,000 men, which would not have dared to push forward, had it not known that Joseph Bonaparte and all his train were now far on their way towards the Ebro. During the thirteen days which elapsed between his departure and the arrival of the Valencians there was a curious interregnum in Madrid. It took some time to convince the populace and the local authorities that the hated invaders were really gone, and that they were once more their own masters. Nothing reflects the state of public opinion better than the Madrid Gazette: down to August 1, it shows the hand of a French editor; ‘His Majesty’ means King Joseph, and all the foreign intelligence is coloured with French views. On August 2 the foreign influence begins to disappear, and we note a very cautious and tentative proclamation by the old ‘Council of Castile.’ That effete body, shorn by the French of most of its prominent members, had repeatedly yielded to the orders of Murat and Savary: it had carried out many decrees of the new executive, yet it had never actually recognized the legality of King Joseph’s accession. Indeed at the last moment it had striven, by feeble methods of evasion and delay, to avoid committing itself to this final step. But we may guess that, had there been no Baylen, the Council would finally have made up its mind to ‘swallow the pill’—if we may use once more Murat’s characteristic phrase. However, the flight of Joseph had saved it from being forced to range itself on the side of the traitors, and its members were able to stay behind in Madrid without fearing for their necks. In their first manifesto there is not a word that could have offended Savary, if he had returned the next day. It preaches the necessity of calm, order, and quiet: no one must stir up mobs, compromise the public It is really astonishing to find that the Council made a bid for power, and attempted to assume the pose of a senate of warm-hearted patriots, after all its base servility to Murat and Savary during the last six months. Its president, Don Arias Mon y Velarde, actually had the audacity to write a circular-note to the various provincial Juntas of Spain, proposing that, as a single central government must obviously be established, they should send representatives to Madrid to concert with the Council on means of defence, and lend it the aid of their influence and authority. That such a discredited body should attempt to assume a kind of presidential authority over the local Juntas who had raised and directed the insurrection was absurd. The replies which were returned were of the most uncompromising kind: the Galician Junta taunted the Council with having been ‘the most active instrument of the Usurper.’ Palafox, speaking for Aragon, wrote that it ‘was a corporation which had not done its duty.’ The active and ambitious Junta of Seville wished to accuse the Council before the face of the Spanish people ‘of having subverted the fundamental laws of the realm, of having given the enemy every facility for seizing the domination of Spain, of having lost all legal authority and become null and void, and of being suspected of deliberate treason of the most atrocious sort possible.’ The Valencians voted that ‘no public body of any kind ought to enter into correspondence with the Council of Castile, or The credit of starting a serious agitation for the erection of a ‘Supreme Junta’ must be given to the Murcians, whose councils were guided by the old statesman Florida Blanca, a survivor from the days of Charles III. As far back as June 22 they had issued a proclamation setting forth the evils of provincial particularism, and advocating the establishment of a central government. None of the other Juntas ventured openly to oppose this laudable design, and some of them did their best to further it. But there were others who clung to power, and were determined to surrender it at as late a date as they could manage. The Junta of Seville was far the worst: that body—as we have had occasion to mention in another place—was largely in the hands of intriguers, and had put forth unjustifiable claims to domination in the whole southern part of the realm, even usurping the title of ‘Supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies[348].’ In their desire for self-aggrandizement they took most unjustifiable steps: they suppressed Florida Blanca’s Murcian proclamation, lest it might stir up an agitation in Andalusia in behalf of the establishment of a central government[349]. But this was a comparatively venial sin: their worst act was to stay the march of CastaÑos on Madrid after Baylen. The pretext used was that they wished to welcome the victorious general and his army with triumphal entries and feasts of rejoicing—things entirely out of place, so long as the French were still holding the capital of the realm. To his own entire dissatisfaction CastaÑos was dragged back to Seville, there to display the captured guns and flags of the French, and to be received with salvos fired by patriotic In the northern parts of Spain there was almost as much confusion, particularism, and selfishness as in the south. The main sources of trouble were the rivalry of the Juntas of Asturias and Galicia, and the extravagant claims of the aged and imbecile Cuesta, in virtue of his position as Captain-General of Castile. It will be remembered that in June insurrectionary Juntas had been established at Leon and Valladolid, the former purporting to represent the kingdom of Leon, the latter the kingdom of Old Castile. Each had been under the thumb of Cuesta, who looked upon them as nothing more than committees established under his authority for the civil government of the provinces of the Douro. But the disaster of Medina de Rio Seco destroyed both the power and the credit of the Captain-General. Flying before the French, the Juntas took refuge in Galicia, where they settled down at Ponferrada for a few days, and then moved to Lugo, whither the Junta of Galicia came out to meet them. The three bodies, joining in common session, chose as their president Don Antonio Valdes, the Bailiff of the Knights of Malta, who was one of the representatives of Castile. They claimed to be recognized as the supreme civil The want of any central executive for directing the armies of the patriots had the most disastrous results. By September 1 CastaÑos and Llamas had not more than 20,000 men at Madrid. Galluzzo’s army of Estremadura, which ought to have joined them long before, was still employed in its futile siege of Elvas. Cuesta was hanging back in Castile, as jealous of CastaÑos as he had been of Blake. The only armies which were in touch with the French were Palafox’s troops on the Ebro and the Valencian division of Saint March, which the Junta of Valencia (showing more patriotism than most of their colleagues) had pushed up to Saragossa to aid the Aragonese. Blake, with the powerful army of Galicia, had descended to Astorga when BessiÈres retreated to Burgos. But from Astorga he advanced most cautiously, always clinging to the southern slope of the Cantabrian hills, in order to avoid the plains, where the cavalry of the French would have a free hand. It was not till September 10 that he had concentrated his main body at Reynosa, near the sources of the Ebro, where he was at last near enough to the front to be able to commence operations. The whole month of August, it is not too much to say, was lost for military purposes because Spain had not succeeded in furnishing itself with a central government or a commander-in-chief. It had been wasted in constitutional debates of the most futile kind. To every one, except to certain of the more selfish members of the Juntas, it was clear that a way must be found out of the existing anarchy. Three courses seemed possible: one was to appoint a Regent, or a small Council of Regency, and to entrust to him (or to them) the conduct of affairs. The second was to summon the Cortes, the old national parliament of Spain. The third was to establish a new sort of central government, by inducing each of the existing Juntas to send deputies, with full powers of representation, to sit together as a ‘Supreme Central Junta’ for the whole realm. The project of appointing a Regent had at first many advocates: it occurred to both CastaÑos and Palafox, and each (as it chanced) pitched upon the same individual as most worthy of the post[354]. This was the Archduke Charles of Austria, the sole general in Europe who had won a military reputation of the first class while contending with the French. He would have been an excellent choice—if only he could have been secured. But it did not take much reflection to see that if Austria allowed her greatest captain to accept such a post, she would involve herself in instant war with Bonaparte, and if such a war broke out the Archduke would be wanted on the Danube rather than upon the Ebro. There was no other name likely to command general confidence. Some spoke of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo[355], the last prince of the Spanish royal house who remained in the realm. But he was an insignificant and incapable person, and much discredited by his dallyings with Murat in the days before the insurrection had begun. Clearly he would be no more than a puppet, worked by some astute person behind the viceregal throne. Other names suggested were those of the young Dom Pedro of Portugal (son of the Prince-Regent John), and of Prince Leopold, the son of Ferdinand IV of Sicily. The former was a grandson, the latter a nephew of Charles IV. Both therefore were near to the throne, but both were foreigners, young, untried in matters of state, and utterly unknown to the Spaniards. Dom Pedro’s claims were not Much more specious, at first sight, than any project for the establishment of a regency, was the proposal mooted in many quarters for the summoning of the Cortes—whose name recalled so many ancient memories, and was connected with the days of constitutional freedom in the Middle Ages. But not only had the Cortes been obscured by the long spell of autocracy under the Hapsburg and Bourbon kings, but it was by its very constitution unsuited to represent a nation seeking for a new and vigorous executive. It was full of mediaeval anomalies: for example the Asturias had never been represented in it, but had possessed (like Wales in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) separate governmental machinery of its own. This might have been altered without much difficulty, but it was more fatal that the distribution of seats in the lower estates represented an archaic survival. Many decayed towns in Castile sent members to the Cortes, while on the other hand the warlike and populous province of Galicia had only one single vote. To rearrange the representation on a rational basis would take so long, and cause so much provincial jealousy, that it was recognized as practically impossible. There remained therefore only the third plan for creating a supreme government in Spain—that which proposed that the various existing Juntas should each send deputies to some convenient spot, and that the union of these representatives should constitute a central authority for the whole realm. This scheme was not so clearly constitutional as the summoning of the Cortes SECTION VI: CHAPTER IIITHE ‘JUNTA GENERAL’ IN SESSION The provincial Juntas, when once they had consented to sacrifice their local sovereignty, made no great delay in forwarding their representatives to the chosen meeting-place at Aranjuez. The number of deputies whom they sent to the Supreme Central Junta was thirty-five, seventeen provincial Juntas each contributing two, and the Canary Islands one. The Biscayan provinces, still wholly in the possession of the French, had no local body to speak for them, and could not therefore choose deputies. The number thus arrived at was not a very convenient one: thirty-five is too few for a parliament, and too many for an executive government. Moreover proportional representation was not secured; Navarre and the Balearic Islands were given too much weight by having two members each. Andalusia, having eight deputies for its four Juntas of Seville, Jaen, Granada, and Cordova, was over-represented when compared with Galicia, Aragon, and Catalonia, which had each no more than two. The quality of the delegates was very various: among the most notable were the ex-ministers Florida Blanca and Jovellanos, who represented respectively the better sides of the Conservative and the Liberal parties of Spain—if we may use such terms. The former, trained in the school of ‘benevolent despotism’ under Charles III, was a good specimen of the eighteenth-century statesman of the old sort—polite, experienced, energetic, a ripe scholar, and an able diplomat. But he was eighty years old and failing in health, and his return to active politics killed him in a few months. Jovellanos, a somewhat younger man[360], belonged in spirit to the end rather than the middle of the eighteenth century, and was imbued with the ideas of liberty and constitutional government which were afloat all over Europe in the early days of the French Revolution. He represented modern liberalism in the shape which it took in Spain. For this reason he had suffered Of the other members[361] of the Supreme Junta, the Bailiff Valdez and Francisco Palafox, fresh from his brother’s triumphs at Saragossa, were perhaps the best known. Among the rest we note a considerable number of clergy—two archbishops, a prior, and three canons—but not more than might have been expected in a country where the Church was so powerful. Military men were not so strongly represented, being only five in number, and three of these were militia colonels. The rest were mainly local notables—grandees, marquises, and counts predominated over mere commoners. Some of them were blind particularists, and a few—like the disreputable Conde de Tilly—were intriguers with doubtful antecedents. The whole body represented Spain well enough, but Spain with her weaknesses as well as her strong points. It was not a very promising instrument with which to achieve the liberation of the Peninsula, or to resist the greatest general in Europe. Considered as a government of national defence, it had far too little military knowledge: a haphazard assembly of priests, politicians, and grandees is not adapted for the conduct of a war of independence. Hence came the incredible blindness which led it to refuse to appoint a single commander-in-chief, and the obstinacy with which it buried itself in constitutional debates of the most futile sort when Napoleon was thundering at the gates of Spain. The meeting of the Supreme Junta was fixed for September 25, but long ere that date came round the military situation was assuming new developments. The first modification in the state of affairs was caused by the abortive attempt of the Basque provinces to free themselves. The news of Baylen had caused as great a stir in the northern mountains as in the south or the east of Spain. But Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava had considerable French garrisons, and the retreat of Joseph Bonaparte to the Ebro only increased the number of enemies in their immediate neighbourhood. It would have been no less patriotic than prudent for these provinces to delay their insurrection till it had some chance of proving useful It was not till twenty days had passed since the fall of Bilbao But meanwhile only 75,000 men were available in the first line; and this force, spread along the whole front from Reynosa to Sanguesa, and acting on wide external lines, was not likely to make much impression on the French. The numbers of the invaders were considerably greater than those of the patriot-armies. Jourdan had 70,000 men by September 1, and was being reinforced every day by fresh battalions, though the three corps from Germany were still far off. Before the Spaniards could move he appreciably outnumbered them, and he had the inestimable advantage of holding a comparatively short front, and of being able to concentrate on any point with far greater rapidity than was possible to his adversaries. Even had they thrown all their forces on one single point, the French, always using the ‘interior lines,’ could have Before the campaign began the Spaniards obtained one notable advantage—the removal of Cuesta from command, owing to his own incredible arrogance and folly. It will be remembered that he regarded the Juntas of Leon and Castile as recalcitrant subordinates of his own, and had declared all their acts null and void. When they proceeded, like the other Juntas, to elect representatives for the meeting at Aranjuez, he waited till the deputies of Leon were passing near his camp, and then suddenly descended upon them. Don Antonio Valdez, the Bailiff of the Maltese Knights, and the Vizconde de Quintanilla, were arrested by his troopers and shut up in the castle of Segovia. He announced that they should be tried by court-martial, for failing in obedience to their Captain-General. This astonishing act of presumption drew down on him the wrath of the Supreme Junta, which was naturally eager to protect its members from the interference of the military arm. Almost its first act on assembling was to order him to appear at Aranjuez and to suspend him from command. Cuesta would have liked to resist, but knowing that his own army was weak and that Blake and CastaÑos were his bitter enemies, he had to yield. He came to Aranjuez, and was superseded by General Eguia. Valdez and Quintanilla were immediately released, and took their seats in the Supreme Junta. The sessions of that body had begun on September 25. Twenty-four members out of the designated thirty-five had assembled on that day, and after a solemn religious ceremony had re-proclaimed Ferdinand VII, and elected Florida Blanca as their President. They then proceeded to nominate a Cabinet, chosen entirely from outside their own body. Don Pedro Cevallos was to be Minister of Foreign Affairs: he had served Ferdinand VII in that capacity, but had smirched his reputation by his submission to Bonaparte after the treachery at Bayonne. However, his ingenious justification[366] A glance at the subjects which were discussed by the members of the Junta, during its first weeks of session, suffices to show the short-sightedness of their policy, and their utter inability to grasp the situation. They should have remembered that they were a government of national defence, whose main duty was the expulsion of the French from the soil of Spain. But military subjects furnished the smallest portion of their subjects of debate. They published indeed a manifesto to the effect that they intended to levy an army of 500,000 foot, and 50,000 horse—a much greater force than Spain in her most flourishing days could have raised or maintained. But this paper army was never seen in the field: less than a third of the number were under arms at the moment in December when the Junta had to fly from Aranjuez, before the advancing legions of Napoleon. Nor was it likely that a great army could be raised, equipped, and disciplined, while the central government was devoting the greater part of its attention to futilities. The most cruel comment on its work lies in the fact that its troops were ill furnished, badly armed, and half starved, at the moment when the provinces were doing their best to provide equipment, and every port in Spain was gorged with cannon, muskets, munitions, and stores sent from England—a great part When we look at the main topics of its debates we begin to understand its failures. A good deal of time was spent in voting honorary distinctions to its own members. The President was to be addressed as ‘his highness,’ the Junta as a corporation was ‘its majesty,’ if we may use the ludicrous phrase. Each member became ‘his excellency’ and received the liberal salary of 120,000 reals (£1,200), besides the right of wearing on his breast a gold plaque with an embossed representation of the eastern and western hemispheres. There was a good deal of dispensing of places and patronage in the army and the civil service among relatives and dependencies of ‘their excellencies,’ but not more perhaps than happens in other countries in war-time when a new government comes in. At least the changes led to the getting rid of a good many of Godoy’s old bureaucrats. The real fault of the Junta lay in its readiness to fall into factions, and fight over constitutional questions that should have been relegated to times of peace. Among the thirty-five members of the Junta a clear majority were, like their president, Florida Blanca, Spaniards of the old school, whose ideas of government were those of the autocratic sort that had prevailed under Alberoni and Charles III. They looked upon all innovations as tinged with the poison of the French Revolution and savouring of Jacobinism and infidelity. On the other hand there was a powerful minority, headed by Jovellanos and including Martin de Garay, the secretary of the Junta, the Marquis of Campo Sagrado, Valdes, Calvo de Rozas, and others, who held more modern views and hoped that the main result of the war would be to make Spain a constitutional monarchy of the English type. How far this dream was from realization was shown by the fact that among the first measures passed through the Supreme Junta were ordinances allowing the Jesuits (expelled long since by Charles III) to return to Spain, recreating the office of Inquisitor-General, and suspending the liberty of the press. Such measures filled the liberal section in the Junta with despair, by showing the narrow and reactionary views of the majority. But the greater part of the time spent in session by ‘its majesty’ was wasted on purely constitutional questions. Clearly nothing could be more inappropriate and absurd than that this government of national defence should turn its attention to subjects such as the reform of national education, or the encouragement of the arts. It is equally certain that if it should propose to ‘consider the changes necessary in our ancient laws,’ it would be going beyond its competence; for such business belonged only to a permanent and properly constituted national assembly, such as the Cortes. This was not the time for constitutional debates, nor was the Central Junta the body that should have started them. All their energies should have been devoted to the war. But misled as to the situation by the long quiescence of the French army on the Ebro, they turned their minds to every topic that should have been avoided, and neglected the single one that should always have been before their eyes. It was in vain that Calvo de Rozas, the Aragonese deputy, and a few more, tried to keep their colleagues to the point. The majority fell to debating on the subjects on which the despotic and the liberal theories of government clash, and spent themselves on discussions that were as heated as they were futile. Meanwhile the time that should have been turned to account was slipping away, and the army was not being reinforced. A glance at the field-states of the Spanish troops, comparing those of August 1 with those of November 1, sufficiently proves this. The provinces which had been recovered by the retreat of the French to the Ebro were not doing their duty. The wide and populous regions of Old Castile and Leon had sent 4,600 men to Rio Seco in July: in October they had less than 12,000 under arms[370]. From New Castile there seem to have This was all the more inexcusable because the nation was thoroughly in earnest, and prepared to make any sacrifices. The voluntary contributions made both by provinces and by individuals were astounding when the poverty of Spain is taken into consideration[374]. It was the energy and will to use them on the part of the leaders that was wanting. Moreover, England was pouring in supplies of all sorts: before November 16 she had sent at least 122,000 muskets and other military equipment of all kinds to the value of several hundred thousand pounds. Before the same date she had forwarded 4,725,000 dollars in hard cash[375], and Mr. Frere, the newly appointed minister, brought another million to Corunna. Instead of utilizing every possible resource the government went on debating about things unessential, as if the war had been ended at Baylen. It would neither conduct the new campaign itself, nor appoint a single commander-in-chief to conduct it in its behalf. With absolute truth Colonel Graham wrote from the head quarters of the Army of the Centre that ‘the miserable system established by the Junta was at the bottom of all misfortunes. I pitied poor CastaÑos and poor Spain, and came away disgusted to the greatest degree[376].’ SECTION VI: CHAPTER IVAN EPISODE IN THE BALTIC It will be remembered that one of Napoleon’s preliminary measures, in his long campaign against the freedom of Spain, had been the removal of the flower of her army to the shores of the Baltic. In the spring of 1807 the Marquis of La Romana, with fourteen battalions of infantry and five regiments of cavalry, all completed to war strength, had marched for Hamburg. After wintering in the Hanseatic towns, Mecklenburg, and Swedish Pomerania, this corps had been moved up early in 1808 into Denmark[377]. It is clear that there was no military object in placing it there. The Danish fleet was gone, carried off by Lord Cathcart’s expedition in the previous September, and there was no probability that the English would return for a second visit, when they had completely executed their plan for destroying the naval resources of Denmark. France and Sweden, it is true, were still at war, but King Gustavus was so much occupied by the defensive struggle against the Russians in Finland, that it was unlikely that he would detach troops for an objectless expedition against the Danes. On the other hand the Anglo-Swedish fleet was so completely dominant in the Baltic and the Sound, that there was no possibility of launching an expedition from Denmark against Southern Sweden. Even between the various islands at the mouth of the Baltic, where the water-distances are very short, troops could only be moved at night, and with infinite precautions against being surprised on the passage by English frigates. Gothenburg and the other harbours of South-western Sweden served as convenient ports of call to the British squadron told off for the observation of the Cattegat, the two Belts, and the Sound. Nothing could be done against Sweden, unless indeed a frost of La Romana’s corps formed part of an army under Marshal Bernadotte, whose sphere of command extended all over the south-western shores of the Baltic, and whose head quarters were sometimes at Schleswig and sometimes at LÜbeck or Stralsund. He had considerable French and Dutch contingents, but the bulk of his force consisted of 30,000 Danes. In preparation for Napoleon’s scheme against the Spanish Bourbons, La Romana’s forces had been carefully scattered between Jutland and the Danish Isles, so that there was no large central body concentrated under the Marquis’s own hand. The garrisons of the Spanish regiments were interspersed between those of Danish troops, so that it would be difficult to get them together. In March, 1808, when the Emperor had at last shown his hand by the treacherous seizure of Pampeluna, Barcelona, and Figueras, the troops of La Romana were cantoned as follows. Six battalions were in the island of Zealand, mainly in and about the old royal residence of Roeskilde[378]. Four battalions and two cavalry regiments were in FÜnen, the central island of the Danish group, and with them La Romana himself, whose head quarters were at Nyborg[379]. One battalion lay in the island of Langeland, close to the south coast of FÜnen[380]. In the mainland of Jutland were three cavalry regiments and three battalions of infantry[381], quartered in the little towns at the southern end of the Cattegat—Fredericia, Aarhuus, and Randers. In Zealand the 4,000 Spaniards were under the eyes of the main Danish army of observation against Sweden. In FÜnen La Romana’s 4,500 horse and foot were cantoned in small detachments, while a solid body of 3,000 Danes garrisoned Odense in the centre of the island, separating the Spanish regiments one from another. In Langeland, along with the Catalonian light battalion, were a company of French grenadiers and about 800 Danes. The troops in Jutland were mixed up with a brigade of Dutch light In spite of all this, the Marquis and his officers began to grow uneasy in April, 1808, for the stream of dispatches and letters from Spain, which had been reaching them very regularly during the winter, began to dry up in the spring. When the first communication from the new ministry of Ferdinand VII reached La Romana he found that it contained a complaint that the home government had received no reports from the expeditionary force since January, and that fifteen separate dispatches sent to him from Madrid had failed to get any answer. The fact was that Napoleon had been systematically intercepting every document which the war minister at one end of the line, and the Marquis at the other, had been committing to the French post[383]. The last dispatch had only come to hand because such an important announcement as that of the accession of King Ferdinand had been sent by the hands of a Spanish officer, whom Bonaparte or FouchÉ had not thought proper to arrest, though they had intercepted so much official correspondence. The Emperor himself had sent orders to Bernadotte that the news of the revolution at Aranjuez should be kept as long as possible from the Marquis and his troops[384]: and so it came to pass that only a very few days after the events of March 19 became known in Denmark, there followed the deplorable intelligence of the treachery of Bayonne and of the Madrid insurrection of May 2. These tidings produced the same feelings in Nyborg and Fredericia that they had caused at Seville or Corunna. But on the shores of the Baltic, further north than any Spanish troops had ever been before, the expeditionary corps felt itself helpless and surrounded by enemies. Yet as Joseph O’Donnell, then one of La Romana’s On June 24 there reached Nyborg the intelligence which showed the whole of Napoleon’s schemes completed: it was announced to La Romana that Joseph Bonaparte had been proclaimed King of Spain, and he was ordered to transmit the news to his troops, and to inform them in General Orders that they were now serving a new master. The only commentary on this astonishing information which the Spanish officers could procure consisted of the nauseous banalities of the Moniteur concerning the ‘regeneration of Spain.’ A very few days later the first ray of hope shone upon the humbled and disheartened general. One of the earliest ideas of the British Government, on hearing of the Spanish insurrection, had been to open communications with the troops in Denmark. CastaÑos, in his first interview with the Governor of Gibraltar, had expressed his opinion that they would strike a blow for liberty if only they were given the chance. The fleet of Sir Richard Keates so completely commanded the Baltic that it would be possible to rescue the Spanish expeditionary force, if only it were willing and able to cut its way to the coast. But it was necessary to find out whether the Marquis was ready to risk his neck in such an enterprise, and whether he could depend on the loyalty of his troops. To settle this all-important question some agent must be found who would undertake to penetrate to La Romana’s head quarters, a task of the most uninviting kind, for it was quite uncertain whether the Spaniard would eagerly join in the plan, or whether he would make up his mind to espouse the cause of Napoleon, and hand over his visitor to the French police. To find a man who knew the Continent well enough to move about without detection, and who would take the risk of placing himself at La Romana’s mercy, in case his offers were refused, did not seem easy. But the right person was pitched upon by Sir Arthur Wellesley just before he sailed for Portugal. He recommended to Canning a Roman Catholic priest of the name of James Robertson. This enterprising ecclesiastic was a Scot who had spent most of his life in a monastery at Ratisbon, but had lately come to England and was acting as Under the belief that the Spaniards were still quartered in the Hanse towns and Holstein, Canning sent for Robertson and asked him whether he would undertake this dangerous mission to Northern Germany. The priest accepted the offer, and was dispatched to Heligoland, where Mr. Mackenzie, the British agent in this lately seized island, found him a place on board a smuggling vessel bound for the mouth of the Weser. He was safely landed near Bremerhafen and made his way to Hamburg, only to find that the Spaniards had been moved northward into the Danish isles. This made the mission more dangerous, as Robertson knew neither the country nor the language. But he disguised himself as a German commercial traveller, and laid in a stock of chocolate and cigars—things which were very rare in the North, as along with other colonial produce they were proscribed by the Continental System, and could only be got from smugglers. It was known that the Spanish officers felt deeply their privation of the two luxuries most dear to their frugal race, so that it seemed very natural that a dealer in such goods should attempt to find a market among them. Getting to Nyborg without much difficulty, the priest took his fate in his hands, and introduced himself to La Romana with a box of cigars under one arm and a dozen packets of chocolate under the other. When they were alone, he threw himself on the Marquis’s confidence, owning that he was a priest and a British subject, not a German or a commercial traveller. The Spaniard was at first suspicious and silent, thinking that he had to deal with an agent provocateur of the French Government, who was trying to make him show his hand. Robertson had no written vouchers for his mission—they would have been too dangerous—but had been given some verbal credentials by Canning, which soon convinced La Romana of his good faith. The Marquis then owned that he was disgusted with his position, and felt sure that Napoleon had plotted the ruin of Spain, though what exactly had happened at Bayonne he had not yet been able to ascertain. Robertson next laid before him Canning’s offer—that if the expeditionary La Romana asked for a night to talk the matter over with his staff, and next day gave his full consent to the plan, bidding the priest pass the word on to Sir Richard Keates, and discover the earliest day on which transports could be got ready to carry off his men. Robertson tried to communicate with a British frigate which was hovering off the coast of FÜnen, but was arrested by Danish militiamen while signalling to the ship from a lonely point on the beach. His purpose was almost discovered, and he only escaped by a series of ingenious lies to the militia colonel before whom he was taken by his captors. Moving further south, he again tried to get in touch with Sir Richard Keates, and this time succeeded. The news was passed to London, and transports were prepared for the deliverance of the Spaniards. Canning also sent to FÜnen an agent of the Asturian Junta, who would be able to give his countrymen full news of the insurrection that had taken place in June. Meanwhile La Romana had sounded his subordinates, and found them all eager to join in the plan of evasion, save Kindelan, the brigadier-general commanding the troops in Jutland, who showed such unpatriotic views that the officer sent to confer with him dropped the topic without revealing his commission. The plan which the Marquis had formed was rather ingenious: Bernadotte was about to go round the garrisons in his command on a tour of inspection. It was agreed that under the pretext of holding a grand field-day for his benefit, all the scattered Spanish troops in FÜnen should be concentrated at Nyborg. The regiments in Zealand and Jutland were to join them, when the arrival of the British fleet should be reported, by seizing the Danish small craft in the harbours nearest to them, and crossing over the two Belts to join their commander. An unfortunate contretemps, however, interfered to prevent the full execution of the scheme. Orders came from Paris that all the Spanish troops were to swear allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte, each corps parading at its head quarters for the purpose on July 30 or 31. This news caused grave disorders among the subordinate officers and the men, who were of course in complete But in Zealand things went otherwise: the two infantry regiments of Guadalajara and Asturias, when paraded and told to take the oath, burst out into mutiny, drove off those of their own officers who tried to restrain them, killed the aide-de-camp of the French General Fririon, who was presiding at the ceremony, and threatened to march on Copenhagen. Next day they were surrounded by masses of Danish troops, forced to surrender, disarmed, and put in confinement in small bodies at various points in the island [August 1]. This startling news revealed to Bernadotte the true state of feeling in the Spanish army, and he wrote to La Romana to announce that he was about to visit the Danish Isles in order to inquire into the matter. Fortunately there came at the same moment news from England that the time for escape was at hand. On August 4, only three days after the mutiny at Roeskilde, the brigantine Mosquito, having on board Rafael Lobo (the emissary of the Asturian deputies), reached the Baltic, and communicated by night with some of the Spanish officers on the island of Langeland. The British fleet had sailed, and the time for action had arrived. Accordingly La Romana gave the word to the officers in each garrison to whom the secret had been entrusted. On August 7, the troops in FÜnen concentrated, and seized the port of Nyborg: the Danes were completely taken by surprise, and no resistance was made save by a gallant and obstinate naval officer commanding a brig in the harbour. He fired on the Spaniards, and would not yield till an English frigate and five gunboats ran into the port and battered his vessel to pieces. On August 8 the troops in Jutland struck their blow: the infantry regiment of Zamora at Fredericia seized a number of Romana had concentrated in FÜnen nearly 8,000 men, and was so strong that the Danish general at Odense, in the centre of the island, dared not meddle with him. On August 9, 10, and 11 he passed his troops over to the smaller island of Langeland, where the regiment of Catalonia had already disarmed the Danish garrison and seized the batteries. Here he was safe, for Langeland was far out to sea, and he was now protected from the Danes by the English warships which were beginning to gather on the spot. A few isolated men from Zealand, about 150 in all, succeeded in joining the main body, having escaped from their guards and seized fishing-boats: but these were all that got away from the regiments of Asturias and Guadalajara, the mutineers of July 31. For ten days Langeland was crammed with 9,000 Spanish troops, waiting anxiously for the expected British squadron. On the twenty-first, however, Admiral Keates appeared, with three sail of the line and several smaller craft. On these and on small Danish vessels the whole army was hastily embarked: they reached Gothenburg in Sweden on August 27, and found there thirty-seven large transports sent from England for their accommodation. After a long voyage they reached the Spanish coast in safety, and the whole expeditionary corps of the North, now 9,000 strong, was concentrated at Santander by October 11. The infantry was |
|
