Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III

Had Palafox commanded in Madrid, the experiment of resistance would, at all risks, have been attempted. But the governor was Don Thomas Morla, the same who succeeded Solano at Cadiz. His subsequent conduct seems to show, that, despairing of the cause of his country, he already meditated an intended change to the side of the usurper; so that the citizens of Madrid, at the moment when they had recourse to his skill and authority, received neither encouragement nor instructions, nor means of defence. We shall presently see in what manner the generous intentions of the people were cheated and baffled.

THE BRITISH ARMY – MADRID.

Amidst the accumulation of disasters which overwhelmed the Spanish cause, Sir John Moore arrived at Salamanca, and Sir David Baird at Astorga, where the latter general halted. The situation of General Moore was extremely embarrassing, and gave him cause for the deepest anxiety. He knew the strength and character of the French armies, and was unwilling to repose too much confidence in the Spaniards, whose wisdom, he contended, was not a wisdom of action or exertion. On the other hand, he well knew the enthusiasm of the English for the Spanish cause, and the high expectations which were founded on his own talents, and on the gallantry of one of the finest armies which ever left Britain; and he felt that something was to be attempted worthy of the character of both. The general voice of the officers and soldiers was also clamorous for being employed. But the defeat of Castanos at Tudela seems to have extinguished the last hope in Sir John Moore's mind, and he at one time determined upon commencing his retreat to Portugal.

Before finally adopting this measure, he thought proper, however, to consult Mr. Frere, the British Minister, whether he thought any good would result from the daring measure of marching on Madrid, instead of retreating to Portugal. The correspondents differed, as might have been expected, from their difference of temperament and habits. Mr. Frere, a scholar and a poet, well known in the world of letters, being attached with enthusiasm to the cause of Spain, was a willing believer in the miracles that might be wrought by the higher and nobler qualities, which found a chord in unison in his own bosom.462 He advised, as a Spartan would have done, that General Moore should throw all upon the cast, and advance to the succour of Madrid. The general, upon whom the responsibility devolved, viewed the measure in a different light, and his military habits did not permit him to place much confidence in a defence to be maintained by irregular forces against the disciplined armies of France. Yet, urged by his own feelings, and the importunity of the Spanish government, he resolved to try, by an effort against the north-western part of the French army, to answer the double purpose of preventing them from pressing on Romana, who, with indefatigable zeal, was collecting the scattered remains of the Galician army, which had been destroyed under Cuesta, and also of hindering the French from advancing southward to complete the subjugation of the Peninsula.

But while General Moore determined to hazard this bold measure, he saw painfully the danger of drawing upon himself, by adopting it, a predominant force of the enemy, before whom his retreat might be difficult and perilous. Yet he finally ordered Sir David Baird, whose retreat to Corunna was already commenced, again to occupy Astorga, and expressed his intention of hazarding an advance, at whatever risk. But he added these ominous words; "I mean to proceed bridle in hand, for if the bubble bursts, and Madrid falls, we shall have a run for it."463

The fate of Madrid was soon decided; but, as is generally believed, not without great treachery on the part of those who had been most apparently zealous for its defence. The passes of Guadarama and Samosierra had fallen into the possession of the French. The latter, on which the people of Madrid had fixed their eyes as on a second Thermopylæ or Roncesvalles, was cleared of its defenders by a charge of Polish lancers! These melancholy tidings, as they were in correspondence with General Moore's expectations, did not prevent his intended movement on the French lines of communication. By this means he might co-operate with General Romana and his army, and if pressed by superior numbers of the French, the retreat lay through Galicia to Corunna, where the transports were attending for the reception of the troops.

RETREAT OF THE BRITISH ARMY.

General Moore left Salamanca on the 12th December, and proceeded towards Mayorga, where, on the 20th, he formed a junction with Sir David Baird. Advancing upon Sahagun, the troops received encouragement from a gallant action maintained by the 15th Hussars, five hundred of whom took, cut down, and dispersed, nearly double their own number of French cavalry. All now imagined they were to attack Soult, who had concentrated his forces behind the river Carrion to receive the assault. The British army was in the highest possible spirits, when news were suddenly received that Soult had been considerably reinforced; that Buonaparte was marching from Madrid at the head of ten thousand of his Guards; and that the French armies, who had been marching to the south of Spain, had halted and assumed a direction to the north-west, as if to enclose and destroy the British army.464 This was exactly the danger which Moore had never ceased to apprehend, even when executing the movement that led to it. A retreat into, if not through Galicia, was the only mode of avoiding the perils by which the British were surrounded. The plan of defending this strong and mountainous province, or at least of effecting a retreat through it with order and deliberation, had been in view for several weeks; Sir David Baird's division of the army passed through it in their advance to Astorga; yet, so imperfect at that time was the British general staff, that no accurate knowledge seemed to have been possessed of the roads through the country, of the many strong military positions which it presents, or of the particular military advantages which it affords for defensive war. Another deficiency, incidental to our service at that period, was the great deficiency of the commissariat department, which had been pointed out so forcibly by Sir Arthur Wellesley, but which had not yet been remedied.465

Sufficient exertions in this department might have brought forward supplies from Corunna, and collected those which Galicia itself afforded; and the troops, retiring gradually from position to position, and maintained from their own resources, would have escaped the loss and dishonour of a retreat which resembled a flight in every particular, excepting the terror which accompanies it.

Besides these great deficiencies, a disadvantage of the most distressing kind occurred, from the natural and constitutional aversion of the British army to retrograde movements. Full of hope and confidence when he advances, the English soldier wants the pliability, lightness, and elasticity of character, which enables the Frenchman to distinguish himself during a retreat, by his intelligence, discipline, and dexterity. Chafed, sullen, and discontented, the soldiers next became mutinous and insubordinate; and incensed against the Spaniards, by whose want of zeal they thought they had been betrayed, they committed the most unjustifiable excesses on the unresisting inhabitants. Despite the repeated orders of the commander-in-chief, endeavouring to restrain the passions and soothe the irritation of the soldiers, these disgraceful outrages were continued. It is matter of some consolation, that, losing their character for discipline, they retained that for courage. The French, who had pressed on the British rear, near to Benevente, and thrown across the river a large body of the Imperial cavalry, were driven back and defeated on the 29th December; and, leaving General Lefebvre Desnouettes a prisoner, in future were contented with observing, without pressing upon, the English retreat.466

At Astorga, 30th December, the commander-in-chief found about 5000 Spaniards under Romana, the relics of the Galician army. These troops wanted clothing, accoutrements, arms, ammunition, and pay – they wanted, in short, every thing, excepting that courage and devotion to the cause of their country, which would have had a better fate, had fortune favoured desert.

The Spanish general still proposed to make a stand at this rallying point; but whatever might be Romana's own skill, and the bravery of his followers, his forces were not of a quality such as to induce Sir John Moore to halt his retreat, which he now directed avowedly upon Corunna.

The scarcity of provisions required forced marches, and combined, with want of general knowledge of the country in a military sense, to hurry forward the soldiers, who too readily took advantage of these irregular movements to straggle and plunder, inflicting on the friendly natives, and receiving from them in return, the mutual evils which are given and received by invaders in an enemy's country. The weather dark and rainy – the roads blockaded by half-melted snow – the fords become almost impassable – augmented the difficulties of a retreat, resembling that by which a defeated army is forced into a country totally unknown to them, and through which the fugitives must find their way as they can. The baggage of the army, and its ammunition, were abandoned and destroyed. The sick, the wounded, were left to the mercy of the pursuers; and the numbers who in that hour of despair gave way to the national vice of intoxication, added largely to the ineffective and the helpless. The very treasure-chests of the army were thrown away and abandoned. There was never so complete an example of a disastrous retreat.

One saving circumstance, already mentioned, tended to qualify the bad behaviour of the troops; namely, that when a report arose that a battle was to be expected, the courage, nay, the discipline of the soldiers, seemed to revive. This was especially the case on the 6th January, when the French ventured an attack upon our rear-guard near Lugo. So soon as a prospect of action was presented, stragglers hastened to join their ranks – the disobedient became at once subordinate, as if on the parade; and it was made manifest that the call to battle, far from having the natural effect of intimidating to utter dispersion troops already so much disordered, was to the English army the means of restoring discipline, steadiness, and confidence.

The French having declined the proffered engagement, Sir John Moore continued his retreat under the same disadvantageous circumstances, until he arrived at Corunna, the original object of his destination. He was preparing to embark his forces in the transports, which lay prepared for their reception, when his pursuer, Soult, now pressing boldly forward, made it evident that this could not be accomplished unless either by a convention with him, or by the event of a battle, which might disqualify him from opposing the embarkation. Sir John Moore, with the dignity becoming his character, chose the latter alternative, and occupied a position of no great strength in front of the town, to protect the embarkation. The attack was made by the French on the 16th January, in heavy columns, and with their usual vivacity; but it was sustained and repelled on all hands. The gallant general was mortally wounded in the action, just as he called on the 42d Highland regiment to "remember Egypt," and reminded the same brave mountaineers, that though ammunition was scarce, "they had their bayonets."467

Thus died on the field of victory, which atoned for previous misfortunes, one of the bravest and best officers of the British army. His body was wrapped in his military cloak, instead of the usual vestments of the tomb; it was deposited in a grave hastily dug on the ramparts of the citadel of Corunna; and the army completing its embarkation upon the subsequent day, their late general was "left alone with his glory."

Thus ended, in the acquisition of barren laurels, plentifully blended with cypress, the campaign, which had been undertaken by so beautiful and efficient an army, under so approved a commander. The delay in sending it to the scene of action was one great cause of its failure, and for that the gallant general, or his memory, cannot be held responsible. Such a force at Salamanca, while the French were unequal in numbers to the Spanish armies, might have had the most important consequences. At a later period, when the patriotic armies were every where defeated, we confess that General Moore, with the ideas which he entertained of the Spaniards, does not seem to us to have been called upon to place the fate of the British army – auxiliaries, it must be observed, not principals in the war – on the same desperate cast by which the natives were compelled to abide. The disasters of the retreat appear to rest on want of knowledge of the ground they were to traverse, and on the deficiency of the commissariat, which, though the army must be entirely dependent on it, was not at that time sufficiently under the control of the commander-in-chief. We owe it to his memory to say, that at the close of his own valuable life, he amply redeemed in his last act the character of the army which he commanded.468

CHAPTER XLVII

General Belliard occupies Madrid – Napoleon returns to France – Cause of his hurried return – View of the Circumstances leading to a Rupture with Austria – Feelings of Russia upon this occasion – Secret intrigues of Talleyrand to preserve Peace – Immense exertions made by Austria – Counter efforts of Buonaparte – The Austrian Army enters Bavaria, 9th April, 1809 – Napoleon hastens to meet them – Austrians defeated at Abensberg on the 20th – and at Eckmühl on the 22d – They are driven out of Ratisbon on the 23d – The Archduke Charles retreats into Bohemia – Napoleon pushes forward to Vienna – which, after a brief defence, is occupied by the French on the 12th of May – Retrospect of the events of the War in Poland, Italy, the North of Germany, and the Tyrol – Enterprises of Schill – of the Duke of Brunswick Oels – Movements in the Tyrol – Character and Manners of the Tyrolese – Retreat of the Archduke John into Hungary.

MADRID.

Having thus completed the episode of Sir John Moore's expedition, we resume the progress of Napoleon, to whom the successive victories of Reynosa, Burgos, and Tudela, had offered a triumphant path to Madrid. On the 1st of December, his headquarters being at the village of Saint Augustino, he was within sight of that capital, and almost within hearing of the bells, whose hollow and continued toll announced general insurrection, and the most desperate resistance. Nor was the zeal of the people of Madrid inadequate to the occasion, had it been properly directed and encouraged. They seized on the French officer who brought a summons of surrender, and were with difficulty prevented from tearing him to pieces. On the 3d, the French attacked Buen Retiro, a palace which had been fortified as a kind of citadel. A thousand Spaniards died in the defence of this stronghold. On the 4th, Morla opened a capitulation with Napoleon. He and Yriarte, another noble Spaniard, of whom better things had been hoped, came to testify their repentance for the rash part they had undertaken, and to express their sense that the city could in nowise be defended; but, at the same time to state, that the populace and volunteers were resolute in its defence, and that some delay would be necessary, to let their zeal cool, and their fears come to work in their turn.

Buonaparte admitted these deputies to his own presence, and with the audacity which sometimes characterised his language, he read them a lecture on their bad faith,469 in not observing the treaty of Baylen – on their bad faith, in suffering Frenchmen to be assassinated – on their bad faith, in seizing upon the French squadron at Cadiz. This rebuke was gravely urged by the individual, who had kidnapped the royal family of Spain while they courted his protection as his devoted vassals – who had seized the fortresses into which his troops had been received as friends and allies – who had floated the streets of Madrid with the blood of its population – and, finally, who had taken it upon him to assume the supreme authority, and dispose of the crown of Spain, under no better pretext than that he had the will and the power to do so. Had a Spaniard been at liberty to reply to the Lord of Legions, and reckon with him injury for injury, falsehood for falsehood, drop of blood for drop of blood, what an awful balance must have been struck against him!470

In the meantime, those citizens of Madrid who had determined on resistance, began to see that they were deserted by such as should have headed them in the task, and their zeal became cooled under the feelings of dismay and distrust. A military convention was finally concluded, in virtue of which General Belliard took possession of the city, on the 4th of December. The terms were so favourable, as to show that Buonaparte, while pretending to despise the sort of resistance which the population might have effected, was well pleased, nevertheless, not to drive them to extremity. He then published a proclamation, setting forth his desire to be the regenerator of the Spanish empire. But in case his mild and healing mediation should be again refused, he declared he would treat them as a conquered people, and place his brother on another throne. "I will, in that case, set the crown of Spain on my own head, and I shall know how to make it respected; for God," concluded this extraordinary document, "has given me the power and the will to surmount all difficulties."471

VALLADOLID.

There were now two operations which nearly concerned Buonaparte. The first was the dispersion of the remaining troops of Castanos, which had escaped the fatal battle of Tudela, and such other armed bodies as continued to occupy the south of Spain. In this the French had for some time an easy task; for the Spanish soldiers, surprised and incensed at their own disasters, were, in many instances, the assassins of their generals, and the generals had lost all confidence in their mutinous followers. But before pursuing his successes in the south, it was Buonaparte's first resolution to detach a part of the French army upon Portugal, by the way of Talavera, and by occupying Lisbon, intercept the retreat of Sir John Moore and his English army. The advance of the English general to Salamanca interfered with this last design. It seemed to Napoleon, that he did not yet possess forces sufficient at the same time to confront and turn back Sir John Moore, and, on the other hand, to enter Portugal and possess himself of Lisbon. The latter part of the plan was postponed. Placing himself at the head of his Guards, Napoleon, as we have seen, directed his march towards Valladolid, and witnessed the retreat of Sir John Moore. He had the pleasure of beholding with his own eyes the people whom he hated most, and certainly did not fear the least, in full retreat, and was observed scarcely ever to have appeared so gay and joyous as during the pursuit, which the French officers termed the race of Benevente.472 But he had also the less pleasing spectacle of the skirmish, in which the general commanding the cavalry of his Imperial Guard was defeated, and his favourite, General Lefebvre, made prisoner. He halted with his Guards at Astorga, left Ney with 18,000 men to keep the country in subjection, and assigned to Soult the glorious task of pursuing the English and completing their destruction. We have already seen how far he proved able to accomplish his commission.

Meanwhile, the Emperor himself returned to Valladolid, and from thence set off for France with the most precipitate haste. His last act was to declare his brother Joseph generalissimo over the French armies; yet, notwithstanding this mark of trust and confidence, there is reason to believe that Buonaparte repented already his liberality, in assigning to another, though his own brother, an appanage so splendid, and which was likely to cost so much blood and treasure. Something to this purpose broke out in his proclamation to the people of Madrid; and he was more explicit when speaking confidentially to the Abbé de Pradt, whom, in returning from Benevente, the Emperor met at Valladolid.

They were alone; it was a stormy night; and Buonaparte, opening the window from time to time, to ascertain the possibility of travelling, only turned from it to overwhelm Monsieur de Pradt with questions on the state of the capital which he had just left. The abbé did not disguise their disaffection; and when Napoleon endeavoured to show the injustice of their complaints, by insisting on the blessings he had conferred on Spain, by the diminution of tithes, abolishing feudal servitudes, and correcting other abuses of the old government, De Pradt answered by saying, that the Spaniards did not thank Napoleon for relief from evils to which they were insensible; and that the country was in the situation of the wife of Sganarelle in the farce, who quarrelled with a stranger for interfering with her husband when he was beating her. Buonaparte laughed, and continued in these remarkable words: – "I did not know what Spain was. It is a finer country than I was aware, and I have made Joseph a more valuable present than I dreamed of. But you will see, that by and by the Spaniards will commit some folly, which will place their country once more at my disposal. I will then take care to keep it to myself, and divide it into five great viceroyships."473

While the favourite of fortune nourished these plans of engrossing and expanding ambition, the eagerness of his mind seems to have communicated itself to his bodily frame; for, when the weather permitted him to mount on horseback, he is said at once, and without halting, save to change horses, to have performed the journey from Valladolid, to Burgos, being thirty-five Spanish leagues, or about seventy English miles and upwards, in the space of five hours and a half.474

The incredible rapidity with which Napoleon pressed his return to France, without again visiting Madrid, or pausing to hear the fate of the English army, surprised those around him. Some conjectured that a conspiracy had been discovered against his authority at Paris; others, that a band of Spaniards had devoted themselves to assassinate him; a third class assigned different causes; but it was soon found that the despatch which he used had its cause in the approaching rupture with Austria.475

AUSTRIA.

This breach of friendship appears certainly to have been sought by Austria without any of those plausible reasons of complaint, on which nations generally are desirous to bottom their quarrels. She did not allege that, with respect to herself or her dominions, France had, by any recent aggression, given her cause of offence. The Abbé de Pradt remarks upon the occasion, with his usual shrewdness, that if Napoleon was no religious observer of the faith of treaties, it could not be maintained that other states acted much more scrupulously in reference to him. Buonaparte himself has alleged, what, in one sense of the word was true, that many of his wars were, in respect to the immediate causes of quarrel, merely defensive on his side. But this was a natural consequence of the style and structure of his government, which, aiming directly at universal empire, caused him to be looked upon by all nations as a common enemy, the legitimate object of attack whenever he could be attacked with advantage, because he himself neglected no opportunity to advance his pretensions against the independence of Europe.

The singular situation of Great Britain, unassailable by his arms, enabled her to avow this doctrine, and to refuse making peace with Napoleon, on terms how favourable soever for England, unless she were at the same time recognised as having authority to guarantee the security of such states as she had a chance of protecting, if she remained at war. Thus, she refused peace when offered, under the condition that France should have Sicily; and, at the period of which we treat, she had again recently declined the terms of pacification proposed by the overture from Erfurt, which inferred the abandonment of the Spanish cause.

This principle of constant war with Buonaparte, or rather with the progress of his ambition, guided and influenced every state in Europe, which had yet any claim for their independence. Their military disasters, indeed, often prevented their being able to keep the flag of defence flying; but the cessions which they were compelled to make at the moment of defeat, only exasperated their feelings of resentment, and made them watch more eagerly for the period, when their own increasing strength, or the weakness of the common enemy, might enable them to resume the struggle. Napoleon's idea of a peace was, as we have elsewhere seen, that the party with whom he treated should derive no more from the articles agreed upon, than the special provisions expressed in his favour. So long, for instance, as he himself observed all points of the treaty of Presburg, the last which he had dictated to Austria, that power, according to his view of the transaction, had no farther right either of remonstrance or intervention, and was bound to view with indifference whatever changes the French Emperor might please to work on the general state of Europe. This was no doubt a convenient interpretation for one who, aiming at universal monarchy, desired that there should be as little interference as possible with the various steps by which he was to achieve that great plan; but it is entirely contradictory of the interpretation put upon treaties by the jurists; and were the jurists of a contrary opinion, it is in diametrical opposition to the feelings of human nature, by which the policy of states, and the conduct of individuals, are alike dictated. Buonaparte being, as his conduct showed him, engaged in a constant train of innovation upon the liberties of Europe, it followed, that the states whom he had not been able entirely to deprive of independence, should, without farther, or more particularly national cause of war, be perpetually on the watch for opportunities to destroy or diminish his terrible authority. In this point of view, the question for Austria to consider was, not the justice of the war, but its expediency; not her right of resisting the common enemy of the freedom of Europe, but practically, whether she had the means of effectual opposition. The event served to show that Austria had over-estimated her own resources.