Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

Sir Arthur Wellesley was prevented from completing Soult's defeat by pursuing him into Galicia, because, after the Spaniards had sustained the severe defeat of Tudela, the French had penetrated into Andalusia in great strength, where they were only opposed by an ill-equipped and dispirited army of 40,000 men, under the rash and ill-starred General Cuesta. It was evident, that Marshal Victor, who commanded in Andalusia, had it in his power to have detached a considerable part of his force on Lisbon, supposing that city had been uncovered, by Sir Arthur Wellesley's carrying his forces in pursuit of Soult. This was to be prevented, if possible. The English general formed the magnificent plan, for which Napoleon's departure to the Austrian campaign afforded a favourable opportunity, of marching into Andalusia, uniting the British forces with those of Cuesta, and acting against the invaders with such vigour, as might at once check their progress in the South, and endanger their occupation of Madrid. Unhappily an ill-timed jealousy seems to have taken possession of Cuesta, which manifested itself in every possible shape, in which frowardness, and a petty obstinacy of spirit, could be exhibited. To no one of the combined plans, submitted to him by the English general, would he give assent or effectual concurrence; and when a favourable opportunity arrived of attacking Victor, before he was united with the forces which Joseph Buonaparte and Sebastiani were bringing from Madrid to his support, Cuesta alleged he would not give battle on a Sunday.40

BATTLE OF TALAVERA

The golden opportunity was thus lost; and when the allies were obliged to receive battle instead of giving it, on the 28th July, 1809, it was without the advantages which the former occasion held out. Yet the famous battle of Talavera de la Reina, in which the French were completely defeated, was, under these unfavourable circumstances, achieved by Sir Arthur Wellesley. The event of this action, in which the British forces had been able to defend themselves against double their own number, with but little assistance from the Spanish army, became, owing to the continued wilfulness of Cuesta, very different from what such a victory ought to have produced. The French troops, assembling from every point, left Sir Arthur no other mode of assuring the safety of his army, than by a retreat on Portugal; and for want of means of transport, which the Spanish general ought to have furnished, more than fifteen hundred of the wounded were left to the mercy of the French.41 They were treated as became a courteous enemy, yet the incident afforded a fine pretext to contest the victory, which the French had resigned by flying from the field.

The assertions of the bulletins in the Moniteur could not deceive men on the true state of affairs. The Spanish Junta were sensible of the services rendered by the English general, and, somewhat of the latest, removed Cuesta from the command, to manifest their disapprobation of his unaccountable conduct. At home, Sir Arthur Wellesley was promoted to the peerage, by the title of Lord Wellington, who was destined to ascend, with the universal applause of the nation, as high as our constitution will permit. But Buonaparte paid the greatest compliment to the victor of Talavera, by the splenetic resentment with which he was filled by the news. He had received the tidings by his private intelligence, before the officer arrived with the regular despatches. He was extremely ill received by the Emperor; and, as if the messengers had been responsible for the tidings they brought, a second officer, with a duplicate of the same intelligence, was treated still more harshly, and for a time put under arrest. This explosion of passion could not be occasioned by the consequences of the action, for the experienced eye of Napoleon must have discriminated the circumstances by which the effects of victory were in a great measure lost to the allied armies; but he saw in the battle of Talavera, an assurance given to both English and Spanish soldiers, that, duly resisted, the French would fly from them. He foresaw, also, that the British Government would be tempted to maintain the contest on the continent, and that the Spaniards would be encouraged to persevere in resistance. He foresaw, in short, that war of six desperate and bloody campaigns, which did not terminate till the battle of Tholouse, in 1814.

But it needed no anticipation to fill Napoleon's mind with anxiety on the subject of Spain. It is true, fortune seemed every where to smile on his arms. Zaragossa, once more besieged, maintained its former name, but without the former brilliant result. After a defence as distinguished as in the first siege, the brave garrison and citizens, deprived of means of defence, and desperate of all hope of relief, had been compelled to surrender some months before.42

Gerona, Tarragona, Tortosa, though still vigorously defended, were so powerfully invested, that it seemed as if Catalonia, the most warlike of the Spanish departments, was effectually subdued; and, accordingly, these fortresses also were afterwards obliged to capitulate.

Andalusia, the richest province which sustained the patriot cause, certainly was conquered, in consequence of a total defeat encountered by the Spanish grand army, under Areizaga, at Ocana, November 1809, after the English troops had retreated to the Portuguese frontier.43 Joseph Buonaparte, whose road was cleared by this last success, entered Cordoba in triumph upon the 17th of January, 1810, and proud Seville itself upon the 1st of February following. Yet the chief prize of victory had not yet been gained. The Supreme Junta had effected their retreat to Cadiz, which city, situated in an island, and cut off from the mainland, on one side by a canal, and on the other three by the ocean, was capable of the most strenuous defence.

Cadiz contained a garrison of 20,000 men, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, under the command of General Graham, a distinguished officer, whose merits, like those of Buonaparte, had been first distinguished at the siege of Toulon. Marshal Soult, as first in command in Spain, disposed himself to form the siege of this city, the capture of which would have been almost the death-knell to the cause of the patriots.

But although these important successes read well in the Moniteur, yet such was the indomitable character of the Spaniards, which Napoleon had contrived fully to awaken, that misfortunes, which would have crushed all hope in any other people, seemed to them only an incentive to further and more desperate resistance. When they talked of the state of their country, they expressed no dismay at their present adverse circumstances. It had cost their ancestors, they said, two centuries to rid themselves of the Moors; they had no doubt that in a shorter time they should free themselves of the yoke of France; but they must reckon on time and opportunity, as well as valour. The events of the war in many respects gave credit to their hopes. The Spaniards, often found weak where they thought themselves strongest, proved sometimes most powerful, where, to all human appearance, they seemed weakest. While they lost Andalusia, believed to be so defensible, the mountainous province of Galicia, through which the French had so lately marched triumphantly in pursuit of the British, taking in their progress the important maritime towns of Corunna and Ferrol, was wrenched from the conquerors by the exertions of Romana, assisted by the warlike natives of the country, and at the head of an undisciplined and ill-equipped army.

CATALONIA – THE GUERILLAS

In Catalonia, too, the French had hardly time to accomplish the conquest of towns and fortresses to which we have alluded, when they found themselves checked, baffled, and sometimes defeated, by the Catalans, under Lacy, O'Donnell, and D'Eroles, who maintained the patriotic cause at the head of those energetic marksmen, the Somatenes, or Miquelets. Nay, while the French were extending their seeming conquests to the Mediterranean Sea, and thundering at the gates of Cadiz, so little were they in peaceful possession of Navarre, and the other provinces adjoining to France, that not an officer with despatches could pass from Burgos to Bayonne without a powerful escort, and bands of Spaniards even showed themselves on the French frontier, and passed it for the purpose of skirmishing and raising contributions. Such being the case on the frontiers nearest to France, it may be well supposed, that the midland provinces were not more subordinate. In fact, through the whole Peninsula the French held no influence whatever that was not inspired by the force of the bayonet and sabre; and where these could not operate, the country was in universal insurrection.

The basis of this extensive and persevering resistance was laid in the general system of Guerilla, or partisan warfare, to which the genius of the Spanish people, and the character of their country, are peculiarly fitted, and which offered a resistance to the invaders more formidable by far than that of regular armies, because less tangible, and less susceptible of being crushed in general actions. It was with the defenders of Spain, as with the guardian of the enchanted castle in the Italian romance. An armed warrior first encountered the champion who attempted the adventure, and when he had fallen under the sword of the assailant, the post which he had occupied appeared manned by a body of pigmies, small in size, but so numerous and so enterprising as to annoy the knight-errant far more than the gigantic force of his first adversary. The qualities of a partisan, or irregular soldier, are inherent in the national character of the Spaniard. Calm, temperate, capable of much fatigue, and veiling under a cold demeanour an ardent and fiery character, they are qualified to wait for opportunities of advantage, and are not easily discouraged by difficulty or defeat. Good marksmen in general, and handling the lance, sword, and dagger with address, they are formidable in an ambush, and not less so in a close mêlée, where men fight hand to hand, more as nature dictates than according to the rules of war. The obstinacy of the Castilian character also, had its advantages in this peculiar state of warfare. Neither promises nor threats made any impression on them; and the severities executed in fulfilment of menaces, only inflamed the spirit of hostility by that of private revenge, to which the Spaniard is far more accessible than either to the voice of caution or persuasion.

Neither were the officers less qualified for the task than the men. The command of a guerilla was of a character not to be desired by any who did not find himself equal to, and in some measure called upon to accept, the dangerous pre-eminence. There were few Spanish officers possessed of the scientific knowledge of war, and of course few adequate to lead armies into the field; but the properties necessary for a guerilla leader are imprinted in the human mind, and ready for exercise whenever they are required. These leaders were, as it chanced: some of them men of high birth and military education; some had been smugglers or peasants, or had practised other professions; as was discovered from their noms-de-guerre, as the Curate, the Doctor, the Shepherd, and so forth.44 Many of their names will be long associated with the recollection of their gallant actions; and those of others, as of Mina and the Empecinado,45 will, at the same time, remind us of the gross ingratitude with which their heroic efforts have been rewarded.

These daring men possessed the most perfect knowledge of the passes, strengths, woods, mountains, and wildernesses, of the provinces in which they warred; and the exact intelligence which they obtained from the peasantry, made them intimately acquainted with the motions of the enemy. Was too weak a French detachment moved, it ran the risk of being cut off; was the garrison too feeble at the place which it left, the fort was taken. The slightest as well as the most important objects, met the attention of the guerillas; a courier could not move without a large escort, nor could the intrusive King take the amusement of hunting, however near to his capital, unless, like Earl Percy in the ballad, attended by a guard of fifteen hundred men. The Juramentados, those Spaniards that is, who had sworn allegiance to King Joseph, were of course closely watched by the guerillas, and if they rendered themselves inconveniently or obnoxiously active in the cause they had espoused, were often kidnapped and punished as traitors; examples which rendered submission to, or active co-operation with the French, at least as imprudent as boldly opposing the invaders.

THE GUERILLAS

The numbers of the guerillas varied at different times, as the chiefs rose or declined in reputation, and as they possessed the means of maintaining their followers. Some led small flying armies of two thousand and upwards. Others, or the same chiefs under a reverse of fortune, had only ten or twenty followers. The French often attempted to surprise and destroy the parties by which they suffered most, and for that purpose detached moveable columns from different points, to assemble on the rendezvous of the guerilla. But, notwithstanding all their activity and dexterity on such expeditions, they rarely succeeded in catching their enemy at unawares; or if it so happened, the individuals composing the band broke up, and dispersed by ways only known to themselves; and when the French officers accounted them totally annihilated, they were again assembled on another point, exercising a partisan war on the rear, and upon the communications, of those who lately expected to have them at their mercy. Thus invisible when they were sought for, the guerillas seemed every where present when damage could be done to the invaders. To chase them was to pursue the wind, and to circumvent them was to detain water with a sieve.

Soult had recourse to severity to intimidate these desultory but most annoying enemies, by publishing a proclamation [May 9] threatening to treat the members of the guerillas, not as regular soldiers, but as banditti taken in the fact, and thus execute such of them as chanced to be made prisoners. The chiefs, in reply to this proclamation, published a royal decree, as they termed it, declaring that each Spaniard was, by the necessity of the times, a soldier, and that he was entitled to all military privileges when taken with arms in his hands. They therefore announced, that having ample means of retaliation in their power, they would not scruple to make use of them, by executing three Frenchmen for every one of their followers who should suffer in consequence of Soult's unjust and inhuman proclamation.46 These threats were fulfilled on both sides. It is said, a horrid example of cruelty was given by a French general, who in a manner crucified, by nailing to trees, eight prisoners, whom he had taken from the guerillas of the Empecinado. The daring Spaniard's passions were wound up too high to listen either to pity or fear; he retaliated the cruelty by nailing the same number of Frenchmen to the same trees, and leaving them to fill the forest of Guadarama with their groans. But these excesses became rare on either side; for the mutual interest of both parties soon led them to recur to the ordinary rules of war.

We have given a slight sketch of the peculiar character of this singular warfare, which constitutes a curious and interesting chapter in the history of mankind, and serves to show how difficult it is to subject, by the most formidable military means, a people who are determined not to submit to the yoke. The probability of the case had not escaped the acute eye of Buonaparte himself, who, though prescient of the consequences, had not been able to resist the temptation of seizing upon this splendid sovereignty, and who was still determined, as he is said to have expressed himself, to reign at least over Spain, if he could not reign over the Spanish people. But even this stern wish, adopted in vengeance rather than in soberness of mind, could not, if gratified, have removed the perplexity which was annexed to the affairs of the Peninsula.

Buonaparte, in the spirit of calculation which was one of his great attributes, had reckoned that Spain, when in his hands, would retain the same channels of wealth which she had possessed from her South American provinces. Had he been able to carry into execution his whole plan – had the old king really embarked for Peru or Mexico, it might have happened, that Napoleon's influence over Charles, his Queen, and her favourite Godoy, could have been used to realize these expectations. But, in consequence of the rupture which had taken place, the Spanish colonies, at first taking part with the patriots of the mother country, made large remittances to Cadiz for the support of the war against the French; and when afterwards, adopting another view of the subject, the opportunity appeared to them favourable for effecting their own independence, the golden tide which annually carried tribute to Old Spain was entirely dried up.

This Buonaparte had not reckoned upon, and he had now to regret an improvident avidity, similar to that of Esop's boy, who killed the bird which laid eggs of gold. The disappointment was as great as unexpected. Napoleon had, from his private treasure, and the means he possessed in France, discharged the whole expense of the two large armies, by whom the territory of Spain was first occupied; and it was natural for him to suppose, that in this, as in so many other cases, the French troops should, after this first expedition, be paid and maintained at the expense of the provinces in which they were quartered. This was the rather to be expected, when Andalusia, Grenada, Valencia, fertile and rich provinces, were added to the districts overrun by the invading army. But, so general was the disinclination to the French, so universal the disappearance of specie, so unintermitting the disturbances excited by the guerillas, that both King Joseph, his court, and the French army, were obliged to have constant recourse to Napoleon for the means of supporting themselves; and such large remittances were made for these purposes, that in all the countries occupied by the French, the Spanish coin gradually disappeared from the circulation, and was replaced by that of France. The being obliged, therefore, to send supplies to the kingdom from which he had expected to receive them, was a subject of great mortification to Napoleon, which was not, however, the only one connected with the government he had established there.

SITUATION OF KING JOSEPH

In accepting the crown of Spain at the hands of Napoleon, Joseph, who was a man of sense and penetration, must have been sufficiently aware that it was an emblem of borrowed and dependent sovereignty, gleaming but with such reflected light as his brother's Imperial diadem might shed upon it. He could not but know, that in making him King of Spain, Napoleon retained over him all his rights as a subject of France, to whose Emperor, in his regal as well as personal capacity, he still, though a nominal monarch, was accounted to owe all vassalage. For this he must have been fully prepared. But Joseph, who had a share of the family pride, expected to possess with all others, save Buonaparte, the external appearance at least of sovereignty, and was much dissatisfied with the proceedings of the marshals and generals sent by his brother to his assistance. Each of these, accustomed to command his own separate corps d'armée, with no subordination save that to the Emperor only, proceeded to act on his own authority, and his own responsibility, levied contributions at pleasure, and regarded the authority of King Joseph as that of a useless and ineffective civilian, who followed the march along with the impediments and baggage of the camp, and to whom little honour was reckoned due, and no obedience. In a word, so complicated became the state of the war and of the government, so embarrassing the rival pretensions set up by the several French generals, against Joseph and against each other, that when Joseph came to Paris to assist at the marriage of Napoleon and Maria Louisa, he made an express demand, that all the French troops in Spain should be placed under his own command, or rather that of his Major-General; and in case this was declined, he proposed to abdicate the crown, or, what was equivalent, that the French auxiliaries should be withdrawn from Spain. Buonaparte had on a former occasion, named his brother generalissimo of the troops within his pretended dominions; he now agreed that the French generals serving in Spain should be subjected, without exception, to the control of Marshal Jourdan, as Major-General of King Joseph. But as these commanders were removed from Buonaparte's immediate eye, and were obliged to render an account of their proceedings both to the intrusive king and to Napoleon, it was not difficult for them to contrive to play off the one against the other, and in fact to conduct themselves as if independent of both.

These very embarrassing circumstances were increased by the presence of the English army, which, having twice driven the French from Portugal, showed no intention of returning to their ships, but lay on the frontiers of the latter kingdom, ready to encourage and assist the continued resistance of Spain. It was not the fault of the commander-in-chief that their duties were, for the present, in a great measure limited to those of an army of observation. If the troops which assisted in the ill-advised Walcheren expedition had been united to those under the command of Lord Wellington, they would, at a loss infinitely less, and yet greatly more honourably incurred, have driven the French beyond the Ebro, or, more probably, have compelled them to evacuate Spain. But the British Cabinet, though adopting new and more bold, as well as more just ideas of the force of the country, could not be expected perhaps all at once, and amid the clamour of an Opposition who saw nothing but reckless desperation in whatever measures were calculated to resist France, to hazard so much of the national force upon one single adventure, although bearing in their own eyes a promising aspect. Statesmen, and even those of no mean character, are apt to forget, that where a large supply of men and money is necessary to ensure the object aimed at, it is miserable policy to attempt to economize either; and that such ill-timed thrift must render the difficulties attending the expedition either altogether insurmountable, or greatly add to the loss which must be encountered to overcome them.

In the meantime, Buonaparte, with respect to the Peninsula, convulsed as it was by civil war in every province – half-subdued and half-emancipated – causing him an immense expense, as well as endless contradiction and mortification – stood much in the condition, to use a popular simile, of one, who, having hold of a wolf, feels it equally difficult to overpower the furious animal, and dangerous to let him go. His power over the general mind, however, rested a great deal on the opinion commonly received, that he was destined to succeed in whatever enterprise he undertook. He himself entertained some such ideas concerning the force of his own destiny; and as it was no part either of his temper or his policy to abandon what he had once undertaken, he determined to make a gigantic effort to drive the Leopards and their Sepoy general, as the French papers called the British and Lord Wellington, out of Portugal; to possess himself of Lisbon; and to shut that avenue against foreign forces again attempting to enter the Peninsula.

In obedience to the Emperor's commands, an army, to be termed that of Portugal, was assembled, on a scale which the Peninsula had scarcely yet seen. It was called by the French themselves 110,000 men, but certainly rather exceeded than fell short of the number of 80,000. This large force was put under the command of Massena, Prince of Essling, the greatest name in the French army, after that of Napoleon, and so favoured by fortune, that his master was wont to call him the Spoilt Child of Victory.47

Lord Wellington's British troops did not exceed 25,000 in number, and there were among them so many invalids, that his motions were necessarily entirely limited to the defensive. He had, however, a subsidiary force under his command, consisting of 30,000 Portuguese, in whom other generals might have rested little confidence; but they were receiving British pay and British allowances, were disciplined in the British manner, and commanded by British officers; and Lord Wellington, who had seen the unwarlike Hindu behave himself in similar circumstances, like a companion not unworthy of the English soldier, had little doubt of being able to awaken the dormant and suppressed, but natural ardour of the natives of Portugal. This force had been, in a great measure, trained under the auspices of Marshal Beresford, an officer who has eternal claims on the gratitude of his country, for the generous manner in which he devoted himself to a labour, which had at first little that was flattering or promising; and for the very great perfection to which, by dint of skill, good temper, and knowledge of human nature, he was able to bring his task to completion at such an important crisis.