Chapter XVIII: Section III: Chapter IV (2)

[158] His name was Captain de Fénelon (Cabany, p. 178).

Chabert and Marescot, as was natural, declaimed vehemently against this projected change in the capitulation, and declared that it was inadmissible. But they were answered in even more violent terms by the turbulent Conde de Tilly, who attended as representative of the Junta of Seville. He taunted them with their atrocities at the sack of Cordova, and threatened that if the negotiations fell through no quarter should be given to the French army. At last Castaños suggested a compromise: he offered to let Dupont’s troops, no less than those of Vedel, return to France by sea, if the claim that the latter should be allowed to retreat on Madrid were withdrawn. This was conceding much, and the French generals accepted the proposal.

Accordingly Castaños and Tilly, representing the Spaniards, and Chabert and Marescot, on behalf of Dupont, signed preliminaries, by which it was agreed that the surrounded divisions should formally lay down their arms and become prisoners of war, while Vedel’s men should not be considered to have capitulated, nor make any act of surrender. Both bodies of men should leave Andalusia by sea, and be taken to Rochefort on Spanish vessels. ‘The Spanish army,’ so ran the curiously worded seventh article of the capitulation, ‘guarantees them against all hostile aggression during their passage.’ The other clauses contain nothing striking, save some rather liberal permissions to the French officers to take away their baggage--each general was to be allowed two wheeled vehicles, each field officer or staff officer one--without its being examined. This article caught the eye of Napoleon, and has been noted by many subsequent critics, who have maintained that Dupont and his colleagues, gorged with the plunder of Cordova, surrendered before they needed, in order to preserve their booty intact. That they yielded before it was inevitable we do not believe: but far more anxiety than was becoming seems to have been shown regarding the baggage. This anxiety finds easy explanation if the Spanish official statement, that more than £40,000 in hard cash, and a great quantity of jewellery and silver plate was afterwards found in the _fourgons_ of the staff and the superior officers, be accepted as correct[159].

[159] It will be found in the _Gazeta de Madrid_ of October 9,
1808. It is stated that 60,000 dollars in silver and 136,000
dollars in gold, besides much plate and jewellery, were found in
the _fourgons_ of Dupont and his staff.

The fifteenth clause of the capitulation had contents of still more doubtful propriety: it was to the effect that as many pieces of church plate had been stolen at the sack of Cordova, Dupont undertook to make a search for them and restore them to the sanctuaries to which they belonged, if they could be found in existence. The confession was so scandalous, that we share Napoleon’s wonder that such a clause could ever have been passed by the two French negotiators; if they were aware that the charge of theft was true (as it no doubt was), shame should have prevented them from putting it on paper: if they thought it false, they were permitting a gratuitous insult to the French army to be inserted in the capitulation.

While the negotiations were going on, Dupont sent secret orders to Vedel to abscond during the night, and to retreat on Madrid as fast as he was able. Chabert and Marescot had of course no knowledge of this, or they would hardly have consented to include that general’s troops in the convention. In accordance with his superior’s orders, and with the obvious necessities of the case, Vedel made off on the night of July 20-21, leaving only a screen of pickets in front of his position, to conceal his departure from the Spaniards as long as was possible. On the return of his plenipotentiaries to his camp on the morning of the twenty-first, Dupont learnt, to his surprise and discontent, that they had included Vedel’s division in their bargain with Castaños. But as that officer was now far away--he had reached La Carolina at daybreak and Santa Elena by noon--the commander-in-chief hoped that his troops were saved.

The anger of the Spaniards at discovering the evasion of the second French division may easily be imagined. Reding, who was the first to become aware of it, sent down an officer into Dupont’s camp, with the message that if Vedel did not instantly return, he should regard the convention as broken, and fall upon the surrounded troops: he should give no quarter, as he considered that treachery had been shown, and that the armistice had been abused. Dupont could not hope to make a stand, and was at the enemy’s mercy. He directed his chief of the staff to write an order bidding Vedel to halt, and sent it to him by one of his aides-de-camp, accompanied by a Spanish officer. This did not satisfy Reding, who insisted that Dupont should write an autograph letter of his own in stronger terms. His demand could not be refused, and the two dispatches reached Vedel almost at the same hour, as he was resting his troops at Santa Elena before plunging into the passes.

Vedel, as all his previous conduct had shown, was weak and wanting in initiative. Some of his officers tried to persuade him to push on, and to leave Dupont to make the best terms for himself that he could. Much was to be said in favour of this resolve: he might have argued that since he had never been without the power of retreating, it was wrong of his superior to include him in the capitulation. His duty to the Emperor would be to save his men, whatever might be the consequences to Dupont. The latter, surrounded as he was, could hardly be considered a free agent, and his orders might be disregarded. But such views were far from Vedel’s mind: he automatically obeyed his chief’s dispatch and halted. Next day he marched his troops back to Baylen, in consequence of a third communication from Dupont.

On July 23 Dupont’s troops laid down their arms with full formalities, defiling to the sound of military music before the divisions of La Peña and Jones, who were drawn up by the Rumblar bridge. On the twenty-fourth Vedel’s and Dufour’s troops, without any such humiliating ceremony, stacked their muskets and cannon on the hillsides east of Baylen and marched for the coast. When the two corps were numbered it was found that 8,242 unwounded men had surrendered with Dupont: nearly 2,000 more, dead or wounded, were left on the battle-field; seven or eight hundred of the Swiss battalions had deserted and disappeared. With Vedel 9,393 men laid down their arms[160]. Not only did he deliver up his own column, but he called down the battalion guarding the Despeña Perros pass. Even the troops left beyond the defiles in La Mancha were summoned to surrender by the Spaniards, and some of them did so, though they were not really included in the capitulation, which was by its wording confined to French troops in Andalusia. But the commanders of three battalions allowed themselves to be intimidated by Colonel Cruz-Murgeon, who went to seek them at the head of a few cavalry, and tamely laid down their arms[161].

[160] This total of 17,635, given in the Spanish returns, seems
absolutely certain. It tallies very well with the original
figures of the French divisions, when losses in the campaign
are allowed for. I find in the _Vaughan Papers_ a contemporary
Spanish scrap of unknown provenance, giving somewhat different
figures, as follows:--Dupont’s corps: unwounded prisoners,
6,000; killed and wounded on the field, 3,000; Swiss deserters,
1,200; sick captured in the hospitals, 400; making a total of
10,600. Whittingham, the English attaché in Castaños’ camp, gives
another set:--unwounded prisoners, 5,500; killed and wounded,
2,600; Swiss deserters, 1,100; making 9,200. But both of these
are confessedly rough estimates, though made on the spot. As to
the other French prisoners, the Vaughan document says that 9,100
surrendered with Vedel, 800 in the passes, and 700 more in La
Mancha.

[161] Battalions surrendered at Santa Cruz, and at Manzanares.
But the officer in command at Madridejos refused to be cajoled,
and retreated on Madrid.

The Spaniards had won their success at very small cost. Reding’s division returned a casualty list of 117 dead and 403 wounded, in which were included the losses of the skirmish of July 16 as well as those of the battle of the nineteenth. Coupigny lost 100 dead and 894 wounded. La Peña’s and Cruz-Murgeon’s columns, which had barely got into touch with the French when the armistice was granted, cannot have lost more than a score or two of men. The total is no more than 954. There were in addition 998 prisoners captured by Vedel when he attacked from the rear, but these were, of course, restored on the twentieth, in consequence of the orders sent by Dupont, along with two guns and two regimental standards.

Castaños, a man of untarnished honour, had every intention of carrying out the capitulation. The French troops, divided into small columns, were sent down to the coast, or to the small towns of the Lower Guadalquivir under Spanish escorts, which had some difficulty in preserving them from the fury of the peasantry. It was necessary to avoid the large towns like Cordova and Seville, where the passage of the unarmed prisoners would certainly have led to riots and massacres. At Ecija the mob actually succeeded in murdering sixty unfortunate Frenchmen. But when the troops had been conducted to their temporary destinations, it was found that difficulties had arisen. The amount of Spanish shipping available would not have carried 20,000 men. This was a comparatively small hindrance, as the troops could have been sent off in detachments. But it was more serious that Lord Collingwood, the commander of the British squadron off Cadiz, refused his permission for the embarkation of the French. He observed that Castaños had promised to send Dupont’s army home by water, without considering whether he had the power to do so. The British fleet commanded the sea, and was blockading Rochefort, the port which the capitulation assigned for the landing of the captive army. No representative of Great Britain had signed the convention[162], and she was not bound by it. He must find out, by consulting his government, whether the transference of the troops of Dupont to France was to be allowed.

[162] There had been a British attaché, Captain Whittingham, at
Castaños’ head quarters. The French negotiators had tried to
induce him to approve the terms of capitulation. But he very
wisely refused, having no authority to do so.

On hearing of the difficulties raised by Collingwood, Castaños got into communication with Dupont, and drew up six supplementary articles to the convention, in which it was stipulated that if the British Government objected to Rochefort as the port at which the French troops were to be landed, some other place should be selected. If all passage by sea was denied, a way by land should be granted by the Spaniards. This agreement was signed at Seville on August 6, but meanwhile the Junta was being incited to break the convention. Several of its more reckless and fanatical members openly broached the idea that no faith need be kept with those who had invaded Spain under such treacherous pretences. The newspapers were full of tales of French outrages, and protests against the liberation of the spoilers of Cordova and Jaen.

Matters came to a head when Dupont wrote to Morla, the Captain-General of Andalusia, to protest against further delays, and to require that the first division of his army should be allowed to sail at once [August 8]. He received in reply a most shameless and cynical letter[163]. The Captain-General began by declaring that there were no ships available. But he then went on to state that no more had been promised than that the Junta would request the British to allow the French troops to sail. He supposed that it was probable that a blank refusal would be sent to this demand. Why should Britain allow the passage by sea of troops who were destined to be used against her on some other point of the theatre of war? Morla next insinuated that Dupont himself must have been well aware that the capitulation could not be carried out. ‘Your Excellency’s object in inserting these conditions was merely to obtain terms which, impossible as they were to execute, might yet give a show of honour to the inevitable surrender.... What right have you to require the performance of these impossible conditions on behalf of an army which entered Spain under a pretence of alliance, and then imprisoned our King and princes, sacked his palaces, slew and robbed his subjects, wasted his provinces, and tore away his crown?’

[163] This will be found printed at length in the Appendix of
Papers relating to Baylen.

After a delay of some weeks Lord Collingwood sent in to the Junta the reply of his government. It was far from being of the kind that Morla and his friends had hoped. Canning had answered that no stipulations made at Baylen could bind Great Britain, but that to oblige her allies, and to avoid compromising their honour, she consented to allow the French army to be sent back to France, and to be landed in successive detachments of 4,000 men at some port between Brest and Rochefort (i.e. at Nantes or L’Orient). It is painful to have to add that neither the Junta of Seville nor the Supreme Central Junta, which superseded that body, took any steps to carry out this project. Dupont himself, his generals, and his staff, were sent home to France, but their unfortunate troops were kept for a time in cantonments in Andalusia, then sent on board pontoons in the Bay of Cadiz, where they were subjected to all manner of ill usage and half-starved, and finally dispatched to the desolate rock of Cabrera, in the Balearic Islands, where more than half of them perished of cold, disease, and insufficient nourishment[164]. Vedel’s men were imprisoned no less than Dupont’s, and the survivors were only released at the conclusion of the general peace of 1814.

[164] For the horrors of Cabrera, the works of three of the
prisoners, Ducor of the Marines of the Guard, and Gille and Wagré
of Vedel’s division, may be consulted. Their story is deeply
distressing.

So ended the strange and ill-fought campaign of Baylen. It is clear that Dupont’s misfortunes were of his own creation. He ought never to have lingered at Andujar till July was far spent, but should either have massed his three divisions and fallen upon Castaños, or have retired to a safe defensive position at Baylen or La Carolina and have waited to be attacked. He might have united something over 20,000 men, and could have defied every effort of the 35,000 Spaniards to drive him back over the Sierra Morena. By dividing his army into fractions and persisting in holding Andujar, he brought ruin upon himself. But the precise form in which the ruin came about was due less to Dupont than to Vedel. That officer’s blind and irrational march on La Carolina and abandonment of Baylen on July 17-18 gave the Spaniards the chance of interposing between the two halves of the French army. If Vedel had made a proper reconnaissance on the seventeenth, he would have found that Reding had not marched for the passes, but was still lingering at Mengibar. Instead, however, of sweeping the country-side for traces of the enemy, he credited a wild rumour, and hurried off to La Carolina, leaving the fatal gap behind him. All that followed was his fault: not only did he compromise the campaign by his march back to the passes, but when he had discovered his mistake he returned with a slowness that was inexcusable. If he had used ordinary diligence he might yet have saved Dupont on the nineteenth: it was his halt at Guarroman, while the cannon of Baylen were thundering in his ears, that gave the last finishing touch to the disaster. If he had come upon the battle-field at ten in the morning, instead of at five in the afternoon, he could have aided his chief to cut his way through, and even have inflicted a heavy blow on Reding and Coupigny. A careful study of Vedel’s actions, from his first passage of the Sierra Morena to his surrender, shows that on every possible occasion he took the wrong course.

But even if we grant that Vedel made every possible mistake, it is nevertheless true that Dupont fought his battle most unskilfully. If he had marched on the morning instead of the night of July 18, he probably might have brushed past the front of Reding and Coupigny without suffering any greater disaster than the loss of his baggage. Even as things actually fell out, it is not certain that he need have been forced to surrender. He had 10,000 men, the two Spanish generals had 17,000, but had been forced to detach some 3,500 bayonets to guard against the possible reappearance of Vedel. If Dupont had refused to waste his men in partial and successive attacks, and had massed them for a vigorous assault on the left wing of the Spaniards, where Coupigny’s position on the slopes of the Cerrajon was neither very strong nor very well defined, he might yet have cut his way through, though probably his immense baggage-train would have been lost. It is fair, however, to remember that this chance was only granted him because Castaños, in front of Andujar, was slow to discover his retreat and still slower to pursue him. If that officer had shown real energy, ten thousand men might have been pressing Dupont from the rear before eight o’clock in the morning.

As it was Dupont mismanaged all the details of his attack. He made four assaults with fractions of his army, and on a long front. The leading brigades were completely worn out and demoralized before the reserves were sent into action. The fifth assault, in which every man was at last brought forward, failed because the majority of the troops were already convinced that the day was lost, and were no longer capable of any great exertions. It is absurd to accuse Dupont of cowardice--he exposed his person freely and was wounded--and still more absurd to charge him (as did the Emperor) with treason. He did not surrender till he saw that there was no possible hope of salvation remaining. But there can be no doubt that he showed great incapacity to grasp the situation, lost his head, and threw away all his chances.

As to the Spaniards, it can truly be said that they were extremely fortunate, and that even their mistakes helped them. Castaños framed his plan for surrounding Dupont on the hypothesis that the main French army was concentrated at Andujar. If this had indeed been the case, and Dupont had retained at that place some 15,000 or 17,000 men, the turning movement of Reding and Coupigny would have been hazardous in the extreme. But the French general was obliging enough to divide his force into two equal parts, and his subordinate led away one of the halves on a wild march back to the passes. Again Reding acted in the most strange and unskilful way on July 17; after defeating Liger-Belair and Dufour he ought to have seized Baylen. Instead, he remained torpid in his camp for a day and a half: this mistake led to the far more inexcusable error of Vedel, who failed to see his adversary, and marched off to La Carolina. But Vedel’s blindness does not excuse Reding’s sloth. On the actual day of battle, on the other hand, Reding behaved very well: he showed considerable tenacity, and his troops deserve great credit. It was no mean achievement for 13,000 or 14,000[165] Spaniards, their ranks full of raw recruits and interspersed with battalions levied only five weeks before, to withstand the attack of 10,000 French, even if the latter were badly handled by their general. The Andalusians had good reason to be proud of their victory, though they might have refrained from calling Dupont’s Legions of Reserve and provisional regiments the ‘invincible troops of Austerlitz and Friedland,’ as they were too prone to do. They had at least succeeded in beating in the open field and capturing a whole French army, a thing which no continental nation had accomplished since the wars of the Revolution began.

[165] We must deduct the seven battalions (3,500 or 4,000
men) which had been detached to the rear to watch for Vedel’s
approach, and were never engaged with Dupont’s troops.

NOTE

Sir Charles Vaughan, always in search of first-hand information, called on Castaños and had a long conversation with him concerning the Convention. I find among his papers the following notes:--

‘Among other particulars of the surrender, General Castaños stated that the French General Marescot had the greatest influence in bringing it about. The great difficulty was to persuade them [Marescot and Chabert] to capitulate for Vedel’s army as well as Dupont’s. A letter had been intercepted ordering Vedel back to Madrid, and another ordering Dupont to retire. This letter had considerable effect with the French: but the offer of carrying away their baggage and the plunder of the country was no sooner made, than the two generals desired to be permitted to retire and deliberate alone. After a few minutes they accepted the proposal. But General Castaños, to make the article of as little value as possible, got them to insert the clause that the French officers should be allowed to embark all their baggage, &c., _according to the laws of Spain_. He well knew that those laws forbid the exportation of gold and silver. The consequence was that the French lost all their more valuable plunder when embarking at Puerto Santa Maria.’

SECTION IV

THE ENGLISH IN PORTUGAL