Chapter XIII: The Peninsular War (2)

As soon as the French movements threatened Portugal, Lord Wellington could not hope, with 27,000 British, and 30,000 nearly untried Portuguese troops, to defend Portugal against 80,000 French veterans, led by an able general, and supported by bodies of 30,000 or 40,000 men, acting as a rearguard.

THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS

The British commander was even then directing the construction of those military works, known as the lines of Torres Vedras, by which the naturally strong ground covering Lisbon was rendered nearly impregnable; and his main object upon the frontier appears to have been retarding the enemy’s advance, until those lines should be perfected and the harvest gathered in. He intended that the inhabitants should then evacuate the intermediate district, with all their provisions and movable property; and that he himself, retreating to his lines, should draw Masséna into a desert country, where the French marshal could not subsist his troops, and would find himself confronted by a strong army, in an impregnable position, whilst his rear and communications were harassed by militia and _ordenanzas_, the proper name of the Portuguese armed peasantry.

Masséna, recently created by his imperial master, the prince of Essling, dedicated the spring to assembling his army, and making preparations; nor was it until he began the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo that the line by which he proposed to invade Portugal was ascertained. That town was gallantly defended by its governor, Herrasti, assisted by the guerilla chief, Sanchez, from the 4th of June till the 10th of July, 1810. When the place was no longer tenable, Sanchez and his band, breaking through the besiegers, escaped, and Herrasti capitulated. Lord Wellington’s plan required that he should hazard no attempt to relieve the besieged,[119] but his menacing position had long kept Masséna’s usually enterprising temper in check, and continued to do so; for upwards of a month was suffered to elapse after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo ere the French general proceeded to lay siege to the neighbouring Portuguese fortress, Almeida.

[Sidenote: [1810 A.D.]]

The allied army, falling back as he advanced, offered no interruption. But an English officer commanded the Portuguese garrison in Almeida, and a defence yet longer than Ciudad Rodrigo’s was confidently expected. An accident caused the explosion of the principal powder magazine on the 26th of August, when, through the panic of some and the treachery of others, the garrison flung down their arms, and forced the mortified governor to capitulate. Masséna concentrated his forces about the middle of September and prepared, as he hoped, to drive the British to their ships. Lord Wellington arranged his army upon the ridge of Busaco, and awaited the enemy. The French troops scaled the steep ascent with daring alacrity, but were driven down again with heavy loss. The French killed and wounded in this battle are estimated at from five to six thousand, those of the allies at twelve hundred: but perhaps not the least important event of the day was that the Portuguese troops displayed a steadiness of courage which had scarcely been as yet expected from their training. On the following day Masséna, learning that there was a mountain road by which he could turn the left of his adversary’s position, filed off his troops in that direction, vainly hoping to reach Coimbra the first. On the 29th Lord Wellington prevented him, by retreating upon that city along the direct road.

It was not till they actually saw the allied army retreating before the invaders that the inhabitants prepared to obey Lord Wellington’s proclamation, and forsake their homes. And now it was too late to attain the end for which the order had been given. The provisions were left behind, the mills were scarcely damaged; whilst the helpless and desolate crowds that, flying from the enemy, accompanied the troops, encumbered their march, and gave birth to the usual disorders of a retreat. Such disorders were, however, repressed by the vigour with which Lord Wellington punished, and the precautions he took to prevent them; whilst Masséna’s negligence indulged his troops in a license that rendered the disorder of the pursuing far greater than even now was that of the retreating army. At Coimbra alone the French troops, during the three days they spent there, wasted and destroyed stores that might have supplied two months’ subsistence. But at Coimbra Masséna was still ignorant of the existence of the lines of Torres Vedras; and still believing that he was merely chasing the British to their ships, he probably saw no need of restraining his troops or of providing against famine.

On the 10th of October the allied army took up its position within those extraordinary lines, of which one end rested upon the sea, and the other upon the Tagus, extending in length twenty-nine miles, at about thirty-five miles average distance from Lisbon. The utmost skill of the engineer had been exerted to improve the natural strength of this mountain line, and to supply its deficiencies. A second line of fortifications had been prepared some ten miles nearer Lisbon, in case the first should be lost, or prove too extensive for the numbers occupying it; and a third to protect a possible forced embarkation. But this danger was happily gone by. Reinforcements arrived from England, additional Portuguese corps were assembled, and La Romana, at Lord Wellington’s request, brought in two Spanish divisions. Before the end of the month seventy thousand regular troops were within the lines, ready to be moved, along convenient roads, to whatever points might be threatened, whilst sixty thousand Portuguese militia manned the different forts and redoubts that commanded the approaches.

Masséna halted in disagreeable surprise before the stupendous fortress. He was obliged to send foraging detachments to great distances; these were cruelly harassed, and sometimes cut off by the Portuguese militia and ordenanzas. Towards the middle of November, Masséna withdrew from before the lines, and took up a strong position at Santarem, upon the Tagus. Wellington, to observe him, stationed himself in advance of his lines, upon which he could fall back at a moment’s warning.

Throughout the greater part of Spain meanwhile a desultory warfare had been carried on, in which the French were generally successful. Victor was conducting the siege of Cadiz, an operation that proceeded languidly on both sides, from want of numbers on Victor’s, and the usual causes on that of the Spaniards.

The assembling of the cortes was looked to as the period and as the means of the regeneration of Spain. These hopes were confirmed, and the peculiar character of the Spanish resolution was, at the same time, curiously illustrated by the mode in which the elections were carried on, even in the provinces most thoroughly occupied by the French. Considerable bodies of armed peasants, or of guerillas, sometimes temporarily drove the French from the town where an election was appointed to take place, sometimes merely held them at bay, whilst the suffrages were collected. And thus, almost everywhere, deputies were elected who, sooner or later, found their way to Cadiz. On the 24th of September, 1810, the cortes were solemnly opened. The assembly immediately decreed a new levy of 150,000 men, together with provision for the support and equipment of all the Spanish armies. But then, as if this decree had sufficed for expelling the enemy, who held the whole country in subjection, they dedicated their whole attention to framing a constitution, and to establishing sweeping theories, resembling those adopted by the French National Assembly, and equally democratic in their tenor. The disputes that ensued between the cortes and the regency ended in the dissolution of the latter body, for whom was substituted an executive council of three. The cortes offended the clergy by attacking the Inquisition, and attempting other ecclesiastical reforms for which the country was unripe, exasperated the whole church, and sowed the seeds of the fatal subsequent reaction that robbed Spain of all the internal benefits she ought to have derived from the restoration of her representative legislature.

[Sidenote: [1810-1811 A.D.]]

Although they had allowed the colonies to send deputies to the cortes, they were not willing to treat the colonists as brethren. The colonies had unanimously professed their loyalty to Ferdinand, and their adhesion to the national cause. The emissaries employed by Napoleon and Joseph to seduce them had been everywhere derided and punished; and the American revenues, regularly conveyed to the mother-country by English vessels, ought, if fairly applied, to have done much towards supporting the war.

On the intelligence of the surrender of Seville, the subjugation of Andalusia, and the flight and dispersion of the central junta, the province of Caracas assumed that Spain was conquered; and, declaring that it never would submit to Joseph, cast off the authority of the mother-country whilst proclaiming inviolable fidelity to Ferdinand. This example was followed by the other provinces of Terra Firma, as the north coast of the South American continent was called; and on the 19th of April, 1810, the Venezuela confederation proclaimed its independent existence under Ferdinand VII. They refused to acknowledge the Cadiz regency and cortes, with whom they carried on a paper war; and those bodies, vehemently resenting this daring assertion of independence, divided the forces that should have been dedicated to the expulsion of the enemy from Spain, in order to compel colonial submission.

From the injudicious appointment to the chief command of the worst of all the Spanish generals, Lapeña, Cadiz must have fallen, if Soult had not been ordered by Napoleon to co-operate with Masséna against Portugal. Lapeña, to whom Graham, as a measure of conciliation, gave up the supreme command, stood inactive in a safe and distant post, with eleven thousand Spaniards, whilst at Barrosa, Graham, with little more than four thousand English and Portuguese, fought and defeated nearly nine thousand French. By the Spanish general’s refusal even to pursue the beaten enemy, the benefit of this hardly won success was lost. The council and cortes approved of Lapeña’s conduct: he claimed the merit of the victory, and Graham, in disgust, resigning his command to General Cooke, joined Lord Wellington. La Romana died on the 24th of January, 1811. Olivenza had capitulated on the 22nd, and the French laid siege to Badajoz. La Romana’s successor, Mendizabal, was defeated by Soult; but Don Raphael Menacho, the governor of Badajoz, defended the place stoutly, and Soult remained before it. In Portugal the winter had passed with little alteration. Wellington and Masséna had spent it in watching each other.

[Sidenote: [1811 A.D.]]

By the end of February, 1811, the provisions, which the obstinacy of the regents had left to the French, were exhausted. Masséna learned from his partisans in Lisbon that English reinforcements had landed on the 2nd of March, and on the 6th he had evacuated Santarem and begun his retreat. He conducted it with great skill, stained, however, with as great and wanton cruelty. In fact, this retreat, though highly honourable to the general’s abilities, remains one of the foulest blots upon the moral character of the French army.[120] But the pursuit was conducted by Lord Wellington with yet greater ability, every strong position taken by the French army being immediately turned by the British; and on the 5th of April Masséna was finally driven across the frontiers of Portugal. This retreat cost the French about six thousand men, and the allies a tenth of that number. Masséna’s previous losses are estimated at twenty-five or thirty thousand.

FAILURES IN SPAIN

Lord Wellington, having now again delivered Portugal, asked for such reinforcements as might enable him to undertake the deliverance of Spain, without being, as before, dependent upon the obstinate generals and feeble counsels of that country. But to the feasibility of his future schemes, and even to the maintenance of Portugal and of Cadiz, the recovery of Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz was indispensable. The first of these fortresses Wellington immediately blockaded, and directed Marshal Beresford to lay siege to the last.

Masséna, having refreshed, re-equipped, and reorganised his army in Spain, marched to relieve Almeida. His advance produced the battle of Fuentes de Onoro, fought on the 5th of May, in which, after an obstinate and sanguinary contest, they were repulsed, and again retreated. Brennier, the governor of Almeida, then despairing of relief, blew up the fortifications of the place, made his way, with little loss, through the British lines, and rejoined Masséna. Ciudad Rodrigo was next blockaded, but the French easily introduced convoys, and the blockade was abandoned. Little progress was made in the south. Some smaller places Marshal Beresford recovered; but he had scarcely invested Badajoz when the approach of Soult, with a powerful army, obliged him to raise the siege. He fought a battle at Albuera on the 16th of May. But the victory was purchased by the loss of forty-five hundred British, killed and wounded, out of six thousand, and twenty-six hundred Germans, Spaniards, and Portuguese. Lord Wellington arrived in Beresford’s camp soon after the battle, and Badajoz was besieged a second time under his own direction.

On the night of the 5th of June an attempt was made to storm. It failed; was repeated two nights later, and again failed, both times with heavy loss. Upon this second repulse, as the combined French armies, to the amount of seventy thousand men, were approaching, Lord Wellington, who had but fifty-six thousand, and was particularly inferior to his adversaries in cavalry, raised the siege, and withdrew the troops to a strong position, limiting himself, for the present, to the defence of Portugal. No other war raged now to distract the attention of the French emperor; but he did not again take the command of the peninsular armies, and it is difficult to assign a valid reason for his conduct. He contented himself with sending reinforcements to the extent of fifty thousand men, naming Marmont, duke of Ragusa, to supersede Masséna, whose conduct of the invasion of Portugal he of course blamed; and placing Catalonia, like Aragon, under Suchet’s command, and also Valencia when he should have conquered that province.

[Sidenote: [1811-1812 A.D.]]

Suchet had deserved this confidence: he had done more than any other French general both to conquer Spain and to bend her to the yoke. Aragon was tolerably submissive; Tarragona, the last fortress of Catalonia, fell in June. Considering his work done in Catalonia, although guerilla bands still occupied the mountain fastnesses, and the bold and able Sarsfield watched every opportunity of directing them upon the French, Suchet next invaded Valencia. He defeated several detachments of the Spanish army, and on the 16th of October laid siege to Murviedro. Blake gave battle on the 25th of October, and was defeated. Upon this disaster, Murviedro capitulated, and Blake took another strong position to protect the capital, Valencia, where Suchet, on the 26th of December, again defeated him, driving him into Valencia. There Suchet besieged him, and compelled him to capitulate on the 8th of January, 1812. This campaign, the most successful the French had made in Spain since the first, Napoleon rewarded by creating Suchet duke of Albuféra, and granting him the royal domain of that name in Valencia, as an inalienable fief of the French empire.

The dissensions with the colonies likewise diverted both the attention and the resources of the Spanish government from the vigorous prosecution of the war. In every American province insurrection now raged. In Mexico, after a severe struggle, the Spaniards regained the ascendency. In South America the insurgents everywhere prevailed, as will be described later in the histories of Spanish America.

The year 1812 opened with an exploit, the brilliant rapidity of which seems equally to have confounded the French and enraptured the Spaniards. Lord Wellington had long been silently forwarding every preparation for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. On the 8th of January, 1812, he suddenly appeared before the place, invested it, and on the 19th the town was stormed.[c] But throwing off the restraints of discipline, the British troops committed frightful excesses; the town was fired in three or four places, the soldiers menaced their officers and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place, intoxication soon increased the tumult, and at last, the fury rising to absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, by which the town would have been blown to atoms but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses.

To recompense an exploit so boldly undertaken and so gloriously finished, Lord Wellington was created duke of Ciudad Rodrigo by the Spaniards, earl of Wellington by the English, marquis of Torres Vedras by the Portuguese.[b]

By disguising his designs, Lord Wellington hoped to master Badajoz like Ciudad Rodrigo, before Soult and Marmont should have time to hear of the siege, and unite their forces to raise it. On the 16th of March, 1812, Badajoz was invested. The works were hurried on with the diligence already practised, and on the 24th an important fort was carried by assault. On the 30th information was received that Soult was advancing with his whole disposable force to raise the siege; that Graham and Hill were retreating before him towards Albuera; that Marmont, taking advantage of the allied army’s removal, had crossed the frontier, blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo, masked Almeida, and marched southwards, plundering and ravaging the country, as far as Castello Branco; and that the cavalry and militia, left to observe him, had fallen back, the latter upon the mountains, the former towards the Tagus. In consequence of this threatening intelligence, the siege was pressed with increased ardour; on the 6th of April three sufficient breaches were made; and on the night of that day they were stormed.[c]

The account of this desperate attack is perhaps the most dramatic, and is certainly the most famous, portion of Napier’s _History of the War in the Peninsula_, which, as we have already stated, is regarded as the most eminent military history in the English language. We quote herewith the greater part of what is a masterwork of literature describing a masterwork of heroism.[a]

NAPIER’S ACCOUNT OF THE ASSAULT ON BADAJOZ

[Sidenote: [1812 A.D.]]

Dry but clouded was the night, the air thick with watery exhalations from the rivers, the ramparts and the trenches unusually still; yet a low murmur pervaded the latter, and in the former lights were seen to flit here and there, while the deep voices of the sentinels at times proclaimed that all was well at Badajoz. The French, confiding in Phillipon’s direful skill, watched from their lofty station the approach of enemies whom they had twice before baffled, and now hoped to drive a third time blasted and ruined from the walls. The British, standing in deep columns, were as eager to meet that fiery destruction as the others were to pour it down, and both were alike terrible for their strength, their discipline, and the passions awakened in their resolute hearts. Former failures there were to avenge, and on both sides leaders who furnished no excuse for weakness in the hour of trial. The possession of Badajoz had become a point of personal honour with the soldiers of each nation, but the desire for glory with the British was dashed by a hatred of the citizens on an old grudge; and recent toil and hardship with much spilling of blood had made many incredibly savage; for these things render the noble-minded indeed averse to cruelty but harden the vulgar spirit: numbers also, like Cæsar’s centurion, who could not forget the plunder of Avaricum, were heated with the recollection of Ciudad Rodrigo and thirsted for spoil. Thus every spirit found a cause of excitement, the wondrous power of discipline bound the whole together as with a band of iron, and in the pride of arms none doubted their might to bear down every obstacle that man could oppose to their fury.

At 10 o’clock, the castle, the San Roque, the breaches, the Pardaleras, the distant bastion of San Vincente, and the bridge-head on the other side of the Guadiana were to have been simultaneously assailed, and it was hoped the strength of the enemy would shrivel within that fiery girdle. But many are the disappointments of war. An unforeseen accident delayed the attack of the 5th division, and a lighted carcass thrown from the castle, falling close to the 3rd division, discovered their array and compelled them to anticipate the signal by half an hour. Then, everything being suddenly disturbed, the double columns of the 4th and light divisions also moved silently and swiftly against the breaches, and the guard of the trenches rushing forward with a shout encompassed the San Roque with fire and broke in so violently that scarcely any resistance was made. But a sudden blaze of light and the rattling of musketry indicated the commencement of a more vehement combat at the castle. There General Kempt--for Picton hurt by a fall in the camp, and expecting no change in the hour, was not present--there Kempt, I say, led the 3rd division. Having passed the Rivillas in single files by a narrow bridge under a terrible musketry, he had reformed, and running up a rugged hill, reached the foot of the castle, where he fell severely wounded, and as he was carried back to the trenches met Picton, who was hastening to take the command.

Meanwhile the troops, spreading along the front, had reared their heavy ladders, some against the lofty castle, some against the adjoining front on the left, and with incredible courage ascended amidst showers of heavy stones, logs of wood, and bursting shells rolled off the parapet, while from the flanks the enemy plied his musketry with fearful rapidity, and in front with pikes and bayonets stabbed the leading assailants or pushed the ladders from the walls; and all this was attended with deafening shouts and the crash of breaking ladders, and the shrieks of crushed soldiers answering to the sullen stroke of the falling weights. Still swarming round the remaining ladders those undaunted veterans strove who should first climb, until all being overturned, the French shouted victory, and the British, baffled but untamed, fell back a few paces and took shelter under the rugged edge of the hill. There the broken ranks were somewhat reformed, and the heroic Ridge, springing forward, seized a ladder, and calling with stentorian voice on his men to follow, once more raised it against the castle, yet to the right of the former attack, where the wall was lower and an embrasure offered some facility. A second ladder was soon placed alongside of the first by the grenadier officer Canch, and the next instant he and Ridge were on the rampart, the shouting troops pressed after them, the garrison, amazed and in a manner surprised, were driven fighting through the double gate into the town, and the castle was won. A reinforcement from the French reserve then came up, a sharp action followed, both sides fired through the gate, and the enemy retired; but Ridge fell, and no man died that night with more glory--yet many died, and there was much glory.

All this time the tumult at the breaches was such as if the very earth had been rent asunder and its central fires bursting upwards uncontrolled. The two divisions had reached the glacis just as the firing at the castle commenced, and the flash of a single musket discharged from the covered way as a signal showed them that the French were ready; yet no stir was heard and darkness covered the breaches. Some hay-packs were thrown, some ladders placed, and the forlorn hopes and storming parties of the light division, five hundred in all, descended into the ditch without opposition; but then a bright flame shooting upwards, displayed all the terrors of the scene. The ramparts, crowded with dark figures and glistering arms, were on one side, on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava; it was the touch of the magician’s wand, for a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder-barrels.

For an instant the light division stood on the brink of the ditch amazed at the terrific sight, but then with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion the men flew down the ladders, or disdaining their aid leaped reckless of the depth into the gulf below; and at the same moment, amidst a blaze of musketry that dazzled the eyes, the 4th division came running in and descended with a like fury. There were only five ladders for the two columns which were close together, and a deep cut made in the bottom of the ditch was filled with water from the inundation; into that watery snare the head of the 4th division fell, and it is said above a hundred of the fusiliers, the men of Albuera, were there smothered. Those who followed checked not, but, as if such a disaster had been expected, turned to the left and thus came upon the face of the unfinished ravelin, which being rough and broken was mistaken for the breach and instantly covered with men; yet a wide and deep chasm was still between them and the ramparts, from whence came a deadly fire wasting their ranks. Thus baffled they also commenced a rapid discharge of musketry and disorder ensued. Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks studded with sharp iron points, on which feet being set the planks moved and the unhappy soldiers falling forward on the spikes rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets, and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of wooden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged. Once and again the assailants rushed up the breaches, but always the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, hundreds more were dropping, still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and so furious were the men themselves that in one of these charges the rear sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so far from the shot, it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken; and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies and the slaughter would have continued.

Order was impossible! Officers of all ranks, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out as if struck by sudden madness and rush into the breach. Colonel Macleod of the 43rd, a young man whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, when one behind him in falling plunged a bayonet into his back, complained not but continuing his course was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. Yet there was no want of gallant leaders or desperate followers, until two hours passed in these vain efforts had convinced the troops the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad; while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked as their victims fell, “Why did they not come into Badajoz?” In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless shower above, and withal a sickening stench from the burned flesh of the slain, Captain Nicholas was observed making incredible efforts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent a concentrated fire of musketry and grape dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth: Nicholas was mortally wounded and the intrepid Shaw stood alone. With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, and saying it was too late to carry the breaches rejoined the masses at the other attack. After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive but unflinching beneath the enemy’s shot which streamed without intermission.

About midnight, when two thousand brave men had fallen, Wellington, who was on a height close to the quarries, ordered the remainder to retire and reform for a second assault; he had heard the castle was taken, but, thinking the enemy would still resist in the town, was resolved to assail the breaches again. This retreat from the ditch was not effected without further carnage and confusion. All this time the town was girdled with fire. Walker’s brigade, having passed on during the feint on the Pardaleras, was escalading the distant bastion of San Vincente. His troops had advanced along the banks of the river and reached the French guard-house at the barrier-gate undiscovered, the ripple of the waters smothering the sound of their footsteps; but just then the explosion at the breaches took place, the moon shone out, the French sentinels discovering the columns fired, and the British soldiers springing forward under a sharp musketry began to hew down the wooden barrier at the covered way. The Portuguese, panic-stricken, threw down the scaling-ladders, the others snatched them up again and forcing the barrier jumped into the ditch; but the guiding engineer officer was killed, there was a _cunette_ which embarrassed the column, and the ladders proved too short, for the walls were generally above thirty feet high. The fire of the enemy was deadly, a small mine was sprung beneath the soldiers’ feet, beams of wood and live shells were rolled over on their heads, showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch, and man after man dropped dead from the ladders.

Fortunately some of the defenders had been called away to aid in recovering the castle, the ramparts were not entirely manned; and the assailants, discovering a corner of the bastion where the scarp was only twenty feet high, placed three ladders there under an embrasure which had no gun and was only stopped with a gabion. Some men got up with difficulty, for the ladders were still too short, and the first man who gained the top was pushed up by his comrades and drew others after him until many had won the summit; and though the French shot heavily against them from both flanks and from a house in front, their numbers augmented rapidly and half the 4th regiment entered the town itself to dislodge the French from the houses, while the others pushed along the rampart towards the breach and by dint of hard fighting successively won three bastions.

In the last of these combats Walker, leaping forward sword in hand at the moment when one of the enemy’s cannoneers was discharging a gun, was covered with so many wounds it was wonderful that he could survive, and some of the soldiers immediately after, perceiving a lighted match on the ground, cried out: “A mine!” At that word, such is the power of imagination, those troops who had not been stopped by the strong barrier, the deep ditch, the high walls and the deadly fire of the enemy, staggered back appalled by a chimera of their own raising; and in this disorder a French reserve under General Veillande drove on them with a firm and rapid charge, pitching some men over the walls, killing others outright, and cleansing the ramparts even to the San Vincente. There however Leith had placed Colonel Nugent with a battalion of the 38th as a reserve, and when the French came up, shouting and slaying all before them, this battalion, two hundred strong, arose and with one close volley destroyed them; then the panic ceased, the soldiers rallied, and in compact order once more charged along the walls towards the breaches; but the French, although turned on both flanks and abandoned by fortune, did not yet yield.

Meanwhile the portion of the 4th regiment which had entered the town was strangely situated. For the streets were empty and brilliantly illuminated and no person was seen, yet a low buzz and whispers were heard around, lattices were now and then gently opened, and from time to time shots were fired from underneath the doors of the houses by the Spaniards, while the troops with bugles sounding advanced towards the great square of the town. In their progress they captured several mules going with ammunition to the breaches; yet the square itself was as empty and silent as the streets, and the houses as bright with lamps: a terrible enchantment seemed to be in operation--they saw only an illumination and heard only low whispering around them, while the tumult at the breaches was like the crashing thunder. Plainly, however, the fight was there raging, and hence, quitting the square, they attempted to take the garrison in reverse by attacking the ramparts from the town side; but they were received with a rolling musketry, driven back with loss, and resumed their movement through the streets. At last the breaches were abandoned by the French, other parties entered, desultory combats took place, Veillande, and Phillipon who was wounded, seeing all ruined, passed the bridge with a few hundred soldiers, and entered San Christoval.

Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnished the lustre of the soldiers’ heroism. All indeed were not alike, hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence; but madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders here, all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz! On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled: the wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed of. Five thousand men and officers fell in this siege, and of these, including 700 Portuguese, 3,500 had been stricken in the assault, 60 officers and more than 700 men being slain on the spot. The five generals, Kempt, Harvey, Bowes, Colville, and Picton were wounded, the first four severely; 600 men and officers fell in the escalade of San Vincente, as many at the castle, and more than 2,000 at the breaches, each division there losing 1,200. And how deadly the breach strife was may be gathered from this: the 43rd and 52nd regiments of the light division lost more men than the seven regiments of the 3rd division engaged at the castle.[121]

Let it be considered that this frightful carnage took place in a space of less than a hundred yards square; that the slain died not all suddenly nor by one manner of death--that some perished by steel, some by shot, some by water, that some were crushed and mangled by heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery explosions; that for hours this destruction was endured without shrinking, and the town was won at last. Let these things be considered, and it must be admitted a British army bears with it an awful power. And false would it be to say the French were feeble men; the garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline, behaving worthily: shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do justice to the bravery of the British soldiers--the noble emulation of the officers? Who shall measure out the glory of Ridge, of Macleod, of Nicholas, of O’Hare of the 95th, who perished on the breach at the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for that desperate service? Who shall describe the springing valour of that Portuguese grenadier who was killed, the foremost man at the Santa Maria; or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman, who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets? Who can sufficiently honour the intrepidity of Walker, of Shaw, of Canch, or the hardiness of Ferguson of the 43rd, who having in former assaults received two deep wounds was here, his former hurts still open, leading the stormers of his regiment, the third time a volunteer, the third time wounded? Nor would I be understood to select these as pre-eminent; many and signal were the other examples of unbounded devotion, some known, some that will never be known; for in such a tumult much passes unobserved, and often the observers fell themselves ere they could bear testimony to what they saw: but no age, no nation ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who stormed Badajoz. When the extent of the night’s havoc was made known to Lord Wellington, the firmness of his nature gave way for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a passionate burst of grief for the loss of his gallant soldiers.[b]

BRITISH PROGRESS

One result of this triumph was the immediate and final retreat of the French from Estremadura and Portugal. Marmont raised the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, and fell back to Salamanca.

In Spain, the native leaders meanwhile continued their desultory warfare; Lacy, Sarsfield, Rovira, Mina, and Porlier in the north, the Empecinado and Sanchez in the Castiles, and Ballasteros in the south, gained trifling advantages over the enemy in divers engagements; but for want of concert no material result was obtained from their successes, whilst Suchet made himself master of the whole kingdom of Valencia, with the single exception of Alicante. In Tarifa, a town defended only by an old wall, eighteen hundred English and Spanish troops, commanded by Colonel Skerrett, repulsed ten thousand French led by the duke of Belluno in person.[122]

Meanwhile General Hill had driven the French from Almaraz upon the Tagus, and thus obtained possession of the only place through which the enemy’s armies of Portugal and of the south could conveniently keep up their communication across the river. The earl of Wellington then advanced towards Salamanca on the 13th of June, 1812. He there, despite the efforts of Marmont, reduced several very strong forts. Marmont retreated to the Douro. A series of masterly manœuvres ensued, in which, during six days, the contending generals displayed all the resources of their art. The advantage in this pure trial of skill remained with the Briton, who, on the 22nd of July, seizing upon a rash movement of Marmont’s, instantly attacked him, and gained the splendid victory of Salamanca, in which the French lost seven thousand prisoners, at least as many killed and wounded, including three generals killed and four wounded, amongst whom was Marmont himself, eleven pieces of artillery, and two eagles. The loss of the allies amounted to fifty-two hundred killed and wounded, the former including one general, the latter five.

Clausel, who upon Marmont’s being disabled, succeeded to the command, rallied the routed army, and retreated to Burgos. Wellington pursued him as far as Valladolid, and then turning southwards, marched upon Madrid. Joseph had not above twenty thousand men for the defence of his capital; he abandoned it at the approach of the allies; but weakened himself by leaving a garrison of two thousand men in a fortress adjoining the palace of Buen Retiro. They capitulated on the approach of the British. Lord Wellington entered Madrid on the 12th of August, and was received with every demonstration as the deliverer of Spain. The new constitution was proclaimed in the capital, and sworn to with eager zeal. And now the exploits and services of the British general had at length so far conquered Spanish jealousy that the cortes named the duke commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces.

Soult raised the blockade of Cadiz on the 25th, and united with Suchet. He left, however, a garrison in Seville, which fell into the hands of the English and Spanish troops on the 27th. Joseph, on the advance of Hill, retreated in the same direction, and Andalusia was again freed from the presence of the invaders. But the position of Lord Wellington at Madrid, which had already produced most of the expected advantages, was becoming dangerous. He was disappointed of the diversions upon which he had relied. Maitland’s army proved too weak, amounting only to six thousand men, to attempt a landing in Catalonia. It was therefore directed to Alicant, where the Anglo-Sicilian army necessarily remained in garrison. Wellington quitted Madrid on the 1st of September, to march against Burgos, leaving half his army under Hill to observe Soult, and if possible defend Madrid. The English troops that had garrisoned Cadiz now joined the army.

The French retreated as the allies advanced. On the 19th, Lord Wellington occupied Burgos, and laid siege to the castle. Here the deficiency of means proved more detrimental than ever, rendering it impossible to conquer the science and courage displayed in the defence, or to prevent the approach of Souham with all the disposable French force in the north of Spain. Lord Wellington, on the 22nd of October, judged it expedient to raise the siege, and take up his winter quarters on the Portuguese frontier. About the same time, Joseph and Soult advancing upon Madrid, Hill in obedience to his instructions, retreated to Salamanca, where, on the 3rd of November, he joined Lord Wellington. On the 24th, the troops went into cantonments along the frontier line, headquarters being fixed at Freynada. It is mortifying to be compelled to add that, leisurely as was this retreat, and untroubled by aught save very wet weather, the troops, dispirited by their failure before Burgos, discovered much of the disorder and insubordination that had marked Sir John Moore’s retreat to Corunna.[c]

NAPIER’S ACCOUNT OF THE RETREAT

Drunkenness and insubordination were exhibited at Torquemada, where the great wine-vaults were invaded, and twelve thousand men were at one time in a state of helpless inebriety. The negligence of many medical and escorting officers conducting the convoys of the sick, and the consequent bad conduct of the soldiers (for where the officers are careless the soldiers will be licentious) produced the worst effects. Outrages were perpetrated on the inhabitants along the whole line of march, terror was everywhere predominant, the ill-used drivers and muleteers deserted, some with, some without their cattle. The commissariat lost nearly all the animals and carriages employed, the villages were abandoned, and the under-commissaries were bewildered or paralysed by the terrible disorder thus spread along the line.

The rest of the retreat being unmolested was made with more regularity, but the excesses still committed furnished glaring evidence that the moral conduct of a general cannot be fairly judged by following in the wake of a retreating army. There was no want of provisions, no hardships to exasperate the men, and yet the author of this history counted on the first day’s march from Madrid seventeen bodies of murdered peasants; by whom killed, or for what, whether by English or Germans, by Spaniards, or Portuguese, in dispute, in robbery, or in wanton villany was unknown; but their bodies were in the ditches, and a shallow observer might thence have drawn foul and false conclusions against the English general and nation. The Spaniards, civil and military, evinced hatred of the British. Daily did they attempt or perpetrate murder. The civil authorities, not less savage, were more insolent than the military, treating every British person with an intolerable arrogance. The whole loss of the double retreat cannot be set down at less than nine thousand, including the loss in the siege.

When the campaign terminated, Wellington, exasperated by the conduct of the army and the many crossings he had experienced during the campaign, gave vent to his indignation in a circular letter addressed to the superior officers. In substance it declared that discipline had deteriorated during the campaign in a greater degree than he had ever witnessed or ever read of in any army, and this without any disaster, any unusual privation or hardship save that of inclement weather; that the officers had lost all command over their men, and excesses, outrages of all kinds and inexcusable losses had occurred; that no army had ever made shorter marches in retreat or had longer rests--no army had ever been so little pressed by a pursuing enemy; and this unhappy state of affairs was to be traced to the habitual neglect of duty by the regimental officers.[b]

AFFAIRS OF 1812-1813

[Sidenote: [1812-1813 A.D.]]

The year 1812 saw everywhere the beginning of the reverses which overthrew the colossal empire of Bonaparte. There was nothing to counterbalance the exultation excited in Spain by these frightful reverses of her unrelenting foe, except the continuance of the dissensions with the colonies. The prince of Brazil, who had previously created Lord Wellington count of Vimeiro and marquis of Torres Vedras, now conferred upon him the title of duke of Victoria, in commemoration of his many victories; and it might also have seemed in anticipation of the most decisive of his peninsular battles. The allied armies were now, for the first time, about to take the field under favourable circumstances; and he, whose genius had hitherto been severely tried in contending with and surmounting every species of obstacle, might hope to pursue that more dazzling career of glory which silences the cavils of envy and of ignorance. The resources of the peninsula, such as they were, were placed at his disposal. What was of more consequence, the French emperor, instead of constantly pouring reinforcements into Spain in numbers that almost seemed to render Lord Wellington’s victories barren triumphs, was compelled to withdraw thence many troops. Soult, with thirty thousand veterans, was recalled from Spain.

The complicated arrangements requisite to bring so variously composed an army into activity, delayed Lord Wellington’s opening the campaign until the middle of May; when he took the field at the head of nearly seventy thousand men, English and Portuguese, independently of the Spanish army of Galicia under Castaños on his left, and another on his right under Don Carlos de España. The French had still 160,000 men in Spain; and as many of these as were not engaged in the eastern provinces under Suchet, or employed in garrison duty, were stationed around Madrid and between the capital and the Douro.

Lord Wellington ordered General Murray to remove his troops by sea to Catalonia, in order both to relieve Valencia by drawing Suchet northwards, and to be nearer the scene of the principal operations, and sent Sir Thomas Graham, with the left wing of the army, to cross the Douro within the limits of Portugal, and thus turn a perhaps impregnable position, whilst he himself with the centre, and Sir Rowland Hill with the right, advanced towards it in front, driving before them all detachments from the army of Portugal, as it was still termed, that were stationed south of the Douro. The manœuvre seems to have confounded the enemy. The army of Portugal retreated. Joseph and Jourdan collected the army of the centre, and evacuating Madrid, hastened to join the army of Portugal near Burgos. Joseph fell back to Vitoria, the principal depot of the French in the northern provinces; there he halted, drew up his army in battle array, and prepared to make a last struggle for his crown. It is said that the French occupied the very ground on which, in the fourteenth century, the Black Prince had defeated Du Guesclin and recovered the Castilian crown for Don Pedro.

Lord Wellington on the 21st of June, 1813, attacked. The Spaniards fought with a courage that proved their former panics and failures to have been mainly attributable to want of confidence in their commanders and their comrades. The French wings were first assailed and driven back. Then, when their formidably posted centre had been weakened to support the wings, and was, besides, threatened on the flanks, that too was assailed and carried. The French had never before been so utterly routed. The whole army dispersed and fled; Joseph narrowly escaped being taken prisoner; artillery, baggage, everything upon which the existence of an army depends fell into the hands of the victors, as well as the wives of many of the French superior officers, and the marshal’s staff of Jourdan. The victory was actively followed up; most of the French garrisons were taken, or surrendered upon being summoned; the remaining French detachments, by a series of nearly bloodless manœuvres, were driven across the Pyrenees; and by the 7th of July no part of Joseph’s army remained in Spain except the garrisons of Pamplona and San Sebastian.

Suchet’s was now the only French army in Spain, and his force remained unbroken in the eastern provinces, opposed to Sir John Murray. That general was conveyed with his troops by a British fleet from Alicante to the Catalan coast, and landing, on the 3rd of June, near Tarragona, immediately invested that town. He had made little progress with the siege when Suchet’s advance from Valencia was announced. Murray re-embarked his troops with such precipitation, although Suchet was some marches distant, that he left his artillery and stores behind. But the news of the battle of Vitoria and its consequences determined Suchet to abandon that province and concentrate his troops in Catalonia. Aragon was freed, and Mina had the gratification of recovering the heroic Saragossa from her conquerors.

When Napoleon received the tidings of the battle of Vitoria and its disastrous results to his brother’s hopes, he sent back Soult to resume the command from which he had taken him; to collect reinforcements, reorganise the fugitive army, raise the sieges of Pamplona and San Sebastian, and, in conjunction with Suchet, drive the British out of Spain. To enable him to effect these objects, he named him imperial lieutenant in Spain, giving him authority far beyond what had ever before been intrusted to any marshal. Soult took the field at the head of nearly one hundred thousand men, endeavouring to break through the extremity of the British line, in order to relieve Pamplona. The French marshal’s first measures seemed to promise him success. On the 25th of July, 1813, with about fifty thousand men, he attacked two separate posts held by divisions of the right wing under Sir Rowland Hill. The allies fought obstinately, but were obliged to give way. On the 26th Lord Wellington arrived on the scene of action, immediately resolving to give battle for the protection of the blockade of Pamplona. The French were defeated in two successive engagements on the 30th and 31st, after which Soult retreated into France. On the 1st of August the allied troops resumed their former positions amidst the Pyrenees.

The two sieges proceeded; but the provisions in Pamplona still held out: the fortifications of San Sebastian were admirable, the approaches difficult, and the garrison defended itself pertinaciously. When the town was taken (August 31), the siege, and especially the assault, had cost great numbers of lives--nearly four thousand; and the troops, infuriated by the loss of their comrades and their own danger, could not be restrained by the few surviving officers of the storming party, or even taught to discriminate between friends and foes, Spaniards and French. Greater outrages are said to have been committed upon the inhabitants of San Sebastian than in any other town taken by the allies; and it was longer ere the generals could restore order.[123]

The surrender of Pamplona set the allied forces at liberty, and Lord Wellington immediately determined to advance into France, leaving Suchet and his corps to the care of the Catalans, assisted by the Anglo-Sicilian army. In beginning his operations upon the enemy’s territory, one of the first cares of the British commander was to repress the ferociously vindictive temper of his Spanish and Portuguese troops, who longed to retaliate upon the French nation the injuries and outrages they had suffered from the French soldiery. At first it was found impossible altogether to control this disposition, in which the native officers but too much sympathised with their men. But the firmness and severity with which such offences were punished soon introduced a better temper.