Читать книгу Military Memoirs of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington - Joseph Moyle Sherer - Страница 11

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Such was the beginning of the war in the Peninsula. Spanish hands were early, and constantly, armed in this glorious contest Spanish hearts beat warm and true to the very last: a thousand narrow and nameless rivulets that run among the hills of Spain, and water her valleys, were crimsoned with the life-blood of her sons. “That mighty stream of battle which, bearing the glory of England in its course, burst the barriers of the Pyrenees, and left deep traces of its fury in the soil of France,” but for the indomitable and persevering spirit of the Spanish nation would never have rolled over the rocky frontier of Portugal.

The great mind, the great individual agent, guided by whose genius the army of England, the only true and efficient army in Spain, did finally and fully triumph, was allowedly the duke of Wellington. All England, all Europe, have acknowledged this; nay, the very children of Spain have sung it in the streets.

That the deliverance of Spain was the sole work of their own hands has not been universally asserted by Spaniards: certain it is, it has not been believed by the world.

On the 30th of May two Spanish noblemen brought information to London, that the province of Asturias had risen “en masse ” and that forty thousand men were embodied, with the intention of repelling the French.

In the south of Spain the patriots were early in communication with Sir Hew Dalrymple at Gibraltar, and lord Collingwood on the eastern coast, and received encouragement and aid from those officers.

On the 6th of June, the French squadron at Cadiz surrendered to the patriots. A peace was on the instant concluded between England and Spain. The Spanish prisoners were immediately sent back. The English people warmly sympathized with the population of that country; and in proportion as they had been depressed, by contemplating the triumphs of Napoleon in the north of Europe, so were they now most extravagantly elated by the ignorant expectation of his immediate overthrow in the south. At this time the French force in Spain and Portugal was 120,000 men : they possessed all the fortresses of the latter kingdom, and many of those considered the most important in Spain; they had a reserve at Bayonne, and an army of 400.000 veterans in France, upon the Rhine, and in Germany.

It has been the fashion in England to rate military talent low, and hence generals have been viewed as persons secondary, and not requiring the same capacity as those called to fill political offices, and to be the advisers of the crown. It may be with safety affirmed, that this mistake, though not without its use in a free country, has often subjected the operations of our armies in war to the guidance and control of men alike incompetent to originate, to follow out, or fully and intelligently to sustain them. To the very opportunity now offered, the English cabinet, though willing, could not effectually and promptly rise: a fine and ample theatre for effort and exertion lay open before them, but they knew not how to wield the military strength of Britain. They could have commanded a disposable force of 70.000 men: they employed 30,000; and these divided and subdivided to provide for distant and different objects.

The alarum had spread through Catalonia. The French general Duhesme commanded in Barcelona, a city which had been early and treacherously seized, as also Monjuic and Figueras. The Spanish soldiers of the betrayed garrisons quitted their ranks, and flocked to the patriotic standard in Murcia and Valencia. All the insurrections of the Spanish provinces took place at nearly the same moment; and the early hostile movements of the French divisions were nearly simultaneous.—Marshal Bessieres attacked, and of course worsted, the patriots of Navarre and Biscay, who merely rose armed, and declared-themselves, but had neither leaders nor points of union, nor any combination. He dispersed many of their assemblages, and took away their arms: they always offered resistance, but it was vain. The division of Verdier beat them at Logroño, and put their leaders to death after the combat The cavalry of Lasalle fell upon a body of Spaniards at Torquemada, and put a vast number to the sword, after which exploit they burned the town. There was something like a Spanish force at Segovia: general Freire defeated it, and took thirty pieces of artillery. At Cabeçon there was a battle between the Spanish troops under Cuesta and the French divisions of generals Merle and Lasalle. Here again the Spaniards were beaten, lost their artillery, were broken in upon by the brigade of cavalry under Lasalle, disarmed of some thousands of muskets, and a vast number of them were cut to pieces. By these active operations, and by the unpitying and unsparing severity with which the French used the sword, these provinces were awed, and for a while stilled; and the powerless and unhappy peasants saw the fierce horsemen of the enemy ride about to raise money, and collect provisions, which they furnished in fear. Cuesta, however, undismayed by his defeat, collected another army and his fugitives at Benevente ; was joined by Blake, from Astorga ; and, advancing with 25,000 infantry, a few hundred cavalry, and from twenty to thirty pieces of artillery, took up a position at Rio Seco, and again ventured on a battle. Here he was attacked by marshal Bessieres, at the head of 15,000 men, with thirty guns. The marshal had two divisions of infantry ; one of light cavalry; and his reserve was composed of four battalions, and a small body of horse grenadiers, all of the imperial guard. The Spaniards were signally defeated ; but they were not disgraced. When their front line was down, and dead bodies strewed the field, Cuesta fell upon the French with his second line, and with his right wing broke in upon the enemy’s (victorious already over half his army), and took from him six guns; but the Spaniards, though brave to fight, could not manœuvre, even had Cuesta been capable of moving them. The French check was soon repaired; the Spaniards were overpowered, and, after many brave rallies, driven from the field, and pursued by a superior cavalry, who, as usual, shone in the work of slaughter.

It was the disaster of this day which had opened the gates of Madrid to the intruder. In the province of Arragon the insurrection was organized by Don Josè Palafox, a patriotic noble, the captain-general of the district The French general Lefebre Desnouettes, marched upon Arragon with 4000 infantry,800 cavalry, and his field artillery. At Tudela, the people broke down the bridge over the Ebro, and disputed the passage over that river. Lefebre forced it, and put to death the leaders of the rude levy by which he had been opposed. Palafox, with 10,000 raw troops, waited for him on the Huecha. The Spaniards were beaten. They ventured a second combat on the Xalon; they were again beaten. Upon the 15th of June the French columns halted before the city of Zaragoza. Of the siege we shall give no detail;—suffice it to say, Zaragoza was not a fortress; but it contained forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, with hearts stronger than any bastions. For two months the citizens, aided by a few troops, sustained all the efforts to reduce them which the talents and courage of their enemy suggested. Palafox, in the course of the first month, went forth and collected a few thousand men, and fought a battle to relieve them; but he was signally defeated at Epila. After this he re-entered the city, the investment of which had never been complete, and directed their efforts for its defence. A man of the people named “Tio” Jorge, or Goodman George, as colonel Napier happily translates it, was ever at his right hand; nor is there any doubt that he exercised a most powerful influence, not only over the populace but over Palafox himself, who was a man of a less firm and unyielding resolution than he has been generally regarded. The solid houses, and the walled convents, were battered, bombarded, and the half of them won by the assailants; still the people resisted. The French penetrated to the very heart of the city, and stood already upon the Cosso; but on the opposite side the people still breathed defiance, and maintained the struggle. The wives and daughters of the defenders, the betrothed virgins of the youth of Zaragoza, behaved as became them. At length the baffled enemy retired.

Meantime the Catalan had so well obeyed the call of the somaten, which rung out upon his hills, that the peasants of eight districts were in arms. These men beat the French general, Swartz, early in June, at the pass of Bruck, where they had taken post among the rocks, and afterwards drove before them the division of Chabran, pursuing him with shouts and a dropping fire to the very walls of Barcelona. General Duhesme assaulted Gerona; the weak garrison and the willing citizens repulsed him.

In an attack upon Valencia, marshal Moncey was defeated; but he afterwards beat the Spaniards under Serbelloni at St. Felippe, and took post at St. Clemente. Cuenca rose, but general Caulaincourt put that city down.

In Andalusia, matters looked bright and promising. Dupont, who had passed the barrier of the Sierra Morena, had taken and plundered Cordova, sacked Andojar in a yet more deliberate and cruel manner, and alarmed the whole province, Seville in particular. After a series of blunders as great as his offences, Dupont capitulated in the open field with 18,000 French troops to the Spanish forces under Castaños and Reding. The battle of Baylen was a battle of movements, and not of bard fighting; and neither did the French soldiers show their usual spirit, nor the French general any of that talent which he was thought to possess. Dupont, in his early operations, had been rash; and the rashness that is not attended with success is often very quickly changed for affright. There was some suspicion of treachery: Napoleon was furious at the disaster; while the Spanish exultation knew no bounds

The spirit abroad in Spain soon fired the Portuguese. Irritated by the pride, the caprice, and the exactions of the French; affronted by their levities, and insulted by their violence; the Portuguese in the country began to stir themselves, and to exhibit their hatred in the only way in which they could—by secret assassinations. The first open blow was struck at Oporto. When the news from Spain reached general Bellesta, commanding the Spaniards in that city, he made the French general (Quesnel) and his staff" prisoners; and leaving the Portuguese to take their own course, marched away to Gallicia. Insurrection soon broke out at Oporto, and spread along the Douro to Minko, as also in the valley of the Mondego, and penetrated the hills of Beira. Junot promptly, bravely, and with little bloodshed, disarmed the division of Spaniards near Lisbon, and placed them in confinement on board the hulks in the Tagus.

The insurrection was now so general and open, that the division of Loison in the north was twice regularly attacked, and greatly harassed by the Portuguese; there was a rising at Villa Viçiosa in the south, but it was soon put down. The town of Beja also arose. Colonel Maransin, with the troops driven just before from the Agavves, marched, there; routed the patriots with slaughter; pillaged the town, and set many houses on fire. There was an action at Leria similar to that at Beja in its character and issue; but the people of Thomar and Alcobaça, places not very distant, were not alarmed, and boldly declared themselves: at both places they were quieted and put down.

Loison, being recalled by Junot, left a garrison in Almeida; and on his march suffered great annoyance from the opposition Of the peasantry on his route, which lay through a country difficult and rugged. There was fighting both at Guarda and Atalaya.

There was also a battle near Evora, in the south, where the Portuguese insurgents under general Leite were supported by a division of Spaniards under Moretti. The French, of course, beat them, slew vast numbers, and sacked the city. Coimbra was held by the insurgents from Oporto in strength: the bishop of Oporto was chief of the junta in that city. He claimed the assistance of England, and asked arms, ammunition, and clothing for 40,000 infantry, and 8000 cavalry, a demand implying thereby a power of raising and organizing such a force,—an inflated folly or an interested deception. English agents, however, were sent to him, and to all the provinces of Spain: supplies were granted upon every idle representation; and treasure was squandered, and stores were scattered, with an improvident folly and an uncontrolled profusion.

It is not the least singular feature of the commencement of this war in the Peninsula, that the division of the British troops which first appeared in the field had been assembled for an expedition to South America, with a view to conquest there, in direct hostility to old Spain. The 9000 men collected for that object were now disposable: they were placed under the orders of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and he embarked with them from the harbor of Cork. When the fleet bearing the expedition had made a few days’ sail, he took a run in a frigate to Corunna, to confer with the junta of Gallicia. The news of the lost battle of Rio Seco was here told him, the disaster softened, and the truth glossed after a manner alike natural and excusable. It is not likely that their account imposed greatly upon a man so sure to weigh their statements as Sir Arthur, and so qualified to estimate them aright

There is nothing wonderful in the pressing desire of this junta to receive for their Gallician levies arms-and gold, which they knew to have been so largely and loosely proffered by the generous and elated English; neither were a brave people to be at all despised for imagining themselves as equal as they certainly were willing to fight their own battles with their invaders. Though the circumstance was not known at Corunna, it was at this time that a body of 18,000 French troops, with their eagles, had laid down their arms to Spanish troops. Let it be also remembered, that the character of the British soldier upon the continent was not looked upon by the Spaniards with much respect It is, nevertheless, a mark either of fatuity or insincerity, that the junta of Gallicia should not only have rejected the assistance of British troops, but, recommending their debarkation in the north of Portugal, should have promised to aid them by sending a Spanish division to Oporto, while they must have known, or ought to have known, that they were not themselves, at the moment, in a condition to defend their own province from any serious attack.

Sir Arthur next proceeded to Oporto, saw the busy and warlike bishop, listened to his plans, looked at the paper state of his army, but learned its real number and condition from colonel Browne. Informed of the true state of things by this officer, who had been placed there to collect intelligence and distribute supplies, he decided on not landing at this place. He now (having stipulated for the co-operation of 5000 Portuguese on the Mondego) took his people to the mouth of that river, and there disembarked them. He had previously consulted with Sir Charles Cotton upon a descent at the mouth of the Tagus,—a measure that the ministers at home had strongly recommended, but which appeared to these officers on the spot, for many and good reasons, unadvisable. In like manner Sir Arthur decided against proceeding southward towards Cadiz,—a plan that would, he saw, involve him in negotiation and delay.

A dispatch from general Spencer having announced that he was at St. Mary’s, near Cadiz, disengaged from any connexion with the Spaniards, Sir Arthur sent for his division. The appointment of Sir Hew Dalrymple and the sailing of the armament under Sir John Moore were communicated to him off the Mondego. This vexatious intelligence resolved him to make an immediate descent upon the coast with such troops as he had, and to commence operations. With only 9000 men he threw himself into a country occupied by a well-discipljned French army, mustering more than double his numbers; out with this force were the fortunes of Caesar.