Читать книгу Military Memoirs of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington - Joseph Moyle Sherer - Страница 9

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Sir Arthur Wellesley returned to England in 1805, and was received with honor and regard. In the November of this same year he sailed for Hanover, in command of a brigade in the army of lord Cathcart. In consequence of the fatal battle of Austerlitz, this army returned to England in the February following, without any opportunity of service. He was now appointed to the command of a district at home; and, upon the death of marquis Cornwallis, was made colonel of the thirty-third regiment, a corps in which he had served long, and with distinction. In 1806 he first took his seat in the house of commons, as member for Newport in the Isle of Wight In the same year he married the honorable Catherine Pakenham, sister to the earl of Longford.

His experience in Indian affairs enabled him at this time to expose to ministers the absurdity of a project then contemplated, namely, the employment of negro troops in the East Indies, and of sepoys in the West The negroes were to have been substituted for British soldiers in the East, and the sepoys in the West

This plan, conceived in utter ignorance or total misapprehension of its impracticability,—a plan, if practicable, pregnant with consequences the most fatal,—was, at his masterly and manly remonstrance, abandoned. His high estimate of the British soldier, and the sentiments of good faith towards the sepoy which breathed throughout this remonstrance, must have produced no common impression of respect and reverence for the integrity of the writer.

In 1807 he was appointed chief secretary in Ireland, under the duke of Richmond; and, among other measures, established a police for the city of Dublin. This step was censured, abused, and, by some, violently opposed; but die measure was happily carried in spite of all resistance; and experience has proved its great use and importance.

In the summer of this year, Sir Arthur again embarked for foreign service; and sailed, with the expedition under lord Cathcart, to Copenhagen.

No armament ever sailed from the British shores, in which it was so painful to serve. Nothing does more clearly prove that England was fighting for her political existence, than her being compelled to attack Denmark. With this power she was at peace up to the very moment that twenty-seven sail of the line, and a powerful armament of troops, appeared before her capital, and demanded the surrender of her fleet “You cannot,” said our diplomatist, “defend it from Napoleon, who will employ it against our nation: surrender it to us, in pledge, until the conclusion of a general peace; we will restore it faithfully: reject our proposal, and we must take it by force of arms.” The spirit which had tamely yielded to such proposals had been, in very deed, unprincely; the crown-prince threw down the gauntlet Nor was it, till the troops of his unprepared government had been beaten in the field, and, from amid the flaming edifices and blood-stained streets of Copenhagen, the cries of a suffering and terrified population awoke him to a clear view of the sure issue of the contest, that he consented to a measure as humiliating as was ever yet proposed to a sovereign or a patriot. There might have been greater moral and true Christian dignity in the prince, had he calmly weighed all circumstances, foreseen the vainness of resistance, and sacrificed his scruples and his pride to the necessity which so imperiously dictated our course, and might have excused his quiet submission; but with a crown on the head, a sword by the side, and blood in the veins, this was scarcely to be expected from the ruler of any kingdom. The preventive policy of the British ministers was only to be justified upon the ground of an absolute necessity: such it was. The armament was on a large and wise scale; and the operations of it were conducted with vigor. In the only action of any importance which took place, Sir Arthur Wellesley commanded. The only body of Danish troops which ventured to contest a position, near Kioge, was attacked by him, driven from it, pursued to a strong intrenchment in their rear; from thence, again driven by assault, forced into the town, and there routed with very considerable loss. Sir Arthur then moved towards the centre of the island, to quiet and disarm the inhabitants. He was not present at the terrible and melancholy bombardment of the city. He was sent for, however, the moment the enemy showed a disposition to treat; and was appointed, conjointly with Sir Home Popham and colonel Murray, to fix the terms of the capitulation. In diplomacy, as in war, Sir Arthur was ever prompt and decisive: the terms were discussed and settled in one night; the ratification was exchanged in the morning after; the objects of our government were unconditionally accomplished ; and the gates of the capital, the citadel, and the dock-yards, were the same evening in our possession.

Even at this distance of time, we cannot record without a pang, the bombardment of Copenhagen. We reflect, with no little pleasure, upon the fact, that, during the whole of the arduous war conducted by Sir Arthur in the Peninsula, no city was ever laid in ruins by bombardment; and important as in one particular instance was the speedy reduction of the fortress besieged by him, he would not resort to that extreme measure, but preferred all the inconvenience and anxiety of a delay, which greatly interfered both with the plan and prosecution of his projected operations. We are not supposing that the bombardment of Copenhagen was avoidable by the lords Cathcart and Gambier: without it, the success of their attempt had been doubtful; and they only acted in obedience to the orders of a government, which must have calmly considered that painful step, and commanded it. Bombardments should, in these days, by a compact among civilized nations, be for ever abolished. We shudder as we read of women and children, old men and infants, slain by the sword; and exclaim loudly against the barbarities of ancient warfare. The allowed practice of bombardment realizes the same cruelties; for, though the soldier does not exactly see his victims, and flesh his sword, yet, as through the long and wakeful night he serves in the batteries, which throw shells among human habitations, he knows well what a scene of blood and lamentation lies beyond the wall, lofty to hide, but vain to protect, the miserable sufferers.

We are not supposing that Sir Arthur would have hesitated at the execution of those orders any more than lord Cathcart, or that he disapproved the measure; only it is a subject of honest rejoicing to his biographer, that he was not employed in that painful operation. At this period of his life it is necessary, before passing on to the relation of his next service, to sketch the position of that wonderful man, that implacable enemy of England, and of all liberty, Napoleon Buonaparte.

“This child and champion of democracy” had long thrown off the mask: never had ambition a more stern unyielding votary than Napoleon; never had tyranny a more imposing, splendid, and dazzling aspect than it wore in him. To be a figure among ciphers was his aim and pride; but for the events, of which Spain became the glorious theatre, he would have produced the decay of an age, and the degradation of a world.

As the map of Europe lay spread before him, and the crossed swords upon Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland, told silently of defeated armies and subjugated kingdoms, he turned dissatisfied away; there was a “precious isle set in the silver sea,” which disfigured that map; for it disputed his title and defied his power. The means to assail and to destroy that kingdom occupied all his thoughts; and his appetite for conquest was unsated while England remained free, and while her navies rode on every sea triumphant

Buonaparte’s attempt on Spain was the lightest crime and the greatest error of his public life. A degraded and distracted court displayed to him its weakness, and invited his interference : the throne was the only one on the continent of Europe on which a Bourbon was still seated, and that Bourbon was an incapable monarch, and an imbecile father: a fine country thus governed was, to his eye, like a sword resting ingloriously in its scabbard, in the dwelling of a dotard, who could neither draw nor wield it

With the population of Spain in his armies, and the ports of Spain in his possession (a vast line of coast for the training and supply of mariners), England might yet, he thought, be reached. His pursuit of her was steady and unwearied, and woe to England if she had found no foreign field on which to meet him. Woe to her, if the arrayed hosts of all Europe, guided by this powerful but evil genius, had with undivided strength and energy been directed upon her shores. Of a truth, deep was the gloom that overspread the political horizon at. the peace of Tilsit: the black eagle of Prussia drooped in a fetter-lock, the eagles of Austria and Russia, with stained breasts and tom plumage, had flown back enfeebled and tamed to their own eyries, while the golden eagle of France soared above her victorious legions, high and alone, like the fabled bird of the heathen god.

France, Flanders, Italy, and Switzerland, obeyed the call of the imperial edict: from the corn-field, the vineyard, and the mountain-pasture, millions, that might have lived and died in peace, were dragged to perish in the wars and fightings born of those lusts ambition breeds. We say not, that all were dragged reluctantly. France stood a-tiptoe, astonished at her own elevation ; she exulted in her chief; ran the career of conquest with delight; and, but that he rode the willing steed too hard, would have pranced proudly under such a rider as Napoleon to this very hour. It was not, however, to be: there was a hope for the enslaved continent among its miserable nations—a hope buried and hidden from all view or expectation.

Spain had long been the submissive ally of France. The ’ Buonaparte was law with Charles IV. The Spanish government was corrupt; the whole body politic was diseased to the very core; the court was profligate. “Peace with England, and war with all the world,” is a political proverb m Spain. They were now at peace with France and the submissive world, and at war with England. The contest of Spain with the republic of France had terminated in a disgraceful peace, and placed a yoke upon her neck. Hostilities with England followed of course; and, as a consequence, the interruption and ruin of all her commercial relations, and the destruction of her navy. The treasure of her American possessions under the flag of Portugal was yet suffered to reach her, and was largely drawn upon by the demands of her burdensome ally. With embarrassed finances, and with a low public credit, she lay the deplorable and helpless victim of treachery the most base, and incapacity the most despicable. The moment was at length come, when Buonaparte round leisure to attempt what he had long designed; what he might ‘have found a better pretext for doing before, and might have done in an open, nay, a justifiable, manner, viz. the dethronement of the Bourbons. At the breaking out of the war between France and Prussia, Godoy had corresponded secretly with the court of Berlin, and issued a proclamation at Madrid, which looked like the first step towards throwing off the grievous yoke of a troublesome alliance. The battle of Jena supervened and confounded this effort, which Napoleon might justifiably have resented.

It is the opinion of many, that, in open and authorized war thus waged, and with the avowed object of dethroning the reigning family, and taking the land into possession, Spain, as a nation, would not have offered any strong resistance, but would have received the conqueror and hailed him as king. Not so: the Spaniards are a people attached with an ignorant and superstitious reverence to accustomed names and sounds. They would bear much before they would dethrone a native prince; more before they would resist the will of the church; and would undergo any thing rather than receive a foreigner to be their king. Oppressed by their government they might be; roused to turn upon the ministers with violence, and even a momentary ferocity: but interfere between Spaniard and Spaniard, and, like man and wife, they drop their feud, and unite to drive away all interposers in their quarrel.

Napoleon evidently thought that there would be a general and united resistance if he went openly to war, either by a direct attack upon the whole royal family, or by taking advantage of the unnatural quarrel between father and son, and supporting one against the other in open and active hostility. The whole of the intrigue by which he sought to gain his end was mean, and beneath the character of that brave ambition of which lowliness had not been hitherto the ladder. In virtue of his alliance with Spain, he asked a contingent of troops to aid him in the North, and having thus withdrawn the flower of the Spanish army under Romana, sent the greater part to Denmark. His next measure was the secret treaty with Charles IV. for partitioning Portugal: one third was to form a princedom for Godoy; a third for the queen of Etruria; Lisbon and the lion’s portion for himself.

While planning this treachery, he was negotiating with the weak prince of Brazil for a renunciation of the British alliance, the seizure of British property, the imprisonment of British residents, and the adoption of the continental system.

Meanwhile, the treaty for dividing this little kingdom was ratified at Fontainbleau, on the 29th of October, 1807. Portugal was to be immediately invaded and taken possession of by the united armies of France and Spain. 28,000 French soldiers, and 27,000 Spaniards, were assigned for this service; while 40,000 French troops were to be assembled at Bayonne, as a reserve, in case any expedition from England, or any rising of the people of Portugal, should make it necessary to support the invasion with reinforcements.

Junot, to whom the operation was intrusted, immediately traversed Spain: everywhere the inhabitants saw him pass with sullen and unfriendly eyes. There was a vast number of conscripts in his corps; and Junot would have gladly made a halt at Salamanca to organize his army. By an order from Paris, he was directed to go forward instantly, and march rapidly to his destination.

He crossed the brown and barren hills of Beira, the latter end of November, and did not find one pass occupied, nor the slightest preparation to oppose him. The Spanish contingent joined him on the frontier of Portugal: his march to Lisbon was rapid, in the hope that he might secure as captives that house of Braganza, which, by the dictum of the gentle “child and champion of democracy,” had “ceased to reign.”

The British factories were expelled ; the British minister dismissed ; British property confiscated; and the ports were closed against the British flag, as soon as the march of Junot was known. Upon these submissions of a weak and terrified prince, the English admiral and ambassador looked on with regret and contempt; but, aware of the great importance attached to the withdrawing of the royal family, they continued to urge their embarkation to the very last moment

Irresolute and timid, the prince lingered on till the French were within a few hours’ march of Lisbon, and then, frightened at reading in the Moniteur, “that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign,” he sent to Sir Sidney Smith and lord Strangford, the English admiral and ambassador, and accepted the protection of the flag against which he had just closed his port He embarked on the 27th of November, and sailed on the 29th: in a few hours alter, the bold Junot, with a weak column of exhausted grenadiers, was at the gates of his capital The people were, by these measures, delivered up bound and defenceless by a prince, who, having first had the meanness to submit without any show of resistance, now fled from the consequences of that very invasion which he had tamely suffered.

Taken as it were by surprise, and disgusted with the conduct of their prince, they remained apparently still and indifferent to their fate.

There was a slight tumult in Lisbon when Junot took down the arms of Portugal, and put up those of the emperor, but it was immediately quelled. The French general was peacefully busied in the labors of his command, and preparing himself for any attack or descent from England.

Of the population, a few of the upper class were fraternizing with their new masters; but the many were paying their contributions with smothered curses, and holding their breath till the day of loud and free utterance might return. His eagles planted upon the towers of Lisbon without resistance, and Junot neither wanting nor asking succor, Napoleon had but a slender pretext to move forward his army of reserve. They were, however, already advancing into the very heart of Spain in two formidable bodies under Dupont and Moncey; while a corps of 12,000 men under Duhesme had penetrated through the eastern Pyrenees, and obtained possession of Barcelona and other strong places, by artifices of a nature so treacherous, that war in its dignity disdains their practice; and officers and troops are alike dishonored and insulted by such employment The fortresses of the north, and the main roads from France to Madrid, were occupied by French troops.

The royal family of Spain, during these dangerous and insulting movements, were occupied in a manner that nothing but the crowded and concurring testimonies of the writers of all sides and parties can induce the reader to believe possible. Ferdinand, the prince of Asturias, was soliciting the honor of a matrimonial alliance with the house of Napoleon, and asking aid against his father. Charles and Godoy were inviting his help against the treason of Ferdinand. The emperor was silent to both: his troops were quietly and steadily gaining ground.

The court of Spain was, at this period, at Aranjuez; and, a sudden fear possessing them, they resolved on flying to America, and prepared immediately to retire upon Seville. On learning these intentions, the party of Ferdinand broke out with violence and the populace of Aranjuez, roused by their example, surrounded the palace, and demanded, in tumultuous and angry tones, that the royal family should not move; nor were they pacified, till a distinct assurance was given, that the court would not depart from Aranjuez. The day following, there was a riot in Madrid, and the house of Godoy was broken into and plundered. On the next, be was himself assaulted at Aranjuez; his life saved with difficulty by the timely protection of the royal guards; and he was placed in arrest

Charles IV., terrified by these scenes of violence, and alarmed by the accounts from Madrid, abdicated the throne. On the 20th, Ferdinand was proclaimed king at Madrid, amid the shouts and rejoicings of a vast and excited multitude.

Murat, the grand-duke of Berg, who at this moment was commander-in-chief of all the French forces in Spain, had his head-quarters at Aranda de Duero, and hearing of these things marched without loss of time upon Madrid. He disposed 30,000 men in a position surrounding it, and entered it in person at the head of 10,000 on the 23d of March. He here received a messenger from Charles IV., stating that his abdication was not of free will, therefore invalid. When Ferdinand entered Madrid on the 24th, Murat refused to recognize him as king. Ferdinand presented the French general with the sword of Francis I, a proud trophy of other days. The grand-duke of Berg accepted this gift, sullied alike by the hand which under such circumstances gave and that which received it, but still declined the act of recognition: a matter of such moment required, he said, the fiat of his master the emperor.

Napoleon, vexed at the hasty advance of Murat, and the unnecessary occupation of Madrid before his plans were ripe, sent Savary, on whose address he could depend, to rectify the error. Savary found Ferdinand in all the perplexity of a man proclaimed and hailed a king by the popular voice, but pronounced a rebel and usurper by his father, and surrounded by 40,000 soldiers in the service of that ally, upon whose recognition he deemed all the security of his title to depend,—a recognition as yet withheld.

The artful agent of a faithless master pointed out to Ferdinand that a journey to Burgos to meet Napoleon would conciliate his immediate favor, and counteract all the plots of his father and Godoy.

The weak prince set forth on his foolish and fatal journey with the subtle Savary for his companion. The emperor was not at Burgos, nor at Vittoria, whither he was persuaded to proceed. The distance to Bayonne was short, it was but just within the confines of France; and Savary suggested that the confidence thus reposed in his master would latter and delight him.

The populace of Vittoria, in fear for their prince, clamored against his departure. They were in such earnest as to cut the traces of his carriage; but blinded by fear, or by a hope born of folly, he insisted on proceeding. He reached Bayonne, dined at the table of Napoleon, and was visited the same evening by the companion of his journey, who, with a countenance changed in its expression, but with a forehead unabashed, informed him that he was a prisoner, and that the Bourbon dynasty would rule in Spain no longer. By an arrangement, which required so little finesse that Murat effected it, Charles, the queen, and Godoy, took the same journey, and shared the same fate of degradation in a lighter form; if, indeed, there were not more dignity in being a guarded captive, which was the case with the prince of Asturias. Charles accepted a safe retreat in soft and luxurious Italy, with a pension. Godoy was also pensioned and dismissed, to share the exile of the profligate queen, and her cajoled and contemptible husband. Napoleon was, to all appearance, master of Spain. His troops garrisoned all those fortresses on the frontier which are the strong-holds and keys of the kingdom. From the citadels of St. Sebastian, of Pampeluna, and of Figueras, from the forts of Monjuic, and the walls of Barcelona, French sentinels looked down upon the still and astonished people. The splendid cavalry of the imperial guard, which had accompanied the grand-duke of Berg to Madrid, paraded its streets, confident in their strength and security the dangers, of which both Talleyrand and Fouché had warned the emperor, seemed already past: war had not broken out, and yet all which he desired was accomplished. The Spanish Bourbons had signed away their birthright; Spain was his; and the contempt with which the court had inspired him was transferred to the nation.