Charles Oman

“ The wrecks of Ballasteros’ division drifted back over the hills to their native principality, save one detachment, the regulars of La Romana’s old regiment of La Princesa. This small body of 300 men turned south, and by an astounding march across Old Castile and Aragon reached Molina on the borders of Valencia, where they joined the army of Blake. They had gone 250 miles through territory of which the French were supposed to be in military possession, but threaded their way between the garrisons in perfect safety, because the peasantry never betrayed their position to the enemy. ”

“ The column reached the arch, passed it, was checked but a moment while tearing down the abattis, and then plunged in among the scared Ordenanza, who fled in every direction, leaving the passage free. Dulong was wounded, but no more than eighteen of his companions were hit, and at this small sacrifice the army was saved. Late in the afternoon the whole mass began to stream up the Montalegre road; they had no longer anything more to fear than stray shots from the scattered Ordenanza, who hung about on the hillsides, firing into the column from inaccessible rocks, but doing little damage. ”

“ It is certain that the British army could have done nothing upon the twenty-ninth even if their commander had desired to push forward against the enemy. The men were not only tired out by two days of battle, but half-starved in addition. But Wellesley was far from feeling any wish to pursue the French. His infantry had suffered so dreadfully that he could not dream of exposing them to the ordeal of another engagement till they had been granted a respite for the refreshment of body and spirit. ”

“ The mistaken policy which had led Joseph Palafox to shut up in Saragossa not only his own army but also the succours which he had procured from Valencia and Murcia, now bore its fruit. There was no force left which could take the field against the victorious army of Lannes. It seemed therefore that the war in Aragon must come to a speedy end: the French had but to advance and the whole kingdom must fall into their hands. ”

“ But in the nineteenth century it was no longer possible to reckon upon it as a serious line of defence, especially when the enemy to be held back was not the disorderly Spanish army but the legions of Bonaparte. When there were not even arms enough in Portugal to supply the line-battalions with a musket for every man, it was insane to summon together huge masses of peasantry, and to make over to them some of the precious firearms which should have been reserved for the regulars. ”

“ Hence came a perilous crisis: the French reserves moved forward, the guns on the Cascajal height enfiladed the German Legion, while two regiments of Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons moved in upon the right flank of the Guards. The whole of the six battalions that had joined in the reckless advance were forced to recoil, fighting desperately but losing ground every moment, and pressed into clumps and masses that presented no trace of their former line of battle. ”

“ If there was a square of ten miles unoccupied, a guerrilla band arose in it. If a district thirty miles long lacked a brigade to garrison it, a local junta with a ragged apology for an army promptly appeared. Three hundred thousand men look a large force on paper, but when they have to hold down a country five hundred miles broad they are frittered away to nothing. ”

“ The knowledge of it did much to sicken the French soldiery of the whole war, and to make every officer and man who entered Spain march, not with the light heart that he felt in Germany or Italy, but with gloom and disgust and want of confidence. They never failed to do their duty, but they fought without the enthusiasm which helped them so much in all the earlier wars of the Empire. ”

“ He even pretended to observe signs of a retreat in Wellesley’s lines, and persisted that the mere demonstration of a fourth attack would induce the allies to abandon their position. How he came to form any such conclusion it is hard to see, for the whole British army was still preserving its old ground, and no one from the Commander-in-chief down to the youngest private was dreaming of a movement to the rear. It would indeed have been insane to desert a strong position, in order to retreat across the open in face of an army possessing 7,000 excellent cavalry! ”

“ He imagined that Victor would prefer to fight him, and would not dare either to take in hand the siege of Badajoz, or to advance against Andalusia, without clearing his flank by a general action. The moment that he should have picked up Albuquerque, Cuesta was prepared to indulge the enemy with a fight, and if he were not attacked himself he intended to take the offensive. ”

“ There is neither time nor means to make dispositions to beat the Spaniards more or less thoroughly. The country-side is so broken and wooded that it would take three hours to reconnoitre their position, and in two hours Lazan may be on the spot attacking our rear. Not a minute can be lost: we must simply rush at and trample down [71] the corps in our front, whatever its strength may be. Our food is done, our ammunition almost exhausted. The enemy has artillery, which is a reason the more for haste: the quicker we attack, the less time will he have to shell us. ”

“ The artillery sent to aid the British was manfully worked and did good service. But if only the Spanish army had been able to manœuvre, what a difference there must have been in the battle! When Leval, Sebastiani, and Lapisse fell back in disorder at 4 P.M., what would have been the fate of the French if Cuesta could have led out 25,000 men upon their flank and rear? He did not attempt to do so, and probably he was right. Yet it was hard for a British army to have to fight in line with allies who were perfectly useless for any large offensive movement. ”

“ Dans tout ce qu’il fait il ne voit que la gloire des armes de Sa Majesté, le succès de l’expédition qui lui est confiée, et le bien-être d’une nation intéressante, qui, malgré ses égarements, est toujours digne de notre estime. Il se sent fort de l’affection de l’armée, et il brûle du désir de la présenter à l’Empereur, glorieuse et triomphante, ayant rempli l’engagement que Sa Majesté a elle-même pris, de planter l’aigle impériale sur les forts de Lisbonne, après une expédition aussi difficile que périlleuse, où tous les jours nous avons été dans la nécessité de vaincre. ”

“ None save exalted Jacobins, or men of overweening ambition and few scruples, could contemplate the idea with patience. When we find that the plans of the conspirators included not merely a pronunciamiento, but the conclusion of a secret pact with the enemies in arms against them, we are driven to conclude that they belonged to the last-named of these classes—that their heads were turned with the grandiose notion of getting an army into their power and changing the fate of Europe. ”

“ But it is clear that they were not in actual communication with the generals in France, much less with the exiled victor of Hohenlinden. The whole plan was ill-considered; it was the result of the intense irritation against Soult and Bonaparte felt by the officers of the army of Portugal, acting upon the disordered ambition of a knot of intriguers. Anger and vain self-confidence blinded them to the inadequacy of their resources. ”

“ On January 24 the French had succeeded in pushing three approaches across the Huerba, and were firmly established under its northern bank. Two days later they made lodgements in ruins, cellars, and low walls where buildings had been pulled down, in the narrow space between the town wall and the river bank, below the Palafox battery. The cannon of the defenders could only act intermittently: every night the parapets were repaired, but every morning after a few hours of artillery duel the Spanish guns were silenced by the dreadful converging fire poured in upon them. ”

“ They fell not unfrequently on able and willing men, who had done no more than think for themselves, when an urgent problem had been presented to them. He was, it must be confessed, a thankless master to serve: he was almost as pitiless as Frederic the Great in resenting a mistake or an apparent disobedience to orders. The case of Norman Ramsay may serve as an example. Ramsay was perhaps the most brilliant artillery officer in the Peninsular army: the famous charge of his guns through a French cavalry regiment at Fuentes d’Oñoro is one of the best-known exploits of the whole war. ”

“ It has often been debated whether it would be truer to say that Galicia was delivered by Wellesley’s operations or by the valour and obstinacy of its own inhabitants. After giving all due credit to the gallant peasantry who checked Ney and harassed Soult, to the prudence of the untiring La Romana, and to Noroña’s cautious courage, it is yet necessary to decide that the real cause of the evacuation of the province by the invaders was the presence of the victorious British army in Portugal. ”

“ The whole British line now pressed in as fast as was possible in the woods and lanes: the infantry could never overtake the enemy, but two squadrons of the 16th and 20th Light Dragoons, galloping along the high road, came up with Mermet’s rear a mile beyond the brow of the hill. Charles Stewart, who was leading them on, was one of those cavalry officers who thoroughly believe in their arm, and think that it can go anywhere and do anything. He at once ordered Major Blake of the 20th to charge the enemy, though the French were retiring along a narrow chaussée bordered with stone walls. ”

“ In a very short time intercommunication between the various sections of the French army in Galicia became so rare and uncertain, that each commander of a garrison or chief of a column found himself in the condition of a man lost in a fog. His friends might be near or far, might be faring ill or prosperously, but it was almost impossible to get news of them. Every garrison was surrounded with a loose screen of insurgents, which could only be pierced by a great effort. ”

“ Accordingly Wellesley turned the march of his whole army southward, the very moment that he discovered that the 2nd Corps had not fallen into the trap set for it at Chaves and Ruivaens. He had resolved to leave nothing but the local levies of Silveira and Botilho to watch Galicia, and to protect the provinces north of the Douro. ‘Soult,’ he wrote, ‘will be very little formidable to any body of troops for some time to come.’ He imagined—and quite correctly—that the Galician guerrillas and the army of La Romana would suffice to find him occupation. ”