Badajoz

“ I asked my two newly-made acquaintances whether there were many of their race in Badajoz and the vicinity: they informed me that there were eight or ten families in the town, and that there were others at Merida, a town about six leagues distant. I inquired by what means they lived, and they replied that they and their brethren principally gained a livelihood by trafficking in mules and asses, but that all those in Badajoz were very poor, with the exception of one man, who was exceedingly balbalo, or rich, as he was in possession of many mules and other cattle. ”

“ I was now at Badajoz in Spain, a country which for the next four years was destined to be the scene of my labours: but I will not anticipate. The neighbourhood of Badajoz did not prepossess me much in favour of the country which I had just entered. It consists chiefly of brown moors, which bear little but a species of brushwood, called in Spanish carrasco; blue mountains are, however, seen towering up in the far distance, which relieve the scene from the monotony which would otherwise pervade it. ”

“ When we had been a little while in Badajoz, however, we were supplied with new clothes, linen, blankets, and (p. 057) great coats, our old ones being burnt; and more live stock was destroyed in the process than there were troops in the country at the time.
Whilst we were staying at Badajoz, numbers of us fell sick daily, and amongst them was unfortunately myself. We were conveyed to a Portuguese town some four leagues from Badajoz, called Elvas, which was the strongest fortified town in Portugal, being very little more than two leagues from the frontier of Spain. ”

“ The rivers run in deep gorges, almost cañons, and are useless for either navigation or for irrigation. Badajoz (22,000) , on the Guadiana, one of the frontier fortresses of Spain towards Portugal, is by far the largest city. Higher up the river are Merida and Medellin, but Don Benito (15,000) is of greater commercial importance than either.
Caceres, a province still more thinly peopled than Badajoz, having only fifteen inhabitants instead of nineteen to the square kilometre, has 12,000 for its chief town ”

“ Warlike ambition contains within it the germs of every crime; and War itself, unless purely defensive and inevitable, is the concentration of all malignity.
The approach to Badajoz from the side of Elvas is exceedingly interesting. The Portuguese fortress of Elvas is perched on a lofty hill, with the valley at its foot which separates it at the distance of three leagues from Badajoz and the mountains of the Spanish frontier. I was struck by the contrast between the warm and cultivated quintas on the Elvas side, and the bleakness on that of Badajoz. ”

“ Badajoz is in ruins,—but it is ours; the breaches and ditches are filled with the dead and the dying. Phillipon, retiring to fort San Christoval, surrendered his garrison prisoners of war this morning at day-break, after doing all that mortal men could do!" A cheer arose from the picquet, who crowded round. ”

“ Before the Seventh Cazadores entered the trenches they had halted a few miles from Badajoz, after a long and harassing day's march. The rain fell in torrents that night. Amid the misty gloom, in the distance, the guns of the beleaguered city were seen to flash redly out upon the night, and weird was the glare of the port fires as they sputtered on the gusty wind.
All that comfortless night, José, like the rest of his comrades, spent the weary hours in the open air. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Last year when we were collecting materials for the siege of Badajoz, the ungrateful rascals would not send a single cart to help us."
"Why, were we not fighting their battles?" Lady Mabel exclaimed. "Would they not assist in their own defence?"
"Badajoz is not within sight of Evora, and that was enough for these short-sighted patriots."
"Has such blind selfishness a parallel?" asked Lady Mabel.
"Many," said L'Isle. "We may at times find one at home, in the wisdom of a whig ministry, which consists in taking a microscopic view of the wrong side of things just under their noses." ”

“ Again sixty miles to the west three more passes come down on to Seville, the one by Llerena, the second by Monasterio, the third by Fregenal: they lead to Badajoz and Merida. These are easier routes through a less rugged country: they were habitually used by Soult in 1811 and 1812, when, from his Andalusian base at Seville, he used to go north to besiege or to relieve the all-important fortress of Badajoz.
Last of all the great Spanish chains is that which lies close along the Mediterranean Sea, forming the southern edge of the fertile Andalusian plain. ”

“ About a fortnight after my return from Evora, having made the necessary preparations, I set out on my journey for Badajoz, from which town I intended to take the diligence to Madrid. Badajoz lies about a hundred miles distant from Lisbon, and is the principal frontier town of Spain in the direction of the Alemtejo. To reach this place, it was necessary to retravel the road as far as Monte Moro, which I had already passed in my excursion to Evora ”

“ About twelve in the afternoon of the 6th of January 1836, I crossed the bridge of the Guadiana, a boundary river between Portugal and Spain, and entered Badajoz, a strong town in the latter kingdom, containing about eight thousand inhabitants, supposed to have been founded by the Romans. ”

“ After withdrawing from before Ciudad Rodrigo, the regiment was allowed only a short period of repose before it was called upon to march to Spanish Estremadura, to take part in wresting the strong fortress of Badajoz from the enemy. Leaving its cantonments near Fuentes d'Onor on the 27th of February, it proceeded southwards; boats were laid over the Guadiana on the 15th of March, and on the following day Badajoz was invested by the third, fourth, and light divisions; the Royal Fusiliers, forming part of the fourth division, were engaged in the siege. ”

“ Badajoz, close to the Spanish frontier, has lost its ancient importance as a fortress since it became a place of commerce on the only railway which as yet joins Spain to Portugal. Mérida, on the same railway, is richer in Roman monuments than any other town of Spain, for there are a triumphal arch, the remains of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre, a naumachy, baths, and an admirable bridge of eighty granite arches, 2,600 feet in length; but in population it is far inferior to Don Benito, a town hardly mentioned in history, higher up the Guadiana, at the edge of the vast plain of La Serena. ”

“ Accordingly on the 26th of January Soult marched against Badajoz, which is only twelve miles north-west of Olivenza, with under 6,000 infantry, ten companies of artillery, and seven of sappers, to invest the southern side of Badajoz, while Latour-Maubourg, with six regiments of cavalry, crossed the Guadiana by a ford, and went to blockade the place on its northern front. ”

“ Cordoba and Seville were proposed, but liable to the same objection; and Badajoz, which was the place that Jovellanos advised, was chosen: the provinces every where were open to the enemy, but Badajoz was a strong place, from whence the Junta might correspond with the British army, and with that which Romana was now re-forming in the northern provinces from the dispersed troops of Blake and the Conde de Belveder. There they could take measures for raising new armies in Extremadura and Andalusia ”

“ The scene never varies from age to age; and the storming of Badajoz and San Sebastian by the English forces in the Peninsular War, or of Constantine in Algeria by the French in 1837, teaches us what we may expect to see in Europe when next a town is taken by assault, as Strasburg might have been in 1870. ‘No age, no nation,’ says Sir W. Napier, ‘ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who stormed Badajoz’ [Pg 28] (April 1812) . ”

“ After the victory at Albuhera the siege of Badajoz was resumed, the Seventh forming part of the covering army. A concentration of the enemy's force having taken place, the allies withdrew behind the Caya, where they awaited the attack of their opponents. The French generals had drained the provinces of troops to assemble a powerful army; but the stern character of British soldiers had been proved, and, having relieved Badajoz, they retired without hazarding an engagement. ”

“ Advancing from Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington, at the head of a force then numbering sixty thousand men, laid siege to Badajoz, crossing the Guadiarra above and below the city. The garrison in the city consisted of but forty-five hundred combatants. The trenches were opened upon the night between the 17th and 18th of March. There was no more desperate fighting during all the wars of Napoleon than was witnessed within and around the walls of Badajoz. The British lost five thousand officers and men ere the city was captured. ”

“ But one must ever deplore the disgraceful scenes enacted in the streets and houses of Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and St Sebastian. Unsurpassed in atrocity, they remain everlasting blots upon the bright laurels gathered by the British in the Peninsula. And it is small palliation, that under similar circumstances, the armies of all nations have acted in like manner. ”

“ It might take place south of the Guadiana, if the French Marshal had delayed his advance, or north of it, if he had come up in great force and had compelled Beresford to give back toward Elvas, and to abandon the siege of Badajoz. But in either case Beresford’s army, reinforced by 10,000 men, would be strong enough to beat Soult. The only possible contingency to be feared was that the Duke of Dalmatia might abandon Granada and the Lines before Cadiz, concentrate 50,000 men, and let Andalusia shift for itself while he marched on Badajoz. ”

“ During my stay at Badajoz, I had but little intercourse with the Spaniards, my time being chiefly devoted to the gypsies, with whom, from long intercourse with various sections of their race in different parts of the world, I felt myself much more at home than with the silent, reserved men of Spain, with whom a foreigner might mingle for half a century without having half a dozen words addressed to him, unless he himself made the first advances to intimacy, which, after all, might be rejected with a shrug and a no intendo ”

“ This would put great part of Alemtejo in their power, and open the communication with Seville and Madrid. If, on the other hand, Badajoz were suffered to fall without an attempt at relieving it, the same advantage would follow from the advance of the victorious army. Masters of Badajoz, and the other less important fortresses, they might leave Elvas behind them; and if they could win the heights opposite Lisbon, they might from thence bombard the capital and destroy the shipping. With these views, Massena made preparations for crossing the Tagus. ”

“ In the whole valley there are only two towns of any size, Ciudad Real, the capital of La Mancha, and Badajoz, the frontier fortress against Portugal. The mountains north of the Guadiana are called first the Sierra de Toledo, then the Sierra de Guadalupe, lastly on the Portuguese frontier the Sierra de San Mamed. Their peculiarity, as opposed to the other cross-ranges of the Peninsula, is that at their eastern end they do not unite directly with the mountains of Valencia, but leave a broad gap of upland, through which the roads from Madrid to Murcia and Madrid to Valencia take their way. ”

“ Badajoz sent a portion of the men under his guidance to bring in the treasure. Meanwhile Paris had raised an army of four thousand warriors, and the invaders being now divided, as had been designed, he fiercely attacked and almost exterminated one part before the other could join it. The Spaniards fought until 417 seventy of their number were slain, whereupon they abandoned the treasure, cut their way through the savages, and fled to the territory of Chame. ”

“ But when the national feeling began to manifest itself, such madness was then considered dangerous, and the Corregidor of Portalegre received orders from Lisbon to arrest him. Before these orders arrived he had begun to stir for the deliverance of his country, and had sent a confidential person with a letter to Galluzo, the Spanish commander at Badajoz, requesting aid from thence to occupy Marvam; men could not be spared; and the messenger returned with the unwelcome intelligence that before he left Badajoz the business113 on which he went had transpired, and was publicly talked of. ”

“ Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Graham then fell back towards that place, and Lieut.-General Sir Rowland Hill having destroyed the bridge at Merida, marched from the Upper Guadiana to Talavera Real. Marshal Soult did not however advance in time, and Badajoz was taken on the 6th of April.
After the fall of Badajoz, when Viscount Wellington marched towards Beira, two divisions of British infantry, in one of which was the second battalion of the THIRTY-FIRST, remained with Lieut.-General Sir Rowland Hill in Estremadura, to cover Badajoz during the re-establishment of its works. ”