Peninsular War

“ The French, indeed, as soon as they apprehended that their own country must soon become the seat of war, spoke with horror of what might be expected from the Portugueze and Spaniards, remembering then with uneasiness, if not with shame and remorse, the atrocities which they themselves had committed. Their hope was that the peasantry would rise, and carry on that kind of war which within the Peninsula had been found so destructive to the invaders ”

“ The result of all your victories, of all your expenditure in men and money, of all your exertions, and of all your waste of the military resources of this country, is ... the position of your army at Lisbon, insulated and incapable of acting, but at the discretion of the enemy: your allies in every other part of the peninsula overwhelmed, and only manifesting partial and unavailable hostility; your own resources exhausted, and your hopes of ultimate success, to every mind which is not blinded by enthusiasm, completely annihilated! ”

“ When the first news arrived that the French were breaking up from their position, they cautioned the public against extravagant expectations; “such accounts,” they said, “have come too often to raise enthusiasm in any but simpletons and stock-jobbers; and there seems no reason for altering the opinion which we have so often expressed, that, happen what may partially, the ultimate loss of the Peninsula is as certain as ever it was, and that we are only delaying the catastrophe by needless proofs of a valour, which our enemies admire much more than our allies. ”

“ To prevent so much disgrace and misfortune, two millions of brave men were ready to scale the Pyrenees, and chase the English from the peninsula. If the French fought for the liberty of the seas, they must begin by wresting Spain from the influence of the tyrant of the ocean. If they fought for peace, they could not obtain it till they had driven the enemies of peace from Spain. If they fought for honour, they must promptly inflict vengeance for the outrages committed against the French name in Spain. ”

“ The Spanish government was notoriously poor, its old regiments had been refilled again and again with raw conscripts, its new levies had never had a fair start. Hence came the things which disgusted the average Peninsular diarist of British origin—the shambling indiscipline, the voluntary dirt, the unmilitary habits of the Spanish troops. He could not get over his dislike for men who kept their arms in a filthy, rusty condition, who travelled not in orderly column of route but like a flock of sheep straggling along a high road, who obeyed their officers only when they pleased. ”

“ When victory actually sprung from the bosom of retreat, why was the glorious victor compelled to relapse into his retrogression? Why has it happened that we have seen the great conqueror who chased the French armies from130 the plains of Salamanca, pursued in his turn, by those whom he had conquered, over those plains which had been the scene of his former triumphs? Why, in conclusion, has a system of offence shrunk into a system of defence, and what is the reason that our military operations in the Peninsula have ended where they began? ”

“ Upon this beautiful ground it was that the British troops were first to be tried against the soldiers of Buonaparte in the Peninsula. The strength of the enemy’s position fully compensated for their inferiority in numbers. The way by which the assailants had to ascend was up ravines, rather than paths, more practicable for goats than men, so steep, that in many parts a slip of the foot would have been fatal, in some parts overgrown with briars, and in others impeded by fragments of rock. ”

“ The man who could write the two Memoranda to Castlereagh dated September 5, 1808, and March 7, 1809 [361] , foresaw the whole future of the Peninsular War. To know, at that early stage of the struggle, that the Spaniards would be beaten when—and wherever they offered battle, that the French, in spite of their victories, would never [p. 298] be able to conquer and hold down the entire country, that 30,000 British troops would be able to defend Portugal against any force that could be collected against them, required the mind of a soldier of the first class. ”

“ Blanca is, I trust, no inaccurate type of that multitude of heroic women who sprang up in all parts of Spain during the Peninsular War, who rose superior to the weakness of their sex in the face of invasion and its attendant horrors, and who resembled more the Antigones than the Ismenes of ancient history. ”

“ I believe we may consider the inhabitants of the Peninsula, first, as a multitude of hardy and patient peasantry, buried in ignorance and superstition, and accustomed from their cradles, by the traditions and the songs of their ancestors, to consider the sword as the natural companion of the cross; and almost inseparably to connect in idea the defence of their religion with the slaughter of their enemies ”

“ From these multitudes of young soldiers every regiment of the army of Spain was to be brought up to full strength, but the majority were destined to reinforce the depleted armies of Germany and Italy, which had been thinned of veterans for the Peninsular War. ”

“ It may be remembered that of all the battles in the Peninsular War this was the one in which the proportion of officers to men hit on the French side was highest, one to sixteen—the average being one to twenty-two in ordinary engagements. The excessive proportion of casualties in the commissioned ranks bears witness to a desperate attempt to lead on the men to an impossible task, in which the officers sacrificed themselves in the most splendid style. ”

“ Spain wishes to invade Portugal and reduce it to a province, that she may again make herself mistress of the Peninsula. And England would domineer over you for the purpose of destroying your port and your navy, and impeding the progress of industry among you. The English regard the magnificence of your port with envy; they will not suffer it to exist so near them, and they have no hope of preserving it. They know that a new French army has already passed your frontiers, and that if this should not be sufficient, another will come after it ”

“ But, meantime, the sufferings of the Spaniards were of the severest kind, and as general as they were severe. There was scarcely a family in the Peninsula, from the highest to the lowest, of which some member had not been cut off by the sword. The affluent were deprived of their property; the industrious of their employment; men of letters were bereaved of the books and papers which had been the occupation and delight of their laborious, and honourable, and disinterested lives ”

“ How, but by the re-establishment of freedom, could that blood be recompensed which flows in every part of the Peninsula; those sacrifices which Spanish loyalty is offering every instant; that moral resistance, as universal as it is sublime, which disconcerts our enemies, and renders them hopeless even in the midst of their victories? When this dreadful contest is concluded, the Spaniard shall say proudly to himself, ‘My fathers left me slavery and wretchedness for my inheritance ”

“ Forty years have elapsed since the commencement of this mighty struggle; those of our Peninsular heroes whom the shock of battle spared, have nearly all been gathered to their fathers, and those who remain are like late surviving Nestors whose heads are crowned with the snowy tonsure of Time.
Into the construction of this poem it is unfit that I should enter further than to state, that the action, which is in some degree formed on the purest ancient model, comprises a period of about two months, commencing a month before and ending a month after the taking of San Sebastian by storm. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact that nearly every one of our chief battles in the Peninsula was heralded by a storm, as if Nature sympathized in the contest. That of Salamanca was fought upon a plain surrounded by ranges of hills—one of the few open and level tracts upon which the rival armies met in the Peninsula, which seemed peculiarly adapted for such a struggle, bearing at opposite and distant points two striking rocky eminences, steep and rugged, called the Arapiles (cut out, as it were, for rival generals) on which the left of the French and the right of the Allies were posted. ”

“ To me the aspect of the Peninsula appears an enigma, which it is no reflection on any ministers not perfectly to have understood; a revolution bursting out at a period the least expected, exhibiting events in its progress the most singularly contradictory, and pregnant with results which I still think no man living can foresee. ”

“ What we called our best army had retreated from the field without striking a blow, on the mere rumour of the enemy’s advance. We had shown them that our best troops could do nothing, and therefore that there was little chance of their undisciplined peasantry succeeding better. There were two courses which might have been pursued, either that of striking a blow upon the Ebro while the enemy were weak and their attention distracted, ... or, if this were hopeless, of proceeding at once upon some general plan with a view to the final deliverance of the Peninsula. ”

“ With the rest of his corps, five regiments of infantry and a brigade of cavalry, he was to establish himself at Lugo, and from thence to send out punitive expeditions against rebellious villages, to seize hostages, to lend aid if necessary to Soult’s operations in Portugal, and finally ‘to utilize the months of March and April, when there is nothing to fear on the Galician coasts, for an expedition to conquer the Asturias.’ Here we have all Napoleon’s illusions concerning the character of the Peninsular War very clearly displayed. ”

“ But no force can be sufficient to conquer and keep in subjection a peninsula, containing about 170,000 square miles, and twelve millions of inhabitants, if the people carry resistance to the uttermost. Their armies may be defeated, their towns occupied, their fortresses taken, their villages burnt, ... but the country cannot be conquered while the spirit of the nation remains unsubdued. In Spain the234 mountains form a chain of fastnesses running through the whole Peninsula, and connecting all its provinces with each other. ”

“ If the French in Spain had been driven beyond the Ebro, would it not be possible to ‘contain’ them for the future by Spanish and Portuguese armies, and to bring round Wellington himself and the bulk of his British troops to Germany, leaving only a small nucleus to serve as a backbone for the native levies of the Peninsula? ”

“ No fitting leaders appeared, and the efforts of the people were worse than useless.
The third era of the Peninsular campaigns commenced with the third invasion of Portugal by the French army, which was this time commanded by Massena. The battle of Busaco was the great event of the commencement of this campaign. This powerful check was for the time successful, but unable long to control a far superior force, and the British army fell back within the lines of Torres Vedras. Massena arrived in front of them, and made prodigious efforts to pass. ”

“ In short he, and all [p. 21] Europe, had much to learn as to the conditions of warfare in the Peninsula. If he had realized them in March, 1808, there would have been no treachery at Bayonne, and the ‘running sore,’ as he afterwards called the Spanish war, would never have broken forth.
Meanwhile the conquest of Spain was hung up for a month and more after the victory of Ucles. The Emperor had bidden Joseph and Jourdan to wait till the February rains were over, before sending out the great expedition against Andalusia ”

“ They are out of the reach of fire from the mainland: indeed, there is sufficient room to encamp a large force perfectly beyond the range of the enemy. If it should be thought worth while, this peninsula could be held by England, even if Portugal otherwise were in the power of the enemy. There is abundance of water. If it be the wish of Lord Wellington he can retire upon Lisbon, give battle in front of it, and, if the day go against him, retreat upon Peniche and defend it so long as he pleases.’ ”

“ For six years England had constantly employed in the Spanish Peninsula from thirty to seventy thousand of her troops, who besides sustaining combats innumerable, took four great fortresses, attacked or defended in ten important sieges, and were decisively victorious in nineteen pitched battles, killing, wounding, or making prisoners, two hundred thousand of the enemy. ”

“ Never were greater exertions made to provide a sufficient force, and never were they more successful. The noble baron had triumphantly asked, what have we gained in the Peninsula? We have gained the hearts and affections of the whole population of333 Spain and Portugal; we have gained that of which no triumphs, no successes of the enemy could deprive us. In Portugal, such is the affection of the inhabitants, that there is no want of a British soldier that is not instantly and cheerfully supplied. ”

“ While both parties were preparing for a campaign in Portugal, in which the enemy expected to complete the conquest of the Peninsula, and Lord Wellington felt assured that the tide of their fortune would be turned; while the war before Cadiz was pursued with little exertion or enterprise on either side, and the cities of Andalusia were occupied without a struggle by the invaders; in Catalonia the contest was carried on with renewed vigour. The fall of Gerona enabled the besieging army to undertake farther operations; but the Catalans, as well as the French, had changed their commander. ”