Talavera de la Reina

“ They organized themselves under leaders, provided arms, and took every possible means for maintaining their defence. It seemed as if, smitten with the recollections of ancient liberty, they were resolved to recover it again at all hazards. [31] At length, after this disorderly state of things had lasted for several days, Talavera, the archbishop of Granada, resolved to try the effect of his personal influence, hitherto so great with the Moors, by visiting himself the disaffected quarter. This noble purpose he put in execution, in spite of the most earnest remonstrances of his friends. ”

“ The king, with equal judgement and activity, then united all his own forces near Toledo, separated Venegas from Cuesta, pushed back the latter upon the English army, and obliged both to stand on the defensive, with eyes attentively directed to their front, when the real point of danger was in the rear. This was skilful; but the battle of Talavera which followed was a palpable, an enormous, fault. The allies could neither move forward nor backward, without being infinitely worse situated for success than in that strong position, which seemed marked out by fortune herself for their security. ”

“ By this important reduction, the final adjustment and execution of which were intrusted to Fernando de Talavera, the queen's confessor, a man of austere probity, the gross amount of thirty millions of maravedies, a sum equal to three-fourths of the whole revenue on Isabella's accession, was annually saved to the crown. The retrenchment was conducted with such strict impartiality, that the most confidential servants of the queen, and the relatives of her husband, were among those who suffered the most severely. ”

“ No one could have imagined the ignorance and the irrational pride of their commanders, or the amazing assurance with which government and generals alike gave elaborate undertakings which they never meant to fulfil. At the same time the slaughter of Talavera was not wasted: the victory gave the English cabinet, and still more the nation, confidence alike in their general and in his troops. Talavera was the first distinct defeat sustained by a French army of any size since Napoleon had appeared on the scene. ”

“ Great was the enthusiasm of the army when they beheld their patriot queen advancing in state to share the toils and dangers of her people. Isabella entered the camp attended by the dignitaries and the whole retinue of her court to manifest that this was no temporary visit. On one side of her was her daughter, the infanta; on the other, the grand cardinal of Spain: Hernando de Talavera, the prior of Prado, confessor to the queen, followed, with a great train of prelates, courtiers, cavaliers, and ladies of distinction. ”

“ In every place the British were victorious—and had one forward movement of the Spaniards been made, Talavera would have proved the most decisive defeat that ever the French armies on the Peninsula had sustained—for a rapid flanking march from Cuesta’s right upon the Alberche must have compromised half the French army. ”

“ The Talavera campaign only failed of success because the 2nd and the 6th Corps were withdrawn from the Galician hills just in time to concentrate at Salamanca and fall upon the rear of the victors. If they had been wandering around Monterey or Mondonedo at the end of July, instead of being cantoned in the plains of Leon, the capital of Spain would undoubtedly have been recovered by Wellesley and Cuesta—though whether those ill-assorted colleagues could have held it for long is another question. Into such possibilities it is useless to make inquiry. ”

“ La Romana’s starving hordes, and Cuesta’s evasive and demoralized battalions were the samples from which the whole Spanish army was judged. In the Talavera campaign, the first in which English and Spanish troops stood side by side, there can be no doubt that the latter (with few exceptions) behaved in their very worst style. They often did much better; but few Englishmen had the chance of watching a defence like that of Saragossa or Gerona. Very few observers from our side saw anything of the heroically obstinate resistance of the Catalonian miqueletes and somatenes. ”

“ Oviedo, at least, can find no better pedigree for him, than that of Adam. "Quanto á su linage él fué del linage de todos los humanos ó de aquel barro y subcesion de Adan." (Quincuagenas, MS. dial. de Talavera.) It is a very hard case, when a Castilian cannot make out a better genealogy for his hero.
[3] Pedraza, Antiguedad de Granada, lib. 3, cap. 10.—Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 21. Talavera's correspondence with the queen, published in various works, but most correctly, probably, in the sixth volume of the Mem. ”

“ The allies now recrossed the Alberche and took up a position to cover Talavera. Sir Arthur chose a strong defensive position, as it was evident that the Spanish were worse than useless in the open field. The Spaniards were placed with their right resting upon Talavera, their left upon a mound whereon a large field-redoubt was constructed. Their front was covered by a convent, by ditches, stone walls, breastworks, and felled trees; and thus, worthless as were the troops, they could scarcely be driven from a position almost impregnable. ”

“ They had some privileges of which even the Spaniards were deprived; and if, during the governorship of Tendilla and the archbishopric of Talavera, the Moors of Granada were brought under various Catholic influences, they could not complain of any force or severity being employed by those who sought to convert them. Talavera, indeed, whom Ximenes had succeeded as confessor to the queen, was ceaseless in his efforts for their salvation. He learned Arabic at an advanced age, and required his clergy also to do the same. ”

“ He had written three days before Talavera: "With or without a battle we shall be at Madrid soon." But his allies now failed him utterly: they did not hold the mountain passes which confronted Soult in his march from Salamanca into the valley of the Tagus; and they left the British forces half starving.—"We are here worse off than in a hostile country," wrote our commander; "never was an army so ill used: we had no assistance from the Spanish army: we were obliged to unload our ammunition and [pg.199] our treasure in order to employ the cars in the removal of our sick and wounded." ”

“ In a letter to Colonel Malcolm, December 3, 1809, the Duke admits that the spoils of conquest were of a moral rather than of a material kind. "The battle of Talavera was certainly the hardest fought of modern days.... It is lamentable that, owing to the miserable inefficiency of the Spaniards, ... the glory of the action is the only benefit which we have derived from it.... I have in hand a most difficult task.... In such circumstances one may fail, but it would be dishonourable to shrink from the task."—Wellington Dispatches, 1844, iii. ”

“ Her marked individuality, and the respect she 326inspired in Ferdinand, had completely changed the character of the Court from the old licentious days of Henry IV.; priests of the type of Ximenes and Fra Fernando de Talavera thronged her ante-chambers; and courtiers, when they saw her coming, would walk with eyes cast down in the hope of establishing a reputation for sanctity.
Their hypocrisy can have brought them little. The Queen might be a saint in her private life; but those who think saints necessarily fools stand convicted of folly themselves. ”

“ Then Talavera, with his chaplain and a few unarmed servants, went to the plaza Bib-el-Bonut, where the Moors kissed the hem of his garments as of old. Tendilla followed and promised pardon if they should lay down their arms, as it should be understood that they were not in revolt, but had only sought to maintain the capitulations, which should be strictly observed in future. The city became quiet; those who had slain the alguazil were surrendered, and four of them were hanged; the Moors cast aside their arms and returned to work. ”

“ A few days later the divisions of Sebastiani and Valence were pushed on to Talavera, as if to form the advanced guard of an expedition against Estremadura, while that of Leval remained in Madrid [540] . Talavera had been occupied, before the Duke of Dantzig’s arrival, by the cavalry of Lasalle and Milhaud, who drove out of it without difficulty the demoralized troops that had murdered San Juan. This mob, now under the orders of Galluzzo, the Captain-General of Estremadura, fled behind the Tagus and barricaded the bridges of Arzobispo and Almaraz, to cover its front. ”

“ The first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage contain a record of the principal events of his first year of absence.
The first canto describes Lisbon, Cintra, the ride through Portugal and Spain to Seville and thence to Cadiz. He is moved by the grandeur of the scenery, but laments the helplessness of the people and their impending fate. Talavera was fought and won whilst he was in Spain, but he is convinced that the "Scourge of the World" will prevail, and that Britain, "the fond ally," will display her blundering heroism in vain. Being against the government, he is against the war. ”

“ But the friendship of the two prelates remained unbroken, and Talavera declared that the triumphs of Ximenes exceeded those of Ferdinand and Isabella, since they had conquered only the soil, while he had won the souls of Granada. There can be no doubt that in the mass of converts there were many unworthy persons who afterward disgraced their profession. It will always be thus when worldly advantages are held out to proselytes ”

“ His arguments, with their obvious flaw that he himself by an evasion of the terms was mainly responsible for the rebellion in question, yet carried conviction in an atmosphere, whose natural intolerance of heretics and infidels had been considerably stimulated by the persecution of the last twenty years—for it is a commonplace that fanaticism breeds fanatics. The milder counsels of Fra Fernando de Talavera and the Count of Tendilla were rejected ”

“ Thus the Talavera campaign came to an end. There was now a long pause in the movements both of the allies and of the French. The subsequent fighting in October belongs to a totally independent series of operations. The combatants who had been engaged in July and August rested in September: Soult was left at Plasencia, Mortier at Talavera and Navalmoral, Ney at Salamanca; Victor’s head quarters were at Daymiel in La Mancha, Sebastiani lay along the Tagus from Aranjuez to Toledo. Of the allied troops Wellesley’s army was cantoned about Badajoz and Merida. ”

“ Talavera was a very different stamp of fight to anything in which our troops had been previously engaged in the Peninsula. We had but 20,000 men present, and our losses amounted to 4,000 killed and wounded, those of the French to over 7,000. The full fruits of the victory were lost owing to the failure of our Spanish allies to afford us proper support, and the British army was compelled to retire on the following day, leaving its wounded in the hands of the French. ”

“ Already vast crowds of persons were assembled. The Spaniards had taken possession of the city the day before, and Fernando de Talavera had been created Archbishop of Granada. To him was allotted the honor of raising the standard of Spain over the great mosque, now to become a Christian cathedral. Some expressed pity for the unfortunate Moorish king; but Fray Piña, a man of lion heart, had only contempt for him.
“He has no courage,” said Fray Piña, to the two lads, watching the enormous concourse coming together and the marching across the plain of the armies of Castile and [Pg 97] Arragon. ”

“ This is the complaint, and universal in both English and Portuguese armies, and as for their soldiers fighting, I never thought they would. They never have. The French treat them with the utmost contempt. 5300 and odd [74] brave soldiers of the British were killed or wounded at Talavera without 45,000 Spaniards, who were present, moving in any way to their support; and since, 3000 wounded of these were abandoned by that old brute Cuesta in Talavera, contrary to Sir A. Wellesley’s orders or intention, and without any attack on the part of the enemy. ”

“ If Talavera has nothing within its walls to be much boasted of, there are many objects in its environs that merit praise. No sooner had we left its dark crooked streets behind us, than we discovered a thick wood of elms skirting an extensive lawn, beautifully green and level, from which rises the convent of Nuestra Señora del Prayo, crowned by an octangular cupola. This edifice is built of brick encrusted with stone ornaments, and choked up by ranges of arcades and heavy galleries. I have seen several structures which resembled it in the neighbourhood of Antwerp and Brussels ”

“ After panegyrizing Sir John Moore as one of the ablest men who ever commanded an army, he spoke of the battle of Talavera as a victory which had been purchased with the useless expenditure of our best blood, which led to no advantage, and which had had all the consequences of defeat. “It is high time,” said he, “that parliament should adopt strong measures, or the voice of the country will resound like thunder in their ears. Any body may be a238 minister now: they pop in, and they pop out, like the man and woman in a peasant’s barometer; they rise up like tadpoles ”

“ The streets, however, are crowded with people, who seem to be moving about with rather more activity than falls to the lot of Spaniards in general. I am told the silk-manufactories at Talavera are in a flourishing state, and have taken a good many hands out of the folds of their mantles. ”