CHAPTER VI

From Flanders it is necessary to return to the Peninsula, where we left Peterborough bewailing his enforced inaction. Nothing is more remarkable in the story of these Peninsular campaigns than the utter want of unity in design between the forces of the Allies in Catalonia and in Portugal. Even in England the British troops in these two quarters were treated, for purposes of administration, as two distinct establishments, which might have been divided by the whole breadth of the Atlantic instead of by twice the breadth of England. Yet the fault could hardly be attributed to any English functionary, civil or military. Galway was as anxious as Peterborough to advance to Madrid; but the Portuguese were terrified at the prospect of moving far from their frontier, while the eyes of King Charles ever rested anxiously on the passes by which French reinforcements might advance into Catalonia. In such circumstances it was not easy to accomplish an effective campaign.
Dec. 26,
1705.
Jan. 6,
1706.

The Spaniards of the Austrian party, as has been told, had by the winter of 1705 gained a precarious hold on the whole province of Valencia. Just before the close of the year came intelligence that the Spanish General de las Torres had crossed the northern frontier from Arragon into Valencia and had laid siege to San Mateo. The town was important, inasmuch as it commanded the communications between Catalonia and Valencia, but it was held by no stronger garrison than thirty of the Royal Dragoons and a thousand Spanish[477] irregular infantry under Colonel Jones. This officer defended himself as well as he could, but at once begged urgently for reinforcements. King Charles thereupon appealed for help to Peterborough, who forthwith ordered General Killigrew to march with his garrison from Tortosa and cross the Ebro, while he himself, riding night and day from Barcelona, caught up the column at the close of the first day's march. King Charles had represented the force of Las Torres as but two thousand strong, and had added that thousands of peasants were up in arms against it. Peterborough now discovered that the Spaniards numbered four thousand foot and three thousand horse, while the thousands of armed peasantry were wholly imaginary. His own force consisted of three weak British battalions, the Thirteenth, Thirty-fifth, and Mountjoy's Foot, together with one hundred and seventy of the Royal Dragoons, in all thirteen hundred men. With such a handful his only hope of success must lie in stratagem.
Dec. 28,
1705.
Jan. 8,
1706.

Advancing southward with all speed he split up his minute army into a number of small detachments, and pushing them forward by different routes arrived early in the morning, unseen and unsuspected, at Traguera, within six miles of the enemy's camp. That same day a spy was captured by the enemy and brought before Las Torres. On him was found a letter from Peterborough to Colonel Jones, written in the frankest and easiest style. "I am at Traguera," so it ran in effect, "with six thousand men and artillery. You may wonder how I collected them; but for transport and secrecy nothing equals the sea. Now, be ready to pursue Las Torres over the plain. It is his only line of retreat, for I have occupied all the passes over the hills. You will see us on the hill-tops between nine and ten. Prove yourself a true dragoon, and have your miquelets (irregulars) ready for their favourite plunder and chase." The spy, being threatened with death, offered to betray another messenger of Peterborough's who was lying concealed in the hills. This[478] second spy was captured, and a duplicate of the same letter was found on him. The pair of them were questioned, when the first protested that he knew nothing of the strength of Peterborough's force, while the other declared that the despatch spoke truth. Suddenly came intelligence from the Spanish outposts that the enemy was advancing in force in several columns, and presently the red-coats appeared at different points on the hill-tops, making a brave show against the sky. Las Torres became uneasy. His depression was increased by the accidental explosion of one of his own mines before San Mateo; and he hastily ordered an immediate retreat. Whereupon out came Jones with his garrison, and turned the retreat into something greatly resembling a flight; while Peterborough with his thirteen hundred men walked quietly into San Mateo and took possession of the whole of the enemy's camp and material of war. The trick, for the whole incident of the captured spies had been carefully preconcerted, had proved a brilliant success.

Las Torres, though disagreeably shaken, was recovering his equanimity when, on the second day of the retreat, a friendly spy came to warn him that an English force was marching parallel to his left flank, was already in advance of him, and was likely to cut off his retreat by seizing the passes into the plain of Valencia. The warning was scouted as ridiculous, but the spy offered, if two or three officers would accompany him, to prove that he was right. Two officers, disguised as peasants, were accordingly guided to a point already indicated by the spy, where they were promptly captured by a picquet of ten of the Royal Dragoons. The spy, however, undertook to produce liquor, the dragoons succumbed or seemed to succumb to their national failing, and the three captives slipped out, took three of the dragoons' horses and galloped back with all speed to Las Torres to confirm the spy's story. Their escape did not prompt them to make the least of their adventure; the housings of the horses testified incontestably[479] to the actual presence of English dragoons; and Las Torres broke up his camp on the spot and hurried away once more. Once again the tricks of the eccentric Englishman had been successful; for the friendly spy was in reality a Spanish officer in his own army; and though there were undoubtedly ten English dragoons, who had been specially sent for the purpose, in advance of Las Torres at that particular moment, yet there were no more English within twenty miles of them.
Jan. 1 12 .

Las Torres was still retreating southward by the coast-road, and Peterborough was making a show of pursuit by marching wide on his right flank, when a pressing message reached him from King Charles. A French force of eight thousand men was advancing into Catalonia from Roussillon; a second force of four or five thousand men under Count Tserclaes de Tilly was threatening Lerida, and a third under Marshal Tessé was marching through Arragon upon Tortosa. Seeing that the King was urgent for help in Catalonia, but intent on pursuing his own design in Valencia, Peterborough resolved to send his infantry to the coast at Vinaroz, to be transported if necessary by sea. The men, though ragged, shoeless, and much distressed by long marches through the wintry days, left him very unwillingly. Then summoning the garrison of Lerida[340] and a reinforcement of Spaniards to follow him to Valencia, Peterborough resumed the pursuit of Las Torres with one hundred and fifty dragoons.
January.

He was too late to save Villa Real, which Las Torres took by treachery, and having taken massacred the entire male population; but while always concealing his own weakness he contrived by incessant harassing of the enemy's rear to inflict considerable loss and annoyance. Thus in due time he reached Nules, three days' march from the city of Valencia, a town of considerable strength, where Las Torres had left arms sufficient to equip a thousand of the townsmen. Peterborough[480] marched straight up to the gate with his handful of dragoons. The townspeople manned the walls and opened fire, but were speedily checked by a message from Peterborough, bidding them send out a priest or a magistrate instantly on pain of having their walls battered down and every soul put to the sword, in revenge for Villa Real. Some priests who knew him at once came out to him. "I give you six minutes," said Peterborough to the trembling cassocks. "Open your gates or I spare not a soul of you." The gates were quickly opened, and the General, riding in at the head of his tattered dragoons, demanded immediate provision of rations and forage for several thousand men.

The news soon reached Las Torres, who was little more than an hour ahead, and for the third time his unfortunate army was hurried out of camp and condemned to a weary retreat from an imaginary enemy. Peterborough, however, after taking two hundred horses from Nules, left the town to ponder over its fright and retired to Castallon de la Plana. Having there raised yet another hundred horses he ordered the Thirteenth Foot to march from Vinaroz to Oropesa and went thither himself to inspect them. The men marched in but four hundred strong, with red coats ragged and rusty, yellow facings in tatters, yellow breeches faded and torn, shoes and stockings in holes or more often altogether wanting. "I wish," said Peterborough when the inspection was over, "that I had horses and accoutrements for you, to try if you would keep up your good reputation as dragoons." The men doubtless glanced at their sore and unshod feet, and silently agreed. Presently they were marched up to the brow of a neighbouring hill, where to their amazement they found four hundred horses awaiting them, all fully equipped. The officers received commissions according to their rank in the mounted service, two or three only being detached to raise a new battalion in England; and thus within an hour Barrymore's Foot became Pearce's Dragoons.

[481]
January.
January 24
February 4.

Peterborough now called in such additional weak battalions of British as he could, and having collected a total force of three thousand men, one-third of it mounted, prepared to outwit a new general, the Duke of Los Arcos, who had superseded Las Torres. The relief of Valencia was Peterborough's first object, but to effect this he had first to gain possession of Murviedro, which lay on his road and was occupied by the enemy, and that, too, in such a way that Los Arcos should not move out against him in the open plain and crush him by superior numbers. It was a difficult problem, and it was only solved by a trick too elaborate and lengthy to be detailed here. The plan was very clever, so clever as almost to transcend the bounds of what is fair in war, but it was completely successful; and on the 4th of February Peterborough marched into Valencia without firing a shot.
March 23
April 3.
April.
April 30
May 11.

He now cultivated the friendship of the priests and something more than the friendship of the ladies of Valencia, thereby combining pleasure with business and obtaining the best of information. Las Torres, who had once more superseded Los Arcos, presently appeared on the scene again, bringing four thousand men by land and a powerful siege-train by sea for the reduction of the city. Peterborough pounced upon the train directly after it had been landed and captured the whole of it; then sending twelve hundred men against the four thousand he surprised them, routed them, and took six hundred prisoners. But the pleasant and exciting life at Valencia was interrupted by an urgent summons to assist in the defence of Barcelona. King Lewis, at the entreaty of his grandson Philip, had resolved to make a great effort to recover it; and thus it was that at the beginning of April Marshal Tessé appeared before the city with twenty-five thousand men, and three days later began the siege in form. The garrison consisted of less than four thousand regular troops, the backbone of which were eleven hundred British of the Guards and the Thirty-fourth Foot.[482] Weak as it was this little force made a gallant resistance, but the odds were too great against it, and but for the arrival of Peterborough it could not have held out for more than a fortnight. Even after his coming it was well-nigh overpowered; for of the three thousand troops that he brought with him the most part were employed chiefly in harassing Tessé's communications from the rear. The siege was finally raised on the advent of a relieving squadron under Admiral Leake, which so much discouraged Tessé that he abandoned the whole of his siege-train and retired once more over the French frontier.

Nothing now remained but to take advantage of this piece of good fortune. Peterborough had always favoured a dash on Madrid, and had twice urged this course upon King Charles in vain. He now pressed it for a third time with success, and presently sailed for Valencia with eleven thousand men. With immense trouble he procured horses and accoutrements to convert some of his infantry into dragoons, and then pushing forward a detached force of English he succeeded by the beginning of July in capturing Requena and Cuen?a and opening the road for King Charles to Madrid.
March 20 31 .
May 27
June 7.
June 16 27 .

Meanwhile, after enormous delay, the English and Portuguese had actually begun operations from the side of Portugal against Marshal Berwick. On the 31st of March Lord Galway and General das Minas left Elvas with nineteen thousand men[341] and advanced slowly northward, forcing back Berwick, whose army was much inferior in number, continually before them. Alcantara, Plasencia, and Ciudad Rodrigo yielded to them after slight resistance; and by the 7th of June the Allied army had reached Salamanca, a country which two regiments, the Second and the Ninth, were to know better a century later. Then turning east it marched straight upon Madrid and entered the city on the 27th of June. So far all was well. The advance[483] from Portugal had been singularly slow, but the capital had been reached. King Philip had retired to Burgos, and King Charles had been proclaimed in Madrid. The object of the War of the Succession seemed to have been fulfilled in Spain.
July 4 15 .
July 7 18 .
July 26
August 6.

At this juncture, however, the operations for no particular reason came to an end. Galway, without a thought apparently of following up Berwick, halted for a fortnight in Madrid, where the Portuguese troops behaved disgracefully, and then moving a short distance north-eastward took up a strong position at Guadalaxara. King Charles after immense delay suddenly altered the route which Peterborough had marked out for him and insisted on marching to Madrid through Arragon, even so not reaching Saragossa till the 18th of July. Meanwhile the whole of the country through which Galway had marched rose in revolt against the House of Austria. Berwick, reinforced from France to twice the strength of Galway, cut him off from Madrid, and reproclaimed King Philip; and when Charles and Peterborough with three thousand men at last joined Galway on the 6th of August, the Archduke found that he must prepare not for triumphant entry into Madrid, but for what promised to be a difficult and perilous retreat.
Sept. 17 28 .

Peterborough was for a sudden spring at Alcala and so on Madrid, but being over-ruled retired to Italy to raise a loan for the army. Galway, whose army had been so much reduced by sickness as to number, with Peterborough's reinforcement, but fourteen thousand men, still lingered close to Madrid for nearly a month in the vain hope of seeing the tide turn in his favour. Finally, being cut off from his base in Portugal, he marched for Valencia and the British fleet, Berwick troubling him no further than by occasional harassing of his rearguard. On crossing the Valencian frontier he distributed his force into winter quarters; an example which, after the reduction of Carthagena and of sundry small strongholds, was imitated by Berwick at the end of November.

[484]

So closed the year 1706, memorable for two of the most brilliant, even if in some respects disappointing, campaigns ever fought simultaneously by two British generals.
1707.

Unexpected reinforcements from Britain came opportunely to revive the hopes of the Archduke Charles at the opening of the new year. It will be remembered that in the summer of 1706 a project for a descent on the Charente had been matured in England, for which Marlborough had detached certain of his battalions after Ramillies. The plan being considered doubtful of success, the destination of the expedition was altered to Cadiz. A storm in the Bay of Biscay, however, dispersed the fleet, which was only reassembled at Lisbon after very great delay, and after waiting in that port for two months was directed to place its force at the disposal of Galway.[342] In December 1706 Peterborough returned from Italy to Valencia to attend the councils of war respecting the next campaign. The general outlook in the Peninsula was not promising. Marlborough indeed opined that nothing could save Spain but an offensive movement against France from the side of Italy, and Peterborough, adopting the same view, strongly advocated a defensive campaign. He was overruled, and since his endless squabbles with his colleagues and his military conduct in general had been called in question in England, he was shortly after relieved of his command and returned to England.
March.
March 30
April 10.
April.

After his departure the Archduke Charles and the English commanders fell at variance over their alternative plans, with the result that Charles withdrew with the whole of the Spanish troops to Catalonia. Galway and Das Minas then decided first to destroy Berwick's magazines in Murcia, and this done to march up the[485] Guadalaviar, turn the head-waters of the Tagus, and so move on to Madrid. Though the reinforcements had reached the Valencian coast in January it was not until the 10th of April that Galway crossed the Murcian frontier and after destroying one or two magazines laid siege to Villena. While thus engaged he heard that Berwick having collected his army was advancing towards Almanza, some five and twenty miles to the north-east, and that the Duke of Orleans was on his way to join him with reinforcements. Thereupon Galway and Das Minas resolved to advance and fight him at once, apparently without taking pains to ascertain what the numbers of his army might actually be. Berwick had with him twenty-five thousand men, half French, half Spanish, besides a good train of artillery. Galway, owing to the frightful mortality on board the newly-arrived transports, had but fifteen thousand, of which a bare third were British, half were Portuguese, and the remainder Dutch, German, and Huguenot. Considering how poorly the Portuguese had behaved on every occasion so far, the result of an open attack against such odds could hardly be doubtful.
April 14 25 .

Berwick on his side drew up his army in the usual two lines on a plain to the south of Almanza, his right resting on rising ground towards Montalegre, his left on a height overlooking the road to Valencia, while his right centre was covered by a ravine which gradually lost itself on level ground towards his extreme right flank. The force was formed according to rule with infantry in the centre and cavalry on each flank, the Spaniards taking the right and the French the left. At midday, after a march of eight miles, Galway approached to within a mile of the position, and formed his line of battle according to the prescribed methods. The Portuguese, with poor justice, claimed the post of honour on the right wing, so that the British and Dutch took the left, though with several Portuguese squadrons among them in the second line. But finding himself weak in cavalry Galway made good[486] the deficiency, after the manner of Gustavus Adolphus, by interpolating battalions of foot among his horse.[343]

At three o'clock in the afternoon Galway opened the attack without preliminary fire of artillery by leading an advance of the horse on his left wing. He was driven back at first by sheer weight of numbers; but the Sixth and Thirty-third Foot, which were among the interpolated battalions, came up, and by opening fire on the left flank of the Spanish horse gave the English squadrons time to rally and by an effective charge to drive the Spaniards back in confusion. Meanwhile, the rest of the English foot on the left centre fell, heedless of numbers, straight upon the hostile infantry and drove them back in confusion upon their second line. The Guards and the Second Foot following up their success broke through the second line also and pursued the scattered fugitives to the very walls of Almanza. So far as the Allied left was concerned the battle was going well.

But meanwhile the Portuguese on the right remained motionless; and Berwick lost no time in launching his left wing of horse upon them. Then the first line of Portuguese horse turned and ran, the second line also turned and ran, and the first line of infantry was left to bear the brunt alone. For a time the battalions stood up gallantly enough, but the odds were too great, and they were presently overwhelmed and utterly dispersed. Then Berwick brought up his French, both horse and foot, against the victorious British on his right. The British cavalry had suffered heavily in the first attack, all four regiments having lost their commanding officers, and in spite of all their efforts they were borne back and swept away by the numbers of the French squadrons. The infantry, surrounded on all sides, fought desperately and repeatedly repulsed the enemy's onset, but being overpowered by[487] numbers, were nearly all of them, English, Dutch, and Germans, cut down or captured. By great exertions Galway, who was himself wounded, brought off some remnant of them in good order and retreated unpursued to Ontiniente, some twenty miles distant. The guns also were saved; but a party of two thousand infantry which had been brought off the field by General Shrimpton was surrounded on the following day and compelled to lay down its arms.

In this action, which lasted about two hours, Galway lost about four thousand killed and wounded and three thousand prisoners. The British alone lost eighty-eight officers killed, and two hundred and eighty-six captured, of whom ninety-two were wounded. The Sixth regiment had but two officers unhurt out of twenty-three, the Ninth but one out of twenty-six, and other regiments[344] suffered hardly less severely. The simple fact was that, as the bulk of the Portuguese would not fight, the action resolved itself into an attack of eight thousand British, Dutch, and Germans upon thrice their number of French and Spaniards, in an open plain; and the defeat, though decisive, was in no sense disgraceful except to the Portuguese. The most singular circumstance in this fatal day was that the French were commanded by an Englishman, Berwick, and the English by a Frenchman, the gallant but luckless Ruvigny. The battle of course put an end to further operations on the side of the Allies. Galway, with such troops as he could collect, retired to the Catalonian frontier, and set himself to reorganise a force to defend the lines of the Segre and Ebro, while Berwick methodically pursued the reduction of Valencia and in December retired, according to rule, into winter quarters. So[488] swiftly did disaster follow on the first brilliant successes in the Peninsula.

Since we shall not again see Peterborough in the field this chapter should not be closed without a few sentences as to his peculiar methods. These were outwardly simple enough. Good information to discover his enemy's weak points, deception to put him off his guard, the deepest secrecy lest that enemy should grow suspicious, most careful thinking out of details so that every unit of an insignificant force should know its duty precisely and do it, exact divination of the probable results of each successive step, and extreme suddenness and rapidity in execution; such were, so far as they can be set down, the secrets of his success. In a word, his was the principle of making war by moral rather than by physical force,[489] by scaring men into the delusion that they were beaten rather than by actually beating them. It is a difficult art, of which the highest exponent was produced by the Navy a century later in the person of Lord Dundonald; and it is curious to note that both men were troubled by exactly the same defects. Peterborough was difficult, cantankerous, quarrelsome and eaten up by exaggerated appreciation of self. His letters were so interminably long and tedious, containing indeed little besides abuse of his colleagues, that they exhausted the patience even of Marlborough. In fact, it seems to be impossible for this type of man to work harmoniously with his equals, however he may be adored by his subordinates. The Duke of Wellington summed up Peterborough as a brilliant partisan, but his contemporaries thought more highly of him. Eugene declared that he thought like a general, and Marlborough himself acknowledged that he had predicted the ill consequences of the operations which, contrary to his advice, were undertaken in Spain. But whatever his merit as a general and a leader, he, like all of his kind, is a man of whom we take leave without regret, turning gladly from the fitful, if dazzling flashes of his eccentric genius, to the steady glowing light which illuminates every action of the great Duke of Marlborough.

Authorities.—It is well known that the exploits of Peterborough rest principally on Carleton's Memoirs, and that the authority of these Memoirs is disputed. Colonel Frank Russell in his Life of Peterborough of course makes him a hero, Colonel Arthur Parnell in his War of the Succession in Spain refuses to allow him any merit. Mr. Stebbing in his Peterborough (Men of Action Series) treats the controversy with strong good sense, and I have not hesitated to follow his view. I must none the less acknowledge my obligations to all three of these writers, and particularly to Colonel Parnell, who has gone deeply into the history of the war, taken immense pains to ascertain which British regiments were engaged at every action, and has furnished a most copious list of authorities. The Mémoires de Berwick are most trustworthy on the French side, and the Richards Papers (Stowe Coll. B.M.), as Colonel Parnell says, most important.