SECTION V: CHAPTER II

THE STRUGGLE IN CATALONIA (JULY-AUGUST, 1808): THE SECOND SIEGE OF GERONA

For the first six weeks of the war in Catalonia Duhesme and Reille had been opposed only by the gallant somatenes. Of the handful of regular troops who had been stationed in the principality when the insurrection broke out, the greater part had drifted off to the siege of Saragossa, or to the struggle in the south. Only the Irish regiment at Gerona, and certain fragments of the disbanded battalions of the Guards from Barcelona had aided the peasantry in resisting the invader. The success of the Catalans, in hemming in Duhesme and checking Reille’s advance, is all the more notable when we reflect that their levies had not been guided by any central organization, nor placed under the command of any single general. The Junta at Lerida had done little more than issue proclamations and serve out to the somatenes the moderate amount of munitions of war that was at its disposition. It had indeed drawn out a scheme for the raising of a provincial army—forty tercios of miqueletes, each 1,000 strong, were to be levied and kept permanently in the field. But this scheme existed only on paper, and there were no means of officering or arming such a mass of men. Even as late as August 1, there were only 6,000 of them embodied in organized corps: the mass of the men of military age were still at their own firesides, prepared to turn out at the sound of the somaten, whenever a French column appeared in their neighbourhood, but not ready to keep the field for more than a few days, or to transfer their service to the more distant regions of the principality. The direction of these irregular bands was still in the hands of local leaders like Claros, Milans, and Baget, who aided each other in a sufficiently loyal fashion when they had the chance, but did not obey any single commander-in-chief, or act on any settled military plan. Their successes had been due to their own untutored intelligence and courage, not to the carrying out of any regular policy.

This period of patriotic anarchy was now drawing to an end;[p. 323] regular troops were beginning to appear on the scene in considerable numbers, and the direction of the military resources of Catalonia was about to be confided to their generals. The change was not all for the better: during the whole struggle the Spaniards showed themselves admirable insurgents but indifferent soldiers. After one more short but brilliant period of success, the balance of fortune was about to turn against the Catalans, and a long series of disasters was to try, but never to subdue, their indomitable and persevering courage.

We have already shown that the only body of regular troops available for the succour of Catalonia was the corps of 10,000 men which lay in the Balearic Islands. That these thirteen battalions of veterans had not yet been thrown ashore in the principality was mainly due to the over-caution of the aged General Vives, the Captain-General at Palma, to whom the charge of the garrisons of Majorca and Minorca was committed[311]. He had a deeply rooted idea that if he left Port Mahon unguarded, the English would find some excuse for once more making themselves masters of that ancient stronghold, where the union Jack had waved for the greater part of the eighteenth century. Even the transparent honesty of Lord Collingwood, the veteran admiral of the Mediterranean fleet, could not reassure him. It was only when strong pressure was applied to him by his second in command, the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Minorca, and when he had received the most explicit pledges from Collingwood concerning the disinterested views of Great Britain, that he consented to disgarnish Port Mahon. His mind was only finally made up, when the Aragonese and Catalan battalions of his army burst out into open mutiny, threatening to seize shipping and transport themselves to the mainland without his leave, if any further delay was made [June 30]. A fortnight later Vives permitted Del Palacio, with the greater part of the Balearic garrisons, to set sail for the seat of war. The Aragonese regiment landed near Tortosa, and marched for Saragossa: but the bulk of the expeditionary force, nearly 5,000 strong, was put ashore in Catalonia between July 19 and 23.

Meanwhile affairs in the principality had taken a new turn.[p. 324] Duhesme had remained quiet for six days after Chabran’s check at Granollers, though his position at Barcelona grew daily more uncomfortable, owing to the constant activity of the somatenes. But when he learnt that Reille’s vanguard had reached Figueras, and that he might expect ere long to be aided by a whole division of fresh troops from the north, he resolved to renew his attack on Gerona, the fortress which so completely blocked his communications with France. Sending messages by sea to bid his colleague meet him under the walls of that place, he sallied out from Barcelona, on July 10, with the larger half of his army. This time he took with him the French brigades of Goulas and Nicolas only, leaving Barcelona to the care of Lecchi and the foreign troops. He felt that the situation was too grave for him to trust the fate of Catalonia to the steadiness of Lombard or Neapolitan regiments. So leaving four Italian and one Swiss battalion, 3,500 men in all, in the Barcelona forts, he marched for Gerona with seven French battalions, a regiment of Italian cavalry, and twenty-two guns, of which ten were heavy siege-artillery. At Mataro he picked up Chabran, who had been resting there since his check at Granollers on July 4, and incorporated with his expedition the Italian battalions which that officer had with him, as well as a regiment of French cavalry. This gave him a total force of some 7,000 men[312]; yet his march was slow and difficult. Milans with the somatenes of the upland was always hanging upon his left flank, and Lord Cochrane with two British frigates followed him along the coast, bombarding his columns whenever the road came within cannon-shot of the sea. At Arens de Mar Duhesme halted for no less than five days, either from sheer indecision as to the advisability of proceeding with his project, or because he was[p. 325] waiting for definite news of Reille. At last he made up his mind: two routes meet at Arens, the main chaussée from Barcelona to Gerona via Tordera, and a cross-road which seeks the same end by a detour through the small hill-fortress of Hostalrich. The three battalions of Goulas’s brigade were sent by this latter path, with orders to endeavour to seize the place if they could. The main column, with the battering-train, followed the high-road. Goulas found Hostalrich too strong for him: it was garrisoned by 500 miqueletes under Manuel O’Sullivan, a captain of the Regiment of Ultonia, who gallantly held their own against an attempt at escalade. The French brigadier thereupon abandoned the attack, crossed the mountains, and joined his chief before Gerona on July 22. Duhesme meanwhile had been harassed for three days by the somatenes of Milans, and, though he always drove them off in the end, had lost much of his baggage, and an appreciable number of men, before he reached the banks of the Ter. On the day after he was rejoined by Goulas he forced the passage of that river and took post before Gerona. On the next morning [July 24] he was rejoiced to meet with the vanguard of Reille’s division descending from the north. That general had started from Figueras two days before, with all the fractions of his motley force that had reached the front, two Tuscan battalions, the Swiss from the Valais, three French bataillons de marche, the two ‘Provisional Battalions of Perpignan,’ and some other improvised units, with a total strength of some 6,500 men. He established his head quarters at Puente Mayor to the north of the city, on the right bank of the Ter, while Duhesme placed his at Santa Eugenia on the left bank. There were good and easy communications between them by means of two fords, and the bridge of Salt, a little further from Gerona, was also available.

Thirteen thousand men seemed enough to make an end of an old-fashioned fortress like Gerona, held by a garrison which down to the first day of the siege counted no more than 400 regular troops—that same Irish regiment of Ultonia which had stood out against Duhesme’s first attack in June. It was fortunate for the defenders that at the very moment of the arrival of the French they received a powerful reinforcement. The light infantry regiment named the 2nd Volunteers of Barcelona, 1,300 strong, entered the city on the night of July 22[313], slipping between the heads of Duhesme’s and[p. 326] Reille’s columns. This corps had formed part of the garrison of Minorca: instead of being landed at Tarragona with the rest of Del Palacio’s troops, it was dropped at San Feliu, the nearest port on the coast to Gerona, and had just time to reach that place before its investment was completed.

Duhesme had resolved to avoid for the future the fruitless attempts at escalade, which had cost him so many men during his first siege of Gerona, and to proceed by the regular rules of poliorcetics. He had with him a battering-train more than sufficient to wreck the ancient walls of the city: accordingly he opened a secondary attack on the lower town on the left of the O?a, but turned the greater part of his attention to the citadel of Monjuich. If this work, which from its lofty hill commands the whole city, were once mastered, the place could not hold out for a day longer. By this arrangement the charge of the main attack fell to Reille, and Duhesme himself undertook only the demonstration against the Mercadal. The French began by establishing themselves on the lower slopes of the tableland of which Monjuich occupies the culminating point. They found shelter in three ruined towers which the garrison was too weak to occupy, and raised near them three batteries with six heavy guns and two howitzers, which battered the citadel, and also played upon certain parts of the town wall near the gate of San Pedro. The batteries in Duhesme’s section of the siege-lines consisted only of mortars and howitzers, which shelled and several times set fire to the Mercadal, but could make no attempt to open breaches in its walls.

The siege-approaches of the French before Gerona were conducted with an astonishing slowness: it was not till sixteen days after they had established themselves on the slopes round Monjuich, that they began to batter it in a serious fashion [Aug. 12]. This delay was partly due to the steepness of the ground up which the guns had to be dragged, partly to the necessity for sending to Figueras for extra artillery material, which could only be brought slowly and under heavy escort to the banks of the Ter. But Duhesme’s slackness, and the want of skill displayed by his engineer officers, were responsible for the greater portion of the delay. Moreover the investment of Gerona was so badly managed, that not only did the garrison keep up a regular communication[p. 327] at night with the chiefs of the somatenes who lay out on the hills to the west, but convoys repeatedly left and entered the town in the dark, without meeting a single French picket or patrol.

This delay of a fortnight in pressing the attack on Gerona led to two important results. The first was that the news of the capitulation of Baylen reached both camps, producing grave discouragement in the one, and a disposition for bold action in the other. The second was that Del Palacio and the troops from Minorca had time granted to them to prepare for interference in the siege. The marquis had landed at Tarragona on July 23, with all his division, save the regiment sent to St. Feliu and the Aragonese battalion which had been directed on Tortosa. Immediately on his arrival the insurrectionary Junta of Catalonia transferred itself from Lerida to Tarragona and elected Del Palacio Captain-General of the principality. Thus a real central authority was established in the province, and a single military direction could at last be given to its armies. The new Captain-General was well-intentioned and full of patriotism, but no great strategist[314]. His plan was to press Barcelona with the bulk of his regular forces, so that Lecchi might be compelled to call for instant help from Duhesme, while a small column under the Conde de Caldagues was to march on Gerona, not so much with the hope of raising the siege, as to aid the somatenes of the Ampurdam in harassing the investing force and throwing succours into the city[315].

Accordingly the main body of Del Palacio’s army, the regiments of Soria, Granada, and Borbon, with Wimpfen’s two Swiss battalions from Tarragona, marched on the Llobregat, drove in Lecchi’s outposts, and confined him to the immediate environs of Barcelona. The somatenes came to give help in thousands, and a cordon of investment was established at a very short distance from the great city. On the seaside Lord Cochrane, with the Impérieuse and Cambrian frigates, kept up a strict blockade, so that Lecchi, with his insufficient and not too trustworthy garrison of 3,500 Swiss and Italian troops, was in a most uncomfortable position. If it had not been that Barcelona was completely commanded by the impregnable citadel of Monjuich, he could not[p. 328] have maintained his hold on the large and turbulent city. His last outpost was destroyed on July 31: this was the strong castle of Mongat, six miles out on the coast-road from Barcelona to Mataro. It was held by a company of Neapolitans, 150 men with seven guns. Attacked on the land-side by 800 miqueletes under Francisco Barcelo, and from the sea by the broadside of the Impérieuse, the Italian officer in command surrendered to Lord Cochrane, in order to save his men from massacre by the Catalans. Cochrane then blew up the castle, and destroyed the narrow coast-road on each side of it by cuttings and explosions[316], so that there was no longer any practicable route for guns, horses, or wagons along the shore. Thus hemmed in, Lecchi began to send to Duhesme, by various secret channels, appeals for instant aid, and reports painting his situation in gloomy but not much exaggerated colours. He asserted that the somatenes were pushing their incursions to within 600 yards of his advanced posts, and that there were now 30,000 Catalans in arms around him. If he had said 10,000 he would have been within the limits of fact.

On August 6 the Captain-General, after carefully arranging his troops in the positions round Barcelona, sent off Caldagues to harass Duhesme in the north. This enterprising brigadier-general was given no more than four companies of regulars, three guns, and 2,000 miqueletes from the Lerida district under their colonel, Juan Baget. Marching by the mountain road that goes by Hostalrich, and picking up many recruits on the way, he established himself on the fourteenth at Castella, in the hills that lie between Gerona and the sea. Here he was met by all the somatenes of Northern Catalonia, under their daring leaders, Milans and Claros.

The investment of Gerona was so badly managed, that when the news of Caldagues’ approach was received, two colonels (O’Donovan of the Ultonia Regiment and La Valeta of the Barcelona Volunteers) were able to penetrate the French lines and to confer with the commander of the army of succour. These two officers were really conducting the defence, for the titular governor, Bolivar, seems to have been a nonentity[317], who exercised no influence on the course[p. 329] of events. At a council of war which they attended, it was resolved to try a stroke which was far bolder than anything that the Captain-General had contemplated when he sent Caldagues northward. The relieving force was to attack from the rear Reille’s troops on the heights before Monjuich, while at the same time every man that could be spared from the garrison was to be flung on the breaching batteries from the front. Duhesme’s army in the plain beyond the O?a was to be left alone: it was hoped that the whole business would be over before he could arrive at the spot where the fate of battle was to be decided. There were somewhat over 8,000 men disposable for the attack: 1,000 regulars and four hundred miqueletes were to sally out of Gerona: Caldagues could bring up 7,000 more, all raw levies except the four companies of old troops that he had brought from Tarragona. He had also five field-guns. As Duhesme and Reille had 13,000 men, of whom 1,200 were cavalry, it was a daring experiment to attack them, even though their forces were distributed along an extensive line of investment.

A bold and confident general, placed in Duhesme’s position, would not have waited to be attacked in his trenches. The moment that he heard of the approach of Caldagues, he would have drawn off half his battalions from the siege, and have gone out to meet the relieving army, before it could get within striking distance of Gerona. But Duhesme was not in the mood for adventurous strokes: he was chilled in his ardour by the news of the disaster of Baylen: he was worried by Lecchi’s gloomy reports; and he had been pondering for some days whether it would not be well to raise the siege and march off to save Barcelona. But the ravages which his bombardment was producing in the beleaguered city, and the fact that a breach was beginning to be visible in the walls of Monjuich, induced him to remain before the place, hoping that it might fall within the next few days. If this was his determination, he should at least have made preparations to receive Caldagues: but no attempt whatever appears to have been made to resist an attack from without.

On the morning of August 16, the Spaniards struck their blow. Between nine and ten o’clock in the morning, the 1,400 men of the garrison deployed from behind the cover of the citadel, and charged down upon the trenches and batteries of the besiegers[318]. They[p. 330] completely swept away the battalion of the 5th Legion of Reserve, which was furnishing the guard of the trenches, captured the siege-guns, and set fire to the fascines of the batteries. Then pushing on, they drove off the Swiss battalion of the Valais, and the two Tuscan battalions of the 113th Regiment, pressing them down hill towards Reille’s head quarters at Puente Mayor. The French general rallied them upon the 1st Régiment de Marche, which formed his reserve at this point of the line, and mounting the slope retook some of the works which had been lost. But at this moment Caldagues’ whole army appeared upon the heights, pressing forward in four columns with great confidence. The sight of these multitudes checked Reille, who hastily drew back, evacuated Puente Mayor and withdrew to the other bank of the Ter. Duhesme, on his side, abandoned all his outlying positions and concentrated his whole force in front of the village of Santa Eugenia.

The Catalans were wise enough not to descend into the plain, where Duhesme’s cavalry and guns would have had a free hand. Caldagues refrained from passing the Ter, and merely drew up his army on the slopes above Puente Mayor, ready to receive battle. But the expected attack never came; Duhesme held back all the afternoon, and then fled away under cover of the darkness. His losses in the fighting on the hills had not been heavy—seventy-five killed and 196 wounded—but his spirit was broken. He would not risk an assault on such a strong position with his motley and somewhat demoralized army. For a moment he thought of leading his whole force back to Reille’s base at Figueras: but the reflection that in this case Lecchi would probably be destroyed, and he himself be made responsible for the loss of Barcelona by the Emperor, deterred him from such a cowardly move. Bidding Reille take the northern road and keep open the communications with France, he drew off the rest of his army to the south to rejoin his Italian comrades. The move was made with some panic and precipitation: the remaining siege-guns were buried in a perfunctory fashion, and some stores destroyed. Then Duhesme marched away over the mountains, pursued by the somatenes of Milans; while Reille retired across the plains of the Ampurdam, and had a fairly easy journey to Figueras. Claros, who tried to harass his retreat, never dared to close in upon him in the open country, fearing his cavalry and guns. Far more toilsome was the lot of Duhesme’s column, which had to march for twenty miles through very broken ground, chased[p. 331] by the levies of Milans, to whom the whole district was familiar. When he reached the sea at Malgrat he found that his troubles were only growing worse. The somatenes hung on his right flank, while Lord Cochrane’s frigate the Impérieuse followed him on the left hand, giving him a broadside whenever his march lay within cannon-shot of the beach. Moreover, the peasants had been cutting and blasting away the road under Cochrane’s direction; and at each point where one of these obstructions had been made, it was necessary to drag the guns and wagons of the column across almost impassable hillsides[319]. Finding that he was making no appreciable progress, and that his men were growing utterly demoralized, Duhesme at last took a desperate step. He blew up his ammunition, burnt his baggage, cast his field-guns into the sea, and fled away by hill-tracks parallel with the shore. After long skirmishing with the somatenes he reached Mongat, where Lecchi came out to his aid with 1000 men and a battery—all that could be spared from the depleted garrison of Barcelona. There the Catalans stayed their pursuit, and Duhesme’s harassed battalions poured back into the city, sick of mountain warfare, half-starved, and carrying with them nothing but what they brought in on their backs [August 20]. As a fighting force for offensive operations they were useless for some weeks, and all that their general could do was to hold for foraging purposes as much of the open ground about Barcelona as he could manage to retain. Nothing more could be essayed till Napoleon should vouchsafe to send heavy reinforcements to Catalonia, for the purpose of reopening the severed communications with France.

Two obvious criticisms on these operations in the month of August must be made. The first is that Del Palacio might probably have destroyed Duhesme’s whole army, if, instead of sending out his lieutenant Caldagues with a handful of regulars and 2,000 miqueletes, he had marched on Gerona with his entire force, the 5,000 old troops from Port Mahon and the whole of the local levies of Central Catalonia. Lecchi was so weak in Barcelona that a few thousand somatenes could have kept him in check, for he dared not ungarnish the city. If the Captain-General had thrown every man into the struggle at Gerona, it seems certain that Duhesme must either have been annihilated or have fled away with Reille to Figueras, abandoning Barcelona to its inevitable fate.

The second comment is equally obvious: Duhesme’s generalship[p. 332] was even worse than that of Del Palacio. Since the Spaniards came against him not with the whole army of Catalonia, but with a mere detachment of 7,000 somatenes, he should have formed a covering force of 5,000 men, and have fallen upon them while they were still at some distance from Gerona. Instead of doing this, he allowed them to encamp for three days unmolested at Castella, a village no more than five miles distant from Reille’s outposts. There they concerted their operations with the garrison, and fell upon the investing force at the moment that suited them best. It is the extraordinary apathy or neglect displayed by Duhesme that justifies Caldagues’ bold stroke at the French lines. Finding the enemy so torpid, he might well venture an assault upon them, without incurring the charge of rashness of which Napier finds him guilty[320]. In other circumstances it would have been mad for the Spaniard, who had no more than 7,000 somatenes, to attack a French army 13,000 strong. But seeing Duhesme so utterly negligent—and his army strung out on a long front of investment, without any covering force—Caldagues was quite justified in making the experiment which turned out so successfully. Duhesme tried to extenuate his fault, by giving out that he had been about to abandon the siege even before he was attacked, and that he had orders from Bayonne authorizing such a step. But we may be permitted to join his successor St. Cyr in doubting both the original intention and the imperial authorization[321]. There is at least no trace of it in the correspondence of Napoleon, who as late as August 23, seven days after the fight outside Gerona, was under the impression that Reille’s division alone might suffice to capture the city, though he was prepared if necessary to support him with other troops. On the seventeenth of the same month, the day on which Duhesme began his disastrous retreat on Barcelona, Napoleon had already made up his mind to supersede him, and had directed St. Cyr, with two fresh divisions, to take post at Perpignan. But in the orders given to the new commander in Catalonia there is no sign that the Emperor had acquiesced in the raising of the siege of Gerona, though it may perhaps be deduced from a later dispatch that he had not disapproved of the strengthening of Lecchi’s garrison at Barcelona by the withdrawal of Chabran’s division from the leaguer[322].

[p. 333]

Meanwhile Napoleon had recognized that even with Reille’s reinforcements, Catalonia was not adequately garrisoned, and on August 10 had directed 18,000 fresh troops upon the principality. These, moreover, were not the mere sweepings of his dép?ts, like Reille’s men, but consisted of two strong divisions of old troops; Souham’s was composed of ten French battalions from Lombardy, Pino’s of 10,000 men of the best corps of the army of the kingdom of Italy[323]. A little later the Emperor resolved to send one division more, Germans this time, to Catalonia. Instead of the 13,000 men whom he had originally thought sufficient for the subjugation of the province, he had now set aside more than 40,000 for the task, and this did not prove to be one man too many. No better testimonial could be given to the gallant somatenes, than that they had forced the enemy to detach so large a force against them. Nor could any better proof be given of the Emperor’s fundamental misconception of the Spanish problem in May and June, than the fact that he had so long been under the impression that Duhesme’s original divisions would be enough to subdue the rugged and warlike Catalan principality.

Before Souham, Pino, and the rest could arrive on the scene, many weeks must elapse, and meanwhile we must turn back to the main course of the war in Central Spain, where the condition of affairs had been profoundly modified by the results of the Capitulation of Baylen.