SECTION VII: CHAPTER III

THE MISFORTUNES OF JOACHIM BLAKE: ZORNOZA AND ESPINOSA DE LOS MONTEROS

The campaign of November 1808 was fought out upon three separate theatres of war, though every movement of the French armies which engaged in it formed part of a single plan, and was properly linked to the operations which were progressing upon other sections of the front. The working out of Napoleon’s great scheme, therefore, must be dealt with under three heads—the destruction of Blake’s ‘Army of the Left’ in the north-west; the rout of the armies of Andalusia and Aragon upon the banks of the Ebro; and the central advance of the Emperor upon Burgos and Madrid, which completed the plan.

We must first deal with the misfortunes of Blake and his Galician host, both on chronological grounds—it was he who first felt the weight of the French arms—and also because Napoleon rightly attached more importance to the destruction of this, the most formidable of the Spanish armies, than to the other operations which he was carrying out at the same moment.

It will be remembered that after his first abortive expedition against Bilbao, and his retreat before Ney [October 5], Blake had fallen back to Valmaceda. Finding that he was not pursued, he drew up to that point the divisions which he had hitherto kept in the upper valley of the Ebro, and prepared to advance again, this time with his whole army massed for a bold stroke. On October 11 he again marched into Biscay, and drove out of Bilbao the division of General Merlin, which Ney had left behind him to hold the line of the Nervion. On the twelfth this small force fell back on Zornoza and Durango, and halted at the latter place, after having been reinforced from King Joseph’s reserve at Vittoria. Verdier headed the succours, which consisted of three battalions of the Imperial Guard, two battalions of the 118th Regiment, two battalions of Joseph’s own Royal Guards, and the 36th Regiment, which had just come up from France. When strengthened by these 7,000 men, Merlin considered himself able to make a stand, and[p. 403] took up a strong position in front of Durango, the important point at which the roads from Bayonne and from Vittoria to Bilbao meet.

When committing himself to his second expedition into Biscay, Blake was not wholly unaware of the dangers of the step, though he failed to realize them at their full value, since (in common with the other Spanish generals) he greatly underrated the strength of the French army on the Ebro. He intended to carry out his original plan of cutting off Bessières and King Joseph from their retreat on Bayonne, by forcing the position of Durango, and seizing the high-road at Bergara; but he was aware that an advance to that point had its dangers. As long as his divisions had lain in or about Villarcayo and Valmaceda, he had a perfectly clear line of retreat westward in the event of a disaster. But the moment that he pushed forward beyond Bilbao, he could be attacked in flank and rear by any troops whom the King might send up from the valley of the Ebro, by the two mountain-roads which run from Vittoria to the Biscayan capital. One of these is the main route from Vittoria to Bilbao via Murguia and Ordu?a. The other is a more obscure and difficult path, which leads across the rough watershed from Vittoria by Villareal and Villaro to Bilbao. Aware of the fact that he might be assailed by either of these two passes, Blake told off a strong covering force to hold them. Half of Acevedo’s Asturian division, 4,000 strong, was placed at Ordu?a: the other half, with the whole of Martinengo’s 2nd Division of Galicia, 8,500 bayonets in all, took its post in the direction of Villaro. These detachments were eminently justifiable, but they had the unfortunate result of enfeebling the main force that remained available for the stroke at the French in front of Durango. For that operation Blake could only count on his 1st, 3rd, and 4th Divisions, as well as the ‘Vanguard’ and ‘Reserve’ Brigades—a total of 18,000 men[428].

[p. 404]

Blake had seized Bilbao on October 11: it is astonishing therefore to find that he made no forward movement till the twenty-fourth. By this sluggishness he sacrificed his chance of crushing Merlin before he could be reinforced, and—what was far worse—allowed the leading columns of the ‘Grand Army’ to reach Irun. If he had pressed forward on the twelfth or thirteenth, they would still have been many marches away, trailing across Guyenne and Gascony. Having once put his hand to such a dangerous man?uvre as that of pushing between the French flank and the northern sea, Blake was most unwise to leave the enemy time to divine his object and to concentrate against him. A rapid stroke at Durango and Bergara, so as to cut the great high-road to France in the rear of Bessières, was his only chance. Such an attempt would probably have landed him in ultimate disaster, for the enemy (even before the ‘Grand Army’ arrived) were far more numerous than he supposed. He had valued them at 40,000 men, while they were really 64,000 strong. But having framed the plan, he should at least have made a strenuous attempt to carry it out. It is possible to explain but not to excuse his delay: his army was not equipped for a winter campaign, and the snow was beginning to lie on the upper slopes of the Cantabrian hills and the Pyrenees. While he was vainly trying to obtain great-coats and shoes for his somewhat tattered army, from the Central Junta or the English, and while he was accumulating stores in Bilbao, the days slipped by with fatal rapidity.

It was not till October 24 that he at last moved forward from Bilbao, and committed himself to the now hopeless task of clearing the way to Durango and Bergara. On that day his advanced guard drove Merlin’s outlying posts from their positions, and came face to face with the French main body, drawn out on the hillsides of Baquijano, a few miles in front of Durango. The enemy expected him to attack next day, but he had just received confused notices from the peasantry to the effect that enormous reinforcements had reached Irun and San Sebastian, and were within supporting distance of the comparatively small force with which he had hitherto been dealing. This information threw him back into the condition of doubt and hesitation from which he had for a moment emerged, and he proceeded to halt for another full week in front of the Durango position. Yet it was clear that there were only two rational alternatives before him: one was to attack Merlin and[p. 405] Verdier before they could draw succour from the newly arrived corps. The other was to fall back at once to a position in which he could not be enveloped and outflanked, i.e. to retire behind Bilbao, holding that town with nothing more than a small detachment which could easily get away if attacked. But Blake did nothing, and waited in the supremely dangerous post of Zornoza, in front of Durango, till the enemy fell upon him at his leisure.

The troops whose arrival at Irun had been reported consisted of the two leading divisions of the 4th Corps, that of Lefebvre, and of the whole of the 1st Corps, that of Victor. The former, arriving as early as October 18, only seven days after Blake captured Bilbao, marched westward, and replaced Merlin and Verdier in the Durango position. The troops of these two generals were directed by King Joseph to rejoin their proper commanders when relieved, so Verdier led the Guards back to the central reserve, while Merlin reported himself to Ney, at La Guardia. To compensate Lefebvre for their departure, and for the non-arrival of his third division, that of Valence, which still lay far to the rear, Villatte’s division of the 1st Corps was sent to Durango. Marshal Victor himself, with his other two divisions, took the road to Vittoria, and from thence, at the King’s orders, transferred himself to Murguia, on the cross-road over the mountains to Bilbao. Here he was in a position to strike at Blake’s rear, after driving off the 4,000 men of Acevedo’s Asturian division, who (as it will be remembered) had been told off by the Spanish General to cover this road[429].

King Joseph, inclining for once to a bold stroke, wished to push Victor across the hills on to Bilbao, while Lefebvre should advance along the high-road and drive Blake into the trap. Bessières at the same moment might move a division by Ordu?a and Oquendo, and place himself at Valmaceda, which Blake would have to pass if he escaped from Victor at Bilbao. This plan was eminently sound, for there was no doubt that the two marshals, who had at their disposal some 35,000 men, could easily have brushed out of their way the two divisions under Acevedo and Martinengo which Blake had left behind him in the passes. Nothing could have prevented them from seizing Bilbao and Valmaceda, and the Spanish army would have been surrounded and captured. At[p. 406] the best some part of it might have escaped along the coast-road to Santander, if its commander detected ere it was too late the full danger of his position.

This scheme, however, was not carried out: Bessières, Victor, and Ney showed themselves opposed to it: Napoleon had announced that he intended ere long to appear in person, and that he did not wish to have matters hurried before his arrival. His obsequious lieutenants refused to concur in any great general movement which might not win his approval. Victor, in particular, urged that he had been ordered to have the whole of the 1st Corps concentrated at Vittoria, and that if he marched northward into Biscay he would be violating his master’s express command[430]. Joseph and Jourdan, therefore, resolved to defer the execution of their plan for the annihilation of Blake, and sent orders to Lefebvre to maintain his defensive position at Durango, and make no forward movement. In so doing they were acting exactly as the Emperor desired.

They had forgotten, however, to reckon with the personal ambition of the old Duke of Dantzig. Lefebvre, in spite of his many campaigns, had never before had the chance of fighting on his own account a pitched battle of the first class. The Spanish army had been lying before him for a week doing nothing, its commander being evidently afraid to attack. Its force was not very great—indeed it was outnumbered by that of the Marshal whose three divisions counted not less than 21,000 bayonets[431]. Noting with the eye of an old soldier Blake’s indecision and obvious timidity, he could not resist the temptation of falling upon him. Notwithstanding the King’s orders, he resolved to strike, covering his disobedience by a futile excuse to the effect that he had observed preparations for taking the offensive on the part of the enemy, and that his outposts had been attacked.

[p. 407]

Blake’s army lay before him, posted in three lines, with the village of Zornoza to its rear. In front, on a range of comparatively low hills, was the ‘Vanguard Brigade,’ drawn up across the road with the 1st Division of Galicia to its left on somewhat higher ground. They were supported by the 3rd and 4th Divisions, while the ‘Reserve Brigade’ occupied the houses of Zornoza to the rear of all. There were only six guns with the army, as Blake had sent the rest of his artillery to the rear, when advancing into the mountains: this single battery lay with the Vanguard on the lower heights. The whole amounted to 19,000 men, a slight reinforcement having just come to hand by the arrival of the 1st Catalonian Light Infantry[432], the advanced guard of La Romana’s army from the Baltic. That general, having landed at Santander on October 11, had reorganized his force as the ‘5th Division of the army of Galicia’ and sent it forward under his senior brigadier, the Conde de San Roman. But only the single Catalonian battalion had passed Bilbao at the moment when Lefebvre delivered his attack.

The plan of the Marshal’s advance was quite simple. The division of Villatte drove in the front line of the Spanish right, and then spread itself out on a long front threatening to turn Blake’s flank. That of Sebastiani, formed in a single dense column, marched along the high-road at the bottom of the valley to pierce the Spanish centre; meanwhile Leval’s Germans attacked the left wing of the enemy, the 1st Division of the army of Galicia[433]. A dense fog, a common phenomenon in the Pyrenees in the late autumn, hid the advance of the French, so that they were close upon the front line of Blake’s army before they were observed. The first line was easily driven in, but the whole army rallied on the heights of San Martin and stood at bay. Lefebvre cannonaded them for some time, without meeting with any reply, for Blake had hurried off his single battery to the rear when his first line gave way. Then the Marshal sent in the ten battalions of the division of Sebastiani, who completely cut through the Spanish centre, and left the two wings in isolated and dangerous positions. Without waiting for further developments, Blake gave way and ordered a retreat on Bilbao and Valmaceda. His intact wing-divisions[p. 408] covered the retreat, and though badly beaten he got away with very small loss, no more than 300 killed and wounded, and about the same number of prisoners. The French casualties were insignificant, not amounting in all to more than 200 men. The whole combat, indeed, though 40,000 men were on the field, was very short and not at all costly. The fact was that Blake had been surprised, and had given way at the first push, without making a serious attempt to defend himself. His sending away the guns, at the very commencement of the action, makes it sufficiently clear that he did not hope for ultimate success, and was already contemplating a retreat on Bilbao. His army, if properly handled, could have made a much more creditable fight; in fact it was tactically beaten rather than defeated by force of arms. It made its retreat in very fair order, and was irritated rather than cowed by the check which it had received. English eye-witnesses vouch for the steadiness and good spirit shown by the troops[434].

Immediately after giving orders for a general retreat behind the river Nervion, Blake had sent dispatches to the two divisions of Acevedo and Martinengo, which were covering his flank against a possible turning movement from the valley of the Ebro. They were told to save themselves, by falling back at once to Bilbao and joining the main army in its retreat. The part of the Asturian division which lay at Ordu?a succeeded in carrying out this order. But the remainder of Acevedo’s men and the whole of those of Martinengo—some 8,000 bayonets in all—were at Villaro, a point higher up in the mountains, on a much more difficult road, and closer to the French. They received Blake’s dispatch too late, and on pushing down the northern side of the pass which they had been holding, they learnt at Miravalles, only ten miles from Bilbao, that the latter town was in the hands of the French. Blake had evacuated it on the early morning of November 1, and Lefebvre had occupied it on the same night. Urging his pursuit some way beyond Bilbao in the hope of overtaking Blake, the duke pushed as far as Valmaceda: but even here the Galician army would make no stand, but fell back still further westward to Nava. Seeing that he could not reach his adversary, Lefebvre left the division of Villatte at Valmaceda to observe Blake, and returned with those of Sebastiani and Leval to Bilbao, to feed and rest his men in the town, after four days of marching in the mountains with very insufficient supplies. This[p. 409] was a very dangerous step, for Blake had been outman?uvred rather than beaten, and was still far too strong to be contained by a mere 7,000 men.

When therefore Acevedo and his column drew near to Bilbao, they learnt that 13,000 French troops blocked their road towards Blake [Nov. 3]. They drew back a little up the pass, keeping very quiet, and very fortunately failed to attract the attention of Lefebvre, who thought at the most that there were some bands of stragglers in the mountains on his left.

But their situation was still most uncomfortable, for their rearguard began to report that French troops were pushing up from Vittoria and entering the southern end of the defile in which they were blocked. King Joseph had been much vexed to hear of Lefebvre’s disobedience to his orders at Zornoza, but, wishing to draw what profit he could from the victory, sent Victor up the Murguia—Ordu?a road, with orders to cut in upon the line of Blake’s retreat. This the Duke of Belluno failed to accomplish, on account of the rapidity with which the Spanish army had retired. But reaching Amurrio, a few miles beyond Ordu?a, he came upon the flank of Acevedo’s column, whose head was blocked at Miravalles, ten miles further north, by the presence of Lefebvre at Bilbao. If either marshal had realized the situation, the 8,000 Spaniards, caught in a defile without lateral issues, must have surrendered en masse. But Victor had only one division with him, the other was far behind: and imagining that he had chanced upon the whole of Blake’s army he came to a dead stop, while Lefebvre, not yet aware of Victor’s approach, did not move at all. Acevedo wisely kept quiet, and tried to slip across Victor’s front towards Orantia and the river Salcedon: meanwhile the news of his situation reached Blake.

That general was never wanting in personal courage, and had been deeply distressed to hear that his flanking detachment had been cut off. Realizing Acevedo’s danger he resolved to make a sudden ‘offensive return’ against Lefebvre, and to endeavour to clear for a moment the road from Miravalles to Valmaceda, by which his subordinate could escape. On the night of November 4 he concentrated his whole army, which had now been raised to 24,000 men by the arrival of the main body of La Romana’s division from Santander. At dawn on the fifth he fell upon the enemy in his front, by the two roads on each side of the river Salcedon, sending[p. 410] one division[435] and the ‘Vanguard Brigade’ to attack Valmaceda, and two[436] and the ‘Reserve Brigade’ by Orantia along the southern bank of the stream. Villatte had been holding both these paths; but on seeing the heavy forces deployed against him, he withdrew from Orantia and concentrated at Valmaceda. This left the path clear for Acevedo, who escaped along the hillsides without being molested by Victor’s advanced guard, and got into communication with his chief. The inactivity of Victor is inexplicable: when he saw the Asturian division pushing hastily across his front, he should have attacked it at all costs; but though he heard plainly the cannonade of Villatte’s fight with Blake at Valmaceda, he held back, and finally retired on Ordu?a when Acevedo had got out of sight[437]. His only excuse was that he had heard the distant roar of battle die down, and concluded therefore that Villatte (who as he supposed might be supported by the whole of Lefebvre’s corps) must have been victorious.

As a matter of fact the isolated French division had almost suffered the fate that should have befallen the Asturians. Driven out of Valmaceda by Blake, it was falling back on Guenes when it came across Acevedo’s men marching on the opposite side of the Salcedon to join their comrades. Thereupon the Asturian general threw some of his men[438] across the stream to intercept the retiring column. Villatte formed his troops in a solid mass and broke through, but left behind him one gun (an eight-pounder), many of his baggage-wagons, and 300 prisoners. That he escaped at all is a fine testimony to his resolution and his capable handling of his troops, for he had been most wantonly exposed to destruction by Victor’s timidity and Lefebvre’s carelessness [November 5].

[p. 411]

On hearing of Villatte’s desperate situation, the Duke of Dantzig had realized the consequences of his unjustifiable retreat to Bilbao, and marched up in hot haste with the divisions of Sebastiani and Leval. He was relieved to find that Villatte had extricated himself, and resolved to punish Blake for his unexpected offensive move. But he was unable to do his adversary much harm: the Galician general had only advanced in order to save Acevedo, and did not intend to engage in any serious fighting. When Lefebvre moved forward he found that the Spaniards would not stand. Blake had pushed out two flanking divisions to turn the position at Guenes, on to which Villatte had fallen back, and had his main body placed in front of it. But when Lefebvre advanced, the whole Galician army fell back, only fighting two rearguard actions on November 7, in which they suffered small loss. On the next day there was a more serious engagement of the same sort at Valmaceda, to which the Galicians had withdrawn on the previous night. The troops with which Blake covered his retreat were hustled out of the town with the loss of 150 killed and wounded, and 600 missing[439]. In his dispatches the Spanish general explains that he retreated not because he could not have made a better resistance, but because he had used up all his provisions, and was prevented by the bad weather and the state of the roads from drawing further supplies from Santander and Reynosa, the two nearest points at which they could be procured. For Western Biscay had been eaten bare by the large forces that had been crossing and re-crossing it during the last two months, and was absolutely incapable of feeding the army for a single day. The men too were in a wretched condition, not only from hunger[440] but from bad equipment: hardly any of them had received great-coats, their shoes were worn out, and sickness was very prevalent. An appreciable number of the raw Galician and Asturian levies deserted during the miserable retreat from Guenes and Valmaceda to Espinosa de los Monteros, the next point on the Bilbao-Reynosa road at which Blake stood at bay. When he reached that place he was short of some 6,000 men, less[p. 412] from losses in battle than from wholesale straggling. Moreover he was for the moment deprived of the aid of the greater part of one of his divisions. This was the 4th Galician division, that of General Carbajal: it had formed the extreme left of the army, and had lain nearest to the sea during the fighting about Guenes and Valmaceda. Cut off from the main body, a large portion of it had retreated by the coast-road towards Santander, and only a fraction of it had rejoined the commander-in-chief[441]. The total of Blake’s forces would have been nearly 40,000[442], if his army had been still at the strength with which each corps started on the campaign. But for its decisive battle he had no more than 23,000 in hand.

Beyond Valmaceda he had been pursued no longer by Lefebvre, but by Victor. The latter, soundly rebuked by the Emperor for his inactivity on November 5, had advanced again from Ordu?a, had picked up the division of Villatte—which properly belonged to his corps—and had then taken the lead in pressing Blake. Lefebvre, reduced to his original force—the 13,000 men of Sebastiani and Leval, followed as far as the end of the defile of El Berron, and then turned off by a flanking road which reaches the upper valley of the Ebro at Medina de Pomar. He intended to strike[p. 413] at Villarcayo and Reynosa, and to intercept Blake’s retreat at one of these two points. If he arrived there before the Galicians, who would be delayed by the necessity of fighting continual rearguard actions with Victor, he hoped that the whole of the Spanish army might be surrounded and captured.
Map of battle of Espinosa

Enlarge  Battle of Espinosa. November 11th, 1808.

In this expectation he was disappointed, for matters came to a head before he was near enough to exercise any influence on the approaching battle. On November 10 Blake turned to bay: his rearguard, composed of the troops from the Baltic, had been so much harassed and detained by the incessant attacks of Victor’s leading division, that its commander, the Conde de San Roman, sent to the general to ask for aid. Unless supported by more troops he would be surrounded and cut off. Tempted by the strong defensive position in front of the picturesque old town of Espinosa de los Monteros, Blake directed the rearguard to take post there, and brought up the whole of the rest of his army into line with them. At this point the high-road along the river Trueba, after passing through a small plain (the Campo de Pedralva), reaches a defile almost blocked by the little town of Espinosa, for steep hills descending from each flank narrow the breadth of the passage to half a mile. Here Blake occupied a semicircular position of considerable strength. The troops of San Roman took post at its southern end, on a hill above the high-road, and close to the river’s edge. The line was prolonged to the north of them, across the narrow space of level ground, by the Vanguard Brigade (Mendizabal) and the 3rd Division (Riquelme). Where the ground begins to rise again lay the 1st Division (Figueroa), and on the extreme left, far to the north, the Asturians of Acevedo occupied a lofty ridge called Las Pe?ucas. Here they were so strongly placed that it seemed unlikely that they could either be turned or dislodged by a frontal attack. The rest of the army formed a second line: the Reserve Brigade (Mahy) was in the rear of the centre, in the suburb of Espinosa. The 2nd Division (Martinengo) and the small remains of the 4th Division lay behind San Roman, near the Trueba, to support the right wing, along the line of the high-road. The whole amounted to something between 22,000 and 23,000 men, but there were only six guns with the army—the same light battery which had fought at Zornoza. They were posted on the right-centre, with Mendizabal’s brigade, in a position from which they could sweep the level ground in front of Espinosa.[p. 414] Blake also called up to his aid the one outlying force that was within reach, a brigade under General Malaspina, which lay at Villarcayo, guarding the dép?t which had been there established. But these 2,500 men and the six guns which they had with them were prevented, as we shall see, from reaching the field[443].

The position of Espinosa was most defensible: its projecting wings were each strong, and its centre, drawn far back, could not prudently be attacked as long as the flanking heights were in the hands of the Spaniards. But the pursuing French were under the impression that the Galician army was so thoroughly demoralized, and worn out by hunger and cold, that it would not stand. Victor had with him the infantry of his own corps, some 21,000 strong: Villatte’s division, which led the pursuit, dashed at the enemy as soon as it came upon the field. Six battalions drew up opposite the Spanish centre, to contain any sally that it might make, while the other six swerved to the left and made a desperate attack on the division from the Baltic, which held the heights immediately above the banks of the Trueba[444]. San Roman’s troops, the pick of the Spanish army, made a fine defence, and after two hours of hard fighting retained their position.

At this moment—it was about three o’clock in the short winter afternoon—Victor himself came on the scene, bringing with him his other two divisions, the twenty-two battalions of Ruffin and Lapisse. The Marshal was anxious to vindicate himself from the charge of slackness which his master had made against him for his conduct on November 5, and pushed his men hastily to the front. Nine fresh battalions—a brigade of Ruffin’s and a regiment of Lapisse’s division—attacked again the heights from which Villatte had been repulsed[445]. There followed a very fierce fight, and Blake only succeeded in holding his ground by bringing up to the aid of the regiments from the Baltic the whole of his 3rd Division and part of his 2nd. At dusk the heights were still in Spanish hands, and Victor’s corps was obliged to draw back into the woods at the foot of the position.

This engagement was most creditable to Blake’s army: the lie[p. 415] of the ground was in their favour, but considering their fatigue and semi-starvation they did very well in repulsing equal numbers of the best French troops. They were aided by the reckless manner in which Villatte and Victor attacked: it was not consonant with true military principles that the van should commit itself to a desperate fight before the main body came up, or that a strong position should be assailed without the least attempt at a preliminary reconnaissance.

Next day the Marshal, taught caution by his repulse, resumed the action in a more scientific fashion. He came to the conclusion that Blake would have been induced by the battle of the previous day, to strengthen his right, and in this he was perfectly correct. The Spaniard had shifted all his reserves towards the high-road and the banks of the Trueba, expecting to be attacked on the same ground as on the previous day. But Victor, making no more than a demonstration on this point, sent the greater part of Lapisse’s division to attack the extreme left of Blake’s line—the Asturian troops who held the high ridge to the north of Espinosa. Here the position was very strong, but the troops were not equal in quality to the veteran battalions from the Baltic[446]. When the French pressed up the hill covered by a thick cloud of skirmishers, the Asturians fell into disorder. Their general, Acevedo, and his brigadiers, Quiros and Valdes, were all struck down while trying to lead forward their wavering troops. Finally the whole division gave way and fled down the back of the hill towards Espinosa. Their rout left the enemy in possession of the high ground, which completely commanded the Spanish centre, and General Maison, who had led the attack, fully used his advantage. He fell upon the Galician 1st Division from the flank, while at the same moment Victor ordered his entire line to advance, and assailed the whole of Blake’s front. Such an assault could not fail, and the Spaniards gave way in all directions, and escaped by fording the Trueba and flying over the hillsides towards Reynosa. They had to abandon their six guns and the whole of their baggage, which lay parked behind Espinosa. The losses in killed and wounded were not very heavy—indeed many more were hurt in the hard fighting of November 10 than in the rout of November 11: it is probable that[p. 416] the whole of the Spanish casualties did not exceed 3,000 men: nor were many prisoners captured, for formed troops cannot pursue fugitives who have broken their ranks and taken to the hills. The main loss to Blake’s army came from straggling and desertion after the battle, for the routed battalions, when once scattered over the face of the country, did not easily rally to their colours. When Blake reassembled his force at Reynosa he could only show some 12,000 half-starved men out of the 23,000 who had stood in line at Espinosa. The loss in battle had fallen most heavily on the division from the Baltic—their commander, San Roman, with about 1,000 of his men had fallen in their very creditable struggle on the first day of the fight[447]. Victor’s triumph had not been bloodless: in the repulse of the tenth the fifteen battalions which had tried to storm the heights had all suffered appreciable losses: the total of French casualties on the two days cannot have fallen below 1,000 killed and wounded.

To complete the story of Blake’s retreat, it is only necessary to mention that the detached brigade under Malaspina, which he had called up from Villarcayo to Espinosa, was never able to rejoin. On its way it fell in with Marshal Lefebvre’s corps, marching to outflank the retreat of the Galician army. Attacked by Sebastiani’s division, Malaspina had to turn off and make a hasty and isolated retreat, sacrificing his six guns. The driving away of his small force was the only practical work done in this part of the campaign by the 4th Corps: its long turning movement was rendered useless by Blake’s rapid retreat across its front to Reynosa.