SECTION VII: CHAPTER IV

NAPOLEON CROSSES THE EBRO: THE ROUT OF GAMONAL: SOULT’S PURSUIT OF BLAKE

After resting for only thirty-six hours at Bayonne the Emperor, as we have already seen, pushed on to Vittoria, where he arrived on November 6. He found in and about that ancient city the bulk of the Imperial Guard, his brother Joseph’s reserves, the light cavalry of Beaumont and Franceschi, and the heavy cavalry of Latour-Maubourg and Milhaud. The divisions of Marchand and Bisson, which were to complete the corps of Ney, were close behind him, so that he had under his hand a mass of at least 40,000 men. The 2nd Corps, which Bessières had so long commanded, was in front of him at Pancorbo, just beyond the Ebro. Victor and Lefebvre, very busy with Blake, lay on his right hand with some 35,000 men. The troops which had hitherto been under Ney, with Moncey’s 3rd Corps, were on his right—the former at Logro?o, the latter at Caparrosa and Lodosa. They were in close touch with the armies of Casta?os and Palafox.

All was ready for the great stroke, and on the day of his arrival the Emperor gave orders for the general advance, bidding Bessières (whose corps formed his vanguard) to march at once on Burgos and sweep out of it whatever troops he might find in his front. Napoleon imagined that the force in this section of the Spanish line would turn out to be Pignatelli’s ‘Army of Castile,’ but that very untrustworthy body had ceased to exist, and had been drafted into the ranks of the army of Andalusia[448]. It was really with the newly arrived army of Estremadura that the 2nd Corps had to deal.

Everything seemed to promise a successful issue to the Emperor’s plan: the enemy had only a trifling force in front of him at Burgos. Palafox and Casta?os were still holding their dangerous advanced positions at Sanguesa and Calahorra. Blake was being pursued by[p. 418] Victor, while Lefebvre was marching to intercept him. The only contretemps that had occurred was the temporary check to Villatte’s division on November 5, which had been caused by the carelessness of the Duke of Dantzig and the unaccountable timidity of the Duke of Belluno. But by the seventh their mistakes had been repaired, and Blake was once more on the run, with both marshals in full cry behind him. The Emperor found time to send to each of them a letter of bitter rebuke[449], but told them to push on and catch up the army of Galicia at all hazards. Upon Moncey, on the other hand, he imposed the duty of keeping absolutely quiet in his present position: his share in the game would only begin when Casta?os and Palafox should have been turned and enveloped by troops detached from the central mass of the army.

The total stay of the Emperor in Vittoria covered parts of four days. All this time he was anxiously expecting decisive news from Victor and Lefebvre, but it had not yet arrived when he set forth. He waited, also in vain, for the news that Bessières had occupied Burgos: but that marshal did not show the decision and dash which Napoleon expected from him: finding that there was infantry in the place, he would not risk an action without his master’s presence, and merely contented himself with pushing back the Spanish outposts, and extending his cavalry on both flanks. It is possible that his slackness was due to chagrin on receiving the intelligence that he was about to be superseded in command of the 2nd Corps by Soult, whom the Emperor had summoned out of Germany, and who was due at the front on the ninth. Bessières was to be compensated by being given the command of the reserve-cavalry of the army, five splendid divisions of dragoons, of which four were already on the Ebro. But this post, which would always keep him at the Emperor’s heels, was probably less attractive to him than the more independent position of chief of a corps complete in all arms. He was probably loth to leave the divisions with which he had won the victory of Medina de Rio Seco. Be this as it may, he was told to attack Burgos on the sixth, and on the ninth he had not yet done so. On the morning of that day Soult arrived, alone and on a jaded post-horse, having outridden even his aides-de-camp[450], who did not join him till twenty-four[p. 419] hours later. He at once took over command of the 2nd Corps, and proceeded next day to carry out the Emperor’s orders by attacking the enemy.

The supersession of Bessières was not the only change which was made during the few days while the Emperor lay at Vittoria. He rearranged the internal organization of several of the corps, altered the brigading of that of Moncey, and turned over to other corps most of the troops which had hitherto served under Ney, leaving to that marshal little more than the two newly arrived divisions from Germany (those of Lagrange and Marchand).

The troops destined for the march on Burgos counted some 70,000 men, but only the 2nd Corps and the cavalry of Milhaud and Franceschi were in the front line. These 18,000 bayonets and 6,500 sabres were amply sufficient for the task. Behind followed fourteen battalions of the Imperial Guard and the cavalry of that corps, the two divisions of Ney’s 6th Corps, the division of Dessolles from King Joseph’s reserve, and two and a half divisions of reserve cavalry—an enormous mass of troops, of which nearly 20,000 were veteran cavalry from Germany, a force invaluable for the sweeping of the great plains of Old Castile[451].

When we turn to enumerate the forces opposed to the Emperor[p. 420] at Burgos, the disproportion between the two armies appears ludicrous. Down to November 6 the only Spanish troops in that ancient city consisted of two battalions, one from the reserves of the army of Galicia, the other from the army of Castile[452]. They numbered 1,600 men, and had four guns with them. If Bessières had attacked on the sixth, he would have found no more than this miserable detachment to oppose him. But on November 7 there arrived from Madrid the 1st Division of the army of Estremadura under the Conde de Belvedere, 4,000 foot and 400 horse with twelve guns. On the next day there came up the greater part of the 2nd Division of the same army, about 3,000 infantry and two regiments of hussars. On the tenth, therefore, when Soult attacked, Belvedere—who took the command as the senior general present—had about 8,600 bayonets, 1,100 sabres, and sixteen guns under his orders.

Down to November 2 the army of Estremadura had been commanded by Don Joseph Galluzzo, Captain-General of that province—the officer who had given so much trouble to Dalrymple by his refusal to desist from the futile siege of Elvas. He had been repeatedly ordered to bring his army up to Madrid, but did not arrive till the end of October. On the twenty-ninth of that month he marched for Burgos, his three divisions, 13,000 men in all, following each other at intervals of a day. But on November 2 he received orders to lay down his command and return to Aranjuez, to answer some charges brought against him by the Supreme Junta. No successor was nominated to replace him, and hence the conduct of the army fell into the hands of the Conde de Belvedere, the chief of the 1st Division, a rash and headstrong young aristocrat with no military experience whatever. His family influence had made him a general at an age when he might reasonably have expected to lead a company, and he found himself by chance the interim commander of an army: hence came the astonishing series of blunders that led to the combat of Gamonal.

Belvedere’s army was still incomplete, for his 3rd Division had only reached Lerma, thirty miles back on the Madrid road, when the French cavalry came forward and began to press in his outposts. Clearly a crisis was at hand, and the Count had to consider how he would face it. Isolated with 10,000 men on the edge of the great plain of Old Castile, and with an enemy of unknown[p. 421] strength in front of him, he should have been cautious. If he attempted a stand, he should at least have taken advantage of the ancient fortifications of Burgos and the broken ground near the city. But with the most cheerful disregard of common military precautions, the Count marched out of Burgos, advanced a few miles, and drew up his army across the high-road in front of the village of Gamonal. He was in an open plain, his right flank ill covered by the river Arlanzon, which was fordable in many places, his left completely ‘in the air,’ near the village of Vellimar. In front of the line was a large wood, which the road bisects: it gave the enemy every facility for masking his movements till the last moment. Belvedere had ranged his two Estremaduran batteries on the centre: he had six battalions in his first line, including two of the Royal Guards—both very weak[453]—with a cavalry regiment on each flank. His second line was formed of four battalions—two of them Galician: two more battalions, the four Galician guns, and his third cavalry regiment were coming up from the rear, and had not yet taken their post in the second line when the short and sudden battle was fought and lost[454].

[p. 422]

Soult came on the scene during the hours of the morning, with the light-cavalry division of Lasalle deployed in his front. Then followed the dragoons of Milhaud, and three infantry divisions of the 2nd Corps—Mouton in front, then Merle, then Bonnet bringing up the rear. When he came upon the Spaniards, arrayed on either side of the road, the Marshal was able with a single glance to recognize the weakness of their numbers and their position. He did not hesitate for a moment, and rapidly formed his line of battle, under cover of the wood which lay between the two armies. Milhaud’s division of dragoons rode southward and formed up on the banks of the Arlanzon, facing the Spanish right: Lasalle’s four regiments of light cavalry composed the French centre: the twelve battalions of Mouton’s division deployed on the left, and advanced through the wood preceded by a crowd of tirailleurs. There was no need to wait for Merle and Bonnet, who were still some way to the rear.

The engagement opened by a discharge of the two Spanish batteries, directed at those of Mouton’s men who were advancing across the comparatively open ground on each side of the high-road. But they had hardly time to fire three or four salvos before the enemy was upon them. The seven regiments of cavalry which formed the left and centre of the French army had delivered a smashing charge at the infantry opposed to them in the plain. The regiment of Spanish hussars which covered their flank was swept away like chaff before the wind, and the unfortunate Estremaduran and Galician battalions had not even time to throw themselves into squares before this torrent of nearly 5,000 horsemen swept over them. They received the attack in line, with a wavering ill-directed fire which did not stop the enemy for a moment. Five battalions were ridden down in the twinkling of an eye, their colours were all taken, and half the men were hewn down or made prisoners[455]. The remnant fled in disorder towards Burgos. Then Milhaud’s dragoons continued the pursuit, while Lasalle’s chasseurs swerved inwards and fell upon the flank of the surviving half of Belvedere’s army. At the same moment the infantry of Mouton attacked them vigorously from the front. The inevitable result was the complete rout and dispersion of the whole: only the[p. 423] battalion of Walloon Guards succeeded in forming square and going off the field in some order. The rest broke their ranks and poured into Burgos, in a stream of fugitives similar to that which was already rushing through the streets from the other wing. The sixteen Spanish guns were all captured on the spot, those of the second line before they had been unlimbered or fired a single shot.

Belvedere, who was rash and incompetent but no coward, made two desperate attempts to rally his troops, one at the bridge of the Arlanzon, the other outside the city; but his men would not halt for a moment: their only concern was to get clear of the baggage-train which was blocking the road in the transpontine suburb. A little further on the fugitives met the belated battalions of Valencia and Zafra, which had been four or five miles from the field when the battle was lost. The Commander-in-chief tried to form them across the road, and to rally the broken troops upon them: but they cried ‘Treason,’ pretended that their cartridge-boxes were empty, broke their ranks, and headed the flight. Ere night they had reached Lerma, thirty miles to the rear, where the 3rd Division of Estremadura had just arrived.

Napoleon was probably using less than his customary exaggeration when he declared in his Bulletin that he had won the combat of Gamonal at the cost of fifteen killed and fifty wounded. It is at any rate unlikely that his total of casualties exceeded the figure of 200. The army of Estremadura on the other hand had suffered terribly: considering that its whole right wing had been ridden down by cavalry, and that the pursuit had been urged across an open plain for nine miles, it may well have lost the 2,500 killed and wounded and the 900 prisoners spoken of by the more moderate French narrators of the fight[456]. It is certain that it left behind twelve of the twenty-four regimental standards which it carried to the field, and every one of its guns[457].

The French army celebrated its not very glorious victory in the[p. 424] usual fashion by sacking Burgos with every attendant circumstances of misconduct. They were so much out of hand that the house next to that in which the Emperor had taken up his quarters for the night was pillaged and set on fire, so that he had to shift hastily into another street[458].

The night of the tenth was devoted to plunder, but on the following morning Bonaparte resumed without delay the execution of his great plan, and hurried out to the south the heavy masses of cavalry which were to sweep the plains of Old Castile. Lasalle’s division pushed on to Lerma, from which the shattered remnants of the army of Belvedere hastily retired. Milhaud’s dragoons were directed on Palencia, Franceschi’s light cavalry more to the west, along the banks of the Urbel and the Odra. Nowhere, save at Lerma, was a single Spanish soldier seen, but it is said that some of Milhaud’s flying parties obtained vague information of the advance of Sir John Moore’s English army beyond the frontier of Portugal. His vanguard was reported to be at Toro, an utter mistake, for the expeditionary force had not really passed Salamanca on the day when the rumour was transmitted to the Emperor[459]. There is no sign in his dispatches of any serious expectation of a possible British diversion.

On the same day on which the cavalry poured down into the plains of Castile, the Emperor began also to execute the great flanking movements which were to circumvent the armies of Blake and Casta?os and to drive the one into the Bay of Biscay and the other against the Pyrenees. On the afternoon of the eleventh Soult, with the three divisions of Mouton, Merle, and Bonnet, and Debelle’s cavalry brigade[460], was directed to make forced marches upon Reynosa, by the hilly road that passes by Urbel and Olleros[461].[p. 425] It was hoped that he might reach Reynosa before Blake, whose retreat towards the west was being closely pressed by Victor and Lefebvre. If he failed to catch the army of Galicia, the Marshal was to push on across the mountains, and occupy the important harbour-town of Santander, where it was known that British stores had been landed in great quantities. Milhaud was to co-operate in this movement by sending from Palencia one of his brigades of dragoons, to cut the road from Reynosa to Salda?a, by which the Emperor considered it likely that Blake would send off his heavy baggage and guns when he heard of Soult’s approach[462]. Two days after dispatching Soult to the north-west, the Emperor gave orders for the other great turning movement, which was destined to cut off the army of Casta?os. On the thirteenth Marshal Ney, with one division of his own corps (that of Marchand) and with the four regiments of Dessolles from the central reserve, together with the light cavalry of Beaumont, had marched from Burgos, in the wake of Lasalle’s advance. On the sixteenth he reached Aranda de Duero, and, having halted there for two days, was then directed to turn off from the high-road to Madrid, and march by Osma and Soria so as to fall upon the rear of Casta?os, who was still reported to be in the neighbourhood of Tudela[463]. If he could succeed in placing himself at Tarazona before the enemy moved, the Emperor considered that the fate of the Spanish ‘Army of the Centre’ was sealed.

While the movements of Soult and Ney were developing, Napoleon remained at Burgos. He stayed there in all for ten days, while his army passed by, each corps that arrived pressing forward along the high-road to Madrid by Lerma as far as Aranda. His advance on the Spanish capital was not to begin till he was certain how Blake and Casta?os had fared, and whether there was any considerable body of the enemy interposed between him and the point at which he was about to strike. Meanwhile his correspondence shows a feverish activity devoted to subjects of the most varied kind. A good many hours were devoted to drawing up a scheme for the restoration of the citadel of Burgos: it was the Emperor’s own brain which planned the fortifications that proved such an obstacle to Wellington four years later in September, 1812.[p. 426] It was in these days also that Napoleon dictated the last reply sent to Canning with regard to the peace negotiations that had been started at Erfurt. At the same moment he was commenting on the Code Napoléon, organizing the grand-duchy of Berg, ordering the assembly of Neapolitan troops for a descent on Sicily, regulating the university of Pisa, and drawing up notes on the internal government of Spain for the benefit of his brother Joseph[464]. But the most characteristic of all his actions was a huge piece of ‘commandeering’ of private property. Burgos was the great distributing centre for the wool-trade of Spain: here lay the warehouses of the flock-masters, who owned the great herds of merino sheep that feed upon the central plateaux of Castile. There were 20,000 bales of wool in the city, not government stores but purely private accumulations. The Emperor seized it all and sold it in France, gloating over the fact that it was worth more than 15,000,000 francs[465].

Neither of the flanking expeditions which the Emperor sent out quite fulfilled his expectations, but that of Soult was worked far more successfully than that of Ney. The Duke of Dalmatia’s corps marched sixty miles over bad Spanish roads in three days—a great feat for infantry—and reached Canduelas close to Reynosa on November 13. If Blake had not already been flying for his life before Victor, he must have been intercepted. But he had made such headlong speed that he had already reached Reynosa only twenty-four hours after his defeat at Espinosa. He had hoped to refit and reorganize his army by means of the vast accumulation of stores collected there, for he had left both Victor and Lefebvre far behind, and calculated on getting several days’ rest. His first act was to begin to evacuate his artillery, baggage, and wounded on to Leon by the road of Aguilar del Campo and Salda?a. He intended to follow with the infantry[466], but on the morning of November 14 Soult’s advanced cavalry came upon the flank of the great slow-moving convoy, and captured a considerable part of it. The Asturian general, Acevedo, lying wounded in his[p. 427] carriage, was slain, it is said, by Debelle’s dragoons, along with many other unfortunates. Much of the artillery and all the baggage was taken. The news of this disaster showed Blake that his only road into the plain was cut: no retreat on Leon was any longer possible. At the same moment the approach of Victor along the Espinosa road and of Lefebvre along the Villarcayo road was reported to him. It seemed as if he was doomed to destruction or capture, for all the practicable roads were cut, and the army, though a little heartened up by two days of regular rations at Reynosa, was in the most disorganized condition. But making a desperate appeal to the patriotism of his men, Blake abandoned all his stores, all his wheeled vehicles, even his horses, and struck up by a wild mountain track into the heart of the Asturian hills. He went by the gorge of Cabuerniga, along the rocky edge of the Saja torrent, and finally reached the sea near Santillana. This forced march was accomplished in two days of drenching rain, and without food of any kind save a few chestnuts and heads of maize obtained in the villages of this remote upland. If anything was needed to make Blake’s misery complete it was to be met, at Renedo[467] [November 15], by the news that he was superseded by La Romana, who came with a commission from the Junta to take command of the army of Galicia. After the receipt of the intelligence of Zornoza, the Government had disgraced the Irish general, and given his place to the worthy Marquis. But the latter did not assume the command for some days, and it was left to Blake to get his army out of the terrible straits in which it now lay. On nearing the coast he obtained a little more food for his men from the English vessels that had escaped from Santander[468], waited for his stragglers to come up, and, when he had 7,000 men collected, resumed his march. He sent the wrecks of the Asturian division back to their own province, but resolved to return with the rest of his army to the southern side of the Cantabrian Mountains, so as to cover the direct road from Burgos to Galicia. He had quite shaken off his pursuers, and had nothing to fear save physical difficulties in his retreat. But these were severe enough to try the best troops, and Blake’s men, under-fed, destitute of great-coats and shoes, and harassed by endless marching, were in a[p. 428] piteous state: although they had not thrown away their muskets, very few had a dry cartridge left in their boxes[469]. An English officer who accompanied them described them as ‘a half-starved and straggling mob, without officers, and all mixed in utter confusion[470].’ The snow was now lying deep on the mountains, and the road back to the plains of Leon by Potes and Pedrosa was almost as bare and rough as that by which the troops had saved themselves from the snare at Reynosa. Nevertheless Blake’s miserable army straggled over the defile across the Pe?as de Europa, reached the upper valley of the Esla, and at last got a few days of rest in cantonments around Leon. Here La Romana took up the command, and by December 4 was at the head of 15,000 men. This total was only reached by the junction of outlying troops, for there had come into Leon a few detachments from the rear, and that part of the artillery and its escort which had escaped Soult’s cavalry at Aguilar del Campo. Of Blake’s original force, even after stragglers had come up, there were not 10,000 left: that so many survived is astonishing when we consider the awful march that they had accomplished[471]. Between November 1 and 23 they had trudged for three hundred miles over some of the roughest country in Europe, had crossed the watershed of the Cantabrian Mountains thrice[472] (twice by mere mule-tracks), wading through rain and snow for the greater part of the time, for the weather had been abominable. For mere physical difficulty this retreat far exceeded Moore’s celebrated march to Corunna, but it is fair to remember that Blake had shaken off his pursuers at Reynosa, while the English general was chased by an active enemy from first to last.

While the unhappy army of Galicia was working out its salvation[p. 429] over these rough paths, Soult’s corps had fared comparatively well. On reaching Reynosa on November 14 the Duke of Dalmatia had come into possession of an enormous mass of plunder, the whole of the stores and munitions of Blake’s army. Among the trophies were no less than 15,000 new English muskets and thirty-five unhorsed field-guns. The food secured maintained the 2nd Corps for many days: it included, as an appreciative French consumer informs us, an enormous consignment of excellent Cheshire cheese, newly landed at Santander[473]. At Reynosa Soult’s arrival was followed by that of Victor and Lefebvre, who rode in at the head of their corps the day after the place had been occupied [November 15]. There was no longer any chance of catching Blake, and the assembly of 50,000 men in this quarter was clearly unnecessary. The Emperor sent orders to Victor to march on Burgos and join the main army, and to Lefebvre to drop down into the plains as far as Carrion, from whence he could threaten Benavente and Leon[474]. Soult, whose men were much less exhausted than those of the other two corps, was charged with the occupation of Santander and the pursuit of Blake. He marched by the high-road to the sea, just in time to see seventeen British ships laden with munitions of war sailing out of the harbour[475]. But he captured, nevertheless, a large quantity of valuable stores, which were too heavy to be removed in a hurry [November 16].

The Marshal left Bonnet’s division at Santander, with orders to clear the surrounding district and to keep open the road to Burgos. With the rest of his troops he marched eastward along the coast, trying to get information about Blake’s movements. At San Vincente de la Barquera he came upon the wrecks of the Asturian division which Blake had left behind him when he turned south again into the mountains. They fled in disorder the moment that they were attacked, and the principality seemed exposed without any defence to the Marshal’s advance. But Soult did not intend to lose touch with his master, or to embark on any unauthorized expedition. When he learnt that the Galician army had returned to the plains he followed their example, and crossed the Cantabrian Mountains by a track over the Sierras Albas from Potes to Cervera, almost as impracticable as the parallel defile over[p. 430] which Blake had escaped. Coming down on to the upper valley of the Pisuerga he reached Salda?a, where he was again in close communication with Lefebvre.

Blake and his army might now be considered as being out of the game; they were so dispersed and demoralized that they required no more attention. But there was as yet no news of Ney, who had been sent to execute the turning movement against Casta?os, which corresponded to the one that Soult had carried out against the Galicians. Meanwhile more troops continued to come up to Burgos, ready for the Emperor’s great central march on Madrid. King Joseph and his Guards had arrived there as early as the twelfth; Victor came down from Reynosa on the twenty-first[476], and on the same day appeared the division of dragoons commanded by Lahoussaye[477]. The belated corps of Mortier and Junot were reported to be nearing Bayonne: both generals received orders to march on Burgos, after equipping their men for a serious winter campaign. Independent of the large bodies of men which were still kept out on the two flanks under Soult and Lefebvre, Moncey and Ney, there would soon be 100,000 bayonets and sabres ready for the decisive blow at the Spanish capital.