SECTION VII: CHAPTER V

TUDELA

Having narrated the misfortunes of Blake and of Belvedere, we must now turn to the eastern end of the Spanish line, where Casta?os and Palafox had been enjoying a brief and treacherous interval of safety, while their friends were being hunted over the Cantabrian Mountains and the plains of Old Castile. From October 26-27—the days when Ney and Moncey drove Casta?os’ advanced troops back over the Ebro—down to November 21, the French in Navarre made no further movement. We have seen that it was essential to Napoleon’s plan of campaign that the armies of Andalusia and Aragon should be left unmolested in the dangerous advanced position which they were occupying, till measures should have been taken to cut them off from Madrid and to drive them back against the roots of the Pyrenees. The Emperor had left opposite to them the whole of Moncey’s corps, one division of Ney’s corps (that of Lagrange), and the cavalry of Colbert and Digeon[478]—in all about 27,000 bayonets and 4,500 sabres. They had strict orders to act merely as a containing force: to repel any attack that the Spaniards might make on the line of the Ebro or the Aragon, but not to advance till they should receive the orders from head quarters.

The initiative therefore had passed back to the Spanish generals: it was open to them to advance once more against the enemy, if they chose to be so foolish. Their troops were in very bad order for an offensive campaign. Many of them (like Blake’s men) had never received great-coats or winter clothing, and were facing the November frosts and the incessant rain with the light linen garments in which they had marched up from the south. An English observer, who passed through the camps of Palafox and Casta?os at this moment, reports that while the regulars and the Valencian troops seemed fairly well clad, the Aragonese, the Castilians, and the Murcians were suffering terribly from exposure.[p. 432] The Murcians in especial were shivering in light linen shirts and pantaloons, with nothing but a striped poncho to cover them against the rain[479]. Hence came a terrible epidemic of dysentery, which thinned the ranks when once the autumn began to melt into winter. The armies of Casta?os and Palafox should have counted 53,000 men at least when the fighting at last began. It seems doubtful whether they actually could put much over 40,000 into the field. Casta?os claims that at Tudela his own ‘Army of the Centre’ had only 26,000 men in line, and the Aragonese about 16,000. It is probable that the figures are almost correct.

Nevertheless, the generals assumed the responsibility of ordering a general advance. We have shown in an earlier chapter that after the arrival of the three deputies from Madrid, and the stormy council of war at Tudela on November 5, a new plan of offensive operations was adopted. It was not quite so mad as the scheme that had been drafted in October, for seizing the passes of the Pyrenees and surrounding the whole French army. Casta?os and Palafox, it will be remembered, were to mass the bulk of their forces between Tudela and Caparrosa, cross the Aragon, and deliver a frontal attack upon the scattered fractions of the corps of Moncey at Peralta, Falces, and Lodosa. There would have been something to say for this plan if it had been proposed in September, or early in October; but on November 5 it was hopeless, for it ignored the fact that 80,000 French troops had entered Biscay and Navarre since the middle of October, and that Napoleon himself had reached Vittoria. To advance now was to run into the lion’s mouth.

The armies of Andalusia and Aragon were just beginning to concentrate when, on November 8, a dispatch came in from Blake announcing his disaster at Zornoza, and his hurried retreat beyond Bilbao. The same day there arrived a correct report of the arrival of the Emperor and great masses of French troops at Vittoria, with an inaccurate addition to the effect that they were being directed on Logro?o and Lodosa, as if about to cross the Central Ebro and fall upon the left flank of the army of Andalusia[480].

Casta?os, in his Vindication, published to explain and defend his[p. 433] movements during this campaign, stated that his first impulse was to march by Logro?o and Haro to meet the enemy, or to hasten by Agreda and Soria to interpose himself between the Emperor and Madrid. But, on second thoughts, he resolved that it was more necessary to endeavour to beat the French in his immediate front, and that it would be better to persevere in the plan, drawn up on November 5, for a blow at Moncey. A sharp thrust delivered on this point would distract the attention of the Emperor from Blake, and draw him off the direct road to Madrid. Meanwhile, however, on November 11 Casta?os fell ill, and took to his bed at Cintruenigo. While he was thus disabled, the deputy Francisco Palafox took the astounding step of issuing orders in his own name to the divisional generals both of the Andalusian and the Aragonese armies. Nothing like this had been seen since the days in the French Revolutionary War, when the ‘Representatives on Mission’ used to overrule the commands of the unhappy generals of the Republic. Before the concentration of the armies was complete, the Deputy ordered the assumption of the offensive at all points in the line: he directed O’Neille, whom he incorrectly supposed to be already at Caparrosa, to attack Moncey at once; bade Grimarest, with the 2nd Andalusian division, to cross the Ebro at Calahorra; La Pe?a to threaten Milagro; and Cartaojal, with a small flanking brigade, to demonstrate against the French troops who lay at Logro?o. These orders produced utter confusion, for some of the generals obeyed, while others sent the answer that they would not move without the permission of their proper chiefs, Casta?os and Joseph Palafox. The former got his first notice of the Deputy’s presumptuous action by letters from La Pe?a, delivered to his bedside, in which he was asked whether he had given his sanction to the project for crossing the Ebro[481]. As a matter of fact only Grimarest and Cartaojal moved: the former was sharply repulsed at the fords opposite Calahorra: the latter, more fortunate, skirmished with Lagrange’s division, in front of Logro?o, without coming to any harm [November 13].

It was now three days since the Emperor had routed Belvedere at Gamonal and entered Burgos, and two days since Blake had been beaten at Espinosa. The conduct of the generals who had[p. 434] charge of the last intact army that Spain possessed, seems all the more insane when we reflect on the general condition of affairs. For on the fourteenth the mad advance which Francisco Palafox advocated was resumed, Casta?os on his sick bed not having had sufficient energy to lay an embargo on the moving forward of his own troops. On the fourteenth O’Neille arrived at Caparrosa and drove out of it Moncey’s advanced posts, while Grimarest and La Pe?a received new instructions—to push up the Ebro and attack Lodosa, which O’Neille was at the same moment to assail from the other side of the stream. Thus the great river was to be placed between the two halves of the army, which had no communication except by the bridge of Tudela, far to the rear of both. ‘This seems rather a hazardous undertaking,’ wrote Graham in his diary, ‘affording the enemy an opportunity of attacking on whichever side of the river he chooses with superior force.’ But the only thing that prevented it from being attempted was the sudden refusal of O’Neille to advance beyond Caparrosa unless he were provided with 50,000 rations of biscuit, and reinforced at once with 6,000 bayonets from the Army of the Centre [November 18]. As if the situation were not already sufficiently complicated, Casta?os had on the preceding day received unofficial intelligence[482] from Madrid, to the effect that the Central Junta had determined to depose him, and to appoint the Marquis of La Romana general-in-chief of the Army of the Centre as well as of the Army of Galicia. This really made little difference, as the Marquis was at this moment with Blake’s corps (he had joined it at Renedo on the fifteenth), so that he could not issue any orders for the troops on the Ebro, from whom he was separated by the whole French army. Casta?os remained at the head of the Andalusians till he was formally superseded, and it was he who was destined to fight the great battle that was now impending. It is hard to say what might have happened had the French held back for a few days more, for now, at the last moment, Joseph Palafox suddenly harked back to his old plan for an advance on Pampeluna and the roots of the Pyrenees, and proposed to Casta?os that the whole of the Andalusian army save La Pe?a’s division should assist him[483]. Casta?os and[p. 435] Coupigny strongly opposed this mad idea, and submitted an entirely different scheme to the Captain-General of Aragon, inviting him to bring all his forces to Calahorra, and to join the Army of the Centre in taking up a defensive position behind the Ebro.

The two plans were being hotly debated, when news arrived which proved decisive. The French were at last on the move, and their columns were pouring out of Logro?o and Lodosa along the southern bank of the Ebro, heading for Calahorra and Tudela [November 21]. On the same day a messenger arrived from the Bishop of Osma, bearing the intelligence that a French corps (he called it that of Dessolles, but it was really Ney) had marched up the head-waters of the Douro to Almazan, and was heading for Soria and Agreda, with the obvious intention of falling upon the rear of the Army of the Centre. If Casta?os remained for a moment longer at Calahorra, he would clearly be caught between the two French armies. He should have retired at once in the direction of Saragossa, before Ney could reach him: but instead he took the dangerous half-measure of falling back only as far as the line Tudela—Tarazona. This was a safer position than that of Calahorra—Arnedo, but still sufficiently perilous, for the enveloping corps from the south could still reach his rear by a long turning movement through Xalon and Borja.
Map of the battle of Tudela

Enlarge  Battle of Tudela. November 23, 1808.

If the position from Tudela, on the banks of the Ebro, to Tarazona at the foot of the Sierra de Moncayo was to be held, the army of Casta?os needed strong reinforcements, for the line was ten miles long, and there were but 26,000 men to occupy it. The Army of Aragon must be brought up also, and Casta?os wrote at once to O’Neille at Caparrosa, inviting him to hasten to cross the Ebro and occupy Tudela and its immediate vicinity. The dispatch reached the Irish general late on the afternoon of the twenty-first, but he refused to obey without the permission of his own commander, Joseph Palafox. Thus the night of November 21-22 was lost, but next morning the Aragonese Captain-General appeared from Saragossa, and met Casta?os and Coupigny. They besought him to bid O’Neille join the Army of the Centre, but at first he refused, even when the forward march of Moncey and the flanking movement of Ney had been explained to him. He still clung to his wild proposal for a blow at Pampeluna, ‘talking,’ says Colonel Graham, ‘such nonsense as under the present circumstances ought only to have[p. 436] come from a madman[484].’ But at the last moment he yielded, and at noon on the twenty-second wrote orders to O’Neille to bring his two divisions to Tudela, and to form up on the right of the Army of Andalusia. When the Aragonese host at last got under weigh, the hour was so late that darkness was falling before the bridge of Tudela was passed. O’Neille then had an unhappy inspiration: he ordered his men to defer the crossing of the Ebro till the following morning, and to cook and encamp on the northern bank. Half of the line which Casta?os intended to hold next day was still ungarnished with troops when the dawn broke, and soon it was discovered that the French were close at hand.

The approaching enemy were not, as Casta?os and Palafox supposed, under the command of Moncey and Ney. The latter was carrying out his turning movement by Soria: the former was for the moment superseded. The Emperor regarded the Duke of Conegliano as somewhat slow and overcautious, and for the sudden and smashing blow which he had planned had chosen another instrument. This was Marshal Lannes, who had crossed the Pyrenees with the ‘Grand Army,’ but had been detained for a fortnight at Vittoria by an accident. His horse had fallen with him over a precipice, and he had been so bruised and shaken that his life was despaired of. It appears that the celebrated surgeon Larrey cured him by the strange device of sewing up his battered frame in the skin of a newly flayed sheep[485]. By November 20 he was again fit for service, and set out from Logro?o with Lagrange’s division of Ney’s corps, Colbert’s light cavalry, and Digeon’s dragoons. Moncey joined him by the bridge of Lodosa, bringing his whole corps—four divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. The protection of Navarre had been handed over to General Bisson, the governor of Pampeluna.

Lannes met with no opposition whatever in his march to Tudela, and easily reached Alfaro on the twenty-second. Here he learnt that the Spaniards were awaiting him beyond the river Queiles, drawn up on a very long front between Tudela and Tarazona. On the morning of the twenty-third he came in sight of them, and deployed for an attack: the state of utter disorder in which the enemy lay gave the best auguries for the success of the imperial arms.

Casta?os had placed the troops under his immediate command[p. 437] at Tarazona and Cascante, which were destined to form the left and centre of his position: the remainder of it, from Cascante to Tudela, was allotted to the Aragonese and to the Murcian division of the Army of Andalusia, which had been across the Ebro in O’Neille’s company, and was now returning with him. Till they came up Casta?os had only under his hand two complete divisions of his ‘Army of the Centre,’ and some small fragments of two others. The complete divisions were those of Grimarest (No. 2) and La Pe?a (No. 4), each of which had been increased in numbers but not in efficiency by having allotted to it some of the battalions of the ‘Army of Castile,’ which had been dissolved for its bad conduct at Logro?o on October 26. There had at last begun to arrive at the front a considerable part of the other two Andalusian divisions, which had first been detained beyond the Sierra Morena by the Junta of Seville, and then kept some time in Madrid to complete their equipment. Two battalions of these belated troops had at last appeared on October 30, and ten more had since come up[486]. But the bulk of the 1st and 3rd Divisions was still absent, and no more than 5,500 men from them had been added to Casta?os’ army. The mixed brigade formed from these late arrivals seems to have been under General Villariezo, of the 1st Division. The whole force amounted to about 28,000 men, of whom 3,000 were horsemen, for the army of Andalusia was stronger in the cavalry arm than any other of the Spanish hosts. But of these the Murcian and Valencian division of Roca (formerly that of Llamas) was with O’Neille, and had not yet reached the field; while five battalions, from the dissolved Castilian army, were far away on the left in the mountains of Soria, whither Casta?os had detached them under General Cartaojal, with orders to observe the French corps which was coming up on his rear.

The other half of the Spanish army consisted of the missing division of the Army of the Centre—that of Roca—and the two divisions belonging to Palafox—those of O’Neille and Saint March—the former composed mainly of Aragonese[487], the latter almost entirely of Valencian troops. None of the Aragonese reserves from[p. 438] the great camp at Saragossa had yet come upon the scene. But the two divisions in the field were very strong—they must have had at least 17,000 men in their ranks. On November 1 they were more than 18,000 strong, and, two months after—when they had passed through the disaster of Tudela, and had endured ten days of the murderous siege of Saragossa—they still showed 14,000 bayonets. We cannot calculate them at less than 17,000 men for the battle of November 23. On the other hand, there were hardly 600 cavalry in the whole corps.

It would appear then that Casta?os must have had some 45,000 men in line, between Tarazona and Tudela, when Lannes came up against him[488]. The French marshal, on the other hand, had about 34,000. On the difference in quality between the two armies we have no need to dilate: even the two divisions of the conscripts of 1807, which served in Moncey’s corps, were old soldiers compared to[p. 439] the armies of Aragon and Castile, or a great part of that of Andalusia. Moreover, as in all the earlier battles of the Peninsular War, the Spaniards were hopelessly outmatched in the cavalry arm. There was no force that could stop the 4,500 or 5,000 horsemen of Colbert, Digeon, and Wathier[489].

The position Tudela—Tarazona, which Casta?os intended to hold, is of enormous length—about ten and a half miles in all. Clearly 45,000 men in the close order that prevailed in the early nineteenth century were inadequate to hold it all in proper strength. Yet if the points on which the French were about to attack could be ascertained in good time, the distances were not so great but that the army could concentrate on any portion of the line within three hours. But to make this practicable, it was necessary firstly that Casta?os should keep in close touch with the enemy by means of his cavalry—he had quite enough for the purpose—and secondly that he should have all his men massed at suitable points, from which they could march out to the designated fighting-ground at short notice. The Spanish troops were, now as always, so slow at man?uvring that the experiment would be a dangerous one, but this was the only way in which the chosen position could possibly be held. The ground was not unfavourable; it consisted of a line of gentle hills along the south bank of the river Queiles, which commanded a good view over the rolling plain across which the French had to advance. On the extreme right was the town[p. 440] of Tudela, covered by a bold hill—the Cerro de Santa Barbara—which overhangs the Ebro. Thence two long ridges, the hills of Santa Quiteria and Cabezo Malla, extend for some two and a half miles in a well-marked line: this section formed the right of the position. From the left of the Cabezo Malla as far as the little town of Cascante—four miles—the ground is less favourable; indeed, it is fairly flat, and the line is indicated mainly by the Queiles and its irrigation-cuts, behind which the Spanish centre was to form[490]. From Cascante westward as far as Tarazona—a distance of four miles or a little over—the position is better marked, a spur of the Sierra de Moncayo coming down in a gentle slope all along the southern bank of the little Queiles. The centre, between the Cabezo Malla and Cascante, was obviously the weak point in the position, as the only obstacle to the enemy’s advance was the river, which was fordable by all arms at every point along this dangerous four miles.

The disaster which Casta?os was to suffer may be ascribed to two mistakes, one of which was entirely within his own control, while the other was due to the stupidity of O’Neille. With 3,000 cavalry in hand, the Commander-in-chief ought to have known of every movement of the French for many hours before they drew near to the position. It would then have been in his power to concentrate on those parts of the line where the attack was about to be delivered. But instead of sending out his horse ten miles to the front, Casta?os kept them with the infantry[491], and the first notice of the approach of Lannes was only given when, at nine in the morning, a regiment of Wathier’s cavalry rode right up to the town of Tudela, driving in the outposts and causing great confusion. To the second cause of disaster we have already had occasion to allude: on the night of the twenty-second O’Neille had (contrary to his orders) encamped north of the Ebro. His 17,000 men began[p. 441] to defile over the bridge next morning in a leisurely fashion, and were still only making their way to their designated positions when Lannes attacked. In fact the Spanish line of battle was never formed as had been planned: the various brigades of the Army of Aragon were hurried one after another on to the heights south-west of Tudela, but entirely without system or order: the lower ground to the left of the Cabezo Malla was never occupied at all, and remained as a gap in the centre of the line all through the battle.

Lannes, who was aware that the Spaniards were intending to fight at Tudela, had marched at dawn from his camps in front of Alfaro in two columns. One, composed of Moncey’s corps, with Wathier’s cavalry at its head, came by the high-road near the Ebro. The other, composed of the two independent cavalry brigades of Colbert and Digeon, and of Lagrange’s division, was more to the west, and headed for Cascante. The Marshal had no intention of attacking the left of the Spanish line in the direction of Tarazona, which he left entirely to itself. He met not a single Spanish vedette till Wathier’s cavalry ran into the pickets immediately outside Tudela.

Casta?os was in the town, engaged in hurrying the march of the Aragonese troops across the great bridge of the Ebro, when the fusillade broke out. The unexpected sound of musketry threw the troops into great excitement, for they were jammed in the narrow mediaeval lanes of Tudela when the sounds of battle came rolling down from the Cerro de Santa Barbara. The Commander-in-chief himself was caught between two regiments and could not push his way out to the field for some time. But the men were quite ready to fight, and hurried to the front as fast as they were able. Roca’s Valencian division (the 5th of the Andalusian army) had been the first to cross the Ebro: it was pushed up to the Cerro de Santa Barbara, and reached its summit just in time to beat off the leading brigade, one from Morlot’s division, which was ascending the hill from the other side. Saint March’s battalions, who had crossed the bridge next after Roca, were fortunate enough to be able to deploy and occupy the hill of Santa Quiteria before they were attacked. But O’Neille’s Aragonese and Murcians were less lucky: they only succeeded in seizing the Cabezo Malla ridge after driving off the skirmishers of Maurice Mathieu’s French division, which had come up next in succession to Morlot, and was just preparing to mount the slope. But the position was just[p. 442] saved, and the Army of Aragon was by ten o’clock formed up along the hills, with its right overhanging the Ebro and its left—quite in the air—established on the Cabezo Malla. The front was somewhat over two miles in length, and quite defensible; but the troops were in great disorder after their hurried march, and the generals were appalled to find that the Army of the Centre had not moved up to join them, and that there was a gap of three miles between the Cabezo Malla and the nearest of the Andalusian divisions. Casta?os perceived this fact and rode off, too late, to bring up La Pe?a from Cascante to fill the void. Palafox was not on the field: he had gone off at daybreak (still in high dudgeon that his scheme for an attack by Pampeluna had been overruled) and was far on the road to Saragossa.

It is clear that Lannes’ first attack was unpremeditated and ill-arranged: he had been tempted to strike when his vanguard only had come up, because he saw the Spanish position half empty and the Aragonese divisions struggling up in disorder to occupy it. Hence came his first check: but the preliminary skirmish had revealed to him the existence of the fatal gap between the two Spanish armies, and he was now ready to utilize it. While Casta?os was riding for Cascante, the divisions of Musnier, Grandjean, and Lagrange were coming upon the field, and Lannes was preparing for a second and more serious attack.

Meanwhile the fortune of the day was being settled on the left. When the army of Lannes appeared in the plain, La Pe?a at Cascante should have marched at once towards the Aragonese, and Grimarest and Villariezo from Tarazona should have moved on Cascante to replace La Pe?a’s division at that place. Neither of them stirred, though the situation was obvious, and though they presently received orders from Casta?os to close in to their right. La Pe?a was the most guilty, for the whole battle-field was under his eye: he would not move because he had before him Digeon’s and Colbert’s cavalry, and was afraid to march across their front in the open plain, protected only by the shallow Queiles. He had 8,000 or 9,000 Andalusian and Castilian infantry, and 1,500 horse, but allowed himself to be neutralized by two brigades of dragoons. All that he did in response to the summons to move eastward was to send two battalions to occupy the hamlet of Urzante, a mile to his right. There was still a space of three miles between him and Saint March. This scandalous and cowardly inaction is in keeping[p. 443] with the man’s later career: it was he who in 1811 betrayed Graham at Barossa, and fled back into safety instead of stopping to assist his allies. On this occasion he lay for four hours motionless, while he watched the French forming up for a second attack on the Army of Aragon. Cowed by the 3,000 dragoons in his front, he made no attempt to march on the Cabezo Malla to O’Neille’s assistance. Grimarest’s conduct was almost equally bad: he was further from the scene of fighting, and could not, like La Pe?a, see the field: but it is sufficient to say that he received Casta?os’ order to march on Cascante at noon, and that he did not reach that place—four miles distant—till dusk.

The Commander-in-chief himself was most unlucky: he started for Cascante about noon, intending to force his divisional generals to draw near the battle-field. But as he was crossing the gap between O’Neille and La Pe?a he was sighted by some French cavalry, who were cautiously pushing forward through the unoccupied ground. He and his staff were chased far to the rear by this reconnoitring party, and only shook them off by riding hard and scattering among the olive groves. Unable to reach Cascante, he was returning towards Tudela, when he received a hasty note from General Roca to the effect that the right wing of the army had been broken, and the heights of Santa Barbara lost.

When his three belated divisions had appeared Lannes had drawn up his army in two lines, and flung the bulk of it against the Aragonese, leaving only Colbert’s and Digeon’s dragoons and the single division of Lagrange to look after La Pe?a and the rest of the Army of Andalusia.

Instead of sending forward fresh troops, Lannes brought up to the charge for a second time the regiments of Maurice Mathieu and Morlot. Behind the latter Musnier deployed, behind the former Grandjean, but neither of these divisions, as it turned out, was to fire a shot or to lose a man. While Morlot with his six battalions once more attacked the heights above the city, Maurice Mathieu with his twelve attempted both to push back O’Neille and to turn his flank by way of the Cabezo Malla. After a short but well-contested struggle both these attacks succeeded. Morlot, though his leading brigade suffered heavily, obtained a lodgement on top of the Cerro de Santa Barbara, by pushing a battalion up a lateral ravine, which had been left unwatched on account of its difficulty. Others followed, and Roca’s division broke, poured[p. 444] down the hill into Tudela, and fled away by the Saragossa road. Almost at the same moment O’Neille’s troops were beaten off the Cabezo Malla by Maurice Mathieu, who had succeeded in slipping a battalion and a cavalry regiment round their left flank, on the side of the fatal gap. Seeing the line of the Aragonese reeling back, General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, to whom Lannes had given the chief command of his cavalry, charged with three regiments of Wathier’s division at the very centre of the hostile army. He burst through between O’Neille and Saint March’s troops, and then wheeling outward attacked both in flank. This assault was decisive. The whole mass dispersed among the olive groves, irrigation-cuts, and stone fences which cover the plain to the south of Tudela. A few battalions kept their ranks and formed a sort of rearguard, but the main part of Roca’s, Saint March’s, and O’Neille’s levies fled straight before them till the dusk fell, and far into the night. Some of them got to Saragossa next day, though the distance was over fifty miles.

Meanwhile La Pe?a’s futile operations in front of Cascante had gone on all through the afternoon. He had at first nothing but cavalry in front of him, but about three o’clock Lagrange’s division, which had been the last to arrive on the field of all the French army, appeared in his direction. Its leading brigade marched into the gap, wheeled to its right, and drove out of Urzante the two isolated battalions which La Pe?a had placed there in the morning. They made a gallant resistance[492], but had to yield to superior numbers and to fall back on the main body at Cascante[493]. Here they found not only La Pe?a but also Grimarest, and Villariezo’s mixed brigade, for these officers had at last deigned to obey Casta?os’ orders and to close in to the right. There was now an imposing mass of troops collected in this quarter, at least 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse, but they allowed themselves to be ‘contained’ by Lagrange’s single division and Digeon’s dragoons. Colbert, with the rest of the cavalry, had ridden through the gap and gone off in pursuit of the Aragonese. The remaining hour of daylight[p. 445] was spent in futile skirmishing with Lagrange, and after dark La Pe?a and Grimarest retired unmolested to Borja, by the road which skirts the foot of the Sierra de Moncayo. They were only disturbed by a panic caused by the blowing up of the reserve ammunition of the Army of the Centre. Some of the troops took the explosion for a sudden discharge of French artillery, broke their ranks, and were with difficulty reassembled.

It is impossible to speak too strongly of the shameful slackness and timidity of La Pe?a and his colleagues. If they had been tried for cowardice, and shot after the manner of Admiral Byng, they would not have received more than their deserts. That 20,000 men, including the greater part of the victors of Baylen, should assist, from a distance of four miles only, at the rout of their comrades of the Army of Aragon, was the most deplorable incident of all this unhappy campaign.

From the astounding way in which the Andalusian army had been mishandled, it resulted that practically no loss—200 killed and wounded at the most—was suffered in this quarter, and the troops marched off with their artillery and wagons, after blowing up their reserve ammunition and abandoning their heavy baggage in their camps[494]. The Aragonese had, of course, fared very differently. They lost twenty-six guns—apparently all that they had brought to the field—over 1,000 prisoners, and at least 3,000 killed and wounded[495]. That the casualties were not more numerous was due to the fact that the plain to the south of Tudela was covered with olive-groves, and irrigation-cuts, which checked the French cavalry and facilitated the flight of the fugitives.

Lannes, it is clear, did not entirely fulfil Napoleon’s expectations. He did not take full advantage of the gap between O’Neille and La Pe?a, and wasted much force in frontal attacks which might have been avoided. If he had thrust two divisions and all his horse between the fractions of the Spanish army, before ordering the second attack of Maurice Mathieu and Morlot, the victory would have been far more decisive, and less costly. The loss of[p. 446] the 3rd Corps was 44 killed and 513 wounded; that of Lagrange’s division and the dragoons has not been preserved, but can have been but small—probably less than 100 in all—though Lagrange himself received a severe hurt in the arm. The only regiment that suffered heavily was the 117th, of Morlot’s division, which, in turning Roca off the Cerro de Santa Barbara, lost 303 killed and wounded, more than half the total casualties of the 3rd Corps.

Lannes had carried out indifferently well the part of the Emperor’s great plan that had been entrusted to him; but this, as we have seen, was only half of the game. When Casta?os and the Aragonese were routed, they ought to have found Marshal Ney at their backs, intercepting their retreat on Saragossa or Madrid. As a matter of fact he was more than fifty miles away on the day of the battle, and arrived with a tardiness which made his flanking march entirely futile. The orders for him to march from Aranda on Soria and Tarazona had been issued on November 18[496], and he had been warned that Lannes would deliver his blow on the twenty-second. But Ney did not receive his instructions till the nineteenth, and only set out on the twentieth. When once he was upon the move he made tremendous marches, for on the twenty-first he had reached Almazan, more than sixty miles from his starting-point: by dusk on the twenty-second he had pushed on to Soria[497], where he halted for forty-eight hours on account of the utter exhaustion of his troops. He had pushed them forward no less than seventy-eight miles in three days, a rate which cannot be kept up. Hence he was obliged to let them spend the twenty-third and twenty-fourth in Soria: at dawn on the twenty-fifth they set out again, and executed another terrible march. It is thirty miles from Soria to Agreda, in the heart of the Sierra de Moncayo, where the 6th Corps slept on that night, and every foot of the way was over villainous mountain roads. Hence Ney only reached Tarazona early on the twenty-sixth, three days after the battle; yet it cannot be said that he had been slow: he had covered 121 miles in six and a half days, even when the halt at Soria is included. This is very fair marching for infantry, when the difficulties of the country are considered. Napoleon ungenerously ascribed the escape of Casta?os to the fact that ‘Ney had allowed himself to be imposed upon by the Spaniards,[p. 447] and rested for the twenty-second and twenty-third at Soria, because he chose to imagine that the enemy had 80,000 men, and other follies. If he had reached Agreda on the twenty-third, according to my orders, not a man would have escaped[498].’ But, as Marshal Jourdan very truly remarks in his Mémoires, ‘Calculating the distance from Aranda to Tarazona via Soria, one easily sees that even if Ney had given no rest to his troops, it would have been impossible for him to arrive before the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, that is to say, twenty-four hours after the battle. It is not he who should be reproached, but the Emperor, who ought to have started him from Aranda two days earlier[499].’

Blind admirers of Bonaparte have endeavoured to make out a case against Ney, by accusing him of having stopped at Soria for three days in order to pillage it—which he did not, though he made a requisition of shoes and cloth for great-coats from the municipality. If he is really to blame, it is rather for having worked his men so hard on the twentieth to the twenty-second that they were not fit to march on the twenty-third: he had taken them seventy-eight miles on those three days, with the natural result that they were dead beat. If he had contented himself with doing sixteen or eighteen miles a day, he would have reached Soria on the twenty-third, but his men would have been comparatively fresh, and could have moved on next morning. Even then he would have been late for the battle, as Jourdan clearly shows: the fact was that the Emperor asked an impossibility of him when he expected him to cover 121 miles in four days, with artillery and baggage, and a difficult mountain range to climb[500].

Meanwhile the routed forces of O’Neille, Roca, and Saint March joined at Mallen, and retreated along the high-road to Saragossa, accompanied for part of the way by Casta?os; while those of La Pe?a, Grimarest, and Villariezo marched by Borja to La Almunia on the Xalon, where their General-in-chief joined them and directed them to take the road to Madrid, not that which led to the Aragonese capital. On the night of the twenty-fifth the[p. 448] Army of Andalusia, minus the greater part of the wrecks of Roca’s division[501], was concentrated at Calatayud, not much reduced in numbers, but already suffering from hunger—all their stores having been lost at Cascante and Tarazona—and inclined to be mutinous. The incredible mismanagement at Tudela was put down to treachery, and the men were much inclined to disobey their chiefs. It was at this unhappy moment that Casta?os received a dispatch from the Central Junta dated November 21, which authorized him to incorporate the divisions of O’Neille and Saint March with the army of Andalusia, leaving only the Aragonese under the control of Palafox. This order, if given a month earlier, would have saved an enormous amount of wrangling and mismanagement. But it was now too late: these divisions had retired on Saragossa, and the enemy having interposed between them and Casta?os, the authorization remained perforce a dead letter.

Lannes had directed Maurice Mathieu, with the divisions of Lagrange and Musnier, to follow the Andalusians by Borja, while Morlot and Grandjean pursued the Aragonese on the road of Mallen. The chase does not seem to have been very hotly urged, but on each road a certain number of stragglers were picked up. Ney, reaching Borja on the twenty-sixth with the head of his column, found himself in the rear of Maurice Mathieu, and committed to the pursuit of Casta?os. Their vanguard reached Calatayud on the twenty-seventh, and learnt that the Army of the Centre had evacuated that city on the same morning, and was pressing towards Madrid, with the intention of taking part in the defence of the capital.

Ney, taking with him Lagrange’s infantry and Digeon’s and Colbert’s cavalry from the troops which fought at Tudela, and adding them to the two divisions of Marchand and Dessolles, which had formed his turning column, urged the pursuit as fast as he was able. Twice he came up with the Spanish army: on each occasion Casta?os sacrificed his rearguard, which made a long stand and was terribly mauled, while he pushed ahead with his main body. At this cost the army was saved, but it arrived in New Castile half starved and exhausted, and almost as much demoralized as if it had been beaten in a pitched battle. A few days later many of the battalions burst into open mutiny, when they were ordered to retire into the mountains of Cuenca. But at least[p. 449] they had escaped from Ney by rapid marching, and still preserved the form and semblance of an army.

Meanwhile Napoleon, on his side, had begun to operate against Madrid with a speed and sureness of stroke that made futile every attempt of the Spaniards to intervene between him and his goal. The moment that the news of Tudela reached him (November 26) he had hurled his main body upon the capital, and within eight days it was in his hands. The march of the army of Andalusia to cover Madrid was (though Casta?os could not know it) useless from the first. By hurrying to the aid of the Junta, through Siguenza and Guadalajara, he was merely exposing himself for a second time to destruction. His troops were destined to escape from the peril in New Castile, by a stroke of fortune just as notable as that which had saved them from being cut off on the day after Tudela. But he, meanwhile, was separated from his troops, for on arriving at Siguenza he was met by another dispatch from the Junta, which relieved him of the command of the army of the Centre, and bade him hasten to Head Quarters, where his aid was required by the Central Committee for War. Handing over the troops to the incapable La Pe?a, Casta?os hastened southward in search of the Junta, whose whereabouts in those days of flight and confusion it was not easy to find.