SECTION X: CHAPTER III

THE CAMPAIGN OF FEBRUARY, 1809: BATTLE OF VALLS

More than a month had elapsed since the battle of Molins de Rey before any important movements were made in Catalonia. Early in February St. Cyr drew in his divisions from the advanced positions in the plain of Tarragona, which they had taken up after the victory of Molins de Rey. They had eaten up the country-side, and were being much harassed by the miqueletes, who had begun to press in upon their communications with Barcelona, in spite of all the care that was taken to scour the country with small flying columns, and to scatter any nucleus of insurgents that began to grow up in the French rear. Owing to the dispersion of the divisions of the 7th Corps these operations were very laborious; between the new year and the middle of February St. Cyr calculated that his men had used up 2,000,000 cartridges in petty skirmishes, and suffered a very appreciable loss in operations that were practically worthless[81]. Accordingly he drew them closer together, in order to shorten the dangerously extended line of communication with Barcelona.

Reding, during this period of waiting, had been keeping quiet in Tarragona, where he was reorganizing and drilling the harassed troops which had been beaten at Cardadeu and Molins de Rey. He had, as we have already seen, received heavy reinforcements from the South[82] and the Balearic Isles[83]; but it was not in numbers only that his army had improved. St. Cyr’s inaction had restored their morale. They were too, as regards food and munitions, in a much better condition than their adversaries, as they could freely draw provisions from the plain[p. 77] of the Lower Ebro and the northern parts of Valencia, and were besides helped by corn brought in by British and Spanish vessels from the whole eastern Mediterranean. Reding had also got a good supply of arms and ammunition from England. As he found himself unmolested, he was finally able to rearrange his whole force, so as not only to cover Tarragona, but to extend a screen of troops all round the French position. He now divided his army into two wings: he himself, on the right, kept in hand at Tarragona the 1st Division, consisting mainly of the Granadan troops: while General Castro was sent to establish the head quarters of the 2nd Division, which contained most of the old battalions of the army of Catalonia, at Igualada. Their line of communication was by Santa Coloma, Sarreal, and Montblanch. This disposition was probably a mistake: while the French lay concentrated in the middle of the semicircle, the Spanish army was forced to operate on outer lines sixty miles long, and could not mass itself in less than three or four days. By a sudden movement of the enemy, either Reding or Castro might be assailed by superior numbers, and forced to fall back on an eccentric line of retreat before he could be succoured by his colleague.

It would seem that, encouraged by St. Cyr’s quiescence, his own growing strength, and the protestations of the Catalans, Reding had once more resolved to resume the offensive. The extension of his left to Igualada was made with no less ambitious a purpose than that of outflanking the northern wing of the French army, and then delivering a simultaneous concentric attack on its scattered divisions as they lay in their cantonments. Such a plan presupposed that St. Cyr would keep quiet while the preparations were being made, that he would fail to concentrate in time, and that the Spanish columns, operating from two distant bases, would succeed in timing their co-operation with perfect accuracy. At the best they could only have brought some 30,000 men against the 23,000 of St. Cyr’s field army—a superiority far from sufficient to give them a rational chance of success. It is probable that at this moment Reding’s best chance of doing something great for the cause of Spain would have been to leave a strong garrison in Tarragona, and march early in February with 20,000 men to the relief of Sara[p. 78]gossa, which was now drawing near the end of its powers of resistance. Lannes and Junot would have had to raise the siege if an army of such size had come up against them. But, though intending to succour Saragossa in a few weeks, Reding was induced by the constant entreaties of the Catalans to undertake first an expedition against St. Cyr. He sent off no troops to aid the Marquis of Lazan in his fruitless attempt to relax the pressure on his brother’s heroic garrison, but devoted all his attention to the 7th Corps.

St. Cyr was not an officer who was likely to be caught unprepared by such a movement as Reding had planned. The extension of the Spanish line to Igualada and the upper Llobregat had not escaped his notice, and he was fully aware of the advantage which his central position gave him over an enemy who had been obliging enough to draw out his fighting strength on an arc of a circle sixty miles from end to end. Without fully realizing Reding’s intentions, he could yet see that the Spaniards were giving him a grand opportunity of beating them in detail. He resolved to strike a blow at their northern wing, convinced that if he acted with sufficient swiftness and energy he could crush it long ere it could be succoured from Tarragona.

It thus came to pass that Reding and St. Cyr began to move simultaneously—the one on exterior, the other on interior lines—with the inevitable result. On February 15 Castro, in accordance with the instructions of the Captain-General, began to concentrate his troops at Igualada, with the intention of advancing against the French divisions at San Sadurni and Martorell. At the same time orders were sent to Alvarez, the Governor of Gerona, to detach all the men he could spare for a demonstration against Barcelona, in order to distract the attention of Duhesme and the garrison. Reding himself, with the troops at Tarragona, intended to march against Souham the moment that he should receive the news that his lieutenants were ready to strike.

At the same moment St. Cyr started out on his expedition against Igualada. He took with him Pino’s Italian division[84], and ordered Chabot and Chabran to concentrate with him at[p. 79] Capellades, seven or eight miles to the south-east of Castro’s head quarters. By taking this route he avoided the northern bank of the Noya and the defiles of Bruch, and approached the enemy from the side where he could most easily cut him off from reinforcements coming from Tarragona.

The concentration of the three French columns was not perfectly timed, those of Pino and Chabran finding their way far more difficult than did Chabot. It thus chanced that the latter with his skeleton division of three battalions, arrived in front of Capellades many hours before his colleagues. His approach was reported to Castro at Igualada, who sent down 4,000 men against him, attacked him, and beat him back with loss[85] into the arms of Pino, who came on the scene later in the day [Feb. 17]. The Spaniards were then forced to give back, and retired to Pobla de Claramunt on the banks of the Noya, where they were joined by most of Castro’s reserves. St. Cyr had now concentrated his three divisions, and hoped that he might bring the enemy to a pitched battle. He drew up in front of them all his force, save one of Pino’s brigades, which he sent to turn their right [Feb. 18]. The Spaniards, having a fine position behind a ravine, were at first inclined to fight, and skirmished with the enemy’s main body for some hours. They narrowly missed capturing both St. Cyr and Pino, who had ridden forward with their staff to reconnoitre, and fell into an ambush of miqueletes, from which they only escaped by the speed of their horses[86].

But late in the day the Spanish General received news that Mazzuchelli, with the detached Italian brigade, was already in his rear and marching hard for Igualada. He immediately evacuated his position in great disorder, and fell back on his head quarters, closely pursued by St. Cyr. The main body of the Spaniards, with their artillery, just succeeded in passing through Igualada before the Italians came up, and fled by the road to Cervera. The rear was cut off, and had to escape in another direction by the path leading to Manresa. Both[p. 80] columns were much hustled and lost many prisoners, yet they fairly outmarched their pursuers and got away without any crushing disaster[87]. But their great loss was that in Igualada the French seized all the magazines which had been collected from northern Catalonia for the use of Castro’s division. This relieved St. Cyr from all trouble as to provisions for many days: he had now food enough not only to provide for his field army, but to send back to Barcelona.

St. Cyr had now done all the harm that was in his power to the Spanish left wing—he had beaten them, seized their magazines, driven them apart, and broken their line. He imagined that they were disposed of for many days, and now resolved to turn off for a blow at Reding and the other half of the Catalonian army, who might meanwhile (for all that he knew) be attacking Souham with very superior numbers.

Accordingly on Feb. 19 he started off with Pino’s division to join Souham and fall upon Reding, leaving Chabot and Chabran, with all the artillery of the three divisions, to occupy Igualada and guard the captured magazines from any possible offensive return on the part of Castro. He marched by cross-roads along the foot-hills of the mountains of the great central Catalonian sierra, intending to descend into the valley of the Gaya by San Magin and the abbey of Santas Cruces, where (as he had learnt) lay the northernmost detachments of Reding’s division[88]. Thus he hoped to take the enemy in flank and beat him in detail. He sent orders to Souham to move out of Vendrell and meet him at Villarodo?a, half-way up the course of Gaya, unless he should have been already attacked by Reding and forced to take some other line.

At San Magin the French commander came upon some of Reding’s troops, about 1,200 men with two guns, under a brigadier named Iranzo. They showed fight, but were beaten[p. 81] and sought refuge further down the valley of the Gaya in the fortified abbey of Santas Cruces. So bare was the country-side, and so bad the maps, that St. Cyr found considerable difficulty in tracking them, and in discovering the best way down the valley. But next day he got upon their trail[89], and beset the abbey, which made a good defence and proved impregnable to a force unprovided with artillery. St. Cyr blockaded it for two days, and then descended into the plain, where he got in touch with Souham’s division, which had advanced from Vendrell, and was now pillaging the hamlets round Villarodo?a, in the central valley of the Gaya[90] [February 21].

Meanwhile Reding was at last on the move. On receiving the news of the combat of Igualada, he had to choose between the opportunity of making a counter-stroke at Souham, and that of marching to the aid of his lieutenant, Castro. He adopted the latter alternative, and started from Tarragona on February 20 with an escort of about 2,000 men, including nearly all his available cavalry[91]. It was his intention to pick up on the way the outlying northern brigades of his division. This he succeeded in doing, drawing in to himself the troops which were guarding the pass of Santa Cristina, and Iranzo’s detachment at Santas Cruces. This force, warned of his approach, broke through the blockade at night, and reached its chief with little or no loss [February 21]. Thus reinforced Reding pushed on by Sarreal to Santa Coloma, where Castro joined him with the rallied troops of his wing, whom he had collected when the French attack slackened. They had between them nearly 20,000 men, an imposing force, with which some of the officers present suggested that it would be possible to[p. 82] fall upon Igualada, crush Chabot and Chabran, and recover the lost magazines. But Reding was nervous about Tarragona, dreading lest St. Cyr might unite with Souham and fall upon the city during his absence. After holding a lengthy council of war[92] he determined to return to protect his base of operations. Accordingly, he told off the Swiss General Wimpffen, with some 4.000 or 5,000 of Castro’s troops, to observe the French divisions at Igualada, and started homeward with the rest of his army, about 10,000 infantry, 700 cavalry, and two batteries of field artillery[93].[p. 83] He had made up his mind to return by the route of Montblanch and Valls, one somewhat more remote from the position of St. Cyr on the Gaya than the way by Pla, which he had taken in setting out to join Castro. Reding could only have got home without fighting by taking a circuitous route to the east, via Selva and Reus: the suggestion that he should do so was made, but he replied that having baggage and artillery with him he was forced to keep to a high-road. He chose that by Valls, though he was aware that the place was occupied: but apparently he hoped to crush Souham before Pino could come to his aid. He was resolved, it is said, not to court a combat, but on the other hand not to refuse it if the enemy should offer to fight him on advantageous ground. [February 24.] The truth is, that he was bold even to rashness, could never forget the great day of Baylen, in which he had taken such a splendid part, and was anxious to wash out by a victory the evil memories of Cardadeu and Molins de Rey. He set out on the evening of February 24, and by daybreak next morning was drawing near the bridge of Goy, where the high-road to Tarragona crosses the river Francoli, some two miles north of the town of Valls. His troops, as was to be expected, were much exhausted by the long march in the darkness[94].

St. Cyr, meanwhile, had not been intending to strike a blow at Tarragona. He regarded it as much more necessary to beat the enemy’s field army than to close in upon the fortress, which would indubitably have offered a long and obstinate resistance. When he got news of Reding’s march to Santa Coloma he resolved to follow him: he was preparing to hasten to the succour of his divisions at Igualada, when he learnt that the Swiss general had turned back, and was hurrying home to Tarragona. He resolved, therefore, to try to intercept him on his return march, and blocked his two available roads by placing Souham’s division at Valls and Pino’s at Pla. They were only eight or nine miles apart, and whichever road the Spaniards took the unassailed French division could easily come to the aid of the other.

Reding’s night march, a move which St. Cyr does not seem to have foreseen, nearly enabled him to carry out his plan. In fact,[p. 84] as we shall see, he had almost made an end of the French division before the Marshal, who lay himself at Pla with the Italians, arrived to succour it[95].

In the early morning, between six and seven o’clock, the head of the long Spanish column reached the bridge of Goy, and there fell in with Souham’s vedettes. The sharp musketry fire which at once broke out warned each party that a combat was at hand. Souham hastily marched out from Valls, and drew up his two brigades in the plain to the north of the town, placing himself across the line of the enemy’s advance. Reding at first made up his mind to thrust aside the French division, whose force he somewhat undervalued, and to hurry on his march toward Tarragona. The whole of his advanced guard and part of his centre crossed the river, deployed on the left bank, and attacked the French. Souham held his ground for some hours, but as more and more Spanish battalions kept pressing across the bridge and reinforcing the enemy’s line, he began after a time to give way—the numerical odds were heavily against him, and the Catalans were fighting with great steadiness and confidence. Before noon the French division was thrust back against the town of Valls, and Reding had been able to file not only the greater part of his army but all his baggage across the Francoli. The way to Tarragona was clear, and if he had chosen to disengage his men he could have carried off the whole of his army to that city without molestation from Souham, who[p. 85] was too hard hit to wish to continue the combat. It is even possible that if he had hastily brought up all his reserves he might have completely routed the French detachment before it could have been succoured.

But Reding adopted neither one course nor the other. After driving back Souham, he allowed his men a long rest, probably in order to give the rear and the baggage time to complete the passage of the Francoli. While things were standing still, St. Cyr arrived at full gallop from Pla, where he had been lying with Pino’s division, to whom the news of the battle had arrived very late. He brought with him only Pino’s divisional cavalry, the ‘Dragoons of Napoleon’ and Royal Chasseurs, but had ordered the rest of the Italians to follow at full speed when they should have got together. As Pla is no more than eight miles from Valls, it was expected that they would appear within the space of three hours. But, as a matter of fact, Pino did not draw near till the afternoon: one of his brigades, which lay far out, received contradictory orders, and did not come in to Pla till past midday[96], and the Italian general would not move till it had rejoined him. Three hours were wasted by this contretemps, and meanwhile the battle might have been lost.

On arriving upon the field with the Italian cavalry, St. Cyr rode along Souham’s line, steadied it, and displayed the horsemen in his front. Seeing the French rallying, and new troops arriving to their aid, the Spanish commander jumped to the conclusion that St. Cyr had come up with very heavy reinforcements, and instead of continuing his advance, or pressing on his march toward Tarragona, suddenly changed his whole plan of operations. He would not stand to be attacked in the plain, but he resolved to fight a defensive action on the heights beyond the Francoli, from which he had descended in the morning. Accordingly, first his baggage, then his main body, and lastly his vanguard, which covered the retreat of the rest, slowly filed back over the bridge of Goy, and took position on the rolling hills to the east. Here Reding drew them up in two lines, with the river flowing at their feet as a front defence, and their batteries drawn up so as to sweep the bridge of Goy and the fords. The right wing was covered by a lateral ravine falling into the Francoli; the left, facing the[p. 86] village of Pixamoxons, was somewhat ‘in the air,’ but the whole position, if long, was good and eminently defensible.

St. Cyr observed his adversary’s movement with joy, for he would have been completely foiled if Reding had refused to fight and passed on toward Tarragona. Knowing the Spanish troops, a pitched battle with superior numbers was precisely what he most desired. Accordingly he took advantage of the long time of waiting, while Pino’s division was slowly drawing near the field, to rest and feed Souham’s tired troops, and then to draw them up facing the southern half of Reding’s position, with a vacant space on their right on which the Italians were to take up their ground, when at last they should arrive.

When St. Cyr had lain for nearly three hours quiescent at the foot of the heights, and no reinforcements had yet come in sight, Reding began to grow anxious. He had, as he now realized, retired with unnecessary haste from in front of a beaten force, and had assumed a defensive posture when he should have pressed the attack. At about three o’clock he made up his mind that he had committed an error, but thinking it too late to resume the fight, resolved to retire on Tarragona by the circuitous route which passes through the village of Costanti. He sent back General Marti to Tarragona to bring out fresh troops from the garrison to join him at that point, and issued orders that the army should retreat at dusk. He might perhaps have got off scatheless if he had moved away at once, though it is equally possible that St. Cyr might have fallen upon his rearguard with Souham’s division, and done him some damage. But he waited for the dark before marching, partly because he wished to rest his troops, who were desperately fatigued by the night march and the subsequent combat in the morning, partly because he did not despair of fighting a successful defensive action if St. Cyr should venture to cross the Francoli and attack him. Accordingly he lingered on the hillside in battle array, waiting for the darkness[97].

[p. 87]

This gave St. Cyr his chance; at three o’clock Pino’s belated division had begun to come up: first Fontane’s brigade, then, an hour and a half later, that of Mazzuchelli, whose absence from Pla had caused all the delay. It was long past four, and the winter afternoon was far spent when St. Cyr had at last got all his troops in hand.

Allowing barely enough time for the Italians to form in order of battle[98], St. Cyr now led forward his whole army to the banks of the Francoli. The two divisions formed four heavy columns of a brigade each: and in this massive formation forded the river and advanced uphill, driving in before them the Spanish skirmishers. The Italian dragoons went forward in the interval between two of the infantry columns; the French cavalry led the attack on the extreme right, near the bridge of Goy.

For a moment it seemed as if the two armies would actually cross bayonets all along the line, for the Spaniards stood firm and opened a regular and well-directed fire upon the advancing columns. But St. Cyr had not miscalculated the moral effect of the steady approach of the four great bodies of infantry which were now climbing the hill and drawing near to Reding’s front. Like so many other continental troops, who had striven on earlier battle-fields to bear up in line against the French column-formation, the Spaniards could not find heart to close with the formidable and threatening masses which were rolling in upon them. They delivered one last tremendous discharge at 100 yards’ distance, and then, when they saw the enemy looming through the smoke and closing upon them, broke in a dozen different places and went to the rear in helpless disorder, sweeping away the second line, higher up the hill, which[p. 88] ought to have sustained them. The only actual collision was on the extreme left, near the bridge of Goy, where Reding himself charged, with his staff, at the head of his cavalry, in a vain attempt to save the desperate situation. He was met in full career by the French 24th Dragoons, and thoroughly beaten. In the mêlée he was surrounded, three of his aides-de-camp were wounded[99] and taken, and he himself only cut his way out after receiving three sabre wounds on his head and shoulders, which ultimately proved fatal.

If there had not been many steep slopes and ravines behind the Spanish position, nearly the whole of Reding’s army must have perished or been captured. But the country-side was so difficult that the majority of the fugitives got away, though many were overtaken. The total loss of the Spaniards amounted to more than 3,000 men, of whom nearly half were prisoners[100]. All the guns of the defeated army, all its baggage, and several stands of colours fell into the hands of the victors. The French lost about 1,000 men, mostly in the early part of the engagement, when Souham’s division was driven back under the walls of Valls.
Map of part of Catalonia

Enlarge  PART of CATALONIA
TO ILLUSTRATE ST CYR’S CAMPAIGN
NOV. 1808 to MARCH 1809
Map of battle of Valls

Enlarge  BATTLE of VALLS
FEB. 25 1809

The Spaniards had not fought amiss: St. Cyr, in a dispatch to Berthier, acknowledges the fact—not in order to exalt the merit of his own troops, but to demonstrate that the 7th Corps was too weak for the task set it and required further reinforcements[101]. But Reding did not give his men a fair chance; he hurried them into the fight at the end of a long night march, drew them off just when they were victorious, and altered his plan of battle [p. 89]thrice in the course of the day. No army could have done itself justice with such bad leading.

The wrecks of the beaten force straggled into Tarragona, their spirits so depressed that it was a long time before it was possible to trust them again in battle. When they once more took the field it was under another leader, for Reding, after lingering some weeks, died of his wounds, leaving the reputation of a brave, honest, and humane officer, but of a very poor general.

St. Cyr utilized his victory merely by blockading Tarragona. He moved Souham to Reus, and kept Pino at Valls, each throwing out detachments as far as the sea, so as to cut off the city from all its communications with the interior. An epidemic had broken out in the place, in consequence of the masses of ill-attended wounded who cumbered the hospitals. It would seem that the French General hoped that the pestilence might turn the hearts of the garrison towards surrender. If so, he was much deceived: they bore their ills with stolid patience, and being always victualled from the sea suffered no practical inconvenience from the blockade. It seems indeed that St. Cyr would have done far better to use the breathing time which he won at the battle of Valls for the commencement of a movement against Gerona. Till that place should be captured, and the high-road to Perpignan opened, there was no real security for the 7th Corps. Long months, however, were to elapse before this necessary operation was taken in hand.