SECTION XVIII: CHAPTER II

THE CONQUEST OF ANDALUSIA. KING JOSEPH AND HIS PLANS

When considering the action of the French after the victory of Oca?a, it is necessary to remember that King Joseph and Soult were not in the position of ordinary invaders, who have just succeeded in demolishing the last army of their enemy. In wars of a normal type the victor knows that the vanquished will sue for terms when further resistance appears hopeless; he proceeds to dictate the cessions of territory or payments of indemnities that he thinks proper, as the price of peace. But it was not a profitable treaty which Napoleon desired: he had put it out of his own power to end the war in such a fashion, when he declared his brother King of Spain. For him there was no Spanish government in existence save that which he had set up at Madrid: the Central Junta, and the Cortes when it should meet, were mere illegal assemblies, with which he could not deign to enter into negotiations. It was now perfectly clear that the Spaniards would never submit of their own accord. Their position in December 1809, desperate as it might be, was no worse than it had been in the March of the same year. Areizaga’s army had suffered no more at Oca?a than had those of Cuesta and Cartaojal nine months before, on the disastrous fields of Medellin and Ciudad Real. Indeed, there were probably more men actually in line to defend Andalusia in December than there had been in April. Moreover, in the early spring Soult had been in the full career of conquest in Portugal, and nothing save Cradock’s insignificant force appeared to prevent his onward march to Lisbon. At mid-winter, on the other hand, the flank of Andalusia was covered by Wellington’s victorious army, and by the reorganized Portuguese host of Beresford. If the Junta had refused to listen to the insidious advances of Sotelo in April[113], there was no reason[p. 115] to suppose that it would lend a ready ear to any similar advocate of submission in December. Indeed, its every action showed a resolve to fight out the losing game to the end.

Joseph Bonaparte would never be King of Spain till every province was held down by French bayonets. Not only must each corner of the land be conquered, but after conquest it must be garrisoned. For, where there was no garrison, insurrection burst out at once, and the weary process of pacification had to be repeated.

It was this last fact that restrained King Joseph from following up his pursuit of the wrecks of the Spanish army to the Sierra Morena, and the gates of Seville, on the morning after Oca?a. To make up the host that had defeated Areizaga, and the other smaller force that was dealing with Del Parque in Leon, the King had been forced to concentrate all his divisions, and the consequence had been that the control of the broad tracts behind him had been lost. We have already had occasion to mention[114] that throughout Old Castile and Leon, the open country was now in the hands of the guerrilleros, who had been growing in force and numbers ever since the time of Talavera, and had risen to the height of their confidence after the day of Tamames, and Del Parque’s repeated occupation of Salamanca. Navarre, and many parts of New Castile were equally disturbed, and Aragon, which Suchet had tamed during the autumn, was beginning once more to move. There were no French troops in the disturbed regions save scanty garrisons at Burgos, Valladolid, Benavente, Avila, Segovia, Guadalajara, Palencia, Tudela, Tafalla, and a few other strategic points. These were cut off from each other, and from Madrid, save when a governor sent out his messenger with an escort many hundreds strong, and even such a force had often to fight its way through half a dozen bands before reaching its destination. The garrisons themselves were not always safe: so powerful were the bands of some of the guerrillero chiefs that they aspired to waging regular war, and did not confine themselves to blocking the roads, or intercepting couriers and convoys. The Empecinado, whose sphere of activity lay on the borders of Old and New Castile, got possession of Guadalajara for a day, though he retired when[p. 116] reinforcements from Madrid were reported to be approaching. Somewhat later, the younger Mina—‘the Student,’ as he was called to distinguish him from his more celebrated uncle Espoz, stormed the town of Tafalla, and shut up the remains of its garrison in its castle, while the flying-columns of the governor of Navarre were seeking him in every other direction. He too, like the Empecinado, had to seek safety in retreat and dispersion, when his exploit drew in upon him forces sent from Suchet’s army of Aragon.

The activity of the guerrilleros did not merely constitute a military danger for King Joseph. It affected him in another, and an equally vexatious, fashion, by cutting off nearly all his sources of revenue. While the open country was in the hands of the insurgents, he could raise neither imposts nor requisitions from it. The only regular income that he could procure during the later months of 1809 was that which came in from the local taxes of Madrid, and the few other large towns of which he was in secure possession. And save in the capital itself, his agents and intendants had to fight hard with the military governors to secure even this meagre pittance[115]. The King could not command a quarter of the sum which he required to pay the ordinary expenses of government. His courtiers and ministers, French and Spanish, failed to receive their salaries, and the Spanish army, which he was busily striving to form, could not be clothed or armed, much less paid. Nothing vexed Joseph more than this: he wished to make himself independent of his brother’s generals, by raising a large force of his own, which should be at his personal disposition. He formed the cadre of regiment after regiment, and filled them with deserters from the foreign troops of the Junta, and with any prisoners who could be induced to enlist under his banners in order to avoid transportation to France. But the recruits, when sent to join the new regiments, disappeared for the most part within a few weeks. Joseph thought that it was from lack of pay and proper sustenance, and raged at the idea that, but for the want[p. 117] of money, he might have at his disposition a formidable army of his own. But he deceived himself: the ‘juramentados’ had for the most part no desire save to desert and rejoin their old colours: the real renegades were few. In the ranks of the Junta’s army the soldier was even worse clothed, fed, and paid than in that of Joseph. No amount of pampering would have turned the King’s Spanish levies into loyal servants.

Pending the reduction to order of the country-side of the two Castiles, which he vainly hoped to see accomplished during the next six months, Joseph found only one expedient for raising money. It was a ruinous one, and could not be repeated. This was the confiscation of property belonging to all persons who were in the service of the Junta, and of all the religious orders. This would have given him vast sums, if only he could have found buyers. But it was not easy to persuade any one to pay ready cash for lands overrun by the guerrilleros, or for houses in towns which were practically in a state of siege, and were also subject to a grinding taxation. Property of immense value had to be alienated for wholly inadequate sums. The afrancesados, whom Joseph was most anxious to conciliate, got such payment as he could afford, mainly in the form of vain grants of property which they could not turn to account. The only ready money which was in circulation was that which came from the coining down, at the Madrid mint, of the considerable amount of plate belonging to the monasteries and the churches on which the King had laid hands. Naturally, he was regarded as a sacrilegious robber by his unwilling subjects—though few, or none, murmured when the Central Junta filled its exchequer by similar expedients. But the Junta had not decreed the abolition of the religious orders—it only purported to be raising a patriotic loan from their resources. A minister of Joseph sums up the situation sufficiently well in three sentences. ‘Spanish public opinion was inexorable: it rejected everything coming from us—even benefits: thus the King and his councillors spent themselves in fruitless labours. Nothing answered their expectations, and the void in the Treasury, the worst danger, showed no sign of diminution. On the contrary, the financial distress increased every day, and the unpleasant means which we were compelled to employ in order to supply the[p. 118] never-ceasing wants of the army completely alienated the nation from us[116].’

The orders issued by the King and Soult after the battle of Oca?a, show that they had no immediate intention of pursuing Areizaga’s routed host, and entering Andalusia at its heels—tempting though such a policy might be from the purely military point of view. After Victor and the 1st Corps had joined him, on the day following the battle, Joseph had nearly 60,000 men in hand. But his first move was to disperse this formidable army: Gazan’s division of Mortier’s corps was at once hurried off towards the north, to reinforce Kellermann in Leon—for the battle of Alba de Tormes had not yet taken place, and it was thought that the 6th Corps needed prompt assistance. Laval’s division of Sebastiani’s corps was detached in another direction, being told off to escort to Madrid, and afterwards to Burgos and Vittoria, the vast mass of prisoners taken at Oca?a. Milhaud, with his own dragoons, and an infantry brigade taken from Sebastiani’s corps, was directed to push eastwards by way of Tarancon, and then to march on Cuenca, where it was reported that many of the fugitives from Areizaga’s army had rallied. The brigade of Dessolles’ division which had been present at Oca?a and Joseph’s own troops returned to Madrid, in company with their master. When the capital was again adequately garrisoned, numerous flying-columns were sent out from it, to clear the roads, and disperse the guerrilleros. Mortier, with that part of the 5th Corps which had not been detached under Gazan, was drawn back to Toledo. Thus of all the troops which had been concentrated on November 20th, only Victor’s corps and the Polish division, with the cavalry brigade of the 4th Corps, were retained in La Mancha, facing the Sierra Morena. The 1st Corps was pushed forward to Ciudad Real and its neighbourhood, with its advanced cavalry watching the passes. The Poles remained at Oca?a and La Guardia, with Perreymond’s three regiments of light horse in front of them at Madridejos[117].

[p. 119]

In the dispatch which detailed to the Minister of War at Paris this disposition of the army, Soult explained his reasons for holding back. It was a more pressing necessity to restore order in the provinces of the interior than to pursue the wrecks of Areizaga’s force, which was so completely dispersed that no further danger need be feared from it. Before undertaking any large general scheme of operation, the King thought it best to consult his imperial brother as to his wishes. It was rumoured that Napoleon himself might appear on the scene within a few weeks, and it was certain that the first columns of reinforcements from Germany, which might prove to be the heralds of his approach, were just about to cross the Bidassoa. Moreover, it would be prudent to discover what had become of Albuquerque and of the English, before any great move to the southward was made, as also to make an end of the army of Del Parque, by means of the reinforcements which had just been sent to Kellermann[118].

Within three weeks the situation had changed, and many of the reasons which had induced the King and Soult to adopt a waiting policy had disappeared. On November 28th, as we have already seen, Kellermann routed Del Parque at Alba de Tormes, though he had not yet received the succours which Gazan was bringing up to his aid. The Army of the Left[p. 120] being no longer a source of danger, Kellermann not only sent orders to Gazan—who had reached Segovia—to return to New Castile, since he was no longer wanted in the North, but presently sent back to the King Rey’s brigade of Dessolles’ division which had been lent him early in November. Thus 10,000 men who had been detached came back under the King’s control[119], and were once more available for offensive operations.

Still more important was the fact that in the first days of December the reinforcements from Germany had at last begun to cross the Pyrenees, and were arriving in Navarre and Biscay in enormous numbers. Two strong divisions, commanded by Loison and Reynier and counting more than 20,000 bayonets, had already appeared, and the head of the interminable column which followed them had reached Bayonne. It was certain that at least 90,000 men were on the march, to fill up the void in Old Castile which had been causing the King and Soult so much trouble. The roads would soon be cleared, the isolated garrisons relieved, and the communications with Madrid made safe. The newly arrived generals had received orders to sweep every valley on their southward march, and to disperse every band of guerrilleros[120]. Another possible source of danger, which had preoccupied the minds of Joseph and his Major-general after Oca?a, had also been removed. The English had made no forward movement towards the Tagus; they were reported to be still quiescent at Badajoz, and rumours (which afterwards turned out to be correct) had already reached the French head quarters, to the effect that Wellington was just about to retire into Portugal. Moreover, Milhaud’s expedition to Tarancon and Cuenca, and the excursions of the flying-columns sent out from Madrid, had all proved successful. The insurgents had been dispersed with ease, wherever they had been met with.

Of all the reasons for delay which were valid on November 20th there was now none left unremoved save the most impor[p. 121]tant of all. The Emperor had not yet made his intentions known; though pressed to declare his will by every letter sent by his brother or by Soult, he gave no answer as to a general plan of campaign. Several of his dispatches had reached Madrid: they were full of details as to the troops which he was sending across the Pyrenees, they contained some advice as to finance, and some rebukes for the King concerning petty matters of administration[121], but there was no permission, still less any order, to invade Andalusia or Portugal; nor did Napoleon deign to state that he was, or was not, coming to Spain in person. It was only when Joseph received the first dispatch opening up the matter of the divorce of Josephine[122], that he was able to guess that, with such an affair on hand, his brother would not set out for the Peninsula during the winter or the early spring.

By the middle of December Joseph had made up his mind that it would be politic to attack Andalusia without delay. He had won over Soult to his ideas—the Marshal having now abandoned the plan, which he had urged so strongly in the autumn, that Lisbon not Seville should be the objective of the next French advance. It is easy to understand the King’s point of view—he wished rather to complete the conquest of his own realm, by subduing its wealthiest and most populous province, than to do his brother’s work in Portugal, where he had no personal interest. It is less obvious why Soult concurred with him—as a great strategist he should have envisaged the situation from the military rather than the political point of view. Apparently Joseph had won him over by giving him all that he asked, and treating him with effusive courtesy: their old quarrels of the preceding summer had been entirely forgotten. At any rate Soult had now become the ardent advocate of the invasion of Andalusia, though—as his predecessor Jourdan tersely puts it—‘the English army being now the only organized force in a state to face the imperial troops, and its presence in the Peninsula being the thing that sustained the Spanish government and[p. 122] gave confidence to the Spanish people, I imagine that we ought to have set ourselves to destroy that army, rather than to have disseminated our troops in garrisoning the whole surface of Spain[123].’ The same thought was in the Emperor’s mind when he wrote in January—too late to stop the Andalusian expedition—that ‘the only danger in Spain is the English army; the rest are partisans who can never hold the field against us[124].’

On the 14th of December, 1809, Soult at last made a formal appeal, in a dispatch to Berthier, for leave to commence the march on Seville. ‘At no time since the Spanish War began,’ he wrote, ‘have circumstances been so favourable for invading Andalusia, and it is probable that such a movement would have the most advantageous results. I have already informed your Excellency that preparations would be made for this movement, while we waited for his Majesty to deign to make known to us his supreme will.’ Soult adds that if only Loison’s division of the reinforcements may be brought up to Burgos, and a second division sent to Saragossa, in order to free Suchet for field service, the invasion can be begun, as soon as the army in New Castile has completed its equipment and received its drafts.

No direct reply was received to this dispatch, nor to several subsequent communications, in which Soult and Joseph set forth the arrangements which they were making, always subject to the Imperial approval, for concentrating an army for the Andalusian expedition. Strange as it may appear, it was only in a letter written on January 31, 1810, when the King had already crossed the Sierra Morena, that Napoleon vouchsafed a word concerning the all-important problem[125]. It is clear that he had ample time to have stopped it, if such had been[p. 123] his will; the ultimate responsibility, therefore, lay with him. But he refrained from ordering it, or from approving it, thus reserving to himself all the possibilities of ex-post-facto criticism. Since no prohibition came, Joseph made up his mind to strike; it was natural that he should be fascinated by the idea of conquering in person the one great province of Spain which remained intact. A brilliant campaign, in which he would figure as commander-in-chief as well as king, might at last convince the Spaniards of his capacity. He was prepared to play the part of a merciful and generous conqueror. At the worst the revenues of the wealthy Andalusia would be a godsend to his depleted treasury.

Two plans were drawn up for the invasion. The first was more cautious, and more consonant with the strict rules of strategy. The second was bolder and promised more immediate results. According to the first the King was to concentrate his main army in La Mancha, and to threaten the passes, while two great flanking columns carried out the preliminary conquest of Estremadura and Valencia. Mortier was to march with the 5th and 2nd Corps upon Badajoz, to crush Albuquerque, and to occupy the valley of the Guadiana. Simultaneously Suchet was to make a push from Aragon into Valencia with the bulk of his corps, while his place at Saragossa was to be taken by a large force drawn from the newly-arrived reinforcements from France. Only when Badajoz and Valencia had fallen, and Suchet and Mortier could advance parallel with him on either flank, was the King to march against Seville. The weak point of the scheme was that either Badajoz or Valencia might make a long resistance; if their garrisons fought like that of Gerona the central advance on Andalusia might be delayed for an indefinite time.

The second plan, the one that was adopted, was to leave the 2nd Corps alone to watch Albuquerque and Estremadura, to order Suchet to advance against Valencia, but to strike straight at Seville, without waiting for the completion of either the Estremaduran or the Valencian operations. In the original draft for this campaign[126], nearly the whole of the King’s army[p. 124] was to concentrate at Almaden and Ciudad Real, and from thence to strike straight at Cordova, by the difficult and little-used passes of the central Sierra Morena. Meanwhile Sebastiani, with no more than a single infantry division and Milhaud’s dragoons, was to demonstrate against the main group of passes in front of La Carolina, along the line of the high-road from Madrid, so as to distract the attention of the Spaniards from the real point of attack. More than 50,000 men were to descend suddenly on Cordova, for the whole of the 1st and 5th Corps, Dessolles’ Reserve division, the King’s Guard, and Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons, were to march in a mass by the unexpected route via Almaden, Villanueva de la Jara, and Adamuz. The Spanish centre would undoubtedly be broken, and it was probable that Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz would be carried by the first rush, for Areizaga’s army would be cut off from them and driven eastward towards Murcia.

The plan, an admirable one from the point of view of strategy, had to be abandoned, for it was found that the country between Almaden and Cordova was so absolutely barren and uninhabited, and the roads so bad, that it would be impossible to carry a very large body of troops across it at mid-winter. It was doubtful whether the passes were practicable for artillery; it was certain that no food could be obtained, and the train required to carry rations for 50,000 men would be so large and heavy that it would probably stick fast in the mountains.

On January 11, when Mortier, Dessolles, and the rest of the army had already moved out of their cantonments and taken the road for La Mancha, the revised draft of the plan of campaign was issued. It was inferior in unity of conception to the first plan, and did not seem likely to produce such good results; but it had the merit of being practicable. By this scheme Victor alone was to march on Cordova, with the 22,000 men of the 1st Corps: he was to endeavour to take his artillery with him, but if the passes proved too rough, he was to send it back by Almaden to join the main army. Mortier, Dessolles, Sebastiani, Milhaud, and the King’s Reserves were to strike at the group of passes in front of La Carolina, and to drive the Spaniards out of them: it was hoped that they would thrust Areizaga’s host into the arms of Victor, who would be descending into the valley of the[p. 125] Guadalquivir just in time to meet the enemy retiring from the defiles. For this operation the King was to take with him rather more than 40,000 men.

It may be remarked that this plan divided the French army into two separate columns entirely destitute of lateral communications, and that, if the Spaniards had been stronger, considerable danger would have been incurred. Areizaga might have concentrated every man against one or other of the columns, and have brought it to a stand, while merely observing the other. But to do so he would have required a far larger force than he actually possessed: he had, as we have seen, only 23,000 men under arms, and even if he collected every available bayonet in one mass, either half of the French army was strong enough to meet and to beat him. The King, therefore, was running no real risk when he divided up his troops. As a matter of fact, Areizaga had made matters easy for the enemy, by splitting his small and dilapidated host into three sections—Zerain, with 4,500 men only, was on Victor’s road; the head quarters, with 13,000 men, were at La Carolina opposite the King; Vigodet with 6,000, was far to the right in the eastern passes[127]. Disaster was inevitable from the first moment of the campaign.

On January 7 King Joseph and Soult moved out from Madrid in the wake of the columns of Dessolles and the Royal Guard, which had already started. On the 8th they were at Toledo, on the 11th at Almagro, near Ciudad Real; here they conferred with Victor, and, in consequence of his reports concerning the state of the passes in the direction of Cordova, recast their plans, and adopted the scheme of operations which has just been detailed. On the following day Victor and his corps marched from Ciudad Real for Almaden, to carry out the great turning movement. The main army waited for six days to allow him to get far forward on his rugged route, and only on the 18th started out to deliver the frontal attack on the Despe?a-Perros and the other passes in front of La Carolina.

It may be mentioned that Joseph had left behind him to garrison Madrid the French division of the 4th Corps[128], and not[p. 126] Dessolles’ troops, who had been wont to occupy the capital during the earlier operations. Both Dessolles’ and Joseph’s own reserves, his Royal Guard and a strong brigade of his newly-raised Spanish army, joined in the invasion. Since the German division of the 4th Corps was still absent, escorting the prisoners of Oca?a, it resulted that Sebastiani had with him only his Polish division, his cavalry, and some details sufficient to muster up a total of just 10,000 men. His corps was never properly reassembled during the whole of the rest of the war, as some of the regiments which he now left behind never rejoined him in Andalusia, but were left in garrison in New Castile till 1812, and practically became part of the ‘Army of the Centre.’

Besides the garrison of Madrid, Joseph left to cover his rear the whole 2nd Corps, still under the provisional command of Heudelet, which lay at Talavera and was charged to watch Albuquerque. If the rumour of the departure of the English from Badajoz were true, there would be no danger in this quarter. But Joseph was not yet quite certain that Wellington had retired into Portugal. The only serious preoccupation which vexed his mind, at the moment when he was preparing to attack, was the idea that the English might still come up by Truxillo and join Albuquerque in a raid on Madrid. Heudelet, the constant purveyor of false information, did his best to scare his master on January 13, by sending him a report that Wellington was still at Badajoz with 23,000 men[129]. But later and more trustworthy news from other quarters, showing that the English army had marched off for Abrantes long before Christmas, at last set the King’s mind at rest on this all-important topic.

There was nothing to be feared from the west when Wellington had taken his departure. Albuquerque’s small force was powerless, and if Del Parque moved down from the Sierra de Francia into the valley of the Tagus, the 6th Corps could make a corre[p. 127]sponding movement. Ney had now returned to take command at Salamanca, and the confidence of his troops, shaken somewhat by Marchand’s incapable leadership, was now restored. Behind Ney and Kellermann were the innumerable battalions of the new reinforcements from Germany, the head of whose column had now reached Burgos. The King’s rear, therefore, was well guarded when he began his great offensive movement against Andalusia.