SECTION XVIII: CHAPTER III

ANDALUSIA OVERRUN: CADIZ PRESERVED. JANUARY–FEBRUARY 1810

On the 19th of January, 1810, the unfortunate Areizaga began to receive from all quarters dispatches which left him no doubt that the fatal hour had arrived, and that the whole of his line, from Villamanrique on the east to Almaden on the west, was about to be assailed by the enemy. From every point on his front of 150 miles, his subordinates sent him in reports to the effect that strong hostile columns had come up, and had thrust in their outposts. Indeed, Zerain, from his remote cantonment on the extreme left, had announced that an overwhelming force, coming from the direction of Ciudad Real, had beaten him out of the town of Almaden as early as the 15th, and had compelled him to retire towards the south-west, leaving the direct road to Cordova uncovered. This was, of course, the corps of Victor, whose flanking movement was already threatening to cut the line of communication between La Carolina and Seville. But it would take some days for the 1st Corps to pass the rugged defiles of the Sierra de Los Pedroches, which lie between Almaden and the valley of the Guadalquivir. An even more pressing danger seemed to be foreshadowed from the less-remote right of the Spanish line, where Vigodet reported, from the pass of Villamanrique, that he had been driven in to his final fighting position at Montizon, by a French column marching up from Villanueva de los Infantes. In the centre, the enemy had advanced to Santa Cruz de la Mudela, where the roads to all the group of passes about the Despe?a-Perros branch off, but had not yet shown how many of them he intended to use. Areizaga could not determine whether some of the French movements were mere demonstrations, or whether every one of them portended a real attack on the morrow. Zerain was too far off to be helped; but Vigodet’s demands for assistance were so pressing that the Commander-in-Chief sent off to his aid,[p. 129] on the night of the 19th, the one division which he had hitherto kept in reserve at La Carolina, the 4,000 bayonets of Castejon. This left him only three divisions—those of Zayas, Lacy, and Giron, not more than 9,000 men in all, to defend the high-road to Madrid and the subsidiary passes on its immediate flank.
Map of Andalusia

Enlarge  ANDALUSIA,
to illustrate the Campaign of 1810.

As a matter of fact, the appearance of the French advanced guards implied a genuine attack at every possible point of access. King Joseph had resolved to carry the whole of the defiles by a simultaneous onslaught on the morning of the 20th. His policy seems to have been one of very doubtful wisdom, for it would have been as effective to pierce the Spanish line at one point as at four, and he could have concentrated an overwhelming force, and have been absolutely certain of success, if he had launched his main body at one objective, while demonstrating against the rest. He had preferred, however, to cut up his army into four columns, each of which assailed a different pass. Sebastiani, on the extreme French left, separated by a gap of twenty miles from the main column, was the enemy who had driven in Vigodet at the opening of the Villamanrique pass. He had with him the remains of his own 4th Corps—of which such a large proportion had been left behind in New Castile,—a body of about 10,000 men[130]. His orders were to force the defile in his front, and to descend into the plain in the rear of the Spanish centre, by way of Ubeda and Linares, so as to cut off the enemy’s retreat towards Murcia, and to envelop him if he should hold the Despe?a-Perros too long.

Next to Sebastiani in the French line was a column composed of Girard’s division of the 5th Corps, the King’s Guards, and the Spanish regiments in Joseph’s service[131]. It was nearly 14,000 strong, and advanced straight up the Madrid chaussée, aiming at the Despe?a-Perros and the Spanish centre. If the enemy should fight well, and if the flanking movements should[p. 130] fail, this column would have the hardest work before it: for, unlike the minor passes to east and west, the Despe?a-Perros becomes in its central length a narrow and precipitous defile, easily capable of defence. The Spaniards had run entrenchments across it, and had mined the road at more than one point. But its fatal weakness lay in the fact that the by-paths from the western passes descend into it to the rear of the point where these obstructions had been placed. If they were seized by the advancing French, the fortifications across the chaussée would prove a mere trap for the troops which held them.

Mortier, with Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps and Dessolles’ troops, about 15,000 strong, was told off to assail these flanking defiles on the Spanish left[132]. The two passes are the Puerto del Rey and the Puerto del Muradal. The former got its name from Alfonso VIII, who in 1212 had turned the position of the Almohad Sultan Mohammed-abu-Yakub by this route, and so forced him to the decisive battle of Navas de Tolosa, a few miles to the rear. In 1810 it was a tortuous and rough road, but practicable for artillery: the slopes on either side of it, moreover, were not inaccessible to infantry. A mile or two to its left, nearer the Despe?a-Perros, was the still rougher path of the Puerto del Muradal, which was practicable for infantry but not for guns. Between this defile and the entrenchments across the Madrid chaussée, the crest of the Sierra was accessible to troops advancing in loose order and prepared for a stiff climb: the Spanish engineers had therefore placed a large earthwork on its culminating point, known as the Collado de Valdeazores. Giron’s weak division of no more than 3,200 bayonets was entrusted with the defence both of the Puerto del Rey and the Puerto del Muradal. Those of Lacy and Zayas, about 5,000 in all, held the Despe?a-Perros and the entrenchments on each side of it. Areizaga lay behind them, with a reserve of 1,000 men at most—having sent off Castejon and his division to join Vigodet on the preceding night, he had no more with him than his personal guard, the ‘Batallón del General’, and some detached companies.

Mortier, like the good general that he was, did not confine[p. 131] his operations to an attack against the narrow fronts of the two passes, but assailed the rough hillside on each side of them, sending out whole battalions deployed as skirmishers to climb the slopes. Of Gazan’s division, one brigade marched against the Puerto del Muradal, but the other went up, in open order, on the space between the Puerto and the Spanish redoubt at the Collado de Valdeazores. Similarly, Dessolles attacked the Puerto del Rey with a few battalions, but sent the rest up the less formidable portions of the flanking slopes. Girard and the King’s Reserves, meanwhile, did not press their attack on the Despe?a-Perros, till the troops on their right had already begun to drive the enemy before them.

The results of these tactics might have been foreseen from the first: Giron’s 3,200 men, attacked by 15,000, were driven in at a pace that ever grew more rapid. They could not defend the passes, because the slopes on each side were turned by the enemy. Their line was broken in two or three places, and they fled in haste down the rear of the Sierra, to escape being captured by flanking detachments which were pushing on at full speed to head them off. The moment that the Despe?a-Perros was turned by Mortier’s movement, the troops occupying it had to retreat at headlong speed, just as Girard was commencing his attack on them. All did not retire with sufficient promptness: the battalion in a redoubt on the Collado de los Jardines, on the right flank of the high-road, was cut off and captured en masse. All the guns in the pass were taken, there being no time to get them away down the steep road in their rear. After two hours of scrambling rather than fighting, the main passages of the Sierra Morena were in the hands of the French. The mines on the high-road had been fired when the retreat was ordered, but did not wreck the chaussée in such a way as to prevent the enemy from pursuing. The losses of the Spaniards were no more than a few hundreds killed and wounded, and 500 prisoners; those of the French were less than 100 in all[133]. There had, in truth, been hardly the semblance of a battle.

[p. 132]

The full results of the disaster were only developed next day: the troops which had defended the central passes escaped, though in dreadful disorder. But those further to their right were destined to a worse fate. While Mortier and the King were forcing the great defiles, Sebastiani had been fighting all day with Vigodet, in the defiles about Montizon and St. Esteban del Puerto. He had no such superiority in numbers over his enemy as had the King on the main field of operations[134], hence his progress was slower, and his victory, though complete, was not so prompt and crushing. Vigodet and his 6,000 men were dispersed by the afternoon, and fled down the valley of the Guadalen towards the plains, with Sebastiani’s cavalry in pursuit. Having fought much longer than Lacy and Giron, their losses were heavier than those of the central division—probably 1,000 killed, wounded, or taken. Shortly after, there appeared on the scene, moving along the steep hill-path from La Carolina, the Spanish division of Castejon, which had been sent off on the previous night to support Vigodet. It found the St. Esteban position in the possession of the French, and turned hastily back to rejoin Areizaga. But, while it had been on the march, the Commander-in-Chief and his army had been routed, and La Carolina was in the hands of the French. Castejon found himself enclosed between Sebastiani and the King, in a most perilous position. On the morning of the 21st, he tried to escape by the by-path to Linares, but on arriving near that place found that Mortier’s troops were already across his road. A brigade of Sebastiani’s corps was in hot pursuit in his rear, and Castejon, seeing himself thus enclosed, surrendered at Arquillos, with his whole intact division of over 4,000 men and ten guns.

Already, before the capture of this Spanish corps, the King and Sebastiani had joined hands, their reconnoitring parties having met in the valley of the Guadalen. On learning of the complete success of both columns, Joseph and Soult resolved to urge the pursuit in two separate directions. Sebastiani was told[p. 133] to push forward by way of Ubeda and Baeza to Jaen, while the main column marched by Baylen on Andujar and Cordova. It was hoped that news of Victor would soon be received: if all had gone well, he would have reached the Guadalquivir somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cordova, so as to be in the rear of any Spanish force that might have retreated from La Carolina in the direction of Seville.

As a matter of fact, however, both Vigodet and also Areizaga with the wreck of the troops from the central passes, had abandoned any hope of covering Seville, and had retreated southwards on Jaen. There was no force whatever left upon the Cordova road, and the King met no resistance upon the 22nd or the 23rd. On the latter day Sebastiani, arriving in front of Jaen, found the Spanish commander-in-chief with some 7,000 or 8,000 men prepared to defend the town. He attacked at once, and routed these dispirited troops, who made little or no show of resistance. Practically the whole force went to pieces: the French captured forty-six guns, mostly those of the reserve-park of the Army of Andalusia, which had been deposited in Jaen. Of the wrecks of that unhappy force, Areizaga carried off a small remnant to Guadix in the eastern mountains, near the borders of Murcia. Lacy, with another fraction, retired on Granada. But the large majority had left their colours, and dispersed to their homes.

King Joseph and Soult meanwhile, advancing unopposed along the high-road to Cordova and Seville, got into touch at Andujar with the advanced cavalry of Victor on the night of the 22nd of January. The march of the 1st Corps had been toilsome in the extreme, but almost unopposed save by the difficulties of the road. After driving Zerain’s little detachment out of Almaden on the 15th, they had hardly seen an enemy. Zerain and his colleague Copons had retired by the road towards Seville south-westward. Victor, though he sent out flying parties of cavalry to threaten Benalcazar and Hinojosa, to his right, had really pushed further to the left, on the easternmost of the two rough passes which lead to Cordova. The day after leaving Almaden he had sent his artillery back to La Mancha, the dilapidated and abandoned road to which he had committed himself proving absolutely impracticable for anything that[p. 134] travelled on wheels. But he pushed on with his infantry and horsemen, and passing Santa Eufemia, Torrecampo and Villanueva de la Jara, came down into the plain of the Guadalquivir at Adamuz, fifteen miles to the east of Cordova, on January 21st, the day after Soult and King Joseph had forced the Despe?a Perros and the Puerto del Rey. Wishing to get into touch with them before attacking Cordova, he halted his infantry, but sent out his cavalry to the gates of that city on the one side, and on the other to Montoro and Andujar, where they met the vedettes of the main army on the evening of the 22nd. Thus the French host was once more concentrated: the march on Seville could be continued without delay. Victor now became the advanced guard: he entered Cordova, which opened its gates without resistance, on the 24th. There was no Spanish force in front of the French army, since Zerain and Copons had retired towards Seville by a road far to the west, while the wrecks of Areizaga’s army had been driven off in a south-easterly direction.

Soult and King Joseph, therefore, had leisure to plan out the remainder of their campaign without any disturbance from the enemy. On the 25th[135] they resolved to detach Sebastiani and his 10,000 men for the conquest of Granada, to leave Dessolles’ division at Cordova and Andujar, but to march on Seville in a single mass with the remaining 50,000 sabres and bayonets of the Army of Andalusia. The desire to seize the capital from which the Junta had so long defied him, seems to have mastered every other idea in the mind of the intrusive King. The rebel government should be captured, or at least forced to take refuge in Portugal or the sea. Then at last the provinces would submit, the regular armies would lay down their arms, the guerrillero bands would disperse to their homes, and he might reign as a real king, not as the mere tool of his imperious brother. The capture of Seville would be the last act but one of the drama: after that he would become the national monarch of a submissive people, and carry out all the schemes of vague benevolence on which his mind was wont to dwell in his more hopeful hours. That the resistance would continue, even if Seville were his own[p. 135] and the Junta were scattered and discredited, he did not dream. And Seville, he knew, must fall; to defend it there could be, as he concluded, nothing but a half-armed mob, backed by the few thousand dispirited soldiers who had fled before Victor from the western section of the Sierra Morena. Even if the rebel capital made itself a second Saragossa, he had at his disposal an army double the strength of that which had reduced the obstinate Aragonese city.

In subsequent years critics, wise after the event, never tired of declaiming against the policy which Joseph and Soult approved on January 25, 1810. It was easy in 1811 or 1812 to point out that a division or two might have been spared from the victorious army to execute a march upon Cadiz, while the main force was dealing with Seville. The island-fortress, which was to defy the French during the next three years, might have been caught while it was still ungarrisoned and panic-stricken, if only the invaders had detached a column from Carmona, where the road from Cordova bifurcates to Seville on the right and Cadiz on the left. It is certain that, if any suggestion to that effect was made at the time, Soult, Mortier, and the other generals present at the council of war passed it over[136]. The fact was that Seville loomed large before the imaginations of them all: Cadiz seemed but a secondary affair at the moment. It appeared probable that the whole of the scattered forces of the enemy would mass themselves to defend the insurgent capital. On January 25th, when the original plan was drawn up, no one realized that there was a Spanish army approaching, whose presence in Andalusia had not yet become known, or that the general of that army[p. 136] would deliberately leave Seville to its fate, as incapable of defence and doomed to destruction, and hasten by forced marches to throw himself into the island-city which was destined to become the new capital of insurgent Spain. Unable to foresee such a development, Joseph wrote to his brother on January 27 that Seville would probably submit without fighting, and that he would then enter Cadiz ‘sans coup férir.’

Albuquerque’s operations, which ultimately turned out to be the most important section of the Andalusian campaign, need a word of explanation. It will be remembered that, early in January, he had assembled, at Don Benito and Medellin, the small field-force that he could command, after providing the garrison of Badajoz and leaving a detachment above Almaraz to watch the French 2nd Corps. It did not amount to more than 8,000 men, of which some 1,000 were cavalry. His position at Don Benito was intended to protect the flank of Zerain and Copons, who lay to his right, covering the passes that lead from Almaden on to Cordova. On January 15th he received from Zerain the news that he was about to be attacked at Almaden by a French column of at least 20,000 men. The Duke promptly began to march eastward to join his colleague, and reached Campanario on January 16th. Here he was met by the information that Zerain had been driven out of Almaden on the preceding day, and had drawn back by Benalcazar and Hinojosa on to the Seville road. Copons from Pozo Blanco was retiring in the same direction. The Duke thereupon concluded that his duty was to fall back by a route parallel to that of Victor’s advance, and to draw nearer to Seville, strengthening himself as he approached that city by Zerain’s and Copons’ small corps.

Accordingly he sent off three of his weakest battalions to strengthen the garrison of Badajoz, which was very small at the moment, directed his artillery (with a cavalry escort) to take the good but circuitous high-road to Seville by Merida, Los Santos, and Santa Olalla, and started off across the mountains with his infantry and 500 horse. Marching very rapidly, though the roads were bad and the days short, he moved by Zalamea and Maguilla to Guadalcanal, on the borders of Andalusia, which he reached on January 18th. Here he received from the Central[p. 137] Junta an absurd order, apparently based on the idea that he was still at Campanario, which bade him stop Victor’s advance, by falling on his flank and rear by the road to Agudo and Almaden. But since the marshal had seized Almaden on the 15th, and was known to have moved southward from thence, it was clear that he must now be more than half-way to Cordova: if the Army of Estremadura plunged back into the mountains to seek Agudo and Almaden, it would only reach them on the 22nd or 23rd, and Victor would be at the gates of Cordova on the 21st. The Junta’s order was so hopelessly impracticable that the Duke took upon himself to disobey it, and wrote in reply that he should move so as to place himself between Victor and Seville, and would cover the Andalusian capital ‘so far as was possible with the small force at his disposition.’

Accordingly Albuquerque, instead of returning northward into the Estremaduran mountains, moved a stage further south, to El Pedroso, on the road from Guadalcanal to Seville, and sent orders to Copons and Zerain to join him with their small divisions. Two days later he received the order which should have been sent him on the 18th, instead of the insane directions that were actually given; by it he was directed to march on Seville with all speed. On the 23rd, therefore, he arrived at the ferry of Cantillana, twenty miles north of Seville: here he received news that his artillery and its escort had safely completed its round, and were about to cross the Guadalquivir at Rinconada, fifteen miles to the south. At Cantillana, however, the Duke got the last dispatch which the Central Junta ever issued; it was dated on the 23rd, a few hours before the members dispersed and fled. By this he was directed to march not on Seville but on Cordova, which at the moment the document came to hand—the morning of the 24th—had just been occupied by Victor.

That day Albuquerque crossed the Guadalquivir and occupied Carmona, where he was joined by his artillery, and by part of Copons’ division, but not (apparently) by Zerain’s, which had retired into Seville. He had now about 10,000 men, of whom 1,000 were horsemen, and 20 guns. From Carmona he threw out a cavalry screen on all sides: his vedettes on the 27th struck French cavalry at Ecija, and were driven in; they reported that[p. 138] the enemy was advancing in enormous force from Cordova—as was indeed the case. Meanwhile news had come up from Seville that the Junta had fled on the night of the 23rd-24th, that anarchy reigned in the city, and that a new revolutionary government had been installed. There was no longer any legitimate executive from which orders could be received. Albuquerque had to make up his mind whether he would retire into Seville, and put himself at the disposition of the mob and its leaders, or whether he should seek some safer base of operations. Without a moment’s hesitation he resolved to leave the Andalusian capital to itself, and to retire on Cadiz, which he knew to be ungarrisoned, yet to be absolutely impregnable if it were properly held. This wise resolution, it may be said without hesitation, saved the cause of Spain in the south. If Cadiz had been left unoccupied there would have been no further resistance in Andalusia.

But we must return to the operations of the French. On the 25th Victor had advanced from Cordova, taking the direct road to Seville via La Carlota and Ecija, while Mortier and the Royal Guard followed him at short intervals. The Duke of Belluno occupied Ecija on the 27th and Carmona on the 28th. On these two days his advanced guard got into contact with Albuquerque’s cavalry screen, and learnt from prisoners that the Army of Estremadura, whose presence in Andalusia thus became known, was in front of them[137]. On reaching Carmona Victor obtained the still more important news that Albuquerque, after staying in that place for two days, had not retired into Seville, as might have been expected, but had marched southward to Utrera on the road to Cadiz, leaving the greater city uncovered. On the night of the 29th the leading division of Victor’s corps, the dragoons of Latour-Maubourg, appeared in front of Seville, and reported that works were being hastily thrown up around it on all sides[138], and that they had been fired[p. 139] on by masses of armed irregulars at every point where they had pushed forward vedettes towards its suburbs[139].

Seville was at this moment, and had been now for six days, in a state of chaos. The Central Junta had absconded on the 23rd, taking along with it both its Executive Committee and the Ministers of State. The panic had begun on the 18th, when the news had come in that Victor’s corps had thrust Zerain out of Almaden three days before, and was marching on Cordova. It had grown worse two days later, when Areizaga reported that another French army was marching against the Despe?a-Perros. The Junta published a proclamation on the 20th, exhorting the Andalusians to have no fear, for Albuquerque had been directed to fall on Victor’s flank, and Del Parque with the Army of Castile was on the march to join him, so that the enemy would be forced to turn back to guard himself. Such orders were indeed sent, but any man of sense could see that they must arrive too late. If Victor was at Almaden on the 15th, he might be at Cordova on the 21st: if King Joseph was at the foot of the passes on the 19th, he might be across them on the 20th. What use, therefore, would be a summons sent to Albuquerque in Estremadura, or to Del Parque in the mountains between Bejar and Ciudad Rodrigo? The French would be in the valley of the Guadalquivir long before Del Parque had even received his orders to move. As a matter of fact, that general got his dispatch on January 24, the day that Victor entered Cordova, and even Albuquerque[p. 140] was informed of the Junta’s behests only on the 18th, when he reached Guadalcanal.

The obvious ineptitude which the Government had shown, and the imminent peril to which Seville was exposed, gave another chance to the local conspirators, who had already twice prepared a pronunciamento against the Junta. On the 22nd riots broke out, and demagogues were preaching at every street corner the necessity for deposing these incapable rulers, and substituting for them a regency of true patriots, and a Committee of Public Safety, which should show the energy in which the Junta had been so lacking. The people clamoured at the doors of the Arsenal, asking for muskets and cannon, they mustered outside the prisons where Palafox, Montijo, and other chiefs who had been arrested for their earlier plots, were still confined. Many of the members of the Junta left Seville on this and the following day, on the plausible pretext that it was necessary for them to betake themselves to Cadiz—which, by a decree of Jan. 13, had been designated as the meeting-place of the approaching National Cortes—in order to make preparations for the meeting of that august assembly. Indeed, the Junta had been directed to meet at Cadiz on February 1 for that purpose. The news that King Joseph had forced the passes of the Sierra Morena, which came to hand early on the 22nd, sufficed to make an end of any shadow of power which the Junta still possessed. Next day those members who had hitherto stuck to their post, and the Ministers, left the town with elaborately contrived secrecy. Seville fell into the hands of the mob, who, led by a Capuchin friar riding on a mule and brandishing a crucifix, burst open the prisons and the Arsenal, armed themselves, and nominated a new ‘Supreme National Junta.’ Its executive was to be composed of Palafox and Montijo, the Marquis of La Romana, General Eguia, and Francisco Saavedra, an aged and respectable person, who had been president of the old Junta of Seville, the original committee which had been suppressed by the Central Junta. He is said to have been used as a mere tool by Palafox and Montijo, and to have been disgusted by their acts. This new, and obviously illegal, Government issued decrees stigmatizing the fugitive ‘Centralists’ as cowards and traitors, and claiming[p. 141] authority not only over Andalusia, but over all Spain. They ordered the calling out of the levy en masse, and issued commissions displacing generals and governors in all the provinces. One of these documents declared Del Parque removed from the command of the Army of the Left, and named La Romana as his successor. The marquis, glad to escape from the tumult, rode off at once, presented himself at the head quarters of the Castilian army, and was recognized without difficulty as its chief—though his authority might well have been contested if any general had chosen to take up the cause of the discredited Central Junta.

But that unhappy body had no longer a single friend: its members were mobbed and arrested on their flight from Seville to Cadiz; its President the Archbishop of Laodicea, its Vice-President the Conde de Altamira, and the War Minister Cornel were seized at Xeres by a frantic mob, and would have been murdered, if General Casta?os, whom the Junta had treated so badly in December 1808, had not arrived in time to save their lives. Twenty-three members reached Cadiz, and there, by a proclamation dated January 29th, abdicated their authority, and nominated a Regency, to which they resigned their power, and the duty of receiving and welcoming the expected Cortes. The Regents were Casta?os, the Bishop of Orense, Admiral Esca?o, Saavedra—the president of the new and illegal Junta at Seville—and Fernandez de Leon, an American Treasury-official, who was to represent the Colonies[140]. It will be noted that the nominators were wise enough to refrain from appointing any of their own number to serve in the Regency.

Meanwhile, the duty of resisting the first shock of the French advance fell not on the Regency, but on the Revolutionary Government which had installed itself in power at Seville. These usurpers proved themselves quite as incapable as the men whom they had superseded. When once in possession of power, Palafox and his friends had to count up their resources: they had at their disposal an armed mob of 20,000 men, and a mere handful of regular troops, consisting of the regiments which had served as the guards of the late Junta, and four or[p. 142] five isolated battalions from the division of Zerain, which had finally sought refuge in Seville. These troops seem to have been about 4,000 strong at the most[141]. There was an immense quantity of artillery from the arsenal; it had been dragged out to line the new earthworks, on which the populace was busily engaged, but not two hundred trained gunners existed to man the batteries. It was hoped that Albuquerque’s Estremaduran army would come to their aid, but—as we have already seen—the Duke deliberately refused to acknowledge the authority of the Seville Junta, and, instead of falling back upon the city, marched southwards to Utrera on the Cadiz road, leaving the great chaussée Ecija-Carmona-Seville open to the French.

On the 28th, the leaders of the Junta having taken stock of their position, and discovered its danger (for the lines which the people had thrown up would have required 50,000 men to man them, and not half that force was forthcoming even if every rioter armed with a musket was counted), copied in the most ignominious fashion the prudence or cowardice of the Central Junta, which they had so fiercely denounced five days before. Under the cover of the night Eguia, Montijo, Saavedra, and Palafox absconded from Seville without taking leave of their followers. Saavedra fled to Cadiz, where it is surprising to find that he was made a member of the new Regency, Palafox to Albuquerque’s camp, Montijo to the southern mountains, where (as he announced) he was intending to collect an army of succour for Seville. When, therefore, on the next evening Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons appeared before the entrenchments of the city, there was no longer any responsible government to turn the ardour of the multitude to account. Nevertheless, mobs, headed by frantic friars, ran to the entrenchments, and discharged musketry and cannon-shot at every French vedette that showed itself.

On the afternoon of the 30th, Victor appeared to reinforce Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry, bringing with him the bulk of the[p. 143] infantry of the 1st Corps. The King, Soult, and Mortier were close behind[142]. On this day it had been settled at a Council-of-War held at Carmona that the whole of the army should march on Seville, leaving Cadiz alone for the present, and detaching only a brigade of cavalry to pursue the army of Albuquerque. On the next morning Victor received assurances, from persons who had escaped from the city, that it was doubtful whether he would be opposed, since the mob was panic-stricken at the flight of its leaders, and the senior military officers were convinced that resistance was impossible. Certain that the defence would be feeble, if any were offered, Soult gave orders that the 1st Corps should storm the lines on February 1st. But no military operations were necessary: on the evening of January 31st the corporation of Seville had sent out a deputation to negotiate for surrender. They offered to admit the enemy, if they were guaranteed security of life and property for all who should submit, and a promise that no extraordinary war-contribution should be levied on their city. To this the King, who was anxious to enter the place as a pacific conqueror, without storm or bloodshed, gave an eager consent. While the civil authorities were treating with Victor, the small body of regular troops in Seville, under the Visconde de Gand, quietly left the place by the bridge leading to the western side of the Guadalquivir, and retreated in haste toward the Condado de Niebla and the borders of Portugal.

On the afternoon of February 1, Joseph entered Seville in triumph at the head of his Guard, and lodged himself in the Alcazar, the old residence of the Kings of Spain. He was welcomed by a deputation which comprised some persons of mark. The impression made on the citizens by the conduct of the two Juntas, and the turbulence of the mob which had ruled during the last eight days, had been so deplorable that a considerable number of the Sevillians despaired of the national cause, and rushed to acknowledge the usurper. Indeed, there were more ‘Josefinos’ found in this city than in any other[p. 144] corner of Spain. The ‘intrusive king’ released a number of political prisoners, whom the last Junta had arrested on suspicion of treason. Apparently this suspicion had been well grounded, as many of the captives, headed by the Swiss generals Preux and Reding[143], did homage to Joseph, and accepted office under him.

Encouraged by these defections to his cause, and by the fact that deputations had presented themselves from Cordova and Jaen to bespeak his protection, Joseph hastened to publish an absurd address to his army, couched in the magniloquent style which all French writers of proclamations at this time were wont to borrow from their Emperor. ‘The barriers placed by Nature between the North and the South of Spain have fallen. You have met with friends only beyond the Sierra Morena. Jaen, Cordova, Seville have flung open their gates.... The King of Spain desires that between the Pillars of Hercules a third pillar shall arise, to recall to posterity, and to the navigators of both the new and the old world, the memory of the officers and men of that French army which drove back the English, saved thirty thousand Spaniards, pacified the ancient Baetica, and regained for France her natural allies.’ The rather puzzling passage concerning the ‘thirty thousand Spaniards saved’ refers to the prisoners of Oca?a and the Sierra Morena, whom the French, according to the King, ‘recognized as brethren led astray by the common enemy. You spared them, and I have received them as my children.’

Some elation in the King’s language was, perhaps, pardonable at the moment. The moral effect of the surrender of Seville was considerable in France, England, and the rest of Europe, though less in Spain than elsewhere. The tangible trophies of the conquest were enormous—the place had been the central arsenal of Spain, and the amount of artillery, ammunition, and warlike equipment captured was very large. The cannon-foundry and other military factories were taken over in excellent condition, and kept the French army of Andalusia well supplied during the three years of its existence. Tobacco to the value, as it was said, of ￡1,000,000 was found in the great central magazine, and quinine, quicksilver, and other commodities of[p. 145] government monopoly to a considerable additional sum. Nothing had been done, since the news of the passage of the Sierra Morena had arrived, to destroy or remove all this valuable state property.

On the day following their entry into Seville, Joseph and Soult directed Victor to march in pursuit of Albuquerque, and to take possession of Cadiz. So complete had been the débacle of the Spanish armies since the Andalusian campaign began, that it seems to have been supposed that the Army of Estremadura would offer no serious resistance, even if it should succeed in throwing itself into Cadiz before it was overtaken. Marching with laudable expedition, the Duke of Belluno covered the eighty-three miles between Seville and Cadiz in four days, and presented himself in front of the place on the evening of February 5th. But Albuquerque, unmolested in his march from Utrera, had arrived on the 3rd, bringing with him not only his own troops and those of Copons, but several recruit-battalions picked up at Xeres, Lebrija, San Lucar, and Puerto Santa Maria, where they had been organizing. He had some 12,000 men in all, not counting the civic militia of Cadiz, which had hitherto been its sole garrison.

Cadiz, in the days when the practicable range of the heaviest artillery did not exceed 2,500 yards, was one of the strongest places in the world. The town lies on the extreme point of a long sandy peninsula, which runs out into the sea from the Isla de Leon, a large island separated from the mainland of Andalusia by the salt-water channel of the Rio Santi Petri, an arm of the sea varying from 300 to 400 yards in breadth, and flowing through marshes which make access to its banks very difficult. The Isla, protected by this enormous wet ditch, has a front towards the continent of about seven miles, from the naval arsenal of La Carraca at its north end to the Castle of Santi Petri at its south. Batteries had already been thrown up at all the commanding points, and Albuquerque had broken the only bridge, that of Zuazo, which crossed the marsh and the Rio. It would be impossible to pass the channel save by collecting great quantities of boats, and these would have to move under artillery fire. Venegas, the military governor of Cadiz, had already ordered all the vessels, small and great, of[p. 146] the villages round the bay to be destroyed or brought across to the city. Moreover, there were a score of gunboats in the channel, manned from the Spanish fleet, which could be used to oppose any attempt to cross the Rio. Indeed, naval assistance to any amount was available for the defence of Cadiz: there were a dozen Spanish and four English line-of-battle ships in the harbour. All through the three long years while the French lay in front of the Isla, no attempt was ever made to throw a force in boats across the channel: the venture seemed too hazardous.

If, however, Victor had, by some expedient, succeeded in crossing the Rio, there were two lines of defence behind it, of far greater strength than that formed by this outer ditch of the Cadiz works. The triangular Isla de Leon forms with its apex a long sand-spit, which projects for four miles into the Atlantic. Half way along it the breadth of the spit is contracted to no more than 200 yards, and here there was a continuous entrenchment from water to water, called the Cortadura, or the battery of San Fernando, armed with many heavy guns. Supposing this isthmus to have been passed, there lies, two miles further along the sand-spit, the outer enceinte of Cadiz itself, with a front of not more than 400 yards in breadth, and deep water on either side.

Cadiz had been captured more than once in earlier wars, but always by an enemy who could attack from the sea. Neither the Isla de Leon nor the San Fernando line could be held against an attack supported by a fleet which came close in shore, and battered the works from flank and rear, or landed troops behind them. The sea, it may be remarked, is four fathoms deep to within a short distance (about 300 yards) of the shore, all along the south front of the Isla and the Isthmus, so that there was nothing to prevent a fleet coming close to the works. But against any naval attack Cadiz was, in 1810, absolutely secured by the predominance of the English fleet. There was no armed French vessel nearer than Bayonne or Barcelona, nor any possibility of bringing one round. All that was done by the besiegers in a three years’ leaguer was to build some gunboats in the northern inlets of the bay, and these they never dared to bring out into the open water.

[p. 147]

The real danger to Cadiz lay not from the sea side, nor on the Isla front, but from the inner side of the harbour and the east. Here a long spit of land runs out from beside the town of Puerto Real in the direction of Cadiz. It is called the Trocadero, from a village situated on its south-eastern side. At its extreme point is a fort named San José, while another fort, named San Luis, lies alongside of the other on a low mud-island. In advance of both, built right in the marsh, and surrounded by water at high-tide, was a third called Matagorda. These three forts were the outer defences of the harbour against a naval attack, and could cross fires with the town batteries and a castle called Puntales, which lies on the easternmost point of the isthmus, a mile from the battery of San Fernando. Matagorda is only 1,200 yards from Puntales, and 3,000 yards from the eastern point of the city of Cadiz. If the French took possession of it, and of the neighbouring San José and San Luis, they could bombard the Puntales castle and all the neighbouring section of the Isthmus, to the grave danger and discomfort of all who had to pass between the city and the Isla de Leon. They would also be able to annoy ships lying in all the eastern reaches of the great harbour. But before Victor arrived in front of Cadiz, San José, San Luis, and Matagorda were blown up, with the leave of the governor Venegas, by a detachment of seamen from the British fleet. There could, therefore, be no trouble from this direction, unless the enemy succeeded in restoring and rearming the three forts,—no easy task under the fire of the Puntales castle and the fleet. It was not till some months had passed that the struggle began for these ruined works, the only points from which the defence could be seriously incommoded.

On his first arrival Victor summoned the town, and received a prompt and angry answer of refusal from the governor and the local Junta. The marshal inspected the city’s outer defences, and was forced to report to the King at Seville that it seemed that nothing could be done against the place till he had brought up heavy artillery, and built himself boats. Joseph, unwilling to believe anything that contradicted the hopes of complete triumph that he had been nourishing ever since the passage of the Sierra Morena, came up to Puerto Santa Maria,[p. 148] on the bay of Cadiz, looked at the situation, did not find it reassuring, and wrote to his imperial brother to propose that he should send out his Toulon fleet to attack the place on the sea side[144]. Napoleon, still smarting under the memory of how Admiral Martin had destroyed an important section of that fleet in the preceding October, ignored this proposal. He did not forget, though his brother had apparently done so, the fact that the British Mediterranean fleet was still in existence.

Thus the position in front of Cadiz assumed the shape which it was to maintain for months, and even for years. Victor’s corps could provide enough men to observe the whole shore of the bay, and to blockade the garrison. But the Spaniards recovered their courage when they saw the enemy reduced to inactivity, and began ere long to receive reinforcements. The first to arrive were 3,000 of the regular troops which had been at Seville. This corps, under the Visconde de Gand, had escaped westward after the capitulation, and, though pursued by a brigade of Mortier’s corps, reached Ayamonte, at the mouth of the Guadiana, and there took ship for Cadiz. Somewhat later there arrived some troops sent by Wellington. The Spaniards in their day of disaster had forgotten their old jealousy about Cadiz, and asked for aid. Wellington, though loath to spare a man from Portugal, sent them in the early days of February three British[145] and two Portuguese battalions from Lisbon, under General William Stewart. So promptly were these troops shipped and landed, that they arrived at Cadiz between the 10th and the 15th of February, to the number of about 3,500 bayonets[146]. Thus the town was placed in security from any coup de main on Victor’s part.
Map of Cadiz

Enlarge  CADIZ
AND ITS ENVIRONS

The internal situation in Cadiz, however, left much to be desired. The town had elected a local Junta of defence, of which the governor Venegas was made President, and this body[p. 149] had frequent disputes with the new Regency, nominated by the Central Junta at the time of its abdication, and also with Albuquerque, whom Venegas did not wish to recognize as his hierarchical superior. The local body could make a fair show of objections to recognizing the legitimacy of the Regency: the old Central Junta itself had a doubtful origin, and the government nominated by those of its members who had taken refuge in Cadiz could not claim a clear title. But to raise the point at this moment of crisis was factious and unpatriotic, and the conduct of the local Junta became merely absurd when it tried to arrogate to itself authority extending outside its own city, and to issue orders to the outlying provinces, or the colonies of America. Still worse, it refused to issue clothing and footgear to Albuquerque’s army, whose equipment had been worn out by the long march from Estremadura, or to subsidize the military hospitals, though it had a considerable stock both of money and of military stores at its disposition. At the end of February the Regency nominated Venegas Viceroy of Mexico, and having bought him off with this splendid piece of preferment, made Albuquerque his successor in the governorship of Cadiz. But even thus they did not succeed in getting proper control over the city, for the Junta refused to allow the Duke to place his head quarters within the walls, or to issue orders to the civic militia. A modus vivendi was only reached when the Regents made an ignominious pact with the local oligarchy, by which the latter, in return for recognizing their legitimate authority, and undertaking to pay and feed the garrison, were granted the control of the port-revenues and other royal taxes of Cadiz, as well as of all the subsidies arriving from America. How the functions of government became still further complicated, when the members of the long-expected Cortes began to arrive, and to claim their rights as the sole legitimate representatives of the nation, must be told in another chapter[147].

Leaving matters at a deadlock in and about Cadiz, we must turn back to the operations of the French in the outlying parts[p. 150] of Andalusia. Sebastiani, it will be remembered, had taken Jaen on January 23rd. He was directed to march from thence on Granada and Malaga, to scatter the remains of Areizaga’s army, and to subdue the valleys of the Sierra Nevada and the long sea-coast below them. All this he accomplished with ease. On the 28th he routed at Alcala la Real a force composed of some of Areizaga’s fugitives, which had been joined by Freire and all the cavalry of the Andalusian army. These regiments, which had been cantoned in the valley of the Guadalquivir, since they were useless in the passes, had been collected by Freire to the number of 2,000 sabres. They were routed and dispersed by Milhaud’s and Perreymond’s dragoons and chasseurs, losing over 500 men and the whole of their artillery. The survivors dispersed, and retired in small parties eastward, only rallying in the province of Murcia. That same evening Sebastiani pushed on towards Granada, and was met by a deputation of its magistrates, who brought the keys of the city and a promise of submission. The French vanguard entered it next day. Lacy, who had taken refuge there with the small remains of his division, retired to Guadix. Sebastiani levied a military contribution of 5,000,000 reals on the city, placed a garrison of 1,500 men in the Alhambra, and marched with a mixed force on Malaga, the only place in this quarter where organized resistance showed itself. Here the local magistrates had been deposed by a popular rising, and several thousand irregulars had been collected by a Colonel Abello, a Capuchin friar named Fernando Berrocal, and three brothers, notaries, of the name of San Millan. They seized the passes of the Sierra de Alhama, and called all the hill-country to arms. Sebastiani, marching by Antequera, cleared the passes on February 5th, beat the half-armed insurgent bands outside the suburbs of Malaga, and stormed the town. He exacted a contribution of 12,000,000 reals, and hung the three San Millans and several other leading insurgents. After this he extended his troops along the coast, and occupied Velez Malaga, Motril, and Almunecar. The roads and the towns were his, but many of the insurgents took to the hills, and maintained a guerrilla warfare, which never ceased throughout the next three years. There were always bands on foot in the Alpujarras and the Sierra de Ronda,[p. 151] though the 4th Corps expended much energy in hunting them down.

Meanwhile Giron, Lacy, Freire, and the rest of the fugitive generals had retired eastward. They had now come under the orders of Blake, who superseded Areizaga and took over charge of 3,000 or 4,000 dispirited men at Guadix on January 30th. He retired at once within the borders of the kingdom of Murcia. Small parties and stragglers continued to come in for many weeks, and by March there were 10,000 foot and 1,500 horse collected—all in the worst state of equipment, and thoroughly demoralized by their late disasters.

We must now turn to the other end of Andalusia: King Joseph, when departing to inspect the outworks of Cadiz, had left Mortier in command in this quarter. The Marshal, after hunting the little force of the Visconde de Gand out of the Condado de Niebla, had been directed to deal a stroke at Badajoz. Accordingly, leaving a brigade in Seville and another in the Condado, he marched with one infantry division and his light cavalry into Estremadura. He reached Olivenza with 9,000 men, and summoned Badajoz on February 12th, but he had arrived too late. A considerable Spanish force was now before him, the old host of Del Parque, which the Central Junta had called down to the Guadiana when the original Army of Estremadura marched under Albuquerque to succour Andalusia. How Mortier and La Romana, the successor of Del Parque, dealt with each other in the months of the spring must be told in a later chapter[148].

The King, meanwhile, spent the months of February and March in a circular tour through Andalusia, where he affected to perceive nothing but friendly feeling among the inhabitants. He visited Ronda, Malaga, Granada, Jaen, celebrating Te Deums, and giving bull-fights and banquets. It is certain that a sufficient show of submission was made to nourish his happy illusions as to the finality of his conquest. Threats or bribes induced many notables to present themselves at his receptions, and it seems that a considerable portion of the Andalusians hoped to save themselves from the rapacity of the military authorities by professing an enthusiasm for the King. He, for[p. 152] his part, did his best to protect them—but he was soon gone, and the native officials whom he appointed were powerless against Sebastiani, the church plunderer, and Soult, the judicious collector of works of art. ‘At the very moment when the King was lavishing assurances and promises,’ writes his devoted servant Miot, ‘and everywhere extolling the thorough disinterestedness of France, severe and crushing exactions were being laid on the provinces in our occupation. An iron hand was grinding them to the dust. The King was powerless to resist the open violation of the promises which he was daily giving[149].’

Open resistance, however, had ceased, save at Cadiz and in the inaccessible recesses of the Sierra Nevada. Andalusia had been subdued from end to end, and neither the King nor Soult yet realized that a lamentable strategic mistake had been made when 70,000 veteran troops had been pinned down to garrison the newly conquered realm, while Portugal and Wellington’s army remained untouched. In their conception, as in that of the Emperor, the conquest of Portugal was to be sufficiently provided for by the new reinforcements which were now pouring over the Ebro, to the number of over 100,000 sabres and bayonets.