CHAP. LV. 1808. mit of their either arriving in time at the theatre of conflict, or taking any useful part in it, if they were there.* Seventy thousand Spanish infantry and two thousand Spanish cavalry, could never be considered a match for a hundred and fifty thousand French foot, and thirty thousand horse, even under the most favourable circumstances. Least of all could they be relied on, when the French occupied a central position, defended by almost inaccessible mountains, and were guided by one commander of consummate abilities; while their undisciplined antagonists, scattered over a circumference two hundred 1 Nap. i. 392, miles in length, and separated from each other by deep 103, 104. ravines, rapid rivers, and impassable ridges, were under Thib. vii. the command of different and independent generals, jealous of each other, and gifted with comparatively moderate military talents.1 393. Tor. ii. 152, 153. Tor. ii. 180. strength of army. The British forces, it is true, under Sir John Moore and Sir David Baird, were rapidly approaching the scene of 17. action; but their distance, notwithstanding all their March, posiefforts, was still such as to preclude the hope of their tion, and being in a situation to render any effectual assistance. the British Sir John Moore's forces, which set out on their march Oct. 13. from Lisbon, as already mentioned, in the middle of October, had broken, for the sake of procuring better roads for the artillery and waggon-train, into two columns; and while the main body, under Sir John in person, followed the direct road by Abrantes, Almeida, and Ciudad Rodrigo, a lesser division, but with the reserve and most of the guns, took the more circuitous route by Elvas, Badajoz, Talavera, and Madrid. It was not, however, till the 8th November, that this heavily encumbered corps Nov. 8. reached the Spanish capital, and on the 27th of the same Nov. 27 month that it crossed the Guadarrama mountains, before which time the fate of all the Spanish armies on the Ebro was sealed. Meanwhile, Sir John Moore was farther advanced; * These reserves were stated to be as follows; but they were all distant from the scene of action, and had, for the most part, hardly acquired the rudiments of the military art. Castilians at Segovia, about 150 miles in the rear, Andalusians in La Mancha, . 12,000 13,000 14,000 18,000 Total, 57,000 LV. 1808. Oct. 13. CHAP. for, on the 11th, he crossed the Spanish frontier, and, on the 18th, had collected the bulk of his forces at Salamanca ; but Sir David Baird, who had landed at Corunna on the 1 Nap. i. 425, 13th October, had only, by great exertion, succeeded in 431. Lond. reaching Astorga in Leon, four days' march from SalaSouth. ii. 470. manca, on the 20th November.1 i. 181, 185. 18. division of troops. Thus the British army, not in all more than thirty thousand strong, was split into three divisions, severally Deplorable stationed at the Escurial, Salamanca, and Astorga, distant the British eighty or a hundred miles from each other, and without and Spanish any common base or line of operations; and the Spaniards, a hundred miles farther in advance, were also divided into three armies, separated by still greater distances from each other; while Napoleon lay with a hundred and eighty thousand veteran troops clustered round the basin of Vittoria. It was easy to see that the allies, exhibiting in this respect a melancholy contrast to their antagonists, were but novices in the art of war, and signally ignorant of the importance of time in its combi470. Nap. i. nations; and that the English in particular, inheriting too much of the character of their Saxon ancestors, were, like Athelstane the Unready, still unprepared to strike till the moment for decisive operations had passed.2 * 2 South. ii. 425, 431. Lond. i. 181, 189. Napoleon, who was well aware of the importance of *These observations apply to those having the general direction of the Allied campaign, and especially the English government, who, at this period, were far from being adequately impressed with the vital importance of time in war. Their instructions for the campaign were dated so late as October 6. Both the gallant generals intrusted with the direction of the English army pressed forward with all imaginable expedition after they received them; and Sir John Moore in particular, as it will appear in the sequel, with mournful resolution, began an important advance under circumstances which, to all but a soldier of honour, were utterly desperate. It was impossible for him to commence operations before the junction with Sir David Baird, which did not take place till the end of November. But still, in all concerned, there was at this period an evident want of the vigour and expedition requisite for success in war. Napoleon would never have permitted the main English army to have lingered inactive at Lisbon from the end of August, when the Convention at Cintra was concluded, till the middle of October, when the march for Spain commenced, nor delayed the British expedition under Sir David Baird till it reached the Spanish shores for the first time on the 18th of that month. But these were the faults of government. The greatest error, in a military point of view, of Sir John Moore, was separating the artillery from the infantry and cavalry in the advance into Spain. For this oblivion of the first rule of military movements, viz. to station each portion of the army so that its different arms may, in case of need, support and aid each other, it is hardly possible to find any excuse. It is difficult to conceive how the direct road by Almeida could at that period have been impassable for artillery and waggons, when it had so recently before been traversed by Junot with all his army, and was ever after the great line of military communication which the Duke of Wellington made use of from the capital to the frontier; and, at any rate, if the passage at that period was impracticable for CHAP. LV. 1808. 19. Movements on the before the Napoleon. striking a decisive blow in the outset, and dispersing the Spanish armies in his front, before the warlike and disciplined reserve of the English troops could arrive at the scene of action, lost no time, after his arrival on the Bidassoa, in pressing forward the most active operations. Some inconsiderable actions had, before his arrival, taken French left place on the left, where Blake had, since the 18th Septem- arrival of ber, been engaged in an offensive movement, from which no material results had ensued. Prior to this the French had evacuated Burgos and Tudela, and extended themselves towards Bilboa, which they still held, much against the will of Napoleon, who strongly censured such a proceeding, as gaining nothing in strength of position, and losing much in moral influence.* Blake broke up from Reynosa on the 18th September with thirty thousand Galicians, Sept. 18. and advanced to Santander. The effect of this movement was to make the French concentrate their forces in the basin of Vittoria; and Blake attacked Bilboa with Sept. 23. fifteen thousand men, which fell the day after it was invested; while the French withdrew up the valley of Durango, and all the lateral valleys in its vicinity, to the higher parts of the mountains of Navarre. But though these operations were at first successful, yet the natural effects of the presumption and want of foresight of the the guns, that might have been a good reason for sending the whole army round by Elvas, but it could be none for separating it into two parts, severed by two hundred miles from each other, and exposing either to the chance of destruction, when the other was not at hand to lend it any support. Colonel Napier, much to his credit, admits that this separation violated a great military principle, though he endeavours to defend it in that particular case as unattended with danger. It will appear in the sequel, that the greatest commanders sometimes unnecessarily fall into a similar forgetfulness; and that the cantoning the English infantry apart from the cavalry and artillery on the Flemish frontier, and within the reach of the enemy's attack, in 1815, had wellnigh induced a serious disaster at Quatre-Bras.-See NAPIER, i. 334, and Infra. *"The line of the Ebro," says Napoleon, "was actually taken; it must be kept. To advance from that river without an object would create indecision; but why evacuate Burgos-why abandon Tudela? Both were of importance, both politically and morally; the latter as commanding a stone bridge and the canal of Saragossa; the former as the capital of a province, the centre of many communications, a town of great fame, and of relative value to the French army. If occupied in force, it would threaten Palencia, Valladolid, even Madrid itself. If the enemy occupies Burgos, Logrono, and Tudela, the French army will be in a pitiful situation." It is remarkable how early the experienced eye of the French Emperor, at the distance of three hundred leagues from the scene of action, discerned the military importance of BURGOS-a town then unknown to military fame; but the value of which was afterwards so strongly felt by the Duke of Wellington, that he strained every nerve, and exposed himself to imminent risk in the close of the brilliant campaign of 1812, in the unsuccessful attempt to effect its reduction. See Note, Sur les Affaires d'Espagne, August 1808, taken at Vittoria; NAPIER, App. No. iv. p. 18. LV. 1808. CHAP. Spanish government and generals soon developed itself. Blake had engaged in this laborious and dangerous mountain-warfare without magazine stores, or any base of operations, and with only seventy rounds of ammunition for each gun. His men, when the winter was 1 Nap. i. 343, 369. South. approaching and the snow beginning to fall, were without great-coats, and many without shoes: and the bulk of the forces being grouped around Burgos, left his right flank exposed to successful attack.1 i. 387, 689. Tor. ii. 104, 105. 20. Check of Logrono. Oct. 27. A combined attack had been arranged between the Spanish generals, along the whole circumference which they occupied, upon the central mountain position of the Castanos at French army. But such a complicated movement, difficult and hazardous even with the best disciplined troops, when acting along such an extensive and rugged line of country, was altogether hopeless with the disorderly and ill-appointed bands of the Peninsular patriots. An attack by Castanos, with the Andalusian army, upon the French posts on the Ebro around Logrono, though at the first attended with some success, at length terminated in disaster; and the Spanish division of Pignatelli was driven back with the loss of all its artillery, and immediately dispersed. Discouraged by this check, Castanos fell back to Calahorra; and dissensions, threatening very serious consequences, broke out between that general and Palafox, who retired with the Arragonese levies towards Saragossa. Meanwhile Blake, whose forces, from the junction of the troops under Romana, which had come up from Corunna, and the Asturians, with whom he was in communication near Santander, were increased to nearly fifty thousand men, commenced a forward movement on the French left in the Biscayan provinces, and, stretching himself out by the sea-coast, and up the valley of Durango, threatened to interpose between the advanced 2 Tor. ii. 110, divisions of Lefebvre and Ney's corps, which lay most ex113. Nap. i. posed, and their communication with the French frontier on the Bidassoa.2 368 21. Defeat of Blake at This offensive movement was well conceived, and, if conducted and followed up with the requisite vigour, might have led to great results. As it was, however, his forces were so scattered, that though thirty-six thousand were under his immediate orders, only seventeen thou CHAP. 1808. sand were collected by Blake in front of the enemy, without any artillery, in the valley of Durango; the remainder being stretched inactive along the sea-coast, or separated from the main body by impassable mountain ridges. Alarmed, however, by the probable consequence of the interposition of such a force between the bulk of his troops and their communications with Bayonne and San Sebastian, Lefebvre resolved to make a general attack upon the enemy, and drive them back to the neighbourhood of Bilboa. Descending from the heights of Durango, under cover of a thick fog, he suddenly attacked the Spanish army at daybreak on the 31st October, with such Oct. 31. vigour, that the divisions in front were thrown back on those in the rear, and the whole driven in utter confusion to Bilboa, from whence they continued their retreat in the night to Balmaseda, in the direction of the Asturias. Lefebvre followed them next day; but Blake having assembled his troops, turned upon his pursuers, and, after some sharp partial engagements, the French retired to Bilboa, of which they were allowed to retain undisturbed possession.1 1 Tor. ii. 120 379, 381. 123. Nap. i 22. the French Matters were in this state in Navarre and Biscay, when Napoleon arrived at Vittoria, and instantly, as if by an electric shock, communicated his own unequalled energy Position of to the operations of the army. Disapproving of Lefebvre's and Spanish unsupported attack upon Blake, which promised merely armies on Napoleon's to force him back from the scene of action, without effect- arrival. ing those decisive results which his presence usually occasioned and which he at present required, he instantly gave orders for the most vigorous operations. The position of the allied armies promised the greatest results to immediate attack. Blake, with twenty-five thousand defeated and starving mountaineers, was near Espinosa in Biscay; the Conde de Belvidere, with the Estremaduran levies, twelve thousand strong, was in Burgos; Castanos and Palafox, little dreaming of the danger which was approaching, were preparing to advance again towards Logrono, and confidently expected to drive the invaders over the Pyrenees; while the English forces, slowly converging towards the scene of action, were still scattered, from Corunna to Madrid, over the half of Spain.2 Napoleon, on the other hand, had a hundred thousand excellent troops 2 Nap. i. 385, 124, 125. 387. Tor. ii. |