LIV. CHAP. ing suffering to the Spaniards, with lasting disgrace to the French. A universal pillage took place. Armed and 1808. unarmed men were slaughtered indiscriminately; women ravished; the churches plundered; even the venerable cathedral, originally the much-loved mosque of the Ommiade Caliphs, was stripped of its riches and ornaments, and defiled by the vilest debauchery. Nor was this merely the unbridled license of subaltern insubordination, too common on such occasions with the best disciplined forces. The general-in-chief and superior officers set the first example of a rapacity as pernicious as it was disgraceful; and from the plunder of the Treasury and Office of Consolidation, Dupont contrived to realise above 10,000,000 reals, or £100,000 sterling. Not content with this devastation, the French general, when the sack had ceased, overwhelmed the city by an enormous contribution. It is some consolation, amidst so 229, 231. frightful a display of military license and unbridled Tor. 321, cupidity, that a righteous retribution speedily overtook 113. South. its perpetrators; and that it was anxiety to preserve their Lond. i. 87. ill-gotten spoil which paralysed their arms in the field, and brought an unheard-of disgrace on the French standards.1* 1 Foy, iii. 323. Nap. i. i. 475, 476. Thiers, ix. 73, 75. Dupont remained several days at Cordova ; but learning that the insurrection had spread, and was gathering * Colonel Napier says (i. 114, 1st edit.), "As the inhabitants took no part in the contest, and received the French without any signs of aversion, the town was protected from pillage, and Dupont fixed his headquarters there." It would be well if he would specify the authority on which this assertion is made, as it is directly contrary to the united testimony of even the most liberal French and Spanish historians. Foy says, with his usual candour, "To some musket-shots, discharged almost by accident from the windows, the French answered by a continued discharge, and speedily burst open the gates. Men without arms, without the means of resistance, were slaughtered in the streets; the houses, the churches, even the celebrated mosque, which the Christians had converted into a cathedral, were alike sacked. The ancient capital of the Ommiade Caliphs, the greatest kings which Spain ever beheld, saw scenes of horror renewed such as it had not witnessed since the city was taken in 1236 by Ferdinand King of Castile. These terrible scenes had no excuse in the losses sustained by the conqueror; for the attack of the town had not cost them ten men, and the total success of the day had only weakened them by thirty killed and eighty wounded." LIV. 1808. 26. tion of forces invaders. strength in all directions, and finding his communica- CHAP. tions with Madrid intercepted by the patriot bands in his rear, he deemed it imprudent to make any further advance in the direction of Seville. Meanwhile the Accumulainsurgents closed around and hemmed him in on every round the side. The armed peasants of Jaen and its vicinity crossed the Guadalquivir, and overwhelmed the detachment left at Andujar in charge of the sick there, and with savage cruelty, in revenge for the sack of Cordova, put them all to death; the smugglers of the Sierra Morena, relinquishing their illicit traffic for a more heart-stirring conflict, issued from their gloomy retreats, and beset all the passes of their inaccessible mountains. Even the peasants of la Mancha had caught the flame. The magazines of Mudela had fallen into their power; the sick at Manzanares had been barbarously put to the sword; the roads were so beset that even considerable detachments in the rear were captured or defeated; General Roize, with a body of four hundred convalescents, was overthrown in the open plains of la Mancha; and after having joined five hundred light horse under General Ligier Belair, the united array was deemed inadequate to forcing the passes of the Sierra Morena, and fell back towards Toledo. These accumulating disasters, which were greatly magnified by popular rumour, and the impossibility of getting any Toreno, the Spanish historian, observes,-"Rushing into the town, the French proceeded, killing or wounding all those whom they met on their road: they sacked the houses, the temples, even the humblest dwellings of the poor. The ancient and celebrated cathedral became the prey of the insatiable and destructive rapacity of the stranger. The massacre was great, the quantity of precious spoil collected immense. From the single depots of the Treasury and the Consolidation, Dupont obtained ten million reals, besides the sums extracted from public and private places of deposit. It was thus that a popu lation was delivered up to plunder which had neither made nor attempted the slightest resistance."-See Foy, iii. 230, 231; and TORENO, i. 322.—Thiers says, "Soon the combat degenerated into a true pillage, and that unfortunate city, one of the most ancient and most interesting of Spain, was sacked. . . . They" (the soldiers) "descended into the cellars filled with the best vintage of Spain, pierced the casks with musket-shots, and some were drowned by the overflowing wine. Others, quite drunk, respected nothing, and disgraced the character of the army by throwing themselves upon women, and subjecting them to every species of outrage.”—THIERS, ix. 74. LIV. 1808. 1 Foy, iii. CHAP. correct detail of the facts from the general interruption of the communications, produced such an impression on Dupont that he deemed it hopeless to attempt any farther advance into Andalusia-a resolution which proved the salvation of that province, and, in the end, of Spain; for such was the state of anarchy and irresolution which prevailed among the troops intrusted with its defence, that, had 234, 236, he advanced boldly forward and followed his successes Nap. i. 114. at Alcolea and Cordova with the requisite vigour, Seville would at once have fallen into his power, and the insurrection in that quarter might have been entirely crushed.1 Castanos, indeed, was at the head of eight thousand Dismay of regular troops, drawn from the camp at St Roque, and an iards, and enthusiastic but undisciplined body of thirty thousand of Dupont. armed peasants assembled at Utrera. But the latter part Tor. ii. 325. Thiers, ix. 77, 79. 27. the Span irresolution up of this force was incapable of any efficient operations in the field; and such was the consternation occasioned, in the first instance, by the success of the French irruption, that the general-in-chief was desirous of retiring to Cadiz, and making its impregnable fortifications the citadel of an intrenched camp, where the new levies might acquire some degree of consistency, and the support of ten or twelve thousand British troops might, in case of necessity, be obtained. The authority of Castanos was merely nominal; Morla, governor of Cadiz, was his enemy; and the junta of Seville issued orders independent of either : so that the former general, despairing of success, had actually, under pretence of providing for the security of Cadiz, embarked his heavy artillery for that fortress. From this disgrace, however, the Spaniards were relieved by the apprehensions of the enemy. A pause in an invading army is dangerous at all times, but especially so when an insurrection is to be put down by the moral 115. Foy, influence of its advance. The hesitation of Dupont at Tor. ii. 326. Cordova proved his ruin. He remained ten days inactive Nap. i. App. No. 13. there, during which the whole effect of his victory was lost.1 Confidence returned to the enemy from the hourly increase 1 Nap.i.114, iii. 234, 250. of their force, and the evident alarm of the French general: and at length some intercepted despatches to Savary were found to contain so doleful an account of his situation, that not only were all thoughts of retiring farther laid aside, but it was resolved immediately to advance, and surround the enemy in the city which he had conquered. in CHAP. 1808. 28. Retreat of Dupont to Andujar and Baylen. The fears of Dupont, however, prevented Cordova from a second time becoming the theatre of military license. Detachments of peasants had occupied all the passes the Sierra Morena: troops under Reding, including some regulars, were accumulating in the direction of Granada, with the design of seizing Carolina and intercepting his retreat to la Mancha. Fame had magnified the amount of the forces descending into the plains of Leon, under Cuesta and Blake; and rumours had got abroad that Savary was fortifying himself in the Retiro. The French general resolved to fall back; and accordingly he broke up from Cordova on the 16th June, and three days afterwards reached Andujar, without having experienced any June 16. molestation. A strong detachment was immediately sent June 19. off to Jaen, which defeated the insurgents, and took vengeance on the inhabitants for their barbarity to the sick at Andujar, by sacking and burning the town.* The supplies, however, which Dupont expected from this excursion were not obtained; for every article of provisions which the town contained was consumed in the conflagration. Both sides after this continued inactive for above three weeks, during which the sick in the French hospital rapidly augmented; while the Spanish forces, under Castanos, which now approached, increased so much, by reinforcements from all quarters, that that general could now muster above twenty thousand regular infantry and two That severity, however deplorable, was perhaps rendered necessary, and therefore justified, by the massacre of the sick at Andujar: but, in the prosecution of their orders, the French soldiers proceeded to excesses as wanton as they were savage; massacring old men, and infants at the breast, and exercising the last acts of cruelty on some sick friars of St Domingo and St Augustine, who could not escape from the Town.-TORENO, i. 326. CHAP. 1808. thousand horse, besides a motley crowd of thirty thousand armed peasants under his command. During the same period, however, powerful reinforcements reached the French general; for Vedel, with five thousand five hundred men, had crossed the Sierra Morena, and descended to Baylen; while Gobert, with his division, whose absence from Leon Napoleon had so bitterly lamented, had reached La Carolina at the southern entrance of the defiles, and was ordered to join Vedel on the 16th July, who meanwhile had pushed on a brigade under Ligier Belair to 1 Thiers, ix. watch the ford of Mengibar on the Guadalquivir, and keep Nap. 17, open the communication with the main body at Andujar. iv. 49, 52. But the Spanish generals, now deeming the escape of the French impossible, were taking measures for enveloping the whole, and forcing them to surrender.1 133, 135. i. 120. Foy, Tor. i. 326, 360. 29. Spanish plan of at movements on both sides. In truth, the long delay afforded by the inactivity of Dupont had been turned to the best account by the tack, and Spanish general. He contrived to give a certain degree preparatory of consistence to his tumultuous array of peasants; while the disembarkation of General Spencer with five thousand English troops chiefly from Gibraltar, at port St Mary's, near Cadiz, inspired general confidence by securing a rallying point in case of disaster. At length the regular troops from Granada, St Roque, Cadiz, and other quarters having all assembled, to the number of eight-andtwenty thousand foot and two thousand horse, a combined plan of attack was agreed on. The army was arranged in three divisions; the first, consisting of the forces from Granada, under Reding, a Swiss general of distinction, broXXV. § 59. ther to the intrepid patriot of the same name,2 received orders to cross the Guadalquivir at Mengibar, and move to Baylen, in the rear of Andujar, where Dupont still was, and between that town and the Sierra Morena; the second, under Coupigny, was to pass the same river at VillaNueva and support Reding; while Castanos, with the third and the reserve, was to press the enemy in front, and a body of irregular troops, under Don Juan de la 2 Ante, ch. July 11. |