A History of the Peninsula War II (eBook)

SECTION IX

AFTER CORUNNA
(JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1809)

CHAPTER I

THE CONSEQUENCES OF MOORE’S DIVERSION: RALLY OF THE SPANISH ARMIES: BATTLE OF UCLES

With the departure of Napoleon from Madrid on December 21, the offensive action of the French army in central Spain came to a stand. The Emperor had taken away with him the field army, which had been destined to deliver those blows at Lisbon and Seville that were to end the war. The troops which he had left behind him in the neighbourhood of Madrid were inadequate in numbers for any further advance, and were forced to adopt a defensive attitude. The only regions in which the invaders continued to pursue an active policy were Aragon and Catalonia, from which, on account of their remoteness, the Emperor had not withdrawn any troops for his great encircling movement against Sir John Moore. In both those provinces important operations began on the very day on which Bonaparte set out to hunt the English army: it was on December 21 that Lannes commenced the second siege of Saragossa, and that St. Cyr, after relieving Barcelona, scattered the army of Catalonia at the battle of Molins de Rey. But the campaigns of Aragon and Catalonia were both of secondary importance, when compared with the operations in central Spain. As the whole history of the war was to show, the progress of events in the valley of the lower Ebro and in the Catalan hills never exercised much influence on the affairs of Castile and Portugal. It is not, therefore, too much to assert that it was Moore’s march on Sahagun, and that march alone, which paralysed the main scheme of the Emperor for the conquest of Spain.

Between December 21 and January 2 the central reserves of the French army had been hurried away to the Esla and the plains of northern Leon. It was not till the new year had come that the Emperor began to think of sending some of them back to the neighbourhood of Madrid. The 8th Corps had been incorporated with the 2nd, and sent in pursuit of Moore: the corps of Ney and the division of Lapisse were left to support Soult in his invasion of Galicia. The Imperial Guard marched back to Valladolid. Of all the troops which had been distracted to the north-west, only Dessolles’ division of the Central Reserve returned to the capital. Such a reinforcement was far from being enough to enable Joseph Bonaparte, and his military adviser Jourdan, to assume the offensive towards the valleys of the Tagus and Guadiana. The consequences of Moore’s diversion were not only far-reaching but prolonged: it was not till the middle of March that the army of the king was able to resume the attempt to march on Seville, and by that time the condition of affairs had been profoundly modified, to the advantage of the Spaniards.

The intervening time was not one of rest for Joseph and his army. Their movements require careful attention. When Napoleon hurried the main body of his troops across the Somosierra in pursuit of the British, he left behind him the corps of Victor, shorn of Lapisse’s division, the whole of the corps of Lefebvre[1], and the three independent cavalry divisions of Lasalle, Latour-Maubourg and Milhaud—in all 8,000 horse and 28,000 foot with ninety guns. There was also the Royal Guard of King Joseph, four battalions of foot, and a regiment of horse, beside two skeleton regiments of Spanish deserters, which the ‘Intrusive King’ was raising as the nucleus of a new army of his own[2].

Of these troops the incomplete German division of Leval (2nd of the 4th Corps) and King Joseph’s guards formed the garrison of Madrid. This force seeming too small, the division of Ruffin (1st of the 1st Corps) was ordered in to reinforce them. The rest of the army lay in two concentric semicircles outside Madrid: the inner semicircle was formed of infantry: there was a regiment at Guadalajara[3], a whole division under Marshal Victor himself at Aranjuez[4], and two divisions of the 4th Corps under Marshal Lefebvre at Talavera[5]. Outside these troops was a great cavalry screen. In front of Victor the three cavalry brigades of Latour-Maubourg’s division lay respectively at Tarancon, Ocaña, and Madridejos, watching the three roads from La Mancha. West of them lay Milhaud’s division of dragoons, in front of Talavera, in the direction of Navalmoral and San Vincente, observing the passes of the Sierra de Toledo. Lastly, as a sort of advanced guard in the direction of Estremadura, Lasalle’s light cavalry had pushed on to the great bridge of Almaraz, behind which the wrecks of the mutinous armies of Belvedere and San Juan were beginning to collect, under their new commander Galluzzo[6].

The Emperor’s parting orders to Jourdan had been to send forward Lasalle and Lefebvre to deal a blow at the Estremaduran army. They had, he wrote, twice the numbers necessary to break up the small force of disorganized troops in front of them. On December 24, Lefebvre was to cross the Tagus, scatter Galluzzo’s men to the winds, and then come back to Talavera, after building a tête-de-pont at Almaraz. Lasalle’s cavalry would be capable of looking after what was left of this force, for it would not give trouble again for many a week to come. Victor, on the side of La Mancha, must keep watch on any movements of the Spaniards from the direction of Cuenca or the Sierra Morena. He would have no difficulty in holding them off, for ‘all the débris of the insurgent armies combined could not face even the 8,000 French cavalry left in front of them—to say nothing of the infantry behind[7].’

The first portion of the orders of the Emperor was duly carried out. On December 24 the Duke of Dantzig advanced from Talavera upon the bridges of Arzobispo and Almaraz, behind which lay 6,000 or 7,000 of Galluzzo’s dispirited levies. He made no more than a feint at the first-mentioned passage, but attacking the more important bridge of Almaraz carried it at the first rush, and took the four guns which Galluzzo had mounted on the southern bank to command the defile. The Spaniards, scattered in all directions, abandoned the banks of the Tagus, and placed themselves in safety behind the rugged Sierra de Guadalupe. So far the Emperor’s design was carried out: but Lefebvre then took a most extraordinary step. Instead of returning, as he had been ordered, to Talavera, and remaining in that central position till further orders should be sent him, he went off on an inexplicable adventure of his own. Leaving only Lasalle’s cavalry and two Polish battalions on the Tagus, he turned north, as if intending to join the Emperor, crossed the mountains between New and Old Castile, and on January 5 appeared at Avila in the latter province[8]. Not only was the march in complete contravention of the Emperor’s orders, but it was carried out in disobedience to five separate dispatches sent from Madrid by Jourdan, in the name of King Joseph. Lefebvre paid no attention whatever to the ‘lieutenant of the Emperor,’ in spite of vehement representations to the effect that he was exposing Madrid by this eccentric movement. It was indeed an unhappy inspiration that led him to Avila, for at this precise moment the Spaniards were commencing a wholly unexpected offensive advance against the Spanish capital, which Lefebvre, if he had remained at Talavera, might have aided in repelling. Much incensed at his disobedience Napoleon deprived him of the command of the 4th Corps, and sent him back to France. ‘This marshal,’ he wrote to King Joseph, ‘does nothing but make blunders: he cannot seize the meaning of the orders sent him. It is impossible to leave him in command of a corps;—which is a pity, for he is a brave enough fellow on the battle-field[9].’ Sebastiani, Lefebvre’s senior divisional general, replaced him in command of his corps.

The new Spanish advance upon Madrid requires a word of explanation. We have seen that the weary and dilapidated Army of the Centre, now commanded by the Duke of Infantado, had reached Cuenca on December 10, after escaping from the various snares which Napoleon had set for it during its march from Calatayud to the valley of the upper Tagus. When he had escaped from Bessières’ pursuit, the duke proceeded to give his army a fortnight’s much-needed rest in the mountain villages round Cuenca. He sent back to Valencia the wrecks of Roca’s division, which had originally been raised in that kingdom. It had dwindled down to 1,455 men, from its original 8,000[10]. The other troops, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th divisions of the old army of Andalusia[11], had not suffered quite so much, as they had not been seriously engaged at Tudela, but they were half-starved and very disorderly. Infantado was forced to shoot an officer and two sergeants for open mutiny before he could restore the elements of discipline[12].

The province of Cuenca is the most thinly peopled and desolate of all the regions of Spain[13], and though some stores and food were procured from Valencia, it was impossible to re-equip the army in a satisfactory way. Winter clothing, in particular, was absolutely unprocurable, and if the men had not been placed under roofs in Cuenca and the villages around, they must have perished of cold. But a fortnight’s rest did much for them: many stragglers came up from the rear, a few reinforcements were received, and to the surprise of the whole army the brigade of the Conde de Alacha, which had been cut off from the rest of the troops on the day of Tudela, turned up intact to join...