I.

1808.

BOOK vanquished sought safety in all directions, but chiefly on the side of Benevente. Blake and Cuesta separated in wrath with each other, the former making for the mountains of Gallicia, the latter towards Leon, and the division left at Benevente dispersed.

The French, who had lost fifty killed and three hundred wounded, remained at Rio Seco all the 15th; the 16th they advanced to Benevente, where they found many thousand English muskets and vast quantities of ammunition, clothing, and provisions.

The communication with Portugal was now open, and Bessieres at first resolved to give his hand to Junot; but hearing that the fugitives were likely to rally on the side of Leon, he pursued them by the road of Villa-fere. On his march, learning that Cuesta was gone to Mayorga, he turned aside to that place, and on the 22d captured there another great collection of stores; for, the Spanish general, with the usual improvidence of his nation, had established all his magazines in the open towns of the flat country.

After this Bessieres entered the city of Leon and remained there until the 29th, during which time he received the submission of the municipality, and prepared to carry the war into Gallicia. The junta of Castile and Leon, whose power had hitherto been restrained by Cuesta, now retired to Puente-Ferrada and assumed supreme authority, and the quarrel between the generals becoming rancorous, they sided with Blake. This appearing to Bessieres a favourable occasion to tamper with the fidelity of those chiefs; he sent his prisoners back, and endeavoured, by offering the vice-royalty of Mexico to the one, and by reasoning on the hopeless state of the insurrection, and the promise of rank and honours to the other, to shake the loyalty of both; but neither would listen to him.

This failing, he marched to Puente Orvigo the

VII.

1808.

31st, intending to break into Gallicia, but he was CHAP. suddenly recalled from thence to protect the retreat of the king from Madrid. Dupont had surrendered with a whole army in Andalusia, the court was in consternation, the victory of Rio Seco was rendered fruitless; and Bessieres retracing his steps to Mayorga, took a defensive position near that town.

OBSERVATIONS.

1o. As Blake was overruled by Cuesta he is not responsible for the errors of this short campaign; but the faults were gross on both sides, and it seems difficult to decide whether Savary or Cuesta made the greatest number.

2o. If the former had sent Gobert's division to Valladolid, Bessieres would have had twenty-two thousand men and forty pieces of artillery in the field, a force not at all too great, when it is considered that the fate of three French armies depended upon the success of a battle to which Cuesta might have brought at least double that number. The latter having determined upon an offensive movement, disregarded the powerful cavalry of his enemy, chose a field of battle precisely in the country where that arm would have the greatest advantage, and when he should have brought every man to bear upon the quarter which he did attack, he displayed his ignorance of the art of war by fighting the battle of Rio Seco with twentyfive thousand men only, and leaving ten thousand disciplined troops guarding positions in his rear, which could not be approached until he himself was first beaten. Neither was the time well chosen for his advance; had he waited a few days the port of St. Ander would have been attacked by eight English frigates and a detachment of Spanish troops under

I.

BOOK the command of general da Ponte, an enterprise that would have distracted and weakened Bessieres, but which was relinquished in consequence of the battle of Rio Seco.

1808.

3o. Once united to Blake, Cuesta's real base of operations was Gallicia, and he should have kept all his stores within the mountains, and not have heaped them up in the open towns of the flat country, exposed to the marauding parties of the enemy, or covered, as in the case of Benevente, by strong detachments which weakened his troops in the field and confined him to a particular line of operations in the plain.

4°. The activity and good sense of marshal Bessieres overbalanced the errors of Savary; and the victory of Rio Seco was of infinite importance, because as we have seen a defeat in that quarter would have shaken the French military system to its centre and have obliged the king, then on his journey to Madrid, to halt at Vittoria, until the distant divisions of the army were recalled to the capital, and a powerful effort made to crush the victorious enemy. Napoleon's observations are full of strong expressions of discontent at the imprudence of his lieutenant. "A check given to Dupont," he says, "would have a slight effect, but a wound received by Bessieres would give a locked jaw to the whole army. Not an inhabitant of Madrid, not a peasant of the valleys that does not feel that the affairs of Spain are involved in the affair of Bessieres; how unfortunate, then, that in such a great event you have wilfully given the enemy twenty chances against yourself." When he heard of the victory he exclaimed that it was the battle of Almanza, and that Bessieres had saved Spain.

The prospect was indeed very promising; the king had arrived in Madrid, bringing with him the veteran

VII.

1808.

Notes,

No. 3.

brigade of general Rey and some of the guards, and CHAP. all fears upon the side of Leon being allayed, the affairs of Andalusia alone were of doubtful issue; for Zaragoza, hard pushed by Verdier, was upon the Napoleon's point of destruction in despite of the noble courage Appendix, of the besieged; nor did the subjugation of Andalusia appear in reason a hard task, seeing that Moncey was then at San Clemente, and from that point threatened Valencia without losing the power of succouring Dupont, and Frere's and Caulincourt's troops were disposable for any operation. The French army possessed the centre, and the Spaniards were dispersed upon a variety of points on the circumference without any connexion with each other, and in force only upon the side of Andalusia.

5°. The great combinations of the French emperor were upon the point of being crowned with success, when a sudden catastrophe overturned his able calculations and raised the sinking hopes of the Spaniards. It was the campaign in Andalusia which produced such important effects, and it offers one of the most interesting and curious examples recorded by history of the vicissitudes of war; for there disorder unaccompanied by superior valour triumphed over discipline; inexperienced officers were successful against practised generals; and a fortuitous combination of circumstances enabled the Spaniards, without any skill, to defeat in one day an immense plan wisely arranged, embracing a variety of interests, and until that moment happily conducted in all its parts. This blow, which felled Joseph from his throne, marked the French army with a dishonourable scar, the more conspicuous, because it was the only one of its numerous wounds that misbecame it.

CHAPTER VIII.

OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA.

BOOK
I.

1808.

Operations.

MS.

GENERAL Dupont received orders to march against Cadiz with a column, composed of two Swiss Journal of regiments (Preux and Reding), taken from the SpaDupont's nish army, a French division of infantry under general Barbou, a division of cavalry commanded by general Fresia, a marine battalion of the imperial guards, and eighteen pieces of artillery. Three thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and ten guns, drawn from the army of Portugal, were to join him in Andalusia, and he was to incorporate among his troops three other Swiss regiments, quartered in that province.

The latter end of May he traversed La Mancha, entered the Sierra Morena, by the pass of Despenas Perros, and proceeded by Carolina and Baylen to Andujar, where he arrived the 2d of June; there he was informed that a supreme junta of government was established at Seville, that minor juntas ruled in Granada, Jaen, and Cordoba, that war was formally declared against the French, that the whole of Andalusia was in arms, and the Swiss regiments ranged under the Spanish banners, and finally, that general Avril, commanding the detachment expected from Portugal, had halted in Tavora, and was preparing to return to Lisbon.

Alarmed by this intelligence, Dupont wrote to Murat and Savary to demand reinforcements, and in