I. 1808. BOOK the opposition of the Spanish people as a partial insurrection of peasants, instigated by some evil-disposed persons to act against the wishes of the respectable part of the nation, would have given some colour to the absorbing darkness of the invasion: but to have permitted that which was at first an insurrection of peasants to take the form and consistence of regular armies and methodical warfare, would have been a military error, and dangerous in the extreme. Napoleon, who well knew that scientific war is only a wise application of force, laughed at the delusion of those who regarded the want of a regular army as a favourable circumstance, and who hailed the undisciplined peasant as the more certain defender of the country. He knew that a general insurrection can never last long, that it is a military anarchy, and incapable of real strength: he knew that it was the disciplined battalions of Valley Forge, not the volunteers of Lexington, that established American independence; that it was the veterans of Arcole and Marengo, not the republicans of Valmy, that fixed the fate of the French revolution; and consequently his efforts were directed to hinder the Spaniards from drawing together any great body of regular soldiers; an event that might easily happen, for the gross amount of the organized Spanish force was, in the month of May, about one hundred and twenty-seven thousand men of all arms. Fifteen thousand of these were in Holstein, under the marquis of Romana, but twenty thousand were already partially concentrated in Portugal. The remainder, in which were comprised eleven thousand Swiss and thirty thousand militia, were dispersed in various parts Historia de of the kingdom, principally in Andalusia. Besides contra Na- this force, there was a sort of local reserve called poleon Buo- the urban militia, much neglected, and indeed more la Guerra naparte. IV. 1808. a name than a reality. Nevertheless the advantage of CHAP. such an institution was considerable; men were to be had in abundance: and as the greatest difficulty in a sudden crisis is to prepare the frame-work of order, it was no small resource to find a plan of service ready, the principle of which was understood by the people. The French army in the Peninsula about the same period, although amounting to eighty thousand men, exclusive of those under Junot in Portugal, had not more than seventy thousand capable of active operations; the remainder were sick or in depôts. The possession of the fortresses, the central position, and the combination of this comparatively small army, gave it great strength; but it had also many points of weakness; it was made up of the conscripts of different nations, French, Swiss, Italians, Poles, and even Portuguese, whom Junot had expatriated, partly to strengthen the French army, partly to weaken the nation which he held in subjection; and it is a curious fact, that some of them remained in Spain until the end of the war. A few of the imperial guards were also employed, and here and there an old regiment of the line was mixed with the young troops to give them consistence; but with these exceptions the French army must be considered as a raw levy fresh from the plough and unacquainted with discipline: so late even as the month of August many Napoleon's of the battalions had not completed the first elements pendix, of their drill, and if they had not been formed upon Thiebault. good skeletons, the difference between them and the Dupont's insurgent peasantry would have been very trifling Journal This fact explains, in some measure, the otherwise incomprehensible checks and defeats which the French sustained at the commencement of the contest, and it likewise proves how little of vigour there was in notes. Ap No. 3. MSS. BOOK Spanish resistance at the moment of the greatest en I. thusiasm. 1808. In the distribution of these troops Napoleon at tended principally to the security of Madrid. The capital city, and the centre of all interests, its importance was manifest, and the great line of communication between it and Bayonne was early and constantly covered with troops. But the imprudence with which the grand duke of Berg brought up the corps of Moncey and Dupont to the capital, the manner in which those corps were posted, cutting off the communication between the northern and southern provinces, and the haughty impolitic demeanour assumed by that prince, drew on the crisis of affairs before the time was ripe, and obliged the French monarch to hasten the advance of other troops, and to make a greater display of his force than was consistent with his policy; for Murat's movement, while it threatened the Spaniards and provoked their hostility, placed the French army in an isolated position, leaving the long line of communication with France unprovided with soldiers and requiring fresh battalions to fill up the void thus discovered; and this circumstance generated additional anger and suspicion at a very critical period of time. To supply the chasm left by Moncey's advance, the formation of a new corps was commenced in Navarre, and by successive reinforcements so increased; that Napoleon's in June it amounted to twenty-three thousand men, Appendix, who were placed under the command of marshal notes, No. 2. Bessieres, and took the title of the " army of the Bessieres, at the first appearance of the commotion, fixed his head quarters at Burgos and occupied Vittoria, Miranda de Ebro, and other towns, placing IV. 1808. posts in his front towards Leon; this position, while CHAP. it protected the line from Bayonne to the capital, enabled him to awe the Asturias and Biscay, and (by giving him the command of the valley of the Duero,) to keep the kingdom of Leon and the province of Segovia in check. The town and castle of Burgos, being put into a state of defence, contained his dépôts, and became the centre and pivot of his operations; while some intermediate posts and the fortresses connected him with Bayonne, where a reserve of twenty thousand men was formed under general Drouet, then commanding the eleventh military division of France. Napoleon's By the convention of Fontainebleau, the emperor was entitled to send forty thousand men into the northern parts of Spain. The right thus acquired was grossly abused, but the exercise of it being expected, created at first but little alarm. It was different on the eastern frontier: Napoleon had never intimated a wish to pass forces by Catalonia; neither the treaty nor the convention authorized such a measure, nor could the pretence of supporting Junot in Portugal be advanced as a mask. Nevertheless, so st. Cyr. early as the 9th of February, eleven thousand in- notes, fantry, sixteen hundred cavalry, and eighteen pieces Appendix, of artillery, under the command of general Duhesme, crossed the frontier at La Jonquera, and marched upon Barcelona, leaving a detachment at the town of Figueras, the strong citadel of which commands the principal pass of the mountains. Arrived at Barcelona, Duhesme prolonged his residence there under the pretext of waiting for instructions from Madrid, relative to a pretended march upon Cadiz ; but his secret Duhesme's orders were, to obtain exact information concerning the tions, Catalonian fortresses, dépôts, and magazines,-to as- Vide St. certain the state of public feeling,—to preserve a rigid VOL. I. E No. 2. Instruc Jan. 28th. Cyr, I. BOOK discipline,-scrupulously to avoid giving any offence to the Spaniards, and to enter into close communication with marshal Moncey, at that time commanding the whole of the French army in the north of Spain. 1808. The political affairs were even then beginning to indicate serious results, and as soon as Duhesme's report was received, and the troops in the north were in a condition to execute their orders, he was directed to seize upon the citadel of Barcelona, and the fort of Monjuick. The citadel was obtained by stratagem; the fort, one of the strongest in the world, was surrendered by the governor Alvarez. That brave and worthy officer, knowing the baseness of his court, was certain that he would receive no support from that quarter, and did not resist the demand of the French general, who having failed to surprise the vigilance of the garrison, impudently insisted upon a surrender of the place. Alvarez consented to relinquish his charge, although he felt the disgrace of his situation so acutely that, it is said, he had some thoughts of springing a mine beneath a French detachment during the conference; but his mind, unequal to the occasion, betrayed his spirit, and he sunk, oppressed by the force of unexpected circumstances. What a picture of human weakness do these affairs present; the boldest men shrinking from the discharge of their trust like the meanest cowards, and the wisest following the march of events, confounded and without a rule of action! If such a firm man, as Alvarez afterwards proved himself to be, could think the disgrace of surrendering his charge at the demand of an insolent and perfidious guest a smaller misfortune than the anger of a miserable court, what must the state of public feeling have been, and how can those men who, like O'Farril and Azanza, served |