SECTION XXXVI
THE MARCH TO VITTORIA
CHAPTER I
WELLINGTON’S PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
Good generals are very properly averse to putting on paper, even for the benefit of premiers or war ministers, the plan of their next campaign. Points of leakage are so inscrutable, and so hard to detect, that the less that is written the better is it for the projected enterprise. And Wellington was the most reticent of men—even going to the length of hiding from his own responsible subordinates intentions that they much desired to learn, and of giving orders that seemed eccentric while the secret reason for them was kept concealed. He never wrote autobiographical memoirs—the idea was repulsive to him—nor consented to open up (even to William Napier, who much desired it) his full confidence. For the genesis of the plan of the Vittoria Campaign we are compelled to rely mainly on the careful collection of hints from his contemporary dispatches, supplemented by certain rare confidential letters, and some obiter dicta of his later years, which may or may not have been reproduced with perfect accuracy by admirers like Croker or Lord Stanhope.
One thing is clear—he was conscious of the mistakes of 1812, and was not going to see them repeated in 1813. When the Burgos campaign was just over he wrote two short comments[442] on it, for the benefit of persons whom he judged capable of appreciating his difficulties. He owned up to his errors—he acknowledged four. The first was that he had tried to take Burgos by irregular means, without a proper battering train: the second that he had under-estimated the strength of the united French armies of Portugal and the North: the third that he had kept his army in two equal halves over-long—Hill should have been called in from Madrid to join the main body much sooner than he actually was: the fourth and most notable was that he had entrusted a crucial part of his plan of campaign to a Spanish general, over whom he had no formal authority—Ballasteros, who should have advanced from Andalusia to distract and hinder Soult. ‘If the game had been well played it would have answered my purpose. Had I any reason to suppose that it would be well played? Certainly not. I have never yet known the Spaniards do anything, much less do anything well.... But I played a game which might succeed (the only one that could succeed) and pushed it to the last. The parts having failed—as I admit was to be expected—I at least made a handsome retreat to the Agueda, with some labour and inconvenience but without material loss.’
The interest of these confessions is that we find Wellington in his next campaign making a clear effort to avoid precisely these four mistakes. He made elaborate preparations long beforehand for getting up a battering train: he rather over- than under-estimated his adversary’s numbers by way of caution: he never divided his army at all during his great advance of May-June 1813; after the first six days it marched in close parallel columns all in one mass, till Vittoria had been reached: and, last but not least, he entrusted no important part of the scheme to any Spanish general, and indeed used a much smaller proportion of Spanish troops than he need have done, although he had now become Generalissimo of all the allied armies, and could command where he could formerly only give advice.
Immediately after the termination of the Burgos retreat Wellington’s views for the future do not seem to have been very optimistic. He wrote to the Prime Minister that at present he could do nothing against an enemy whose numbers had proved too great for him to contend with[443]. Next spring he hoped to take the field with a larger force than he had ever had before, but unless the Spaniards could display a discipline and efficiency which it seemed impossible to teach them, he saw no prospect of ever obliging the French to quit the Peninsula by force of arms. To Lord Bathurst he wrote in much the same terms—the French, he thought, would canton their army in Old Castile and wait for the arrival of fresh reinforcements from France.
But the whole aspect of affairs was changed when the news of Napoleon’s Russian débâcle came to hand. It soon became clear that so far from any French reinforcements coming to Spain, it would be King Joseph who would be asked to send reinforcements to Germany. Lord Liverpool’s letter, enclosing the 29th Bulletin, reached Wellington at Lisbon on January 18th, and put him in a more cheerful mood. Moreover, he thought that his visit to Cadiz to accept the position of Generalissimo had been a success, and that he would get more help out of the Spaniards now that he had the formal power of issuing orders to their generals, ‘though I am not sanguine enough to hope that we shall derive much advantage from Spanish troops early in the campaign.’ But he intended to start betimes, ‘and at least to put myself in Fortune’s way[444].’ The French would be compelled to stand on the defensive; if they continued to hold the immense line that they were still occupying in January, they must be weak somewhere, and it was impossible that they should be reinforced.
It is on February 10th[445] that we get the first hint that Wellington’s scheme for the campaign of 1813 was going to be a very ambitious one—aiming not at local successes in Castile, or on recovering Madrid, but at driving the French right up to the Pyrenees. On that day he wrote to Lord Bathurst to say that ‘the events of the next campaign may render it necessary for the army to undertake one or more sieges in the North of Spain,’ wherefore he wished certain heavy guns and munitions to be sent by sea to Corunna, to be at his disposal, as soon as might be convenient, and twice the quantity of each to be prepared in England to be shipped when asked for.
The mention of ‘one or more sieges in the North of Spain’ for which guns had better be sent by sea to Corunna, can only mean that Wellington was thinking of Burgos and St. Sebastian—perhaps also of Santoña and Pampeluna. There were no other fortresses needing the attention of a heavy battering train in that direction. It is clear that, even in February, Wellington’s mind was travelling far afield; and on June 26th, Vittoria having been now won, he wrote to remind Lord Bathurst of his demand, and to point out that his forecast had come true[446].
In March, as was shown in an earlier chapter, Wellington began to get the news which proved that the French were making large drafts from Spain for the new Army of Germany, and that Soult, Caffarelli, and other generals were summoned to Paris. He knew, a few days later, that the enemy was evacuating La Mancha, and that the King was moving his head-quarters from Madrid to Valladolid. Everything indicated conscious weakness on the part of the enemy—it would be well to take instant advantage of it: Wellington wrote to his brother on March 28 that he hoped to start out in force on May 1st[447]—giving no hint where that force would be employed. At the same time he expressed his doubt as to whether any of the Spanish corps which were to join him could be ready by that date. But he was depending so much on the sole exertions of the Anglo-Portuguese army, that the tardiness of the Spaniards would not put a complete stop to his projected operations. Two other practical hindrances were a late spring, which made green forage for the horses harder to procure than it normally was in April, and accidents from bad roads and bad weather to his pontoon train, which he was secretly bringing up from the Tagus to the Douro, as it was to play a most essential part in the commencement of the campaign[448]. These mishaps appear mere matters of detail, but (as we shall see) there were immense consequences depending upon them—the presence of a large pontoon train on the Esla and the Douro, when its normal habitat was on the lower Tagus, was one of the first surprises in the wonderful campaign of May-June 1813. Starting from Abrantes in the end of April, it did not reach Miranda de Douro till the 20th of May[449].
The first definite revelation as to what Wellington’s plan was to be, is contained in a letter to Beresford of April 24th. ‘I propose to put the troops in motion in the first days of May: my intention is to make them cross the Douro, in general within the Portuguese frontier, covering the movement of the left by that of the right of the Army toward the Tormes, which right shall then cross the Douro, over the pontoons, in such situation as may be convenient. I then propose to seize Zamora and Toro, which will make all future operations easy to us[450].’
Here the first half of the great movement is accurately set forth, just as it was executed, though owing to the delays spoken of above, the general orders for the marching out of all the allied divisions were issued on May 13th instead of on May 1st-2nd. But in all other respects we have the exact analysis of the scheme: the ‘Left’—Graham with the equivalent of six divisions—crossed the Douro far inside Portugal at various points, and was in and about Braganza and Miranda by May 21st-24th: meanwhile the ‘Right’—Hill with three divisions—moved forward from the Agueda to the Tormes, attracting the main attention of the French between the 20th and the 26th, till it reached Salamanca, from whence it swerved off to the left, and joined Graham’s wing by the bridge of Toro, thus establishing the whole army in one mass north of the Douro, and completely turning the western flank of the entire French front of defence. On May 12 only, three weeks after he had communicated the secret to Beresford, did Wellington divulge it to the Ministers at home: evidently he dreaded leakage somewhere in London, such as he had discovered in the preceding autumn[451]. For Lord Bathurst’s benefit he descends a little more into detail:
‘I propose to commence our operations by turning the enemy’s position on the Douro, by passing the left of our army over that river within the Portuguese frontier. I should cross the Right in the same manner, only that I have been obliged to throw the Right very forward during the winter, in order to cover and connect our cantonments, and I could not well draw them back without exposing a good deal of country, and risking a counter-movement on the part of the enemy. I therefore propose to strengthen the Right, and move with it myself across the Tormes, and to establish a bridge on the Douro below Zamora. The two wings of the army will thus be connected, and the enemy’s position on the Douro will be turned. The Spanish Army of Galicia will be on the Esla, to the left of our army, at the same time that our army reaches that river.
‘Having turned the enemy’s position on the Douro, and established our communications across it, our next operation will depend on circumstances. I do not know whether I am now stronger than the enemy, even including the Army of Galicia. But of this I am very certain, that I shall never be stronger throughout the campaign, or more efficient, than I am now: and the enemy will never be weaker. I cannot have a better opportunity for trying the fate of a battle, which if the enemy should be unsuccessful, must oblige him to withdraw entirely. We have been sadly delayed by the pontoon bridge, without which it is obvious we can do nothing[452].’
Neither in the letter to Beresford nor in that to Bathurst does Wellington make a forecast beyond the first stage of his advance—obviously it would be impossible to do so till it was seen how the French would act. If they should be tempted to fight—say in front of Valladolid—when their flank was turned, in order to keep their hold on Castile, Wellington would welcome the decisive engagement. But of course they might refuse to fight, as indeed did they. They retired on Burgos, as we shall see, without taking any risks.
But that Wellington already foresaw the possibility of a victorious march to the Pyrenees is, I think, proved not only by his letter of February 10th concerning the siege of fortresses in Northern Spain, quoted above, but by similar hints on May 6 concerning the absolute necessity for naval co-operation in the North. He asks Lord Bathurst to insist on the presence of a squadron under an admiral in the Bay of Biscay, and for careful supervision of the whole coast from Bayonne to Corunna, which must absolutely stop French enterprise at sea, and ‘simplify arrangements for convoy and naval operations in concert with the army during the ensuing campaign[453].’ Taking this in conjunction with the letter of February 10, it seems certain that Wellington was thinking of stores to be landed at Santander, and a battering train to destroy San Sebastian—which was to look forward some way! There was, however, a secondary reason for requiring more naval supervision in the Bay of Biscay: American privateers had been putting in an appearance in these waters, and had captured several small transports.
A plan of campaign that contemplated the driving back of the French to the Pyrenees must, of course, embrace a good deal more than the mere reorganization of the Anglo-Portuguese army for a great push north of the Douro. There were many minor factors to be taken into consideration and utilized. First and foremost came the question as to how far the position of Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies could be turned to account. After his experiences in 1812 Wellington was determined to entrust to his Allies no crucial part of the operations, whose failure could wreck the whole scheme. With his own striking-force he intended to take only one Spanish army, that which was under the sole Spanish general whom he could trust for willing co-operation, even though he knew him to be no great military genius. Castaños had, by his influence at Cadiz, been nominated as Captain-General alike in Galicia, Castile, and Estremadura, and all the troops in those provinces now formed part of the new ‘4th Army.’ They included Morillo’s division, now cantoned about Caçeres, Carlos de España’s in the mountains between Ciudad Rodrigo and the pass of Perales, the lancers of Julian Sanchez—now counted a brigade of regular cavalry and not a partida—on the front between the Agueda and the Douro, and the two Galician divisions of Losada and Barcena, with their weak attendant cavalry brigade: to bring this up to strength two extra regiments[454] had filed up the Portuguese frontier during the winter from Estremadura. All these were in touch with the Anglo-Portuguese army, and were intended to move with it. They made up 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse. In addition there were many other troops theoretically belonging to the 4th Army, but at present cut off from it by the intervening zone of French occupation—viz. Porlier’s division in the Eastern Asturias, and Mendizabal’s irregular forces in Biscay and Cantabria—the troops of Longa and the Biscayan volunteers with other smaller bands. These scattered units, which could only come under Wellington’s real control when he should have beaten the French back to the Ebro, might make up 10,000 or 12,000 men. But they could not be counted upon for the first month of the campaign.
In addition, Castaños had a number of immovable troops—the garrisons of Rodrigo and Badajoz, a dépôt of unhorsed cavalry in Estremadura, and a sedentary unit called the ‘Army of Reserve of Galicia,’ consisting of all the most depleted corps of the old Galician army: its six battalions only made up 2,000 men, and it stopped at Vigo or Corunna all through the year 1813. Two other Galician battalions[455] had been sent round by sea during the winter, to join the much-tried Army of Catalonia. This small transference of troops had reached the knowledge of the French in an exaggerated shape, and caused much speculation at Madrid.
Beside the 21,000 men of the 4th Army, who marched in the Anglo-Portuguese line under Castaños’s nephew General Giron[456], there was only one other Spanish force which Wellington intended to employ in his own operations. This was the so-called ‘Army of Reserve of Andalusia,’ which had to come up all the way from Seville, and was far too late to join in the campaign of Vittoria: it did not get to the front till July: even later than the Generalissimo expected. The origin of this corps was that, when Soult evacuated Andalusia in September 1812, the best-equipped of the Cadiz garrison troops joined the field-army of Ballasteros, and advanced with him to Granada. This body was in April 1813 known as the ‘Third Army’ and was now commanded by the Duque del Parque, the successor of the cashiered Ballasteros. But the remainder of the Cadiz garrison, which had not gone to the front, was organized during the winter into a separate unit, under Henry O’Donnell, the Conde d’Abispal. It was rather a miscellaneous assembly—seven of its fourteen battalions having been regiments which did not march in October 1812 because they were low in numbers or equipment, and three more newly-raised units, formed to replace in the Army List old regiments which had perished in previous campaigns. However, they were filled up with recruits, re-clothed and re-equipped, and Wellington intended to use them with his own army, as étape and blockade troops. He preferred to take them with him rather than the 3rd Army, which was suspected of having many officers who had been devoted to Ballasteros, and who had resented the appointment of the new British generalissimo[457]. Moreover, O’Donnell was in every way a better officer than Del Parque, and had a good fighting reputation, though he was noted as impetuous and quarrelsome. The Army of Reserve of Andalusia was 14,000 strong, in two infantry divisions under Generals Echevari and Creagh and a weak cavalry brigade under Freire—late second in command of the Murcian army. The slow equipment of this corps, its late start, and its frequent halts for want of provisions, formed a perpetual source of dispute between Wellington and the Minister of War at Cadiz. But as it was not destined to form part of the original striking-force at the opening of the campaign, or to discharge any essential duty in the general scheme, its absence was not much felt. When it did appear, after Vittoria, it was usefully employed in blockading Pampeluna.
But in the summer campaign of 1813 it must be remembered that Wellington employed no Spanish troops save the original 21,000 Galicians and Estremadurans under Giron, and Longa’s 4,000 Cantabrians, who joined in from the North ten days before Vittoria, and took a creditable share in that battle.
It remains to be explained how Wellington intended to get an indirect profit out of the existence of the other Spanish corps—the re-named First, Second, and Third Armies, as well as out of the Anglo-Sicilian expeditionary force at Alicante, whose conduct had given him so many just causes of complaint during the autumn of 1812.
As to the ‘First Army,’ now commanded by General Copons (the defender of Tarifa), this gallant remnant of the old Catalan levies could not take the field 10,000 strong, was almost destitute of cavalry and artillery, and had no large town or secure fortress in its possession[458]. It held, in a rather precarious fashion, a considerable portion of the mountainous inland of Catalonia—the head-quarters were usually at Vich—but had no safe communications with the sea, or certainty of receiving succours, though it was intermittently in touch with Captain Codrington’s cruising squadron. Copons, who took over command in March 1813, though less disliked than his arbitrary and ill-tempered predecessor Lacy, was not popular with the Catalans. They would have liked to see their local hero, the Baron de Eroles, who had been in charge of the principality for some months after Lacy’s departure, made captain-general[459]. Weak in numbers as it was, the Army of Catalonia could obviously do no more than detain and keep employed General Decaen’s French army of occupation, which had more than double its strength. The garrisons of Barcelona, Tarragona, Figueras, Lerida, and Tortosa absorbed 13,000 of Decaen’s men. But he had 15,000 more available for field service, and his flying columns often put Copons in danger, for the Catalan army had to scatter its cantonments far and wide in order to live, and a sudden hostile concentration might easily cut off some fraction of it, when one part was as far north as the Ampurdam and the passes into France, and another as far east as the Aragonese border[460]. Normally the Catalans employed themselves in cutting the communications between the great fortresses, with an occasional foray into Roussillon. Wellington thought that they could not be better employed, and that nothing more could be expected of them. He sent them a small reinforcement of 2,000 men from the suppressed third division of the Army of Galicia, and urged that munitions should be thrown in from the side of the sea whenever possible.
There was little to be expected from the exertions of the Catalan army, persevering and meritorious though they were. It remained to be seen, however, whether something could not be done in the Principality with external help. Here came in the main problem of the Eastern Coast: Suchet must be kept employed at all costs, while the main blow was being delivered by Wellington himself on the other side of the Peninsula. Murray’s and Elio’s futile operations of April had accomplished little: the Marshal, though frightened at first by their movements, and though he had suffered the bloody check of Castalla, had been able to preserve his forward position on the Xucar: he retained complete possession of the Valencian coast-land, and his army was intact as a striking force. If, during the forthcoming campaign north of the Douro, he chose to draw off his main force towards Aragon, and to come in to join the King, there was at present nothing on foot that could stop him from such a course. Wellington resolved that this possibility must be averted, by giving the Marshal a problem of his own, which should absorb all his attention, and keep him from thinking of his neighbour’s needs. And this was all the more easy because Suchet was notoriously a selfish commander, who thought more of his own viceroyalty and his own military reputation than of the general cause of France: his intercepted dispatches, of which Wellington had a fair selection in his file of cyphers, showed that he was always ready to find plausible excuses for keeping to his own side of the Peninsula.
The plan which Wellington formulated for the use of Sir John Murray, in two dispatches dated on the 14th and 16th of April, was one which depended entirely on the judicious use of naval power. The British fleet being completely dominant in the Mediterranean, and Murray having at his disposition the large squadron of transports which had brought his troops from Sicily, it was clearly possible to land as many men as the transports could carry, at any point on the immensely long coast-line of Valencia and Catalonia that might be selected. They would have a local superiority on the selected point until the French troops, dispersed in many garrisons and cantonments, could mass in sufficient strength to attack them: and meanwhile the Catalan army would join Murray. If the French should draw together in overwhelming power, the expedition could, if proper precautions were taken, re-embark before its position became dangerous. The farther north that the landing took place, the more inconvenient would it be for Suchet, who would obviously have to draw on his field army in Valencia for numbers that would enable him to deal with the Anglo-Sicilian force. But the moment that Suchet should be forced to deplete his field army in the South, which was already too weak for the task set it, the Spaniards could advance on the line of the Xucar, and make a dash at Valencia during the Marshal’s absence. In order to give them an irresistible numerical preponderance over the divisions that Suchet might leave behind him, Del Parque should bring up the Andalusian army to reinforce Elio’s Murcians. Between them they would have some 30,000 regular troops, besides the bands of the Empecinado and Duran, who would operate on the side of the mountains against the French rear. It would be hard if such an accumulation of force could not thrust back the thinned line of the enemy on to and beyond Valencia.
Finally, the point at which the expeditionary force was to make its thrust was to be Tarragona, which was known to be in a state of bad repair, and thinly garrisoned, while it had also the advantage of being a very isolated post, and remote both from Decaen’s head-quarters at Gerona, and from Suchet’s at Valencia. Moreover, it was conveniently placed for communication with the Catalan army, but separated by difficult defiles both from Tortosa southward and Barcelona northward, at which French relieving forces would have to gather.
If the whole plan worked, and Tarragona were to fall in a few days, the Catalan army would once more have a safe debouch to the sea, and the Allies would gain a foothold such as they had never owned north of the Ebro since 1811, while at the same time Valencia ought to fall into the hands of Elio and Del Parque during Suchet’s enforced absence. But supposing that Tarragona held out firmly, and Decaen and Suchet united to relieve it, the expeditionary force could get away unharmed, and meanwhile Valencia ought to have been taken. And even if the blow at Valencia failed also, yet at least the whole French army on the East Coast would be occupied for a month or more, and would certainly not be able to spare a single man to help King Joseph or Jourdan.
As we shall see, a long series of blunders, for which Murray was mainly responsible, though Elio and Del Parque each took his share in the muddle, prevented all Wellington’s schemes for active profit from coming to a successful end. Nevertheless, the main purpose was achieved—not a Frenchman from the East Coast took any share in the campaign of Vittoria.
To descend to details. Murray was directed to ship off every man of the Alicante army for whom he could find transport, provided that the total of infantry and artillery embarked should not fall short of 10,000 of all ranks. He was to take with him both the Anglo-Sicilians and as many of Whittingham’s Spaniards as could be carried: if the ships sufficed, he might take all or some of Roche’s Spaniards also. Less than 10,000 men must not sail—the force would then be too small to cause Suchet to detach troops from Valencia. Elio and Del Parque would remain behind, with such (if any) of Roche’s and Whittingham’s battalions as could not be shipped. They were to keep quiet, till they should learn that Suchet had weakened his forces in Valencia. When it became certain that the French opposite them were much reduced in numbers, they were to advance, always taking care to turn the enemy’s positions rather than to make frontal attacks upon them.
If, which was quite possible, Murray should fail to take Tarragona, and should find very large French forces gathering around him, such as he and Copons could not reasonably hope to hold in check, he was to re-embark, and bring the Expeditionary Force back to the kingdom of Valencia, landing it at such a point on the coast as should put him in line with the front reached by Elio and Del Parque in their advance.
There was a subsidiary set of directions for a policy to be carried out if the transports available at Alicante should be found insufficient to move so many as 10,000 men. But as the shipping proved enough to carry 14,000, these directions have only an academic interest. In this case Murray and Elio were to threaten the line of the Xucar frontally, while Del Parque turned it on the side of the mountains of the interior. Duran and Villacampa were to devote themselves to cutting the line of communications between Suchet and the King. In this way employment would be found for all the French on the East Coast, for Copons was to receive a reinforcement of 3,000 men, and was to keep Decaen on the move by raids and forays.
Finally, and this clause governed the whole of the instructions, ‘the General Officers at the head of the troops must understand that the success of all our endeavours in the ensuing campaign depends on none of the corps being beaten. They must not attack the enemy in strong positions: I shall forgive anything excepting that one of the corps should be beaten and dispersed.’ Wellington afterwards said that this warning was intended for Elio and Del Parque only, but it had a deleterious effect during the ensuing operations on all the actions of the timid and wavering Murray. To say to such an officer that it would be a sin not to be forgiven if he let his corps get beaten under any circumstances, was to drive him to a policy of absolute cowardice. Wellington was an austere master, and the mental effect of such a threat was to make Murray resolve that he would not take even small and pardonable risks. The main idea that he had in his head in May and June 1813 was that he ‘must not allow his corps to be beaten and dispersed.’ Hence, like the unprofitable servant in the parable, he was resolved to wrap it up in a napkin, and have it ready to return to his master intact—though thereby he might condemn himself to make no worthy use of it whatever while it was in his hands. The threat of the Commander-in-Chief might have been addressed profitably to Robert Craufurd; when administered to John Murray it produced terror and a sort of mental paralysis.
It is true that Murray’s weakness of will and instability of purpose were so great that he would probably, in any case, have made a very poor game from the splendid cards put into his hand. But that the Tarragona expedition ended in the discreditable fiasco which we shall have to narrate, was undoubtedly the result in part of the impression which Wellington’s orders produced on his wavering mind. Yet, contemptible as his conduct of operations was, still Suchet was kept employed in the East and gave no help to King Joseph. That much was secured by Wellington’s knowledge of how sea-power can be used.
By the 1st of May everything should have been ready, but the late spring and the slow-moving pontoons delayed the start. On the 12th-13th-14th, however, every soldier, British and Portuguese, was ready to march. Every available unit was being brought up—there remained behind only the fever-ridden Guards’ brigade at Oporto; the weak 77th, which provided, along with one Veteran Battalion, a skeleton garrison for Lisbon; three Portuguese line regiments, two in Elvas, one in Abrantes, and the dismounted dragoons of the same nation, who had not taken the field for three years: only D’Urban’s and Campbell’s squadrons marched in 1813. The infantry consisted of 56 British and 53 Portuguese battalions—making about 67,000 bayonets. The British battalions were of very unequal size—a few as low as 450 men, a few others as strong as 900: the average was 700. The Portuguese battalions were rather weaker, some of the regiments never having recovered from the privations of the Burgos retreat, and did not exceed on an average 500 bayonets or 550 of all ranks. Of cavalry there were 22 regiments, of which four only were Portuguese—total 8,000 sabres. Of artillery there were 102 guns, in seventeen batteries, of which three were Portuguese and one belonged to the King’s German Legion[461]. Adding Engineers, Staff Corps, Wagon Train, &c., the whole represented 81,000 men of all ranks and all arms.