[371] I see no proof that even this was done. There were only five of them, the Provinciales of Cuenca, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Alcazar de Don Juan, and Siguenza. Toledo and Alcazar had 579 and 595 under arms at the time of Baylen, and only 500 each, apparently, in Nov. 1808. See Arteche, iii. 496.

[372] For the Asturians see the table in Arteche (ii. 651): they were still 10,000 strong after having shared in Blake’s disastrous campaign. For the Estremadurans compare the list of regiments raised in the Madrid Gazette of Oct. 21, giving a total of 23,600 men, with the actual morning state of the Estremaduran troops at Madrid on their way to Burgos, 12,846 in all, given in Arteche (iii. 477).

[373] Stuart to Moore, from Madrid, Oct. 18, 1808.

[374] For details see the tables in Arguelles, and the grants recorded in the Madrid Gazette for September, October, and November.

[375] I take these figures as to what had been actually received from Vaughan, who was at Madrid, in constant communication with Stuart and Bentinck. They represent what had been paid over and acknowledged, not what had been promised or provided, and may be taken as accurate.

[376] Graham to Moore, from Tudela, Nov. 9, 1808.

[377] The Spanish troops, though the best of the whole army, do not seem to have much impressed the German observer with their discipline. See the Mecklenburger Von Suckow’s observations on what he saw of them in his From Jena to Moscow, p. 92.

[378] Infantry regiments of Guadalajara and Asturias, of three battalions each.

[379] Infantry regiment of Princesa (three battalions), light battalion of Barcelona, and cavalry regiments of Almanza and Villaviciosa.

[380] Light battalion of ‘Volunteers of Catalonia.’

[381] Infantry regiment of Zamora, cavalry regiments Del Rey, Algarve, Infante.

[382] Arteche, iii. 151.

[383] Bourrienne, Mémoires, viii. 20.

[384] Napoleon to Berthier, March 29, 1808 (Nap. Corresp., 13,699).

[385] See his words quoted in Arteche, iii. 154.

[386] See his interesting little book, A Secret Mission to the Danish Isles in 1808, published at Edinburgh in 1863 by his relative Alexander Fraser.

[387] For the banquets given (under imperial orders) by the cities, see Nap. Corresp., 14,291, 14,331. Clearly Napoleon I understood the ‘policy of champagne and sausages’ as well as his nephew.

[388] Considering the delicate nature of the political situation, Napoleon’s language to the Austrians was most rude and provocative. See the long interview with Metternich [Aug. 15] reported by Champagny in his dispatch (Nap. Corresp., 14,254): ‘Vous avez levé 400,000 hommes: je vais en lever 200,000. La Confédération du Rhin, qui avait renvoyé ses troupes, va les réunir et faire des levées. Je rétablirai les places de Silésie, au lieu d’évacuer cette province et les états Prussiens, comme je me le proposais. L’Europe sera sur pied, et le plus léger incident amènera le commencement des hostilités,’ &c.

[389] ‘Dans le cas où l’Autriche se mettrait en guerre contre la France, l’Empereur de Russie s’engage à se déclarer contre l’Autriche, et à faire cause commune avec la France’ (Article X, clause 2, of the Secret Treaty).

[390] Baron Vincent.

[391] See the dispatch (Nap. Corresp., 14,380).

[392] Napoleon to Champagny (Nap. Corresp., 14,643).

[393] Napoleon to Champagny (Nap. Corresp., 14,643).

[394] It is strange to find that Napier was convinced that Napoleon had a real desire for peace, and hoped to secure it by the proposals of October, 1808. He writes (i. 210): ‘The English ministers asserted that the whole proceeding was an artifice to sow distrust among his enemies. Yet what enemies were they among whom he could create this uneasy feeling? Sweden, Sicily, Portugal! the notion as applied to them was absurd; it is more probable that he was sincere. He said so at St. Helena, and the circumstances of the period warrant a belief in that assertion.’ But Napier has failed to see that the design was not to ‘sow distrust among his enemies.’ The whole business was intended to influence French public opinion, and in a secondary way the public opinion of all Europe. Bonaparte wished to pose as a friend of peace, and to bestow on England the unenviable rôle of the selfish fomenter of wars. With many simple folk in France and elsewhere he succeeded, but no Englishman, save one blinded by a dislike for everything Tory, could have been deceived.

[395] For the organization and state of Blake’s force, see the Appendix.

[396] The Asturias had raised nineteen new battalions: of these eight went forward with Blake, and eleven remained behind.

[397] The 4th Galician Division under the Marquis of Portago.

[398] The 3rd Galician Division under General Riquelme.

[399] All these moves are best described in Marshal Jourdan’s Mémoires (edited by Grouchy; Paris, 1899), pp. 71-5.

[400] Acevedo’s 8,000 Asturians joined Blake at Villarcayo on Oct. 11 (see his dispatch in Madrid Gazette, Oct. 25).

[401] I gather from Madrid Gazette (Oct. 21, p. 1,333) that it was still organizing in and about Badajoz on Oct. 6, and did not begin to march till later.

[402] Volunteers of Benavente from the army of Castile, and Tuy Militia of Blake’s army.

[403] These three Granadan battalions had been sent, along with the rest of the levies of that kingdom, to form part of the division which Reding was leading to Catalonia. They had been replaced by the new Andalusian battalions of Baylen, Navas de Tolosa, and 5th of Seville.

[404] Castaños himself, in his exculpatory memoir, will not allow that he ever had more than 26,000 men, even including the belated troops of the 1st and 3rd Andalusian divisions which came up in November.

[405] See the tables in Arteche, iii. 479, 480. The Regiment of Calatayud was only 310 strong, that of Doyle 306, and that of Navarre 302; on the other hand the 2nd Volunteers of Aragon had 1,302, the 1st Volunteers of Huesca 1,319, and the overgrown ‘Aragonese Fusiliers’ no less than 1,836.

[406] 3rd Spanish Guards 609, Estremadura 600, 1st Volunteers of Aragon 1,141. These figures are from a return of Nov. 1, sent to England by Colonel Doyle, then in high favour with Palafox. It may be found in the Record Office.

[407] The Valencian and Murcian contributions to the army of Aragon consisted of the following troops:—One old line regiment of three battalions (Volunteers of Castile), the militia battalion of Soria, and of new levies the 1st and 2nd Volunteers of Murcia, the 2nd Volunteers of Valencia, the regiments of Turia (three battalions), Alicante (three battalions), Segorbe (two battalions), Borbon, Chelva, and Cazadores de Fernando VII, the Dragoons of Numancia (an old corps), and two squadrons of new Valencian cavalry. I get these names partly from the return of Nov. 1 in the Record Office at London, partly from Saint March’s return of his killed and wounded at Tudela. Some more Murcian corps started to join Palafox, but were not in time for Tudela, though they took part in the second defence of Saragossa: viz. 3rd and 5th Volunteers of Murcia, the regiment of Florida Blanca, and 1st and 2nd Tiradores of Murcia. Their start from Murcia on Oct. 13 is noted in the Madrid Gazette of 1808 (p. 1,336).

[408] Just 14,970, according to the details given in the Madrid Gazette for Oct. 12 (p. 1,379). See my Appendix on the Spanish forces in Oct.-Nov.

[409] Madrid Gazette, Oct. 28 (p. 1,381).

[410] Ibid., Nov. 1 (p. 1,407).

[411] The figures given by Jourdan in his Mémoires seem quite accurate, and are borne out by all the details in Nap. Corresp.; they are:—

[412] It was originally to be called the 5th, but this title was taken from it, in order that Mortier’s corps might keep its old number.

[413] For their distribution see p. 110.

[414] The paper containing them was captured in Joseph’s carriage at Vittoria five years later. It will be found printed in full in Napier (Appendix to vol. i, pp. 453, 454).

[415] For an account of this curious affair see the Mémoires of General Boulart, then an artillery officer under Ney, who discovered the flight of the Castilians and the abandoned mine below the bridge (pp. 202, 203). Oddly enough he gives the wrong date for the incident, Oct. 30 instead of Oct. 27.

[416] I cannot find any details as to their redistribution.

[417] See Colonel Graham’s Diary, p. 275 (Oct. 30). He reached Castaños’ camp on that day.

[418] Jourdan in his Mémoires (p. 77) says that it was Morlot who acted against Lerin, and I follow him rather than those who state that it was Maurice Mathieu.

[419] Cf. p. 366 and Graham’s Diary, p. 276.

[420] According to Toreño; but Graham, who was present in the camp, calls it rheumatism.

[421] See Nap. Corresp., 14,312 (xvii. 505, 506), and compare with 14,601 (xviii. 141, 142).

[422] Discours prononcé le 25 oct. (Nap. Corresp., xviii. 20, 21).

[423] Those of Marchand and Bisson, forming the old 6th Corps, with which he fought at Jena and Friedland.

[424] Napoleon to Joseph Bonaparte, to Caulaincourt, to Eugène Beauharnais (vols. xvii, xviii of Nap. Corresp.).

[425] The clearest proof which I find in the Napoleon Correspondance of the Emperor’s intention to sweep over the whole Peninsula, with a single rush, is that already in November he was assembling at Bayonne naval officers who were to take charge of the port of Lisbon, and to reorganize the Portuguese fleet. This was a little premature! (See Napoleon to Decrès, Minister of Marine, Nap. Corresp., 14,514, vol. xviii.)

[426] Napoleon to Bessières, Nov. 6: ‘J’ai vu vos dépêches du 5 novembre sur l’existence d’un corps de 24,000 hommes à Burgos. Si cela est, ce ne peut être que 12,000 hommes de l’armée de Castille qui ont évacué Logroño, et qui ne sont pas en cas de faire tête à 3,000 ou 4,000 de vos gens’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,443, xviii. 38).

[427]See page 396.

[428]

[429] There is a clear and precise account of all these moves in the Mémoires of Jourdan, who was still acting as Joseph’s chief of the staff (pp. 79-81).

[430] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 79.

[431]He had

Arteche gives twelve German battalions (iii. 491); but the Frankfort Regiment had only one battalion, those of Nassau, Baden, and Darmstadt two each. The figures are those of the return of Oct. 10.

[432] It counted 1,066 bayonets when entering on the campaign, and was attached to the Vanguard.

[433] Captain Carroll, an eye-witness, gives a good account of this action in his report to General Leith, dated from Valmaceda on Nov. 2.

[434] Report of Captain Carroll in papers of 1809 in the Record Office.

[435] The 4th Division.

[436] The 1st and 3rd Divisions. See the dispatches of Captain Carroll from Valmaceda, dated Nov. 5, in the Record Office.

[437] Napoleon, furious at the escape of the Asturians, administered a fiery rebuke to the Marshal. ‘He had left one of his own divisions, exposed by Lefebvre’s imprudence, to run the risk of annihilation. He had never gone to the front himself to look at Acevedo, but had allowed the reconnoitring to be done by an incapable subordinate. His guess that Villatte had been victorious and did not need help was absurd; why should the dying down of the fire mean that the French were successful rather than beaten? The first principles of the art of war prescribe that a general should march toward the cannon, when he knows that his colleagues are engaged’ (Nap. Corresp., 14,445).

[438] One battalion of Segovia and two of volunteers of Galicia.

[439] This engagement, unmentioned by Napier, Thiers, and most other historians, will be found in detail in Carroll’s dispatch and Arteche (iii. 273, 274).

[440] Indeed they were only saved from starvation by receiving at Espinosa 250 mules laden with biscuit, from English ships at Santander, which General Leith had pushed across the mountains. Blake in a letter of Nov. 9 to Leith (Record Office) acknowledges that this kept his men alive.

[441] I gather from a comparison of the muster-rolls of the Galician army in October and in December, that four battalions rejoined Blake and six escaped towards Santander.

[442]

This leaves 26,040 available at Espinosa; the real figure was probably somewhat smaller.

[443] Malaspina had two battalions of Del Rey, and the Betanzos and Monterrey militia. (Journal of Blake’s Operations in the Vaughan Papers.)

[444] Puthod’s brigade of Villatte’s division, the 94th and 95th of the Line.

[445] The 9th Léger and 24th of the Line from Ruffin’s division, and the 54th from that of Lapisse, each three battalions strong.

[446] It is fair to the Asturians to mention that eight of their ten battalions were raw levies; there were among them only one regular and one militia battalion of old formation.

[447] It is necessary to protest against the groundless libel upon this corps in which Napier indulges (i. 257) when he says: ‘It has been said that Romana’s soldiers died Spartan-like, to a man, in their ranks; yet in 1812 Captain Hill of the Royal Navy, being at Cronstadt to receive Spaniards taken by the Russians during Napoleon’s retreat, found the greater portion were Romana’s men captured at Espinosa; they had served Napoleon for four years, passed the ordeal of the Moscow retreat, and were still 4,000 strong.’ This is ludicrous: the eight battalions of the Baltic division landed in Spain 5,294 strong; a month after Espinosa they still figured for 3,953 in the muster-rolls of the army of Galicia (see the morning state in Arteche, iv. 532). Only 1,300 were missing, so Victor, clearly, cannot have taken 4,000 prisoners. Captain Hill’s (or Napier’s) mistake lies in not seeing that the Russian prisoners of 1812 belonged to the 5,000 men of La Romana’s army (regiments of Guadalajara, Asturias, and the Infante) which did not succeed in escaping from Denmark in 1808, and remained perforce in Napoleon’s ranks.

[448] See pp. 393-4, and Nap. Corresp., 14,443.

[449] That to Victor will be found in Nap. Corresp., 14,445.

[450] For details of their ride against time, see the Mémoires of St. Chamans, his senior aide-de-camp (p. 107).

[451] The figures here given are mainly those indicated by Napoleon in his dispatch of Nov. 8 (Nap. Corresp., 14,456), supplemented from the morning state of the army on Oct. 10:—

[452] These battalions were those of Tuy and Benavente, the first a militia battalion, the second a new volunteer corps.

[453] Each mustered less than 400 bayonets.

[454] To show how strange is Napier’s statement (i. 254) that the army of Estremadura consisted of ‘the best troops then in Spain,’ and that it was therefore disgraceful that they ‘fought worse than the half-starved peasants of Blake,’ we may perhaps give the list of Belvedere’s little force: it consisted of—

Only the cavalry and the five battalions marked with a star were regulars.

[455] As ill luck would have it four of these five battalions in the plain were raw levies, the Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.) and of Tuy and Benavente. They had not skill enough even to form square.

[456] It is fair to say, however, that Jourdan asserts that their loss was only about 1,500 (Mémoires, p. 85). There is no Spanish estimate of any authority. Napoleon in his Bulletin claimed 3,000 killed and 3,000 prisoners, one of his usual exaggerations.

[457] There were only sixteen field-guns with the army, yet Napoleon says that he took twenty-five (Nap. Corresp., 14,478). If this figure is correct (which we may doubt) there must have been some guns of position taken in the city of Burgos. But of the twelve flags there is no question: they were forwarded to Paris two days later (Nap. Corresp., 14,463).

[458] Mémoires of St. Chamans (Soult’s senior aide-de-camp), p. 110. Compare the Journal of Fantin des Odoards (p. 189) for the scenes of horror in and about the town. The scattered corpses of Spaniards, cut down as they fled, covered the road for half-a-day’s march beyond Burgos.

[459] Nap. Corresp., 14,496, contains this false report.

[460] This brigade did not properly belong to the 2nd Corps, but to Franceschi’s division of reserve cavalry. Lasalle, with the proper cavalry division of the 2nd Corps, was being employed elsewhere.

[461] This was done on November 11, and not (as Arteche says) on the thirteenth. The proof may be found in the itinerary given by St. Chamans in his Mémoires (p. 110). On the thirteenth the Marshal was already at Canduelas, close to Reynosa.

[462] Nap. Corresp., 14,467 and 14,477. Napoleon to Bessières, Nov. 13 (at two, midnight), and to Milhaud, Nov. 16 (at three, midnight).

[463] These orders will be found in Nap. Corresp., 14,489.

[464] Nap. Corresp., 14,465, 14,488-91, 14,472, 14,482, 14,503, and 14,499 respectively.

[465] For this barefaced robbery see the Sixth Bulletin of the Army of Spain, published at Madrid on December 14, and also Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 85, 86; cf. Arteche, iii. 325.

[466] Leith, Nov. 16, from Cabezon de Sal (in the Record Office).

[467] Not Arnedo as in Napier (i. 257).

[468] See letter of General Leith (dated from San Vincente de la Barquera, Nov. 17), in the Record Office.

[469] General Leith to Sir John Moore, from Renedo on Nov. 15 (in the Record Office).

[470] It is from that officer’s dispatches alone that we glean some details of this miserable retreat. There is nothing of the kind in Toreño, Arteche, or any other Spanish authority that I have found.

[471] Of La Romana’s army of 15,626 men (Dec. 4) about 5,000 belonged to regiments which had not been present at Espinosa, including the battalions of Tuy, Betanzos, Monterrey, Santiago, Salamanca, the 3rd Volunteers of Galicia, and the Batallon del General, the artillery reserve, and a number of detached companies that had been left behind at Reynosa, Astorga, and Sahagun before Blake marched on Bilbao on October 11.

[472] Once between Valmaceda and Espinosa, once between Reynosa and Renedo, once between Potes and Pedrosa.

[473] Mémoires of Gen. St. Chamans, p. 111.