[1] Save two Dutch and one German regiment of Leval’s division, which had been left behind on garrison duty in Biscay and Old Castile.

[2] This was done by the Emperor’s orders. The cadres of these regiments, called Royal-Étranger and Royal-Napoléon, were formed partly of Frenchmen, partly of Spanish Afrancesados. The rank and file of the first regiment were to be raised from the Swiss and Germans who had served in the old Spanish army: some of them had adhered to the French, others, when taken prisoners in the late campaign, had offered to serve King Joseph. The second regiment was to be composed of native Spaniards. See Correspondance de Napoléon, 14,531.

[3] The 55th, a stray remnant left behind by Dessolles.

[4] Division of Villatte. It had one battalion detached, along with the 26th Chasseurs, at Toledo.

[5] Division of Valence and Sebastiani.

[6] Lasalle’s division (often altered in composition) now consisted of the 10th and 26th Chasseurs, 9th Dragoons and Polish Lancers.

[7] See for all these details Nap. Corresp., 14,609.

[8] Napier misrepresents this move in the strangest way, saying (i. 364) merely that ‘the Duke of Dantzig recrossed the Tagus and took post between Talavera and Plasencia.’ Avila is fifty miles north of these places, and on the other side of the Guadarrama.

[9] Napoleon to Joseph from Valladolid, Jan. 9, Nap. Corresp., 14,671.

[10] See the figures furnished by the Valencian Junta in Argüelles, ii. 74. It must he remembered that 4,800 of the division had escaped to Saragossa, and took part in its defence.

[11] The 1st division had only four battalions present, the others having been at Madrid, in the army of San Juan.

[12] The officer, a Lieutenant Santiago, had refused to march on Cuenca, and when the order was repeated, unlimbered his battery across the road and threatened to fire on the troops who were marching in that direction. See Arteche, iii. 12.

[13] It had only 311 inhabitants to the square league in 1803, as compared with 926 in Andalusia, and 2,009 in Guipuzcoa.

[14] See vol. i. p. 437.

[15] For these changes see Appendix I.

[16] Perreimond’s brigade of Latour-Maubourg’s division.

[17] Jourdan confesses to this massacre in the most open way. ‘Le 27^e Léger s’étant présenté aux portes de Chinchon, fut reçu à coups de fusil. Cette provocation occasionna la perte des habitants: ils furent tous tués, et la ville incendiée.’ Mémoires du Maréchal Jourdan, 139.

[18] All these movements are most clearly set forth in Jourdan’s Mémoires, by far the best authority for the campaign of Ucles.

[19] Nap. Corresp., 14,637 and 14,684.

[20] Beside the twenty battalions given in the Appendix to Arteche, iv, Venegas’s narrative shows that at least two more (Baylen and Navas de Tolosa) were present.

[21] These numbers are probably exact: Jourdan quotes them from his own official report to Berthier of Jan. 20. See his Mémoires, p. 144.

[22] As the wrecks of fifteen or sixteen battalions had surrendered, there seems no reason to doubt the number of standards. But the Spaniards asserted that Victor eked out his trophies, by taking down the old battle-flags of the knights of Santiago from their church in Ucles.

[23] Cf. the Mémoires of Rocca (of the 2nd Hussars, Victor’s corps-cavalry), p. 68, and Schepeler.

[24] Notably the ever-inaccurate Victoires et Conquêtes, and Thiers. The usually-sensible Belmas makes the Spanish prisoners amount to 13,000 men, two thousand more than Venegas ever put in line.

[25] Nap. Corresp., 14,729, from Valladolid, Jan. 16.

[26] ‘Faites donc pendre une douzaine d’individus à Madrid: il n’y manque point de mauvais sujets, et sans cela il n’y aura rien de fait.’ Nap. Corresp., 14,684. Compare Lecestre, Lettres inédites de Napoléon, i. 275, where orders are given that thirty persons, who had already been acquitted by the civil tribunals, should he rearrested, tried again before a court martial, and promptly shot! Napoleon to Joseph, Jan. 16, 1809.

[27] ‘Je préfèrerais que vous prissiez tous les tableaux qui se trouvent dans les maisons confisquées et dans les couvents supprimés, et que vous me fissiez présent d’une cinquantaine de chefs-d’œuvre. Vous sentez qu’il ne faut que de bonnes choses.’ Nap. Corresp., 14,717.

[28] Napoleon to Joseph, Jan. 11, 1809, Nap. Corresp., 14,684.

[29] Almost the same words are found in a dispatch to Mollien of Jan. 24, ‘Aujourd’hui les affaires d’Espagne sont à peu près terminées.’ This was written after the Emperor had returned to Paris.

[30] Cf., for example, Nap. Corresp., 14,741 and 14,749, where Austria is said to have changed her tone and stopped her preparation, with 14,721 and 14,779, which show a most hostile spirit against her.

[31] For the details, see Nap. Corresp., 14,780, written to Bessières from Paris on Feb. 15.

[32] As a matter of fact, as has been stated elsewhere, Soult though working his hardest did not leave Corunna till Feb. 20, 1809, nor take Oporto till March 29.

[33] It will be remembered (see vol. i. p. 529), that they went via Talavera, Merida, and Llerena.

[34] Canning to Frere, Jan. 14, 1809 (Record Office).

[35] The 29th, 3/27th, and 2/9th regiments.

[36] As Canning wrote to Frere, after receiving the news of the abortive expedition, ‘The enclosed copy of the instructions under which Sir G. Smith was sent out, will show you that the step taken by that officer was not to have been taken except at the direct solicitation of the Spanish authorities.... He has been directed to leave Cadiz at once, and you may assure the Junta that no separate or secret commission was, has been, or ever will be entrusted to any officer or other person,’ Feb. 26 (Record Office).

[37] Frere, by his own showing, exceeded the bounds of diplomatic evasion. He writes to Canning (Feb. 9) to say that the dispatch of the Lisbon troops had been a complete surprise to him, as he had not received any information on the subject. ‘It occurred to me, however, that it was best to take it upon myself, and to affect to consider it a thing of course, and to say that I had sent orders in conformity with the note which I had received from Mr. de Garay. In order to give this some semblance of truth, I did afterwards write a letter to Lisbon to this effect, and sent it off before I dispatched my note to Mr. de Garay. This did not prevent me from being assailed by remonstrances.’ Finally he proceeded to tell the Junta ‘that he only wished to see Cadiz occupied in the extreme case of an immediate attack by the French’ (Record Office).

[38] For Villel’s eccentricities in detail see Toreno, i. pp. 375-6, and Arteche, v. p. 107.

[39] See Col. Leslie (of the 29th), Memoirs, p. 94.

[40] Mackenzie wrote that ‘it was evident that the people were favourable to our landing and occupying the town, for it was frequently called for during the tumult.’ But ‘the utmost care was taken to prevent our officers or soldiers from taking any part whatever on this occasion, and except when I was applied to by the Governor for the interference of some British officers as mediators, we stood perfectly clear.’ Dispatch to Castlereagh in the Record Office, dated Lisbon, March 13, 1809.

[41] Martin de Garay to Frere, March 4 (Record Office).

[42] Napier enlarges on this incident at great length in pages 14-19 of his second volume. In his persistent dislike for Canning, Castlereagh and Mr. Frere, as well as for the Spaniards, he concludes that the business ‘indicated an unsettled policy, shallow combination, and had agents on the part of the British Cabinet, and an unwise and unworthy disposition in the Supreme Junta,’ while Smith was ‘zealous and acute’ and Cradock ‘full of zeal and moral courage.’ It is hard to give an unqualified assent to any one of these views. Smith was wrong in acting without giving any notice of his intentions to the Junta: Cradock’s zeal was equally untempered by discretion. The British Cabinet, acting on the information available in the end of December, was right to be anxious about Cadiz, and equally right to abandon its attempt to occupy the place in March, when the conditions of the war had changed, and the Junta had shown its dislike to the proposal. As to the Spaniards, the matter was only broached to them in February, when the danger of an immediate French advance had passed away, and they were entirely justified in their answer, which was framed as politely as could be contrived. We must not blame them overmuch for their suspicion: England, though now a friend, had long been an enemy—and the fate of Gibraltar was always before their eyes.

[43] See the table in Argüelles on p. 74 of his Appendix-volume.

[44] 288,000 on Feb. 15. See Napier’s extracts from the Imperial muster rolls, i. 514. These numbers include the sick and detached.

[45] See Arteche, iv. 115-51: the advocate of the guerrilla game was a certain Faustino Fernandez.

[46] So Vacani. Laffaille gives the incredible figure of 48!

[47] See Cochrane’s Autobiography, pp. 269-85.

[48] Two battalions of the 2nd of Savoia: the old regiment of the name had been completed to four battalions, two were with Castaños and called 1st of Savoia, the other two came to Catalonia.

[49] Four battalions of Provincial Grenadiers of Old and New Castile had already come up.

[50] Vol. i. p. 333.

[51] For several curious and interesting stories concerning St. Cyr, the reader may search the third volume of Marbot’s Mémoires. Marbot is not an authority to be followed with much confidence, but the picture drawn of the marshal is borne out by other and better writers.

[52] ‘On ne pourra pas échapper à la pensée que Napoléon, avec sa force immense, a été assez faible pour ne vouloir que des succès obtenus par lui-même, ou du moins sous ses yeux. Autrement on eût dit que la victoire était pour lui une offense: il en voulait surtout à la fortune quand elle favorisait les armes d’officiers qui ne lui devaient pas leur élévation.’ Journal de l’Armée de Catalogne, p. 26.

[53] St. Cyr, p. 23.

[54] Ibid., p. 19.

[55] For composition see the table of the 7th Corps in Appendix of vol. i. The figures given by St. Cyr are Pino 8,368, Souham 7,712, Chabot 1,988, Reille 4,000. The last is an understatement, as shown by the morning state of Reille’s division in Relmas, ii. 456, which shows 4,612 excluding the garrison of Figueras, more than 1,000 strong.

[56] Lord Cochrane’s Autobiography, i. 303. He adds ‘A pretty correct idea of our relative positions may be formed if the unnautical reader will imagine our small force placed in the nave of Westminster Abbey, with the enemy attacking the great western tower from the summit of a cliff 100 feet higher than the tower, so that the breach in course of formation corresponds to the great west window of the Abbey. It was no easy matter to them to scale the external wall of the tower up to the great window, and more difficult still to get down from the window into the body of the church. These were the points I had to provide against, for we could not prevent the French either from breaching or from storming.’

[57] James’s Naval History, v. p. 90.

[58] Compare the narrative of Lord Cochrane, i. 299-300, with those of Belmas, ii. 441, and St. Cyr. The latter is, of course, wrong in saying that the whole sortie was composed of British seamen and marines. It is curious that Cochrane states his own loss at more than the French claimed to have killed or taken.

[59] Cochrane, Autobiography, i. 307.

[60] These were the two bomb-vessels Meteor and Lucifer. The Magnificent 74 came up the same day, but after the evacuation of the Trinity.

[61] St. Cyr does not say so (p. 50), but only that the Spaniards imagined that it was done deliberately. Belmas (p. ii. 453) asks if it was not irritation on the part of the British. Arteche does not repulse the silly suggestion, as he reasonably might (iv. 270).

[62] Belmas, ii. 454, and Vacani, ii. 315, agree in these figures.

[63] Berthier to St. Cyr, Burgos, Nov. 13. ‘Si Roses tarde à être pris, il faut marcher sur Barcelone sans s’inquiéter de cette place, &c.,’ and much to same effect from Coubo, Nov. 16 [wrongly printed in St. Cyr, Nov. 10].

[64] St. Cyr to the Emperor, Nov. 17, from Figueras.

[65] May 30 to Dec. 10, 1809.

[66] See vol. i. p. 331.

[67] St. Cyr, Journal de l’Armée de Catalogne, p. 58.

[68] St. Cyr says that Napoleon falsified his report, when reprinting it in the Moniteur, and put 150 instead of 50 rounds per man, to disguise the risk that had been run (p. 58).

[69] Cf. Cabanes, with Arteche, iv. 276.

[70] St. Cyr, Journal de l’Armée de Catalogne, p. 64.

[71] ‘Il faut passer sur le ventre au corps de troupes en face, quel que soit son nombre.’ St. Cyr, p. 66.

[72] Three battalions of the 4th of the line, and two of the 2nd Light Infantry.

[73] One battalion of the 2nd Light Infantry and one of the 7th of the line.

[74] Three battalions each of the 1st and 6th of the line.

[75] See the account of Cabanes, who was with Milans this day, in his History of the War in Catalonia.

[76] See the narrative of an officer in the division of Lazan, printed by Cabanes as an appendix.

[77] St. Cyr, as any reader of his Mémoires can see, was malicious and sarcastic. But Duhesme has a bad reputation for carelessness and selfishness, and his writings make an even worse impression than those of St. Cyr. Probably the latter’s narrative is fairly correct.

[78] Some of his miqueletes had absconded during the withdrawal from the eastern half of the river.

[79] St. Cyr says twenty-five in his report to Napoleon, but increases the number to fifty in his Mémoires, p. 87.

[80] This was the 4th battalion of the 2nd of the line, which had joined Reille in the late autumn, and did not form part of his original division as detailed in the Appendix to vol. i. St. Cyr says that it only lost sixty prisoners besides some casualties. Lazan wrote that he took ninety prisoners, and killed or wounded over 200 more Frenchmen.

[81] St. Cyr, Campagne de Catalogne, p. 98.

[82] Regiments of Santa Fé, and 1st of Antequera, three battalions with 3,600 men in November, and probably 3,000 in February.

[83] Swiss Regiment of Beschard, about 2,000 strong, and Majorca Militia [sometimes called ‘Palma’], 600 strong.

[84] Troops from Barcelona under Lecchi came out to replace Pino at Villafranca.

[85] Chabot lost a Neapolitan colonel (Carascosa) and many other prisoners.

[86] St. Cyr says nothing of his own danger, but the incident is given at length by Vacani, iii. 93, who mentions that one of Pino’s aides-de-camp was wounded.

[87] ‘Si nous ne fîmes pas dans cette affaire le nombre de prisonniers que nous eussions dû y faire,’ says St. Cyr, ‘c’est que dans cette journée l’ennemi fit plus usage de ses jambes que de ses armes. Quelques centaines seulement, la plupart blessés, tombèrent entre nos mains’ [Campagne de Catalogne, p. 107].

[88] The details of this cross-march in a badly-surveyed country, where the maps are very deficient, are more easily to be made out from Vacani’s narrative (pp. 95-8) than from St. Cyr’s own account.

[89] St. Cyr (p. 109) has a curious story to the effect that he had failed entirely to find the road, but ultimately discovered it by giving leave to a wounded Spanish officer to return to Tarragona. He was followed at a discreet distance by scouts, who noted the way that he took, and he thus served as a guide of Pino’s division as far as the convent of Santas Cruces.

[90] Souham had anticipated St. Cyr’s orders, and started to advance from Vendrell before his chief’s dispatch from Igualada came to hand.

[91] Two battalions of miqueletes (Lerida and 1st of Tarragona), 300 cavalry, a field-battery, and a battalion of Reding’s own regiment of Swiss, about 2,100 men in all.

[92] Col. Doyle was present at this council: his account of it is in the Record Office. He declares that he himself was all for fighting, that Reding wavered, and the majority refused to take risks.

[93] There is a detailed estimate of Reding’s army given by St. Cyr in his Appendix no. 11. He says that the figures were given him by ‘a Spanish general taken prisoner at Valls,’ which must mean the Marquis of Casteldosrius, the only officer of that rank captured. The names of nearly all the battalions cited in this list are to be verified, either in Reding’s dispatch or in the narrative of Cabanes—all indeed except the regiment of Baza, and the three Miquelet Tercios, 1st and 2nd of Tarragona and Lerida. But it is probable that Casteldosrius gave St. Cyr a morning state of the whole army collected at Santa Coloma on the twenty-fourth, and that these corps (with a total force of 3,000 men) formed part of the force left with Wimpffen at Santa Coloma. I am driven to this conclusion by the statement of Doyle in his letter written from Santa Coloma, on the day before the battle, that Reding was marching “with 500 horse and a little over 10,000 foot,” for Tarragona. Doyle is arguing in favour of fighting, and has no object in understating the numbers. His figures are borne out by all the Spanish narratives. The force must have stood as follows:—

[Erratum from p. xii: I have found from a Madrid document that part, though not the whole, of the Regiment of Baza was present at Valls. One battalion was left behind with Wimpffen: one marched with Reding: about 800 men therefore must be added to my estimate of the Spanish infantry.]

[94] These details are from Doyle’s letter of Feb. 24, in the Record Office.

[95] The French forces engaged at Valls were:—

• Souham’s Division:
• 1st Léger (three batts.).
• 42nd of the Line (three batts.).
• Provisional regiment:
• [One batt. each of 3rd Léger and 67th Line, two batts. 7th Line.]
• 10 battalions, about 5,500 men.
• 24th Dragoons, about 500 men, two batteries.
• Pino’s Division:
• 1st Italian Light Regiment (three batts.).
• 2nd Italian Light Regiment (three batts.).
• 4th Line (three batts.).
• 6th Line (three batts.).
• 7th Line (one batt.).
• 13 battalions, about 6,500 men.
• 7th Italian Dragoons (‘Dragoons of Napoleon’) and Italian Royal Chasseurs, together about 800 men.

Total about 13,800 men, a force somewhat superior to that of the Spaniards, if the latter had only the corps given in the last table.

[96] Vacani, iii. 105-6. This fact is mentioned by no other author.

[97] Arteche, v. 207-9, makes Reding deliver a second attack on Souham in the early afternoon. This is, I think, an error, caused by a misreading of Cabanes’ somewhat confused account of the fight, from which it might be possible (if no other sources existed) to deduce a second Spanish advance. But Cabanes is really dealing with the later phases of the first combat only. It is conclusive that neither Reding himself, in his official dispatch, St. Cyr, Doyle, nor Vacani mention any engagement in the early afternoon.

[98] St. Cyr in his Memoirs (p. 123) makes the curious statement that he silenced his artillery after it had fired only three rounds, lest he should frighten off the Spaniards before he could reach them with his infantry, and so prevent the latter from closing and winning as decisive a victory as possible. One is almost prone to doubt the story, and to suppose that the cessation of fire was due to the fear of killing his own men when they were getting close to the Spanish line. Arteche puts this incident too early in the fight, during Reding’s supposed second attack.

[99] Among them was an English officer named Reid.

[100] Including Colonels Dumont and Antunez commanding respectively the Walloon and Spanish guards, the Marquis of Casteldosrius commanding the cavalry brigade, three of Reding’s aides-de-camp, and eighty other officers. Two colonels were killed, a brigadier-general (Saint Ellier) and many other superior officers wounded.

[101] ‘Votre Altesse me dit qu’il n’y a rien autour de nous qui puisse résister à 6,000 hommes. Je lui demande pardon. La division Souham a été quelque temps seule le 25, et nous avons vu qu’il était temps que l’autre division arrivât.... On ne peut nier que les troupes espagnoles gagnent tous les jours, et nous sommes forcés de leur rendre justice; à la bataille de Valls elles se sont très-bien battues.’ St. Cyr to Berthier, Valls, March 6, 1809.

[102] See vol. i. p. 436.

[103] See vol. i. pp. 446-7.

[104] Few of the French historians mention these changes, but they are quite certain. On Nov. 23 ‘the division Maurice Mathieu’ means the 1st of the 3rd Corps; on Dec. 1, it means the 2nd of the 6th Corps.

[105] See vol. i. pp. 446-7.

[106] By far the larger part of Roca’s division reached Saragossa; the Spanish returns show that 4,500 men joined Palafox, and only 1,500 escaped to Cuenca with the rest of the ‘Army of the Centre.’

[107] Among these were the 1st and 2nd Tiradores de Murcia, the regiment of Florida Blanca, the 3rd and 5th Volunteers of Murcia, and the 3rd Volunteers of Valencia, all of which had arrived too late for Tudela.

[108] To be exact, 756 was the number of paisanos as opposed to tropa in the return of the garrison on Feb. 20. See Arteche, Appendix to vol. iv.

[109] See Cavallero’s criticism of this statement of Rogniat on p. 17 of his interesting little work.

[110] Cavallero, pp. 68-9. Belmas translates the paragraph almost word for word in ii. 144-5 of his work, without acknowledgement.

[111] Cavallero, pp. 81 and 148.

[112] The battalions of Alcañiz, Tauste, and Tiradores de Doyle; the last were at Jaca, and afterwards served with Blake’s army at Maria and Belchite. They are wrongly put in Saragossa, in Arteche, iv. Appendix.

[113] See the remarks in defence of Palafox in Arteche, iv. 332-4.