[114] The 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, 121st, and 2nd Legion of Reserve were all formed in this way.

[115] These were the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the Vistula, 44th and 14th of the line, and one battalion each of the 70th and 5th Léger.

[116] See the table in Belmas, ii. 381.

[117] These were all detached from Moncey. The Alagon garrison consisted of four battalions of the 2nd Legion of Reserve, 2,500 strong. At Tudela were three battalions of the 121st regiment, 1,800 bayonets.

[118] Morlot’s division was short of the 121st and the 2nd Legion of Reserve, left behind at Alagon and Tudela, and had only nine battalions present.

[119] Moncey to Berthier, Dec. 23.

[120] Cavallero, pp. 89-90.

[121] See vol. i. p. 153.

[122] Belmas calls it a factory (ii. 151), but Palafox in his dispatch gives the name above.

[123] ‘Suizos de Aragon.’

[124] An officer of sappers named Henri, and one of his privates, tried to reopen communication by swimming the river on an ice-cold night. They reached the further bank, but died of exhaustion among the reeds, where their corpses were found next morning: thus the message was never delivered. Belmas, ii. 153.

[125] The two letters may be found in full in the appendices to Belmas, vol. ii.

[126] Junot to Berthier, Jan. 1, 1809.

[127] Belmas, ii. 175.

[128] Lacoste to Junot, Jan. 16, in Belmas, ii. 378.

[129] Was this a distorted rumour of the combat of Cacabellos, and the death of General Colbert, the commander of Ney’s corps-cavalry, on Jan. 3?

[130] For the description of these miserable and most insalubrious refuges, see Cavallero, pp. 90-100.

[131] I give the date of San Genis’ death from Arteche, iv. Belmas, on the other hand, puts it on Jan. 26, and Cavallero apparently on Jan. 28, for he says that it was three days before that of Lacoste, who was shot on Feb. 1.

[132] Belmas, ii. 198.

[133] Oddly enough, Belmas places this sortie on Jan. 21, on which day, as Arteche shows, none of the Spanish accounts speak of a sortie, while the latter give at great length details of the fighting on the twenty-third. Probably the Spanish date is the correct one.

[134] Belmas, ii. 203.

[135] Napier (i. 376) calls them ‘Catalonians’: but they were all Aragonese, sent to aid Catalonia in October.

[136] Report of General Laval (commanding-in the trenches this day) to Lannes, in Appendix xxvi, of Belmas, vol. ii. Cf. von Brandt, p. 34.

[137] There is a full account of his death in Legendre, i. 149; that officer was in the room with him, when he and his aide-de-camp, Lalobe, were simultaneously shot through the head as they peered out of a side window where they thought themselves unobserved.

[138] The ceilings in all the better sort of houses were made of vaulted arches, not of beams and boards.

[139] See Cavallero, p. 120, and compare Belmas, ii. 253.

[140] Belmas, ii. 294. Cf. Rogniat and Legendre.

[141] Berthier to Lannes, Paris, Feb. 10.

[142] Belmas, ii. 314, and before.

[143] In Lejeune, i. 169, the reader will find some horrible anecdotes of this explosion.

[144] Lejeune, i. 177.

[145] The ‘Suizos de Aragon,’ of which the unfortunate Fleury had been colonel, had not all perished on Dec. 21.

[146] Arteche, iv. 472, and Lejeune, i. 179.

[147] Their names can be found on p. 494 of Arteche, vol. iv.

[148] In Lejeune, i. 194-5, will be found a most picturesque account of the interview of the French envoy with the fever-ridden and despairing Junta, almost hysterical with rage and shame, but accepting the inevitable.

[149] It is notable that there was not a single churchman among them, though there were eight among the thirty-three members of the Junta. The clergy represented to the last the fighting section.

[150] Lejeune, in his interesting narrative of this interview, says that he saw one of the deputies pore over the map and recognize his own house among the mined buildings; he crossed himself five or six times, and cried in accents of bitter grief ‘Ah la Casa Ciscala.’ The name of Don Joachim Ciscala does occur among the eleven signatures, so the story is probably true. Lejeune, i. 198.

[151] Lejeune, i. 202.

[152] Von Brandt, Aus meinem Leben, pp. 43-4.

[153] For details, see Arteche, iv. 512-3.

[154] Lannes to Berthier, March 19, 1809.

[155] It seems quite clear that the ‘1,500 men in hospital’ which Belmas mentions on ii. 327 is a misprint for 15,000. For his own figures show that (p. 381) there were 13,000 invalids six weeks earlier, and before the deadly street-fighting had begun. How many died we cannot say, but Suchet in April had only 10,527 men present in nineteen battalions (Mémoires, i. 331), with eight more battalions ‘on command,’ which would give another 4,000. Von Brandt (p. 50) carefully says that the total of 3,000 dead does not include ‘the thousands who perished in hospital.’

[156] The foundation for most of the stories against Palafox seems to be Lannes’ letter to Napoleon of 19 mars: ‘Ce pauvre misérable prêtait seulement son nom aux moines et aux intrigants.’ I cannot find anywhere the source from which Napier draws his statement that Palafox hid himself in a bomb-proof, and lived ‘in a disgusting state of sensuality,’ shirking all the dangers of the siege (i. 389).

[157] Arteche, iv. 507-8.

[158] There are details in the diary of a citizen of Badajoz in the Vaughan Papers.

[159] For these operations compare Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 178-9, and Arteche, v. 228-31.

[160] The cavalry regiment had only 264 sabres: the infantry battalions were Campomayor, Tiradores de Cadiz, Granaderos del General, militia of Cordova, Guadix and Osuna. Only the first-named was an old regular corps.

[161] He had his own original division of the 4th Corps (twelve batts.), Valence’s Poles (six batts.), the 3rd Dutch Hussars (part of his corps-cavalry), the regiment of Polish lancers, and Milhaud’s three regiments, the 12th, 16th and 21st Dragoons: apparently in all 12,744 men.

[162] It seems clear that the 2,000 killed and wounded, given by Jourdan (p. 186) and Victoires et Conquêtes, is merely a rough estimate. Belmas’ figures (i. 69) are still more absurd: he makes the Spaniards lose 9,000 men from an army which did not exceed 16,500 all told, including the rear division of La Peña.

[163] See pp. 4-5 of this volume.

[164] This is the estimate of Jourdan (Mémoires, p. 181), and exactly agrees with the figures which I give on p. 152.

[165] 26th and 10th Chasseurs and 9th Dragoons; the fourth regiment, the Polish lancers, was with Sebastiani (see pp. 146-7).

[166] The February figures for Victor’s men présents sous les armes are:—

[167] One Hessian battalion was still absent, in garrison at Segovia, so the total of the division was not much over 3,000.

[168] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 182.

[169] Apparently the Westphalian Chevaux Légers, which had hitherto been attached to Leval’s German division.

[170] Four more had to be left behind in the fortress.

[171] Jourdan, p. 182.

[172] Rocca, p. 268.

[173] See pp. 162-3.

[174] The Spanish statements that Cuesta had only 2,200 horse seem disproved by a letter from Cuesta’s camp, Col. D’Urban to Cradock (April 7), to the effect that Cuesta had already rallied, after Medellin, fully 3,000 horse, but only 6,000 or 7,000 foot [Record Office].

[175] Frankfort and the 1st of Hesse. See Sausez’s Régiment de Francfort, p. 30.

[176] The sixth regiment (1st Dragoons) was still absent at Miajadas.

[177] The division had started with nine battalions, but two (as will be remembered) were left behind at Truxillo, and two more at Merida. Those with Lasalle were the two Baden battalions, those with Latour-Maubourg a Nassau battalion, and one formed of the united light companies of the division. The second Nassau battalion was to the rear, with Villatte. See Sémélé’s narrative, p. 463.

[178] 5th Chasseurs, of the corps-cavalry of the 1st Corps.

[179] These were the regiments Infante and Almanza (from Denmark) and the new cavalry regiment of Toledo. Letter of Sir Benjamin D’Urban to Cradock, April 8, 1809 (Record Office).

[180] Its remainder was garrisoning Badajoz. Those on the field were Badajoz (two batts.), and 3rd of Seville (one batt.).

[181] Apparently these regiments were Albuquerque’s regiment from the Andalusian army, with the Cazadores de Llerena (a new Estremaduran corps) and Del Rey (one of the Baltic regiments).

[182] These were the two hussar regiments, Voluntarios de España, and Maria Luisa, the latter of which had been re-named ‘Hussars of Estremadura’.

[183] Rocca (of the 2nd Hussars), Mémoires de la Guerre d’Espagne, 80.

[184] Cuesta in his dispatch mentions that General Henestrosa, Captain Yturrigarey, and the English Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin D’Urban were the first three into the battery.

[185] In a dispatch in the Record Office, Cuesta says that the particular corps which rode down himself and his staff was the raw ‘Toledo’ regiment.

[186] Half-a-dozen French authorities speak of the wrath of the chasseurs as justifiable, because their comrades at Miajadas had been murdered (égorgés, or lâchement assassinés). But the Spaniards had killed them in fair fight.

[187] Rocca, Mémoires, p. 82.

[188] Ibid., p. 84.

[189] See the Table in Arteche, vi. 476.

[190] These were the hussar regiments ‘Volunteers of Spain’ and ‘Estremadura’ (late Maria Luisa). Cuesta says in his dispatch that they saved the battalions of Merida, and Provincial of Badajoz, which had been surrounded and nearly cut off.

[191] This is the figure given by Jourdan, and General Sémélé, who ought to have known the facts. It is, of course, reproduced by Thiers, and the other historians. But I agree with Napier (ii. 71) in considering the figure ‘scarcely credible.’ Rocca says that the French lost 4,000 men, but from the context, I suspect this to be a misprint for 400. Schepeler, always a very well-informed and impartial writer, guesses at 2,000, and he may not be far wrong.

[192] By April 8 he had collected there 3,000 horse and 6,000 or 7,000 foot. Letter of D’Urban to Cradock, April 8.

[193] Rocca, Mémoires, p. 86.

[194] Regiment of Velez-Malaga (three batts.), and 2nd battalion of Antequera, 3,600 bayonets in all.

[195] Also some stray squadrons of cavalry which had gone to the rear to get horses in Andalusia (Letter of Frere to Castlereagh in Record Office).

[196] Jourdan, Mémoires, pp. 187-8.

[197] It was composed of the few battalions of the 8th Corps which had not been drafted into the 2nd.

[198] When the Emperor looked at the half-monthly returns of the army, which were forwarded to him as regularly as possible, and which pursued him wheresoever he might go, he must have seen the following statistics—those of Jan. 15 in the French War Office—for the 2nd Corps, taking the gross totals:—

Infantry: Merle 12,119; Mermet 11,810; Delaborde 5,038; Heudelet 6,592: Total 35,559.

Cavalry: Lorges 1,769; Lahoussaye 3,087; Franceschi 2,512: Total 7,368. Artillery and Train 1,468.

Total of the whole corps 44,395. By Jan. 30, it had risen to 45,820.

[199] The state of the cavalry of the 2nd Corps on Jan. 30 gives the following astounding result:—

The drain under the second column represents mainly the men who had dropped to the rear, from losing their horses or being unable to take them on.

[200] For the state of this squadron see the report by Admiral De Courcy in the Parliamentary Papers for 1809, Spain, March 29, 1809, p. 4.

[201] The marines had been taken away in July, 1808, and formed half a brigade in the division of the Army of Galicia. But the seamen were available.

[202] The Supreme Junta very properly condemned him and Alcedo, the governor of Corunna, to the penalties of high treason.

[203] Compare Instructions de l’Empereur of Jan. 17, with Berthier to Soult of Jan. 21.

[204] ‘Il faut croire,’ says St. Chamans, Soult’s senior aide-de-camp, ‘que Napoléon, au moment où il ordonna une pareille opération, était possédé d’un esprit de vertige. Comment pouvait-il risquer, au milieu d’un royaume insurgé, un si faible corps d’armée, sans communication avec ses autres troupes d’Espagne?’ [Mémoires, p. 117]. ‘Tout était en erreur,’ says Le Noble, another 2nd Corps writer, ‘dans le projet de soumettre le Portugal en 1809 avec une armée si faible et dépourvue de moyens. L’Empereur a montré une confiance aveugle’ (p. 65).

[205] The authors, English and French, who express a humanitarian horror at the shooting of 3,000 horses and mules before the embarkation of Moore’s army, forget what a godsend these would have been to Soult, if the English had left them to fall intact into his hands. The slaughter was dreadful, but perfectly necessary and justifiable.

[206] All these details come from Le Noble, who as Ordonnateur-en-Chef of the 2nd Corps, had full experience of the difficulty of equipping it for the Portuguese expedition.

[207] Most of these details are from two interesting dispatches of La Romana in the Foreign Office papers at the Record Office. They are dated from Chaves on Jan. 28 and Feb. 13. They are unpublished and seem to be unknown even to General Arteche, who has made such a splendid collection of the materials in the Spanish archives which bear on this obscure corner of the war. There was an English officer, Captain Brotherton, with the army of La Romana: but his reports, which Napier had evidently seen, are now no longer to be found. No doubt they were bound up in the January-March 1809 book of Portuguese dispatches, which since Napier’s day has disappeared from the Record Office, leaving no trace behind.

[208] These boats were brought to Campo Saucos overland, for a full mile and more. They came from La Guardia and other fishing-villages on the coast; but finding it impossible to get them over the bar of the Minho in such furious weather, and against the swollen stream, Soult dragged them from the beach north of the mouth to the crossing-point on rollers, much as Mohammed II did with his galleys at the famous siege of Constantinople in 1453. But Soult’s vessels were, of course, much smaller.

[209] Soult had got together a few dozen seamen, French prisoners of war, found at Corunna and Ferrol, who had been captured at sea by Spanish cruisers. They were not ‘marines’ as Napier calls them (ii. 38), but marins (see Le Noble, p. 75, and again p. 78).

[210] Letter of Captain Brotherton [now lost] quoted in Napier, ii. 438, and dated from Oimbra on Feb. 21.

[211] All the details of the Galician insurrection may be found in the very interesting Los Guerrilleros Gallegos de 1809, of Pardo de Andrade, reprinted at Corunna in 1892. It is absolutely contemporary and mainly composed of original documents written by men who shared in the rising. But naturally it contains errors and exaggerations.

[212] Long details of all this fighting may he found in the narrative of the Alcalde of Rivadavia, on pp. 130-44 of vol. ii. of Los Guerrilleros Gallegos. The details are probably exaggerated, but the reader can hardly refuse to believe that there is a solid substratum of truth. The Alcalde notes that the infantry were far better behaved than Lahoussaye’s dragoons, of whom he tells tales of quite incredible ferocity, even alleging that they burnt the wounded.

[213] Le Noble says (p. 96) that at Ginzo the peasants had with them General Mahy and La Romana’s vanguard division. But General Arteche gives documentary evidence (p. 347) to prove that on that day Mahy and his troops were at Baltar, twenty miles away behind the mountains. If there were regulars present they were only detachments or stragglers.

[214] For the bishop of Orense’s sarcastic reply see Arteche, v. 351. For the general effect of the proclamation see St. Chamans: of the atrocities of the French, Los Guerrilleros Gallegos give ample and sometimes incredible accounts.

[215] See Le Noble (p. 98) for this dispatch and its effect on the morale of the army.

[216] For the malcontents and their views see Le Noble, pp. 98-9. St. Chamans, on the other hand (p. 119), says that the army started in good spirits and with a great contempt for all insurgents, Spanish or Portuguese. As a trusted staff officer of the Marshal, he no doubt represents the optimistic view at head quarters.

[217] There was also a third road, that by Montalegre and Ruivaens, by which Soult ultimately evacuated Portugal; but as it was not available for wheeled traffic, it could not be used by an army with artillery.

[218] Compare the narrative of the colonel of the Barcelona Light Infantry, printed by Arteche in v. 359-61 of his Guerra de la Independencia, with the highly-coloured account in Le Noble, 104-5. The seven Spanish Corps engaged were Segovia, Zamora, Barcelona, Majorca, Orense, Betanzos, Aragon. None of them had more than 200 bayonets in line: the Galician regiments far less. The three last-named corps lost a flag each. [Betanzos should be substituted for Tuy in the list in Le Noble, p. 105, line 10.]

[219] Napier (ii. 47) is wrong in saying that La Romana escaped via Braganza; he did not enter Portugal, but kept on his own side of the frontier, on the Monterey-La Gudina-Puebla de Senabria road.

[220] List of Arms sent to Portugal on p. 9 of Parliamentary Papers for 1809.

[221] The Portuguese volume for December 1808 and January-February 1809 in the Record Office being mysteriously lost, Cradock’s correspondence and that of the other British officers in Portugal is no longer available. But Napier took copious notes from it, while it was still forthcoming; they will be found on pp. 425-31 of his vol. ii, and bear witness to a complete state of anarchy in Oporto.

[222] The first battalion used to call the second ‘Baron Eben’s runaways’ when they met again, as Mayne assures us in his History of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion.

[223] They were raised by a decree of Dec. 23, 1808.

[224] This was a proper precaution, as the sea-forts could be of no use for defending Lisbon from a land attack, while, if Lisbon got into French hands again, they would have been invaluable for resisting an attack from the side of the sea. But Cradock was far too precipitate in commencing an operation which betrayed such want of confidence.

[225] These were the 2/9th, 29th, 1/40th, 1/45th, 82nd, 97th, and 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 7th line battalions of the King’s German Legion.

[226] The 1/3rd and 5/60th. The last battalion was mainly composed of foreigners, and had received more than 200 recruits from the deserters of Junot’s army. Moore would not trust it, and sent it back. It afterwards did splendid service under Wellesley.

[227] The battalions that did not get up in time were the 1/45th and 97th.

[228] These were the 3/27th and 2/31st, which had sailed with Baird from Portsmouth, but were sent on from Corunna to Lisbon when the rest of Baird’s expedition landed in Galicia.

[229] The 14th Light Dragoons.

[230] Napier (ii. 5) much under-estimates when he calls the whole ‘10,000 including sick.’ Cradock’s regiments add up to about 12,133 men including those in hospital. In addition there were all Moore’s sick, who, though many had died in the interim, presented on Feb. 18 in Portugal convalescents to the number of 2,000 men.

[231] The 1/3rd, 1/45th, 5/60th, and 97th.

[232] The 1/40th.

[233] The four German battalions, the 3/27th and 2/31st.

[234] The 2/9th and 29th.

[235] Sir John Moore himself ventilated this view in a letter to Lord Castlereagh from Salamanca, Nov. 25, 1808. It is this fact that explains Napier’s very tender treatment of Cradock, who quoted Moore as his justifying authority. Moreover Cradock had been very obliging in placing all his papers at Napier’s disposal, a fact which prepossessed the historian in his favour.

[236] Castlereagh to Cradock, Dec. 24, 1808. Napier makes on this the curious remark that the ministry gave contradictory orders when they told Cradock to make a show of preparation for resistance, yet to get ready for embarkation if it should prove necessary.