[1] Not, it must be remembered, to become the Light Division till March 1810.

[2] See Wellington to Canning, Sept. 5, 1800, in Dispatches, v. 123-4.

[3] See vol. ii. pp. 465-6.

[4] See Dispatches, v. 168, for an account of an interview with the Marquis of Malaspina and Lord Macduff, who had come to Badajoz to make personal representation, which Wellington much resented.

[5] Wellington to Wellesley, Oct. 30: Dispatches, v. 213. For stronger language about the rash folly of Spanish generals, see Wellington to Beresford, ibid. 179.

[6] Wellington to Wellesley, Aug. 24, from Merida.

[7] See Canning’s instruction to Wellesley of June 27, 1809, on pages 186-91 of Wellesley’s Dispatches and Correspondence, Lond. 1838.

[8] See Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, i. 408, and Toreno, vol, ii. p. 72. Wellesley only calls the Duke ‘a person’: Dispatches, p. 160.

[9] Wellesley to Wellington, Sept. 19, 1809. Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 372.

[10] For the text of this wordy proclamation see Wellesley’s Spanish Dispatches, pp. 135-9.

[11] Note the extraordinary similarity of this plan to that produced by the Athenian oligarchs in 411 B. C. Had some one been reading Thucydides?

[12] Catalonia had been added to his command after Reding died of wounds received at the battle of Valls.

[13] See vol. ii. p. 387.

[14] For an excellent personal diary of all these operations see General Von Brandt’s Aus meinem Leben, pp. 100-12. He accuses Suchet of grossly exaggerating, both in his dispatches and his memoirs, the difficulty and importance of these mountain raids (see Suchet’s Memoirs, i. pp. 40-74, for a highly picturesque narrative). The insurgents were still unskilled in arms, shot very poorly, kept bad watch, and were given to panic. That there is something in Brandt’s criticism seems to be shown by the fact that the whole division of Musnier lost between July 1 and Dec. 31, 1809, only three officers killed and eight wounded out of 200 present with the eagles in six months of incessant raids and skirmishes (see Martinien’s Liste des officiers, often quoted before).

[15] Suchet’s third division, that of Habert, was lying out in the direction of the Cinca and the Guadalupe, watching lest Blake might make a new sally from Tortosa or Lerida.

[16] The 3rd Corps which had gone down to little over 10,000 men in May 1809, counted on Jan. 1, 1810, the following force:

Of these 23,074 were effectives present with colours, the remainder were in hospital or detached.

[17] Cette portion de l’Espagne reste, d’ailleurs, isolée, et sans influence sur le reste de la Péninsule. Imperial Minute of Dec. 1, 1809.

[18] There is only a short note in Dispatch no. 16,004. See p. 63 of this vol.

[19] See St. Cyr to Berthier, March 6, 1809, and St. Cyr’s Memoirs, p. 130.

[20] It may be found printed in full in the Appendix to the narrative of the siege of Gerona in Belmas’s Sieges, vol. ii. pp. 660-1.

[21] 3,116 bayonets and two squadrons of Italian light horse by the return of May 15. The Neapolitans were bad troops, deserting whenever it was safe to do so.

[22] See vol. i. pp. 317-29.

[23] For a good historical study of the fortifications of Gerona and their history, see Vacani, vol. iii. pp. 245-55.

[24] This last was done by public subscription, when the engineers pointed out the danger of the city being stormed across the river-bed. See Arteche, vii. 151. Belmas and Vacani do not seem to have known of this fact, as each of them makes the remark that if the Mercadal had been taken, a sudden rush might have taken the assailants across the shallow river and into the old town. It may be remarked that there had once been a river-wall, but that most of it had been allowed to fall into decay when the Mercadal was taken into the city defences.

[25] Manuscript notes of General Fournas, quoted by Arteche, vii. 458.

[26] The bishop gave his sanction to the formation of this strange corps; see his proclamation in Arteche’s Appendix vii. p. 539, dated June 9.

[27] Ultonia, the regiment of Ulster, still contained many officers of the old Jacobite strain, as may be seen by consulting the list of killed and wounded, where such names as O’Donnell, Macarthy, Nash, Fitzgerald, Pierson, Coleby, Candy, occur: but it had just been raised from 200 to 800 bayonets by filling the depleted cadre with Catalan recruits, and all the junior lieutenants, newly appointed, were Catalans also. So there was little Irish about it save the names of some of its senior officers.

[28] For the details of the composition of the Gerona garrison, see Appendix no. 1.

[29] I know not why Napier, contrasting Gerona with Saragossa (ii. 251), says that at the former place the regular garrison was 3,000, the armed multitude ‘less than 6,000.’ When it is remembered that its total population was 14,000 souls—of whom some fled to places of safety before the siege began—and that it had already raised two battalions of miqueletes with 1,360 bayonets out of its able-bodied male inhabitants, it is difficult to see how more than 5,000 armed irregulars are to be procured, for in a population of 14,000 souls there cannot be more than some 3,000 men between eighteen and forty-five. As a matter of fact (see documents in Arteche, vii. Appendix 5), the ‘Crusade’ was about 1,100 strong at most.

[30] Vacani, iii. 211.

[31] See Belmas, iii. 516.

[32] See their letter in Appendix V to Belmas’s account of the siege.

[33] Note, ibid., ii. p. 502.

[34] See St. Cyr to Alvarez and Verdier to the Minister of War at Paris, nos. 9 and 11 of Belmas’s Appendices in his second volume, pp. 677 and 678.

[35] Napier says (ii. 250) that ‘the breaching fire ceased for four days before the assault,’ and that this caused the failure. The statement is in direct contradiction of Vacani (iii. 277) who states that Verdier on the contrary ‘proseguì per tre giorni il vivo fuoco della sua artilleria,’ and of Belmas (ii. 530) who makes the same statement.

[36] See Alvarez’s letter in Belmas’s Appendix, no. 15, where he says that the breach had this breadth since July 3.

[37] This seems a low estimate of Belmas, as the compagnies d’élite formed a third of each battalion.

[38] St. Cyr, Vacani, and Belmas all say that Marshall escaped by hoisting the white flag, and taking to the hills while terms of capitulation were being arranged. Coupigny on the other hand (see his letter in Belmas’s Appendix no. 18) says that Marshall behaved admirably, but was not seconded by his men, who flinched and abandoned him. Rich, the officer who failed to guide the column aright, was not, as Napier supposed (ii. 236), an Englishman, but a Catalan, as is shown by his Christian name Narciso. Ric or Rich is a common name in Catalonia.

[39] This must have been an exaggeration, as 2,000 men under arms of the old garrison survived to surrender in December. See Alvarez’s letter, on p. 686 of Belmas’s Appendix.

[40] See Verdier’s letter of August 12, in Belmas’s Appendix no. 11, p. 700.

[41] Some call them bastions, but they are too small to deserve that name.

[42] Belmas, for convenience’ sake, distinguishes these two breaches by calling the northern one the breach in the Barracks, the southern the breach in the Latrines of the ‘German Redoubt.’

[43] Between Gerona and Perpignan, for the defence of communications and the garrisoning of Figueras, there were at this time the Valais battalion, one battalion of the Confederation of the Rhine (Waldeck-Reuss-Schwarzburg), one battalion each of the French 7th and 113th—not more than 2,300 bayonets in all. See Returns of the Army of Spain for Sept. 15, 1809.

[44] For this correspondence see the Appendices nos. 16 and 24-5 in vol. ii of Belmas.

[45] See the ‘morning state’ given in Arteche, vii. pp. 565-6. The Valencian regiments were Savoia, Orihuela, Voluntarios de Valencia, and Almanza, with about 5,000 bayonets. Of Reding’s old troops from the south there were Almeria, Baza, Santa Fé, 1st of Granada (otherwise called Iliberia), and two battalions of Provincial Grenadiers, something over 3,000 men. The rest were mainly Catalans.

[46] The reinforcements left behind by Garcia Conde consisted of two battalions of Baza (one of Reding’s old Granadan regiments), with 1,368 bayonets, two Catalan ‘tercios,’ 1st and 2nd of Talarn, with 716 bayonets, and select companies of 1st of Granada (Iliberia), 2nd of Vich, and Voluntarios de Tarragona—in all apparently about 2,707 men.

The table on p. 375 of Arteche’s vol. vii seems to err in crediting the Cervera ‘tercio’ to Garcia: this had come in on Aug. 17, as described on p. 35. On the other hand the company of Voluntarios de Tarragona should be credited to him.

[47] St. Cyr tells a story to the effect that he had placed Mazzuchelli’s brigade of Pino’s division in ambush behind the hill of Palau to intercept Garcia Conde, and that the Spaniards would have marched right into the trap on Sept. 3, if the Italians had not been stupid enough to sound the réveil at dawn, and so warn the enemy of their existence. But the Spanish accounts of Minali and Claros are quite different (see Arteche, vii. 377); they are to the effect that Garcia Conde had intended to start at dusk on the third, but, hearing firing on the side of Palau, deferred his exit and took another road. If he was starting at 7 or 8 o’clock at night on the third, he cannot have been warned by the morning bugles at 4 o’clock on the previous morning. See St. Cyr, p. 234, and Napier, ii. 245, for the French story, which the latter takes over whole from the former. Belmas and Vacani do not give the tale, though they have a full narration of the escape of Garcia Conde.

[48] Verdier did not exaggerate: see Appendix no. 2 at end of this volume, showing that his three divisions had lost 8,161 men out of 14,044 by September 15.

[49] See the acrid correspondence between St. Cyr and Verdier in Appendices nos. 37-8, 40-6 of Belmas, vol. ii.

[50] ‘Il paraît que l’on a employé la ressource, malheureusement trop usitée en pareil cas, de dire que les troupes n’ont pas fait leur devoir, ce qui produit de justes réclamations de leur part.’ (St. Cyr to the Minister, Sept. 24, 1809.)

[51] The not unnatural suggestion that the German and Italian troops may have failed to display such desperate courage as the native French in the assault seems to be refuted by their losses, which were hardly smaller in proportion. Of 1,430 native French of the 7th and 56th Line and 32nd Léger, 328 were put out of action; of 1,400 Berg, Würzburg, and Italian troops, 296. The difference in the percentage is so small that it is clear that there was no great difference in conduct.

[52] See especially Verdier to Augereau, no. 53, and to the Minister, no. 61, of Belmas’s Appendices.

[53] The very interesting list of the prices of commodities at the commencement and the end of the siege, drawn up by Dr. Ruiz, one of the Gerona diarists, may be found on p. 579 of Arteche’s vol. vii. Note the following—the real (20 to the dollar) = 2½d. :—

Thus while flour and meal had not doubled in value, coffee had gone up threefold, chocolate and tobacco fourfold, cheese and fuel tenfold, and the other commodities far more.

[54] See Toreno, ii, and Arteche, vii. 412.

[55] See St. Cyr to the Minister, Belmas, ii. Appendix no. 67.

[56] Augereau to the Minister, ibid., Oct. 8.

[57] See Souham’s dispatch, striving to make the combat into a very big business, in Belmas, ii, Appendix no. 72, and cf. Arteche, vii. pp. 430-1.

[58] See Pino’s and Augereau’s dispatches in Belmas’s Appendices, nos. 73 and 74.

[59] Alvarez’s letter to Blake of Nov. 3 printed in Arteche’s Appendix, no. 18 of his vol. vii, gives this account of the first discovery of plots.

[60] Of whom two, strangely enough, had been specially mentioned for courage at the September assault.

[61] Napier (ii. 249) says that the sortie was so far successful that the Geronese opened the way for the garrison of the Constable fort to escape into the city. But I can find no authority for this in either the French or the Spanish narratives, see especially Vacani.

[62] For details of this disgraceful cruelty, see Arteche’s ‘Elogio’ on Alvarez in the proceedings of the Madrid Academy. The Emperor Napoleon himself must bear the responsibility, as it was by orders from Paris that Alvarez was sent back from France to Figueras. Apparently he was to be tried at Barcelona, and perhaps executed. There is no allusion to the matter in the Correspondance de Napoléon.

[63] For details, see James’s Naval History, v. pp. 142-5.

[64] The Proclamation of Nov. 29 ordering this levy, written in a very magniloquent style, may be found in Belmas, Appendix no. 81.

[65] Napoleon’s comments on the operations of his generals are always interesting, though sometimes founded on imperfect information, or vitiated by predispositions. Of St. Cyr’s campaign he writes [Disp. no. 16,004] to Clarke, his Minister of War:

‘Il faut me faire un rapport sérieux sur la campagne du général Gouvion Saint-Cyr en Catalogne: (1) Sur les raisons qui l’ont porté à évacuer cette province, lorsque Saragosse était prise et sa jonction faite avec le maréchal Mortier. (2) Sur ce qu’il s’est laissé attaquer par les Espagnols, et ne les a jamais attaqués, et sur ce que, après les avoir toujours battus par la valeur des troupes, il n’a jamais profité de la victoire. (3) Sur ce qu’il a, par cet esprit d’égoisme qui lui est particulier, compromis le siège de Gérone: sur ce qu’il n’a jamais secouru suffisamment l’armée assiégeante, l’a au contraire attirée à lui, et a laissé ravitailler la ville. (4) Sur ce qu’il a quitté l’armée sans permission, sous le vain prétexte de maladie.’

The first point seems unjust to St. Cyr. From his position in front of Tarragona, after Valls, he had no real chance of combining his operations with the army of Aragon. But the other three charges seem well founded.

[66] The Valencian troops at Maria were eleven battalions, viz. Savoia (three), 1st and 3rd Cazadores de Valencia (two), America (two), Voluntarios de Valencia (one), 1st of Valencia (three). Of these only Savoia (now two batts. only) and Voluntarios de Valencia turned up for the relief of Gerona. Along with them came two fresh regiments, 2nd Cazadores of Orihuela, and Almanza, which had not been at Maria. But these were Murcian, not Valencian, troops.

[67] De Garay to Wellesley in Wellesley Dispatches, p. 92.

[68] Wellington to Wellesley, from Merida, Sept. 1, 1809.

[69] See the details in Wellesley to Canning, Sept. 2, 1809.

[70] His head quarters moved from Truxillo on the seventeenth, were at La Serena on the twenty-first, and joined the army of La Mancha about October 1.

[71] See the list of Albuquerque’s army in Appendix no. 2. There had been twenty-one regular battalions in Cuesta’s army in June. Twenty of these marched off with Eguia, leaving only one (4th Walloon Guards) with Albuquerque.

[72] The only regiments of Blake’s original army that seem to be completely dead in October 1809 are 2nd of Catalonia, Naples, Pontevedra, Compostella. Naples had been drafted into Rey early in 1809. Of the others I can find no details.

[73] The new Galician regiments which appear in the autumn of 1809 are Monforte de Lemos, Voluntarios de la Muerte, La Union, Lovera, Maceda, Morazzo.

[74] For the full muster-roll of Del Parque’s army in October, see Appendix no. 4.

[75] Some small fraction of it reappeared in the campaign of 1809.

[76] One battalion of Majorca, and the Militia battalion of Segovia.

[77] Borbon, Sagunto, and Granaderos de Llerena, 1,053 sabres in October. These regiments had newly rejoined the Estremaduran army from the rear.

[78] See Wellington to Wellesley, from Badajoz, Oct. 30, 1809.

[79] For Jourdan’s personal views, see his Mémoires, ed. Grouchy, p. 282.

[80] See the table given by Sprünglin on p. 366 of his Mémoires.

[81] Apparently Kellermann had at this moment a battalion each of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Swiss, a battalion of the Garde de Paris, one each of the 12th Léger and 32nd Line, and one or two of the 122nd.

[82] 6th Léger (two batts.), 69th Line (three batts.), and one battalion of voltigeurs réunis.

[83] 39th and 76th of the Line.

[84] Marchand in his dispatch says 1,300 men in all were lost, and a gun; he makes no mention of the eagle. His aide-de-camp, Sprünglin, who has a good account of the battle in his Mémoires (pp. 370-1), gives the total of 1,500. The Spaniards exaggerated the loss to 3,000.

[85] ‘La perte de cette affaire fut entièrement due à la faute que fit le Général Marchand de multiplier ses attaques, et de s’engager par petits paquets. Tout le monde se mêlait de donner son avis, et on remarquait l’absence de M. le Maréchal,’ says Sprünglin in p. 371 of his Mémoires.

[86] Del Parque’s demands had begun as early as the end of September, see Wellington to Castlereagh, Badajoz, Sept. 29, Dispatches, v. 200-1, and cf. Wellington to Forjaz, Oct. 15, ibid. 223.

[87] Wellington to Beresford, Nov. 16, 1809.

[88] He sent this estimate to Wellington, see the latter to Beresford, Badajoz, Nov. 16.

[89] The Junta afterwards contemplated bringing him down to join Albuquerque, via Plasencia, which was free of French troops, since Soult had moved to Oropesa. But this does not seem to have been thought of so early as Nov. 5.

[90] See Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6, for these movements.

[91] Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6. The deserters were a body of twenty-one men of the Walloon Guards, who had enlisted from Dupont’s prisoners in order to get a chance of escaping: they reached Oropesa on Oct. 25.

[92] Roche to Wellington, from Santa Cruz de la Mudela, Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 394. Cf. also the same to the same, vi. 414.

[93] Historia de la Guerra de la Independencia, vii. 283.

[94] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 6.

[95] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 10.

[96] Sebastiani to Soult, night of the twelfth-thirteenth, from Aranjuez.

[97] It had still no divisional general, and was officially known by the name of ‘Sebastiani’s division’—regiments 28th, 32nd, 58th, 75th.

[98] Colborne, in a letter dated December 5, says ‘we had 46,100 infantry and nearly 6,000 cavalry drawn out, in a very bad position.’ He was present all through the campaign, but wrote no full report.

[99] Viz.

[100] Joseph declared that he urged instant attack when Soult advised waiting for Victor. See his letter in vol. vii of Ducasse’s Life and Correspondence of Joseph Napoleon.

[101] This order seems the only one consistent with the sole sentence in Areizaga’s dispatch to the Junta in which he explains his battle-array: ‘Inmediatamente formé por mi mismo la primera linea en direccion de Ocaña, colocando por la izquierda la division de Vigodet, defendida por la frente de la gran zanja, y por su derecha las divisiones de Giron, Castejon y Lacy: la de Copons formaba martillo, junta á las tapias de la villa, inmediata á la de Giron, y las demás la secunda linea á distancia competente para proteger á la primera.’ The unnamed divisions which must have lain beyond Copons in the right of the second line are Jacomé and Zerain.

[102] The only detailed accounts of the Spanish movements that I have discovered are the divisional reports of Lacy and Zayas, both in the Foreign Office archives at the Record Office. Areizaga’s dispatch is so vague as to be nearly useless.

[103] Viz. Zayas, Vigodet, and Castejon, about 4,000 men each, Copons 3,000, Giron 2,500, remains of the other three divisions about 3,500. From the returns in the Madrid War Office.

[104] Martinien’s lists of officers killed and wounded show that the German division lost 19 officers, the Polish division 23, Girard’s division 28—in all 70 out of the total of 94 officers hit in the whole army.

[105] Martinien’s lists show 4 officers killed and 14 wounded.

[106] There is a long report by Del Parque in the Record Office, in which he states that the panic was caused by a stray party of his own routed cavalry dashing in among the rearguard in the dark, and crying that the French were pursuing them. He afterwards court-martialled and shot some cavalrymen for cowardice.

[107] He then pushed on to Cadiz, where he was on the 6th-7th, spent a night at Seville again on the 9th-10th, and was back at Badajoz on the 11th of November. At Cadiz he parted with his brother, who was just embarking for England, to take up his place in the new Ministry.

[108] As late as Oct. 28 he had written to Colonel Roche, the British officer attached to the staff of the Army of the Centre, to beg him to press on the newly-arrived Areizaga the necessity of adopting a defensive posture, and risking nothing. From the wording of the letter it is clear that no hint of the orders sent to Areizaga from Seville had reached Badajoz. Wellington Dispatches, v. 248-9, see also the dispatch to Castlereagh on p. 267.