The year 1812 was packed with great events, and marked in Spain no less than in Russia the final turn of the tide in the history of Napoleon’s domination. But the end was not yet: when Wellington entered Madrid in triumph on August 12th, the deliverance of the Peninsula was no more certain than was the deliverance of Europe when the French Emperor evacuated Moscow on October 22nd. Vittoria and Leipzig were still a year away, and it was not till they had been fought and won that the victory of the Allies was secure. The resources of the great enemy were so immense that it required more than one disaster to exhaust them. No one was more conscious of this than Wellington. Reflecting on the relative numbers of his own Anglo-Portuguese army and of the united strength of all the French corps in Spain, he felt that the occupation of Madrid was rather a tour de force, an admirable piece of political propaganda, than a decisive event. It would compel all the scattered armies of the enemy to unite against him, and he was more than doubtful whether he could make head against them. ‘I still hope,’ he wrote to his brother Henry, the Ambassador at Cadiz, ‘to maintain our position in Castile, and even to improve our advantages. But I shudder when I reflect upon the enormity of the task which I have undertaken, with inadequate powers myself to do anything, and without assistance of any kind from the Spaniards[1].... I am apprehensive that all this may turn out but ill for the Spanish cause. If, for any cause, I should be overpowered, or should be obliged to retreat, what will the world say? What will the people of England say?... That we made a great effort, attended by some glorious circumstances; that from January 1st, 1812, we had gained more advantages for the cause, and had acquired more extent of territory by our operations than any army ever gained in such a period of time against so powerful an enemy; but that unaided by the Spanish army and government, we were finally overpowered, and compelled to withdraw within our old frontier.’

It was with no light heart that Wellington faced the strategical problem. In outline it stood as follows. Soult was now known to be evacuating Andalusia, and it was practically certain that he would retire on Valencia, where he would join King Joseph and Suchet. Their three armies would produce a mass of veteran troops so great that even if every division of the Anglo-Portuguese army were concentrated, if Hill came up from Estremadura and Skerrett’s small force from Cadiz, it would be eminently doubtful whether Madrid could be held and the enemy thrust back. The French might advance 85,000 strong, and Wellington could only rely on 60,000 men of his own to face them—though he might scrape together three or four divisions of Spanish troops in addition[2]. It was true that Suchet might probably refuse to evacuate his Valencian viceroyalty, and that occupation for him might be found by utilizing Maitland’s expeditionary force at Alicante, and Elio’s Murcian army. But even if he did not join Soult and King Joseph in a march on Madrid, the armies of the South and Centre might put 65,000 men into the field.

But this was only half the problem. There was Clausel’s Army of Portugal, not to speak of Caffarelli’s Army of the North, to be taken into consideration. Clausel had some 40,000 men behind the Douro—troops recently beaten it is true, and known to be in bad order. But they had not been pursued since the Allied army turned aside for the march on Madrid, and had now been granted a month in which to pull themselves together. Nothing had been left in front of them save Clinton’s 6th Division at Cuellar, and a division of the Galicians at Valladolid. And now the vexatious news had come that Clausel was on the move, had chased the Galicians out of Valladolid, and was sending flying columns into the plains of Leon. It was clear that he must be dealt with at once, and there was no way to stop his annoying activity, save by detaching a considerable force from Madrid. If unopposed, he might overrun all the reconquered lands along the Douro, and even imperil the British line of communication with Salamanca and Portugal. If, as was possible, Caffarelli should lend him a couple of divisions from the Army of the North, he might become a real danger instead of a mere nuisance.

This was the reason why Wellington departed from Madrid on August 31st, and marched with the 1st, 5th and 7th Divisions, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, and Bock’s and Ponsonby’s dragoons—21,000 sabres and bayonets—to join Clinton, and thrust back Clausel to the North, before he should have leisure to do further mischief. There was, as he conceived, just time enough to inflict a sharp check on the Army of Portugal before the danger from the side of Valencia would become pressing. It must be pushed out of the way, disabled again if possible, and then he would return to Madrid for the greater game, leaving as small a containing force as possible in front of the Northern army. He summed up his plan in a confidential letter in the following terms: ‘All the world [the French world] seems to be intending to mass itself in Valencia; while I am waiting for their plans to develop, for General Hill to march up from Estremadura, and for the Spanish armies to get together, I shall hunt away the elements of Marmont’s [i. e. Clausel’s] army from the Douro. I shall push them as far off as I can, I shall try to establish proper co-operation between the Anglo-Portuguese detachment which I must leave on this side and the Galician Army, and so I shall assure my left flank, when I shall be engaged on the Valencian side[3].’

Here then, we have a time-problem set. Will it be possible to deal handsomely with the Army of Portugal, to put it completely out of power to do harm, before Soult shall have reached Valencia, reorganized his army, and joined King Joseph in what Wellington considered the inevitable scheme of a march on Madrid? The British general judged that there would be sufficient time—and probably there might have been, if everything had worked out in the best possible way. But he was quite conscious that events might prove perverse—and he shuddered at the thought—as he wrote to his brother in Cadiz.

The last precautions taken before departing for the Douro were to draw up three sets of instructions. One was for Charles Alten, left in command of the four divisions which remained in and about Madrid[4], foreseeing the chance of Soult’s marching on the capital without turning aside to Valencia—‘not at all probable, but it is necessary to provide for all events.’ The second was for Hill, who was due to arrive at Toledo in about three weeks. The third was for General Maitland at Alicante, whose position would obviously be very unpleasant, now that Soult was known to be evacuating Andalusia and marching on Valencia to join Suchet and King Joseph. Soult’s march altered the whole situation on the East Coast: if 50,000 more French were concentrated in that direction, the Alicante force must be in some danger, and would have to observe great caution, and if necessary to shut itself up in the maritime fortresses. ‘As the allied forces in Valencia and Murcia’—wrote Wellington to Maitland—‘will necessarily be thrown upon the defensive for a moment, while the enemy will be in great strength in those parts, I conclude that the greater part of those forces will be collected in Alicante, and it would be desirable to strengthen our posts at Cartagena during this crisis, which I hope will be only momentary[5].’ Another dispatch, dated four days later, adverts to the possibility that Soult may fall upon Alicante on his arrival in the kingdom of Valencia. Maitland is to defend the place, but to take care that all precautions as to the embarking his troops in the event of ill-success are made. He is expected to maintain it as long as possible; and with the sea open to him, and a safe harbour, the defence should be long and stubborn, however great the numbers of the besiegers[6].

With these instructions drawn out for Maitland, Wellington finally marched for the North. His conception of the situation in Valencia seems to have been that Soult, on his arrival, would not meddle with Alicante: it was more probable that he and King Joseph would rather take up the much more important task of endeavouring to reconquer Madrid and New Castile. They would leave Suchet behind them to contain Maitland, Elio and Ballasteros. It would be impossible for him to lend them any troops for a march on Madrid, while such a large expeditionary force was watching his flank. The net result would be that ‘by keeping this detachment at Alicante, with Whittingham’s and Roche’s Spaniards, I shall prevent too many of the gentlemen now assembled in Valencia from troubling me in the Upper Country [New Castile][7].’

Travelling with his usual celerity, Wellington left Madrid on August 31st, was at Villa Castin on the northern side of the Guadarrama pass on September 2nd, and had reached Arevalo, where he joined Clinton and the 6th Division on September 3rd. The divisions which he was bringing up from Madrid had been started off some days before he himself left the capital. He passed them between the Escurial and Villa Castin, but they caught him up again at Arevalo early on the 4th, so that he had his fighting force concentrated on that day, and was prepared to deal with Clausel.

The situation of affairs on the Douro requires a word of explanation. Clausel, it will be remembered, had retired from Valladolid on July 30, unpursued. He was prepared to retreat for any length—even as far as Burgos—if he were pressed. But no one followed him save Julian Sanchez’s lancers and some patrols of Anson’s Light Cavalry brigade. Wherefore he halted his main body on the line of the Arlanza, with two divisions at Torquemada and two at Lerma; some way to his left Foy, with two divisions more, was at Aranda, on the Upper Douro, where he had maintained his forward position, because not even a cavalry patrol from the side of the Allies had come forward to disquiet him. In front of Clausel himself there was soon nothing left but the lightest of cavalry screens, for Julian Sanchez was called off by Wellington to New Castile: when he was gone, there remained Marquinez’s guerrilleros at Palencia, and outposts of the 16th Light Dragoons at Valtanas: the main body of G. Anson’s squadrons lay at Villavanez, twenty miles behind[8]. The only infantry force which the Allies had north of the Douro was one of the divisions of the Army of Galicia, which (with Santocildes himself in command) came up to Valladolid on August 6th, not much over 3,000 bayonets strong. The second of the Galician divisions which had descended into the plain of Leon was now blockading Toro. The third and most numerous was still engaged in the interminable siege of Astorga, which showed at last some signs of drawing to its close—not because the battering of the place had been effective, but simply because the garrison was growing famished. They had been provisioned only as far as August 1, and after that date had been forced upon half and then quarter rations. But the news of the disaster of Salamanca had not, as many had hoped among the Allies, scared their commander into capitulation.

Clausel on August 1 had not supposed it possible that he would be tempted to take the offensive again within a fortnight. His army was in a most dilapidated condition, and he was prepared to give way whenever pressed. It was not that his numbers were so very low, for on August 1st the Army of Portugal only counted 10,000 less effectives than on July 15th. Though it had lost some 14,000 men in the Salamanca campaign, it had picked up some 4,000 others from the dépôt at Valladolid, from the many small garrisons which it had drawn in during its retreat, and from drafts found at Burgos.[9] Its loss in cavalry had been fully repaired by the arrival of Chauvel’s two regiments from the Army of the North, and most of the fugitives and marauders who had been scattered over the countryside after the battle of July 22nd gradually drifted back to their colours. It was not so much numbers as spirit that was wanting in the Army of Portugal. On August 6 Clausel wrote to the Minister of War at Paris that he had halted in a position where he could feed the troops, give them some days of repose, and above all re-establish their morale[10]. ‘I must punish some of the men, who are breaking out in the most frightful outrages, and so frighten the others by an example of severity; above all I must put an end to a desire, which they display too manifestly, to recross the Ebro, and get back nearer to the French frontier. It is usual to see an army disheartened after a check: but it would be hard to find one whose discouragement is greater than that of these troops: and I cannot, and ought not, to conceal from you that there has been prevailing among them for some time a very bad spirit. Disorders and revolting excesses have marked every step of our retreat. I shall employ all the means in my power to transform the dispositions of the soldiers, and to put an end to the deplorable actions which daily take place under the very eyes of officers of all grades—actions which the latter fail to repress.’

Clausel was as good as his word, and made many and severe examples, shooting (so he says) as many as fifty soldiers found guilty of murders, assaults on officers, and other excesses[11]. It is probable, however, that it was not so much his strong punitive measures which brought about an improved discipline in the regiments, as the fortnight of absolutely undisturbed repose which they enjoyed from the 1st to the 14th of August. The feeling of demoralization caused by the headlong and disorderly retreat from Salamanca died down, as it became more and more certain that the pursuit was over, and that there was no serious hostile force left within many miles of the line of the Arlanza. The obsession of being hunted by superior forces had been the ruinous thing: when this terror was withdrawn, and when the more shattered regiments had been re-formed into a smaller number of battalions, and provided in this fashion with their proper proportion of officers[12], the troops began to realize that they still formed a considerable army, and that they had been routed, but not absolutely put out of action, by the Salamanca disaster.

Yet their morale had been seriously shaken; there was still a want of officers; a number of the rejoining fugitives had come in without arms or equipment; while others had been heard of, but had not yet reported themselves at their regimental head-quarters. It therefore required considerable hardihood on Clausel’s part to try an offensive move, even against a skeleton enemy. His object was primarily to bring pressure upon the allied rear, in order to relieve King Joseph from Wellington’s attentions. He had heard that the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese army, save a negligible remnant, had marched on Madrid; but he was not sure that the Army of the Centre might not make some endeavour to save the capital, especially if it had been reinforced from Estremadura by Drouet. Clausel knew that the King had repeatedly called for succours from the South; it was possible that they might have been sent at the last moment. If they had come up, and if Wellington could be induced to send back two or three divisions to the Douro, Madrid might yet be saved. The experiment was worth risking, but it must take the form of a demonstration rather than a genuine attack upon Wellington’s rear. The Army of Portugal was still too fragile an instrument to be applied to heavy work. Indeed, when he moved, Clausel left many shattered regiments behind, and only brought 25,000 men to the front.

There was a second object in Clausel’s advance: he hoped to save the garrisons of Astorga, Toro, and Zamora, which amounted in all to over 3,000 men. Each of the first two was being besieged by a Spanish division, the third by Silveira’s Portuguese militia. The French general judged that none of the investing forces was equal to a fight in the open with a strong flying column of his best troops. Even if all three could get together, he doubted if they dared face two French divisions. His scheme was to march on Valladolid with his main body, and drive out of it the small Spanish force in possession, while Foy—his senior division-commander—should move rapidly across country with some 8,000 men, and relieve by a circular sweep first Toro, then Astorga, then Zamora. The garrisons were to be brought off, the places blown up: it was useless to dream of holding them, for Wellington would probably come to the Douro again in force, the sieges would recommence, and no second relief would be possible in face of the main British army.

On August 13th a strong French cavalry reconnaissance crossed the Arlanza and drove in the guerrilleros from Zevico: on the following day infantry was coming up from the rear, pushing forward on the high-road from Torquemada to Valladolid. Thereupon Anson, on that evening, sent back the main body of his light dragoons beyond the Douro, leaving only two squadrons as a rearguard at Villavanez. The Galician division in Valladolid also retired by the road of Torrelobaton and Castronuevo on Benavente. Santocildes—to Wellington’s disgust when it reached his ears—abandoned in Valladolid not only 400 French convalescents in hospital, but many hundred stand of small arms, which had been collected there from the prisoners taken during the retreat of Clausel in the preceding month. This was inexcusable carelessness, as there was ample time to destroy them, if not to carry them off. French infantry entered Valladolid on the 14th and 15th, apparently about 12,000 strong: their cavalry, a day’s march ahead, had explored the line of the Douro from Simancas to Tudela, and found it watched by G. Anson’s pickets all along that front.

The orders left behind by Wellington on August 5th, had been that if Clausel came forward—which he had not thought likely—G. Anson was to fall back to the Douro, and if pressed again to join Clinton’s division at Cuellar. The retreat of both of them was to be on Segovia in the event of absolute necessity. On the other hand, if the French should try to raise the sieges of Astorga or Zamora, Santocildes and Silveira were to go behind the Esla[13]. Clausel tried both these moves at once, for on the same day that he entered Valladolid he had turned off Foy with two divisions—his own and Taupin’s (late Ferey’s)—and a brigade of Curto’s chasseurs, to march on Toro by the road through Torrelobaton. The troops in Valladolid served to cover this movement: they showed a division of infantry and 800 horse in front of Tudela on the 16th, and pushed back Anson’s light dragoons to Montemayor, a few miles beyond the Douro. But this was only a demonstration: their cavalry retired in the evening, and Anson reoccupied Tudela on the 20th. It soon became clear that Clausel was not about to cross the Douro in force, and was only showing troops in front of Valladolid in order to keep Anson and Clinton anxious. He remained there with some 12,000 or 15,000 men from August 14th till September 7th, keeping very quiet, and making no second attempt to reconnoitre beyond the Douro. Anson, therefore, watched the line of the river, with his head-quarters at Valdestillas, for all that time, while the guerrilleros of Saornil and Principe went over to the northern bank and hung around Clausel’s flank. Clinton, on his own initiative, moved his division from Cuellar to Arevalo, which placed him on the line of the road to Madrid via the Guadarrama, instead of that by Segovia. This Wellington afterwards declared to be a mistake: he had intended to keep the 6th Division more to the right, apparently in order that it might cross the Douro above Valladolid if required[14]. It should not have moved farther southward than Olmedo.

Foy meanwhile, thus covered by Clausel, made a march of surprising celerity. On the 17th he arrived at Toro, and learned that the Galicians blockading that place had cleared off as early as the 15th, and had taken the road for Benavente. He blew up the fort, and took on with him the garrison of 800 men. At Toro he was much nearer to Zamora than to Astorga, but he resolved to march first on the remoter place—it was known to be hard pressed, and the French force there blockaded was double that in Zamora. He therefore moved on Benavente with all possible speed, and crossed the Esla there, driving away a detachment of the Galician division (Cabrera’s) which had come from Valladolid, when it made an ineffectual attempt to hold the fords. On the 20th August he reached La Baneza, some sixteen miles from Astorga, and there received the tiresome news that the garrison had surrendered only thirty-six hours before to Castaños. The three battalions there, worn down by famine to 1,200 men, had capitulated, because they had no suspicion that any help was near. The Spanish general had succeeded in concealing from them all knowledge of Foy’s march. They laid down their arms on the 18th, and were at once marched off to Galicia: Castaños himself accompanied them with all his force, being fully determined not to fight Foy, even though his numbers were superior.

The French cavalry pushed on to Astorga on the 21st, and found the gates open and the place empty, save for seventy sick of the late garrison, who had been left behind under the charge of a surgeon. It was useless to think of pursuing Castaños, who had now two days’ start, wherefore Foy turned his attention to Zamora. Here Silveira, though warned to make off when the enemy reached Toro, had held on to the last moment, thinking that he was safe when Foy swerved away toward Astorga. He only drew off when he got news on the 22nd, from Sir Howard Douglas, the British Commissioner with the Galician army, to the effect that Foy, having failed to save Astorga, was marching against him. He retired to Carvajales behind the Esla, but was not safe there, for the French general, turning west from Benavente, had executed a forced march for Tabara, and was hastening westward to cut in between Carvajales and the road to Miranda de Douro on the Portuguese frontier. Warned only just in time of this move, Silveira hurried off towards his own country, and was within one mile of its border when Foy’s advanced cavalry came up with his rearguard near Constantin, the last village in Spain. They captured his baggage and some stragglers, but made no serious endeavour to charge his infantry, which escaped unharmed to Miranda. Foy attributed this failure to Curto, the commander of the light horse: ‘le défaut de décision et l’inertie coupable du général commandant la cavalerie font perdre les fruits d’une opération bien combinée’ (August 23rd)[15]. This pursuit had drawn Foy very far westward; his column turning back, only reached Zamora on August 26th: here he drew off the garrison and destroyed the works. He states that his next move would have been a raid on Salamanca, where lay not only the British base hospital, but a vast accumulation of stores, unprotected by any troops whatever. But he received at Zamora, on the 27th, urgent orders from Clausel to return to Valladolid, as Wellington was coming up against him from Madrid with his whole army. Accordingly Foy abandoned his plan, and reached Tordesillas, with his troops in a very exhausted condition from hard marching, on August 28th. Clausel had miscalculated dates—warned of the first start of the 1st and 7th Divisions from Madrid, he had supposed that they would be at Arevalo some days before they actually reached it on September 4th. Foy was never in any real danger, and there had been time to spare. His excursion undoubtedly raised the spirit of the Army of Portugal: it was comforting to find that the whole of the Galicians would not face 8,000 French troops, and that the plains of Leon could be overrun without opposition by such a small force. On his return to join the main body Foy noted in his diary that Clausel had been very inert in face of Anson and Clinton, and wrote that he himself would have tried a more dashing policy—and might possibly have failed in it, owing to the discouragement and apathy still prevailing among many of the senior officers of the Army of Portugal[16].

Wellington had received the news of Clausel’s advance on Valladolid as early as August 18th, and was little moved by it. Indeed he expressed some pleasure at the fact. ‘I think,’ he wrote to Lord Bathurst, ‘that the French mean to carry off the garrisons from Zamora and Toro, which I hope they will effect, as otherwise I must go and take them. If I do not, nobody else will, as is evident from what has been passing for the last two months at Astorga[17].’ He expressed his pleasure on hearing that Santocildes had retired behind the Esla without fighting, for he had feared that he might try to stop Foy and get beaten. It was only, as we have already seen, after he obtained practical certainty that Soult had evacuated Andalusia, so that no expedition to the South would be necessary, that he turned his mind to Clausel‘s doings. And his march to Arevalo and Valladolid was intended to be a mere excursion for a few weeks, preparatory to a return to New Castile to face Soult and King Joseph, when they should become dangerous. From Arevalo he wrote to Castaños to say that ‘it was necessary to drive off Marmont’s (i.e. Clausel’s) army without loss of time, so as to make it possible to turn the whole of his forces eventually against Soult.’ He should press the movement so far forward as he could; perhaps he might even lay siege to Burgos. But the Army of Galicia must come eastward again without delay, and link up its operations with the Anglo-Portuguese. He hoped to have retaken Valladolid by September 6th, and wished to see Castaños there, with the largest possible force that he could gather, on that date[18]. The Galician army had returned to Astorga on August 27th, and so far as distances went, there was nothing to prevent it from being at Valladolid eleven days after, if it took the obvious route by Benavente and Villalpando.

The troops from Madrid having joined Clinton and the 6th Division at Arevalo, Wellington had there some 28,000 men collected for the discomfiture of Clausel, a force not much more numerous than that which the French general had concentrated behind the Douro, for Foy was now back at Tordesillas, and the whole Army of Portugal was in hand, save certain depleted and disorganized regiments which had been left behind in the province of Burgos. But having the advantage of confidence, and knowing that his enemy must still be suffering from the moral effects of Salamanca, the British general pushed on at once, not waiting for the arrival on the scene of the Galicians. On the 4th the army marched to Olmedo, on the 5th to Valdestillas, on the 6th to Boecillo, from whence it advanced to the Douro and crossed it by various fords between Tudela and Puente de Duero—the main body taking that of Herrera. The French made no attempt to defend the line of the river, but—rather to Wellington’s surprise—were found drawn up as if for battle a few miles beyond it, their right wing holding the city of Valladolid, whose outskirts had been put in a state of defence, their left extending to the ground about the village of La Cisterniga. No attempt was made to dislodge them with the first divisions that came up: Wellington preferred to wait for his artillery and his reserves; the process of filing across the fords had been tedious, and occupied the whole afternoon.

On this Clausel had calculated: he was only showing a front in order to give his train time to move to the rear, and to allow his right wing (Foy) at Simancas and Tordesillas to get away. A prompt evacuation of Valladolid would have exposed it to be cut off. On the following morning the French had disappeared from La Cisterniga, but Valladolid was discovered to be still held by an infantry rearguard. This, when pushed, retired and blew up the bridge over the Pisuerga on the opposite side of the city, before the British cavalry could seize it. The critics thought that Clausel might have been hustled with advantage, both on the 6th and on the morning of the 7th, and that Foy might have been cut off from the main body by rapid action on the first day[19]. Wellington’s cautious movements may probably be explained by the fact that an attack on Clausel on the 6th would have involved fighting among the suburbs and houses of Valladolid, which would have been costly, and he had no wish to lose men at a moment when the battalion-strengths were very low all through the army. Moreover, the capture of Valladolid would not have intercepted the retreat of the French at Simancas, but only have forced them to retire by parallel roads northward. At the same time it must be owned that any loss of life involved in giving Clausel a thorough beating on this day would have been justified later on. He had only some 15,000 men in line, not having his right-wing troops with him that day. If the Army of Portugal had been once more attacked and scattered, it would not have been able to interfere in the siege of Burgos, where Wellington was, during the next few weeks, to lose as many men as a general action would have cost. But this no prophet could have foreseen on September 6th.

It cannot be said that Wellington’s pursuit of Clausel was pressed with any earnestness. On the 8th his advanced cavalry were no farther forward than Cabezon, seven miles in front of Valladolid, and it was not till the 9th that the 6th Division, leading the infantry, passed that same point. Wellington himself, with the main body of his infantry, remained at Valladolid till the 10th. His dispatches give no further explanation for this delay than that the troops which had come from Madrid were fatigued, and sickly, from long travel in the hot weather, and that he wished to have assurance of the near approach of the Army of Galicia, which was unaccountably slow in moving forward from Astorga[20]. Meanwhile he took the opportunity of his stay in Valladolid to command, and be present at, a solemn proclamation of the March Constitution. This was a prudent act; for though the ceremony provoked no enthusiasm whatever in the city[21], where there were few Liberals in existence, it was a useful demonstration against calumnies current in Cadiz, to the effect that he so much disliked the Constitution that he was conspiring with the serviles, and especially with Castaños, to ignore or even to overthrow it.

While Wellington halted at Valladolid, Clausel had established himself at Dueñas, fifteen miles up the Pisuerga. He retired from thence, however, on the 10th, when the 6th Division and Anson’s cavalry pressed in his advanced posts, and Wellington’s head-quarters were at Dueñas next day. From thence reconnaissances were sent out both on the Burgos and the Palencia roads. The latter city was found unoccupied and—what was more surprising—not in the least damaged by the retreating enemy. The whole of Clausel’s army had marched on the Burgos road, and its rearguard was discovered in front of Torquemada that evening. The British army followed, leaving Palencia on its left, and head-quarters were at Magaz on the 12th. Anson’s light dragoons had the interesting spectacle that afternoon of watching the whole French army defile across the bridge of the Pisuerga at Torquemada, under cover of a brigade of chasseurs drawn up on the near side. Critics thought that the covering force might have been driven in, and jammed against the narrow roadway over the bridge[22]. But the British brigadier waited for artillery to come up, and before it arrived the enemy had hastily decamped. He was pursued as far as Quintana, where there was a trifling cavalry skirmish at nightfall.

At Magaz, on the night of the 12th, Wellington got the tiresome news that Santocildes and Castaños, with the main body of the Army of Galicia, had passed his flank that day, going southward, and had continued their way towards Valladolid, instead of falling in on the British line of march. Their junction was thus deferred for several days. Wellington wrote in anger, ‘Santocildes has been six days marching: he was yesterday within three leagues of us, and knew it that night; but he has this morning moved on to Valladolid, eight leagues from us, and unless I halt two days for him he will not join us for four or five days more[23].’ As a matter of fact the Galicians did not come up till the 16th, while if Santocildes had used a little common sense they would have been in line on the 12th September.

The pursuit of Clausel continued to be a very slow and uninteresting business: from the 11th to the 15th the army did not advance more than two leagues a day. On the 13th the British vanguard was at Villajera, while the French main body was at Pampliega: on the 14th Anson’s cavalry was at Villadrigo, on the 15th at Villapequeña, on the 16th near Celada, where Clausel was seen in position. On this day the Galicians at last came up—three weak divisions under Cabrera, Losada, and Barcena, with something over 11,000 infantry, but only one field-battery and 350 horse. The men looked fatigued with much marching and very ragged: Wellington had hoped for 16,000 men, and considering that the total force of the Galician army was supposed to be over 30,000 men, it seems that more might have been up, even allowing for sick, recruits, and the large garrisons of Ferrol and Corunna.

The 16th September was the only day on which Clausel showed any signs of making a stand: in the afternoon he was found in position, a league beyond Celada on favourable ground. Wellington arranged to turn his left flank next morning, with the 6th Division and Pack’s brigade; but at dawn he went off in haste, and did not stop till he reached Villa Buniel, near Burgos. Here, late in the afternoon, Wellington again outflanked him with the 6th Division, and he retreated quite close to the city. On the 18th he evacuated it, after throwing a garrison into the Castle, and went back several leagues on the high-road toward the Ebro. The Allies entered Burgos, and pushed their cavalry beyond it without meeting opposition. On the 19th the Castle was invested by the 1st Division and Pack’s brigade, while the rest of Wellington’s army took position across the road by which the French had retreated. A cavalry reconnaissance showed that Clausel had gone back many miles: the last outposts of his rear were at Quintanavides, beyond the watershed which separates the basin of the Douro from that of the Ebro. His head-quarters were now at Briviesca, and it appeared that, if once more pushed, he was prepared to retreat ad infinitum. Wellington, however, pressed him no farther: throwing forward three of his own divisions and the Galicians to Monasterio and other villages to the east of Burgos, where a good covering position was found, he proceeded to turn his attention to the Castle.

This short series of operations between the 10th and the 19th of September 1812 has in it much that perplexes the critical historian. It is not Clausel’s policy that is interesting—he simply retired day after day, whenever the enemy’s pursuing infantry came within ten miles of him. Sometimes he gave way before the mere cavalry of Wellington’s advanced guard. There was nothing in his conduct to remind the observer of Ney’s skilful retreat from Pombal to Ponte Murcella in 1811, when a rearguard action was fought nearly every afternoon. Clausel was determined not to allow himself to be caught, and would not hold on, even in tempting positions of considerable strength. As he wrote to Clarke before the retreat had begun, ‘Si l’ennemi revient avec toute son armée vers moi, je me tiendrai en position, quoique toujours à peu de distance de lui, afin de n’avoir aucun échec à éprouver.’ He suffered no check because he always made off before he was in the slightest danger of being brought to action. It is difficult to understand Napier’s enthusiasm for what he calls ‘beautiful movements’[24]; to abscond on the first approach of the enemy’s infantry may be a safe and sound policy, but it can hardly be called brilliant or artistic. It is true that there would have been worse alternatives to take—Clausel might have retreated to the Ebro without stopping, or he might have offered battle at the first chance; but the avoidance of such errors does not in itself constitute a very high claim to praise. An examination of the details of the march of the British army during this ten days plainly fails to corroborate Napier’s statement that the French general ‘offered battle every day’ and ‘baffled his great adversary.’ His halt for a few hours at Celada on September 16th was the only one during which he allowed the allied main body to get into touch with him late in the day; and he absconded before Wellington’s first manœuvre to outflank him[25].

The thing that is truly astonishing in this ten days is the extraordinary torpidity of Wellington’s pursuit. He started by waiting three days at Valladolid after expelling the French; and he continued, when once he had put his head-quarters in motion, by making a series of easy marches of six to ten miles a day, never showing the least wish to hustle his adversary or to bring him to action[26]. Now to manœuvre the French army to beyond Burgos, or even to the Ebro, was not the desired end—it was necessary to put Clausel out of action, if (as Wellington kept repeating in all his letters) the main allied army was to return to Madrid within a few weeks, to watch for Soult’s offensive. To escort the Army of Portugal with ceremonious politeness to Briviesca, without the loss to pursuers or pursued of fifty men, was clearly not sufficient. Clausel’s troops, being not harassed in the least, but allowed a comfortable retreat, remained an ‘army in being’: though moved back eighty miles on the map, they were not disposed of, and could obviously come forward again the moment that Wellington left the north with the main body of his troops. Nothing, therefore, was gained by the whole manœuvre, save that Clausel was six marches farther from the Douro than he had been on September 1st. To keep him in his new position Wellington must have left an adequate containing army: it does not seem that he could have provided one from the 28,000 Anglo-Portuguese and 11,000 Galicians who were at his disposition, and yet have had any appreciable force to take back to Madrid. Clausel had conducted his raid on Valladolid with something under 25,000 men; but this did not represent the whole strength of the Army of Portugal: after deducting the sick and the garrisons there were some 39,000 men left—of these some were disarmed stragglers who had only just come back to their colours, others belonged to shattered corps which were only just reorganizing themselves in their new cadres. But in a few weeks Clausel would have at least 35,000 men under arms of his own troops, without counting anything that the Army of the North might possibly lend him. To contain him Wellington would have to leave, in addition to the 11,000 Galicians, at least three British divisions and the corresponding cavalry—say 16,000 or 18,000 men. He could only bring back some 10,000 bayonets to join Hill near Madrid. This would not enable him to face Soult.

But if Clausel had been dealt with in a more drastic style, if he had been hunted and harassed, it is clear that he might have been disabled for a long time from taking the offensive. His army was still in a doubtful condition as regards morale, and there can be little reason to doubt, that if hard pressed, it would have sunk again into the despondency and disorder which had prevailed at the beginning of the month of August. The process of driving him back with a firm hand might, no doubt, have been more costly than the slow tactics actually adopted; but undoubtedly such a policy would have paid in the end.

There is no explanation to be got out of Wellington’s rather numerous letters written between the 10th and the 21st. In one of them he actually observes that ‘we have been pushing them, but not very vigorously, till the 16th[27],’ without saying why the pressure was not applied more vigorously. From others it might perhaps be deduced that Wellington was awaiting the arrival of the Galician army, because when it came up he would have a very large instead of a small superiority of force over the French. But this does not fully explain his slowness in pursuing an enemy who was evidently on the run, and determined not to fight. We may, as has been already mentioned, speak of his wish to avoid loss of life (not much practised during the Burgos operations a few days later on!) and of the difficulty of providing for supplies in a countryside unvisited before by the British army, and very distant from its base-magazines. But when all has been said, no adequate explanation for his policy has been provided. It remains inexplicable, and its results were unhappy.