While the provinces of Spain were bursting out, one after another, into open insurrection, Murat at Madrid and Bonaparte at Bayonne were still enjoying the fools’ paradise in which they had dwelt since the formal abdication3 of Ferdinand VII. The former was busy in forcing the Junta4 of Regency to perform the action which he elegantly styled ‘swallowing the pill,’ i.e. in compelling it to do homage5 to Napoleon and humbly6 crave7 for the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. He imagined that his only serious trouble lay in the lamentable8 emptiness of the treasury9 at Madrid, and kept announcing smooth things to his master—‘The country was tranquil10, the state of public opinion in the capital was far happier than could have been hoped: the native soldiery were showing an excellent disposition11, the captains-general kept sending in good reports: the new dynasty was likely to be popular, and the only desire expressed by the people was to see their newly designated king arrive promptly12 in their midst[99].’ Letters of this kind continued to flow from the pen of the Duke of Berg till almost the end of the month. Even after details of the insurrection of Aragon and the Asturias began to reach him, he could write on May 31 that a strong flying column would suffice to put everything right. About this time he was seized by a violent fever and took to his bed, just as things were commencing to grow serious. On his convalescence13 he left for France, after putting everything in charge of Savary, the man who of all Frenchmen most deserved the hatred14 of Spain. About the middle of June he recrossed the French frontier, and after a few weeks went off to[p. 124] Naples to take up his new kingship there. Spain was never to see him again: the catastrophe15 which he had, by his master’s orders, brought about, was to be conducted to its end by other hands.
While Murat lay sick at the suburban16 palace of Chamartin, and while Napoleon was drafting acts and constitutions which the assembly of notables at Bayonne were to accept and publish, the first acts of war between the insurgents17 and the French army of occupation took place.
We have already had occasion to point out that the main military strength of the insurrection lay in Galicia and Andalusia, the two districts in which large bodies of regular troops had placed themselves at the disposition of the newly organized juntas18. In Valencia, Catalonia, and Murcia the movement was much weaker: in Old Castile, Aragon, and the Asturias it had hardly any other forces at its disposal than hordes19 of half-armed peasants. Clearly then Galicia and Andalusia were the dangerous points for the French, and the former more than the latter, since an army descending22 from its hills, and falling on the long line of communications between France and Madrid, might cause the gravest inconvenience. If there had been any organized Spanish forces in Aragon, there would have been an equal danger of an attack directed from Saragossa against the eastern flank of the French communications. But while Galicia was possessed23 of a numerous army of regular troops, Aragon had nothing to show but a mass of hastily assembled peasants, who were not yet fully24 provided with arms and were only just beginning to be told off into battalions26.
Napoleon, at the moment when he began to order his troops to move, was under the impression that he had to deal with a number of isolated27 riots rather than with a general insurrection of the Spanish nation. His first orders show that he imagined that a few flying columns would be able to scour28 the disaffected29 districts and scatter30 the bands of insurgents without much trouble. Instead of a strategical plan for the conquest of Spain, we find in his directions nothing more than provisions for the launching of a small column against each point where he had been informed that a rising had broken out. He presupposes that the kingdom as a whole is quiet, and that bodies of 3,000 or 4,000 men may march anywhere, without having to provide for the maintenance of their communications with Madrid, or with each other. Only in a friendly country would it have been possible to carry out such orders.
[p. 125]
There were at the Emperor’s disposition, at the end of May, some 116,000 men beyond the Pyrenees: but the 26,000 troops under Junot in Portugal were so completely cut off from the rest, by the insurrection in Castile and Estremadura, that they had to be left out of consideration. Of the remainder the corps31 of Dupont and Moncey, 53,000 strong, lay in and about Madrid: Bessières, to whom the preservation32 of the main line of communications with France fell, had some 25,000 between Burgos and San Sebastian: Duhesme, isolated at Barcelona, and communicating with France by Perpignan and not by Bayonne, had only some 13,000 at his disposal in Catalonia. Up to the first week in June the Emperor thought that the 91,000 men of these four corps would be enough to pacify34 Spain.
His first design was somewhat as follows: Bessières was to keep a firm hand on the line of communications, but also to detach a division of 4,000 men under Lefebvre-Desnouettes against Saragossa, and a brigade under Merle to pacify Santander and the northern littoral35. The Emperor does not at first seem to have realized that, with the army of Galicia hanging on his western flank, Bessières might not be able to spare men for such distant enterprises. He dealt with the corps as if it had nothing to face save the local insurgents of Aragon and Old Castile. From the large body of troops which lay about Madrid, Toledo, and Aranjuez, two strong columns were to be dispatched to strike at the two main centres of the insurrection in Southern Spain. Dupont was to take the first division of his army corps, with two brigades of cavalry36 and a few other troops, and march on Cordova and Seville. This gave him no more than about 13,000 men for the subjugation37 of the large and populous38 province of Andalusia. The other two infantry39 divisions of his corps remained for the present near Madrid[100].
On the other side of the capital, Marshal Moncey with a somewhat smaller force—one division of infantry from his own army corps and one brigade of cavalry, 9,000 men in all—was to move on Valencia, and to take possession of that city and of the great naval40 arsenal41 of Cartagena. His expedition was to be supported by a diversion from the side of Catalonia, for Duhesme (in spite of the small number of his army) was told to send a column along the sea-coast route, by Tarragona and Tortosa, to threaten Valencia[p. 126] from the north. Moncey’s remaining infantry divisions, which were not detailed42 for the expedition that he was to lead, remained near Madrid, available (like Dupont’s second and third divisions) for the reinforcement of Bessières or the strengthening of the two expeditionary columns, as circumstances might decide.
Clearly Dupont and Moncey were both sent forth43 to undertake impossible tasks. Napoleon had not comprehended that it was not provincial44 émeutes that he had to crush, but the regular resistance of a nation. To send a column of 12,000 men on a march through 300 miles of hostile territory to Cadiz, or a column of 9,000 men on a march of 180 miles to Valencia, presupposes the idea that the expeditions are affairs of police and not strategical operations. Our astonishment45 grows greater when we consider the character of the troops which Dupont and Moncey commanded. In the army of the former there was one veteran French battalion25—that of the Marines of the Guard, six of raw recruits of the Legions of Reserve, two of Paris Municipal Guards (strangely distracted from their usual duties), one of the contingent46 of the Helvetic Confederation, and four of Swiss mercenaries in the Spanish service, who had just been compelled to transfer their allegiance to Napoleon. The cavalry consisted of four ‘provisional regiments47’ of conscripts. It was a military crime of the first order to send 13,000 troops of this quality on an important expedition. Moncey’s force was of exactly the same sort—eight battalions of conscripts formed in ‘provisional regiments’ and two ‘provisional regiments’ of dragoons, plus a Westphalian battalion, and two Spanish corps, who deserted48 en masse when they were informed that they were to march against Valencia in company with the marshal’s French troops. He had not one single company or squadron of men belonging to the old imperial army.
Bessières was much more fortunate, as, among the 25,000 men of whom he could dispose, there were four veteran battalions of the line and two old regiments of cavalry; moreover there were sent ere long to his aid three of the battalions of the Imperial Guard which lay at Madrid, and four hundred sabres of the dragoons, chasseurs, and gendarmes49 of the same famous corps.
The march of the two expeditionary columns began on May 24, a date at which Murat and his master had but the faintest notion of the wide-spreading revolt which was on foot. Moncey and Dupont were both officers of distinction: the marshal was one of[p. 127] the oldest and the most respected officers of the imperial army: he had won the grade of general of division in the days of the Republic, and did not owe his first start in life to Napoleon. Of all the marshals he was by several years the senior. He passed as a steady, capable, and prudent51 officer of vast experience. Dupont on the other hand was a young man, who had first won a name by his brilliant courage at the combat of Dirnstein in the Austrian war of 1805. Since then he had distinguished52 himself at Friedland: he was on the way to rapid promotion53, and, if his expedition to Andalusia had succeeded, might have counted on a duchy and a marshal’s baton54 as his reward. Napoleon knew him as a brave and loyal subordinate, but had never before given him an independent command. He could hardly guess that, when left to his own inspirations, such a brilliant officer would turn out to be dilatory55, wanting in initiative, and wholly destitute56 of moral courage. It is impossible to judge with infallible accuracy how a good lieutenant57 will behave, when first the load of responsibility is laid upon his shoulders. On May 24, Dupont quitted Toledo with his 13,000 men: in the broad plains of La Mancha he met with no opposition58. Everywhere the people were sullen59, but no open hostility60 was shown. Even in the tremendous defiles62 of the Sierra Morena he found no enemy, and crossed the great pass of Despe?a Perros without having to fire a shot. Coming out at its southern end he occupied Andujar, the town at the main junction63 of roads in Eastern Andalusia, on June 5. Here he got clear intelligence that the whole country-side was up in arms: Seville had risen on May 26, and the rest of the province had followed its example. There was a large assembly of armed peasants mustering64 at Cordova, but the regular troops had not yet been brought up to the front. General Casta?os, whom the Junta had placed in chief command, was still busily engaged in concentrating his scattered65 battalions, forming them into brigades and divisions, and hastily filling up with recruits the enormous gaps which existed in the greater part of the corps. The regulars were being got together at a camp at Carmona, south of the Guadalquivir, and not far from Seville. The organization of new battalions, from the large number of volunteers who remained when the old regiments were completed, took place elsewhere. It would be weeks, rather than days, before the unorganized mass took shape as an army, and Dupont might count on a considerable respite66 before being attacked. But it was not only with the forces of[p. 128] Casta?os that he had to reckon: at Cordova, Seville, Granada, and all the other towns of Andalusia, the peasants were flocking in to be armed and told off into new regiments. There was every probability that in a few days the movement would spread northward67 over the Sierra Morena into La Mancha. An insurrection in this district would sever50 Dupont’s communications with Madrid, for he had not left behind him any sufficient detachments to guard the defiles which he had just passed, or to keep open the great post-road to the capital across the plains of New Castile. When he started he had been under the impression that it was only local troubles in Andalusia that he had to suppress.
Dupont was already beginning to find that the insurgents were in much greater numbers than he had expected when he crossed the Sierra Morena, but till he had made trial of their strength he considered that it would be wrong to halt. He had close before him the great city of Cordova, a most tempting68 prize, and he resolved to push on at least so far before taking it upon himself to halt and ask for reinforcements. His continued movement soon brought about the first engagement of the war, as at the bridge of Alcolea he found his advance disputed by a considerable hostile force [June 7].
The military commandant of the district of Cordova was a certain Don Pedro de Echávarri, a retired69 colonel whom the local Junta had just placed in command of its levies70. His force consisted of 10,000 or 12,000 peasants and citizens, who had only received their arms three days before, and had not yet been completely told off into regiments and companies. On the 4th of June he had been sent a small body of old troops—one battalion of light infantry (Campo Mayor), and one of militia71 (the 3rd Provincial Grenadiers of Andalusia)—1,400 men in all, and with them eight guns. To have abandoned Cordova without a fight would have discouraged the new levies, and probably have led to Echávarri’s own death; for the armed mob which he commanded would have torn him to pieces as a traitor72 if he had refused to give battle. Accordingly he resolved to defend the passage of the Guadalquivir at the point where the high-road from Andujar crossed it, six miles outside Cordova. He barricaded73 the bridge and placed his guns and the two old battalions on the hither side of the river, in a position commanding the defile61. On each flank of them some thousands of the Cordovan insurgents were drawn74 up, while the remainder of the levy75, including all the[p. 129] mounted men, were sent across the bridge, and hidden in some hills which overhung the road by which the French were coming. They were ordered to show themselves, and to threaten to fall upon the enemy from the flank, when he should have developed his attack upon the bridge. If Echávarri had been guided by military considerations he would not have dared to offer battle with such a raw and motley force to 12,000 French troops—even if the latter were but the conscripts of Dupont. But political necessity compelled him to make the attempt.
When Dupont found the position of Alcolea occupied, he cannonaded the Spaniards for a time, and then launched his vanguard against the bridge. The leading battalion (it was one of those formed of the Paris Municipal Guards) stormed the barricades77 with some loss, and began to cross the river. After it the rest of Pannetier’s brigade followed, and began to deploy78 for the attack on the Spanish position. At this moment the Cordovan levies beyond the river showed themselves, and began to threaten a flank attack on Dupont. The latter sent his cavalry against them, and a few charges soon turned back the demonstration79, and scattered the raw troops who had made it. Meanwhile Dupont’s infantry advanced and overpowered the two regular battalions opposed to them: seeing the line broken, the masses of insurgents on the flanks left the field without any serious fighting. The whole horde20 gave way and poured back into Cordova and right through the city, whose ruined walls they made no attempt to defend. They had lost very few men, probably no more than 200 in all, while the French had suffered even less, their only casualties being thirty killed and eighty wounded, wellnigh all in the battalion which had forced the barricades at the bridge.
There would be no reason to linger even for a moment over this insignificant80 skirmish, if it had not been for the deplorable events which followed—events which did more to give a ferocious81 character to the war than any others, save perhaps the massacre82 by Calvo at Valencia, which was taking place (as it chanced) on that very same day, June 7.
Dupont, after giving his army a short rest, led it, still ranged in battle array, across the six miles of plain which separated him from Cordova. He expected to find the defeated army of Echávarri rallying itself within the city. But on arriving in front of its gates, he found the walls unoccupied and the suburbs deserted.[p. 130] The Cordovans had closed their gates, but it was rather for the purpose of gaining time for a formal surrender than with any intention of resisting. Dupont had already opened negotiations83 for the unbarring of the gates, when a few scattered shots were fired at the French columns from a tower in the wall, or a house abutting84 on it. Treating this as a good excuse for avoiding the granting of a capitulation, Dupont blew open one of the gates with cannon76, and his troops rushed into the empty streets without finding any enemy to defeat. The impudent85 fiction of Thiers to the effect that the entry of the French was seriously resisted, and that desperate street-fighting took place, is sufficiently86 disproved by the fact that in the so-called storming of Cordova the French lost altogether two killed and seven wounded.
Nevertheless the city was sacked from cellar to garret. Dupont’s undisciplined conscripts broke their ranks and ran amuck87 through the streets, firing into windows and battering89 down doors. Wherever there was the least show of resistance they slew90 off whole households: but they were rather intent on pillage91 and rape92 than on murder. Cordova was a wealthy place, its shops were well worth plundering94, its churches and monasteries95 full of silver plate and jewelled reliquaries, its vaults96 of the strong wines of Andalusia. All the scenes of horror that afterwards occurred at Badajoz or San Sebastian were rehearsed for the first time at Cordova; and the army of Dupont had far less excuse than the English marauders and murderers of 1812 and 1813. The French had taken the city practically without loss and without opposition, and could not plead that they had been maddened by the fall of thousands of their comrades, or that they were drunk with the fury of battle after many hours of desperate fighting at the breaches97. Nevertheless, without any excuse of this sort, Dupont’s army behaved in a way that would have suited better the hordes of Tilly and Wallenstein. Their commanders could not draw them away from their orgies and outrages98 till the next day: indeed, it seems that many of the French officers disgraced themselves by joining in the plunder93. While the men were filling their haversacks with private property, there were found colonels and even generals who were not ashamed to load carts and coaches with pictures, tapestries99, and metal-work from churches and public buildings, and bags of dollars from the treasury, where no less than 10,000,000 reals of specie had been found. Laplanne, whom[p. 131] Dupont appointed commandant of the place, took 2,000 ducats of blackmail100 from the Count of Villanueva, on whom he had billeted himself, in return for preserving his mansion101 from pillage. When the French left Cordova, nine days later, they had with them more than 500 wheeled vehicles seized in the place which were loaded with all sorts of plunder[101].
Dupont had hardly settled down in Cordova, and begun to substitute crushing military contributions for unsystematic pillage, when he found himself cut off from his base. The valley of the Upper Guadalquivir, and the slopes of the Sierra Morena, on both the southern and the northern sides of the passes, rose in arms in the second week of June. The French had left no detachments behind to preserve their communications: between Cordova and Toledo there were only a few posts where stragglers and sick had been collected, some isolated officers busy on surveying or on raising contributions, and some bodies of ten or twenty men escorting couriers or belated trains of wagons102 bearing food or ammunition103 to the front. Most of these unfortunate people were cut up by the insurgents, who displayed from the first a most ferocious spirit. The news of the sack of Cordova drove them to the commission of inhuman104 cruelties; some prisoners were blinded, others tortured to death: Foy says that the brigadier-general Réné, surprised while crossing the Morena, was thrown into a vat33 of boiling water and scalded to death[102]. The parties, which escaped massacre hastily drew back towards Madrid and Toledo, and soon there was not a French soldier within 150 miles of Dupont’s isolated division.
That general did not at first realize the unpleasantness of his[p. 132] position. He had been sufficiently surprised by the opposition offered at Alcolea, and the rumours105 of the concentration of the army of Casta?os, to make him unwilling106 to advance beyond Cordova. He wrote to Murat asking for reinforcements, and especially for troops to keep open his lines of communication. There were, he said, at least 25,000 regular troops marching against him: the English might disembark reinforcements at Cadiz: the whole province was in a flame: it was impossible to carry out the Grand-Duke of Berg’s original orders to push straight on to Seville. But matters were even worse than he thought: in a few days he realized, from the non-arrival of couriers from Madrid, that he was cut off: moreover, his foraging107 parties, even when they were only a few miles outside Cordova, began to be molested108 and sometimes destroyed.
After waiting nine days, Dupont very wisely resolved to fall back, and to endeavour to reopen communications with his base. On June 16 he evacuated109 Cordova, much to the regret of his soldiers, who resented the order to abandon such comfortable quarters. On the nineteenth, dragging with him an enormous convoy110 of plunder, he reached Andujar, the great junction of roads where the routes from the passes of the Morena come down to the valley of the Guadalquivir. It would have been far wiser to go still further back, and to occupy the debouches of the defiles, instead of lingering in the plain of Andalusia. He should have retired to Baylen, the town at the foot of the mountains, or to La Carolina, the fortress111 in the upland which commands the southern exit of the Despe?a Perros. But he was vainly dreaming of resuming the attempt to conquer the whole south of Spain when reinforcements should arrive, and Andujar tempted112 him, since it was the best point from which he could threaten at once Cordova, Jaen, and Granada, the three chief towns of Eastern Andalusia. Here, therefore, he abode113 from June 19 to July 18, a wasted month during which the whole situation of affairs in Spain was changed.
Here we must leave Dupont, while we treat of the doings of the other French generals during the month of June. While the invasion of Andalusia was running its course, both Moncey and Bessières had been seriously engaged.
The first named of the two marshals was placed in charge of one-half of the offensive part of Napoleon’s plan for the subju[p. 133]gation of Spain, while Bessières was mainly responsible for the defensive114 part, i.e. for the maintaining of the communications between Madrid and Bayonne. It is with Moncey’s expedition against Valencia, therefore, that we must first deal. Although he started a few days later than Dupont, that marshal was (like his colleague) still dominated by the idea that possessed both Napoleon and Murat—that the insurrections were purely115 local, and that their suppression was a mere116 measure of police. This notion accounts for his choice of route: there are two roads from Madrid to Valencia, a long and fairly easy one which passes through the gap between the mountains of Murcia and those of Cuenca, by San Clemente, Chinchilla, and the plain of Almanza, and a shorter one, full of dangerous defiles and gorges117, which cuts through the heart of the hills by Tarancon, Valverde, and Reque?a. The former crosses the watershed119 between the valley of the Tagus and those of the rivers flowing into the Mediterranean120 Sea at the easiest point, the latter at one of the most difficult ones. But Moncey, thinking only of the need to deal promptly with the Valencian insurgents, chose the shorter and more difficult route.
He left Madrid on June 4: a week later he was near Cuenca, in the midst of the mountains. Not a shot had yet been fired at him, but as he pressed eastward121 he found the villages more and more deserted, till at last he had reached a region that seemed to have become suddenly depopulated. He turned a little out of his way on the eleventh to occupy the city of Cuenca[103], the capital of this wild and rugged122 country, but resumed his advance on the eighteenth, after receiving from Madrid peremptory123 orders to press forward[104]. There lay before him two tremendous defiles, which must be passed if he was to reach Valencia. The first was the deep-sunk gorge118 of the river Cabriel, where the highway plunges124 down a cliff, crosses a ravine, and climbs again up a steep opposing bank. The second, thirty miles further on, was the Pass of the Cabrillas, the point where the road, on reaching the[p. 134] edge of the central plateau of Spain, suddenly sinks down into the low-lying fertile plain of Valencia.
If the Conde de Cervellon, the general whom the Valencian Junta had put in charge of its army, had concentrated on these defiles the 7,000 or 8,000 regular troops who were to be found in the province and in the neighbouring district of Murcia, it is probable that Moncey would never have forced his way through the mountains; for each of the positions, if held in sufficient force, is practically impregnable. But the Spaniards had formed a deeply rooted notion that the invader125 would come by the easy road over the plains, by San Clemente and Almanza, and not through the mountains of Cuenca. The whole of the troops of Murcia and the greater part of those of Valencia had been directed on Almanza, where there was a good position for opposing an army descending from Castile. Only a small detachment had been sent to watch the northern road, and its commander, Don Pedro Adorno, had stationed at the bridge of the Cabriel no more than one battalion of Swiss mercenaries (No. 1 of Traxler’s regiment) and 500 armed peasants with four guns. The position was too extensive to be held by 1,500 men: Moncey found that the river was fordable in several places, and detached a small column to cross at each, while two battalions dashed at the bridge. In spite of the steepness of the ravine the French got over at more than one point, and climbed the opposite slope, whereupon the peasants fled, and half the Swiss battalion was surrounded and captured while it was trying to cover the retreat of the guns[105]. Adorno, who was lying some miles to the rear, at Reque?a, when he should have been present in full force at the bridge, ought now to have fallen back to cover Valencia, but in a moment of panic he fled across country to join the army at Almanza [June 21].
This disgraceful flight left the Valencian Junta almost destitute of troops for the defence of the still stronger defile of the Cabrillas, which Moncey had yet to force before he could descend21 into the plain. The Junta hurried up to it two regiments of recruits—one of which is said to have been first practised in the manual exercise the day before it went into action[106]. These, with 300 old soldiers, the wrecks126 of the combat at the Cabriel, and three guns, tried[p. 135] to hold the pass. Moncey turned both flanks of this very inadequate127 defending force, and then broke through its centre. Many of the Spaniards dispersed128, 500 were slain129 or captured, and the rest fled down the pass to Valencia. After riding round the position, Moncey remarked that it was so strong that with 6,000 steady troops he would undertake to hold it against Napoleon himself and the Grand Army [June 24].
Two days later, after a rapid march down the defile and across the fertile Valencian plain, Moncey presented himself before the gates of its capital, and demanded its surrender. But he found that there was still much fighting to be done: a small column of regulars had arrived in the city, though the main army from Almanza was still far distant. With three battalions of old troops and 7,000 Valencian levies, Don José Caro, a naval officer and brother of the celebrated130 Marquis of La Romana, had taken up a position four miles outside the city at San Onofre. He had covered his front with some irrigation canals, and barricaded the road. Moncey had to spend the twenty-seventh in beating back this force into Valencia, not without some sharp fighting.
On the next day he made a general assault upon the city. Valencia was not a modern fortress: it had merely a wet ditch and an enceinte of mediaeval walls. There were several points where it seemed possible to escalade the defences, and the marshal resolved to storm the place. But he had forgotten that he had to reckon with the auxiliary131 fortifications which the populace had constructed during the last three days. They had built up the gates with beams and earth, barricaded the streets, mounted cannon on the walls where it was possible, and established several batteries of heavy guns to sweep the main approaches from the open country. The city being situated132 in a perfectly133 level plain, and in ground much cut up by irrigation canals, it had been found possible to inundate134 much of the low ground. As the river Guadalaviar washed the whole northern side of the walls, Moncey’s practicable points of attack were restricted to certain short spaces on their southern front.
The marshal first sent a Spanish renegade, a Colonel Solano, to summon the place. But the Valencians were exasperated135 rather than cowed by their late defeats; their leaders—especially Padre Rico, a fighting priest of undoubted courage and capacity—had worked them up to a high pitch of enthusiasm, and they must[p. 136] have remembered that, if they submitted, they would have to render an account for Calvo’s abominable136 massacre of the French residents. Accordingly the Junta returned the stirring answer that ‘the people of Valencia preferred to die defending itself rather than to open any sort of negotiations.’ A mixed multitude of 20,000 men, of whom some 8,000 were troops of one sort and another[107], manned the walls and barricades and waited for the assault.
After riding round the exposed front of the city, Moncey resolved to attack only the south-eastern section. He formed two columns, each of a brigade, of which one assailed137 the gate of San José near the river, while another marched on the gate of Quarte, further to the south. Considering the weak resistance that he had met at the Cabriel and at the Pass of the Cabrillas, he had formed a sanguine138 expectation that the Valencians would not make a firm stand, even behind walls and barricades. In this he was wofully deceived: the French had yet to learn that the enemy, though helpless in the open, was capable of the most obstinate139 resistance when once he had put himself under cover of bricks and earth. The first assault was beaten off with heavy loss, though Moncey’s conscripts showed great dash, reached the foot of the defences, and tried to tear down the palisades with their hands. The marshal should have seen at once that he had too large a business in hand for the 8,000 men of whom he could dispose. But he persevered140, bringing forward his field artillery141 to batter88 the gates and earthworks before a second assault should be made. It was to no purpose, as they were soon silenced by the guns of position which the besieged142 had prepared for this very purpose. Late in the afternoon Moncey risked a second general attack, embracing the gate of Santa Lucia as well as the other points which he had before assailed. But the stormers were beaten off with even heavier loss than on the first assault, and bodies of the defenders143, slipping out by posterns and side-gates, harassed144 the retreating columns by a terrible flanking fire.
Clearly the game was up: Moncey had lost at least 1,200 men, a sixth of his available infantry force[108]. He was much to blame[p. 137] for pressing the attack when his first movement failed, for as Napoleon (wise after the event) said in his commentary on the marshal’s operations: ‘On ne prend pas par2 le collet une ville de quatre-vingt mille ames.’ If the first charge did not carry the walls, and the garrison145 stood firm, the French could only get in by the use of siege artillery, of which they did not possess a single piece.
Moncey’s position was now very dangerous: he knew that the country was up in arms behind him, and that his communications with Madrid were completely cut. He was also aware that Cervellon’s army from Almanza must be marching towards him, unless it had taken the alternative course of pressing in on his rear, to occupy the difficult passes by which he had come down into the Valencian coast-plain. His conscripts were dreadfully discouraged by their unexpected reverse: he was hampered146 by a great convoy of wounded men, whose transport would cause serious delays. Nothing had been heard of the diversion which General Chabran, with troops detached from Duhesme’s army in Catalonia, had been ordered to execute towards the northern side of Valencia. As a matter of fact that general had not even crossed the Ebro. Retreat was necessary: of the three possible lines on which it could be executed, that along the coast road, in the direction where Chabran was to be expected, was thought of for a moment, but soon abandoned: it was too long, and the real base of the marshal’s corps was evidently Madrid, and not Barcelona. The route by Tarancon and the Cabrillas, by which the army had reached Valencia, was terribly difficult: clearly it would be necessary to force again the defiles which had been cleared on the way down to the coast. And it was possible that 9,000 or 10,000 regular troops might now be occupying them.
Accordingly, Moncey resolved to retire by the third road, that through the plains by Almanza and San Clemente. If, as was possible, Cervellon’s whole army was now blocking it, they must be fought and driven off: a battle in the plain would be less dangerous than a battle at the Cabrillas or the bridge of the Cabriel. Before daylight on June 29, therefore, the marshal moved off on this road.
[p. 138]
Luck now came to his aid: the incapable147 Spanish commander had made up his mind that the French would retreat by the way that they had come, and had sent forward General Llamas with all the troops of Murcia to seize the defile of the Cabrillas. He himself followed with the rest of the regulars, but halted at Alcira, behind the Xucar. Thus while Moncey was marching to the south, the main body of his enemies was moving northward. Cervellon refused to fight in the absence of Llamas, so nothing was left in the marshal’s way save bands of peasants who occupied the fords of the Xucar and the road between Jativa and Almanza: these he easily brushed away in a couple of skirmishes. Nor did a small column detached in pursuit from Valencia dare to meddle148 seriously with his rearguard. So without even exchanging a shot with the Spanish field-army, which Cervellon had so unwisely scattered and sent off on a false track, Moncey was able to make his way by Jativa, Almanza, and Chinchilla back towards La Mancha [July 2-6].
At San Clemente he met with reinforcements under General Frère, consisting of the third division of Dupont’s original corps, some 5,000 strong. This division had been sent to search for him by Savary, who had been filled with fears for his safety when he found that the communications were cut, and that Cuenca and all the hill-country had risen behind the expeditionary force. After vainly searching for Moncey on the northern road, in the direction of Reque?a, Frère at last got news that he had taken the southern line of retreat, and successfully joined him on July 8. At San Clemente the marshal intended to halt and to wait for Cervellon’s arrival, in the hope of beating him in the open. But a few days later he received news from Madrid, to the effect that Savary wished to draw back the French forces nearer to the capital, and that Frère, at least, must move in to Oca?a or Toledo. Much displeased149 at finding a junior officer acting150 as the lieutenant of the Emperor—for Savary was but a lieutenant-general, while he himself was a marshal—Moncey threw up the whole scheme of waiting to fight the Valencian army, and marched back to the immediate151 neighbourhood of Madrid [July 15].
There can be no doubt that the marshal had extraordinary luck in this short campaign. If he had been opposed by a general less timid and incapable than the Conde de Cervellon, he might have found arrayed against him, at the bridge of the Cabriel, or at the[p. 139] Cabrillas, a considerable body of regulars—eight or nine thousand men—with a numerous artillery, instead of the insignificant forces which he actually defeated. Again, while he was trying to storm Valencia, Cervellon might have attacked him in the rear with great chance of success; or the Spaniard might have kept his forces united, and opposed Moncey as he retreated from before Valencia. Instead of doing so he split up his army into detachments, and the greater part of it was sent off far from the central point of his operations, and did not fire a shot. Truly such a general was, as Thucydides remarks concerning the Spartans152 of old, ‘very convenient for his adversaries153.’ A less considerate enemy would have had a fair chance of bringing Moncey’s campaign to the same disastrous154 end that befell that of Dupont.
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1
hostilities
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| n.战争；敌意(hostility的复数)；敌对状态；战事 | |
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2
par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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3
abdication
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| n.辞职；退位 | |
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4
junta
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| n.团体；政务审议会 | |
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5
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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6
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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7
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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8
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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9
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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10
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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11
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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12
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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13
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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14
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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15
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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16
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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17
insurgents
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| n.起义，暴动，造反( insurgent的名词复数 ) | |
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18
juntas
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| n.以武力政变上台的军阀( junta的名词复数 ) | |
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19
hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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20
horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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21
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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22
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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23
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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24
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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25
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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26
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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27
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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28
scour
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| v.搜索；擦，洗，腹泻，冲刷 | |
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29
disaffected
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| adj.（政治上）不满的，叛离的 | |
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30
scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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31
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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32
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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33
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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34
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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35
littoral
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| adj.海岸的；湖岸的；n.沿（海）岸地区 | |
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36
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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37
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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38
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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39
infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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40
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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41
arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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42
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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43
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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44
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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45
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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46
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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47
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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48
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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49
gendarmes
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| n.宪兵，警官( gendarme的名词复数 ) | |
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50
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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51
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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52
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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53
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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54
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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55
dilatory
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| adj.迟缓的，不慌不忙的 | |
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56
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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57
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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58
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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59
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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60
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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61
defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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62
defiles
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| v.玷污( defile的第三人称单数 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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63
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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64
mustering
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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65
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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66
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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67
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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68
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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69
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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70
levies
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| （部队）征兵( levy的名词复数 )； 募捐； 被征募的军队 | |
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71
militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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72
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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73
barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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74
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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75
levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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76
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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77
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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78
deploy
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| v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开 | |
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79
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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80
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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81
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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82
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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83
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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84
abutting
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| adj.邻接的v.（与…）邻接( abut的现在分词 )；（与…）毗连；接触；倚靠 | |
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85
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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86
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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87
amuck
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| ad.狂乱地 | |
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88
batter
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| v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员 | |
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89
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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90
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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91
pillage
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| v.抢劫；掠夺；n.抢劫，掠夺；掠夺物 | |
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92
rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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93
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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94
plundering
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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95
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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96
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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97
breaches
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| 破坏( breach的名词复数 )； 破裂； 缺口； 违背 | |
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98
outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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99
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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100
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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101
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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102
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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103
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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104
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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105
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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106
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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107
foraging
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| v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西） | |
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108
molested
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| v.骚扰( molest的过去式和过去分词 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵 | |
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109
evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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110
convoy
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| vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队 | |
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111
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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112
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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113
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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114
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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115
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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116
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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watershed
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| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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invader
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| n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者 | |
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wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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auxiliary
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| adj.辅助的，备用的 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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inundate
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| vt.淹没，泛滥，压倒 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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defenders
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| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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spartans
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| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
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adversaries
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| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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