Chapter 23

THE COURSE OF THE PENINSULAR WAR[36]

[Footnote 36: See Napier, Peninsular War.]

Napoleon's Plans for Spain -- Character of the Troops Sent Thither -- Conflicting Policies in England -- The Battle of Busaco -- The Lines of Torres Vedras -- Soult's Dilatoriness -- Consequences of the Spanish Campaign -- English Opinion Opposed to Wellington -- Difficulties of Spanish Warfare -- Marmont Replaces Massena -- French Successes -- Their Slight Value -- The French Character and the Spanish Invasion.

But matters were much worse beyond the Pyrenees, where there was open warfare. The seizure of the northern provinces marked the commencement of a new policy, nothing less than the incorporation of all Spain in France. Azanza, the envoy of Joseph at Paris, could scarcely trust his senses when, after long and fruitless efforts to persuade Napoleon that the troubles of Spain were due to the rapine of the French generals and the quarrels of their unbridled soldiery, and that the new King's moderation would be a perfect remedy if left to work its effects, he was finally shown his master's carefully written abdication, only waiting on events for publication, and was harshly told in reply to his intercessions for the integrity of his country that it was merely "the natural extension of France." It was Talleyrand who originally said that Italy was the flank of France, Spain its natural continuation, and Holland its alluvium.

Spain was to be conquered step by step, and by a season of military administration each new acquisition was to be made ready for the eventual dignity of a French department. A manifesto setting forth this policy was prepared and was to be duly issued to the Spanish people, but it never reached Madrid. The courier who carried it was captured by a guerrilla, and the proclamation was at once printed in a popular journal and copied thence into the "London Courier." It is not difficult to imagine how its perusal intensified the ever-growing national passion of the insurgent Spaniards for emancipation from the French yoke.

This spirit was England's powerful ally and Massena's destructive foe. The great marshal, second in ability only to his imperial master, had succeeded to the command in the peninsula. The Imperial Guard was the mainstay of the reinforcements despatched thither in order to end the military conflict and inaugurate the new peaceful warfare by enforcing the Continental system of commercial embargo for humiliating England. Besides the guard there were, however, some of those regiments which had quailed at Vienna before the supposed approach of the Archduke John's army from Hungary after the battle of Wagram, by no means the flower of the Emperor's troops. These newcomers, together with the forces already in Spain under Suchet, Augereau, Reille, and Thouvenot, and the remnant of those troops which had been under Soult, were quickly organized for offensive warfare, first against the Spaniards and then against the English under Wellington who were still holding Portugal. The three army corps which were collected in Leon ready for advance were commanded respectively by Ney, Junot, and Regnier. Their number on paper was eighty thousand; in reality there were not more than fifty thousand effective fighting men. By the arrival of Hill's corps to reinforce Wellington the English numbered nearly if not quite as many.

For three years public opinion in England had been divided, some sustaining on the one hand Canning's policy of striving to defeat Napoleon by rousing the Continental nations and furnishing them with subsidies for warfare, others preferring that of Castlereagh, which advocated the sending of English forces into the Continent. The latter theory had temporarily prevailed. Three expeditions, one to Portugal, one to Walcheren, and one to Sicily, had been entire or partial failures. But Wellington's victory at Talavera having kept the peninsular ports open to English trade, his older brother, Lord Wellesley, who was now secretary for foreign affairs in the new cabinet, and who ardently believed that thus alone could England win, managed continuously to reinforce the army in Portugal until at last it was strong in numbers and efficient as a fighting machine.

From beginning to end Massena's campaign was marked by unexpected disaster. Such were the zeal and endurance of the Spaniards that the old, ill-constructed fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo held out from the beginning of June until the ninth of July. Owing to the great heat and the preparations necessary in a hostile and deserted land, Almeida, which next blocked the way, was not even beleaguered until August fifteenth, and it held out for nearly a fortnight. Finally, on September sixteenth, Massena crossed the Portuguese frontier, and Wellington, who lay near by but had not ventured to assume the offensive, began a slow and cautious retreat down the valley of the Mondego, devastating the country as he went. At last he made a stand on the heights near Busaco, over against a gorge where the river breaks through the hills into the plains below. Massena attacked on September twenty-seventh and was repulsed with a loss of four thousand five hundred dead and wounded. His division commanders showed at once a spirit which soon developed into unruliness: they had declared from the outset that their force was not sufficiently strong for the task assigned to it, and they now demanded a retreat. But the veteran Massena stood firm: his scouts had brought word of a certain unprotected vale or rather depression of the land on the English left, which, having apparently escaped Wellington's observation, was not fortified, and the French commander determined to outflank his foe on that line. The movement was thoroughly successful and the British began a rapid retreat southward before the advancing French.

Massena found easy sustenance for man and beast in the rich lowlands about Coimbra, and halting in that town for a short time to recruit his strength and nurse his sick, started at last in the full tide of success for Lisbon and the sea, to drive the English to their ships and complete the Continental embargo. As one day succeeded another, his hopes grew higher until at last he overtook and began to skirmish with the English rear-guard. But after a final dash on October eleventh, that rear-guard suddenly vanished. Two days later the French were brought suddenly to a standstill before a long, perfectly constructed, and bristling line of fortifications of whose existence they had known absolutely nothing. These were the famous lines of Torres Vedras, constructed by Wellington in his recent enforced vacation, to guard his eventual retreat and embarkment, provided Sir John Moore's unfortunate campaign and the last Austrian war should find a climax in a similar French victory over all Spain. These lines effectually protected the right bank of the Tagus. They consisted of one hundred and fifty-two redoubts, equipped with seven hundred guns and manned by thirty thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese, and eight thousand Spaniards. As Massena now had but forty-five thousand men, there could be no question of storming such a fortress, and nothing was left but to await reinforcements and plan a strategic movement by which he might cross the Tagus, threaten Lisbon from the left bank, draw off the foe to its defense, and thus perhaps, having weakened the garrison, secure the possibility of a successful attack on the fortified lines in front.

The notion was not visionary. Soult had been despatched with a strong force southward into Andalusia, with orders to crush out the resistance of that province; he was then to turn westward, join Massena in Portugal, and cooeperate with him under his orders for the expulsion of the English. The belated expedition had not arrived, but in spite of the delay and disappointment it must surely come at last; and if the Emperor would but consent to order up the troops lying in Castile, the quickly formed and brilliant plan of Massena would be feasible. But, alas for the scheme, what was apparently jealousy on the part of Soult had quenched all ardor in the Andalusian invasion. He was at this moment before Cadiz, carrying on a siege in which either the Spanish were displaying great courage or the French but little heart. His sluggish progress was not unobserved at Paris, and finally under pressure he left half his force before the walls of the "white city," while with the other he advanced and captured the fortress of Badajoz. There he paused of necessity, being falsely informed that Massena, who had only withdrawn toward Santarem, was in full retreat, but being correctly notified that the portions of his own force left before Cadiz were not able to hold their own. Having been virtually defeated in his attack on Sir John Moore, his invasion of Portugal in 1809 had been temporarily successful; but he had occupied Oporto only to conspire like Junot for the crown of the country, and he had been driven out without difficulty by the English. Made commander-in-chief after the empty victory of Wellington at Talavera, he had won a great battle at Ocana on November nineteenth, 1809; but since then his time had been virtually wasted, for his bickerings with Joseph and his jealousy of Massena made all his successes, even this last one at Badajoz, entirely useless. In a short time he returned to Cadiz, and the French before Lisbon remained therefore without their auxiliaries.

Both these checks displeased Napoleon greatly. It is often stated that it was because he felt contempt alike for the Spanish guerrillas and the English infantry that he delegated the conduct of affairs in the peninsula to his lieutenants. Quite the reverse appears to be the truth. Foy, Massena's envoy, reached Paris about the end of November, and found the Emperor in something like a dull fury. His personal experience had now the confirmation of that undergone by Massena and Soult, two of his greatest lieutenants. He had himself found the rugged and ill-cultivated country unable to support large armies. It was a discouraging fact that neither Soult nor Massena had succeeded better than the great captain himself, and Napoleon was thus convinced that the Continental System could not be enforced against such dogged persistency as that of the unreasoning, disorganized, but courageous and frenzied Spaniards, assisted by the cold, calculating, and lucky Wellington: at least not without terrible cost in life and money. Accordingly Massena was left without immediate reinforcement, while on December tenth, 1809, was promulgated the decree incorporating the North Sea coast into the Empire. Alexander chose to regard this fateful act as merely disrespectful, remonstrated with the French envoy at St. Petersburg, and sent a circular to the powers reserving the rights of his house over Oldenburg; he refused the petty indemnification of Erfurt offered by Napoleon, and a year later, in December, 1810, issued a ukase which laid prohibitive duties on French silks and wines, while at the same time it favored the "neutral" traffic in English wares. But at the moment he bore the affront without any menace of war, and merely called attention to the common obligations of friendship between sovereigns. If the breach were to occur, it must be plainly and manifestly Napoleon's doing.

Napoleon's failure to reinforce Massena left the situation before Lisbon precarious. It cannot be proved that he understood all the difficulties in Wellington's position, but it is not unlikely that he