Chapter 24

by offensive operations. If Massena had opened a bombardment from the opposite bank, its inhabitants would have risen in rebellion against the English general. The opposition party in Westminster used what seemed in England to be the perennial and everlasting delay of the younger brother as ground to attack the older one's conduct and to arraign the entire ministerial policy. The English people had heard of the Spanish insurrection with wild delight, but the inefficiency and stubbornness of the insurgent leaders, together with the untrustworthiness of the provisional governments, had cooled their ardor, and after the defeat at Ocana--a battle which the vainglorious Spaniards had fought in direct opposition to Wellington's advice--they were loud in abuse of their allies. Lord Liverpool openly attacked Wellington, popular discontent was heightened by the opposition taunts, and it seemed for a time as if the ministry must abandon the expedition or fall.

But if Wellington required all the force of his will and the compulsion of a higher necessity to make him deaf to the clamor of his allies for an advance, Massena had equal need for strength to sustain his forces, and to resist the clamor of his own generals for retreat. Foy finally brought back the necessary orders for reinforcements to come in from Castile; but, as a large proportion of the men stationed in that province existed merely on paper, only nine thousand could be spared from those who actually were there. Still Massena stood like a rock. Wellington wrote home that with all his money, and assisted by the good will of the inhabitants, he could not have maintained one division where all the winter long Massena found sustenance for sixty thousand men and twelve thousand beasts. This tribute to the campaigning powers of the French reveals incidentally the exaggerated conception of their strength entertained by the enemy.

The return of Soult to Cadiz emboldened Wellington to advance into Spain. After various movements on the part of both sides, Massena was beaten at Fuentes de Onoro, and Almeida was retaken by the English. Badajoz was beset by the English, and Soult once more advanced to its assistance. He, too, was defeated in a battle at Albuera, but succeeded finally in effecting a junction with Massena, so that Wellington felt compelled to retreat again into Portugal before the united army. The exasperation of Napoleon at the failure of Massena in the battle of Fuentes de Onoro led to the disgrace of the old marshal, and Marmont was sent to replace him. Such was the difficulty which the French experienced in securing commissary stores from an impoverished land that Wellington seemed content to let want fight his battles. The season of 1811 was marked by inactivity on both sides except in the east, where Suchet captured Aragon and Valencia, annihilating the Spanish army under Blake. But at the close of the year Soult was compelled to withdraw southward toward the coast, in the hope of securing indispensable supplies. The Spanish guerrillas of central Spain harassed the French soldiers and took the heart out of them. Wellington at once resumed the offensive; Ciudad Rodrigo fell before him on January twelfth, 1812, and on April eighth, after one of the bravest and bloodiest assaults recorded in English annals, Badajoz also was carried.

Marmont drew back for concentration, and the English advanced to the Duero. Thereupon the French turned again, Wellington retreated on Salamanca, and there made his stand, defeating his enemy on July twenty-second, in a brilliant engagement. The French commander then marched to Burgos, but his opponent, instead of following, turned toward Madrid, in order first to drive Joseph from his capital. By that time Burgos had been made so strong that all efforts to capture it proved unavailing, Soult at once abandoned Cadiz and turned northward to aid Joseph. The English were thus between two foes, and such was the demoralization of the British soldiery when they understood their danger that Wellington could with difficulty lead them back into Portugal. At the close of 1812 the French were in control of all Spain except the south, which had been freed by Soult's northward movement. Cadiz became the capital of the nationalists, but they could not restrain their revolutionary impulses long enough to form a respectable or trustworthy government, and Wellington was once more relegated to inactivity. His enforced leisure was occupied by the consideration of plans for the great successes with which he crowned the following season.

Viewed from a military standpoint, the French warfare in Spain appeared utterly disastrous.[37] Regiments melted away like ice before an April sun; desertions became ominously numerous, and disease laid thousands low. Guerrilla warfare demoralized the regular forces. The new conscripts at first showed a noisy zeal, but they had been torn too young from their home nurture, and had neither strength nor power of resistance. The troops from vassal kingdoms and newly annexed territories were dismayed by the sufferings they had to endure, and beheld with interest the national uprising of the Spaniards, which, in spite of local jealousies, of rabid and radical doctrines that could lead to nothing but anarchy, of disastrous failure in government, of feebleness and falsehood in the temporary rulers, seemed likely to render of no avail the efforts and successes of a great empire.

[Footnote 37: Oman, History of the Peninsular War, furnishes much valuable material on this period. His point of view in one feature is corrected by J. B. Rye and R. A. Bence-Pembroke of Oxford. See the Army Service Corps Quarterly, October, 1905.]

Yet in some respects the French character appeared in a stronger light throughout the disasters of the Peninsular war than at any other time. Marbot's tale of the beautiful young cantiniere, or woman sutler, of the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the pure-minded gallantry of the English. The same writer's narrative of the French deserters who, under a leader nicknamed Marshal Stockpot, established themselves as freebooters in a convent not far from Massena's headquarters at Santarem, and of the general's swift, condign punishment of such conduct, graphically delineates the straits of the French, which led them into the extreme courses that devastated the land, but it also displays the quality of the discipline which was exercised whenever possible. Nor should it be forgotten that the two most splendid writers of France's succeeding age were profoundly impressed with the terrible scenes of the French invasion of Spain. George Sand was in Madrid as an infant for a considerable portion of 1808; Victor Hugo passed the year 1811 in a Madrid school, fighting childish battles for "the great Emperor," whom his Spanish schoolmates called Napoladron (Napo the robber). Upon both the fact of their connection with the repulse of Napoleon's armies left a profound impression. The former was irresistibly drawn to revisit the country; the latter recalled his impressions in some of his noblest verse.