THE MISFORTUNES OF JOACHIM BLAKE: ZORNOZA AND ESPINOSA DE LOS MONTEROS
The campaign of November 1808 was fought out upon three separate theatres of war, though every movement of the French armies which engaged in it formed part of a single plan, and was properly linked to the operations which were progressing upon other sections of the front. The working out of Napoleon’s great scheme, therefore, must be dealt with under three heads—the destruction of Blake’s ‘Army of the Left’ in the north-west; the rout of the armies of Andalusia and Aragon upon the banks of the Ebro; and the central advance of the Emperor upon Burgos and Madrid, which completed the plan.
We must first deal with the misfortunes of Blake and his Galician host, both on chronological grounds—it was he who first felt the weight of the French arms—and also because Napoleon rightly attached more importance to the destruction of this, the most formidable of the Spanish armies, than to the other operations which he was carrying out at the same moment.
It will be remembered that after his first abortive expedition against Bilbao, and his retreat before Ney [October 5], Blake had fallen back to Valmaceda. Finding that he was not pursued, he drew up to that point the divisions which he had hitherto kept in the upper valley of the Ebro, and prepared to advance again, this time with his whole army massed for a bold stroke. On October 11 he again marched into Biscay, and drove out of Bilbao the division of General Merlin, which Ney had left behind him to hold the line of the Nervion. On the twelfth this small force fell back on Zornoza and Durango, and halted at the latter place, after having been reinforced from King Joseph’s reserve at Vittoria. Verdier headed the succours, which consisted of three battalions of the Imperial Guard, two battalions of the 118th Regiment, two battalions of Joseph’s own Royal Guards, and the 36th Regiment, which had just come up from France. When strengthened by these 7,000 men, Merlin considered himself able to make a stand, and[p. 403] took up a strong position in front of Durango, the important point at which the roads from Bayonne and from Vittoria to Bilbao meet.
When committing himself to his second expedition into Biscay, Blake was not wholly unaware of the dangers of the step, though he failed to realize them at their full value, since (in common with the other Spanish generals) he greatly underrated the strength of the French army on the Ebro. He intended to carry out his original plan of cutting off Bessières and King Joseph from their retreat on Bayonne, by forcing the position of Durango, and seizing the high-road at Bergara; but he was aware that an advance to that point had its dangers. As long as his divisions had lain in or about Villarcayo and Valmaceda, he had a perfectly clear line of retreat westward in the event of a disaster. But the moment that he pushed forward beyond Bilbao, he could be attacked in flank and rear by any troops whom the King might send up from the valley of the Ebro, by the two mountain-roads which run from Vittoria to the Biscayan capital. One of these is the main route from Vittoria to Bilbao via Murguia and Ordu?a. The other is a more obscure and difficult path, which leads across the rough watershed from Vittoria by Villareal and Villaro to Bilbao. Aware of the fact that he might be assailed by either of these two passes, Blake told off a strong covering force to hold them. Half of Acevedo’s Asturian division, 4,000 strong, was placed at Ordu?a: the other half, with the whole of Martinengo’s 2nd Division of Galicia, 8,500 bayonets in all, took its post in the direction of Villaro. These detachments were eminently justifiable, but they had the unfortunate result of enfeebling the main force that remained available for the stroke at the French in front of Durango. For that operation Blake could only count on his 1st, 3rd, and 4th Divisions, as well as the ‘Vanguard’ and ‘Reserve’ Brigades—a total of 18,000 men[428].
[p. 404]
Blake had seized Bilbao on October 11: it is astonishing therefore to find that he made no forward movement till the twenty-fourth. By this sluggishness he sacrificed his chance of crushing Merlin before he could be reinforced, and—what was far worse—allowed the leading columns of the ‘Grand Army’ to reach Irun. If he had pressed forward on the twelfth or thirteenth, they would still have been many marches away, trailing across Guyenne and Gascony. Having once put his hand to such a dangerous man?uvre as that of pushing between the French flank and the northern sea, Blake was most unwise to leave the enemy time to divine his object and to concentrate against him. A rapid stroke at Durango and Bergara, so as to cut the great high-road to France in the rear of Bessières, was his only chance. Such an attempt would probably have landed him in ultimate disaster, for the enemy (even before the ‘Grand Army’ arrived) were far more numerous than he supposed. He had valued them at 40,000 men, while they were really 64,000 strong. But having framed the plan, he should at least have made a strenuous attempt to carry it out. It is possible to explain but not to excuse his delay: his army was not equipped for a winter campaign, and the snow was beginning to lie on the upper slopes of the Cantabrian hills and the Pyrenees. While he was vainly trying to obtain great-coats and shoes for his somewhat tattered army, from the Central Junta or the English, and while he was accumulating stores in Bilbao, the days slipped by with fatal rapidity.
It was not till October 24 that he at last moved forward from Bilbao, and committed himself to the now hopeless task of clearing the way to Durango and Bergara. On that day his advanced guard drove Merlin’s outlying posts from their positions, and came face to face with the French main body, drawn out on the hillsides of Baquijano, a few miles in front of Durango. The enemy expected him to attack next day, but he had just received confused notices from the peasantry to the effect that enormous reinforcements had reached Irun and San Sebastian, and were within supporting distance of the comparatively small force with which he had hitherto been dealing. This information threw him back into the condition of doubt and hesitation from which he had for a moment emerged, and he proceeded to halt for another full week in front of the Durango position. Yet it was clear that there were only two rational alternatives before him: one was to attack Merlin and[p. 405] Verdier before they could draw succour from the newly arrived corps. The other was to fall back at once to a position in which he could not be enveloped and outflanked, i.e. to retire behind Bilbao, holding that town with nothing more than a small detachment which could easily get away if attacked. But Blake did nothing, and waited in the supremely dangerous post of Zornoza, in front of Durango, till the enemy fell upon him at his leisure.
The troops whose arrival at Irun had been reported consisted of the two leading divisions of the 4th Corps, that of Lefebvre, and of the whole of the 1st Corps, that of Victor. The former, arriving as early as October 18, only seven days after Blake captured Bilbao, marched westward, and replaced Merlin and Verdier in the Durango position. The troops of these two generals were directed by King Joseph to rejoin their proper commanders when relieved, so Verdier led the Guards back to the central reserve, while Merlin reported himself to Ney, at La Guardia. To compensate Lefebvre for their departure, and for the non-arrival of his third division, that of Valence, which still lay far to the rear, Villatte’s division of the 1st Corps was sent to Durango. Marshal Victor himself, with his other two divisions, took the road to Vittoria, and from thence, at the King’s orders, transferred himself to Murguia, on the cross-road over the mountains to Bilbao. Here he was in a position to strike at Blake’s rear, after driving off the 4,000 men of Acevedo’s Asturian division, who (as it will be remembered) had been told off by the Spanish General to cover this road[429].
King Joseph, inclining for once to a bold stroke, wished to push Victor across the hills on to Bilbao, while Lefebvre should advance along the high-road and drive Blake into the trap. Bessières at the same moment might move a division by Ordu?a and Oquendo, and place himself at Valmaceda, which Blake would have to pass if he escaped from Victor at Bilbao. This plan was eminently sound, for there was no doubt that the two marshals, who had at their disposal some 35,000 men, could easily have brushed out of their way the two divisions under Acevedo and Martinengo which Blake had left behind him in the passes. Nothing could have prevented them from seizing Bilbao and Valmaceda, and the Spanish army would have been surrounded and captured. At[p. 406] the best some part of it might have escaped along the coast-road to Santander, if its commander detected ere it was too late the full danger of his position.
This scheme, however, was not carried out: Bessières, Victor, and Ney showed themselves opposed to it: Napoleon had announced that he intended ere long to appear in person, and that he did not wish to have matters hurried before his arrival. His obsequious lieutenants refused to concur in any great general movement which might not win his approval. Victor, in particular, urged that he had been ordered to have the whole of the 1st Corps concentrated at Vittoria, and that if he marched northward into Biscay he would be violating his master’s express command[430]. Joseph and Jourdan, therefore, resolved to defer the execution of their plan for the annihilation of Blake, and sent orders to Lefebvre to maintain his defensive position at Durango, and make no forward movement. In so doing they were acting exactly as the Emperor desired.
They had forgotten, however, to reckon with the personal ambition of the old Duke of Dantzig. Lefebvre, in spite of his many campaigns, had never before had the chance of fighting on his own account a pitched battle of the first class. The Spanish army had been lying before him for a week doing nothing, its commander being evidently afraid to attack. Its force was not very great—indeed it was outnumbered by that of the Marshal whose three divisions counted not less than 21,000 bayonets[431]. Noting with the eye of an old soldier Blake’s indecision and obvious timidity, he could not resist the temptation of falling upon him. Notwithstanding the King’s orders, he resolved to strike, covering his disobedience by a futile excuse to the effect that he had observed preparations for taking the offensive on the part of the enemy, and that his outposts had been attacked.
[p. 407]
Blake’s army lay before him, posted in three lines, with the village of Zornoza to its rear. In front, on a range of comparatively low hills, was the ‘Vanguard Brigade,’ drawn up across the road with the 1st Division of Galicia to its left on somewhat higher ground. They were supported by the 3rd and 4th Divisions, while the ‘Reserve Brigade’ occupied the houses of Zornoza to the rear of all. There were only six guns with the army, as Blake had sent the rest of his artillery to the rear, when advancing into the mountains: this single battery lay with the Vanguard on the lower heights. The whole amounted to 19,000 men, a slight reinforcement having just come to hand by the arrival of the 1st Catalonian Light Infantry[432], the advanced guard of La Romana’s army from the Baltic. That general, having landed at Santander on October 11, had reorganized his force as the ‘5th Division of the army of Galicia’ and sent it forward under his senior brigadier, the Conde de San Roman. But only the single Catalonian battalion had passed Bilbao at the moment when Lefebvre delivered his attack.
The plan of the Marshal’s advance was quite simple. The division of Villatte drove in the front line of the Spanish right, and then spread itself out on a long front threatening to turn Blake’s flank. That of Sebastiani, formed in a single dense column, marched along the high-road at the bottom of the valley to pierce the Spanish centre; meanwhile Leval’s Germans attacked the left wing of the enemy, the 1st Division of the army of Galicia[433]. A dense fog, a common phenomenon in the Pyrenees in the late autumn, hid the advance of the French, so that they were close upon the front line of Blake’s army before they were observed. The first line was easily driven in, but the whole army rallied on the heights of San Martin and stood at bay. Lefebvre cannonaded them for some time, without meeting with any reply, for Blake had hurried off his single battery to the rear when his first line gave way. Then the Marshal sent in the ten battalions of the division of Sebastiani, who completely cut through the Spanish centre, and left the two wings in isolated and dangerous positions. Without waiting for further developments, Blake gave way and ordered a retreat on Bilbao and Valmaceda. His intact wing-divisions[p. 408] covered the retreat, and though badly beaten he got away with very small loss, no more than 300 killed and wounded, and about the same number of prisoners. The French casualties were insignificant, not amounting in all to more than 200 men. The whole combat, indeed, though 40,000 men were on the field, was very short and not at all costly. The fact was that Blake had been surprised, and had given way at the first push, without making a serious attempt to defend himself. His sending away the guns, at the very commencement of the action, makes it sufficiently clear that he did not hope for ultimate success, and was already contemplating a retreat on Bilbao. His army, if properly handled, could have made a much more creditable fight; in fact it was tactically beaten rather than defeated by force of arms. It made its retreat in very fair order, and was irritated rather than cowed by the check which it had received. English eye-witnesses vouch for the steadiness and good spirit shown by the troops[434].
Immediately after giving orders for a general retreat behind the river Nervion, Blake had sent dispatches to the two divisions of Acevedo and Martinengo, which were covering his flank against a possible turning movement from the valley of the Ebro. They were told to save themselves, by falling back at once to Bilbao and joining the main army in its retreat. The part of the Asturian division which lay at Ordu?a succeeded in carrying out this order. But the remainder of Acevedo’s men and the whole of those of Martinengo—some 8,000 bayonets in all—were at Villaro, a point higher up in the mountains, on a much more difficult road, and closer to the French. They received Blake’s dispatch too late, and on pushing down the northern side of the pass which they had been holding, they learnt at Miravalles, only ten miles from Bilbao, that the latter town was in the hands of the French. Blake had evacuated it on the early morning of November 1, and Lefebvre had occupied it on the same night. Urging his pursuit some way beyond Bilbao in the hope of overtaking Blake, the duke pushed as far as Valmaceda: but even here the Galician army would make no stand, but fell back still further westward to Nava. Seeing that he could not reach his adversary, Lefebvre left the division of Villatte at Valmaceda to observe Blake, and returned with those of Sebastiani and Leval to Bilbao, to feed and rest his men in the town, after four days of marching in the mountains with very insufficient supplies. This[p. 409] was a very dangerous step, for Blake had been outman?uvred rather than beaten, and was still far too strong to be contained by a mere 7,000 men.
When therefore Acevedo and his column drew near to Bilbao, they learnt that 13,000 French troops blocked their road towards Blake [Nov. 3]. They drew back a little up the pass, keeping very quiet, and very fortunately failed to attract the attention of Lefebvre, who thought at the most that there were some b............