THE PRELIMINARY FIGHTING: ARRIVAL OF NAPOLEON

By the middle of October the French and Spanish armies were in presence of each other along the whole line of the Ebro, and it seemed certain that one or other of them must at last take the offensive. Both were still in expectation of reinforcements, but those which the Spaniards could expect to receive within the next few weeks were comparatively unimportant, while their adversaries knew that more than 100,000 men from Germany were due at Bayonne in the last days of October. Clearly it was for Casta?os and his colleagues to make a move now or never. The wasted months of August and September could not be recalled, but there was still time to attack Bessières, Ney, and Moncey, before the arrival of the Emperor and the three veteran corps from the Elbe.

Matters lay thus when the Spanish generals resolved on a perfectly new and wildly impracticable scheme. Casta?os had come to the conclusion—a thoroughly sound one—that his 34,000 men were too few to make a frontal attack on the French on the line between Miranda and Calahorra. He left Madrid on October 13, deeply chagrined to find that the Central Junta had no intention of making him commander-in-chief. Instead of being able to issue orders to the other generals, he must meet them on equal terms and endeavour to cajole them into adopting a common plan of operations. Accordingly he rode to Saragossa to visit Palafox, and after long and not very friendly converse drew out a new plan. The Army of the Centre was to shift itself down the Ebro, leaving the troops of Pignatelli (the ‘Army of Castile’) and of Grimarest (the 2nd Andalusian division) to ‘contain’ Ney and Bessières. The rest were to concentrate at Tudela, where they were to be joined by as many battalions of the Aragonese levies at Saragossa as could take the field. With some 25,000 or 30,000 men at the highest estimate, Casta?os and Palafox were to fall upon Moncey’s flank at the bridge of Caparrosa. Meanwhile O’Neille and Saint March,[p. 392] with the advanced divisions of the army of Aragon, were to break up from Sanguesa, march round Pampeluna by the foot-hills of the Pyrenees, and place themselves across the road to France. Moncey was thus to be surrounded, and a second Baylen was to ensue! Indeed, if Blake could be persuaded to push forward once more to Bilbao, and thence into Guipuzcoa, the whole army of King Joseph (as it was hoped) might be cut off and made prisoners. Eighty thousand men, according to this strange scheme, starting from bases 200 miles apart, were to surround 65,000 French in a most difficult mountain country. Meanwhile the enormous gap between Blake’s right and Casta?os’ left was to remain wholly unguarded, for the army of Estremadura was still in the far distance; while nothing was to be left opposite Bessières and Ney save Pignatelli’s disorderly ‘Army of Castile,’ and Grimarest’s 6,000 Andalusians.

But before the scheme for the cutting off of Moncey had even begun to be carried out, Casta?os and Palafox had a rude awakening. They were themselves attacked by the army which they were so confidently proposing to surround. King Joseph, emboldened by the long delay of his adversaries in advancing, had several times discussed with Jourdan, Bessières, and Ney schemes for taking the offensive. Indeed he had sketched out in September no less than five separate plans for bringing the enemy to an action, and it is probable that he might have tried one of them if he had been allowed a free hand[414]. Napoleon, however, having determined to come to Spain in person, put an embargo on any comprehensive scheme for an advance on Madrid, and restricted his brother to minor operations.

But there was nothing in the Emperor’s instructions which forbade a blow on a small scale, if the Spaniards should grow too daring. There was now a good excuse for such a move, for both Pignatelli and Grimarest had been trespassing beyond the Ebro. They seem to have moved forward quite contrary to the intentions of Casta?os, who at this moment was proposing to refuse battle with his left and centre, and to draw the bulk of his army southward to Tudela. But his two divisional generals pushed so far forward, that they at last drew upon themselves most undesired[p. 393] attentions from the French marshals. Pignatelli had thrown troops across the Ebro to Viana: Grimarest had pushed detachments still further forward into Navarre, to Mendavia, Sesma, and Lerin. Joseph and Jourdan resolved to drive back these outlying posts, and to find out what was behind them. About 25,000 men were put in movement against the 16,000 Spaniards who had so rashly crossed the river. Moncey marched against Grimarest [Oct. 25-6] with two divisions: Ney with a similar force fell upon Pignatelli, while Bessières sent a division down the southern bank of the Ebro by Haro and Briones, to threaten the line of retreat of the army of Castile across the bridge of Logro?o.

Against such forces the Spaniards could do nothing: on the twenty-fifth Ney marched on Viana, and drove in Pignatelli’s advanced guard. On the following day he opened a fierce cannonade upon Logro?o from across the river, while at the same time Bonnet’s division, sent by Bessières, marched upon the town from the hither side of the Ebro. Pignatelli was a craven, and his Castilian levies proved to be the worst of all the material which the Spaniards had brought to the front. General and army vanished in the night, without even stopping to blow up the great bridge, though they had mined it and laid the train in due form. Ney’s officers crossing at dawn found all prepared, except the sappers who should have applied the match[415]! Neither Ney nor Bonnet got in touch with the flying horde: but in sheer panic Pignatelli abandoned his guns by the roadside, and did not stop till he had joined Casta?os at Cintruenigo, near Tudela. His hurried retreat was wholly unnecessary, for the French did not move beyond Logro?o, and Casta?os was able to send out next morning a brigade which picked up the deserted guns and brought them in without molestation. Rightly indignant, the Commander-in-chief removed Pignatelli from his post, and distributed his demoralized battalions among the divisions of Grimarest, La Pe?a, and Llamas[416], leaving in separate existence only a single brigade of six battalions under Cartaojal, which mainly consisted of the few regular battalions that had been lent to Pignatelli to[p. 394] stiffen his raw levies. Thus the ‘Army of Castile’ ceased to exist[417].

On the same day that the Castilians were routed by Ney, the 2nd Andalusian division was severely handled by Moncey. When that Marshal advanced against Lerin and Sesma with the divisions of Morlot and Maurice Mathieu, Grimarest withdrew beyond the Ebro, abandoning by some oversight his vanguard. This force, commanded by a resolute officer, Colonel Cruz-Murgeon, was enveloped at Lerin by the division of Morlot[418]. The colonel shut himself up in the mediaeval castle of that town, and defended himself for two days, in hopes that he might be succoured. But his chief had fled beyond the river, and could not be induced to return by any appeals. On October 27 Cruz-Murgeon had to surrender, after two-thirds of his troops had been killed or wounded. Their obstinate defence was the more creditable because they were all new levies, consisting of a single Andalusian battalion (Tiradores de Cadiz) and a few Catalan volunteers. Marshal Moncey then occupied Lodosa and its bridge, but made no attempt to follow Grimarest, who was able to rejoin his chief without further loss.

Casta?os was greatly disturbed by the vigorous offensive movement of Ney and Moncey. Seeing the French so strong and so confident, he was struck with sudden qualms as to the advisability of the movement on Caparrosa and Pampeluna, which he and Palafox had agreed to carry out. He proposed to his colleague that they should drop their plan for surrounding Moncey, and attempt no more than an attack on his flanks at Caparrosa and Sanguesa. Meanwhile he concentrated the greater part of his army at Calahorra and Tudela [Oct. 29]. The initiative had passed to the French, and if Ney and Moncey did not seize the opportunity for an advance against the Army of the Centre, it was merely because they knew that Napoleon was now close at hand—he reached Bayonne four days later—and would not wish them to attempt anything decisive without his orders.

Meanwhile there arrived from Madrid a deputation from the Supreme Junta, consisting of Francisco Palafox (the younger[p. 395] brother of the Captain-General), of Coupigny, Reding’s colleague at the victory of Baylen, and the intriguing Conde de Montijo. The Junta were indignant that Casta?os had not made bricks without straw. Though they had not given him any appreciable reinforcements, they had expected him to attack the French and win a great victory beyond the Ebro. Conscious that the deputies came to him in no friendly spirit, Casta?os nevertheless received them with all respect, and laid before them the difficulties of his situation. Joseph Palafox came up from Saragossa to join the conference, and after a long and stormy meeting—this was the conference which so disgusted Colonel Graham[419]—it was decided to resume offensive operations [November 5]. The idea was a mad one, for six days before the council of war was held two French army corps, those of Victor and Lefebvre, had crossed the Bidassoa and entered Spain. There were now 110,000 instead of 65,000 enemies in front of the Spanish armies. Moreover, and this was still more important, Napoleon himself had reached Bayonne on November 3.

Nevertheless it was resolved once more to push forward and fall upon Moncey. Casta?os was to leave one division at Calahorra, and to bring the rest of his army over the Ebro to attack the bridge of Caparrosa: O’Neille and Saint March were to come down from Sanguesa to co-operate with him: Joseph Palafox was to bring up the Aragonese reserves from Saragossa. The only sign of prudence that appeared was that the council of war agreed not to commence the attack on Moncey till they had learnt how Blake and the army of Galicia were faring in Biscay. For that general had, as they knew, commenced some days before his second advance on Bilbao. Since the armies on the Central Ebro hung back, it was in the distant region on the coast that the first important collision between the Spaniards and the French reinforcements from Germany was to take place. For a fortnight more there was comparative quiet in front of Tudela and Caparrosa. Meanwhile Casta?os, prostrated by an attack of the gout[420], took to his bed, and the Army of the Centre was abandoned for a few days to the tender mercies of the deputation from Madrid.

There is a strange contrast when we turn from the study of the[p. 396] rash and inconsiderate plans of the Spanish generals to mark the movements of Napoleon. The Emperor had left Erfurt on October 14: on the nineteenth he had reached Paris, where he stayed for ten days, busied not only with the ‘logistics’ of moving the columns of the ‘Grand Army’ across France, but with all manner of administrative work. He had also to arrange the details of the conscription: t............