FIGUERAS AND TARRAGONA. APRIL-MAY 1811

In the earlier chapter of this volume, which took the affairs of Catalonia and Aragon down to the month of March, we left Suchet making vigorous preparation for the siege of Tarragona, within whose walls his master had promised him that he should ‘find his marshal’s baton.’ While munitions and food for this great enterprise were being collected, the unemployed troops of the Army of Aragon were occupied in scouring the mountains on the side of New Castile and Valencia, always driving the partidas before them, but never able to bring about their capture or destruction. Meanwhile, Macdonald with the active part of the French Army of Catalonia, about 17,000 strong, lay in and about Lerida, ‘containing’ the main Spanish force, which had now passed under the control of the new Captain-General, the active but incapable Campoverde. Based on Tarragona, and with his divisions spread out in front of it, this officer bickered with Macdonald continually, but had achieved nothing substantial since his subordinate Sarsfield cut up Eugenio’s Italians at the combat of Valls, long weeks before[621]. His ambitious attempt to surprise Barcelona had failed with loss on March 19th, because it was based on supposed treachery within the walls, which did not really exist. Further to the north, in the Ampurdam and on the Pyrenean frontier, Baraguay d’Hilliers with the rest of the 7th Corps, some 18,000 men, had to furnish the garrisons of Rosas, Figueras, Gerona and other smaller places, and to contend with the miqueletes of Manso, Rovira, Martinez,[p. 485] and other chiefs. There were practically no Spanish regular troops in this direction, almost the whole of the old regiments having been withdrawn southward to face Macdonald, and to defend Tarragona and the surrounding region of central Catalonia. Nevertheless Baraguay d’Hilliers, as we shall see, had no small task thrown upon his hands. In this province the irregulars were at their best, having in the miquelete system an organization which made them far more formidable than the partidas of central or northern Spain.

On March 10th Napoleon, who had marked with approval all Suchet’s earlier operations, while he was thoroughly dissatisfied with Macdonald, resolved to cut up the old 7th Corps or Army of Catalonia, by making over nearly half of its force to the Army of Aragon. A decree declared that the three provinces of Lerida, Tarragona, and Tortosa were transferred to the charge of Suchet, with so much of the province of Barcelona as lay east of the pass of Ordal and the course of the upper Llobregat. Along with the provinces went the troops stationed in them, viz. the French division of Frère, the Italian division of Pino, and the Neapolitan division now commanded by Compère, together with the cavalry and artillery attached to them. Macdonald’s charge was cut down to the region of Barcelona and the lands north of it. The 7th Corps, or troops of his command, sank from over 40,000 to about 25,000 men. The 3rd Corps rose from 26,000 to 43,000 men. With this augmented force Suchet was told both to hold down his old realm in Aragon, and to take Tarragona, furnishing not only a siege army but a covering force as well. Macdonald was no longer to be the shield of Suchet’s operations, as during the siege of Tortosa, but was to occupy himself on a separate and minor system of operations—the Imperial orders directed him to occupy Cardona, Berga, and Urgel, the centres of resistance in upper Catalonia, and to take the rocky stronghold of Montserrat.

Meanwhile, it was necessary to transfer Macdonald’s own person from Lerida, where lay the troops that he had to surrender, to Barcelona, which was to be for the future the centre of his activity. So dangerous was the passage that he had to be given an escort of no less than 7,000 infantry and 700 horse. Taking the way of Manresa, he started from Lerida on March 30th[p. 486] and cut his way through the Spanish forces which stretched across his path. The regular division of Sarsfield, supported by the somatenes of central Catalonia, gave him much trouble: though they failed to hold Manresa, which the French stormed and wantonly burnt, they hung on to the flanks of the marching column, repeatedly attacked its rearguard, and cut off or slew in three days of continuous fighting some 600 men. After reaching the Llobregat at Sabadel, Macdonald went on to the neighbouring Barcelona, while his escort fought its way back to Lerida by the road of Igualada, and joined Suchet on April 9th.

Having now got the whole of his new army under his own hand, Suchet was able to prepare all his arrangements for the march on Tarragona. Ample provision had first to be made for the defence of Aragon in his rear, where the enemies were numerous if not powerful—Mina on the side of Navarre, Villa Campa and Carbajal in the mountains of the south, and the Army of Valencia beyond the lower course of the Ebro. He set aside three battalions and a cavalry regiment to watch Mina[622], and two battalions each for garrisons at Saragossa and Calatayud[623]; he placed a brigade under Paris at Daroca[624], and another under Abbé at Teruel[625] to watch the southern insurgents. To keep off the Valencians he left a regiment at Morella and Alca?iz[626], another in garrison at Tortosa[627], and 1,600 men disposed in small forts along the lower Ebro from La Rapita at its mouth to Caspe[628]. Musnier was given charge of all the troops on the right bank of the Ebro, and had orders to unite Abbé’s and Paris’s brigades and evacuate the southern hill-country if the Valencians made a serious advance against Tortosa.

[p. 487]This left Suchet twenty-nine battalions for the expeditionary corps with which he was about to march against Tarragona—of which nineteen were French, two Polish, and eight Italian. They amounted to just under 15,000 bayonets. Since the three divisions of the Army of Aragon had all been thinned down by the numerous detachments left behind, he amalgamated what remained of them with the French and the Italian brigades left to him by Macdonald, to make up three provisional divisions for the field, under Habert, Harispe, and Frère. The first had one French and two Italian brigades (fourteen battalions), the others two brigades each (six and nine battalions respectively). There was a cavalry brigade of 1,400 men under Boussard, and a large provision of artillery and engineers for the siege (2,000 men of the former, 750 of the latter arm). Counting the auxiliary services the army had about 20,000 men—no great figure for the task before it, for Tarragona was strong and Campoverde had some 12,000 or 15,000 regular troops at his disposition—the three divisions of Sarsfield, Eroles, and Courten—besides such aid as the miqueletes might give. And this last resource was not to be despised; though they were not always forthcoming when they were most required, yet they were not usually found wanting. They could never be caught, owing to their knowledge of their own hills, and they were never discouraged.

It was arranged that the army should march on Tarragona by two separate routes; while the divisions of Frère and Harispe started from Lerida by the road of Momblanch, the third division, that of Habert, was to move from a separate base—Tortosa, where had been collected the heavy artillery and the munitions of the siege. The guns which had taken Tortosa were still lying there, with all the artillery reserve, and it was to escort them that Habert was detailed to take the southern route along the sea-coast by the Col de Balaguer. From this direction too were to come the provisions of the army, which had been brought down by water from Saragossa and Mequinenza while the Ebro was in flood, and deposited at Mora—the nearest point on the river to Tarragona. This division of forces was perhaps necessary, but appeared dangerous; if Campoverde, when the French commenced their movements, had thrown himself[p. 488] with all disposable forces upon the weak division of Habert—only six battalions—and had wrecked the battering-train, there could have been no siege of Tarragona for many a month to come.

But before the two columns had started from Lerida and Tortosa, and while part of Harispe’s division was out on a final cattle-hunt up the valley of the Noguera, before the Commander-in-Chief had even come up to the front to join his army, a message arrived from the north which might well have stopped the whole expedition. On April 21st Suchet, still at Saragossa, received the astounding news that the Spaniards had captured Figueras, the bulwark of northern Catalonia, and the most important place (with the exception of Barcelona) which belonged to the French in the whole principality. The disaster had happened on the night of the 9th-10th, and the news of it had been brought by a spy paid by Macdonald, across the territory occupied by the Spanish army: otherwise it would have taken still longer to travel, by the circuitous route through France, which was the only way by which news from Upper Catalonia could reach Aragon[629]. Macdonald and Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, who added his supplications to those of the Marshal, begged Suchet to abandon for the moment the projected siege of Tarragona, and to march to their aid with every man that he could spare. For they must collect as large a force as possible to recover Figueras, and a field army could not be got together from the much-reduced 7th Corps, which had to find a garrison of 6,000 men for Barcelona, and similar, if smaller, detachments for Gerona, Rosas, Hostalrich, Mont Louis, Palamos, and other smaller places. If Campoverde should march northward, with the bulk of his regular divisions, to succour Figueras, there would be little or nothing to oppose to him.

Suchet weighed the petition of his colleague with care, but refused to assent to it. His decision was highly approved by the Emperor when he came to know of it, and the reasons which he[p. 489] gave for his answer seem convincing. It would take, as he calculated, twenty-five days to move a division, or a couple of divisions, from Lerida to Figueras across the hostile country-side of Catalonia; and since the disaster was already eleven days old when the news came to hand, there must be over a month of delay between the moment when the Spaniards had taken the fortress and that at which the Army of Aragon could intervene. In that month the fate of affairs in the Ampurdam would have been already decided. The succours for the garrison of northern Catalonia must come from France, not from Aragon. Figueras lies only twenty miles from the French frontier[630], and Baraguay d’Hilliers could be helped far more readily from Perpignan, Toulouse, or Narbonne than from Lerida. National Guards and dép?t troops could be hurried to his aid in a few days. As to Campoverde, he would be called home at once by a blow delivered against Tarragona, his capital and chief arsenal. He must infallibly hurry back to defend it, at the head of his field army, and Macdonald and Baraguay d’Hilliers would then have nothing but the miqueletes opposed to them. If the 7th Corps, with the reinforcements from France which it must infallibly receive, could not deal with Rovira, Manso and the rest, it was time to abandon the Peninsular War! The crisis, whichever way its results might lean, was bound to have come and passed before the Army of Aragon could be of any use. It would almost certainly have ended in a check for the Spaniards, since the Emperor could pour as many men into the Ampurdam as he pleased. At the worst Figueras would be beleaguered so soon as the reinforcements arrived from France, and all the best of the Spaniards in northern Catalonia would be shut up in the place and kept out of mischief. It was entirely to the advantage of the Imperial arms that the enemy should lock up his men in garrisons, for they were much more troublesome when acting as partisans in the mountains[631].

Accordingly, on April 24th, Suchet, having sent a direct refusal to Macdonald’s petition, came up to Lerida, and on the 28th[p. 490] Harispe’s and Frère’s divisions started off for Tarragona by the shortest road, that through Momblanch. At the same time Habert with the siege artillery moved out from Tortosa for the same destination along the coast-road by the Col de Balaguer and Cambrils. On May 2 both columns were near Tarragona, having met with very little opposition by the way, for Campoverde, with the larger part of his field army, had gone off a fortnight before to the north, with the intention of succouring Figueras, and the rest of his regulars had retired into Tarragona to form its garrison.

Before dealing with the long and bitterly contested struggle at Tarragona, it is necessary to explain how Figueras had come into the hands of the Spaniards. This place was a new and well-designed eighteenth-century fortress, built sixty years back by Ferdinand VI, to supplement the defences of the Catalonian frontier. Thus it had not the weaknesses of old-fashioned strongholds like Gerona or Lerida, where the scheme of the fortifications dated back to the Middle Ages. Close to the high-road from Perpignan to Barcelona, and only twenty miles from the frontier, stands an isolated hill with a flat top, at whose foot lay the ............