THE FALL OF FIGUERAS AND THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGN IN CATALONIA. JULY-OCTOBER 1811

The news of the fall of Tarragona, brought by the fugitive General Velasco, came as a thunderclap to Campoverde and his ‘army of succour.’ While the Captain-General had been hesitating, marching and countermarching, and sending about for further reinforcements, the great city entrusted to him had fallen. It was impossible for the simplest soldier in his ranks to fail to see that the whole responsibility for its loss lay with Campoverde, and from that moment his authority ceased, and officers and men alike began to clamour for his resignation. His former popularity in Catalonia had, most deservedly, vanished. The newly raised recruits began to melt away from their colours; the somatenes refused to serve one whom they regarded as a coward, if not as a traitor. On the news that a French column had started from Tarragona to attack him, Campoverde abandoned his head quarters at Vendrils, and fled inland to Cervera, where he at last thought himself safe for the moment. His departure exposed the dép?t at Villanueva de Sitjes, where his sea-borne stores were lying, and the French seized it on the 30th, making prize of many ships not ready for sailing, and capturing 800 Tarragona wounded in the hospital. Skerret’s 1,200 British were lying off the place in their transports, just preparing to land and to join Campoverde, as he had desired. Finding that disembarkation was impossible, and that the Catalan army had disappeared, Skerret took his expedition back to Cadiz, after a most humiliating experience.

Meanwhile there was high debate at Cervera. The Valencian general, Miranda, demanded that Campoverde should at once dismiss him and his division, and permit them to return home by sea. They had been lent by Charles O’Donnell for the one purpose of the relief of Tarragona; and that operation being now impossible, for the best of reasons, Miranda claimed leave[p. 529] to depart. He was naturally anxious to serve no longer under such a miserable chief as Campoverde—though his own behaviour on June 24th gave him no right to complain. It was hard to see how his request could be refused, yet many of the chiefs of the Catalan army thought that the departure of the Valencian division implied the end of all formal war in the principality. The proposal to remove not only the Valencians but all the regular troops was raised: Campoverde, feeling his authority gone, and willing to throw all responsibility on his lieutenants, called a council of war on July 1st. By a majority of four to three general officers, the meeting decided in favour of abandoning Catalonia altogether. Sarsfield, the fighting-man of the army, gave a furious negative, and Campoverde himself made a more timid objection to the move[665]. But the retreat to Valencia being once voted, the Captain-General was only too glad to fall in with the project, and to be quit of the duties which he had so ill discharged. All the regulars were to sail when a convenient exit to the sea could be found—at the moment of the council of war Suchet was on the move in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, and the small ports usually available were blocked. It was a miserable resolve, when Figueras was still holding out, when the inland was still intact, and when Suchet had been obliged to disperse his troops, and could obviously make no general move for some weeks. Fortunately difficulties cropped up to prevent the evacuation. The British commodore, Codrington, when asked to prepare transports and convoy, replied ‘that although he would strain any point to restore to General O’Donnell and to Valencia the troops so liberally furnished by that kingdom, he would not embark the Marquis of Campoverde, or any of the troops belonging to Catalonia, which it was his duty to assist in defending, instead of depriving it of that protection which it had[666].’ Eroles,[p. 530] Manso, and other local Catalan officers sent in equally strong protests; they would be glad to be rid of the Captain-General, but it would be treason to withdraw the whole regular army, and to leave the principality to be defended by the miqueletes alone. The spirit of the people would be brought low, and resistance would die down when they knew that they were abandoned for ever by the army.

Meanwhile Suchet had spent the days while the Spaniards were debating in opening up the communications between his own army and Barcelona, which had so long been out of touch. He marched with the greater part of the divisions of Harispe and Frère, as has already been mentioned, to Villafranca and Villanueva de Sitjes, where he left the bulk of his troops, then by the pass of Ordal to Barcelona itself. Here General Maurice Mathieu was in a very isolated position, for since Macdonald had taken off all the disposable troops to the siege of Figueras, the city had been entirely cut off from him, the somatenes having intercepted the road, while English cruisers maintained a fairly effective blockade on the side of the sea. Suchet concerted with the governor a plan for opening up communication with Macdonald, and occupying the port of Mataro, north of Barcelona, where the Spaniards still had an access to the sea. He determined to bring up Harispe and Frère, and went back to pick them up. This he did, and returned with them to Barcelona on July 9th, while an expedition sent out by Maurice Mathieu seized Mataro.

But meanwhile Campoverde, reflecting that if the little ports between Tarragona and Barcelona were blocked to him, there still remained those between Barcelona and Rosas, had made a rapid march through the inland, and had arrived at Arens de Mar, north of Mataro, before Suchet returned to Barcelona. The bulk of Miranda’s division was safely shipped off on July 9th by Codrington, and transported to Valencia[667]. But the cavalry, refusing to abandon their horses, had turned westward, under a Colonel Gasca, and to the number of some 900 saved them[p. 531]selves by a most extraordinary march. Striking across northern Aragon, and dodging between the French garrisons, they reached the Upper Ebro near Tudela, where they forded the great river by the aid of guides lent them by the great guerrillero Mina. Once on the south bank, they executed another equally dangerous march, evading many French detachments, and rejoined Charles O’Donnell in the end of August, having travelled in six weeks no less than 740 miles, through the heart of a region which was supposed to be in military occupation by the enemy. Their loss was only four officers and fifty-three men, though 213 horses had perished in the mountains. This achievement sufficiently shows the superficial nature of Suchet’s occupation of Aragon: he could not prevent so large a body as 900 men from crossing it twice from end to end.

Campoverde, after shipping off Miranda’s infantry at Arens de Mar, had retired inland to Vich, where on the evening after the embarkation his disastrous captain-generalship came to an end. For he found waiting him there General Luis Lacy, sent by the Cadiz regency to relieve him in command. The new chief was a stranger to Catalonia, and the people would have preferred Eroles to lead them—indeed, a junta of Catalan officers had already offered to put themselves under his orders[668]. But Eroles, the most honourable of all the local leaders, refused to commit an act of indiscipline, and Lacy was recognized as Captain-General, while Campoverde absconded hastily by sea. Rejecting all idea of evacuating the principality, Lacy drew back into the mountains with the mere wreck of an army which had been handed over to him—some 2,000 or 3,000 men—and established himself at Solsona, where the Junta of Catalonia also took refuge. In this place and the neighbouring hill-towns he began to reorganize his demoralized troops, and to gather in recruits and deserters. But he was far too weak to do anything for the long-enduring garrison of Figueras, which was still holding out, though nearing its last gasp.

[p. 532]Suchet, after failing to prevent the embarkation of the Valencian division, had determined to spend some time in opening up free communication between Barcelona and Macdonald’s army in front of Figueras, as also between Barcelona and his own base of operations at Lerida. He must set matters on a satisfactory footing in Catalonia, before undertaking the great invasion of Valencia, which the Emperor had assigned as his next task. The expedition towards Macdonald’s rear was accomplished by Suchet himself with the divisions of Frère and Harispe. One column (Palombini’s Italians) marched up the valley of the Tenes river, by Monbuy and Codinas, the other and larger column followed the Congost river. Neither met with opposition, and they joined at the defile of Centelles above Vich. That town was occupied on July 15th, and flying columns sent out from it to Ripol, Olot, and Castelfollit. By means of these detachments Suchet got into touch with Macdonald, who was found to be holding Figueras closely blocked, and to be in no need of help, for though his army was sickly, yet the besieged garrison was known to be in a desperate condition, and its surrender was expected to occur at any moment. Determining that Macdonald could shift for himself, and would be able to overrun all northern Catalonia when his army was set free from the siege, Suchet turned back from Vich, with the object of achieving his second aim, the clearing of the road from Barcelona to Lerida. This great route was safe for large detachments—indeed, Montmarie’s brigade had marched along it almost unmolested ten days back. But it could not be used by convoys or small parties, so long as the Spaniards were in possession of the mountain of Montserrat, which overhangs it for many miles. This lofty peak, the projecting angle of one of the chief Catalan sierras, was the nearest point to Barcelona now in the hands of the patriots. It was occupied at this moment by Eroles and some 1,500 miqueletes, who continually made descents into the plain from their fastness. The Montserrat is a fantastic pile of rock, whose highest point reaches 4,000 feet above the sea-level; it is mainly composed of red slate, a geological formation which runs to precipices, and at first sight the enormous bulk—its circumference is fifteen miles—looks almost inaccessible. But several paths run up among its clefts, and on a platform[p. 533] 3,000 feet up lies the sanctuary of Our Lady of Montserrat, the oldest and formerly the richest sanctuary of Catalonia, with a great Renaissance church and a large monastery. Most of the monks had fled to Majorca with their treasure in 1808, and their empty home served as the head quarters of the local miqueletes, and the magazine of their munitions. For cargoes of arms and stores, run ashore on the central Catalan coast, were generally forwarded to Montserrat for distribution. The mountain was not regularly fortified, indeed it was too large for fortification, but there were two batteries with ten guns placed across the only practicable road which led up to the sanctuary from the north, and the buildings themselves, far above, had been loopholed and barricaded. Nothing save its own steepness protected a minor path which climbs to the monastery from the village of Colbato. Another from Monistrol, which lies in the plain to the north-west, had been blasted away in places. The aspect of the peak was formidable, but its strength was more apparent than real, when it was held by no more than 1,500 irregular troops: for over and above the known paths there were many places where lightly equipped men could scramble, over slopes which were only precipitous in certain sections. When a very large force delivered a concentric attack on the mountain, it was impossible for the small garrison to block every possible point up which active assailants might make their way.

Suchet had brought up more than 10,000 men for the attack, including a battalion or two borrowed from the garrison of Barcelona. Abbé’s brigade was to make the main assault along the road: Montmarie’s brigade, now returned from Lerida, was to menace the steep path from Colbato to the summit; Harispe and Frère, lower down towards the plain, watched the Igualada and Manresa roads, the Barcelona troops the road to the south by Bruch. On July 25th the assault was delivered by Abbé’s five battalions: they were scarcely opposed on the lower slopes, but met with a fierce resistance at the first battery, near the chapel of Saint Cecilia, 1,200 yards from the monastery. Here the column halted, to throw out swarms of skirmishers over the precipitous hillside. Some of them climbed high enough to bring an enfilading fire to bear on the Spanish guns, and as their discharge began to slacken, the grenadier companies charged up[p. 534] the road and captured them. The miqueletes fell back on the second battery, which was presently captured in the same fashion by the combination of a flanking fire and a frontal attack. The Spanish gunners, the only regulars present, stood to their guns to the last in the most gallant way, and were nearly all bayoneted. Abbé was rearranging his column for an attack on the fortified monastery above, when furious firing was heard to break out in its direction, and the garrison were presently seen streaming down the hillside to the east. A large body of the French skirmishers, thrown out for the first attack, had found their way over the rocks to the back of the sanctuary, where there are rough tracks leading to some hermitages which lie out far from the main buildings. When some 300 men had collected behind the monastery, they delivered an attack on it from the rear. The small reserve placed in the buildings was panic-stricken by an attack from this side—all the more so because they saw the rest of their comrades recoiling from the batteries below, which had already been taken. They fled, after making no great stand, and, joining the main body, rushed down the precipitous ravines on the east front of the peak, where a few perished by falls, but the majority got away safely over ground where the victors could not follow. So fell Montserrat, with a loss of only 200 men to the French and 400 to the Spaniards. The storming of the holy mountain was a picturesque rather than a really difficult achievement, but the blow inflicted on the Catalans was a very severe one: Montserrat had been looked upon as impregnable, and the protection of its patroness was supposed to have defended it for the three years during which the French had been holding Barcelona, which lies so close to its foot. The Spaniards had now no post left on the great road from Barcelona to Lerida, and Suchet ............