ページの画像
PDF
ePub

as implied in the spirit of the instructions; and the intentions of the commander of the forces should have operated as the strongest inducement to employ every precaution, and to act with the utmost zeal and activity, for the prevention of such disasters. But admitting for a moment that not only the refusal to give battle, but the hasty re-embarkation also, and the material losses sustained in consequence, might all be justified by an anxious desire to comply with the instructions, how could General Murray do otherwise than condemn himself, upon the very same principles, for again, and that almost immediately and voluntarily, acting in direct contradiction to the same instructions, according to his own interpretation of them, by placing himself in the same situation of danger from which he had but just made such sacrifices to extricate himself? This he did also at a time when the strong temptations to run such forbidden risks, viz. a wish for the preservation of a very material part of his important trust, and the natural anxiety which he must have felt to preserve the glory of the British arms untarnished, had altogether ceased to operate.

Such were the views taken of the conduct of Sir John Murray by his accusers. The whole of these important but unfortunate transactions were afterwards submitted to a court of military enquiry; by which, after a most ample investigation, this officer was acquitted of all the charges brought against him, except that by which he was accused of having "unnecessarily abandoned a considerable quantity of artillery and stores which he might have embarked in safety, such conduct being detrimental to the service." This part of his conduct was ascribed by the sentence of the court to a "mere error in judgment ;" and nothing followed upon the decision, as the case did

not appear to the Prince Regent to call for the admonition pointed out by the court.

No blame could be attached to ministers for the result of this expedition. Marquis Wellesley took occasion to declare," that with respect to the force from Sicily, he would not now enter into the topics which had been a subject for consideration on a former occasion; he would merely observe, that the great defect had been the want of a unity of command in the peninsula. This defect had been remedied in the present campaign, and the force at Alicant had been embarked by Lord Wellington's orders, and had landed near Tarragona, precisely according to that noble Lord's plan. A report had reached London that this force had been defeated. He hoped in God that this report would prove to be untrue; but when ministers had chosen a fit object, had prepared adequate means, and had applied them in due season, they had done all that was in their power-the rest they must leave to God and to the sword; and were the rumour to prove correct, he should certainly not blame them—they had done all in their power."

General Murray was succeeded in the command by Lord William Bentinck, who ordered the troops back to Alicant. While Suchet marched towards Tarragona, the Spanish generals the Duke del Parque, Elio, and Villacampa, advanced from different points on Palencia. Suchet, on receiving intelligence of the re-embarkation of General Murray, immediately hurried back, in hopes of striking a blow against some one of these corps; but they all succeeded in making their retreat without loss.

Lord William Bentinck did not attempt to renew the expedition against Tarragona; but, joining himself to the Spanish armies, proceeded, in concert with them, to attack the French forces

in Palencia. What resistance Suchet might have made in other circumstances, it is impossible to conjecture; but the triumphant passage of the Ebro by Lord Wellington left him no choice but to retreat. On the 5th of July he evacuated Palencia, and retired towards the Ebro, leaving garrisons in Peniscola, Murviedro, and Denia. The allied army, however, was not detained by these barriers; but, after invest ing the fortresses, it advanced, and crossed the Ebro at Pinaras. The French having retired upon Barcelona, the allies blockaded Tortosa, advanced to Villa Franca, and prepared to form the siege of Tarragona. Suchet however determined on making an effort to relieve this place. Uniting to his army all the troops which could be spared from Barcelona and the neigh. bouring garrisons, he assembled a force of from twenty to twenty-five thousand men ; on the 14th he advanced to Altafulla; and on the 15th drove back the advanced posts of the British army. Lord William Bentinck was unable to derive any aid from General Elio, who was blockading Tortosa : his force was thus inferior to that under Suchet; and he had not been able to gain any advantageous position. He therefore determined to fall back, and allow Suchet to enter Tarragona. The French general, however, did not attempt to preserve the place, or to maintain this advanced position; having destroyed the works, he withdrew the garrison, and again retired towards Barcelona.

In the beginning of September, the allied army again undertook a forward movement, encouraged by the belief that a very considerable part of the French forces in the principality had been recently withdrawn. The remainder continued at Barcelona, and

along the Llobregat. Lord Bentinck therefore established his army at Villa Franca, and in the villages in its front, extending as far as the Llobregat mountains. The advance, under Ge neral Sarsfield, was placed in the pass of Ordal, a post of very great strength, and commanding the high road from Barcelona. Intelligence arrived that Suchet was collecting his army; and that 12,000 men had been united at Molino del Rey; Lord Bentinck, however, placed such reliance on the strength of the position at Ordal, as to be under no apprehensions on that side. He conceived the army to be assailable only by turning its left, at Martorell; but, even supposing the enemy to have suceeded in that attempt, the retreat could still have been effected without molestation. At midnight of the 12th, however, the French attacked the pass of Ordal, with numbers so greatly superior, that the Spanish corps defending it was driven from its posi tion, surrounded, and forced to save itself by dispersing among the moun tains. A considerable number of prisoners, and four pieces of cannon, fell into the hands of the enemy. The British army immediately broke up, and set out in full retreat towards Tarragona, closely pressed by the enemy. The British cavalry in the rear, however, though far inferior in num. bers, covered the retreat by its gallantry; and the army arrived without loss in front of Tarragona.

As it was judged expedient that the grand effort against France should be made on the side of the Western Pyrenees, the third Spanish army was detached to co-operate with Lord Wellington. The remainder of the troops in the cast of the peninsula continued to act on the defensive.

CHAP. XI.

Spanish Affairs continued.—Battles of the Pyrenees.-Fall of St Sebastian--of Pampluna.-Invasion of France by the British Army.

THE grand operations in the north of Spain were still carried on with the most brilliant success, under the eye of Marquis Wellington. The siege of St Sebastian was maintained with extraordinary vigour. One of the principal out-works had been already approached; and on the morning of the 17th of July General Graham determined to hazard an assault. The valour of the troops surmounted every obstacle: the place was stormed; the enemy driven down the hill on which it is situated; and forced, after burning the village of St Martino, to withdraw precipitately into the town of St Sebastian. The trenches were immediately opened against the body of the place, and there appeared a fair prospect of its being compelled to surren

der.

Buonaparte, while occupied with the great contest which he was about to wage on the banks of the Elbe, had in some measure neglected the operations of which the peninsula was the theatre. He had recalled thence many of his generals, and even Soult, who had long held the chief command. But now, when in one short month, his

grand army had been swept out of Spain; when the frontier barriers were about to fall, and to leave the finest provinces of France itself exposed to invasion, alarm seized him, and he perceived that this was a contest which, even under the most urgent pressure of other wars, could not be disregarded. Of the immense levies which were at this time raising, a part was destined to fill up the exhausted ranks of the army now stationed within the French frontier; and Soult, whose talents appeared equal to such an exigency, hastened from Germany to reassume the chief command. The crisis was urgent; and so soon as the organization of the army was in any degree established, he felt that he was imperiously called upon to make a grand effort for the relief of the two fortresses, the reduction of which must give a fatal blow to all the prospects of French dominion.

Lord Wellington was at this moment beset with considerable difficulties. He had to maintain and to cover two sieges, conducted at a considerable distance from each other; and it was thus impossible to avoid the inconve

nience of dividing his army. The Pyrenees indeed afforded strong positions; yet were they unfavourable in several respects to the present arrangement of his force. As they con sist of a number of long and deep vallies, separated from each other by lof ty parallel chains of mountains, the troops who defended these vallies were thus in a great measure cut off from all communication with each other. The enemy could choose the line of his advance, throw his whole force into it, and push before him the division by which it might be guarded, while the other corps, separated by almost impassable barriers, could lend no assist ance. Upon this position of the allies Soult founded his plan of operations. He hoped by attacking separately one of the covering armies, to defeat and drive it before him, and then throw himself on the flank and rear of the other army. He expected not only to relieve the blockaded fortresses, but to drive the whole of the allied armies in confusion behind the Ebro.

Of the two fortresses St Sebastian alone was in immediate danger; it seemed probable, therefore, that the first grand attack of the enemy would be against the force by which this siege was covered. Such seems to have been the expectation of Lord Wellington when he established his head-quarters at Lesaca, at a small distance from St Sebastian. The two roads leading from Pampluna were, however, covered by divisions of the British army; one, under General Hill, in the Puerto de Maya; the other, under General Byng, on the extreme right, at Roncesvalles. Against these troops a very formidable attack was directed..

The British troops were now about to be engaged, almost for the first time, in that system of mountain warfare in which the French had been hitherto unrivalled. Their habits of body and

diet in a peculiar manner fit them for this species of operations; andevery one will recollect how important were the advantages which they acquired in Switzerland by their mountain operations under Lecourbe. The whole range of the movements they had now to make was comparatively small; for the eye might from the top of the highest of the mountains have taken in the positions of all the columns of the two armies the positions of above 100,000 men. These columns were placed among mountains where cavalry could not act, and cannon could not be conveyed.

The allied armies had possession of the principal passes of the mountains. In front of Soult, at St Jean Pied de Port, was General Byng's brigade ; Morillo's corps was at the pass of Roncesvalles; behind was Sir Lowry Cole, with the 4th division, at Piscarret ; General Picton's division being in reserve, at Olaque. Between the valley of Roncesvalles and the Port de Maya there is a large space which does not appear to have been occupied by any force. To Port de Maya, in the valley of Bastan, and to Roncesvalles, the distance is nearly equal from St Jean Pied de Port. The valley of Bastan was occupied by General Hill, with the second division, and by the Conde d'Amaranthe's Spanish corps. On one flank were the light and 7th divisions, at Pera, Port de Echelar, and on the heights of Barbura; the 6th division was in reserve at St Estevan, on the Bidassoa. General Longa extended the line of communication from the Bidassoa to the Urumea-from a division posted at St Echelar to Sir Tho mas Graham's, employed before St Sebastian.-Soult had one great object in view in the first instance, and to effect this he made two movements or attacks, the one real, and the other a feint. By the first he hoped to secure his immediate object, and by the other

to keep the attention and force of his antagonists employed in such a manner as to prevent their disturbing him in his operations. From St Jean Pied de Port he proceeded in two directions. He led on a force of 35,000 men himself; and, bursting through the pass of Roncesvalles, he hoped to confound his enemy and to reach Pampluna. The other part of his army moved upon the valley of Bastan, to force the British position at Port de Maya. At these two points, Roncesvalles and Port de Maya, the British force was greatly inferior to that of the enemy.

On the 24th of July Soult attacked in great force the position occupied by General Hill, who though driven from it at first by superior numbers, instantly recovered the most essential point of it, and would soon have regained the whole. But in the meantime an attack on a much greater scale, with between 30 and 40,000 men, was made upon General Byng's position at Roncesvalles; and although reinforced by another division, under Sir Lowry Cole, the allies were at length over powered, and compelled to give way. They took post at Zerbiri; and General Hill, whose rear was now threat ened, fell back upon Irurita. These corps had thus lost their direct communication with Lord Wellington, and were left alone to defend the blockade of Pampluna against the overwhelming force with which the enemy was pour. ing in to relieve it. In these circumstances, two British divisions, with a small part of the Spanish force covering the blockade, took a position immediately in front of the place.

On the 27th, Soult arrived in sight of the walls of Pampluna, and immediately began operations for its relief. Not having yet brought up all his troops, he contented himself with attacking a column placed upon a hill, which formed an important part of the

British position; but a Spanish and Portuguese regiment, with the 40th British, defended it against all his efforts. On the 28th another British division arrived; and the enemy, also reinforced, began a contest of the most furious character. His main effort was directed against the fourth division, under General Picton ; but the French were every where repulsed, unless at one point, where a Portuguese battalion having been overpowered, the enemy were enabled to establish themselves on the line of the allies. By the efforts of some British regiments, however, they were driven from the heights with immense loss, and were entirely disabled.-In the course of the 28th Generals Hill and Dalhousie arrived with their divisions, and placed themselves in line with the rest of the British force.-On the 29th and 30th these two great armies continued to view each other, neither daring to attack the formidable heights on which its antagonist was posted. But in the course of these days the enemy silently withdrew a considerable body of troops from the front where the former actions had taken place, and moved them to the right, with a view of attacking the British left under Sir Rowland Hill, trusting to the natural strength of the original position, that the troops still remaining would be able to maintaia it. On the 30th, accordingly, General Hill was attacked, and obliged to fall back from the range of hills which he occupied to the one immediately behind. But Lord Wellington seeing the enemy's line weakened, instantly seized his opportunity; he detached Lord Dalhousie and General Picton to drive the enemy from the formidable heights on which his right and left rested; and the operation having been rapidly accomplished, the centre advanced to join in the attack. These efforts were crowned with the

« 前へ次へ »