LXI. 1809. the Spanish governor declared the post no longer tenable. CHAP. But Lord Cochrane, who had just arrived, and to whose ardent spirit such scenes of danger were an actual enjoy- Nov. 30. ment, immediately threw himself into it, and by his courage and resources prolonged a defence which otherwise would have been altogether desperate. Two assaults were repulsed by this intrepid officer and his undaunted Dec. 3. seamen with very great slaughter. Meanwhile, however, a practicable breach was effected in the citadel; and a sally, attempted on the night of the 3d, having failed to arrest the progress of the besiegers, the place surrendered with its garrison, still two thousand four hundred strong, 1 St-Cyr, 41, on the following day; but Lord Cochrane succeeded in getting the whole garrison of Fort Trinidad in safety on board his vessel. 1 2 51. Nap. ii. 61, 65. Tor. ii. 227, 228. 58. the French lief of Bar celona. liv. § 49. Having his line of retreat and communication in some degree secured by this success, St-Cyr moved on to the Attempts of relief of Barcelona, where General Duhesme, with eight for the re thousand men, was shut up by the Spanish armies, and reduced to great straits for want of provisions and military stores. It has been already mentioned,2 that two Ante, ch. roads lead from Perpignan to Barcelona; one going through Hostalrich and Gerona, and the other by Rosas and the sea-coast. To avoid the destructive fire of the English cruisers, St-Cyr chose the mountain road; trusting to his resources and skill to discover some path through the hills, which might avoid the fire of the first of these fortresses. On arriving at the point of danger, Dec. 15. a shepherd discovered an unguarded path by which Hostalrich might be turned, which was accordingly done, though not without a very harassing opposition from the Spanish light troops. Next day, however, after the circuitous march was over, and he had regained the great Dec. 16. road, he encountered the main body of the Spanish army Tor.ii.232. under Vivas and Reding, who had collected fourteen 11. St-Cyr, thousand men, half regulars, and half armed peasants, ii. 71, 72. in a strong position at Cardaden, to bar his progress Cabanes, c. 62, 68. Nap. LXI. 1809. CHAP. while seven thousand men, under Lazan, who had issued from Gerona, hung upon his rear, and Milans, with four thousand men, supported by clouds of Somatenes, or armed peasants, infested the wooded hills on either flank. Nap. ii. 71, 73. Tor. ii. 232, 233. St Cyr, 62, 72. Cabanes, p. 3, c. 11. The French force on the spot was fifteen thousand infantry and thirteen hundred horse, while the whole Spanish troops, if collected together, even after providing for the blockade of Barcelona, would have exceeded forty thousand, stationed in a rocky and wooded country, traversed only by narrow defiles-a situation of all others the most favourable for irregular or half-disciplined troops. Napoleon, in such circumstances, would have raised the blockade of Barcelona, as he did that of Mantua in 1796, and fallen with his whole force on the invader, who could scarcely have escaped destruction-a result which might have changed the whole fate of the campaign. But Vivas was not Napoleon, and the Spanish generals deemed no such concentration of all their means necessary. Elated with their advantages, they anticipated an easy victory, and were already, in imagination, renewing the triumphs of Baylen. St-Cyr, however, soon showed he was very different from Dupont. Uniting his troops into one solid mass, with orders to march firmly on, without firing a shot, he bore down with such vigour on the enemy's centre, that in half an hour they were totally defeated, with the loss of five hundred killed and two thousand wounded, besides all their artillery and ammunition. Lazan and Milans came up just when the action was over, and instantly retired to the shelter of Gerona and the mountains. Arrived two hours sooner, they might have inspired hesitation in the enemy's column, given time for their whole forces to come up, and Cardaden had been a second Baylen.1 Nothing now remained to prevent the relief of Barcelona by St-Cyr, which was effected the day after, and the junction of Duhesme with his troops completed. The LXI. 1809. 60. Spaniards del Rey. Spaniards had been so thoroughly dispersed by their CHAP. defeat, that the general-in-chief, Vivas, had escaped by a cross mountain-path on board one of the English cruisers; and Reding, the second in command, who was left in Defeat of the command of the fugitives, could with difficulty, two days at Molinos afterwards, rally ten thousand foot and nine hundred horse to the south of Barcelona. In a few days, however, these troops swelled to twenty thousand men, and took post at Molinos del Rey, where, at daybreak on the 21st, Dec. 21. they were attacked by St-Cyr with such vigour, that in half an hour they were totally routed, and dispersed in every direction. Such was the swiftness of their flight that few were killed or wounded; but twelve hundred were made prisoners, and all their magazines, stores, ammunition, and artillery, fell into the hands of the victors. Among these were fifty pieces of cannon, three millions of cartridges, sixty thousand pounds of powder, and a magazine containing thirty thousand stand of English arms. The whole open country was, after this great defeat, abandoned by the Spaniards: twelve thousand took refuge in the utmost disorder in Tarragona, while five thousand fled to the mountains in the interior, where they conferred the command on Reding, who, undismayed by so many disasters, immediately commenced, with unshaken constancy, the reorganisation of his tumultuary forces. But the discouragement of the province was extreme; and Lord Collingwood, who, from Feb the British fleet off the coast, took a cool survey of the M315. state of affairs, at once saw through the exaggerated 77 Tor. ii. accounts of the Spanish authorities, and declared that St-Cyr, 79, the elements of resistance in that province were all but 3, c. 12. dissolved. 1 These disasters in Catalonia powerfully accelerated the fall of Saragossa, by extinguishing the only force from which any relief to its distressed garrison could have been obtained. Thus far, therefore, the successes of StCyr had been most signal, and the immediate reduction 1 Lord Col lingwood to R. Adair, 235, 236. 83. Cab. p. LXI. 1809. 61. Reding's plan of a general attack on to clear the way for Saragossa. CHAP. of the province might reasonably have been expected. But that able commander experienced, in his turn, the exhausting effects of this interminable warfare, for which, in every age, the Spaniards have been so remarkable. While he lay at Villa Franca refitting his troops, and the enemy forming a park of artillery out of the spoils captured from the enemy, the Spaniards recovered from their consternation, and in several guerilla combats regained in some degree their confidence in engaging the enemy. The junta at Tarragona, elected from the democratic party during the first tumult of alarm and revolt consequent on the defeat of Molinos del Rey, displayed the utmost vigour. Preparations for defence were made on such a scale as precluded all hope of a successful siege; and the confluence of disbanded soldiers who had escaped from the rout soon raised the force within the walls to twenty thousand men, while an equal force at Gerona and in the intervening mountains debarred the French all access into the hilly region to the westward. But a perception of their strength, notwithstanding all the disasters they had experienced, again proved fatal to the Spaniards; the cry for succour from Saragossa met with a responsive echo in the citizens of Tarragona and the breast of the brave Reding, who resolved at all hazards to make an attempt for its relief. The plan which he adopted was ably conceived, and failed only from the indifferent quality of the troops to whose execution it was intrusted. Fifteen thousand men under Castro, who lay outside of Tarragona, were to move forward so as to interpose between St-Cyr and Barcelona; Reding with ten thousand more, issuing from the town, was to assail the front; while the SomaNap. ii. 84, tenes, from all quarters, were summoned to descend from their hills to co-operate in the grand attack, from which the total destruction of the enemy was confidently and universally anticipated.1 1 Tor. ii. 301, 302. 85. St-Cyr, 94, 102. Cabanes, 3, c. 14. P. To withstand this formidable concentration of forces, St-Cyr had nominally forty-eight thousand men at his CHAP. LXI. 1809. 62. the Span disposal, but of these only twenty-three thousand were concentrated under his immediate command at Villa Franca in the Llobregat, the remainder being either detached to keep up the communications, or sick and Defeat of wounded in the rear. But such a body, under such a chief, iards at Igualada. had little to apprehend from the ill-combined efforts of forty thousand Spaniards, in part irregular, and dispersed over a line of fifteen leagues in extent. The moment that St-Cyr saw the enemy's forces accumulating round him, he took the judicious resolution to act vigorously on the offensive, and break the enemy's centre before their wings could come up to its relief. With this view, he broke up from Villa Franca with the division of Pino, Feb. 16. and joining his generals of division, Chabran and Chabot, formed a force in all eleven thousand strong. Early on the morning of the 17th, he commenced a vigorous Feb. 17. attack on Castro's troops at Igualada, who, being completely surprised, were speedily put to the rout; and having thus broken through the enemy's line, he left part of his force at that place, and advanced against Reding, who was issuing from Tarragona with ten thousand men. Though assailed by superior forces, the brave Feb. 24. soul of Reding retreated with reluctance; but he felt the necessity of doing so, and with great difficulty he contrived to collect the greater part of his army, about twelve thousand men, with which he slowly moved, hardly shunning a combat, towards Tarragona. On the following morning, however, he encountered St-Cyr with fifteen thousand men at Valls, and after a short combat was totally routed. Two thousand men were killed or wounded, the whole artillery taken, and Reding, who fought heroically to the very last, so severely wounded, that he had great difficulty in regaining Tarragona, where Torii. he soon after died. The loss of the French did not exceed Cabanes, c. 14, 15. a thousand men. Such was the popular ferment against St-Cyr, 112, 126. Nap. Reding, when he arrived at that town, that he with ii. 83, 91. difficulty escaped destruction from the populace,1 though 302, 307. |