Kitabı oku: «Joseph Bonaparte», sayfa 11

The Constitution of 1812.

To the great chagrin of England, the Spanish leaders in Cadiz convened a Congress, which formed a constitution, called the Constitution of 1812, far more radically democratic than even Napoleon could advocate for Spain. Wellington was exceedingly vexed, and complained bitterly of this conduct on the part of the men whose battle he assumed to be fighting. "The British Government were well aware," says Alison, "while democratic frenzy was thus reigning triumphant at Cadiz, from the dispatches of their ambassador there, the Honorable H. Wellesley, as well as from Wellington's information of the dangerous nature of the spirit which had been thus evolved, that they had a task of no ordinary difficulty to encounter in any attempt to moderate its transports."²²

Joseph grew more and more disheartened. All his plans for the pacification of the country were baffled. On the 23d of March, 1812, he wrote to his brother from Madrid as follows:

Letter from Joseph to Napoleon.

"Sire, – When a year ago I sought the advice of your Majesty before coming back to Spain, you urged me to return. It is therefore that I am here. You had the kindness to say to me that I should always have the privilege of leaving the country if the hopes we had conceived should not be realized. In that case your Majesty assured me of an asylum in the south of the Empire, between which and Mortfontaine I could divide my residence.

"Events have disappointed my hopes. I have done no good, and I have no longer any hopes of doing any. I entreat, then, your Majesty to permit me to resign to his hands the crown of Spain, which he condescended to transmit to me four years ago. In accepting the crown of this country, I never had any other object in view than the happiness of this vast monarchy. It has not been in my power to accomplish it. I pray your Majesty to receive me as one of his subjects, and to believe that he will never have a more faithful servant than the friend whom nature has given him."

The resignation was not then accepted, and circumstances soon became such that Joseph felt that he could not with honor withdraw from the post he occupied.

Spanish Antipathy to the Duke of Wellington.

The Spaniards looked with great distrust upon the Duke of Wellington, who was the embodiment of the principles of aristocracy, the more to be feared in consequence of his inflexible will. The English deemed the re-enthronement of Ferdinand VII. and his despotic sway essential to the success of their cause. The uncrowned King and his brother Don Carlos were living very sumptuously and contentedly, chasing foxes and hares at Valençay, and cutting down the park to build bonfires in celebration of Napoleon's victories.

Embarrassments of the British Government.

The British Government, alarmed in view of the democratic spirit unexpectedly developed by a portion of the Spanish allies, sent a secret agent, Baron Rolli, a man of great sagacity, address, and intrepidity, to persuade Ferdinand to violate his pledge of honor, to escape from Valençay, and place himself at the head of the Spaniards who were in opposition to Joseph. It was hoped that this would awaken new enthusiasm on the part of the Church and the advocates of the old régime, and that it would check the spirit of ultra democracy which was threatening to sweep every thing before it.

The nearest approach to an honorable deed to which Ferdinand ever came, was in the very questionable act of revealing the plot to the French Government. Rolli was arrested and sent to Vincennes. The democratic leaders in Cadiz were so incensed against what Alison calls "the orderly spirit of aristocratic rule in England," that, burying their animosity against the French invasion, they almost welcomed those foreign armies, who bore everywhere upon their banners "Equal Rights for all Men." They opened secret negotiations with Joseph, offering to surrender Cadiz to the French troops, and to secure the entire submission of the whole peninsula to the government of Joseph if he would accept the radical Constitution of 1812 in place of the more moderate Republicanism of the Constitution of Bayonne. The hostility of the Spanish generals and soldiers to Wellington and the English troops was bitter and undisguised.²³

The Campaign to Moscow.

But more bloody scenes soon ensued. Napoleon, deeming the war in Spain virtually ended, had been induced to withdraw large numbers of his troops, and to embark in his fatal campaign to Moscow. Thus Russia became allied to England, and a new opportunity, under more favorable auspices, was afforded to renew the war in Spain. England concentrated her mightiest energies upon the Peninsula against the remnants of the French army which Napoleon had left there. The Emperor, with all his chosen troops, composing an army of over five hundred thousand men, was on the march thousands of miles toward the north. On the 9th of May, 1812, the Emperor left Paris, to place himself at the head of his troops in Dresden. The war in Spain was now urged by the British Government with renovated fury. The mind is wearied and the heart is sickened, in reading the recital of sieges, and battles, and outrages which make a humane man to exclaim, in anguish of spirit, "O Lord, how long! how long!" Equal ferocity was upon both sides. French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese soldiers, maddened by passion and inflamed with intoxicating drinks, perpetrated deeds which fiends could scarcely exceed. Tortosa, Tarragona, Mauresa, Saguntum, Valencia, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and a score of other places, testified to the bravery, often the tiger-like ferocity, of the contending parties, and to the misery which man can inflict upon his brother-man.

Miseries of the Conflict.

Physical bravery is the cheapest and most vulgar of all earthly virtues. The vilest rabble gathered from the gutters of any city can, by a few months of military discipline and experience in the horrors of war, become so reckless of danger that bullets, shells, and grapeshot are as little regarded as snowflakes. Robber bands and piratic hordes will often fight with ferocity and desperation which can not be surpassed. It is the cause alone which can ennoble the heroism of the battle-field. In these terrific conflicts, especially when the French and the British troops were brought into contact, there often were exhibited all the energy and desperation of which human nature is capable.

As the Emperor set out on the Russian campaign, he invested Joseph with the command of the armies in Spain. These troops were widely dispersed, to protect different points in the kingdom. But few could be promptly rallied upon any one field of battle. The Emperor, burdened with the expense of his immense army, and far away amidst the wilds of Russia, could give but little attention to the affairs of Spain, and could send neither money nor supplies to his brother, who was so uneasily settled upon an impoverished throne. As days of darkness gathered around the Emperor, a sense of honor prevented Joseph from abandoning his post. His troops were everywhere in a state of great destitution and suffering. His humane heart would not allow him to wrest supplies from the people, who were often in a still greater state of poverty and want.

Destitution of the Army.

Marshal Massena had entered Portugal with an army of seventy-five thousand men. Reduced by sickness and destitution, he was compelled to withdraw with but thirty-five thousand men. Thus the English army, no longer held in check, occupied Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.²⁴

Ciudad Rodrigo.

Three thousand men were left in garrison at Ciudad Rodrigo. Forty thousand men under Wellington besieged it. After opening two practicable breaches, Wellington summoned a surrender. The French general, Barrie, replied:

"His Majesty, the Emperor, has intrusted me with the command of Ciudad Rodrigo. I and my garrison are resolved to bury ourselves beneath the ruins."

The place was taken by assault, the British troops rushing into the breaches with courage which could not have been surpassed. The French, after losing half their number, were overpowered. The victorious British soldiers, forgetting that the inhabitants of the city were their allies, pillaged the houses and the shops, and committed every conceivable outrage upon the inhabitants. Sir Archibald Alison thus describes the scene:

"The churches were ransacked, the wine and spirit cellars pillaged, and brutal intoxication spread in every direction. Soon flames were seen bursting in several quarters. Some houses were burned to the ground, others already ignited. By degrees, however, the drunken men dropped down from excess of liquor, or fell asleep; and before morning a degree of order was restored."

Badajoz.

Advancing from Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington, at the head of a force then numbering sixty thousand men, laid siege to Badajoz, crossing the Guadiarra above and below the city. The garrison in the city consisted of but forty-five hundred combatants. The trenches were opened upon the night between the 17th and 18th of March. There was no more desperate fighting during all the wars of Napoleon than was witnessed within and around the walls of Badajoz. The British lost five thousand officers and men ere the city was captured. Again had the Spaniards bitter cause to mourn over the victory of those who called themselves their allies. As the British troops rushed into the streets of this Spanish city which they had professedly come to rescue from the government of Joseph Bonaparte, Alison says:

"Disorders and excesses of every sort prevailed, and the British soldiery showed, by their conduct after the storm, that they inherited their full share of the sins as well as the virtues of the children of Adam. The disgraceful national vice of intemperance, in particular, broke forth in its most frightful colors. All the wine shops and vaults were broken open and plundered. Pillage was universal. Every house was ransacked for valuables, spirits, or wine; and crowds of drunken soldiers for two days and nights thronged the streets, while the breaking open of doors and windows, the report of casual muskets, and the screams of despoiled citizens resounded on all sides."

Famine in Spain.

The throne of Joseph was now enveloped in gloom. To add to his trouble and anguish of spirit, a dreadful famine afflicted Spain. But the British fleet, in undisputed command of the seas, could convey ample supplies to the army of Wellington, and British gold was lavished in keeping alive the flames of insurrection. Troops were landed at various points, and resistance to the French was encouraged by every means in the power of the British Government. At Madrid every morning there were found in the streets many dead bodies of those who had perished during the night. The French in the capital, animated by the benevolent spirit of Joseph, imposed upon themselves the severest sacrifices to succor the perishing. The situation of Joseph had become deplorable. The best troops were withdrawn for the Russian campaign. Those which remained were starving, and without means of transport. A new government, under the protection of the English, was organized at Cadiz, and guerrilla bands were springing up in all directions.

Desperate Condition of Joseph.

Joseph had but about twenty thousand troops in the vicinity of Cadiz, with which force he could be but little more than a spectator of events as they should occur. Wellington had a highly-disciplined army of sixty thousand men, independent of the guerrilla bands whom he could summon to his aid.

CHAPTER X
THE EXPULSION FROM SPAIN
1812-1813

Increasing Gloom.

Joseph was much embarrassed. Should he leave his scattered forces in the south of Spain, there was danger that they would be attacked and destroyed piecemeal by Wellington. Should he withdraw them, and concentrate his forces in the north, the whole south of Spain would be instantly overrun by the English, and Joseph would lose one-half of his kingdom. His total force in Spain, garrisoning the forts and composing his detached bands in the south, the centre, the north, and the west, amounted to a little over two hundred and thirty thousand men.

Defeat of Marmont.

In the early part of May of this year, 1812, the English, having taken the defenses which were erected for the fortification of the Tagus, became dominant in that region. Disaster followed disaster. The King's couriers were captured, so that his orders did not reach the marshals. It is hard to be amiable in seasons of adversity, and the marshals reproached each other. Supplies and communications were cut off, and women and children were dying of famine. The deadly warfare of guerrilla bands increased rapidly. The most atrocious acts of vengeance and atrocity were multiplied, and Joseph had no power to prevent them. As Marmont was in danger of being cut off by Wellington, Joseph, leaving a small garrison behind him, took all the troops that could be spared, and marched rapidly to the relief of the marshal. Leaving the Escurial on the 23d of July, he reached Peneranda on the 25th, where he learned that Marmont had attacked Wellington on the 23d at Arapiles, and, after a desperate conflict, had been repulsed. Marmont was severely censured for not awaiting the arrival of Joseph, whom he knew to be at hand. He was accused, perhaps without reason, of precipitating the conflict from fear that Joseph might take the command and gain the renown. Marmont reported his total loss in the battle to have been about six thousand men and nine guns, which were left because their carriages were knocked to pieces. Wellington reported his own loss at five thousand two hundred and twenty.

Retreat of Joseph.

Marmont retreated to Valladolid, to meet re-enforcements which would join him there. Joseph returned to Madrid, entering the city on the 2d of August. As the English approached, Joseph, with two thousand horse, met their advance-guard, and, with the courage of despair, drove them back in the wildest confusion. He then, at the head of but twelve thousand troops, commenced his retreat toward Valence. Twenty thousand Spaniards, men and women, dreading the vengeance of their enemies, followed, in his retreat, the King whom they had much cause to love. It was a mournful spectacle. Nobles of the highest rank, and the most intelligent and opulent of the city, toiled along in their weary march, the women and the children often unable to restrain their tears and sobs. The partisans of the English, who crowded into the city, received Wellington and his troops with every demonstration of joy. The friends of the new régime who remained behind, crushed in all their hopes, closed the shutters of their houses, retired to the remote apartments, and buried their griefs in silence.

Into whatever city the English or the French entered, they were alike received with unbounded enthusiasm. In every large city there is a throng ready to shout hosanna to the conqueror, whoever he may be. When Wellington and his squadrons entered a Spanish city, the friends of the old régime gathered around them. And so it was with the French and their friends when they were the victors. Thus at Valence, where Joseph arrived on the 31st of August, he was received with all the honors which could be conferred upon the most beloved sovereign. An immense crowd thronged the streets, and lavished upon him every demonstration of gratitude. The devout King, much moved by this exhibition of popular affection in these dark hours of defeat and humiliation, repaired at once to the cathedral, and in a solemn Te Deum gave expression to his gratitude to God.

Spanish Exiles.

Joseph's first care was for the unhappy fugitives who, dreading the vengeance of the foe, had abandoned home and all, to accompany him in his flight. He had neither money, food, nor shelter to give them. He therefore sent this sorrow-stricken band, counting over twenty thousand, under an escort across the Pyrenees into France, where they would be protected and provided for.

Return to Madrid.

At Valence Joseph concentrated his scattered forces, and early in November commenced his march back to Madrid. It is very difficult to ascertain the precise number of the forces on each side. Wellington's army was estimated at ninety-two thousand men. Joseph had collected superior numbers, and marched eagerly to attack him. Wellington rapidly retreated toward Ciudad Rodrigo, and on the 3d of December Joseph entered Madrid again in triumph.

Difference between the French and English.

Conciliation, kindness, deference to the wishes of others are not characteristic virtues of the English. They had long assumed, and with no little semblance of reason, that in wealth, power, arts, and arms they were the leading nation upon the globe. This assumption has made them unpopular as a people. They are so honest and plain-spoken that they never attempt to disguise their contempt for other nations. The victorious soldiers of Wellington particularly despised the Spaniards. This contempt neither officers nor soldiers attempted to conceal.

It is just the reverse with the French. The characteristic politeness of the nation leads them to compliment others, and to pay them especial deference. They conceal the sense of superiority which they may perhaps cherish. It is frequently said, as characteristic of the two nations, that the stranger in London gets the impression that every Englishman he meets has taken a special dislike to him personally; in Paris, on the other hand, he receives the impression that every Frenchman with whom he is brought into contact has a special fancy for him, perceiving in him virtues and excellences which he never supposed that he possessed.

The Duke of Wellington himself was a haughty, overbearing man. No soldier loved him, but all bowed submissive to his inflexible will. The deportment of the British troops in the Spanish capital was such as to alienate those who at first welcomed them, and they soon became universally disliked. The Spaniards are proud, proverbially proud; and they could not endure this contemptuous assumption of superiority. So great became the dissatisfaction that many of the Spanish generals proposed to unite their troops with those of King Joseph if he would grant them independent commands.

Withdrawal of the French Troops from Spain.

Exultantly the English on the Peninsula heard the tidings of the terrible disasters Napoleon was encountering in Russia. They could scarcely exaggerate them. It was manifest that for a long time, at least, Joseph could receive no assistance from France; on the contrary, many regiments of infantry and cavalry, and a number of companies of artillery, received orders immediately to leave Spain, and to hasten to the aid of the Emperor. Joseph, thus hopelessly crippled, was directed by the Emperor to concentrate his enfeebled forces upon the line of the Douro. Leaving a garrison of ten thousand men in Madrid, Joseph, with the remainder of his troops, retired toward the north.

In Wellington's retreat from Madrid, his troops committed all imaginable outrages. In his dispatch to his officers commanding his divisions and brigades, he said:

Outrages of the English.

"From the moment the troops commenced their retreat from the neighborhood of Madrid on the one hand, and Burgos on the other, the officers lost all command over the men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed with impunity, and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed; but I am concerned to observe that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect, in the late campaign, to a greater degree than any army with which I have ever been, or of which I have ever read."²⁵

Thus terminated the year 1812. The disappointment of the British Government, in view of the discomfiture and retreat of Wellington, was very great, and the indignation of that portion of the English people who were opposed to this interminable warfare against the new régime in France knew no bounds. That the English army had, through a long line of disastrous retreat, according to the testimony of its commander, inflicted outrages upon the Spanish people, its allies, greater than that commander had ever read of in history, keenly wounded the national pride.

Wellington intrusted with the supreme Command.

As fresh tidings arose of the disasters which had befallen Napoleon in the north, the British Government renewed their zeal to assail him from the south. Large re-enforcements were sent out during the winter with such abundant supplies as to enable Wellington to commence the spring campaign with every assurance of success. The Cortes in Cadiz, with ever-varying policy, much to the disgust of many of the Spanish generals, invested the British duke with the supreme command. The opposition, however, was so great that the duke's brother, Mr. Henry Wellesley, who was then British ambassador at Cadiz, advised him not to accept the office. But the energetic duke was confident that, by combining the whole military strength of the Peninsula with the army and fleet of England, he could drive the feeble remnants of the French from the kingdom. He therefore undertook the command.

The Cortes was led to this decisive measure from the fact that there was a strong and increasing party of their own number in favor of rallying to the support of Joseph. Their only choice lay between Joseph or Ferdinand, or the experiment of a democratic republic. Wellington's visit to Cadiz, says Alison, "brought forcibly under his notice the miserable state of the Government at that place, ruled by a furious democratic faction, intimidated by an ungovernable press, and alternately the prey of aristocratic intrigue and democratic fury. He did not fail to report to the Government this deplorable state of things."

In the beginning of May Wellington was prepared to take the field with an allied army of two hundred thousand men. The navy of England actively co-operated with this immense force, conveying supplies and protecting the extreme flanks of the line, which stretched across the kingdom. The storm of war burst forth again in all its fury. Manfully Joseph contended to the last. In the vicinity of Valladolid he had concentrated fifty thousand men, and hoped to be able there to give battle. But Wellington came upon him with an army one hundred thousand strong, which was reported to be one hundred and ninety thousand.

Battle of Vittoria.

The French on the 14th of June retreated to Vittoria. The garrison in Madrid and the civil authorities now abandoned the capital and took refuge with the army. Here a short but terrible battle ensued. The English had eighty thousand combatants on the field; the French, according to their statement, had but half as many. Alison states their force at sixty-five thousand. It was an awful battle. Both parties fought desperately. The loss of the French was six thousand nine hundred and sixty; that of the English five thousand one hundred and eighty.²⁶ The French army was impoverished after weary months of warfare, in a land stricken by famine, and wasted by the sweep of armies and the plundering of banditti. It was with very great difficulty that Joseph could support his destitute troops. Yet Alison, in that strain of exaggeration which sullies his often eloquent pages, writes:

"Independent of private booty, no less than five millions and a half of dollars in the military chest of the army were taken; and of private wealth the amount was so prodigious that for miles together the combatants may almost be said to have marched upon gold and silver, without stooping to pick it up."

Victory of the British.

In the hour of victory Wellington seemed to have no control over his soldiers, whom his pen describes as drunken and brutal. Reeling in intoxication, they wandered at will. Wellington states that three weeks after the battle above twelve thousand of his soldiers had abandoned their colors. "I am convinced," he says in a dispatch to Lord Bathurst, "that we have out of our ranks doubled our loss in the battle, and have lost more men in the pursuit than the enemy have."

Retreat of the French.

The retreat of the French was conducted with the firmness and admirable discipline characteristic of French soldiers. As the troops slowly and sullenly retired toward the French frontier, pressed by superior numbers, they turned occasionally upon their pursuers, and the advance-guard of the foe encountered several very bloody repulses.

San Sebastian.

We have not space to allude to these various conflicts, which only checked for a moment the onrolling tide of the victorious allied army. Wellington's troops took the town of San Sebastian by storm. This was a beautiful Spanish city, through which the French retreated, and where they made a short and desperate stand. We will leave it to Mr. Alison to describe the conduct of Lord Wellington's troops.

Excesses of the British Troops.

"And now commenced," writes Alison, "a scene which has affixed as lasting a stain on the character of the English and Portuguese troops, as the heroic valor they displayed in the assault has given them enduring and exalted fame. The long endurance of the assault had wrought the soldiers up to perfect madness. The soldiers wreaked their vengeance with fearful violence on the unhappy inhabitants. Some of the houses adjoining the breaches had taken fire from the effects of the explosion. The flames, fanned by an awful tempest which burst on the town, soon spread with frightful rapidity. The wretched inhabitants, driven from house to house as the conflagration devoured their dwellings, were soon huddled together in one quarter, where they fell a prey to the unbridled passions of the soldiery.

"Attempts were at first made by the British officers to extinguish the flames, but they proved vain among the general confusion which prevailed. The soldiers broke into the burning houses, pillaged them of the most valuable articles they contained, and rolling numerous casks of spirits into the streets, with frantic shouts, emptied them of their contents, till vast numbers of them sank down like savages, motionless, some lifeless, from the excess.

"Carpets, tapestry, beds, silks and satins, wearing apparel, jewelry, watches, and every thing valuable, were scattered about upon the bloody pavements, while fresh bundles of them were thrown from the windows above to avoid the flames, and caught with demoniac yells by the drunken crowds beneath. Amidst these scenes of disgraceful violence and unutterable woe, nine-tenths of the once happy, smiling town of St. Sebastian were reduced to ashes. And what has affixed a yet darker blot on the character of the victors, deeds of violence and cruelty were perpetrated hitherto rare in the British army, and which causes the historian to blush, not merely for his country, but for his species."

The account which is given by Spanish historians of these transactions is even far more dreadful than the above; so revolting that we can not pain our readers by transcribing it upon these pages. A document issued by the Constitutional Junta, after describing crimes as awful as even fiends could commit, adds:

Destruction of St. Sebastian.

"Other crimes more horrible still, which our pen refuses to record, were committed in that awful night, and the disorders continued for some days after without any efficient steps being taken to arrest them. Of above six hundred houses, of which St. Sebastian consisted on the morning of the assault, there remained at the end of three days only thirty-six."²⁷

The Duke of Wellington, in his dispatch to the Spanish Minister of War, said, in reference to these excesses, that it was impossible for him to restrain the passions of his soldiers, that he and his officers did their utmost to stop the fire and to avoid the disorders, but that all their efforts were ineffectual.

Joseph, in his retreat, threw three thousand men into the citadel of St. Sebastian. They held back the British army sixty days. Their skill and valor extorted the commendation of their foes. The siege cost the allied army three thousand eight hundred men, and delayed for three months the invasion of the southern provinces of France.

Joseph abandons Spain.

Joseph slowly retreated, fighting his way, step by step, across the Pyrenees into France, pursued by the victors. On the 12th of April, Joseph, having crossed the mountains, and being thus driven from his kingdom, had no longer any legitimate power. The command of the French army devolved upon Soult. Utterly weary of the cares and harassments of royalty, for which Joseph never had any inclination, he joined his wife and children at his estate at Mortfontaine. England had wrested the crown of Spain from Joseph Bonaparte, one of the best men whom a crown has ever adorned, and soon, with the aid of allied Europe, placed that crown upon the brow of Ferdinand VII., one of the worst men who has ever disgraced a throne. The result was that Spain was consigned to another half-century of shame, debasement, and misery.

Joseph had scarcely re-united himself with his wife and children in their much-loved home at Mortfontaine, when the allied armies, numbering more than a million and a half of bayonets, came crowding upon France from the north, from the east, and from the south; while the fleet of England, mistress of all the seas, lent its majestic co-operation on the west. Then ensued the sublimest conflict of which history gives us any account. Never before, in all Napoleon's world-renowned campaigns, had he displayed such vigor as in the masterly blows with which he struck one after another of his thronging assailants, and drove them, staggered and bleeding, before him.

Napoleon's last Struggle.

Joseph's Devotion to his Brother.

France was exhausted. All Europe had combined to crush the Republican Empire, and restore the despotism of the old régime. Through an almost uninterrupted series of victories, Napoleon lost his crown. When in any one direction he was driving his foes headlong before him, from all other points they were rushing on, till France and Paris were well-nigh whelmed in the mighty inundation. In these hours of disaster, Joseph offered life, property, all to the service of his brother. They held a few hurried interviews in Paris, and then separated, each to fulfill his appointed task in the terrible drama.