Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

C >> C. A. Fyffe >> History of Modern Europe 1792 1878




[Joseph Bonaparte made King.]

[Napoleon's Assembly at Bayonne, June, 1808.]

Napoleon was in the meantime collecting a body of prelates and grandees at
Bayonne, under the pretence of consulting the representatives of the
Spanish nation. Half the members of the intended Assembly received a
personal summons from the Emperor; the other half were ordered to be chosen
by popular election. When the order, however, was issued from Bayonne, the
country was already in full revolt. Elections were held only in the
districts occupied by the French, and not more than twenty representatives
so elected proceeded to Bayonne. The remainder of the Assembly, which
numbered in all ninety-one persons, was composed of courtiers who had
accompanied the Royal Family across the Pyrenees, and of any Spaniards of
distinction upon whom the French could lay their hands. Joseph Bonaparte
was brought from Naples to receive the crown of Spain. [147] On the 15th of
June the Assembly of the Notables was opened. Its discussions followed the
order prescribed by Napoleon on all similar occasions. Articles disguising
a central absolute power with some pretence of national representation were
laid before the Assembly, and adopted without criticism. Except in the
privileges accorded to the Church, little indicated that the Constitution
of Bayonne was intended for the Spanish rather than for any other nation.
Its political forms were as valuable or as valueless as those which
Napoleon had given to his other client States; its principles of social
order were those which even now despotism could not dissever from French
supremacy--the abolition of feudal services, equality of taxation,
admission of all ranks to public employment. Titles of nobility were
preserved, the privileges of nobility abolished. One genuine act of homage
was rendered to the national character. The Catholic religion was declared
to be the only one permitted in Spain.

[Attempts of Napoleon to suppress the Spanish rising.]

While Napoleon was thus emancipating the peasants from the nobles, and
reconciling his supremacy with the claims of the Church, peasants and
townspeople were flocking to arms at the call of the priests, who so little
appreciated the orthodoxy of their patron as to identify him in their
manifestos with Calvin, with the Antichrist, and with Apollyon. [148] The
Emperor underrated the military efficiency of the national revolt, and
contented himself with sending his lieutenants to repress it, while he
himself, expecting a speedy report of victory, remained in Bayonne.
Divisions of the French army moved in all directions against the
insurgents. Dupont was ordered to march upon Seville from the capital,
Moncey upon Valencia; Marshal Bessieres took command of a force intended to
disperse the main army of the Spaniards, which threatened the roads from
the Pyrenees to Madrid. The first encounters were all favourable to the
practised French troops; yet the objects which Napoleon set before his
generals were not achieved. Moncey failed to reduce Valencia; Dupont found
himself outnumbered on passing the Sierra Morena, and had to retrace his
steps and halt at Andujar, where the road to Madrid leaves the valley of
the Guadalquivir. Without sustaining any severe loss, the French divisions
were disheartened by exhausting and resultless marches; the Spaniards
gained new confidence on each successive day which passed without
inflicting upon them a defeat. At length, however, the commanders of the
northern army were forced by Marshal Bessieres to fight a pitched battle at
Rio Seco, on the west of Valladolid (July 13th). Bessieres won a complete
victory, and gained the lavish praises of his master for a battle which,
according to Napoleon's own conception, ended the Spanish war by securing
the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid.

[Capitulation of Baylen, July 19.]

[Dupont in Andalusia.]

Never had Napoleon so gravely mistaken the true character of a campaign.
The vitality of the Spanish insurrection lay not in the support of the
capital, which had never passed out of the hands of the French, but in the
very independence of the several provincial movements. Unlike Vienna and
Berlin, Madrid might be held by the French without the loss being felt by
their adversary; Cadiz, Corunna, Lisbon, were equally serviceable bases for
the insurrection. The victory of Marshal Bessieres in the north preserved
the communication between France and Madrid, and it did nothing more. It
failed to restore the balance of military force in the south of Spain, or
to affect the operations of the Spanish troops which were now closing round
Dupont upon the Guadalquivir. On the 15th of July Dupont was attacked at
Andujar by greatly superior forces. His lieutenant, Vedel, knowing the
Spaniards to be engaged in a turning movement, made a long march northwards
in order to guard the line of retreat. In his absence the position of
Baylen, immediately in Dupont's rear, was seized by the Spanish general
Reding. Dupont discovered himself to be surrounded. He divided his army
into two columns, and moved on the night of the 18th from Andujar towards
Baylen, in the hope of overpowering Reding's division. At daybreak on the
19th the positions of Reding were attacked by the French. The struggle
continued until mid-day, though the French soldiers sank exhausted with
thirst and with the burning heat. At length the sound of cannon was heard
in the rear. Castanos, the Spanish general commanding at Andujar, had
discovered Dupont's retreat, and pressed behind him with troops fresh and
unwearied by conflict. Further resistance was hopeless. Dupont had to
negotiate for a surrender. He consented to deliver up Vedel's division as
well as his own, although Vedel's troops were in possession of the road to
Madrid, the Spanish commander promising, on this condition, that the
captives should not be retained as prisoners of war in Spain, but be
permitted to return by sea to their native country. The entire army of
Andalusia, numbering 23,000 men, thus passed into the hands of an enemy
whom Napoleon had not believed to possess a military existence. Dupont's
anxiety to save something for France only aggravated the extent of the
calamity; for the Junta of Seville declined to ratify the terms of the
capitulation, and the prisoners, with the exception of the superior
officers, were sent to the galleys at Cadiz. The victorious Spaniards
pushed forwards upon Madrid. King Joseph, who had entered the city only a
week before, had to fly from his capital. The whole of the French troops in
Spain were compelled to retire to a defensive position upon the Ebro.

[Wellesley lands in Portugal, Aug. 1, 1808.]

[Vimeiro, Aug. 21.]

[Convention of Cintra, Aug. 30.]

The disaster of Baylen did not come alone. Napoleon's attack upon Portugal
had brought him within the striking-range of Great Britain. On the 1st of
August an English army, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed on the
Portuguese coast at the mouth of the Mondego. Junot, the first invader of
the Peninsula, was still at Lisbon; his forces in occupation of Portugal
numbered nearly 30,000 men, but they were widely dispersed, and he was
unable to bring more than 13,000 men into the field against the 16,000 with
whom Wellesley moved upon Lisbon. Junot advanced to meet the invader. A
battle was fought at Vimieiro, thirty miles north of Lisbon, on the 21st of
August. The victory was gained by the British; and had the first advantage
been followed up, Junot's army would scarcely have escaped capture. But the
command had passed out of Wellesley's hands. His superior officer, Sir
Harry Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle
ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of operations at a
moment when the enemy seemed to be within his grasp. Junot made the best
use of his reprieve. He entered into negotiations for the evacuation of
Portugal, and obtained the most favourable terms in the Convention of
Cintra, signed on the 30th of August. The French army was permitted to
return to France with its arms and baggage. Wellesley, who had strongly
condemned the inaction of his superior officers after the battle of the
21st, agreed with them that, after the enemy had once been permitted to
escape, the evacuation of Portugal was the best result which the English
could obtain. [149] Junot's troops were accordingly conveyed to French
ports at the expense of the British Government, to the great displeasure of
the public, who expected to see the marshal and his army brought prisoners
into Portsmouth. The English were as ill-humoured with their victory as the
French with their defeat. When on the point of sending Junot to a
court-martial for his capitulation, Napoleon learnt that the British
Government had ordered its own generals to be brought to trial for
permitting the enemy to escape them.

[Effect of Spanish rising on Europe.]

[War-party in Austria and Prussia.]

[Napoleon and Prussia.]

If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England, the tidings of
the successful uprising of the Spanish people against Napoleon, and of
Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, created the deepest impression in every
country of Europe that still entertained the thought of resistance to
France. The first great disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been
inflicted by a nation without a government, without a policy, without a
plan beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the foreigner.
What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect, the patriotism and
energy of a single people deserted by its rulers seemed about to
accomplish. The victory of the regular troops at Baylen was but a part of
that great national movement in which every isolated outbreak had had its
share in dividing and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of
untrained popular levies to resist practised troops might be exaggerated in
the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish rising;
but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by the spirit of
popular resentment and determination was one upon which mistake was
impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the politicians of Austria and
Prussia, and explained the powerlessness of those Coalitions in which the
wars had always been the affair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of
the people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against
Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a national
movement like that of Spain sprang up among the German race. "I do not
see," wrote Bluecher some time afterwards, "why we should not think
ourselves as good as the Spaniards." The best men in the Austrian and
Prussian Governments began to look forward to the kindling of popular
spirit as the surest means for combating the tyranny of Napoleon. Military
preparations were pushed forward in Austria with unprecedented energy and
on a scale rivalling that of France itself. In Prussia the party of Stein
determined upon a renewal of the war, and decided to risk the extinction of
the Prussian State rather than submit to the extortions by which Napoleon
was completing the ruin of their country. It was among the patriots of
Northern Germany that the course of the Spanish struggle excited the
deepest emotion, and gave rise to the most resolute purpose of striking for
European liberty.

Since the nominal restoration of peace between France and Prussia by the
cession of half the Prussian kingdom, not a month had passed without the
infliction of some gross injustice upon the conquered nation. The
evacuation of the country had in the first instance been made conditional
upon the payment of certain requisitions in arrear. While the amount of
this sum was being settled, all Prussia, except Koenigsberg, remained in the
hands of the French, and 157,000 French soldiers lived at free quarters
upon the unfortunate inhabitants. At the end of the year 1807 King
Frederick William was informed that, besides paying to Napoleon 60,000,000
francs in money, and ceding domain lands of the same value, he must
continue to support 40,000 French troops in five garrison-towns upon the
Oder. Such was the dismay caused by this announcement, that Stein quitted
Koenigsberg, now the seat of government, and passed three months at the
head-quarters of the French at Berlin, endeavouring to frame some
settlement less disastrous to his country. Count Daru, Napoleon's
administrator in Prussia, treated the Minister with respect, and accepted
his proposal for the evacuation of Prussian territory on payment of a fixed
sum to the French. But the agreement required Napoleon's ratification, and
for this Stein waited in vain. [150]

[Stein urges war.]

[Demands of Napoleon, Sept., 1808.]

Month after month dragged on, and Napoleon made no reply. At length the
victories of the Spanish insurrection in the summer of 1808 forced the
Emperor to draw in his troops from beyond the Elbe. He placed a bold front
upon his necessities, and demanded from the Prussian Government, as the
price of evacuation, a still larger sum than that which had been named in
the previous winter: he insisted that the Prussian army should be limited
to 40,000 men, and the formation of the Landwehr abandoned; and he required
the support of a Prussian corps of 16,000 men, in the event of hostilities
breaking out between France and Austria. Not even on these conditions was
Prussia offered the complete evacuation of her territory. Napoleon still
insisted on holding the three principal fortresses on the Oder with a
garrison of 10,000 men. Such was the treaty proposed to the Prussian Court
(September, 1808) at a time when every soldierly spirit thrilled with the
tidings from Spain, and every statesman was convinced by the events of the
last few months that Napoleon's treaties were but stages in a progression
of wrongs. Stein and Scharnhorst urged the King to arm the nation for a
struggle as desperate as that of Spain, and to delay only until Napoleon
himself was busied in the warfare of the Peninsula. Continued submission
was ruin; revolt was at least not hopeless. However forlorn the condition
of Prussia, its alliances were of the most formidable character. Austria
was arming without disguise; Great Britain had intervened in the warfare of
the Peninsula with an efficiency hitherto unknown in its military
operations; Spain, on the estimate of Napoleon himself, required an army of
200,000 men. Since the beginning of the Spanish insurrection Stein had
occupied himself with the organisation of a general outbreak throughout
Northern Germany. Rightly or wrongly, he believed the train to be now laid,
and encouraged the King of Prussia to count upon the support of a popular
insurrection against the French in all the territories which they had taken
from Prussia, from Hanover, and from Hesse.

[Stein resigns, Nov. 24. Proscribed by Napoleon.]

[Napoleon and Alexander meet at Erfurt, Oct. 7, 1808.]

In one point alone Stein was completely misinformed. He believed that
Alexander, in spite of the Treaty of Tilsit, would not be unwilling to see
the storm burst upon Napoleon, and that in the event of another general war
the forces of Russia would more probably be employed against France than in
its favour. The illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the
accomplice of Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Principalities,
Alexander was willing to hold central Europe in check while Napoleon
crushed the Spaniards, and to stifle every bolder impulse in the simple
King of Prussia. Napoleon himself dreaded the general explosion of Europe
before Spain was conquered, and drew closer to his Russian ally.
Difficulties that had been placed in the way of the Russian annexation of
Roumania vanished. The Czar and the Emperor determined to display to all
Europe the intimacy of their union by a festal meeting at Erfurt in the
midst of their victims and their dependents. The whole tribe of vassal
German sovereigns was summoned to the meeting-place; representatives
attended from the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. On the 7th of October
Napoleon and Alexander made their entry into Erfurt. Pageants and
festivities required the attendance of the crowned and titled rabble for
several days; but the only serious business was the settlement of a treaty
confirming the alliance of France and Russia, and the notification of the
Czar to the envoy of the King of Prussia that his master must accept the
terms demanded by Napoleon, and relinquish the idea of a struggle with
France. [151] Count Goltz, the Prussian envoy, unwillingly signed the
treaty which gave Prussia but a partial evacuation at so dear a cost, and
wrote to the King that no course now remained for him but to abandon
himself to unreserved dependence upon France, and to permit Stein and the
patriotic party to retire from the direction of the State. Unless the King
could summon up courage to declare war in defiance of Alexander, there was,
in fact, no alternative left open to him. Napoleon had discovered Stein's
plans for raising an insurrection in Germany several weeks before, and had
given vent to the most furious outburst of wrath against Stein in the
presence of the Prussian Ambassador at Erfurt. If the great struggle on
which Stein's whole heart and soul were set was to be relinquished, if
Spain was to be crushed before Prussia moved an arm, and Austria was to be
left to fight its inevitable battle alone, then the presence of Stein at
the head of the Prussian State was only a snare to Europe, a peril to
Prussia, and a misery to himself. Stein asked for and received his
dismissal. (Nov. 24, 1808.)

Stein's retirement averted the wrath of Napoleon from the King of Prussia;
but the whole malignity of that Corsican nature broke out against the
high-spirited patriot as soon as fresh victories had released Napoleon from
the ill-endured necessity of self-control. On the 16th of December, when
Madrid had again passed into the possession of the French, an imperial
order appeared, which gave the measure of Napoleon's hatred of the fallen
Minister. Stein was denounced as the enemy of the Empire; his property was
confiscated; he was ordered to be seized by the troops of the Emperor or
his allies wherever they could lay their hands upon him. As in the days of
Roman tyranny, the west of Europe could now afford no asylum to the enemies
of the Emperor. Russia and Austria remained the only refuge of the exile.
Stein escaped into Bohemia; and, as the crowning humiliation of the
Prussian State, its police were forced to pursue as a criminal the
statesman whose fortitude had still made it possible in the darkest days
for Prussian patriots not to despair of their country.

[Misgovernment of the Spanish Junta.]

[Napoleon goes to Spain, Nov., 1808.]

Central Europe secured by the negotiations with Alexander at Erfurt,
Napoleon was now able to place himself at the head of the French forces in
Spain without fear of any immediate attack from the side of Germany. Since
the victory of Baylen the Spaniards had made little progress either towards
good government or towards a good military administration. The provincial
Juntas had consented to subordinate themselves to a central committee
chosen from among their own members; but this new supreme authority, which
held its meetings at Aranjuez, proved one of the worst governments that
even Spain itself had ever endured. It numbered thirty persons,
twenty-eight of whom were priests, nobles, or officials. [152] Its
qualities were those engrained in Spanish official life. In legislation it
attempted absolutely nothing but the restoration of the Inquisition and the
protection of Church lands; its administration was confined to a foolish
interference with the better generals, and the acquisition of enormous
supplies of war from Great Britain, which were either stolen by contractors
or allowed to fall into the hands of the French. While the members of the
Junta discussed the titles of honour which were to attach to them
collectively and individually, and voted themselves salaries equal to those
of Napoleon's generals, the armies fell into a state of destitution which
scarcely any but Spanish troops would have been capable of enduring. The
energy of the humbler classes alone prolonged the military existence of the
insurrection; the Government organised nothing, comprehended nothing. Its
part in the national movement was confined to a system of begging and
boasting, which demoralised the Spaniards, and bewildered the agents and
generals of England who first attempted the difficult task of assisting the
Spaniards to help themselves. When the approach of army after army, the
levies of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Italy, in addition to Napoleon's
own veteran troops of Austerlitz and Jena, gave to the rest of the world
some idea of the enormous force which Napoleon was about to throw on to
Spain, the Spanish Government could form no better design than to repeat
the movement of Baylen against Napoleon himself on the banks of the Ebro.

[Napoleon enters Madrid, Dec. 4.]

[Campaign on the Ebro, Nov., 1808.]

The Emperor for the first time crossed the Pyrenees in the beginning of
November, 1808. The victory of the Spaniards in the summer had forced the
invaders to retire into the district between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and
the Ebro now formed the dividing-line between the hostile armies. It was
the intention of Napoleon to roll back the extremes of the Spanish line to
the east and the west, and, breaking through its centre, to move straight
upon Burgos and Madrid. The Spaniards, for their part, were not content to
act upon the defensive. When Napoleon arrived at Vittoria on the 5th of
November, the left wing of the Spanish army under General Blake had already
received orders to move eastwards from the upper waters of the Ebro, and to
cut the French off from their communication with the Pyrenees. The movement
was exactly that which Napoleon desired; for in executing it, Blake had
only to march far enough eastwards to find himself completely surrounded by
French divisions. A premature movement of the French generals themselves
alone saved Blake from total destruction. He was attacked and defeated at
Espinosa, on the upper Ebro, before he had advanced far enough to lose his
line of retreat (Nov. 10); and, after suffering great losses, he succeeded
in leading off a remnant of his army into the mountains of Asturias. In the
centre, Soult drove the enemy before him, and captured Burgos. Of the army
which was to have cleared Spain of the French, nothing now remained but a
corps on the right at Tudela, commanded by Palafox. The destruction of this
body was committed by the Emperor to Lannes and Ney. Ney was ordered to
take a long march southwards in order to cut off the retreat of the
Spaniards; he found it impossible, however, to execute his march within the
time prescribed; and Palafox, beaten by Lannes at Tudela, made good his
retreat into Saragossa. A series of accidents had thus saved the divisions
of the Spanish army from actual capture, but there no longer existed a
force capable of meeting the enemy in the field. Napoleon moved forward
from Burgos upon Madrid. The rest of his march was a triumph. The batteries
defending the mountain-pass of Somo Sierra were captured by a charge of
Polish cavalry; and the capital itself surrendered, after a short artillery
fire, on the 4th of December, four weeks after the opening of the campaign.

[Campaign of Sir John Moore.]

An English army was slowly and painfully making its way towards the Ebro at
the time when Napoleon broke in pieces the Spanish line of defence. On the
14th of October Sir John Moore had assumed the command of 20,000 British
troops at Lisbon. He was instructed to march to the neighbourhood of
Burgos, and to co-operate with the Spanish generals upon the Ebro.
According to the habit of the English, no allowance was made for the
movements of the enemy while their own were under consideration; and the
mountain-country which Moore had to traverse placed additional obstacles in
the way of an expedition at least a month too late in its starting. Moore
believed it to be impossible to carry his artillery over the direct road
from Lisbon to Salamanca, and sent it round by way of Madrid, while he
himself advanced through Ciudad Rodrigo, reaching Salamanca on the 13th of
November. Here, while still waiting for his artillery, rumours reached him
of the destruction of Blake's army at Espinosa, and of the fall of Burgos.
Later came the report of Palafox's overthrow at Tudela. Yet even now Moore
could get no trustworthy information from the Spanish authorities. He
remained for some time in suspense, and finally determined to retreat into
Portugal. Orders were sent to Sir David Baird, who was approaching with
reinforcements from Corunna, to turn back towards the northern coast.
Scarcely had Moore formed this decision, when despatches arrived from
Frere, the British agent at Madrid, stating that the Spaniards were about
to defend the capital to the last extremity, and that Moore would be
responsible for the ruin of Spain and the disgrace of England if he failed
to advance to its relief. To the great joy of his soldiers, Moore gave
orders for a forward march. The army advanced upon Valladolid, with the
view of attacking the French upon their line of communication, while the
siege of the capital engaged them in front. Baird was again ordered
southwards. It was not until the 14th of December, ten days after Madrid
had passed into the hands of the French, that Moore received intelligence
of its fall. Neither the Spanish Government nor the British agent who had
caused Moore to advance took the trouble to inform him of the surrender of
the capital; he learnt it from an intercepted French despatch. From the
same despatch Moore learnt that to the north of him, at Saldanha, on the
river Carrion, there lay a comparatively small French force under the
command of Soult. The information was enough for Moore, heart-sick at the
mockery to which his army had been subjected, and burning for decisive
action. He turned northwards, and marched against Soult, in the hope of
surprising him before the news of his danger could reach Napoleon in the
capital.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.