CHAPTER III

THE CAPTURE OF VALENCIA AND OF BLAKE’S ARMY. NOVEMBER 1811-JANUARY 1812

As the result of the disastrous battle of Saguntum Blake had lost the fortress which had served him so well as an outwork: while his field army was much decreased in numbers, and still more in self-confidence. It was obviously impossible that he should ever again attempt to take the offensive with it. But he was still in possession of Valencia and all its resources, and his carefully fortified lines along the Guadalaviar were so strong that even a defeated army could make some stand behind them. He had still, after all his losses, more than 22,000 men under arms[40]. Yet it is doubtful whether a resolute push on the part of the enemy would not have dislodged him, for more than half his army was in a state of complete demoralization.

[40] A battalion or two left in Valencia, when the rest of the army went out to deliver Saguntum, must be added to the 20,000 men who came back from the battle. These corps were 2nd of Leon of Lardizabal’s division, and one battalion of Savoya belonging to Miranda.

Suchet, however, had made up his mind not to strike at once; and when a few days had passed, and the Spaniards had been granted time to settle down into the lines, it would undoubtedly have been hazardous to attack them with the very modest numbers that the Army of Aragon had still in line. The chance would have been to press the pursuit hard, on the very day after the battle. But when the Marshal had counted up his losses in the trenches and the field, had deducted a small garrison for Saguntum, and had detached a brigade to escort to Tortosa his numerous prisoners, he thought himself too weak for a decisive blow. He would not have had 15,000 men in hand, unless he should call up Ficatier’s brigade from Segorbe and Oropesa, and this he did not want to do, as he was entirely dependent for food and stores on the line of communication which Ficatier was guarding. Accordingly he resolved to defer his next blow at Blake, till he should have summoned from Aragon Severoli’s division, and Reille’s too, if the Emperor would give him leave to requisition that force. He could not utilize Reille without that leave; but Severoli’s troops belonged to his own army, and were at his disposition, if he should judge it possible to draw them southward without endangering the safety of Aragon. This he was prepared to do, if a sufficient garrison for that province could be provided from another source. And the only obvious source was the Army of the North: if the Emperor would consent to order Dorsenne to find troops to make Saragossa and the line of the Ebro secure, it would not be over rash to borrow both Severoli and Reille for operations against Valencia. But it was clear that it would take some weeks for the permission to be sent from Paris, and for the troops of the Army of the North to be moved, when and if the permission was granted. We shall see, as a matter of fact, that it was not till the end of December, two full months after the battle of Saguntum, that the two divisions were collected on the desired ground, and the final blow against Blake was delivered.

Meanwhile Suchet could do no more than place his divisions in the most favourable position for making the advance that would only be possible when Severoli, and perhaps Reille also, should arrive. With this object he pushed them forward on November 3 to the line of the Guadalaviar, close in front of Blake’s long series of entrenchments. Harispe on the right advanced to Paterna, Habert on the left to the close neighbourhood of Valencia. He drove the Spanish outposts from the outlying suburb of Serranos, which lay beyond the lines and on the north side of the river, and also from the Grao, or port and mole which forms the outlet of Valencia to the sea. It was most unlucky for Blake, in the end, that his natural line of communication with the Mediterranean and the English fleet lay north of the Guadalaviar, and outside his line of fortifications. Indeed it looks as if there was a cardinal fault in the planning of the defences when the Grao was left outside them, for though rather remote from the city (two miles) it would be of inestimable importance, supposing that the French were to succeed in crossing the Guadalaviar and investing Valencia. With the port safe, the defenders could receive succour and supplies to any extent, and if finally reduced to extremity could retreat by sea. Some of the energy which had been expended in throwing up the immense fortified camp which embraced all the southern suburbs, and in lining the river westward with batteries, might well have been diverted to the fortification of the Grao and its connexion with the works of the city. But probably Blake, in his looking forward to the possible events of the future, did not contemplate among the contingencies to be faced that of his being shut up with the greater part of his army within the walls of Valencia. If he were forced from the lines of the Guadalaviar, he must have intended to fall back inland or southward, and not to allow himself to be surrounded in the capital. Otherwise it would have been absolutely insane for him to leave unfortified, and abandon without a struggle, Valencia’s sole outlet to the sea.

Meanwhile finding himself for week after week unassailed in his lines, Blake had to take stock of his position, and see if there was anything that he could do to avert the attack which must come one day, and which would obviously be formidable. For it had become known to him, ere long, that Severoli’s division, and probably other troops, were working in towards Valencia, and would certainly join Suchet before the winter was over. The only expedients of which Blake made use were to keep masses of men continuously at work strengthening his lines, and to renew the attempt, which he had made fruitlessly in September, for loosing Suchet’s hold on Valencia by launching against his rear the irregulars of Aragon--the bands of the Empecinado, Duran, and the minor chiefs. To add some solidity to their hordes he detached from his army the Conde de Montijo, with one of the two brigades which Mahy had brought from Murcia. This turbulent nobleman, more noted for his intrigues than for his fighting power, was given a general command over all the bands, and marched to join them with three battalions[41] and a few guns--the latter provision was intended to obviate the difficulty which the irregulars had experienced in October from their want of artillery. Blake intended to call up Freire from Murcia with another draft from the depleted ‘Third Army,’ whose best troops Mahy had already led to Valencia. But, as we shall see, this detachment was presently distracted to another quarter, and never joined the main force. The nominal strength of the mass of troops along the Guadalaviar was, however, increased by degrees, owing to the filling of the ranks of the divisions cut up at Saguntum by men from the half-trained reserve and dépôts. Miranda’s division in particular, which had lost so many prisoners in the battle, was completed to more than its original strength by absorbing three raw ‘third battalions’ from the ‘Reserve Division,’ besides other drafts[42]. Blake also endeavoured to make use of ‘urban guards’ and other levies of irregular organization and more than doubtful value: the population in the north of the kingdom, behind Suchet’s lines, were invited to form guerrillero bands: but the Valencians never showed the zeal or energy of the Catalans and Aragonese. The bands that appeared were few in numbers, and accomplished nothing of note. Indeed, it appears that the patriotic spirit of the province had run low. Mahy, in a letter to Blake of this month, complains bitterly that the peasantry refuse to convey letters for him, or even to give him information as to the position and movements of the French, while he knew that hundreds of them were visiting Suchet’s camps daily in friendly fashion[43]. It appears that the people were sick of the war, and discontented with Blake, whose conduct to the local authorities was even more injurious to him than the uniform failure of all his military operations.

[41] One battalion each of Badajoz, Burgos, and Tiradores de Cuenca--under 2,000 men in all.

[42] Four thousand strong at Saguntum, it surrendered on January 8th, 5,513 strong. Of its quality, the less said the better.

[43] Mahy to Blake quoted at length in Arteche, xi. p. 196, footnote.

The diversion to be conducted by Montijo and the irregulars in Aragon constituted the only real hope of salvation for Blake and the city of Valencia. But it was, we may say, doomed from the first to failure, unless some favourable chance should intervene. A couple of thousand regulars, with the aid of guerrillero bands, hard to assemble, and not mustering at any time more than 6,000 or 7,000 men collected on one spot, were sent to paralyse the movements of more than 20,000 French. For to that figure Reille’s and Severoli’s divisions, together with the original garrison left in Aragon under Musnier, most certainly amounted. It cannot be denied that the diversion gave much trouble to the enemy, but it never prevented him from executing any operation of primary importance. On October 27th the Italian general, Mazzuchelli, with one of Severoli’s brigades, drove off the Empecinado, and relieved the long-besieged garrison of Molina, which he brought off, abandoning the castle. But as he was returning to his chief, who then lay at Daroca, the Empecinado fell on his marching column in the Pass of Cubillejo, and inflicted severe damage upon it[44]. Severoli then sent out a second column of 800 men, to relieve Almunia, on the road to Saragossa, another outlying garrison. But Duran surprised and scattered this party just as it reached its destination, and then captured the fort with its garrison of 140 men (October 31). This provoked the enemy to march against him in force, whereupon, after fighting an obstinate engagement with Mazzuchelli near Almunia, in which the Italians lost 220 men, he turned sideways, and descended upon Daroca, which his adversary had left weakly manned; he stormed the town and laid siege to the fort. This brought down upon him Pannetier, with one of Reille’s brigades: thereupon, wisely refusing to fight, Duran went up into the mountains of Molina (November 1811).

[44] For details see Vacani, v. pp. 470-1.

Here he was joined some weeks later by the regular brigade under the Conde de Montijo, which Blake had sent up from Valencia. This little detachment had threaded its way among Reille’s columns, and had narrowly escaped destruction near Albarracin. The Conde, assuming chief command at the high-lying village of Mulmarcos, informed the Aragonese guerrilleros that something desperate must be done, to relieve the pressure on Valencia; and after sending for the Empecinado, who was now beyond the mountains, in the province of Guadalajara, marched on Calatayud. Unfortunately the Partida chiefs, accustomed to conduct their expeditions on their own responsibility, viewed the advent of Montijo, a stranger of no great military reputation, with jealousy and dislike. Duran and the Conde having reached Ateca near Calatayud, committed themselves to a serious combat with a column of 2,000 men from its garrison, having every expectation of being succoured by the Empecinado, who had reached their neighbourhood. He did not appear, however, and they were repulsed. Thereupon the Spaniards parted, the Conde and the regulars retiring to Torrehermosa, Duran to Deza, in the province of Soria. The Empecinado, when all was over, sent in a letter in which he explained that he had held off ‘because his officers and soldiers had no confidence save in their own chief:’ but it was clear that he himself wrecked the expedition out of self-willed indiscipline.

The month of December was now far advanced, and nothing effective had been done to help Blake. The Aragonese bands had cost Reille and Severoli many toilsome marches, and had inflicted on them appreciable losses--Severoli’s division was now 2,000 men weaker than it had been in September. But they had failed entirely to stop the larger movements of the enemy, who was able to move wherever he pleased with a column of 3,000 men, though any lesser force was always in danger of being harried or even destroyed. When Suchet determined that he would again risk trouble in his rear, and would bring both the divisions from the Ebro down to Valencia, no one could prevent him from doing so. It is true that Severoli and Reille were leaving behind them a country-side still infested by an active and obstinate enemy. But if their generalissimo judged that he was prepared to take this risk, and was determined to crush Blake before he completed the subjugation of Upper Aragon, there was nothing that could hinder him from carrying out his intention. By the middle of December Severoli was on his way to the Guadalaviar by way of Teruel, and Reille followed not far behind, though one of his brigades (Bourke’s) had been distracted, by being ordered to conduct the prisoners from Saguntum to the French frontier, and the other (Pannetier’s) had been drawn so far northward in hunting Montijo and Duran that it was several marches behind the leading columns.

It was not, however, Reille and Severoli alone who were set in motion for the ruin of Blake and Valencia. Nor was Suchet’s mind the final controlling force of the operations which were to spread all over eastern Spain in the months of December 1811 and January 1812. The Emperor, when he hurried the Army of Aragon forward in September, had explained that this was the crucial point of the war, and repeated in November that ‘l’important, dans ce moment, est la prise de Valence.’ Portugal could wait--Wellington, with 18,000 men sick, and forced to remain on the defensive,--was a negligible quantity during the winter: he should be dealt with in the spring by a general combination of all the French armies[45]. Acting on this comfortable but erroneous hypothesis, Napoleon determined to shift eastward and southward not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops from the armies which were directly or indirectly opposed to Wellington, so as to alter for a time the general balance of forces on the Portuguese side of the Peninsula. On October 18th, before the battle of Saguntum had been fought and won, Berthier had been directed to write to Marmont that, for the support of the invasion of Valencia, King Joseph and the Army of the Centre would be ordered to send troops to Cuenca, to take Blake in the rear. In consequence the Army of Portugal must ‘facilitate the task of the King,’ i. e. find detachments to occupy those parts of New Castile from which Joseph would have to withdraw the normal garrison for his expedition to Cuenca. But presently it became evident that the Army of the Centre would have great difficulty in providing a column strong enough to make this diversion, even if it were relieved in La Mancha, or the province of Toledo, by units belonging to Marmont. Napoleon then made the all-important determination to borrow troops from the Army of Portugal for the Valencian expedition. By this time he knew of the battle of Saguntum, and had received Suchet’s appeals for reinforcements. His dispatch to Marmont of November 20th informs the Marshal that he must provide a division of 6,000 men of all arms, to join the disposable force which King Joseph can spare for the assistance of Suchet. The still more important dispatch of the next day varied the orders in an essential detail, by saying that the Marshal must send not ‘a detachment of 6,000 men’ but _such a force as, united to the column supplied by King Joseph, would provide a total of 12,000 men for the diversion_.’ And it was added that, in addition, the Army of Portugal would have to find 3,000 or 4,000 men more, to keep up the communications of the expeditionary force with its base in New Castile. The detachment might be made without any fear of adverse consequences, since Wellington had 20,000 men in hospital, and barely as many in a state to take the field, so no risk would be run in depleting the force opposed to him [46]. Napoleon, conveniently ignoring the exact wording of his own dispatch, reproached Marmont (when evil results had followed) for having detached ‘an army corps and thirty guns’ for the diversion, instead of ‘a light flying column.[47]’ But it will be seen that the Marshal was literally obeying the orders given him when he moved 12,000 men towards Valencia. For the Army of the Centre provided not much more than 3,000 men under General d’Armagnac for the Cuenca expedition[48], and Marmont had, therefore, to find 9,000 men to bring it up to the strength which the Emperor prescribed, as well as the 3,000-4,000 men to cover the line of communications.

[45] _Correspondance de Napoléon_, 18,267, and cf. pp. 590-2 of vol. iv of this work.

[46] See these dispatches printed in full in Marmont’s _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 256-8. This wording is most important and should be studied with care. Note that Wellington’s sick have gone up from 18,000 to 20,000 in twenty-four hours, to oblige the Emperor.

[47] Berthier to Marmont, January 23, 1812. Printed in the latter’s _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 297-9.

[48] Though King Joseph had said that if Marmont took over the whole of La Mancha, he could then reinforce d’Armagnac up to 8,000 men. This he never really accomplished (Joseph to Berthier, Nov. 26).

All these dispatches reached Marmont’s head-quarters at Plasencia with the tardiness that was normal in Spain, where officers bearing orders had to be escorted by detachments many hundreds strong, supposing that their certain arrival at their destination was desired. If they travelled rapidly and unescorted, they became the inevitable prey of the guerrilleros. The dispatch of October 18th, saying that Marmont must replace King Joseph’s garrisons in La Mancha, came to hand on November 11, and the Marshal accordingly directed Foy’s division, then at Toledo, to break itself up and occupy the various posts which the German division of the Army of the Centre had been holding. Foy set out to fulfil these orders on November 22.

The Emperor’s second and third dispatches, those of November 20-21st, turned up on December 13th[49], and Marmont found himself under orders to find 9,000 men for the Cuenca expedition,--since d’Armagnac had only 3,000 men to contribute--and in addition 3,000-4,000 more for the line of communications. Now the Marshal was as fully convinced as his master that Wellington was not in a condition to move, or to do any serious harm, and under this impression, and being probably stirred (as Napoleon afterwards remarked)[50] by the desire to increase his own reputation by a dashing feat of arms, he resolved to take charge of the expedition in person. He ordered that the divisions of Foy and Sarrut--both weak units, the one of eight, the other of nine battalions[51]--and Montbrun’s light cavalry should prepare to march under his own charge to join d’Armagnac, and move on Valencia. Another division should come into La Mancha to take up the cantonments evacuated by Foy, and keep over the line of communications. Clausel should be left in charge of the remainder of the army, and observe Wellington.

[49] Date fixed by Marmont’s letter to Berthier of Feb. 6.

[50] ‘Sa Majesté (writes Berthier) pense que, dans cette circonstance, vous avez plus calculé votre gloire personnelle que le bien de son service,’ Jan. 23, letter quoted above on the last page.

[51] Each division had about 4,000 or 4,500 men: the light cavalry about 1,700, so the whole would have made about 10,000 sabres and bayonets.

This scheme was never carried out, for on December 20 Marmont received another dispatch, ordering him to transfer his head-quarters to Valladolid, and to move a large part of his army into Old Castile. Of this more hereafter. But being thus prevented (for his own good fortune as it turned out) from going on the expedition, he gave over Foy’s and Sarrut’s divisions to Montbrun, and bade him execute the diversion. He himself went, as ordered, to Valladolid. If he had received the last dispatch a little later, or had started a little earlier, he would have been put in the ignominious position of being absent from his own point of danger, when Wellington suddenly struck at Ciudad Rodrigo in the early days of January.

Montbrun, his substitute, had drawn together his forces in La Mancha by the 29th of December, but receiving from d’Armagnac, who was already on the move with 3,000 men, the assurance that the road from Cuenca to Valencia was practically impassable at midwinter, and that he could certainly get no guns along it, he resolved to take another route towards the scene of active operations. Accordingly he set out to march by the road San Clemente, Chinchilla, Almanza, which runs across the upland plain of La Mancha and Northern Murcia, and does not cross rough ground till it nears the descent to the sea-coast on the borders of Valencia. The column did not leave San Clemente and El Probencio till January 2, and (as we shall see) was too late to help Suchet, who had brought matters to a head long before it drew near him.

Meanwhile d’Armagnac, though his force was trifling[52], had been of far greater use. He had reoccupied Cuenca, but finding (as he had informed Montbrun) that the roads in that direction were impracticable, had swerved southward, avoiding the mountains, and getting to Tarazona in La Mancha, marched towards the passes of the Cabriel River, and the road on to Valencia by way of Requeña. His approach being reported to Blake, who had no troops in this direction save two battalions under Bassecourt, the Captain-General was seized with a natural disquietude as to his rear, for he had no accurate knowledge of the French strength. Wherefore he directed General Freire, with the succours which he had been intending to draw up from Murcia, to abandon the idea of reinforcing the main army, and to throw himself between d’Armagnac and Valencia [November 20]. The French general, beating the country on all sides, and thrusting before him Bassecourt’s small force and the local guerrilleros, marched as far as Yniesta, and forced the passage of the Cabriel at Valdecañas, but finding that he had got far away from Montbrun, who did not march till many days after he himself had started, and being informed that Freire, with a very large force, was coming in upon his rear, he stopped before reaching Requeña and turned back towards La Mancha[53]. He had succeeded, however, in preventing Freire from reinforcing Valencia, and the Murcian succours never got near to Blake. He even for a time distracted troops from the main Spanish army, for Zayas was sent for some days to Requeña, and only returned just in time for the operations that began on December 25th. The net outcome, therefore, of Montbrun’s and d’Armagnac’s operations was simply to distract Freire’s division from Valencia at the critical moment--an appreciable but not a decisive result.

[52] Apparently four or five battalions of the German division gathered from La Mancha, and a brigade of dragoons. Joseph calls it in his _Correspondance_ 3,000 men, when describing this operation (Joseph to Berthier, Nov. 12, 1811).

[53] D’Armagnac’s obscure campaign will be found chronicled in detail in the narrative of the Baden officer, Riegel, iii. pp. 357-60, who shared in it along with the rest of the German division from La Mancha.

Meanwhile Suchet found himself able to deliver his decisive blow on the Guadalaviar. By his orders Severoli and Reille had drawn southward by way of Teruel, deliberately abandoning most of Aragon to the mercy of the insurgent bands; for though Caffarelli had moved some battalions of the Army of the North to Saragossa and the posts along the Ebro, the rest of the province was left most inadequately guarded by the small force that had originally been committed to Musnier’s charge, when first Suchet marched on Valencia. Musnier himself accompanied Severoli’s division, leaving his detachments under Caffarelli’s orders, for he had been directed to come to the front and assume the command of his old brigades, those of Ficatier and Robert, both now with the main army. When Reille and the Italians marched south, Aragon was exposed to the inroads of Montijo, Duran, the Empecinado, and Mina, all of whom had been harried, but by no means crushed, by the late marches and countermarches of the French. That trouble would ensue both Napoleon and Suchet were well aware. But the Emperor had made up his mind that all other considerations were to be postponed to the capture of Valencia and the destruction of Blake’s army. When these ends were achieved, not only Reille and Severoli, but other troops as well, should be drawn northwards, to complete the pacification of Aragon, and to make an end of the lingering war in Catalonia.

Severoli had reached Teruel on November 30, but was ordered to await the junction of Reille’s troops, and these were still far off. Indeed Reille himself only started from Saragossa with Bourke’s brigade on December 10th, and Pannetier’s brigade (which had been hunting Duran in the mountains) was two long marches farther behind. Without waiting for its junction, Severoli and Reille marched from Teruel on December 20th, and reached Segorbe unopposed on the 24th. Here they were in close touch with Suchet, and received orders to make a forced march to join him, as he intended to attack the lines of the Guadalaviar on the 26th. To them was allotted the most important move in the game, for they were to cross the Guadalaviar high up, beyond the westernmost of Blake’s long string of batteries and earthworks, and to turn his flank and get in his rear, while the Army of Aragon assailed his front, and held him nailed to his positions by a series of vigorous attacks. The point on which Reille and Severoli were to march was Ribaroja, fifteen miles up-stream from Valencia.

When the two divisions from Aragon should have arrived, Suchet could count on 33,000 men in line, but as Pannetier was still labouring up two marches in the rear, it was really with 30,000 only that he struck his blow--a force exceeding that which Blake possessed by not more than 6,000 or 7,000 bayonets. Considering the strength of the Spanish fortifications the task looked hazardous: but Suchet was convinced, and rightly, that the greater part of the Army of Valencia was still so much demoralized that much might be dared against it: and the event proved him wise.

On the night of December 25th all the divisions of the Army of Aragon had abandoned their cantonments, and advanced towards the Spanish lines--Habert on the left next the sea; Palombini to the west of Valencia, opposite the village of Mislata; Harispe and Musnier farther up-stream, opposite Quarte. The cavalry accompanied this last column. Reille and Severoli, on their arrival, were to form the extreme right of the line, and would extend far beyond the last Spanish entrenchments. The weak Neapolitan division alone (now not much over 1,000 strong) was to keep quiet, occupying the entrenched position in the suburb of Serranos, which faced the city of Valencia. Its only duty was to hold on to its works, in case Blake should try a sortie at this spot, with the purpose of breaking the French line in two. That such a weak force was left to discharge such an important function, is a sufficient proof of Suchet’s belief in Blake’s incapacity to take the offensive.

The lines which the French were about to assail were rather long than strong, despite of the immense amount of labour that had been lavished on them during the last three months. Their extreme right, on the side of the sea, and by the mouth of the Guadalaviar was a redoubt (named after the Lazaretto hard by) commanding the estuary: from thence a long line of earthworks continued the defences as far as the slight hill of Monte Oliveto, which guarded the right flank of the great entrenched camp of which the city formed the nucleus. Here there was a fort outside the walls, and connected with them by a ditch and a bastioned line of earthworks, reaching as far as the citadel at the north-east corner of the town. From thence the line of resistance for some way was formed of the mediaeval wall of Valencia itself, thirty feet high and ten thick. It was destitute of a parapet broad enough to bear guns: but the Spaniards had built up against its back, at irregular distances, scaffolding of heavy beams, and terraces of earth, on which a certain amount of cannon were mounted. The gates were protected by small advanced works, mounting artillery. Blake had made Valencia and its three outlying southern and western suburbs of Ruzafa, San Vincente, and Quarte into a single place of defence, by building around those suburbs a great line of earthworks and batteries. It was an immense work consisting of bastioned entrenchments provided with a ditch eighteen feet deep, and filled in some sections with water. From the city the line of defence along the river continued as far as the village of Manises, with an unbroken series of earthworks and batteries. The Guadalaviar itself formed an outer obstacle, being a stream running through low and marshy ground, and diverted into many water-cuts for purposes of irrigation.

The continuous line of defences from the sea as far as Manises was about eight miles long. It possessed some outworks on the farther bank of the Guadalaviar, three of the five bridges which lead from Valencia northward having been left standing by Blake, with good _têtes-de-pont_ to protect them from Suchet’s attacks. Thus the Spaniards had the power to debouch on to the French side of the river at any time that they pleased. This fact added difficulties to the projected attack which the Marshal was planning.

The troops behind the lines of the Guadalaviar consisted of some 23,000 regulars, with a certain amount of local urban guards and armed peasantry whose number it is impossible to estimate with any precision--probably they gave some 3,000 muskets more, but their fighting value was almost negligible. The right of the line, near the sea, was entirely made over to these levies of doubtful value. Miranda’s division manned the fort of Monte Oliveto and the whole north front of the city. Lardizabal garrisoned the earthworks from the end of the town wall as far as the village of Mislata. This last place and its works fell to the charge of Zayas. Creagh’s Murcians were on Zayas’s left at Quarte: finally the western wing of the army was formed by the Valencian divisions of Obispo and Villacampa; holding San Onofre and Manises, where the fortifications ended. The whole of the cavalry was placed so as to cover the left rear of the lines, at Aldaya and Torrente. A few battalions of the raw ‘Reserve Division’ were held in the city as a central reserve. The arrangements of Blake seem liable to grave criticism, since he placed his two good and solid divisions, those of Lardizabal and Zayas, in the strongest works in the centre of his line, but entrusted his left flank, where a turning movement by the French might most easily take place, to the demoralized battalions of Villacampa and Obispo, who had a consistent record of rout and disaster behind them. It is clear that lines, however long, can always be turned, unless their ends rest, as did those of Torres Vedras, on an impassable obstacle such as the sea. If the French should refuse to attack the works in front, and should march up the Guadalaviar to far beyond the last battery, it would be impossible to prevent them from crossing, all the more so because, after Manises, the network of canals and water-cuts, which makes the passage difficult in the lower course of the river, comes to an end, and the only obstacle exposed to the invader is a single stream of no great depth. Blake, therefore, should have seen that the critical point was the extreme west end of his lines, and should have placed there his best troops instead of his worst. Moreover he appears to have had no proper system of outposts of either cavalry or infantry along the upper stream, for (as we shall see) the first passage of the French was made not only without opposition, but without any alarm being given. Yet there were 2,000 Spanish cavalry only a few miles away, at Torrente and Aldaya.

Suchet’s plan of attack, which he carried out the moment that Reille joined him, and even before the latter’s rearmost brigade had got up into line, was a very ambitious one, aiming not merely at the forcing of the Guadalaviar or the investment of Valencia, but at the trapping of the whole Spanish army. It was conducted on such a broad front, and with such a dispersion of the forces into isolated columns, that it argued a supreme contempt for Blake and his generalship. Used against such a general as Wellington it would have led to dreadful disaster. But Suchet knew his adversary.

The gist of the plan was the circumventing of the Spanish lines by two columns which, starting one above and the other below Valencia, were to cross the river and join hands to the south of the city. Meanwhile the main front of the works was to be threatened (and if circumstances favoured, attacked) by a very small fraction of the French army. Near the sea Habert’s division was to force the comparatively weak line of works at the estuary, and then to cut the road which runs from Valencia between the Mediterranean and the great lagoon of the Albufera. Far inland the main striking force of the army, composed of the divisions of Harispe and Musnier, with all the cavalry, and with Reille’s three brigades following close behind, was to pass the Guadalaviar at Ribaroja, three or four miles above Manises, and from thence to extend along the south front of the Spanish lines, take them in the rear, and push on so as to get into touch with Habert. Compère’s weak Neapolitan brigade was to block the bridge-heads out of which Blake might make a sally northward. Palombini’s Italians were to press close up to Mislata, which Suchet judged to be the weakest point in the Spanish lines, and to deliver against it an attack which was to be pushed more or less home as circumstances might dictate. The whole force employed (not counting Pannetier’s brigade, which had not yet joined Reille) was just 30,000 men. Of these 25,000 were employed in the flanking movements; less than 5,000 were left to demonstrate against Blake’s front along the lines of the Guadalaviar.

The main and decisive blow was of course to be delivered by Harispe, Musnier, and Reille, who were to cross the river at a point where the Spaniards were unlikely to make any serious opposition, since it was outside their chosen ground of defence, and was clearly watched rather than held. If 20,000 men crossed here, and succeeded in establishing themselves south of Valencia by a rapid march, Blake would find his lines useless, and would be forced to fight in the open, in order to secure a retreat southward, or else to shut himself and his whole force up in the entrenched camp around the city. Suchet could accept either alternative with equanimity: a battle, as he judged, meant a victory, the breaking up of the Spanish army and the capture of Valencia. If, on the other hand, Blake refused to fight a general engagement, and retired within his camp, it would lead to his being surrounded, and the desired end would only be deferred for a few days. There were only two dangers--one was that the Spanish general might abscond southward with the bulk of his army, without fighting, the moment that he heard that his enemy was across the Guadalaviar. The second was that, waiting till the French main body was committed to its flank march, he might break out northward by the three bridges in his hands, overwhelm the Neapolitans, and escape towards Liria and Segorbe into the mountains. Suchet judged that his enemy would try neither of these courses; he would not be timid enough to retreat on the instant that he learnt that his left wing was beginning to be turned; nor would he be resourceful enough to strike away northward, as soon as he saw that the turning movement was formidable and certain of success. Herein Suchet judged aright.

At nightfall on the 25th-26th of December two hundred hussars, each carrying a voltigeur behind him, forded the Guadalaviar at Ribaroja, and threw out a chain of posts which brushed off a few Spanish cavalry vedettes. The moment that the farther bank was clear, the whole force of Suchet’s engineers set to work to build two trestle-bridges for infantry, and to lay a solid pontoon bridge higher up for guns and cavalry. A few hours later Harispe’s division began to pass--then Musnier’s, lastly Boussard’s cavalry. The defile took a long time, and even by dawn Reille’s three brigades had not arrived or begun to pass. But by that time ten thousand French were over the river. The Spanish vedettes had reported, both to their cavalry generals at Aldaya and to Blake at Valencia, that the enemy was busy at Ribaroja, but had not been able to judge of his force, or to make out that he was constructing bridges. Their commanders resolved that nothing could be done in the dark, and that the morning light would determine the character of the movement[54].

[54] So Suchet’s narrative (_Mémoires_, ii. pp. 214-15). Belmas says that only one bridge was finished when Harispe and Musnier passed--the others after dawn only.

The late December sun soon showed the situation. Harispe’s division was marching on Torrente, to cut the high-road to Murcia. The cavalry and one brigade of Musnier were preparing to follow: the other brigade of the second division (Robert’s) was standing fast by the bridges, to cover them till Reille should appear and cross. But while this was the most weighty news brought to Blake, he was distracted by intelligence from two other quarters. Habert was clearly seen coming down by the seaside, to attack at the estuary; and Palombini was also approaching in the centre, in front of Mislata. The daylight was the signal for the commencement of skirmishing on each of the three far-separated points. Blake, strange as it may appear, made up his mind at first that the real danger lay on the side next the sea, and that Habert’s column was the main striking force[55]. But when it became clear that this wing of the French army was not very strong, and was coming on slowly, he turned his attention to Palombini, whose attack on Mislata was made early, and was conducted in a vigorous style. It was to this point that he finally rode out from the city, and he took up his position behind Zayas, entirely neglecting the turning movement on his left--apparently because it was out of sight, and he could not make the right deduction from the reports which his cavalry had brought him.

[55] For Blake’s opinions and actions see the record of his staff-officer, Schepeler (pp. 502-3).

Meanwhile Harispe’s column, pushing forward with the object of reaching the high-road from Valencia to Murcia, the natural route for Blake’s army to take, if it should attempt to escape southward, ran into the main body of the Spanish horse, which was assembling in the neighbourhood of the village of Aldaya. The French infantry were preceded by a squadron of hussars, who were accompanied by General Boussard, the commander of Suchet’s cavalry division. This small force was suddenly encompassed and cut up by several regiments of Martin Carrera’s brigade. Boussard was overthrown and left for dead--his sword and decorations were stripped from his body. But more French squadrons began to come up, and Harispe’s infantry opened fire on the Spaniards, who were soon forced to retire hurriedly--they rode off southward towards the Xucar river. They were soon completely out of touch with the rest of Blake’s army.

Harispe’s column then continued its way, sweeping eastward towards the Murcian _chaussée_ in the manner that Suchet had designed; but the rest of the operations of the French right wing were not so decisive as its commander had hoped. Mahy, learning of the movement of the encircling column, and seeing Robert’s brigade massed opposite the extreme flank of his position at Manises, while some notice of Reille’s near approach also came to hand, suddenly resolved that he would not be surrounded, and abandoned all his lines before they were seriously attacked. He had the choice of directing Villacampa and Obispo to retire towards Valencia and join Blake for a serious battle in the open, or of bidding them strike off southward and eastward, and escape towards the Xucar, abandoning the main body of the army. He chose the second alternative, and marched off parallel with Harispe’s threatening column, directing each brigade to get away as best it could. His force at once broke up into several fractions, for the cross-roads were many and perplexing. Some regiments reached the Murcian _chaussée_ before Harispe, and escaped in front of him, pursued by the French cavalry. Others, coming too late, were forced to forgo this obvious line of retreat, and to struggle still farther eastward, only turning south when they got to the marshy borders of the lagoon of Albufera. Obispo, with 2,000 of his men, was so closely hunted by the hostile cavalry that he barely found safety by striking along the narrow strip of soft ground between the lagoon and the sea. On the morning of the 27th he struggled through to Cullera near the mouth of the Xucar: Mahy, with the greater part of Villacampa’s division and some of Obispo’s and Creagh’s, arrived somewhat earlier at Alcira, higher up the same stream, where he found the fugitive cavalry already established. The divisions were much disorganized, but they had lost very few killed or wounded, and not more than 500 prisoners. Mahy rallied some 4,000 or 5,000 men at Alcira, and Obispo a couple of thousand at Cullera, but they were a ‘spent force,’ not fit for action. Many of the raw troops had disbanded themselves and gone home.

[Illustration: VALENCIA The Siege (Dec 1811-Jan 1812)]

Thus three-sevenths of Blake’s army were separated from Valencia and their Commander-in-Chief without having made any appreciable resistance. But it seems doubtful whether Mahy should be blamed--if he had waited an hour longer in his positions his whole corps might have been captured. If he had retired towards Valencia he would have been, in all probability, forced to surrender with the rest of the army a few days later. And in separating himself from his chief he had the excuse that he knew that Blake’s intention had been to retire towards the Xucar if beaten, not to shut himself up in Valencia. He may have expected that the rest of the army would follow him southward, and Blake (as we shall see) probably had the chance of executing that movement, though he did not seize it.

Meanwhile the progress of the engagement in other quarters must be detailed. Palombini made a serious attempt to break through the left centre of the Spanish lines at Mislata. His task was hard, not so much because of the entrenchments, or of the difficulty of crossing the Guadalaviar, which was fordable for infantry, but from the many muddy canals and water-cuts with which the ground in front of him abounded. These, though not impassable for infantry, prevented guns from getting to the front till bridges should have been made for them. The Italians waded through the first canal, and then through the river, but were brought to a stand by the second canal, that of Fabara, behind which the Spanish entrenchments lay. After a furious fire-contest they had to retire as far as the river, under whose bank many sought refuge--some plunged in and waded back to the farther side. Palombini rallied them and delivered a second attack; but at only one point, to the left of Mislata, did the assault break into the Spanish line. Zayas, aided by a battalion or two which Mahy had sent up from Quarte, vindicated his position, and repulsed the attack with heavy loss. But when the news came from the left that Harispe had turned the lines, and when Mahy’s troops were seen evacuating all their positions and hurrying off, Zayas found himself with his left flank completely exposed.

Blake made some attempt to form a line _en potence_ to Zayas’s entrenchments, directing two or three of Creagh’s battalions from Quarte and some of his reserve from the city to make a stand at the village of Chirivella. But the front was never formed--attacked by some of Musnier’s troops these detachments broke up, Creagh’s men flying to follow Mahy, and the others retiring to the entrenched camp.

Thereupon Blake ordered Zayas and Lardizabal, who lay to his right, to retreat into Valencia before they should be turned by the approaching French. The movement was accomplished in order and at leisure, and all the guns in and about the Mislata entrenchments were brought away. Palombini had been too hardly handled to attempt to pursue.

The General-in-Chief seemed stunned by the suddenness of the disaster. ‘He looked like a man of stone,’ says Schepeler, who rode at his side, ‘when any observation was made to him he made no reply, and he could come to no decision. He would not allow Zayas to fight, and when a colonel (the author of this work) suggested at the commencement of the retreat that it would be well to burn certain houses which lay dangerously close to the entrenched camp, he kept silence. Whereupon Zayas observed in bitter rage to this officer: “Truly you are dull, my German friend; do you not see that you cannot wake the man up?”’ According to the narratives of several contemporaries there would still have been time at this moment to direct the retreating column southward and escape, as Obispo did, along the Albufera. For Habert (as we shall see) had been much slower than Harispe in his turning movement by the side of the Mediterranean. Some, among them Schepeler, suggest that the whole garrison might have broken out by the northern bridges and got away. For Palombini was not in a condition to hinder them, and the Neapolitans in front of the bridge-heads were but a handful of 1,200 men. But the General, still apparently unconscious of what was going on about him, drew back into the entrenched camp, and did no more.

Habert, meanwhile, finally completed his movement, and joined hands with Harispe at last. His lateness was to be accounted for not by the strength of the opposition made by the irregular troops in front of him, but by the fact that his advance had been much hindered by the fire of the flotilla lying off the mouth of the Guadalaviar. Here there was a swarm of gunboats supported by a British 74 and a frigate. Habert would not commence his passage till he had driven them away, by placing a battery of sixteen siege-guns on the shore near the Grao. After much firing the squadron sheered off[56], and about midday the French division crossed the Guadalaviar, partly by fording, partly on a hastily constructed bridge, and attacked the line of scattered works defended by irregulars which lay behind. The Spaniards were successively evicted from all of them, as far as the fort of Monte Oliveto. Miranda’s division kept within the entrenched camp, and gave no assistance to the bands without; but it was late afternoon before Habert had accomplished his task, and finally got into touch with Harispe.

[56] Napier says (iv. p. 30) that the gunboats fled without firing a shot. Suchet and Schepeler speak of much firing, as does Arteche.

Blake was thus shut up in Valencia with the divisions of Miranda, Zayas, and Lardizabal, and what was left of his raw reserve battalions: altogether some 17,000 fighting-men remained with him. The loss in actual fighting had been very small--about 500 killed and wounded and as many prisoners. The French captured a good many guns in the evacuated works and a single standard. Suchet returned his total casualties at 521 officers and men, of whom no less than 50 killed and 355 wounded were among Palombini’s Italians--the only corps which can be said to have done any serious fighting[57]. The Marshal’s strategical combination would have been successful almost without bloodshed, if only Palombini had not pressed his attack so hard, and with so little necessity. But the Spanish army, which was drawn out on a long front of nine miles, without any appreciable central reserve, and with no protection for its exposed flank, was doomed to ruin the moment that the enemy appeared in overwhelming force, beyond and behind its extreme left wing. Blake’s only chance was to have watched every ford with great vigilance, and to have had a strong flying column of his best troops ready in some central position, from which it could be moved out to dispute Suchet’s passage without a moment’s delay. Far from doing this, he tied down his two veteran divisions to the defence of the strongest part of his lines, watched the fords with nothing but cavalry vedettes, and kept no central reserve at all, save 2,000 or 3,000 men of his untrustworthy ‘Reserve Division.’ In face of these dispositions the French were almost bound to be successful. A disaster was inevitable, but Blake might have made it somewhat less ruinous if he had recognized his real position promptly, and had ordered a general retreat, when Harispe’s successful turning movement became evident. In this case he would have lost Valencia, but not his army.

[57] No less than three of the Italian colonels were hit, and thirty-four officers in all.

As it was, a week more saw the miserable end of the campaign. Suchet’s first precaution was to ascertain whether there was any danger from the fraction of the Spanish army which Mahy and Obispo had carried off. He was uncertain how strong they were, and whether they were prepared to attack him in the rear, supposing that he should sit down to the siege of Valencia. Accordingly he sent out at dawn on the 26th December two light columns of cavalry and voltigeurs against Alcira and Cullera, whither he knew that the refugees had retired. These two reconnaissances in force discovered the enemy in position, but the moment that they were descried Mahy retreated towards Alcoy, and Obispo towards Alicante--both in such haste and disorder that it was evident that they had no fighting spirit left in them.

Suchet, therefore, was soon relieved of any fear of danger from this side, and could make his arrangements for the siege. He sent back to the north bank of the Guadalaviar the whole division of Musnier, which was there joined three days later by Reille’s belated brigade, that of Pannetier. Harispe, Habert, Severoli, and Reille’s other French brigade (that of Bourke) formed the investment on the southern bank. Palombini lay astride of the river near Mislata, with one brigade on each bank. The whole force of 33,000 men was sufficient for the task before it. The decisive blow would have to be given by the siege artillery; the whole train which had captured Saguntum had long been ready for its work. And it had before it not regular fortifications of modern type, but, in part of the circumference of Blake’s position, mediaeval walls not built to resist artillery, in the rest the ditch and bank of the entrenched camp, which, though strong as a field-work, could not be considered capable of resisting a formal attack by a strong siege-train.

Blake was as well aware of this as Suchet, and he also knew (what Suchet could not) that the population of 100,000 souls under his charge had only 10 days’ provision of flour and 19 or 20 of rice and salt fish. The city, like the army, had been living on daily convoys from the south, and had no great central reserves of food. If he should sit down, like Palafox at Saragossa, to make an obstinate defence behind improvised works, he would be on the edge of starvation in less than three weeks. But such a defence was impossible in face of the spirit of the people, who looked upon Blake as the author of all their woes, regarded him as a tyrant as well as an imbecile, and were as likely to rise against him as to turn their energies to resisting the French. Palafox at Saragossa accomplished what he did because the spirit of the citizens was with him: Blake was despised as well as detested.

When he recovered his composure he called a council of war, which voted almost unanimously[58] that the city was indefensible, and that the army must try to cut its way out on the north side of the Guadalaviar. If the sally had been made on the 27th it might have succeeded, for it was not till late on that day that Suchet’s arrangements for the blockade of the north bank were complete. But the investing line had been linked up by the night of the 28th-29th, when Blake made his last stroke for safety. At six in the evening the field army issued from the gate of St. José and began to cross the bridge opposite it, the westernmost of the three of which the Spaniards were in possession. This led not to the great _chaussée_ to Saguntum and Tortosa, which was known to have been cut and entrenched by the enemy, but to the by-road to Liria and the mountains. Lardizabal headed the march, Zayas followed, escorting the artillery and a considerable train, Miranda brought up the rear. Charles O’Donnell was left to man the walls with the urban guards and the ‘Reserve Division,’ and was given permission to capitulate whenever he should be attacked.

[58] Only Miranda voted against a sortie, and thought that nothing could be done, except to hold out for a while in the walls and then surrender. Arteche, xi. p. 241.

Lardizabal’s vanguard, under a Colonel Michelena, swerved from the Liria road soon after passing the Guadalaviar, in order to avoid French posts, and successfully got as far as the canal of Mestalla before it was discovered or checked. The canal was too broad to be passed by means of some beams and planks which had been brought up. But Michelena got his men across, partly by fording and partly over a mill-dam, and presently got to the village of Burjasort, where the artillery of Palombini’s division were quartered. These troops, surprised in the dark, could not stop him, and he pushed on through them and escaped to the hills with his little force--one squadron, one battalion, and some companies of Cazadores--some 500 or 600 men[59]. Lardizabal, who should have followed him without delay, halted at the canal, trying to build a bridge, till the French all along the line were alarmed by the firing at Burjasort and began to press in upon him. He opened fire instead of pushing on at all costs, and presently found himself opposed by forces of growing strength. Blake thereupon made up his mind that the sally had failed, and gave orders for the whole column to turn back and re-enter Valencia. It seems probable that at least a great part of the army might have got away, if an attempt had been made to push on in Michelena’s wake, for the blockading line was thin here, and only one French regiment seems to have been engaged in checking Lardizabal’s exit.

[59] Not 5,000 as Napier (probably by a misprint) says on page 31 of his 4th vol. Apparently a misprint in the original edition has been copied in all the later fourteen!

Be this as it may, the sortie had failed, and Blake was faced by complete ruin, being driven back with a disheartened army into a city incapable of defence against a regular siege, and short of provisions. Next morning the despair of the garrison was shown by the arrival of many deserters in the French camp. The inevitable end was delayed for only eleven days more. On January 1, most of the siege-guns having been brought across the Guadalaviar, Suchet opened trenches against two fronts of the entrenched camp, the fort of Monte Oliveto and the southern point of the suburb of San Vincente, both salient angles capable of being battered from both flanks. Seven batteries were built opposite them by January 4th, and the advanced works in front were pushed up to within fifty yards of the Spanish works. Thereupon Blake, before the siege-guns had actually opened, abandoned the whole of his entrenched camp on the next day, without any attempt at defence. The French discovering the evacuation, entered, and found eighty-one guns spiked in the batteries, and a considerable quantity of munitions.

Blake was now shut up in the narrow space of the city, whose walls were very unsuited for defence, and were easily approachable in many places under shelter of houses left undemolished, which gave cover only fifty yards from the ramparts. For no attempt had been made to clear a free space round the inner _enceinte_, in case the outer circuit of the camp should be lost. While fresh batteries were being built in the newly-captured ground, to breach the city wall, Suchet set all the mortars in his original works to throw bombs into Valencia. He gathered that the population was demoralized and probably the garrison also, and thought that a general bombardment of the place might bring about a surrender without further trouble. About a thousand shells were dropped into the city within twenty-four hours, and Suchet then (January 6th) sent a _parlementaire_ to invite Blake to capitulate. The Captain-General replied magniloquently that ‘although yesterday morning he might have consented to treat for terms allowing his army to quit Valencia, in order to spare the inhabitants the horrors of a bombardment, now, after a day’s firing, he had learnt that he could rely on the magnanimity and resignation of the people. The Marshal might continue his operations if he pleased, and would bear the responsibility for so maltreating the place.’

As a matter of fact the bombardment had been very effective, numerous non-combatants had perished, and the spirit of the population was broken. Many openly pressed for a surrender, and only a few fanatical monks went round the streets exhorting the citizens to resistance. The bombardment continued on the 7th and 8th, and at the same time Suchet pushed approaches close to the walls, and in several places set his miners to work to tunnel under them. Actual assault was never necessary, for on the 8th Blake held a council of war, which voted for entering into negotiation with the enemy. The report of this meeting sets forth that ‘it had taken into consideration the sufferings of the people under these days of bombardment; the cry of the populace was that an end must be put to its misery; it was impossible to prolong the defence with any profit, without exposing the city to the horrors of an assault, in which the besiegers would probably succeed, considering the depressed condition of the garrison, and the feebleness of the walls. The citizens had not only failed to aid in the defence and to second the efforts of the regular troops, but were panic-stricken and demanded a surrender. The army itself did not seem disposed to do its duty, and after hearing the evidence of the commanders of different corps, the council decided in favour of negotiating to get honourable terms. If these were refused it might be necessary to continue a hopeless defence and die honourably among the ruins of Valencia[60].

[60] See the long _procès verbal_ of the Council’s proceedings translated in Belmas, iv. pp. 203-6.

It is probable that Blake would really have accepted any terms offered him as ‘honourable,’ for he assented to all that Suchet dictated to him. A feeble attempt to stipulate for a free departure for the field army, on condition that the city and all its armaments and resources were handed over intact, met with the curt refusal that it deserved. A simple capitulation with the honours of war was granted: one clause, however, was looked upon by Blake as somewhat of a concession, though it really was entirely to Suchet’s benefit. He offered to grant an exchange to so many of the garrison as should be equivalent man for man, to French prisoners from the dépôts in Majorca and Cabrera, where the unfortunate remnants of Dupont’s army were still in confinement. As this was not conceded by the Spanish government, the clause had no real effect in mitigating the fate of Blake’s army[61]. Other clauses in the capitulation declared that private property should be respected, and that no inquiry should be made after the surrender into the past conduct of persons who had taken an active part in the revolution of 1808, or the subsequent defence of the kingdom of Valencia: also that such civilians as chose might have three months in which to transport themselves, their families, and their goods to such destination as they pleased. These clauses, as we shall see, were violated by Suchet with the most shocking callousness and shameless want of respect for his written word.

[61] The proposal of exchange came first to Mahy at Alicante; he called a council of generals, which resolved that the release of so many French would profit Suchet overmuch, because many of them had been imprisoned at Alicante and Cartagena, and had worked on the fortifications there. They could give the Marshal valuable information, which he had better be denied. The proposal must therefore be sent on to the Regency at Cadiz. That government, after much debate, refused to ratify the proposal, considering it more profitable to the enemy than to themselves.

On January 9 the citadel and the gate adjacent were handed over to the French; Blake (at his own request) was sent away straight to France, and did not remain to take part in the formal surrender of his troops and of the city. It would seem that he could not face the rage of the Valencians, and was only anxious to avoid even twenty-four hours of sojourn among them after the disaster. Napoleon affected to regard him as a traitor, though he had never done even a moment’s homage to Joseph Bonaparte in 1808, and shut him up in close captivity in the donjon of Vincennes, where he remained very uncomfortably lodged till the events of April 1814 set him free[62].

[62] Some notes about his captivity may be found in the _Mémoires_ of Baron Kolli, the would-be deliverer of King Ferdinand, who was shut up in another tower of the castle.

The total number of prisoners yielded up by Valencia was 16,270 regular troops, of whom some 1,500 were sick or wounded in the hospitals. The urban guards and armed peasants, who were supposed to be civilians covered by the amnesty article in the capitulation, are not counted in the total. The regulars marched out of the Serranos gate on January 10, and after laying down their arms and colours were sent prisoners to France, marching in two columns, under the escort of Pannetier’s brigade, to Saragossa. Twenty-one colours and no less than 374 cannon (mostly heavy guns in the defences) were given over, as also a very large store of ammunition and military effects, but very little food, which was already beginning to fail in the city when Blake surrendered.

To prevent unlicensed plunder Suchet did not allow his own troops to enter Valencia till January 14th, giving the civil authorities four days in which to make preparations for the coming in of the new régime. He was better received than might have been expected--apparently Blake’s maladroit dictatorship had thoroughly disgusted the people. Many of the magistrates bowed to the conqueror and took the oath of homage to King Joseph, and the aged archbishop emerged from the village where he had hidden himself for some time, and ‘showed himself animated by an excellent spirit’ according to the Marshal’s dispatch.

This prompt and tame submission did not save Valencia from dreadful treatment at the victor’s hands. Not only did he levy on the city and district a vast fine of 53,000,000 francs (over £2,120,000), of which 3,000,000 were sent to Madrid and the rest devoted to the profit of the Army of Aragon, but he proceeded to carry out a series of atrocities, which have been so little spoken of by historians that it would be difficult to credit them, if they were not avowed with pride in his own dispatches to Berthier and Napoleon.

The second article of Blake’s capitulation, already cited above, had granted a complete amnesty for past actions on the part of the Valencians--‘Il ne sera fait aucune recherche pour le passé contre ceux qui auraient pris une part active à la guerre ou à la révolution,’ to quote the exact term. In his dispatch of January 12 to Berthier, Suchet is shameless enough to write: ‘I have disarmed the local militia: all guilty chiefs will be arrested, and all assassins punished; _for in consenting to Article II of the Capitulation my only aim was to get the matter over quickly_[63].’ ‘Guilty chiefs’ turned out to mean all civilians who had taken a prominent part in the defence of Valencia: ‘assassins’ was interpreted to cover guerrilleros of all sorts, not (as might perhaps have been expected) merely those persons who had taken part in the bloody riots against the French commercial community in 1808[64]. In his second dispatch of January 17 Suchet proceeds to explain that he has arrested 480 persons as ‘suspects,’ that a large number of guerrillero leaders have been found among them, who have been sent to the citadel and have been already shot, or will be in a few days. He has also arrested every monk in Valencia; 500 have been sent prisoners to France: five of the most guilty, convicted of having carried round the streets a so-called ‘banner of the faith,’ and of having preached against capitulation, and excited the people to resistance, have been already executed. Inquiries were still in progress. They resulted in the shooting of two more friars[65]. But the most astonishing clause in the dispatch is that ‘all those who took part in the murders of the French [in 1808] will be sought out and punished. Already _six hundred_ have been executed by the firmness of the Spanish judge Marescot, whom I am expecting soon to meet[66].’ It was a trifling addition to the catalogue of Suchet’s doings that 350 students of the university, who had volunteered to aid the regular artillery during the late siege, had all been arrested and sent off to France like the monks. Two hundred sick or footsore prisoners who straggled from the marching column directed on Teruel and Saragossa are said to have been shot by the wayside[67]. It is probable that innumerable prisoners were put to death in cold blood after the capitulation of Valencia, in spite of Suchet’s guarantee that ‘no research should be made as to the past.’ Of this Napier says no word[68], though he quotes other parts of Suchet’s dispatches, and praises him for his ‘vigorous and prudent’ conduct, and his ‘care not to offend the citizens by violating their customs or shocking their religious feelings.’

[63] See the dispatches printed in full in Belmas, Appendix, vol. iv, pp. 218-20, and 226-7 of his great work.

[64] For which see vol. i. p. 68.

[65] The names of all seven friars are given by Toreno and Schepeler.

[66] Can the frightful figure of 600 be a mistake for 60?

[67] See Toreno, iii. p. 28.

[68] See his pages, iv. 33.

SECTION XXX: