CHAPTER I

CATALONIA AND ARAGON

The chronicle of the obstinate and heroic defence made by the Catalans, even after the falls of Tarragona and Figueras had seemed to make all further resistance hopeless, was carried in the last volume of this work down to October 28, 1811, when Marshal Macdonald, like St. Cyr and Augereau, was recalled to Paris, having added no more to his reputation than had his predecessors while in charge of this mountainous principality. We have seen how General Lacy, hoping against hope, rallied the last remnants of the old Catalan army, and recommenced (just as Macdonald was departing) a series of small enterprises against the scattered French garrisons. He had won several petty successes in evicting the enemy from Cervera, Igualada, and Belpuig--the small strongholds which covered the main line of communication east and west, through the centre of the land, between Lerida and Barcelona. The enemy had even been forced to evacuate the holy mountain of Montserrat, the strongest post on the whole line.

Hence when, in November, General Decaen arrived to take over Macdonald’s task, he found before him a task not without serious difficulties, though the actual force of Spaniards in the field was far less than it had been before the disasters at Tarragona and Figueras. Lacy had a very small field army--he had reorganized 8,000 men by October, and all through his command the total did not grow very much greater. When he handed over his office to Copons fifteen months after, there were no more than 14,000 men under arms, including cadres and recruits. On the other hand he had a central position, a free range east and west, now that the line of French posts across Catalonia had been broken, and several points of more or less safe access to the sea. Munitions and stores, and occasionally very small reinforcements from the Balearic Isles, were still brought over by the British squadron which ranged along the coast. Some of the officers, especially the much tried and never-despairing Eroles, and the indefatigable Manso, were thoroughly to be relied upon, and commanded great local popularity. This Lacy himself did not possess--he was obeyed because of his stern resolve, but much disliked for his autocratic and dictatorial ways, which kept him in constant friction with the Junta that sat at Berga. Moreover he was a stranger, while the Catalans disliked all leaders who were not of their own blood: and he was strongly convinced that the brunt of the fighting must be borne by the regular troops, while the popular voice was all in favour of the _somatenes_ and guerrilleros, and against the enforcement of conscription. Much was to be said on either side: the warfare of the irregulars was very harassing to the French, and had led to many petty successes, and one great one--the capture of Figueras. On the other hand these levies were irresponsible and untrustworthy when any definite operation was in hand: they might, or they might not, turn up in force when they were required: the frank disregard of their chiefs for punctuality or obedience drove to wild rage any officer who had served in the old army. With regular troops it was possible to calculate that a force would be where it was wanted to be at a given time, and would at least attempt to carry out its orders: with the _somatenes_ it was always possible, nay probable, that some petty quarrel of rival chiefs, or some rival attraction of an unforeseen sort, would lead to non-appearance. To this there was the easy reply that ever since Blake first tried to make the Catalans work ‘_militarmente_ and not _paisanmente_’ the regular army for some two years had never gained a single battle, nor relieved a single fortress[84]. The best plan would probably have been to attempt to combine the two systems: it was absolutely necessary to have a nucleus of regular troops, but unwise to act like Blake and Lacy, who tried to break up and discourage the _somatenes_, in order that they might be forced into the battalions of the standing army. The constant series of defeats on record had been caused rather by the unskilful and over-ambitious operations of the generals than by their insisting on keeping up the regular troops, who had behaved well enough on many occasions. But too much had been asked of them when, half-trained and badly led, they were brought into collision with the veterans of France, without the superiority of numbers which alone could make up for their military faults.

[84] See notes on discussions of this sort in Sir Edward Codrington’s _Memoirs_, i. pp. 264 and 277. He had seen much of the evils of both kinds of organization, and leaned on the whole to the irregulars, from a personal dislike for Lacy.

Since the capture of Cervera, Belpuig, and Igualada in October, the territories held by the French in Catalonia fell into two separate and divided sections. On the western side, adjacent to Aragon, Frère’s division, left behind by Suchet, garrisoned Lerida, Tarragona, and Tortosa: though it was a powerful force of over 7,000 men, it could do little more than occupy these three large places, each requiring several battalions. At the best it could only furnish very small flying columns to keep up the communication between them. It was hard to maintain touch with the other group of French fortresses, along the sea-coast road from Tarragona to Barcelona, which were often obsessed by Spanish bands, and always liable to be molested by Edward Codrington’s British ships, which sailed up and down the shore looking for detachments or convoys to shell. The fort of the Col de Balaguer, twenty miles north of Tortosa, was the look-out point towards Tarragona and the sole French outpost in that direction.

In eastern Catalonia the newly-arrived commander, General Decaen (a veteran whose last work had been the hopeless defence of Bourbon and Mauritius, where he had capitulated in 1810), had some 24,000 men in hand. But he was much hampered by the necessity for holding and feeding the immense Barcelona, a turbulent city which absorbed a whole division for its garrison. It was constantly on the edge of starvation, and was only revictualled with great trouble by vessels sailing from the ports of Languedoc, of which more than half were habitually captured by the British, or by heavy convoys labouring across the hills from Gerona, which were always harassed, and sometimes taken wholesale, by the Spanish detachments told off by Lacy for this end. Gerona and Figueras, both fortresses of considerable size, absorbed several battalions each. Smaller garrisons had also to be kept in Rosas, Hostalrich, Mataro, and Montlouis, and there were many other fortified posts which guarded roads or passes, and were worth holding. It was with difficulty that 6,000 or 8,000 men could be collected for a movable field-force, even by borrowing detachments from the garrisons. An additional nuisance cropped up just as Decaen took over the command: Lacy, seeing that the Pyrenean passes were thinly manned, sent Eroles with 3,000 men to raid the valleys of Cerdagne on the French side of the hills. The invaders beat two battalions of national guards near Puigcerda, and swept far down the valley (October 29-November 2), returning with thousands of sheep and cattle and a large money contribution levied from the villages. This raid (which enraged Napoleon[85]) made it necessary to guard the Pyrenees better, and to send up more national guards from the frontier departments.

[85] Who called the raid an ‘insult’--Napoleon to Berthier, Paris, Feb. 29, 1812, and compare letter of March 8.

Thus it came to pass that though Lacy had no more than 8,000 men available, and no fortress of any strength to serve as his base (Cardona and Seu d’Urgel, his sole strongholds, were mediaeval strongholds with no modern works), he paralysed the French force which, between Lerida and Figueras, could show more than three times that strength. Such was the value of the central position, and the resolute hatred of the countryside for its oppressors. Catalonia could only be held down by garrisoning every village--and if the army of occupation split itself up into garrisons it was helpless. Hence, during the winter of 1811-12 and the spring and summer of the following year, it may be said that the initiative lay with the Catalans, and that the enemy (despite of his immensely superior numbers) was on the defensive. The helplessness of the French was sufficiently shown by the fact that from June to December 1811 Barcelona was completely cut off from communication with Gerona and France. It was only in the latter month that Decaen, hearing that the place was on the edge of starvation, marched with the bulk of Lamarque’s division from Upper Catalonia to introduce a convoy; while Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, came out with 3,000 men of the garrison to meet him, as far as Cardadeu. Lacy, determined that nothing short of a vigorous push by the enemy should make their junction possible, and relieve Barcelona, offered opposition in the defile of the Trentapassos, where Vives had tried to stop St. Cyr two years back, showing a front both to Decaen and to Mathieu. But on recognizing the very superior numbers of the enemy he wisely withdrew, or he would have been caught between the two French columns. Decaen therefore was able to enter Barcelona with his immense convoy. [December 3rd-4th, 1811.] The Spaniards retreated into the inland; their headquarters on the first day of the New Year were at Vich.

There being no further profit in pressing Barcelona for the time being, Lacy, in January, resolved to turn his attention to the much weaker garrison of Tarragona, which belonged to Frère’s division and Suchet’s army, and was not under Decaen’s immediate charge. Its communications with Lerida and Tortosa were hazardous, and its stores were running low. The Spanish general therefore (about January 2) sent down Eroles’s division to Reus, a few miles inland from Tarragona, with orders to cut all the roads leading into that fortress. The place was already in a parlous condition for want of food, and its governor had sent representations to Suchet that he was in need of instant succour. Therefore the moment that Valencia fell, the Marshal directed Musnier, whose division he had told off to hold the sea-coast between the Ebro and Guadalaviar, to march with the bulk of his men to Tortosa, to pick up what reinforcements he could from its garrison, and to open the road from thence to Tarragona.

Lafosse, the governor of Tortosa, was so impressed with the danger of his colleague in Tarragona, that he marched ahead along the coast-road before Musnier arrived, and reached the Col de Balaguer with a battalion of the 121st regiment and one troop of dragoons on January 18. Here he should have waited for the main column, but receiving false news that Eroles had left Reus and returned to the north, he resolved to push on ahead and clear the way for Musnier, believing that nothing but local _somatenes_ were in front of him. He had reached Villaseca, only seven miles from Tarragona, when he was suddenly surprised by Eroles descending on his flank with over 3,000 men. He himself galloped on with the dragoons towards Tarragona, and escaped, with only twenty-two men, into the fortress. But his battalion, after barricading itself in Villaseca village and making a good resistance for some hours, was forced to surrender. Eroles took nearly 600 prisoners, and over 200 French had fallen. Lafosse, sallying from Tarragona with all that could be spared from the garrison, arrived too late to help his men, and had to return in haste [January 19][86].

[86] There is an interesting account of the combat of Villaseca in Codrington’s _Memoirs_, i. pp. 254-6: he was present, having chanced to come on shore to confer with Eroles as to co-operation against Tarragona. An odd episode of the affair was that, when the French surrendered, they were found to have with them as prisoners Captains Flinn and Pringle, R.N., whom they had surprised landing at Cape Salou on the previous day.

Tarragona now seemed in imminent danger, and both Musnier at Tortosa and Maurice Mathieu at Barcelona saw that they must do their best to relieve the place, or it would be starved out. Musnier spent so much time in organizing a convoy that he was late, and the actual opening of the road was carried out by the governor of Barcelona. That great city chanced to be crammed with troops at the moment, since Lamarque’s division, which had escorted the December convoy, was still lying within its walls. Maurice Mathieu, therefore, was able to collect 8,000 men for the march on Tarragona. Eroles, unfortunately for himself, was not aware of this, and believing that the enemy was a mere sally of the Barcelona garrison, offered them battle at Altafulla on January 24. The French had marched by night, and a fog chanced to prevent the Catalans from recognizing the strength of the two columns that were approaching them. Eroles found himself committed to a close fight with double his own numbers, and after a creditable resistance was routed, losing his only two guns and the rearguard with which he tried to detain the enemy. His troops only escaped by breaking up and flying over the hills, in what a French eye-witness described as _un sauve-qui-peut général_. About 600 of them in all were slain or taken: the rest assembled at Igualada three days later. Eroles blamed Lacy and Sarsfield for his disaster, asserting that the Captain-General had promised to send the division of the latter to his help. But his anger appears to have been misplaced, for at this very time Decaen, to make a division in favour of Maurice Mathieu’s movement, had sent out two columns from Gerona and Figueras into Upper Catalonia. They occupied Vich, Lacy’s recent head-quarters, on January 22, two days before the combat of Altafulla, and Sarsfield’s troops were naturally sent to oppose them. After wasting the upper valleys, Decaen drew back to Gerona and Olot on the 29th, having sufficiently achieved his purpose. Tarragona, meanwhile, was thoroughly revictualled by Musnier, who brought up a large convoy from Tortosa. Reinforcements were also thrown into the place, and a new governor, General Bertoletti, who was to distinguish himself by a spirited defence in the following year.

In February the whole situation of affairs in Aragon and western Catalonia (eastern Catalonia was less affected), was much modified by the return from the south of the numerous troops which had been lent to Suchet for his Valencian expedition. It will be remembered that Napoleon had ordered that Reille should march back to the Ebro with his own and Severoli’s divisions, and that shortly afterwards he directed that Palombini’s division should follow the other two into Aragon. Thus a very large body of troops was once more available for the subjection of Aragon and western Catalonia, which, since Reille’s departure in December, had been very inadequately garrisoned by Caffarelli’s and Frère’s battalions, and had been overrun in many districts by the bands of the Empecinado, Duran, Mina, and the Conde de Montijo. Napoleon’s new plan was to rearrange the whole of the troops in eastern Spain.

[Illustration: CATALONIA]

Reille was to be the chief of a new ‘Army of the Ebro,’ composed of four field divisions--his own, Palombini’s and Severoli’s Italians, and a new composite one under General Ferino constructed from so many of Frère’s troops as could be spared from garrison duty (seven battalions of the 14th and 115th of the line), and six more battalions (1st Léger and 5th of the line) taken half from Musnier’s division of Suchet’s army and half from Maurice Mathieu’s Barcelona garrison[87]. This last division never came into existence, as Suchet and Maurice Mathieu both found themselves too weak to give up the requisitioned regiments, which remained embodied respectively with the Valencian and Catalan armies. Nevertheless Reille had more than 20,000 men actually in hand, not including the fixed garrisons of Tarragona, Lerida, and the other fortresses on the borders of Aragon and Catalonia. This, when it is remembered that Caffarelli was still holding the Saragossa district, seemed an adequate force with which to make an end of the guerrilleros of Aragon, and then to complete, in conjunction with Decaen’s Corps, the subjection of inland Catalonia. For this last operation was to be the final purpose of Reille: while Decaen was to attack Lacy from the eastern side, Reille (with Lerida as his base) was to fall on from the west, to occupy Urgel and Berga (the seat of the Catalan Junta and the centre of organized resistance), and to join hands with Decaen across the crushed remnants of the Spanish army[88]. So sure did the Emperor feel that the last elements of Catalan resistance were now to be destroyed, that he gave orders for the issue of the proclamation (drawn up long before[89]) by which the Principality was declared to be united to the French empire. It was to be divided into the four departments of the Ter [capital Gerona], Montserrat [capital Barcelona], Bouches-de-l’Ebre [capital Lerida], and Segre [capital Puigcerda]. Prefects and other officials were appointed for each department, and justice was to be administered in the name of the Emperor. The humour of the arrangement (which its creator most certainly failed to see) was that three-fourths of the territory of each department was in the hands of the patriots whom he styled rebels, and that none of his prefects could have gone ten miles from his _chef-lieu_ without an escort of 200 men, under pain of captivity or death.

[87] Napoleon to Berthier, Paris, Jan. 25, after the receipt of the news of the fall of Valencia.

[88] Details may be found in the dispatches of Feb. 29, and May 1st and 8th.

[89] See vol. iv. p. 215.

Reille’s start was much delayed by the fact that one of his French brigades had been told off to serve as escort to the mass of Blake’s prisoners from Valencia, and could not get quit of them till, marching by Teruel, it had handed them over for transference beyond the Pyrenees to the garrison of Saragossa. Of his two Italian divisions, Palombini’s was instructed to devote itself to the clearing of southern Aragon, and the opening up of the communications between the French garrisons of Daroca, Teruel, and Calatayud. The other, Severoli’s, called off from the siege of Peniscola, which had originally been entrusted to it[90], marched for Lerida in two columns, the one by the sea-coast and Tortosa, the other inland, by way of Morella and Mequinenza. When his troops had begun to concentrate on the borders of Aragon and Catalonia, in and about Lerida, Reille began operations by sending a column, one French brigade and one Italian regiment, to attack the ubiquitous Eroles, who, since his defeat at Altafulla a month before, had betaken himself to the inland, and the rough country along the valleys of the two Nogueras, with the object of covering Catalonia on its western front.

[90] See above, p. 88.

This expedition, entrusted to the French brigadier Bourke, ended in an unexpected check: Eroles offered battle with 3,000 men in a strong position at Roda, with a torrent bed covering his front (March 5). Bourke, having far superior numbers, and not aware of the tenacity of the Catalan troops, whom he had never before encountered, ordered a general frontal attack by battalions of the 60th French and 7th Italian line. It was handsomely repulsed, with such heavy loss--600 casualties it is said--that the French retreated as far as Barbastro, pursued for some distance by the troops of Eroles, who thus showed that their late disaster had not impaired their morale[91]. This was a most glorious day for the Baron, one of the few leaders of real capacity whom the war in Catalonia revealed. He had been a civilian in 1808, and had to learn the elements of military art under chiefs as incapable as Blake and Campoverde. From a miquelete chief he rose to be a general in the regular army, purely by the force of his unconquerable pertinacity and a courage which no disasters could break. As a local patriot he had an advantage in dealing with his Catalan countrymen, which strangers like Reding, Blake, Lacy, or Sarsfield never possessed, and their confidence was never betrayed. A little active man of great vivacity, generally with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and never long still, he was not only a good leader of irregular bands, but quite capable of understanding a strategical move, and of handling a division in a serious action. His self-abnegation during his service under chiefs whose plans were often unwise, and whose authority was often exercised in a galling fashion, was beyond all praise[92].

[91] The exact loss is uncertain, but Bourke himself was wounded, and Martinien’s lists show 15 other casualties among French and Italian officers: Vacani (vi. p. 65) says that the 7th Italian line alone lost 15 killed and 57 wounded. A loss of 16 officers implies _at least_ 300 men hit.

[92] For numerous anecdotes of Eroles and lively pictures of his doings the reader may refer to the Memoirs of Edward Codrington, with whom he so often co-operated.

The check at Roda forced Reille to turn aside more troops against Eroles--practically the whole of Severoli’s division was added to the column which had just been defeated, and on March 13th such a force marched against him that he was compelled to retire, drawing his pursuers after him toward the upper course of the Noguera, and ultimately to seek refuge in the wilds of Talarn among the foot-hills of the higher Pyrenees. His operations with a trifling force paralysed nearly half Reille’s army during two critical months of the spring of 1812. Meanwhile, covered by his demonstration, Sarsfield executed a destructive raid across the French border, overran the valleys beyond Andorra, and exacted a ransom of 70,000 dollars from Foix, the chief town of the department of the Arriège (February 19). This was the best possible reply to Napoleon’s recent declaration that Catalonia had become French soil. The Emperor was naturally enraged; he reiterated his orders to Reille to ‘déloger les insurgents: il n’est que trop vrai qu’ils se nourrissent de France’--’il faut mettre un terme à ces insultes [93].’ But though Reille pushed his marches far into the remote mountainous districts where the borders of Aragon and Catalonia meet, he never succeeded in destroying the bands which he was set to hunt down: a trail of burnt villages marked his course, but it had no permanent result. The inhabitants descended from the hills, to reoccupy their fields and rebuild their huts, when he had passed by, and the insurgents were soon prowling again near the forts of Lerida, Barbastro, and Monzon.

[93] Napoleon to Berthier, March 8th, 1812.

Palombini in southern Aragon had equally unsatisfactory experiences. Coming up from Valencia by the high-road, he had reached Teruel on February 19th, and, after relieving and strengthening the garrison there, set out on a circular sweep, with the intention of hunting down Gayan and Duran--the Conde de Montijo had just returned to the Murcian army at this moment[94], while the Empecinado was out of the game for some weeks, being, as we shall presently see, busy in New Castile. But the movements of the Italian general were soon complicated by the fact that Villacampa, with the remnants of his division, had started from the neighbourhood of Alicante and Murcia much at the same time as himself, to seek once more his old haunts in Aragon. This division had given a very poor account of itself while serving as regular troops under Blake, but when it returned to its native mountains assumed a very different efficiency in the character of a large guerrilla band. Appearing at first only 2,000 strong, it recruited itself up to a much greater strength from local levies, and became no mean hindrance to Palombini’s operations.

[94] Apparently about the same time that Villacampa and his division came up to replace him in Aragon.

On the 29th of February the Italian general relieved Daroca, and a few days later he occupied Calatayud, which had been left ungarrisoned since the disaster of the previous October[95]. After fortifying the convent of Nostra Señora de la Peña as a new citadel for this place, he split up his division into several small columns, which scoured the neighbourhood, partly to sweep in provisions for the post at Calatayud,

## partly to drive off the guerrilleros of the region. But to risk small

detachments in Aragon was always a dangerous business; Villacampa, who had now come up from the south, cut off one body of 200 men at Campillo on March 5, and destroyed six companies at Pozohondon on the 28th of the same month. Taught prudence by these petty disasters, and by some less successful attacks on others of his flying columns, Palombini once more drew his men together, and concentrated them in the upland plain of Hused near Daroca. From thence he made another blow at Villacampa, who was at the same time attacked in the rear by a column sent up by Suchet from Valencia to Teruel. The Spaniard, however, easily avoided the attempt to surround him, and retired without much loss or difficulty into the wild Sierra de Albarracin (April 18th). Meanwhile, seeing Palombini occupied in hunting Villacampa, the guerrillero Gayan made a dash at the new garrison of Calatayud, and entering the city unexpectedly captured the governor and sixty men, but failed to reduce the fortified convent in which the rest of the Italians took refuge [April 29th]. He then sat down to besiege them, though he had no guns, and could work by mines alone: but Palombini soon sent a strong column under the brigadiers Saint Paul and Schiazzetti, who drove off Gayan and relieved Calatayud [May 9th].

[95] See above, page 21.

Nevertheless three months had now gone by since the attempt to reduce southern Aragon began, and it was now obvious that it had been wholly unsuccessful. The hills and great part of the upland plains were still in the possession of the Spaniards, who had been often hunted but never caught nor seriously mishandled. Palombini owned nothing more than the towns which he had garrisoned, and the spot on which his head-quarters chanced for the moment to be placed. His strength was not sufficient to enable him to occupy every village, and without such occupation no conquest could take place. Moreover the time was at hand when Wellington’s operations in the West were to shake the fabric of French power all over Spain--even in the remote recesses of the Aragonese Sierras. Palombini was to be drawn off in July to join the Army of the Centre and to oppose the English. And with his departure such hold as the French possessed on the rugged region between Calatayud, Saragossa, and Teruel was to disappear.

It will be noted that during these operations of the spring no mention has been made of the Empecinado, who had been so prominent in this quarter during the preceding autumn and winter. This chief was now at the bottom of his fortunes: raiding in New Castile after his accustomed fashion, he had been completely defeated by General Guy and a column of King Joseph’s army near Siguenza (February 7). He lost 1,000 men, only saved his own person by throwing himself down an almost impracticable cliff, and saw his whole force dispersed. This affair is said to have been the result of treachery: one of the Empecinado’s lieutenants, a certain guerrillero leader named Albuir (better known as El Manco from having lost a hand) being taken prisoner a few days before, saved his neck by betraying his chief’s position and plans: hence the surprise. El Manco entered the King’s service and raised a ‘counter-guerrilla’ band, with which he did considerable harm for a space. The Empecinado had only collected 600 men even by April, when he joined Villacampa and aided him in a raid round Guadalajara[96].

[96] For all this see Schepeler, pp. 570-1; King Joseph’s Letters (Ducasse), viii. pp. 291 and 305; and Toreno, iii. pp. 81-2.

Mina, on the other hand, the greatest of all the partisans, was doing some of his best service to the cause of liberty during the early months of 1812. This was the period when he was conducting his bloody campaign of reprisals against Abbé, the governor of Navarre, who had published in December 1811 the celebrated proclamation which not only prohibited any quarter for guerrilleros, but made their families and villages responsible for them, and authorized the execution of ‘hostages’ levied on them, as well as the infliction of crushing fines. Mina replied by the formal declaration of a ‘war of extermination against all French without distinction of rank,’ and started the system of shooting four prisoners for every Spaniard, soldier or civilian, executed by the enemy. This he actually carried out for some months, till the French proclamation was withdrawn. The most horrid incident of this reign of terror was the shooting by the French, on March 21, of the four members of the ‘insurrectional junta’ of the province of Burgos, all magistrates and civilians, whom they had captured in a raid, and the counter-execution of eighty French soldiers by the Curate Merino, one of Mina’s colleagues, a few days later. This time of atrocities ended shortly after, when Abbé withdrew his proclamation and Mina followed his example.

On the departure of Reille’s troops from Valencia it will be remembered that one of his French brigades, that of Pannetier, had been sent as escort to the captive Spaniards of Blake’s army. While the remainder of the new ‘Army of the Ebro’ went off in the direction of Lerida, as has already been seen, this brigade was turned aside against Mina. Dorsenne at the same time directed the greater part of his available field-force to join in the hunt, and all such of Caffarelli’s troops as were not shut up in garrisons were told off for the same purpose. These detachments, when added to the normal force of occupation in Navarre and Biscay, made up in all some 30,000 men. Divided into many columns, each of which was strong enough to face the 3,000 or 4,000 irregulars under Mina’s command, they endeavoured to converge upon him, and to enclose him within the net of their operations. The chase was very hot in March: on the first of that month Caffarelli invaded the remote Pyrenean valley of Roncal, where it had been discovered that Mina kept his dépôts, his ammunition factory, and his hospitals. The valley was swept clean, but no appreciable number of the guerrilleros were captured. On the 24th, however, it looked as if disaster was impending, as three columns under Abbé, Dumoustier (who had a brigade of the Young Guard), and Laferrière had succeeded in disposing themselves around Mina’s main body, between Sanguessa and Ochagavia. The guerrillero, however, saved himself by a night march of incredible difficulty across impracticable hills, and got away into Aragon. He was lost to sight, and was believed to have been too harassed to be formidable for many a day.

Such was not the true state of affairs. Mina at once came back to his old haunts, by a circuitous march through southern Navarre, and on April 9th performed one of his most notable exploits. On that day he surprised an immense convoy of convalescents, civilians, baggage, and food-stuffs, which was marching from Vittoria to Mondragon, in the Pass of Salinas (or Puerto de Arlaban). Though escorted by 2,000 men (including the whole of the 7th Polish regiment just drawn off from Soult for the Russian war), it was completely destroyed. Five hundred of the Poles were slain, 150 captured, and an enormous booty, including (it is said) several hundred thousand francs in cash, fell into Mina’s hands. He also delivered 450 Spanish prisoners, who were being conducted to captivity beyond the Pyrenees.

Such an exploit naturally drew down once more upon Mina the attention of all the neighbouring French commanders: Dorsenne and Reille again sent columns to aid the governor of Navarre, and from the 23rd to the 28th of April Mina was being hunted by powerful detachments converging on him from all sides[97]. He himself was very nearly captured at Robres by General Pannetier--who surprised him at dawn, helped by treachery on the part of a subordinate guerrillero chief, and dispersed his followers for the moment[98]. But all who were not slain or captured rallied around their indomitable leader, and followed him in a hazardous retreat, in which he threaded his way between the converging columns of the French and ultimately escaped to the Rioja. He asserts in his Memoirs, and with truth, that he was at this time of the highest service to Wellington’s main operations, since he attracted and detained beyond the Ebro such a large proportion of Dorsenne’s Army of the North, that in April and May it had not a man to spare to help Marmont. Even Dumoustier’s Guard division, under orders to return to France for the Russian war, was put into the pack of pursuers who tried in vain to hunt him down.

[97] There seems to be an error of dates in Napier, iv. p. 172, concerning Mina’s operations, as the surprise of the convoy at Salinas is put _after_ Mina’s escape from Pannetier at Robres. But Mina’s own Memoirs fix the date of the latter as April 23rd, 1812, while the former certainly happened on April 7th. Toreno (iii. p. 87) has got the sequence right.

[98] There is a curious and interesting account of this in Mina’s own Memoirs, pp. 31-2, where he relates his narrow escape, and tells how he had the pleasure of hanging his treacherous lieutenant, and three local alcaldes, who had conspired to keep from him the news of Pannetier’s approach.

To sum up the results of all the operations in Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, which followed on the release of Reille’s troops from the Valencian expedition, it may be said that Napoleon’s scheme for the complete reduction of north-eastern Spain had completely failed by April. Large forces had been put in motion; toilsome marches had been executed over many mountain roads in the worst season of the year; all the bands of the insurgents had been more than once defeated and dispersed. But the country-side was not conquered: the isolated garrisons were still cut off from each other by the enemy, wherever the heavy marching columns had passed on. The communications were no more safe and free than they had been in December. The loss of men by sickness and in the innumerable petty combats and disasters had been immense. The game had yet to be finished, and the spare time in which it could be conducted was drawing to an end. For Wellington was on the march, and ere long not a man from the Armies of the North or the Centre was to be available to aid Reille, Suchet, and Decaen in their unending and ungrateful task. Gone, too, were the days in which reserves without end could be poured in from France: the Russian war was about to open, and when once it began reinforcements were to be drawn from Spain rather than sent into it. The invasion had reached its high-water mark in January 1812 before the walls of Valencia and Alicante.

SECTION XXXI: