READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE FROM 1792 TO 1878

CHAPTER VIII.

SPAIN, TO THE FALL OF SARAGOSSA.

Spain, which had played so insignificant a part throughout the Revolutionary War, was now about to become the theatre of events that opened a new world of hope to Europe. Its King, the Bourbon Charles IV, was more weak and more pitiful than any sovereign of the age. Power belonged to the Queen and to her paramour Godoy, who for the last fourteen years had so conducted the affairs of the country that every change in its policy had brought with it new disaster. In the war of the First Coalition Spain had joined the Allies, and French armies had crossed the Pyrenees. In 1796 Spain entered the service of France, and lost the battle of St. Vincent. At the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon surrendered its colony Trinidad to England; on the renewal of the war he again forced it into hostilities with Great Britain, and brought upon it the disaster of Trafalgar. This unbroken humiliation of the Spanish arms, combined with intolerable oppression and impoverishment at home, raised so bitter an outcry against Godoy’s government, that foreign observers, who underrated the loyalty of the Spanish people, believed the country to be on the verge of revolution. At the Court itself the Crown Prince Ferdinand, under the influence of his Neapolitan wife, headed a party in opposition to Godoy and the supporters of French dominion. Godoy, insecure at home, threw himself the more unreservedly into the arms of Napoleon, who bestowed upon him a contemptuous patronage, and flattered him with the promise of an independent principality in Portugal. Izquierdo, Godoy’s agent at Paris, received proposals from Napoleon which were concealed from the Spanish Ambassador; and during the first months of 1806 Napoleon possessed no more devoted servant than the man who virtually held the government of Spain.

The opening of negotiations between Napoleon and Fox’s Ministry in May, 1806, first shook this relation of confidence and obedience. Peace between France and England involved the abandonment on the part of Napoleon of any attack upon Portugal; and Napoleon now began to meet Godoy’s inquiries after his Portuguese principality with an ominous silence. The next intelligence received was that the Spanish Balearic Islands had been offered by Napoleon to Great Britain, with the view of providing an indemnity for Ferdinand of Naples, if he should give up Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte (July, 1806.) This contemptuous appropriation of Spanish territory, without even the pretence of consulting the Spanish Government, excited scarcely less anger at Madrid than the corresponding proposal with regard to Hanover excited at Berlin. The Court began to meditate a change of policy, and watched the events which were leading Prussia to arm for the war of 1806. A few weeks more passed, and news arrived that Buenos Ayres, the capital of Spanish South America, had fallen into the hands of the English. This disaster produced the deepest impression, for the loss of Buenos Ayres was believed, and with good reason, to be but the prelude to the loss of the entire American empire of Spain. Continuance of the war with England was certain ruin; alliance with the enemies of Napoleon was at least not hopeless, now that Prussia was on the point of throwing its army into the scale against France. An agent was despatched by the Spanish Government to London (Sept., 1806); and, upon the commencement of hostilities by Prussia, a proclamation was issued by Godoy, which, without naming any actual enemy, summoned the Spanish people to prepare for a war on behalf of their country.

Scarcely had the manifesto been read by the Spaniards when the Prussian army was annihilated at Jena. The dream of resistance to Napoleon vanished away; the only anxiety of the Spanish Government was to escape from the consequences of its untimely daring. Godoy hastened to explain that his martial proclamation had been directed not against the Emperor of the French, but against the Emperor of Morocco. Napoleon professed himself satisfied with this palpable absurdity: it appeared as if the events of the last few months had left no trace on his mind. Immediately after the Peace of Tilsit he resumed his negotiations with Godoy upon the old friendly footing, and brought them to a conclusion in the Treaty of Fontainebleau (Oct., 1807), which provided for the invasion of Portugal by a French and a Spanish army, and for its division into principalities, one of which was to be conferred upon Godoy himself. The occupation of Portugal was duly effected, and Godoy looked forward to the speedy retirement of the French from the province which was to be his portion of the spoil.

Napoleon, however, had other ends in view. Spain, not Portugal, was the true prize. Napoleon had gradually formed the determination of taking Spain into his own hands, and the dissensions of the Court itself enabled him to appear upon the scene as the judge to whom all parties appealed. The Crown Prince Ferdinand had long been at open enmity with Godoy and his own mother. So long as Ferdinand's Neapolitan wife was alive, her influence made the Crown Prince the centre of the party hostile to France; but after her death in 1806, at a time when Godoy himself inclined to join Napoleon’s enemies, Ferdinand took up a new position, and allied himself with the French Ambassador, at whose instigation he wrote to Napoleon, soliciting the hand of a princess of the Napoleonic House. Godoy, though unaware of the letter, discovered that Ferdinand was engaged in some intrigue. King Charles was made to believe that his son had entered into a conspiracy to dethrone him. The Prince was placed under arrest, and on the 30th of October, 1807, a royal proclamation appeared at Madrid, announcing that Ferdinand had been detected in a conspiracy against his parents, and that he was about to be brought to justice along with his accomplices. King Charles at the same time wrote a letter to Napoleon, of whose connection with Ferdinand he had not the slightest suspicion, stating that he intended to exclude the Crown Prince from the succession to the throne of Spain. No sooner had Napoleon received the communication from the simple King than he saw himself in possession of the pretext for intervention which he had so long desired. The most pressing orders were given for the concentration of troops on the Spanish frontier; Napoleon appeared to be on the point of entering Spain as the defender of the hereditary rights of Ferdinand. The opportunity, however, proved less favourable than Napoleon had expected. The Crown Prince, overcome by his fears, begged forgiveness of his father, and disclosed the negotiations which had taken place between himself and the French Ambassador. Godoy, dismayed at finding Napoleon’s hand in what he had supposed to be a mere palace-intrigue, abandoned all thought of proceeding further against the Crown Prince; and a manifesto announced that Ferdinand was restored to the favour of his father. Napoleon now countermanded the order which he had given for the despatch of the Rhenish troops to the Pyrenees, and contented himself with directing General Dupont, the commander of an army-corps nominally destined for Portugal, to cross the Spanish frontier and advance as far as Vittoria.

Dupont's troops entered Spain in the last days of the year 1807, and were received with acclamations. It was universally believed that Napoleon had espoused the cause of Ferdinand, and intended to deliver the Spanish nation from the detested rule of Godoy. Since the open attack made upon Ferdinand in the publication of the pretended conspiracy, the Crown Prince, who was personally as contemptible as any of his enemies, had become the idol of the people. For years past the hatred of the nation towards Godoy and the Queen had been constantly deepening, and the very reforms which Godoy effected in the hope of attaching to himself the more enlightened classes only served to complete his unpopularity with the fanatical mass of the nation. The French, who gradually entered the Peninsula to the number of 80,000, and who described themselves as the protectors of Ferdinand and of the true Catholic faith, were able to spread themselves over the northern provinces without exciting suspicion. It was only when their commanders, by a series of tricks worthy of American savages, obtained possession of the frontier citadels and fortresses, that the wiser part of the nation began to entertain some doubt as to the real purpose of their ally. At the Court itself and among the enemies of Ferdinand the advance of the French roused the utmost alarm. King Charles wrote to Napoleon in the tone of ancient friendship; but the answer he received was threatening and mysterious. The utterances which the Emperor let fall in the presence of persons likely to report them at Madrid were even more alarming, and were intended to terrify the Court into the resolution to take flight from Madrid. The capital once abandoned by the King, Napoleon judged that he might safely take everything into his own hands on the pretence of restoring to Spain the government which it had lost.

On the 20th of February, 1808, Murat was ordered to quit Paris in order to assume the command in Spain. Not a word was said by Napoleon to him before his departure. His instructions first reached him at Bayonne; they were of a military nature, and gave no indication of the ultimate political object of his mission. Murat entered Spain on the 1st of March, knowing no more than that he was ordered to reassure all parties and to commit himself to none, but with full confidence that he himself was intended by Napoleon to be the successor of the Bourbon dynasty. It was now that the Spanish Court, expecting the appearance of the French army in Madrid, resolved upon that flight which Napoleon considered so necessary to his own success. The project was not kept a secret. It passed from Godoy to the Ministers of State, and from them to the friends of Ferdinand. The populace of Madrid was inflamed by the report that Godoy was about to carry the King to a distance, in order to prolong the misgovernment which the French had determined to overthrow. A tumultuous crowd marched from the capital to Aranjuez, the residence of the Court. On the evening of the 17th of March, the palace of Godoy was stormed by the mob. Godoy himself was seized, and carried to the barracks amid the blows and curses of the populace. The terrified King, who already saw before him the fate of his cousin, Louis XVI, first published a decree depriving Godoy of all his dignities, and then abdicated in favour of his son. On the 19th of March Ferdinand was proclaimed King.

Such was the unexpected intelligence that met Murat as he approached Madrid. The dissensions of the Court, which were to supply his ground of intervention, had been terminated by the Spaniards themselves: in the place of a despised dotard and a menaced favourite, Spain had gained a youthful sovereign around whom all classes of the nation rallied with the utmost enthusiasm. Murat’s position became a very difficult one; but he supplied what was wanting in his instructions by the craft of a man bent upon creating a vacancy in his own favour. He sent his aide-de-camp, Monthieu, to visit the dethroned sovereign, and obtained a protest from King Charles IV, declaring his abdication to have been extorted from him by force, and consequently to be null and void. This document Murat kept secret; but he carefully abstained from doing anything which might involve a recognition of Ferdinand’s title. On the 23rd of March the French troops entered Madrid. Nothing had as yet become known to the public that indicated an altered policy on the part of the French; and the soldiers of Murat, as the supposed friends of Ferdinand, met with as friendly a reception in Madrid as in the other towns of Spain. On the following day Ferdinand himself made his solemn entry into the capital, amid wild demonstrations of an almost barbaric loyalty.

In the tumult of popular joy it was noticed that Murat’s troops continued their exercises without the least regard to the pageant that so deeply stirred the hearts of the Spaniards. Suspicions were aroused; the enthusiasm of the people for the French soldiers began to change into irritation and ill-will. The end of the long drama of deceit was in fact now close at hand. On the 4th of April General Savary arrived at Madrid with instructions independent of those given to Murat. He was charged to entice the new Spanish sovereign from his capital, and to bring him, either as a dupe or as a prisoner, on to French soil. The task was not a difficult one. Savary pretended that Napoleon had actually entered Spain, and that he only required an assurance of Ferdinand's continued friendship before recognizing him as the legitimate successor of Charles IV. Ferdinand, he added, could show no greater mark of cordiality to his patron than by advancing to meet him on the road. Snared by these hopes, Ferdinand set out from Madrid, in company with Savary and some of his own foolish confidants. On reaching Burgos, the party found no signs of the Emperor. They continued their journey to Vittoria. Here Ferdinand's suspicions were aroused, and he declined to proceed farther. Savary hastened to Bayonne to report the delay to Napoleon. He returned with a letter which overcame Ferdinand’s scruples and induced him to cross the Pyrenees, in spite of the prayers of statesmen and the loyal violence of the simple inhabitants of the district. At Bayonne Ferdinand was visited by Napoleon, but not a word was spoken on the object of his journey. In the afternoon the Emperor received Ferdinand and his suite at a neighbouring chateau, but preserved the same ominous silence. When the other guests departed, the Canon Escoiquiz, a member of Ferdinand's retinue, was detained, and learned from Napoleon’s own lips the fate in store for the Bourbon Monarchy. Savary returned to Bayonne with Ferdinand, and informed the Prince that he must renounce the crown of Spain.

For some days Ferdinand held out against Napoleon’s demands with a stubbornness not often shown by him in the course of his mean and hypocritical career. He was assailed not only by Napoleon but by those whose fall had been his own rise; for Godoy was sent to Bayonne by Murat, and the old King and Queen hurried after their son in order to witness his humiliation. Ferdinand's parents attacked him with an indecency that astonished even Napoleon himself; but the Prince maintained his refusal until news arrived from Madrid which terrified him into submission. The irritation of the capital had culminated in an armed conflict between the populace and the French troops. On an attempt being made by Murat to remove the remaining members of the royal family from the palace, the capital had broken into open insurrection, and wherever French soldiers were found alone or in small bodies they were massacred. (May 2.) Some hundreds of the French perished; but the victory of Murat was speedy, and his vengeance ruthless. The insurgents were driven into the great central square of the city, and cut down by repeated charges of cavalry. When all resistance was over, numbers of the citizens were shot in cold blood. Such was the intelligence which reached Bayonne in the midst of Napoleon's struggle with Ferdinand. There was no further need of argument. Ferdinand was informed that if he withheld his resignation for twenty-four hours longer he would be treated as a rebel. He yielded; and for a couple of country houses and two life-annuities the crown of Spain and the Indies was renounced in favour of Napoleon by father and son.

The crown had indeed been won without a battle. That there remained a Spanish nation ready to fight to the death for its independence was not a circumstance which Napoleon had taken into account. His experience had as yet taught him of no force but that of Governments and armies. In the larger States, or groups of States, which had hitherto been the spoil of France, the sense of nationality scarcely existed. Italy had felt it no disgrace to pass under the rule of Napoleon. The Germans on both sides of the Rhine knew of a fatherland only as an arena of the keenest jealousies. In Prussia and in Austria the bond of citizenship was far less the love of country than the habit of obedience to government. England and Russia, where patriotism existed in the sense in which it existed in Spain, had as yet been untouched by French armies. Judging from the action of the Germans and the Italians, Napoleon might well suppose that in settling with the Spanish Government he had also settled with the Spanish people, or, at the worst, that his troops might have to fight some fanatical peasants, like those who resisted the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. But the Spanish nation was no mosaic of political curiosities like the Holy Roman Empire, and no divided and oblivious family like the population of Italy. Spain, as a single nation united under its King, had once played the foremost part in Europe: when its grandeur departed, its pride had remained behind: the Spaniard, in all his torpor and impoverishment, retained the impulse of honour, the spirited self-respect, which periods of national greatness leave behind them among a race capable of cherishing their memory. Nor had those influences of a common European culture, which directly opposed themselves to patriotism in Germany, affected the home-bred energy of Spain. The temper of mind which could find satisfaction in the revival of a form of Greek art when Napoleon's cavalry were scouring Germany, or which could inquire whether mankind would not profit by the removal of the barriers between nations, was unknown among the Spanish people. Their feeling towards a foreign invader was less distant from that of African savages than from that of the civilized and literary nations which had fallen so easy a prey to the French. Government, if it had degenerated into everything that was contemptible, had at least failed to reduce the people to the passive helplessness which resulted from the perfection of uniformity in Prussia. Provincial institutions, though corrupted, were not extinguished; provincial attachments and prejudices existed in unbounded strength. Like the passion of the Spaniard for his native district, his passion for Spain was of a blind and furious character. Enlightened conviction, though not altogether absent, had small place in the Spanish war of defence. Religious fanaticism, hatred of the foreigner, delight in physical barbarity, played their full part by the side of nobler elements in the struggle for national independence.

The captivity of Ferdinand, and the conflict of Murat's troops with the inhabitants of Madrid, had become known in the Spanish cities before the middle of May. On the 20th of the same month the Gaceta announced the abdication of the Bourbon family. Nothing more was wanting to throw Spain into tumult. The same irresistible impulse seized provinces and cities separated by the whole breadth of the Peninsula. Without communication, and without the guidance of any central authority, the Spanish people in every part of the kingdom armed themselves against the usurper. Carthagena rose on the 22nd. Valencia forced its magistrates to proclaim King Ferdinand on the 23rd. Two days later the mountain-district of Asturias, with a population of half a million, formally declared war on Napoleon, and despatched envoys to Great Britain to ask for assistance. On the 26th, Santander and Seville, on opposite sides of the Peninsula, joined the national movement. Corunna, Badajoz, and Granada declared themselves on the Feast of St. Ferdinand, the 30th of May. Thus within a week the entire country was in arms, except in those districts where the presence of French troops rendered revolt impossible. The action of the insurgents was everywhere the same. They seized upon the arms and munitions of war collected in the magazines, and forced the magistrates or commanders of towns to place themselves at their head. Where the latter resisted, or were suspected of treachery to the national cause, they were in many cases put to death. Committees of Government were formed in the principal cities, and as many armies came into being as there were independent centres of the insurrection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the 19th of December a report reached Madrid that Moore had suspended his retreat on Portugal. Napoleon instantly divined the actual movement of the English, and hurried from Madrid against Moore at the head of 40,000 men. Moore had met Baird on the 20th at Mayorga; on the 23rd the united British divisions reached Sahagun, scarcely a day's march from Soult at Saldanha. Here the English commander learnt that Napoleon himself was on his track. Escape was a question of hours. Napoleon had pushed across the Guadarrama mountains in forced marches through snow and storm. Had his vanguard been able to seize the bridge over the river Esla at Benavente before the English crossed it, Moore would have been cut off from all possibility of escape. The English reached the river first and blew up the bridge. This rescued them from immediate danger. The defence of the river gave Moore's army a start which rendered the superiority of Napoleon’s numbers of little effect. For a while Napoleon followed Moore towards the northern coast. On the 1st of January, 1809, he wrote an order which showed that he looked upon Moore's escape as now inevitable, and on the next day he quitted the army, leaving to his marshals the honour of toiling after Moore to the coast, and of seizing some thousands of frozen or drunken British stragglers. Moore himself pushed on towards Corunna with a rapidity which was dearly paid for by the demoralization of his army. The sufferings and the excesses of the troops were frightful; only the rearguard, which had to face the enemy, preserved soldierly order. At length Moore found it necessary to halt and take up position, in order to restore the discipline of his army. He turned upon Soult at Lugo, and offered battle for two successive days; but the French general declined an engagement; and Moore, satisfied with having recruited his troops, continued his march upon Corunna. Soult still followed. On January 11th the English army reached the sea; but the ships which were to convey them back to England were nowhere to be seen. A battle was inevitable, and Moore drew up his troops, 14,000 in number, on a range of low hills outside the town to await the attack of the French. On the 16th, when the fleet had now come into harbour, Soult gave battle. The French were defeated at every point of their attack. Moore fell at the moment of his victory, conscious that the army which he had so bravely led had nothing more to fear. The embarkation was effected that night; on the next day the fleet put out to sea.

Napoleon quitted Spain on the 19th of January, 1809, leaving his brother Joseph again in possession of the capital, and an army of 300,000 men under the best generals of France engaged with the remnants of a defeated force which had never reached half that number. No brilliant victories remained to be won; no enemy remained in the field important enough to require the presence of Napoleon. Difficulties of transit and the hostility of the people might render the subjugation of Spain a slower process than the subjugation of Prussia or Italy; but, to all appearance, the ultimate success of the Emperor’s plans was certain, and the worst that lay before his lieutenants was a series of wearisome and obscure exertions against an inconsiderable foe. Yet, before the Emperor had been many weeks in Paris, a report reached him from Marshal Lannes which told of some strange form of military capacity among the people whose armies were so contemptible in the field. The city of Saragossa, after successfully resisting its besiegers in the summer of 1808, had been a second time invested after the defeats of the Spanish armies upon the Ebro. The besiegers themselves were suffering from extreme scarcity when, on the 22nd of January, 1809, Lannes took up the command. Lannes immediately called up all the troops within reach, and pressed the battering operations with the utmost vigour. On the 29th, the walls of Saragossa were stormed in four different places.

According to all ordinary precedents of war, the French were now in possession of the city. But the besiegers found that their real work was only beginning. The streets were trenched and barricaded; every dwelling was converted into a fortress; for twenty days the French were forced to besiege house by house. In the centre of the town the popular leaders erected a gallows, and there they hanged everyone who flinched from meeting the enemy. Disease was added to the horrors of warfare. In the cellars, where the women and children crowded in filth and darkness, a malignant pestilence broke out, which, at the beginning of February, raised the deaths to five hundred a day. The dead bodies were unburied; in that poisoned atmosphere the slightest wound produced mortification and death. At length the powers of the defenders sank. A fourth part of the town had been won by the French; of the townspeople and peasants who were within the walls at the beginning of the siege, it is said that thirty thousand had perished; the remainder could only prolong their defence to fall in a few days more before disease or the enemy. Even now there were members of the Junta who wished to fight as long as a man remained, but they were outnumbered. On the 20th of February what was left of Saragossa capitulated. Its resistance gave to the bravest of Napoleon's soldiers an impression of horror and dismay new even to men who had passed through seventeen years of revolutionary warfare, but it failed to retard Napoleon's armies in the conquest of Spain. No attempt was made to relieve the heroic or ferocious city. Everywhere the tide of French conquest appeared to be steadily making its advance. Soult invaded Portugal; in combination with him, two armies moved from Madrid upon the southern and the south-western provinces of Spain. Oporto fell on the 28th of March; in the same week the Spanish forces covering the south were decisively beaten at Ciudad Real and at Medellin upon the line of the Guadiana. The hopes of Europe fell. Spain itself could expect no second Saragossa. It appeared as if the complete subjugation of the Peninsula could now only be delayed by the mistakes of the French generals themselves, and by the untimely removal of that controlling will which had hitherto made every movement a step forward in conquest.

CHAPTER IX

WAR OF 1809: THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE-SPAIN, TO THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA.