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Home The Napoleonic War, 1803-1815 The Peninsular War and the Fall of Napoleon, 1809-1814 1809-1814; Part 4 |
1809-1814; Part 4Meantime, Wellington was able to take the offensive and to invade Spain, Napoleon having withdrawn many of the French troops for the campaign in Russia. The two main routes into Spain were guarded by the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz; Wellington captured the one in eleven and the other in sixteen days, before the French armies could be brought up for their relief. Then, at the battle of Salamanca, if he did not, as is usually said, " beat forty thousand Frenchmen in forty minutes", he fell with such vigour upon a force which the French had detached to cut off his line of retreat that he routed it in under that time, and followed up this blow by decisively defeating the main body. As a result of Salamanca Joseph fled from Madrid, and Soult retired from Andalusia. Wellington occupied Madrid, and went north and besieged Burgos; but with an insufficient siege train he was unable to take it, and the concentration of the French armies forced him into a retreat which cost thousands of lives. The result of the whole campaign of 1812 was, however, that Southern Spain was permanently freed from the French.Towards the close of 1812 Castlereagh had become the British foreign secretary, and it was largely owing to his exertions that a Fourth Coalition, which included Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and a little later Austria, was formed against Napoleon. Consequently the French forces in the Peninsula were still further reduced, to provide Napoleon with an army to fight in Germany. Wellington therefore was able to develop a brilliantly offensive campaign in 1813. By keeping a large force under Graham threatening the French right and rear, he drove back the French army in six weeks from Salamanca to Vittoria, and at the latter place was able by his superiority in numbers - eighty thousand to sixty-five thousand - not only to defeat the French but to cut off their retreat by the main road. Wellington captured a hundred and forty-three guns besides one million pounds sterling, whilst Joseph and the remnants of his army had to escape as best they could by a rough mule track (Amongst other things Wellington captured some valuable Spanish pictures which Joseph was taking out of Spain. At the end of the war Wellington offered to return them to the King of Spain, but the king generously gave them to Wellington, and they are now at Apsley House). What is more important, the victory was not without influence in inducing Austria to join Prussia and Russia in the campaign which ended in Napoleon's downfall at the great battle of Leipzig. After a short interval there followed, during the next four months, what is known as the War of the Pyrenees. Soult had been sent by Napoleon to reorganize the army against Wellington, but, though he fought skilfully, he failed to prevent either the storming of San Sebastian or the surrender of Pampeluna, and before the end of the year Wellington had crossed the French frontier and was threatening Bayonne. |
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