A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 16

[Joseph Bonaparte made King.]

[Napoleon's a.s.sembly at Bayonne, June, 1808.]

Napoleon was in the meantime collecting a body of prelates and grandees at Bayonne, under the pretence of consulting the representatives of the Spanish nation. Half the members of the intended a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly, which numbered in all ninety-one persons, was composed of courtiers who had accompanied the Royal Family across the Pyrenees, and of any Spaniards of distinction upon whom the French could lay their hands. Joseph Bonaparte was brought from Naples to receive the crown of Spain. [147] On the 15th of June the a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly, and adopted without criticism. Except in the privileges accorded to the Church, little indicated that the Const.i.tution 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. t.i.tles of n.o.bility were preserved, the privileges of n.o.bility abolished. One genuine act of homage was rendered to the national character. The Catholic religion was declared to be the only one permitted in Spain.

[Attempts of Napoleon to suppress the Spanish rising.]

While Napoleon was thus emanc.i.p.ating the peasants from the n.o.bles, and reconciling his supremacy with the claims of the Church, peasants and townspeople were flocking to arms at the call of the priests, who so little appreciated the orthodoxy of their patron as to identify him in their manifestos with Calvin, with the Antichrist, and with Apollyon. [148] The Emperor underrated the military efficiency of the national revolt, and contented himself with sending his lieutenants to repress it, while he himself, expecting a speedy report of victory, remained in Bayonne.

Divisions of the French army moved in all directions against the insurgents. Dupont was ordered to march upon Seville from the capital, Moncey upon Valencia; Marshal Bessieres took command of a force intended to disperse the main army of the Spaniards, which threatened the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid. The first encounters were all favourable to the practised French troops; yet the objects which Napoleon set before his generals were not achieved. Moncey failed to reduce Valencia; Dupont found himself outnumbered on pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed without inflicting upon them a defeat. At length, however, the commanders of the northern army were forced by Marshal Bessieres to fight a pitched battle at Rio Seco, on the west of Valladolid (July 13th). Bessieres won a complete victory, and gained the lavish praises of his master for a battle which, according to Napoleon's own conception, ended the Spanish war by securing the roads from the Pyrenees to Madrid.

[Capitulation of Baylen, July 19.]

[Dupont in Andalusia.]

Never had Napoleon so gravely mistaken the true character of a campaign.

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

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

[Vimeiro, Aug. 21.]

[Convention of Cintra, Aug. 30.]

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

[Effect of Spanish rising on Europe.]

[War-party in Austria and Prussia.]

[Napoleon and Prussia.]

If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England, the tidings of the successful uprising of the Spanish people against Napoleon, and of Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, created the deepest impression in every country of Europe that still entertained the thought of resistance to France. The first great disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been inflicted by a nation without a government, without a policy, without a plan beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the foreigner.

What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect, the patriotism and energy of a single people deserted by its rulers seemed about to accomplish. The victory of the regular troops at Baylen was but a part of that great national movement in which every isolated outbreak had had its share in dividing and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of untrained popular levies to resist practised troops might be exaggerated in the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish rising; but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by the spirit of popular resentment and determination was one upon which mistake was impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the politicians of Austria and Prussia, and explained the powerlessness of those Coalitions in which the wars had always been the affair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of the people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a national movement like that of Spain sprang up among the German race. "I do not see," wrote 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed three months at the head-quarters of the French at Berlin, endeavouring to frame some settlement less disastrous to his country. Count Daru, Napoleon's administrator in Prussia, treated the Minister with respect, and accepted his proposal for the evacuation of Prussian territory on payment of a fixed sum to the French. But the agreement required Napoleon's ratification, and for this Stein waited in vain. [150]

[Stein urges war.]

[Demands of Napoleon, Sept., 1808.]

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

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

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

In one point alone Stein was completely misinformed. He believed that Alexander, in spite of the Treaty of Tilsit, would not be unwilling to see the storm burst upon Napoleon, and that in the event of another general war the forces of Russia would more probably be employed against France than in its favour. The illusion was a fatal one. Alexander was still the accomplice of Napoleon. For the sake of the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities, 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 va.s.sal 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 t.i.tled rabble for several days; but the only serious business was the settlement of a treaty confirming the alliance of France and Russia, and the notification of the Czar to the envoy of the King of Prussia that his master must accept the terms demanded by Napoleon, and relinquish the idea of a struggle with France. [151] Count Goltz, the Prussian envoy, unwillingly signed the treaty which gave Prussia but a partial evacuation at so dear a cost, and wrote to the King that no course now remained for him but to abandon himself to unreserved dependence upon France, and to permit Stein and the patriotic party to retire from the direction of the State. Unless the King could summon up courage to declare war in defiance of Alexander, there was, in fact, no alternative left open to him. Napoleon had discovered Stein's plans for raising an insurrection in Germany several weeks before, and had given vent to the most furious outburst of wrath against Stein in the presence of the Prussian Amba.s.sador 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 pa.s.sed 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 fort.i.tude had still made it possible in the darkest days for Prussian patriots not to despair of their country.

[Misgovernment of the Spanish Junta.]

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

Central Europe secured by the negotiations with Alexander at Erfurt, Napoleon was now able to place himself at the head of the French forces in Spain without fear of any immediate attack from the side of Germany. Since the victory of Baylen the Spaniards had made little progress either towards good government or towards a good military administration. The provincial Juntas had consented to subordinate themselves to a central committee chosen from among their own members; but this new supreme authority, which held its meetings at Aranjuez, proved one of the worst governments that even Spain itself had ever endured. It numbered thirty persons, twenty-eight of whom were priests, n.o.bles, or officials. [152] Its qualities were those engrained in Spanish official life. In legislation it attempted absolutely nothing but the restoration of the Inquisition and the protection of Church lands; its administration was confined to a foolish interference with the better generals, and the acquisition of enormous supplies of war from Great Britain, which were either stolen by contractors or allowed to fall into the hands of the French. While the members of the Junta discussed the t.i.tles 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 dest.i.tution which scarcely any but Spanish troops would have been capable of enduring. The energy of the humbler cla.s.ses alone prolonged the military existence of the insurrection; the Government organised nothing, comprehended nothing. Its part in the national movement was confined to a system of begging and boasting, which demoralised the Spaniards, and bewildered the agents and generals of England who first attempted the difficult task of a.s.sisting the Spaniards to help themselves. When the approach of army after army, the levies of Germany, Poland, Holland, and Italy, in addition to Napoleon's own veteran troops of Austerlitz and Jena, gave to the rest of the world some idea of the enormous force which Napoleon was about to throw on to Spain, the Spanish Government could form no better design than to repeat the movement of Baylen against Napoleon himself on the banks of the Ebro.

[Napoleon enters Madrid, Dec. 4.]

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

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

[Campaign of Sir John Moore.]

An English army was slowly and painfully making its way towards the Ebro at the time when Napoleon broke in pieces the Spanish line of defence. On the 14th of October Sir John Moore had a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Napoleon marches against Moore, Dec. 19.]

[Retreat of the English.]

[Corunna, Jan. 16, 1809.]

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 Guadarama 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 demoralisation of his army. The sufferings and the excesses of the troops were frightful; only the rear-guard, 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 s.h.i.+ps 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.

[Siege of Saragossa, Dec., 1808.]

[Napoleon leaves Spain, Jan 19, 1809.]

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. [153] 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.

[Defeats of the Spaniards, March, 1809.]

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 every one 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 pa.s.sed through seventeen years of revolutionary warfare, but it failed to r.e.t.a.r.d 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.

Austria preparing for war--The war to be one on behalf of the German Nation--Patriotic Movement in Prussia--Expected Insurrection in North Germany--Plans of Campaign--Austrian Manifesto to the Germans--Rising of the Tyrolese--Defeats of the Archduke Charles in Bavaria--French in Vienna--Attempts of Dornberg and Schill--Battle of Aspern--Second Pa.s.sage of the Danube--Battle of Wagram--Armistice of Znaim--Austria waiting for events--Wellesley in Spain--He gains the Battle of Talavera, but retreats--Expedition against Antwerp fails--Austria makes Peace--Treaty of Vienna--Real Effects of the War of 1809--Austria after 1809--Metternich-- Marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise--Severance of Napoleon and Alexander--Napoleon annexes the Papal States, Holland, La Valais, and the North German Coast--The Napoleonic Empire: Its Benefits and Wrongs--The Czar withdraws from Napoleon's Commercial System--War with Russia imminent--Wellington in Portugal: Lines of Torres Vedras; Ma.s.sena's Campaign of 1810, and retreat--Soult in Andalusia--Wellington's Campaign of 1810--Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz--Salamanca.