Battle of Bailén

Napoleon and the French strategists, anxious about their communications with Bayonne and wary of a British descent upon a Biscayan coast already in open revolt, initially prioritized operations in the north of Spain.[21] In mid-June General Antoine Charles Louis Lasalle's victory at Cabezón simplified matters tremendously; with the Spanish militias around Valladolid destroyed and much of Old Castile overrun, Savary shifted his gaze south and resolved to reopen communications with Dupont in Andalusia.[22] Apart from the menace in the north, Napoleon was most anxious to secure the Andalusian provinces, where the traditional, rural peasantry was expected to resist Joseph's rule.[21] On 19 June General Dominique Honoré Antoine Vedel with Dupont's 2nd Infantry Division was dispatched south from Toledo to force a passage over the Sierra Morena, hold the mountains from the guerrillas, and link up with Dupont, pacifying Castile-La Mancha along the way.

Vedel set out with 6,000 men, 700 horse, and 12 guns, joined during the march by small detachments under Generals Claude Roize and Louis Ligier-Belair.[22] The column raced across the plains, encountering no resistance, although stragglers were seized and cut down by the locals.[23] Reaching the sierra on 26 June, the column found a detachment of Spanish regulars, smugglers, and guerrillas with six guns under Lieutenant-Colonel Valdecaños blocking the Puerta del Rey.[24] Vedel's troops stormed the ridge and overran the enemy cannon, losing 17 dead or wounded. They then pushed south over the mountains toward La Carolina. The next day they encountered a detachment of Dupont's troops preparing to attack these same passes from the south side.[25] With this junction, communications between Dupont and Madrid were reestablished after a month of silence.

The Sierra Morena.

Vedel carried new orders from Madrid and Bayonne: Dupont was instructed to stop his march on Cádiz and fall back north-eastwards on the mountains (a fait accompli), watching the Spanish movements in Andalusia while awaiting the reinforcements to be released upon the capitulation of Zaragoza and Valencia.[26] These capitulations never came. For a time Marshal Moncey was simply nowhere to be found; at length his defeat at the gates of Valencia surfaced; some 17,000 Spaniards under the Conde de Cervellón massed victoriously around that city as Moncey gave up in disgust, having lost 1,000 men in a vain attempt to storm the walls.[27][28] Suddenly, all prospects evaporated of Moncey's corps pivoting west from Valencia toward Granada and coupling with Dupont in a two-pronged invasion of Andalusia.[25] Nor were troops forthcoming from Aragon, as Zaragoza shook off repeated French assaults and vowed to fight to the death.[29] Meanwhile, Savary set to work preparing for the arrival of Joseph in his new capital. Many of the scattered French formations were drawn back around Madrid for security; Dupont would remain close at hand to succour the capital if Bessières' campaign in the north took a turn for the worse and Spanish armies appeared on the horizon.

Yet at no time was Dupont's Andalusian expedition altogether scrapped. Savary continued to issue vague orders promising reinforcements at an undisclosed date while Napoleon fumed at the prospect of abandoning even Andújar to the Spaniards.[30] With events hanging in the air, Dupont chose to hold his ground along the Guadalquivir, sacking and occupying the town of Bailén and the provincial capital of Jaén, instead of completing his retrograde movement to the strong positions atop the sierra's defiles. Napoleon wrote lightly, "even if he suffers a setback, ...he will just have to come back over the Sierra."[10]

On learning of the French incursion into the southern provinces, General Francisco Javier Castaños, guessing Dupont's intentions, prepared to entrench his army in a fortified camp across from the strongpoint of Cádiz, but Dupont's retrograde movement rendered these precautions unnecessary.[31] Setting up a General Headquarters in Utrera, Castaños organized the Army of Andalusia into four divisions under Generals Theodor von Reding, Antonio Malet (whose staff included a young San Martín, then a captain in the Spanish Army), Félix Jones, and a fourth (reserve) under Manuel la Peña. Colonel Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón led an additional column of some 1,000 skirmishers, armed peasants, and other light infantry.[31]

While Dupont lingered at Andújar with two divisions (Generals Gabriel Barbou des Courières and Maurice Ignace Fresia), attempting to master the strategic Madrid—Seville highway and the wide plains which it crossed, Castaños' four divisions advanced steadily from the south and guerrillas from Granada marched to bar the road to the sierra and La Mancha beyond. Vedel's division was posted east to Bailén with a view to guarding these nearby mountain passes and on 1 July Vedel was forced to dispatch a brigade under General Louis Victorin Cassagne to curb the advance of the guerrillas on Jaén and La Carolina, stretching the French line still further east.[32] Meanwhile, General Liger-Belair with 1,500 men moved into a forward post at Mengíbar, a village on the south bank of the Guadalquivir.[33] At Andújar a tower by the river was fortified and small field works constructed on the south bank to forestall an enemy crossing, but, the Guadalquivir being fordable at so many points, and open to fire from the surrounding hills, Dupont's defences did not inspire much confidence.[34] Cassagne, after driving the guerrillas off in rout, returned to Bailén on 5 July with 200 dead or wounded and nothing to show for his exertion—the Spaniards having plundered the towns of all provisions.[35]

Glimmers of the long-promised reinforcements appeared at last: Generals Gobert and Jacques Lefranc passed the Puerta del Rey on 15 July, leaving behind a strong garrison in the Morena, and descended into Andalusia with their remaining infantry and cuirassiers.[20] Dupont now had over 20,000 men idling along the Guadalquivir while the Spaniards massed and approached.[36] But supplies were scarce and the Spanish peasants had deserted their fields, obliging Dupont's wearied men to bring in the harvest, grind the grain, and bake their own rations; 600 men fell ill during their fortnight's stay by drinking the putrid waters of the Guadalquivir.[37] According to French testimony, "The situation was terrible. Every night, we heard armed peasants roaming around us, drawn to our goods, and every night, we expected to be assassinated."[38]

On 9 July[39] General La Peña's division took up a position extending from El Carpio to Porcuna and the Army of Andalusia began a number of demonstrations against the French.[40] From west to east along the Guadalquivir, Castaños with 14,000 men in two divisions (La Peña and Jones) approached Dupont at Andújar, Coupigny advanced his division to Villa Nueva, and Reding prepared to force a passage at Mengíbar and swing north to Bailén, outflanking the French and cutting Dupont's line of retreat to the mountains.[36] Marching east to Jaén, Reding delivered a strong attack against the French right wing between 2 and 3 July, sending the 3rd Swiss regiment into the teeth of Cassagne's brigade. The Spaniards were forced back (losing 1,500 casualties according to Maximilien Sebastien Foy), but the isolated French brigade felt its danger and on the 4th Cassagne fell back over the Guadalquivir to Bailén, leaving only a few companies to guard the ferry at Mengíbar.[41]

Reding assaulted Mengíbar anew on 13 July and drove Ligier-Belair from the village after a hard fight; at the appearance of Vedel's division, however, the Spanish column quietly drew back and French infantry reclaimed the town.[40] The next day Coupigny tested the grounds at Villa Nueva and engaged the French piquets opposite him in a sharp skirmish. Castaños reached the heights at Arjonilla on 15 July and, setting up a battery on a ridge overlooking Andújar, opened fire on Dupont. At the same time, 1,600[42]–4,000 skirmishers and irregulars under Colonel Cruz-Mourgeón forded the river near Marmolejo and attacked towards Dupont's rear, but were handily repulsed by a French battalion and dispersed into the hills.[43] Alarmed by this show of force, Dupont called on Vedel to release a battalion or even a brigade to his assistance, and Vedel, judging that Mengíbar was not seriously threatened, set out in the night with his entire division.[42] The arrival of Vedel with this sizeable force put an end to the threat at Andújar but gravely imperilled the French left wing (Mengíbar—Bailén—La Carolina), leaving Ligier-Belair seriously denuded of troops in his fight against Reding.

The fighting around Mengibar then took a curious turn: Reding, having finally gained the north bank and turned the French flank, suddenly retreated to the other side of the river, perhaps feeling isolated with his lone division.[45] At the same time, guerrillas under Colonel Valdecanos made an unwelcome appearance on Dufour's flank, scattering his outposts and menacing the road to the Puerta del Rey.[46] Dufour, conscious of the danger to the mountain passes, set off to confront the Spanish flankers at Guarromán and La Carolina.[44] Consequently, when Vedel, by another tiring night march, retraced his steps to Bailén, he found the position oddly deserted of both friend and foe.[46]

When his reconnaissance parties made no contact with the enemy at the Guadalquivir, Vedel concluded that Reding had shifted his division to another point along the line.[47] Dufour sent back alarming reports from Guarromán, convincing Vedel that 10,000 Spaniards—perhaps Reding's division, he warned[44]—were marching on the mountains to their rear.[47] This was too much. Gathering his exhausted division, Vedel hurried to Dufour's aid on 17 July, arriving at Santa Carolina the next day.[47] Dufour's fatal blunder was soon revealed. Vedel discovered that the small band of irregulars roaming about were not at all the threat Dufour had described; for the third time the Spaniards had stolen a march from him, and Reding still hovered somewhere around Mengibar, out of sight. Worse yet, an enormous gap now existed between Dupont and Vedel, and not a single battalion remained to prevent Reding from seizing the central position at Bailén.

News of Vedel's ill-advised movements reached Dupont at noon on 18 July and convinced him to fall back on Bailén and to recall Vedel there as well, re-concentrating his now dangerously scattered army: "I do not care to occupy Andujar. That post is of no consequence."[48] With a wary eye on Castaños' columns across the river, and needing time to prepare his wagons and carriages (encumbered by plunder from the sack of Cordoba), Dupont postponed the retreat till nightfall, hoping to conceal his departure from the Spaniards.[48] Meanwhile, Reding, calling up Coupigny's division from Villa Nueva, had crossed at Mengibar on 17 July and seized the deserted Bailén, bivouacing there the night and preparing to swing west towards Dupont's—and what he assumed to be Vedel's (oblivious as he was to the latter's recent movement east)—position in the morning.[49]

Reding (green) blocks Dupont's (black) retreat.

Vedel quit La Carolina at 5:00 a.m. on 18 July and rushed the bone-weary French right wing south-west toward Bailén, unwittingly bearing down on Reding's rear.[50] Both armies were now north of the Guadalquivir and staggered in a curious position: Dupont between Castaños and Reding; Reding between Dupont and Vedel.[50] At Guarromán, scarcely two leagues from Bailén, Vedel rested his footsore troops for a few hours—"he could not refuse this", says General Foy, "after three days and three nights of incessant marching"[51]—while patrols raced west to Linares to secure his rear.[50] Aware neither that Dupont was preparing to move in his direction, nor that Vedel was now in fact drawing in behind him,[49] Reding, posting a few battalions to hold Bailén from whatever French formations might remain in the east, set off with his two divisions westwards on 18 July, intending to surround Andújar from the rear and smash Dupont against Castaños.[50]

Dupont slipped away from Andújar unobserved[50] and at dawn on 19 July, his vanguard under Brigadier Théodore Chabert made contact with Reding's leading elements (veterans of the Walloon Guard) just shy of Bailén. Though caught off guard, Reding reacted "with promptitude and skill,"[52] dissolving his columns and drawing up a defensive line with 20 guns in an olive grove intersected with deep ravines, about two miles from Dupont's main body.[50] Badly underestimating the force before him, Chabert charged his 3,000 men into Reding's two divisions and was enfiladed and repulsed with heavy losses.[49] Dupont, following with the main body of the convoy at two leagues' distance, halted the bloodied vanguard,[53] posted General Barbou to defend the rear against any pursuit by Castaños, and ordered all other formations to the fore in an attempt to crack Reding's line.[54]

Expecting to be overtaken and crushed by Castaños' columns at any moment—one division under La Peña had already crossed to Andújar in pursuit and approached steadily—Dupont committed his troops piecemeal, without massing a reserve.[55] As one historian observes, his troops were "both exhausted and strung out, and to commit them to battle in dribs and drabs was foolhardy in the extreme."[49] Brigadiers Chabert and Claude Francois Duprès led an infantry brigade and the horse chasseurs against the left wing, held by the Walloon Guards, but no ground was gained and Duprès fell mortally wounded at the head of his troops.[54] Dupont's scattered guns were laboriously formed into batteries to support the attack only to be knocked out by the heavier Spanish artillery once the firing began.[56] On the right, opposite Reding's militias and Swiss regulars, a fierce and desperate attack bent back the Spanish line.[56] The cuirassiers trampled a Spanish infantry regiment, reached the artillery and sabred the gunners, but the defenders, extending their line and maintaining a constant fire, compelled the French to abandon the captured guns and fall back.[56]

Fresh troops came up at 10:00 a.m. and Dupont immediately launched a third attack, with General Claude Marie Joseph Pannetier's brigade leading the charge.[56] One last formation joined them; d'Augier's marines of the Imperial Guard, in theory the best troops present: "They were only three hundred men", Foy remarks, "but they were three hundred whom no fears could ever make falter."[57] Dupont, himself wounded in the hip,[58] grouped his exhausted and worn-out regiments around the Guard battalion in a last effort to break through to Bailén.[49] At this point reserves may have pierced the badly shaken Spanish line: Dupont had none; and the French columns, mercilessly raked by the Spanish artillery, were forced back down the slope for the third time.[49] Dupont's Swiss regiments, originally in Spanish service, defected, arms and baggage, to their former masters;[50] and lastly, Castaños' force finally arrived, overtaking Barbou along the Rumblar (a small tributary flowing from the Morena into the Guadalquivir), with La Peña's division sounding its guns and preparing to storm the French rearguard.[59] The day was lost.

An unexpected Spanish reinforcement appeared suddenly in the last minutes of the battle, slipping south out of the foothills along the Rumblar and taking up positions among the rocks on the French left flank: Colonel de la Cruz.[60] Driven off into the mountains in the attack of 16 July, de la Cruz had regrouped 2,000 sharpshooters at Peñas del Moral and climbed back down towards the battle, directed by the sound of firing.[60] Dupont was now hopelessly surrounded on three sides.

Wounded cuirassier by Théodore Géricault.

Towards noon, as Dupont's guns went quiet, Vedel continued from Guarromán onto Bailén and observed napping troops which he assumed to be Dupont's vanguard returning from Andújar—in fact they were Reding's Spaniards.[51] Vedel and Reding prepared for battle, the former pulling up Legrange's cuirassiers, Cassagne's legion, and Dufour's brigade for the attack. On the Spanish side, Reding deployed Coupigny's division to meet the threat, with an Irish battalion and two guns on a knoll leading up to the mountains; a regiment of regular troops, the Órdenes militares, at the San Cristóbal monastery; militia in support; and the other battalions drawn up behind, in the centre.[61] Two Spanish officers approached Vedel under a flag of truce, announcing that Dupont had been badly defeated and had proposed to suspend arms; the Frenchman replied, "Tell your General, that I care nothing about that, and that I am going to attack him."[61]

Vedel directed Cassagne's legion, supported by André Joseph Boussart's dragoons, against the Irish position on the knoll. While Cassagne grappled the Irish, Boussard raced around the enemy flank and rear, trampled part of Coussigny's militia regiment, and enveloped the knoll.[62] Their guns lost, the Irish battalion surrendered, and Vedel's men took the knoll and 1,500 prisoners.[63] Meanwhile, Colonel Roche's column struck the Spanish strongpoint at San Cristóbal, possession of which was necessary if Vedel hoped to turn Coupigny and force open a path to Dupont.[62] But here the Spanish regulars under Colonel Francisco Soler held their line obstinately and all attacks failed.[62]

General Dupont surrenders his army to the Spanish, an event that broke the myth of Napoleonic invincibility.

Upon Castaños' arrival Dupont decided to call for a truce, negotiating terms with the Spanish officers over several days. After learning this, Vedel withdrew some distance along the highway. Spanish commanders threatened to massacre the French soldiers if this formation did not surrender, and Dupont compelled Vedel to return and lay down his arms.[57] Handing his sword to Castaños, Dupont exclaimed, "You may well, General, be proud of this day; it is remarkable because I have never lost a pitched battle until now—I who have been in more than twenty." The Spaniard's biting reply: "It is the more remarkable because I was never in one before in my life."[64]

The Medalla de Bailén.

News of the victory rallied much of the vacillating Spanish elite to the insurrectionary movements surging across the country: Suddenly, the expulsion of the French by arms seemed possible, if not inevitable.[65] At the same time, Spanish victory in an obscure Andalusian village signalled to the armies of Europe that the French, long considered invincible, could be beaten—a fact that persuaded the Austrian Empire to initiate the War of the Fifth Coalition against Napoleon:

This was an historic occasion; news of it spread like wildfire throughout Spain and then all Europe. It was the first time since 1801 that a sizable French force had laid down its arms, and the legend of French invincibility underwent a severe shaking. Everywhere anti-French elements drew fresh inspiration from the tidings. The Pope published an open denunciation of Napoleon; Prussian patriots were heartened; and, most significantly of all, the Austrian war party began to secure the support of the Emperor Francis for a renewed challenge to the French Empire.[66]

To commemorate a victory so rich in symbolic and propaganda value, the Seville Junta instituted the Medalla de Bailén. The British press avidly publicized the event and printed Castaños' victory statements across Europe:

This army, so superior to ours, has not only been beaten and routed, but has been constrained to lay down its arms, and give up its artillery, and has suffered the lowest military degradation, which the French have been hitherto accustomed to impose upon all the other nations of Europe; and the Imperial Eagles, the proud insignia of their triumph, have become the trophies of the Spanish Army of Andalusia on the fields of Baylen.

— XAVIER DE CASTANOS, Head Quarters, Andujar, 27 July 1808[67]

Chilean monument commemorating the triumph at Battle of Maipú. The inscription reads: a los Vencedores de los Vencedores de Bailén—to the Victors over the Victors of Bailén. During the Chilean War of Independence, the Chileans defeated Spanish soldiers that had fought at Bailén

The defeat mortified Napoleon. The Emperor treated Dupont's capitulation as a personal affront and a blight on the Imperial honour, pursuing a ruthless vendetta against all those involved:[68]

Has there ever, since the world began, been such stupid, cowardly, idiotic business as this?[69]

Dupont and Vedel returned to Paris in disgrace and were duly court-martialed, deprived of rank and title, and imprisoned at Fort de Joux for their role in the disaster.[68] (Dupont was not paroled until the restoration of Louis XVIII; indeed, rumours persisted that he had been quietly assassinated in captivity.) None of the commanding officers, however slight their share of the responsibility, escaped without retribution: Napoleon held that his army in Spain had been "commanded by postal inspectors rather than generals."[70] In January 1809, the Emperor halted a parade in Valladolid when he recognized Dupont's chief of staff among the commanders, scolding the unfortunate officer in full view of the troops and ordering him off the square.[68] According to General Foy, Napoleon began his tirade: "What, general! did not your hand wither up when you signed that infamous capitulation?"[71] Years later, Napoleon opened an inquiry into the Convention of Andujar under the mandate of the Imperial High Court, in camera, which turned out yet another proclamation against Dupont. An Imperial decree, dated 1 May 1812, prohibited any field commander to treat for capitulation and declared every unauthorized surrender a criminal act punishable by death.[72]

Plaque to the memory of General Reding at the Plaza de la Constitución, Málaga.

Apart from the blow to French prestige, Bailén threw the French invasion forces—faltering after their failure to secure Gerona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Barcelona, and Santander, and with the country rapidly arming and mobilizing against them—into panic and disarray. With the sudden loss of 20,000 troops, Napoleon's military machine abruptly fell apart. On Savary's advice, Joseph fled from the openly hostile capital; joining him on the highway were Bessières and Moncey, who drew the French corps north from Madrid and continued past Burgos in what became a wholesale retreat. The French did not halt until they were safely over the Ebro, where they could set up secure defensive positions along the north bank and wait out events. From his makeshift headquarters at Vitoria, Joseph wrote to his brother gloomily: "I repeat that we have not a single Spanish supporter. The whole nation is exasperated and determined to fight."[14] Napoleon, furious and dismayed, remarked that to cross the Ebro was "tantamount to evacuating Spain."[73]

In November, Napoleon directed the bulk of the Grande Armée across the Pyrenees and dealt a series of devastating blows to the vacillating Spanish forces, receiving the surrender of Madrid in scarcely a month's time. Fate was particularly cruel to the victors of Bailén: Castaños was himself routed by Marshal Lannes at the Battle of Tudela in November 1808, while Reding was ridden down and trampled by the French cavalry at the Battle of Valls in 1809, dying of his wounds. Marshal Soult overran much of Andalusia the following year, and on 21 January 1810 his men recovered the lost Eagles from the cathedral of Bailén.[74] Before long, only Cádiz remained firmly in Spanish hands, and a difficult war lay ahead to drive the invader from Spain.

Cabrera Island

Dupont and his staff officers were transported on Royal Navy vessels to Rochefort harbour after the Seville Junta refused to honour the pact under which the French were to be repatriated via Cádiz.[3] The French prisoners were kept in Cadiz harbor aboard prison hulks, old warships that had their masts and rigging removed. They were fed at irregular intervals on the overcrowded vessels. The start of the Siege of Cádiz in 1810 meant that French troops occupied the land approaches to the city. From 6 to 9 March 1810 a howling storm struck from the southwest and drove one Portuguese and three Spanish battleships ashore, where they were destroyed by French cannon fire. Thirty merchant ships were also sunk or driven ashore in the same tempest, including one vessel with 300 men of the British 4th Foot who became prisoners of war. The French officers, who were segregated aboard the Castilla, noted that vessels which had lost their anchors had drifted onto the opposite shore during the storm. During the next south-wester, on the night of 15 and 16 March, the officers overcame their Spanish guards and cut the prison hulk's cables. The French fought off the crews of two gunboats that tried to retake the vessel and over 600 escaped when the Castilla grounded on the French side of the bay. Ten days afterward, the prisoners on the Argonauta tried the same thing, but suffered a worse fate. The ship stuck fast on a bar out in the harbor and was taken under fire by several gunboats. At length the ship caught fire and fewer than half of the prisoners survived to be rescued by their compatriots. Several sailors later expressed their revulsion at having to shoot at escaping prisoners.[75]

The few remaining officers were transferred first to Majorca and later to England. The rank and file were sent to the Canary and Balearic Islands, where the inhabitants protested at the proximity of so many of their enemies. Consequently, 7,000 prisoners were put on the uninhabited island of Cabrera. The Spanish government, which could barely supply its own armies in the field, was unable to properly take care of the prisoners. Cannibalism was alleged to have occurred during times when the supply ships failed to arrive.[76] On 6 July 1814, the remaining survivors of Bailén returned to France: fewer than half remained, most having perished in captivity.[77] Many of the survivors never recovered their health after the experience.[76]

Bailén was a triumph for the Spanish Bourbon regime's regular army, successor to the glorious tercios, which Napoleon had derided as "the worst in Europe" (while dismissing the Spanish militia as packs of "bandits led by monks"). Castaños conceded that the greater part of his troops had been "raw and inexperienced; but they were Spaniards, and Spaniards are heroes";[67] and indeed this maligned army, largely untouched by French Revolutionary innovations—a relic of 18th-century absolutism—outfought the Imperial citizen-soldiers.[65]

Spain's ancien regime military, however, was soon eclipsed by the growing scale of the war—crippled by the infusion of untrained conscripts and caught up in the competing designs of the juntas.[78] Subsequent attempts to replicate Bailén proved particularly dangerous for Spanish units recruited and equipped in the chaos of French military occupation and counterinsurgency: "The raw levies that formed the bulk of the Spanish forces proved incapable of manoeuvring in the face of the enemy, whilst many of them barely knew how to use their weapons, having sometimes only been issued with muskets the day before they went into action."[79] These untrained recruits typically broke ranks when assaulted by the French regulars, "accusing their commanders of treason and leaving the few [Spanish] regulars involved to fend for themselves as best they could. Having run away, meanwhile, the levies invariably exposed themselves to the French cavalry, which were unleashed amongst them with terrible effect, sabring them unmercifully and taking hundreds of them prisoner." Wellington, as allied commander, would inherit this "Bailén syndrome" and attempt to restrain the ardour of the Spanish under his command:

So brilliant was the victory and so simple the encircling manoeuvre, that Wellesley later on had great difficulty in getting 'Baylen' out of the Spaniards' system. He used to say jocularly before every engagement: "Now this is not Baylen—don't attempt to make it a battle of Baylen!"[80]